If Dad feels anything, he gives no evidence in voice or demeanor. He reads as if the words will take him back to the Dad of yesterday or the heaven of tomorrow. He eats. He sips whiskey. The daze of evening descends on him. When, one moment, he glances up at Nathan, he hardly seems to see anything at all.

He reads: Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves; who changed the truth of God into a he, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.

The meal will end. Meals always do. Nathan will climb silently to his room again, to the peace and safety that has so far remained intact in this new house.

Chapter Five

In the morning Nathan wakens with apprehension, dressing with self-conscious care and eating breakfast slowly, almost as if he hopes Roy will leave without him. He is afraid the wrong Roy will appear today, afraid he will find the silent, cold one. But when he walks to the bus, Roy waits calmly. He says good morning before Nathan reaches the door, speaking with an openness that puts Nathan on guard. Nathan ascends while maintaining an invisible wall, longing to reach through it and touch Roy but taking his seat with a circumspect air. He studies the dewy yard beyond the bus window, the edge of the Kennicutt Woods.

As Roy closes the door and wrestles with the gearshift, he partially turns in the seat. "I almost came to see you last night."

"I wish you had." Nearly too low to hear.

"Me and my folks had to go to a business meeting at church."

"You go to church a lot, don't you?''

"My parents got a lot of religion." He has steered the bus onto the road, entering the stretch of forest. Once the houses have vanished, he stops the bus and stands. "Come here."

To hold him and be held by him is enough for Nathan. Roy says, "You better eat lunch with me today if you know what's good for you."

"I will." Into the cup of shoulder and neck. Lingering. Roy pulls him close, sighs.

"We have to go, I guess."

After that, the day is a fog, except for lunch when Nathan can find Roy and set himself into his orbit. As before, Nathan finds a table alone and, when Roy joins him, they talk before Randy and Burke arrive. Roy tells about his church, the Bethel Church of God in Congregation, which meets in a pretty white building on a nearby loop road. The preacher is a fat man with a bald spot on top of his head and hair all around it, and he preaches sermons filled with the hell of sinners and the damnation of souls. Pretty much everything you can do is wrong, Roy says, especially if it's fun. The description of the preacher, whose name is Rutherford Paschal, enlivens Roy as he gives it, and Nathan shares the vision, remarking innocently that he would like to see this fat bald preacher one Sunday. At this Roy's face closes shut, and Nathan understands that he has said a wrong thing. Roy remains silent until he leads Nathan to the smoking patio, where the sunlight, the calm of a cigarette and the voices of friends restore him. Nathan relaxes, but studies Roy nevertheless.

Wondering about Roy's church, about all the life of Roy that Nathan has yet to fathom. About the girlfriend, mentioned once and never forgotten.

Days pass and they are together often. Roy's chores suddenly require Nathan's presence, and Roy's homework begs Nathan's help. Some evenings they work at Nathan's house and some at Roy's. In this way, one night, Nathan meets Roy's parents, who are much older than Nathan's. The Connellys took a long time to have children, Roy being the only one of four to live past birth. Sometimes he visits his brothers and sisters in the cemetery near their church, he says. To Nathan, who is also an only child, it is curious to think of Roy visiting siblings in a cemetery. Roy's large, soft mother takes shots to control her blood sugar and nerve pills to help her sleep. The boys do their homework in Roy's bedroom, surrounded by Roy's baseball and hunting gear. But one night they work at the kitchen table as Roy's mother slices apples in the adjacent living room. Roy's father passes through on his way from the bam to the desk where he keeps the farm's accounts. There is a feeling of ill health about the mother and a taciturn, tough shell that protects the father, and they talk little. But there is also a feeling of peace and safety.

At the end of her apple peeling, Mrs. Connelly brings her white glass bowl into the kitchen and washes the apples again. She asks the boys if they have studied good, and they answer that they have. She asks Roy what he is learning in school and he tells her about advanced algebra and auto mechanics. She listens to the description of dismantled carburetors, fuel pumps, and polynomial equations, shaking her head at the complexity. "His daddy knows all about motors too, but I don't." She offers Nathan a fresh slice of apple. "And I never could do numbers. I don't think women have the minds for some things. I know a lot of people think that's old-fashioned, but I think that's the way God intended it."

"My mom doesn't know anything about motors either," Nathan offers.

"See there." She nods her head at the profundity of it all. "What about you, Nathan, what do you like in school?"

"I like to read science fiction books."

"You mean about space travel and all like that. Lord, I don't think I would like to have all that stuff in my head. I don't read too much, except the prayer magazine we get. Guideposts. I like that magazine. It's really a Baptist magazine, but I like it anyway. We're not Baptists, we're Holiness."

"We go to the Baptist church."

"With Preacher Roberts? I like him. I think he's handsome."

"You ought not to be talking about handsome men," Roy says, "you know Dad don't like it."

"Your daddy ain't studying who I talk about. And I do think he's handsome. Did you always go to the Baptist church, Nathan?"

"No, ma'am. My mom used to take me to the Holiness Church too. But my daddy didn't like it because they play electric guitars."

"No. You don't mean it."

Even Roy is interested in that. "Electric guitars in the church?"

"One time they had drums, too. You know, like in a band."

"Lord help me," says Mrs. Connelly. "I don't know about that. We don't do that in our church, we just have a piano."

"We've been Baptist since my daddy started going." "Now I know you all moved here from somewhere." "Smithfield."

