The Boy Who Understood
by Biff Spork
Chapter 8
A Joy of Fishes
Zhiv and David trekked through the dense forest to reach a green plateau above the tree line. The brisk mountain air smelled clean. Distant rocky outcrops were as crisply defined as if seen through a lens. The boys climbed a low rise and paused on the top. Before them lay the floor of an ancient caldera carpeted with grass and alpine flowers. A thread of a stream trickled from a nearby copse of aspen, their leaves trembling in the sunlight.
Zhiv took David's hand and said, "This is my favorite place. C'mon, we have a thousand friends waiting for us." They trotted down the hill toward the shimmering grove. The aspens dazzled David as he and Zhiv strolled through them, and a pair of mountain bluebirds flew from branch to branch.
The boys emerged from the trees onto bare black rock that was warm from the morning sun. In front of them, in an enormous bowl scooped from the rock, was Zhiv's lake. Its tranquil waters reflected the trees around the shoreline like a mirror.
Zhiv led them to the water's edge and pulled David down to sit beside him. When David glanced at him, his companion was gazing at the surface of the lake as if he was in a trance. Though the air was still, the water began to shiver like the lake was alive. Fish started to jump, a few at first, but the number increased until it seemed that all the fish in the lake were leaping as high as they could. The joy in the air was almost palpable. Then the leaping stopped.
David started to express his awe. Without looking at him, Zhiv placed his hand over David's mouth. Suddenly the water erupted with a fountain of fish, glistening in the sunlight. An entire school had jumped at once. Then another, hundreds of fish in synchrony, shot from the water. In perfect formations, other glittering showers of fish erupted from the lake surface. They flashed in the sun like cascades of jewels. One sparkling shower hardly subsided before another burst from the water.
The lake surface calmed, and David saw that a vast shoal of trout roiled the water near the shore. Zhiv stood up and said, "Let's swim," and led David into the cool water.
"It's okay?" said David. "There's a lot of fish…"
"Yeah, it's a big day for them."
Trout milled around and touched their legs. David sensed the gentle touches were not accidental bumps. They were caresses.
"They've been waiting for you," said Zhiv, "for a long time."
When they were waist deep, Zhiv said, "It drops off here so we have to swim." Aware of the lives close around them, both boys adopted gentle sidestrokes. They idled out into deeper water. There, they duck-dived again and again.
Trout surrounded David and mimicked his every move. If he turned his head to the right, hundreds of shining fish bent to the right. If he swam to the left, they changed direction at the same instant. It was as if they had attached themselves to him by invisible bonds. Sometimes the school swam so close he felt their gossamer fins brushing over his back or belly. Then he wasn't a boy — he became a fish-thing, a single creature with a boy at its core. His senses extended beyond his body to the edge of the school that enfolded him. Delight beyond words filled David's heart.
Another school had surrounded Zhiv so densely that David only caught glimpses of an arm or a leg. The boys surfaced, swam to each other, and trod water while they hugged and their hearts slowed.
Zhiv pointed toward the shore. When they reached the lake's edge, he rolled onto his back in the shallows and said, "Let them clean us. They like it, and I need it."
Hundreds of young trout, fry, swarmed around them. David felt their tiny mouths nibbling everywhere on his body. It relaxed him, and he closed his eyes and watched his mind. An image that returned repeatedly was like a thousand dots of light that swelled and faded with delight.
David said, "That was the surprise, wasn't it?"
"Yeah," Zhiv said.
"Thank you, Zhiv. I loved it. It was wonderful, the most beautiful thing I ever saw."
"It wasn't for me, you know," said Zhiv. "They did it for you. They know something about you, about you and a fish, a long time ago."
David looked out over the water and saw at the same time the thousand pulsing lights in his mind. He concentrated his euphoria on that image.
Zhiv sat up and looked at him. "Hey, you saw them; you really saw them, inside. You're learning to be in the mara." He pulled David into his arms and hugged him tightly.
