The Tin Box Read online

  The waitress came to the table and plopped down laden plates. She pulled ketchup and mustard bottles from her apron pocket and set them on the table. “Anything else?”

  “We’re good for now,” said Colby.

  William had been thinking he wasn’t hungry, but he changed his mind when he caught the scent of his burger. It looked good too. He removed the sliced onions and spread a little ketchup evenly inside the top bun with his knife, then he sprinkled pepper on the thick-cut fries. No salt. By the time he took a bite—careful to lean over the plate so he didn’t drip onto himself—Colby was nearly halfway through his food. He was making happy little noises of enjoyment as he ate, sometimes pausing to lick the juices from his lips.

  “I don’t go out all that often,” Colby said, a little apologetically.

  “This was a good suggestion. Thanks.”

  Colby beamed.

  The waitress came by just long enough to bring Colby a refill of Coke and to top off William’s coffee cup. William wiped his face with a paper napkin. “How’d you survive in San Francisco so young?”

  “Wasn’t easy. But I knew some people from the Internet.” He looked slightly embarrassed. “Older men, mostly. Guys who didn’t mind letting a cute boy crash on their couches. Or in their beds.”

  William almost gasped. “That’s… that’s illegal. That’s child abuse.”

  Now Colby wasn’t meeting his eyes. “Yeah. I mean, I thought it was what I wanted. I felt very grown-up, you know? In retrospect… well, it happened. I don’t really have a lot of regrets. And I had a lot of fun. Took some classes, too. I’m about sixty percent of the way to a BA in history.”

  William couldn’t help but imagine a teenage Colby running around San Francisco, partying, dancing. Having sex. When William was sixteen, his life hadn’t been remotely like that. An outsider might point out that William’s life had been less dangerous than Colby’s. Less… sordid. And yet Colby seemed happy now, at peace with where he’d been. William wasn’t there yet.

  “How’d you end up back in, uh, JV?” William asked quietly.

  “A few things sort of happened all at once. I was starting to get bored with the hookups and stuff. I mean, they were fun and all, and I was still horny as hell, but… same old, same old after a while. And then I was realizing that a degree in history is possibly not the most useful thing, career-wise. Unless you want to teach, which I didn’t. I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was planning to quit school anyway, and then Grandma got sick. So I came back home to help Grandpa run things. And I kinda stuck.” He slurped loudly at his drink.

  “But wasn’t it hard trying to… to fit in here?”

  Colby laughed. “Baby, I never fit in here. Not even when I was a little kid. I guess I could try dressing like everyone else and doing my hair like them. I could drive a pickup and drink cheap beer and watch NASCAR on TV. But I’d still be me.” He raised his eyebrows a little and then spread his arms wide. “Colby Thomas Anderson, JV’s resident queer. So I figured hey, I’m gonna be the most authentic fucking me I can be.”

  Authentic. There was a word William would never use to describe himself. He wasn’t even sure who he really was, which made being himself impossible. Unlike Colby Thomas Anderson, William Benjamin Lyon was a constructed creature, an identity based largely on who William thought he should be, who he had been coerced to be. Lately, that construct had begun to crumble and he was afraid of what would result. He envied Colby.

  William took another bite of his burger, chewed, and swallowed. Eyes cast down at his plate, he said, “I like Thai food too.”

  Colby was silent for a moment, no doubt thrown by the non sequitur. But when William risked a glance, Colby’s grin stretched ear to ear. “I’m gonna tell Grandpa his customer base for pad thai just doubled.”

  Five

  THEY split the lunch bill right down the middle. Colby tried to talk William into frozen yogurt afterward, but the burger and fries had been a lot of food, and William wanted to get his shopping over with.