"That's right. Your daddy told me. You lived in Smithfield."

"We didn't live there long. We lived in Goldsboro before that. And Tims Creek."

"I think Tims Creek is a nice little town."

"Don't you get tired of moving so much?" Roy asks.

Mrs. Connelly is watching. Nathan has the feeling they have talked about this before, and is therefore more guarded. "Sometimes. It's not so bad though. We lived in Rose Hill for a long time, when I was little."

Mother and son look at each other. Nathan becomes afraid they've heard something, a story about the reason Nathan's family moves from one place to the other. Something about why they left Rose Hill. Dad likes to move, all right, but never quite far enough.

The conversation ends when Roy's father comes from his office looking for a glass of tea. He waits pleasantly while Mrs. Connelly stirs her large body to put ice in a glass. They talk about the fall weather, the clover Roy and he are planting in the field next to the house, the abundance of fish in the pond. The ease with which the Connellys keep company with each other almost makes Nathan feel at home himself.

Later, they carry their books to Roy's room, which is smaller than it seems from the other side of the hedges, a narrow, angled space, mostly occupied by a bed and Roy's desk. High on the wall are shelves for his baseball trophies, a sturdy collection. Nathan examines each trophy scrupulously but makes no comment. Nathan studies everything with the same attention to detail, including the view to his own window. Roy leans beside him, then smiles. Finger to the lips, be quiet.

They study. Roy sits on his bed. In his own house he behaves less bravely and dares less than in Nathan's, and Nathan knows better than to get too close. He spreads his science textbook across his lap. He peers into the closet, through the shadowed crack in the door. He studies the poster of a famous baseball player. Roy murmurs aloud as he reads.

He and Roy take long walks, over the whole farm, till Nathan understands the scope of Roy's world. The sullen houses in the bare field become their landscape, and they wander around the pond, memorize the graveyard, visit the Indian mound, pick apples in the orchard, search out deer in the surrounding woods, hunt for foxes and squirrels with Roy's 22-gauge, or simply lie on beds of leaves with their shirts open and their hands ripening on each other's bare skin. Nathan learns that Roy will kiss but he will not kneel in front of Nathan as Nathan will kneel in front of him. Nathan learns that he himself is somehow different from Roy, governed by other laws.

Always the admonition is the same. You can't say a thing about this to anybody else. You can't do this with anybody else but me. Okay? Followed by the cloud of guilt, the moment when Roy can no longer bring himself to look at Nathan or to touch him. The guilt clouds him worse each time.

One Friday afternoon, without warning, Roy asks Nathan, "Do you want to go riding around tonight?"

They are assembling their books on the school bus. Roy has headed down the metal steps, then pauses to ask I question. Turning almost casually.

Roy has always seen his girlfriend on Fridays. Nathan never asked, but he knows.

"I need to ask my mom."

Roy shrugs.

Quickly, lest the offer be withdrawn. "I'm sure she’ll say it's okay"

Roy shrugs again, but in a more friendly way.

"Come with me while I ask."

The request, unusual, reverberates. Roy considers, momentarily uncomfortable. A slow change takes place as Nathan watches; a new thought occurs to Roy and a smile spreads outward. "She'll like that, won't she?" he asks.

Crossing the yard, they are aware of each other, as if either of them could contain, for the moment, the consciousness of both. They are echoing in each other through the mown grass, they are feeling the freshness of air on Roy's shoulders, the brush of the rose bush against Nathan's sleeve; they are each feeling each. Into the door they walk, and Nathan's mom is in the kitchen as always, dark eyed, sitting at the table reading a novel by Emily Loring. She closes the book with a dreamy sigh as the boys enter, and focuses on them with effort; and for a moment Nathan feels a tremor of chill. She is hardly in this kitchen at all, she has fled somewhere else, dreaming. But this blankness quickly passes. She returns to the room from Emily Loring's world and adjusts her eyeglasses across the bridge of her nose.

Nathan is preparing his request and nearly has the words in perfect order when Roy seizes the moment unexpectedly "Please, ma'am, I was hoping you might let Nathan go out riding with me tonight."

"Well I knew you boys wanted something the way you busted in here like you did." Her expression is gentle and her focus on Nathan soft. "You want to go riding, son?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"You know your daddy don't like you to run around."

Nathan makes no response. But she smiles as if he has answered her with something pleasant. Brittleness pervades her voice and manner, the sense that she may suddenly say something more shrill. "Well, you never go anywhere except church, I know that's the truth." Brushing her face as if hair or insect touches her. "Your dad and me have a church supper tonight."

"I don't need to go this time, do I?"

She reflects. Glare on the glasses, momentary blindness. "I guess you don't. Him and me in church is plenty for one night."

"Thanks, Mom."

"You make sure you behave like you ought to. Your daddy is real nervous lately. You know how he is. I can't get him to lay down, he don't rest at night. He don't need any trouble from you."

This is her way of talking, as if Dad were a being of delicate sensibility, to be treasured and protected. But something else in her tone, some edge, awakens memory in Nathan. It is as if she is issuing a warning. But he tries to refuse the fear, he clings to his happiness, stubbornly, because he will spend the Friday night with Roy, the hours entirely their own. Mom looks at Nathan with the air of blindness returning. Roy stuffs his hands in his pockets as if suddenly shy. "Thanks, ma'am. We won't be out too late. I'll bring him back by eleven o'clock." Giving Nathan a secret within the look they traded. "Get ready and let's go. All right?"