David melted into Zhiv's fresh skin, cool on the surface, but radiating warmth from within. His stomach rumbled.
"Zhiv?"
"Mmmh?"
"I'm starving."
"Me too. I hope there's food in your pack, or I'll have to eat the pack."
Pete and Doreen parted at the mall entrance with a plan to meet at the food court for lunch. Pete headed for E-Wheels, a retailer specializing in electric transportation. When he entered the dealership, he was boggled. He knew the laws governing electric bicycles. He'd seen people on single wheel things, but he'd never imagined electric scooters, skateboards, and hoverboards.
A salesman attached himself to Pete and answered all his questions. They walked around the shop and looked at e-bikes and other machines. Pete left the store with a handful of pamphlets. A few boutiques further along, he saw a shoe store. A sign in the window caught his attention. It advertised a sale on vegan shoes to celebrate World Rainforest Day.
"What the hell," said Pete to himself. He went inside and sat down. "You got any of those vegan shoes that'd fit me?" he asked the young salesgirl.
She had him take off his shoe so she could measure his foot and asked him if he was looking for a particular style or color. He said he was mostly interested in black. She went over to the display area and returned with three pairs of shoes. Pete saw immediately that two of them were wrong. He'd never be able to wear them in public, but the third pair, black half-boots, could be an acceptable part of his uniform.
He tried them on and walked around the shop. They were a perfect fit, and they looked like normal shoes.
When hunger drove River and Jude back into the house, Jude opened the freezer compartment and pulled out a box of pizza-pops and some apple turnovers.
"I'll nuke a couple of these," he said. "Grab us some colas from the fridge." Ten minutes later, they were munching their lunch at the kitchen table.
River swallowed the last bite of his second pizza pop. "These things are good. All we been eating lately is pig balls."
"You mean, like testicles?"
"Yeah, we always castrate the little pigs, and that means there's a lot of testicles. The old man dips them in batter and deep-fries them. They're pretty good, but you get tired of them after eating them every day."
"I guess," said Jude, "but I bet they're one of the best things to eat if you want a lot of jizz. I mean, balls are for making jizz, aren't they? I read somewhere you have to eat about five pounds of ice cream just to make one little squirt of jizz."
"Really?"
"Yeah, or about three steaks. Jizz is powerful stuff. That's why it feels so good when it squirts out. Eating balls must be the best way to build up jizz."
"You think?"
"Yeah, it stands to reason, don't it? All that concentrated ball juice you're getting? I'd like to try some of them balls."
"I'll bring some to school tomorrow," said River. "We got millions of them. They look like chicken nuggets the way the old man fries them up."
"We can trade. I'll bring you some fried chicken and you can bring me some of them pig balls."
River's mind wandered for a few minutes. "My old man's really on my case about that vegan kid," he said.
"Little Davy-boy?"
"Yeah, his daddy's a cop. He nailed my brother with a five hundred dollar speeding ticket. We all think his daddy did it because my brother run him off the road up Jana Mountain."
"Fucking cops!"
"Yeah, it seems McAdam goes up Jana Mountain on weekends. My brother Aaron saw him up there last week and then again coming down the logging road yesterday. The old man wants me to cozy up to him at school and get him to admit he asked his daddy to ticket Aaron."
"Hey, that logging road's pretty far up the valley, isn't it?" asked Jude.
"Yeah, it's a ways."
"Is that the road where the gravel pit is? Not far off the highway?"
"Yeah," said River. "The pit's not right on the logging road. It's off to one side, in the side of a hill. I been out there a couple of times. Aaron likes to practice target-shooting, and sometimes we've done it in the gravel pit."
"I bet we could ride out there on our bikes."
"It'd take a while, like a couple of hours at least, but why bother? It's a gravel pit. You like gravel?"