  So they went next door to Frank’s Grab’em, which proved to have an odd but surprisingly diverse selection. William started his cart with a set of sheets—dark gray, $59.95, and large enough to fit his new bed—and a basic coffeemaker. He picked up some toiletries, toilet paper and paper towels, dish soap, a sponge, and one of those pot scrubby things. He found a pair of knee-length khaki shorts that would probably not look too ridiculous on him, but he flatly refused the bright-blue flip-flops Colby tried to toss into the cart for him. And then he bought groceries. Mostly things like pasta, ground beef, and spaghetti sauce, but also as many bags of frozen veggies as he thought his freezer would hold. He even managed a grin of his own when he found a couple boxes of green curry with jasmine rice and added them to his growing pile of purchases.

  “You going to invite me over for dinner, maybe?” Colby asked.

  William wasn’t sure whether Colby was teasing, so he didn’t answer. But he thought about the idea as he continued to push his way up and down the aisles and listened to Colby give his opinion on nearly everything they passed.

  Despite his earlier claim that he needed to go shopping too, Colby didn’t choose much for himself. Just a birthday card for his Aunt Deedee, a box of granola, and the Game of Thrones season one DVD set.

  The return drive seemed much shorter than the outbound trip, maybe because William no longer felt so uneasy in Colby’s company. He was getting a sense of who the other man was—outgoing, friendly, honest. And maybe a little lonely too. William wanted to ask him what he’d done for a sex life since he’d left San Francisco, but didn’t quite dare.

  As they neared downtown JV, William slowed the car. “Where do you want me to drop you off?”

  “Oh, the store’s fine. I’m gonna check in on Grandpa and see if we have any new books in the library.”

  William pulled into the gravel lot and left the engine idling. For the first time in a couple of hours, he felt awkward. “Uh, thanks for playing tour guide.”

  “And thanks for playing chauffeur. It was fun. I don’t…. Well, I had a good time. You’re totally not a jerk and I think you’re a teensy bit looser than you used to be.”

  “Wow. My head’s going to swell from your compliments.”

  Colby patted him on the shoulder. “See? Now you’re even attempting to make a joke. We’ve definitely pulled that stick out at least three or four inches.”

  He was still standing in the parking lot, shopping bag in hand, waving and laughing as William pulled away.

  HE WORKED well into the evening, tapping rapidly at his keyboard until his stomach’s complaints became too vigorous to ignore. And he’d been wrong about the rain. As he stood at the kitchen sink, filling the biggest pot he could find with water for pasta, raindrops began tapping against the window. He put the pot on a burner and hurried into the main room to shut the windows. By the time he sat down to enjoy a bowl of improvised pasta primavera, the wind was blowing the rain against the building in great noisy sheets. He didn’t mind, really—better rain than heat—and the storm drowned out the hospital’s creaky little noises. He hoped it wouldn’t knock out the power. Just in case, he found a flashlight, checked the batteries, and stashed it nearby.

  He brewed some coffee—wonderful!—and poured it into his beloved insulated tumbler. His plan was to curl up in the comfortable chair with a couple of recent journal articles and to highlight the useful parts. But the soothingly clinical descriptions of independent and dependent variables and the lovely little Greek letters of the statistical tests swam before his eyes, all of it suddenly as incomprehensible as Sanskrit.

  Somehow he found himself perched on a chair, reaching for the tin box.

  Mar. 30. 1938

  My dearest Johnny,

  You always asked me to tell about my week, as if six days spent among the heavy ledgers and in the dusty stockroom of my father’s store were fascinating. It’s one of the things I love about you, just as I love
the way your cheek scratches mine when you haven’t shaved, and the smoke and gasoline scent of your skin, and those little sighs you make in the heat of passion.

  You can see that they haven’t cured me yet.

  But I was talking about the question you asked me every Sunday as soon as we climbed into that lumpy bed of yours. And so I will tell you about my week—or in fact about my day, because each day here is very much like the others.

  They wake us at dawn. It’s meant to be good for us, I suppose. They pound on the doors and shout and then we must wait for the doors to be opened. We wait standing at attention like soldiers, with our slop buckets held in one hand. They march us in a silent, sleepy line to the toilets to empty the buckets and empty ourselves. No privacy to these acts. I guess I feel a little sorry for guards whose daily entertainment is made up of watching patients shit.

