Billy doesn’t think before he acts, he never has. It’s always go fast, go now, rebound, touch down. In theory, he knows there’s something calm and still about sitting in his car at night with the radio down low, a cigarette hanging from his lips as he idles at red light in mid July. One pause in all the Go, Dog. Go! One drumbeat before he can ease his foot back on the gas.
His mom used to read him that, Go, Dog. Go! And sometimes he wonders if she knew something he didn’t. If she was teaching him a lesson early, some secret kernel he’d need once he’d failed his first test, or gotten his first car, or first said I love you when he didn’t really mean it.
He thinks he means it now, which is something. Now that he can’t say I love you it’s the only thing that feels true, the only thing that wants to come out of his mouth.
He calls his mom and she says it’s not a good time, baby, like there is ever a good time for her guilt, ever a good time for her to turn around and pick up what she left. He says I’ll call you tomorrow? and she says, I’ll be waiting. I miss you. But tomorrow he calls, and it’s not a good time.
He calls Max and she says Neil said you would drive me to Mike’s house, and he’s at a payphone across town, he doesn’t have time, but what Neil says, Neil says. So, Get your fucking shoes on, I’m not waiting when I get there.
He doesn’t really call Steve. He stumbles into him, runs over him, crashes through him, spits blood on his shoes. On the basketball court, Steve was Pretty Boy, Babydoll, Shit-stain. In the summer, Steve is just Steve, July heat curling the hair behind his ears, the blue evening glow of a thunderstorm reflecting off his sweaty skin. In the summer, Steve sits with Billy on the Hargrove’s front porch, fat raindrops soaking their outstretched toes as they watch the air sizzle, the overhang hardly enough to shelter them from the storm.
In November, Billy had been broken plates and busted teeth, go fast, go now, rebound, touch down. Steve had been Go, Dog. Go! And Billy went.
Now Steve calls and says my house is too quiet, and can I come over? And Billy can’t say it’s not a good time or what Neil says, Neil says. So he sits on his front porch with Steve, arms propping them up from behind, pinkies three inches apart while Susan vacuums the living room and Dad shouts at the TV.
Billy thinks after he’s done the doing, thinks a lot about sun and sand, sea shells and skateboards, Indiana freckles and Steve’s once-split grin.
There’s a car spraying water on the sidewalk as it tears down the road, and Billy’s pinkie is curling over Steve’s, squeezing their skin tight.
Steve doesn’t say stop. Steve doesn’t say go. He meets Billy’s eyes, tongue darting between parted lips, which seem to say slow.