"Well, I'd like to continue Mr. Ass-wipe McAdam's training, but it ain't good to do it at school. The monitors and other teachers always fuck everything up. We need more privacy, someplace where we can help little David recognize that he wants to obey our orders."
"Oh yeah?" said River.
"See, what I'm thinking is that Davy-boy is queer as hell. He really wants to let his gayness out, but he's such a little scaredy-pants, he's afraid to ask us for what he wants. We could help him get what he wants, by overcoming his fears."
"Yeah! Like how," River asked. "He probably won't even talk to us."
"Oh, that's easy," said Jude. "We'll just sit down with him and have a little chat, talk to him until he relaxes and lets his guard down. After we play with him a little, he'll realize how much he likes it. Then he'll do whatever we want."
Pete left the shoe store with a smile on his face. He tried to think how he could let David find out that he had bought some vegan shoes, without actually telling him. Bragging about his purchase would be stupid. He wanted to let the kid discover it by himself, make him sit back and think about his old dad.
He decided to leave the empty shoe-box where his son would see it. On his workbench in the garage would be a good place, near where David parked and charged his bike. The box had, 'NO Cow! Vegan Shoes' in bold letters on every side. On the end of the box, it said 'Men's Size 10½,' so if David looked at the box, he'd know the shoes were Pete's and not Doreen's. Pete chuckled. It was fun to plan sneaky things like this!
Over lunch, Doreen admired the shoes. "Hey, those are nice, and David'll be so happy."
"Don't tell him," said Pete. "It'll make him think I'm trying to suck up to him, or I'm showing off, or something. I mean, if he asks you, you can tell him, but otherwise just leave it; don't say anything. Okay?"
When they got home, he took the shoes out of the box and slid them under his side of their bed. Then he took the box into the garage and set it down on the workbench near David's e-bike charger. He adjusted it so the end that said 'Men's Size 10½' was facing outward. He stood back and looked at it.
Everything was good, but how would he know if the boy even noticed it? A minute later, he extracted a piece of chalk from the odds and ends drawer in the workbench. Then he marked faint lines on the bench where corners of the shoe box rested. If David picked the box up, the chances were one in a million that he would put it back in the same place. If it had been moved, Pete would know the boy knew he had bought vegan shoes.
When they were hiking back from the lake, Zhiv asked David about his family.
"My mom works in a supermarket. She's great. We talk about all kinds of things, and she understands me. My dad, maybe not so much. He's a sheriff's deputy. He's a good dad, but he used to give me a hard time about being a vegan. I thought he didn't like me. Lately I found out I was wrong, and we've been getting along good."
David shared his worry that his parents might be too curious about him spending so much time up the mountain.
"So, I knew my mom used to be a birdwatcher. I said I was interested in that, so they can think I'm coming up here to do bird watching. Maybe when we get to the cave, you can help me with that. I want to take some pictures of birds with my phone, so I can talk to my parents about them."
"You think it's okay to fool them like that?"
"Zhiv, you're a naked boy living with animals in the forest. If I tell them about you, the way you are, they'd freak. I know they'd think you should have someone taking care of you, and going to school and stuff..."
"Yeah. You're right, I can't live like that anymore, but I hate that you have to lie about me."
"Me, too."
When they were close to Zhiv's cave, a starling fluttered down and landed on Zhiv's shoulder. He reached up and caressed the feathers on the bird's back. "David," he said. "This is a dear old friend, Lilili."
The starling flew over and landed on David's shoulder. He reached up and preened the bird's feathers.
"He tells me we have some visitors at the cave," Zhiv said, and laughed. "Some birds!"
At the cave, their bird visitors proved to be a half-dozen red hens and a single red rooster. The rooster strutted back and forth in front of Erg. Sometimes he stopped, stared into the puma's eyes, and crowed. Then he resumed his pacing. Erg lay immobile and ignored the challenges.