  We’re allowed to wash our hands and faces, brush our teeth, comb our hair. Not shave. We aren’t trusted with the blades. The hospital barber shaves us once a week, so usually my whiskers are as bristly as yours! I splash water on as much of myself as possible. I’ve been given a bath only twice since I arrived and my clothing is changed only weekly. I stink. But I’m fortunate—some patients have no clothes at all.

  The patients who live in the dormitories eat first, before those of us with private rooms. I’ve yet to discern the difference between the two classes of inmates. They seem neither more nor less sane than we are. By the time we’re seated, our oatmeal and toast are cold, which doesn’t help the taste. We’re not allowed coffee. Just milk or—if we’ve been very good—hot water with a bit of lemon.

  After breakfast we’re ushered into the lounge. Sounds fancier than it is. It’s simply a large, bare room where some men shuffle about while others crouch or lie or spin or simply sit. The sound and reek are indescribable. Some men cry nonstop. There’s a tall, skinny gent who lectures in gibberish until his voice grows hoarse, and one who constantly attempts scatological artwork on the walls. That is your vocabulary word for this week, dear Johnny. Do you still have the dictionary I bought you?

  The hours drag by so very slowly.

  Some of the patients appear perfectly sane. I wonder if some of them have been sent here for the same cure as me. I never ask.

  Lunch is much the same as breakfast, long tables and cold food. Soup of questionable origin, dry bread or mushy potatoes. We have the same limp vegetables for days and days, I suppose, as the kitchen uses up whatever store they’ve acquired, and then we get a new but equally limp vegetable.

  And then comes the long afternoon, again in the lounge. Most days we’re permitted an hour outside in a bare courtyard. That is the best part of the day, when I can see the sky above me and hear the birds.

  Twice weekly I’m brought to the office of the psychiatrist, Dr. Fitzgerald. I think he was born with a cigarette between his lips. Sometimes I get distracted, waiting for the long ash to fall. He asks me to talk about my childhood. He has a theory that my mother is overbearing and my father is weak, and wouldn’t he be shocked if he ever met them! He wants me to tell him in detail about everything I have done with other men and how those things made me feel. I wonder if he’s secretly titillated by it all. Ah! Another vocabulary word for you. Well, we’ve missed many weeks, haven’t we?

  Dr. Fitzgerald tells me that being attracted to men is sick, deviant. I want to tell him how wrong he is. There is nothing sick about the way I feel for you. It’s as if my whole life is spent in shadows except the hours we steal together, and only then do I feel healthy and alive. But I hold my tongue. I won’t renounce you, though. I can’t.

  Dinner is like lunch, with the addition of chunks of gristly meat. Another visit to the toilets and we’re returned to our rooms. God, I hate the sound the door makes when it slams shut, when the orderlies turn the key in the lock.

  There is no lamp in my room, which is exactly five paces square. I write by moonlight when I can. I have a thin mattress on the floor, a blanket. No pillow. And I have my thoughts of you, my love.

  Yrs always,

  Bill

  WILLIAM went to bed early, but of course the caffeine haunted him, keeping him wide awake for a long time. At least his new sheets stayed on the mattress properly instead of trapping him. He’d laundered them almost as soon as he got home, and they proved pleasantly soft and smooth.

  Fortunately the bed was comfortable, because the thoughts tumbling through his head certainly weren’t. He had formed a mental image of Bill. A slight man, bookish and pale, but with sharp eyes and a sharp brain. An educated man. Maybe a man who hoped for something better than stockrooms and ledgers, but who was thankful for any job at all during the Depression. Johnny, on the other hand, would be big and burly. Not well-schooled, but energetic and kind. His muscles would bunch and flex under a lover’s questing hands. William, with a squiggle of panic, quickly pulled himself away from that erotic image. But as he pushed Bill and Johnny away, Colby rushed in to take their place. Colby with his eternal smile and cheery chatter. Colby who wasn’t afraid to be himself.

