The Youth & Young Loves of Oliver Wade: Stories (5 page)

OwOw0:
but anyway
i’m
feeling sad today I
guess.

Boydyboy:
lets hear it. I’m here..........

I was learning what everyone with a modem was learning:
that communicating through text, going through the middleman of a chat window,
was easier than talking face to face. In short, online I opened up.

OwOw0:
well my dad is still cleaning out my grandma’s house and he’s
having some trash guy come and get her mattress, and I had to help him carry it
out into the yard
tongiht
. It’s been a year since she
died but it seems like last week. I still miss her a lot, it was weird. I didn’t
like seeing my gram’s bed laying in the leaves... I don’t know...the finality
of it got to me or something. ...I don’t know why I just told you that........

Boydyboy:
because it was bugging you Ollie. why do you think
i
tell you all the shit that bugs me? it helps to tell.

OwOw0:
Yeah, it does....... I guess it’s a minor thing, a mattress.
But I didn’t want to let it hit the floor when I was carrying it through the
garage, like I didn’t want to get it dirty... I was like, Careful
careful
. Then seeing it just laying there in the leaves...
It was the worst thing, Boyd.

Boydyboy:
i
understand

Online—when at any moment we could be slapped with a
disconnect that could take an hour or more to fix—I ached for him. I
imagined us as two isolated outposts connected by a fragile wire in a frozen
void. I felt like I was reaching out, saying,
Still there?
And each word could be the last.

OwOw0:
i
know you understand Boyd. that’s
why you’re my best friend.

***

After I hit a telephone pole on early-morning ice in
November—probably because I was driving on three hours’ sleep and a
learner’s permit—Boyd drove me to school for a week while my car went in
for a new bumper. Bleary from our late nights online, we rode together those
mornings side by side silently, almost silently, as though we hardly knew each
other, like a cabbie and his passenger. The connection we were forging online
didn’t seem to be carrying over into real life. It made me wonder how much of
what I thought was building between us was genuine and how much I was
manufacturing. In chat sessions words were just
words until I filtered them through desperation and hope.

In real life, when I could see the holes in his corduroys
and hear his sleepy voice in the mornings, when I had Boyd Wren, we didn’t talk
about grandmothers. We didn’t talk about dreams or how we were feeling. Instead
I would say things like, “I’ve really been getting into the band R.E.M. lately.”
“Cool,” he would say, his hair slicked back, still wet, if it was the morning;
cowlicky
again if it was the afternoon. “Yeah they’re
pretty cool,” I would say. That was how we talked in person. The rest I would
save for the night, when I had Boydyboy.

OwOw0:
honestly though
i
think this band
is changing my
fuckin
life Boyd

Boydyboy:
REM? Do tell..

OwOw0:
have you heard the song Losing My Religion?

Boydyboy:
of Course.
i
think every one
has heard that song.

OwOw0:
i
guess
i
had too because it was familiar but
i
never thought
about it. but it came on the radio
whlie
I was
driving around last week and it almost made me cry for some reason. the lyrics.
he has something to confess and he can’t say it. I almost had to pull over. it
was like, wow.
i
went and bought the album
immediately. when
i
listen it makes me feel like my
body is being opened up and Michael Stipe (the singer) is personally nursing my
wounded soul

Boydyboy:
“deepness follows”

OwOw0:
Hehe
what?

Boydyboy:
joking. you know the REM song Sweetness Follows.
haha

OwOw0:
I just have the 1 CD so far. Out OF Time. I’ll have to get
that one!

Boydyboy:
why is your soul wounded Ollie?

OwOwo
:
haha
what?

Boydyboy:
you said your soul is wounded, why is it
woudned
?

OwOwo
:
i
dunno just stuff I guess.

Boydyboy:
“stuff”?

OwOwo
:
just some stuff I guess.

Boydyboy:
hhmm
. well get the CD with
Sweetness Follows, it’s good. and pay attention to it. maybe it can help to you
know yourself better than you do now.

OwOw0:
you think it can?

Boydyboy:
i
feel it will.

Sometimes he was cryptic like that—and god I could
pack so much hope into anything cryptic. The more IMs we sent back and forth,
the farther I felt we were breaking from real life, into a place that roiled
with secret possibility. What if Boyd was like me? I knew there were others.
What if he was one? What if Boyd felt the things I felt? What if Boyd was
interested in my wounds because he had them too?

OwOw0:
hmm I feel like
i
know
mysefl
too well sometimes. Just no one else knows me.

Boydyboy:
it’s the opposite for me. I see everything....... except
maybe what’s right in front of me......................

OwOw0:
how so?

Boydyboy:
i
don’t think
i
have to explain it to you.
i
hope
i
dont

OwOw0:
No. I think I know how it is.

Boydyboy:
ys
. yes.
i
believe you do Ollie.

OwOw0:
It’s nice to have someone just “know” what you’re talking
about without needing some huge explanation.

Boydyboy:
i
know

Sometimes there seemed to be something hiding in his
words, alluding to a deeper connection that was only ever one unsent IM from
coming out. Mysterious things, things he hoped he wouldn’t have to explain to
me, things he hoped I would just
know
.
But it was fleeting.

Boydyboy:
so anyway, work sucked so much today. it’s only been
amonth
but this Big D job sucks. Lady today was like make
sure my eggs don’t break and
i
was like
i
know how to bag your
fuckin
egg.s

OwOw0:
Sorry to hear that. she sounds like a huge ass.
ar
eyou
OK?