It was a long hike from the lake to the cave, and Zhiv and David were happy to relax on their rock looking out over the valley. The chickens came to them immediately and settled in beside the boys. Zhiv petted and preened one and looked at David with his eyebrows raised.
"They deserve some petting," said Zhiv. "They've come a long way. They asked Lilili to bring them here because they wanted to be in the mara. He's been guiding them since yesterday. Chickens don't fly much, and they walked most of the way from a farm down in the valley."
David stroked the hens that had settled beside him.
When all had been petted and caressed, they drifted away, pecking and scratching in the soil for seeds.
"What kind of birds do you want for your pictures?" asked Zhiv.
"Any kind of wild ones." David retrieved his phone from his pack and opened the camera app.
Within minutes, a dozen wild songbirds had landed beside Zhiv. David put a boulder on their rock seat in front of them, and said, "If you can get them to stand on that rock…"
One by one, the birds posed on the rock while David snapped their pictures. Last to come were hummingbirds. Three of them buzzed in from different directions and perched together on one of Zhiv's feet, on his toes. David could not resist photographing a close-up of this. Then the hummingbirds posed singly. Each hovered in front of David, iridescent colors flashing in the sunlight.
"This is great, Zhiv. I can get my mom to help me identify all these birds when I get home."
"We could get more," said Zhiv. "I didn't ask any of the hawks, or eagles or water birds to come."
"No, thanks. From now on, I can just photograph a few each time I'm up here, so I have something to talk about when I get home. Zhiv, I can only stay for about half an hour more."
"Let's hug," said Zhiv.
"Yeah, that's what I want to do, too."
They lay wrapped in each other's arms. David closed his eyes and lost himself in Zhiv's warmth. Birdsong and the rustling of a breeze mixed with a hundred voices in his head. A parade of images passed through his mind. He found he could distinguish between his own memories and images that were coming to him from the mara. The mara images were faint, except Zhiv's signature image. It was clearer and lasted longer every time he saw it. He discovered how to hold it and look at it, by calming his mind and letting it rest there.
When David was able to hold Zhiv's image steadily, he became aware of a delicious sensation in his lower belly. It swelled and spread out through his body, an almost unbearable sweetness. It arose from focusing on the image of Zhiv seated on a rock in the void. The Zhiv in the image turned to look into David's eyes, and they began to melt into each other. He felt Zhiv's lips on his and writhed in an exquisite sensation. Then he lost the image, and the sweetness faded into a milder pleasure that permeated his body.
He opened his eyes and stared into Zhiv's.
Zhiv said, "Did you feel that?"
"Yeah," said David. "The best feeling ever!"
"What was that? Was that sex?"
"I don't think so," said David. "I think with sex you have to put your thing into someone, a girl or something."
"Or something?" Zhiv giggled.
David caught the giggles and gasped, "Yeah, something, like a watermelon, or a baseball glove…"
"An avocado sandwich!"
"A jar of peanut butter!"
The giggles subsided. Zhiv said, "Sometimes when I'm really deep in the mara, I'm not aware of the outside world at all. Then I feel a bit like that, but not so strong, not so sweet as that. I think it was you, David. You made me feel that way."
"No," said David, as he buried his face in Zhiv's hair and hugged him with all his strength. "It's not me. It's us."
When David arrived at his home later that afternoon and was plugging his bike into its charger, he noticed a shoe-box on the end of the workbench. He saw the word 'vegan,' stepped over, and picked up the box. It was a box for vegan shoes, in an adult man's size. He felt a rush of affection. He was happy that his father and he were no longer at war. He put the box back down. Then he stopped moving for a minute.
Why was the shoe-box on the workbench? It was odd. Most boxes went straight into the cardboard recycling bin in the laundry room. This one had found its way into the garage. He lifted the box again and noticed the faint marks on the workbench. He put the box down so its corners fitted against the chalk lines. It was an exact match. He nodded and smiled. Then he nudged the box until it was again precisely aligned with the chalk marks, as if he had never moved it.
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