  Tonight William wished he still believed in God. He’d believed fervently when he was younger. When he’d sat on the hard bench between his parents, the pastor standing high above the congregants, William had trusted that the man was faithfully translating the words of the Lord. William had known then that God was in the church, watching and listening. Judging. It had been a good knowledge, one that made William feel safe, because he had already vowed to be a good boy, to earn the love of his parents and Jesus.

  Just a few years later, however, William had realized he was not a good boy. He had unwholesome thoughts. Unholy urges. He’d tearfully admitted this to his mother and father, secure that they could help him somehow. He’d believed in them, and they’d tried, in their own way. They loved him in the best manner their exceedingly rigid faith allowed. They sent him to counseling sessions with Pastor Reynolds, who had explained that William’s feelings were the result of turning away from Christ. If William would only humble himself and open to God’s grace, he would find the strength to overcome his temptation to sin. William had believed that, too. He spent countless hours praying—begging God to change him, to heal him, to save him. When his prayers weren’t answered, William believed it was only because he hadn’t tried hard enough.

  What followed was the special camp, with its physically painful aversion therapy sessions using the box with the wires. At least tonight William was able to forcibly ignore those memories.

  He was nearly twenty when he stopped believing. No event in particular had happened to rob him of his faith. It just left him all at once, like a balloon escaping from a child’s hand. And it had left a great gaping hole in him.

  He had worked to replace belief in God with belief in science but had been only partially successful. He graduated from college with honors and a teaching certificate, and he went on to teach biology and chemistry to junior high school kids. He met a woman whose company he genuinely enjoyed, at which point he told himself that his other urges were simple physiological reflexes that could be—well, if not ignored, perhaps retrained. They planned for the future. Children someday, two or three. They married. It was Lisa who urged him to return to school full-time, willing to live for a while off her salary and whatever graduate assistantships he could scrape together.

  Oh, God, how he’d tried to make it all work.

  But it hadn’t been enough.

  Lisa had sensed for a long time that something was wrong. Maybe at first she told herself that William was simply not a very affectionate man, but she wasn’t stupid. She’d caught a few too many of his longing looks—aimed at other men, not her. She’d confronted him. She was a rational type too, so in the end there were few tears. They agreed she deserved something better. William’s guilt ensured she would get the apartment and most of their belongings. William knew he’d hurt her, just as he’d hurt and disappointed his parents. He vowed never to hurt anyone else again. Vowed to hims
elf, because he no longer conceived of a God who heard his promises. He wished that belief would come back—belief in God, belief in love, belief in himself, belief in anything to fill that aching hole in his middle.

  As William fell asleep, he thought of Bill and couldn’t help but wonder: had he felt faith in the nonjudgmental love and presence of God as he lay cold and lonely in his cell?

  Six

  OVER the next several days, William worked, leaving his laptop only occasionally. When his muscles needed to move, he wandered the building. He did not reenter the room where he’d found the box. He ventured to the second and third floors, but only briefly. They were in worse condition than the ground floor—they’d likely been in disuse much longer—and there was little there to interest him. What he saw only disturbed him: Bars. Shackles. Hard, cold surfaces stained rusty brown.

  He didn’t read more letters.

  The heat returned. He considered getting a window air conditioner. He’d have to go back to Mariposa to buy one, maybe even to Oakhurst if Frank’s Grab’em didn’t stock them. In the meantime he wore the shorts. He felt faintly ridiculous since he hadn’t worn shorts since high school gym class, but there was nobody here to see.

  He left the hospital grounds only once, in search of fresh fruit and vegetables. He found the produce stand Colby’s cousins owned. Colby hadn’t lied; the stand had an excellent selection of tasty things. They even sold home-baked pastries. William gave in to temptation and bought a strawberry-rhubarb pie, which turned out to be so delicious he polished the whole thing off in two days.

  He didn’t stop at the post office or general store, and he didn’t hear from Colby.

  It had been five days since their trip into Mariposa. William had now finished the bulk of his data entry and was puzzling out some of the preliminary statistical analyses. At first look, it appeared as if his data supported his main hypothesis, but he’d need to play around with the software and do quite a bit of follow-up to be sure. He was in the middle of configuring an ANOVA test when he was startled by his phone.