Boydyboy:
I’m tired and frustrated. But mostly frustrated

OwOw0:
Frustrated about what?

Boydyboy:
oh, you know, life and love and STUFF. *sigh*

Love? His IMs could set me ablaze with hope. But although
my hope was roaring, it was fragile, like the hottest fire that can nonetheless
be snuffed out with a carton of old milk. I was always afraid of hearing too
much. It was dangerous to ask for explanations or clarity. Instead I would
agree with his vagueness as if I were catching his drift loud and clear. I
could live with not knowing whether Boyd loved me, but I was terrified of
finding out for sure that he didn’t.

OwOw0:
Yeah
i’m
frustrated too.... *sigh*

Boydyboy:
life is frustrating overall.

OwOw0:
at least you have a job though. and some money!

Boydyboy:
what’s the point of money if you
dont
have someone to spend it on....
i’ll
be back. I need
a beer.

OwOw0:
haha
, really? Where do you get a
beer??

Boydyboy:
my dad won’t notice, he has
moooore
than plenty. Who cares anyway. be back.

OwOw0:
OK.

Boydyboy:
back.

OwOw0:
hi. did you get one?

Boydyboy:
yup

OwOw0:
My dad is away tonight. and my mom. their anniversary
weekend.

Boydyboy:
really? you didn’t mention this. let’s have a drinking
party at your house then.

OwOw0:
hahahaha
. that would be amazing.

Boydyboy:
you know it would. :-)

OwOw0:
but a bad idea. who knows what we would say if we lost our
inhibitions..........................

Boydyboy:
oh? what might we say exactly>?

OwOw0:
be right back

Boydyboy:
OK........................................................

Sometimes I would say things accidentally and panic, and
wonder if it had really been an accident. I would look at the screen while my
brain scrambled for excuses. Excuses that were codes that could lead to
openings that could lead to everything. But only if he was looking.

OwOw0:
Back.

Boydyboy:
hi

OwOw0:
I mean we’re perverted enough when we’re sober
hahaha
. Remember that would-you-rather thing where I told
you I’d rather get fucked by a wolfhound than get fucked by
Mrs
Doyle with a strap-on dick?

Boydyboy:
uh yeah. But I’m not feeling perverted now.

OwOw0:
No
i
guess I’m not either.

Boydyboy:
actually I’m kinda in a “why does the world have to be so
hard” kind of mood.

OwOw0:
I’m always in that kind of mood....I just try to push it
back. I listen to REM

Boydyboy:
yeah you’ve always got your
REm
don’t you.

OwOw0:
it soothes the pain.

Boydyboy:
Is there someone out there?
i
always wonder. there might be someone........

I would imagine him looking, sitting in his room, in the
dark, in his holey corduroys, nursing the beer with tears in his eyes.

OwOw0:
I think there is
boyd
. I think I’m
sure of it.

Boydyboy:
i
feel like it’s too much to
ask. can’t raise hopes too high...

I would want to drive over to his house and put my arms
around him, kiss all his cowlicks. I would—if I wasn’t so afraid of him
wanting me to.

OwOw0:
I know how you feel....................

Boydyboy:
Whatever. I don’t even know what
im
talking about.

OwOw0:
don’t you?.... “Strange things I have in head, that will to
hand / Which must be acted, ere they may be scanned.”

Boydyboy:
haha
. did you just quote
fucking Shakespeare at me?

OwOw0:
we’re reading
MacBeth
in English.
i
like that line.

Boydyboy:
uh huh

OwOw0:
:-(

Boydyboy:
I’m going to get another beer. then hit the sack. I’ll
see
ya

The near-miss moments in our chats always reminded me of
that teasing pause the modem made when I was trying to get online—that
moment of potential that fizzled into a failure to connect. Boyd and me, we
kept getting the
Goodbye
instead of
the
Welcome
.

***

OwOw0:
Want to hear a secret?

Sometimes my strategy was to try to plant in his mind the
notion that a secret existed. To get his hopes up, in case there were hopes to
be got up. And, if I’m honest, if there were hopes, to make him slip and reveal
them.

Boydyboy:
Of course
i
want to hear a secret.

OwOw0:
It’s potentially embarrassing

Boydyboy:
the best ones are.

I would let it dangle. Then I would yank it away.

OwOw0:
.... I want to see the new Chucky movie, in all its
killer-doll
cheeziness
. Oops... Did I really admit
that?

A bait and switch. I felt bad doing it. It was mean.
Secrets can make you mean.

Boydyboy:
i
thought it was going to be
something juicy. :-( but those movies are good... you
shouldnt
have movie shame.

OwOw0:
You like juicy things you
perv
.
:-)

Boydyboy:
HHAHaha
. the juicier the
better.

OwOw0:
Hehehehe
.

Boydyboy:
hooheheehaha
!

OwOw0:
Hoohahahahaha
!!!

Boydyboy:
BWUHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

OwOw0:
Haha
you win, I cant top that one.

Boydyboy:
what the hell is wrong with us Oliver?

OwOw0:
A good question Boy-o-Boyd.

And sometimes he would seem to do the same.

Boydyboy:
want to hear a secret?

OwOw0:
Is it juicy?

Boydyboy:
:-/

OwOw0:
Tell me.

Boydyboy:
i
will

OwOw0:
Haha
. tell
meee
!