First Boy

It's a Family Addiction
by Robert Baucom

Denise Brown

First Boy
by Denise Brown
Third Place Winner, Fiction

“What?”

Adam inclined his head in the girl’s direction.

“Her? She’s a noob.”

“Yeah, but her social empire is vast.”

“True,” Cody admitted.

“Much want,” Adam said.

Close behind him, Teresa chuckled quietly. Their parents would be interested to learn some of the things she overheard on a daily basis. Adam had been in her 4th period last semester. He was one of the newer kids at school, well-liked but not athletic or handsome enough to join the stratum of the social elite. In some ways he was kind of homely – nose a little too fleshy, lips a little too full, hair disheveled in a careless way, a lumbering gait, a little too soft in the middle for a boy in his prime – but still not bad, considering how much time these kids spent playing video games. In another way his homeliness was almost fashionable – but surely not fashionable enough for the likes of Kimberly Swank.

Teresa’s mind roamed again to the dream she’d had the night before. In the dream she had been sitting in a lawn chair dozing in the sun when she felt a tickle on the inside of her thigh and looked down to find a stream of kids climbing up the hills and valleys of her body. Creepy, she thought. Maybe all the time she’d spent with teenagers over the past six years was getting to her. Week after week, season after season, caught up in the daily drama of their youth. And in the summer when most other teachers took the needed break, she had turned right around every year and signed up for these adventure camps. Next year I’ll take the summer off, she promised herself, go on one of those barefoot cruises and meet a man.

On the other hand, she really did enjoy the friendships developed with these kids as a result of the extra time in summer. Sometimes in the last weeks of August, after the camps ended and before school started, she found herself wondering what she was missing as their lives continued to play out in her absence. Was it loneliness she felt, or withdrawal?

She stopped to catch her breath, leaning into the smooth hard warmth of a boulder beside the trail. She scanned the higher ground for the soccer players and noticed for the first time a patch of gray sky creeping over the summit.

The rivulet of water falling over the rock face above was barely visible from this distance. Here beside the trail it trickled amicably down the ravine, joining eventually with another stream before slipping into May Lake where they had set up their base camp several days ago. As in former years, Teresa and the girls camped on the east shore close to the high country outpost, while her male counterpart and the boys set up further to the south, with the campfire and utility area roughly in the middle. The separation wasn’t enough to prevent boys and girls from visiting each other surreptitiously in the night if anyone was really motivated, so the two chaperones sat sentry by the campfire past bedtime each night until things quieted down. Over several nights of this firelight vigil with Tweedy, secrets had been shared. It was normal, it always happened at camp, with kids and adults both, but come daylight Teresa had found herself regretting some of the things she’d revealed.

Now he came up beside her where she stood studying the stream.

“There are three factors affecting the flow of water …” he began. “Slope, volume, and – “

“I’m not one of your students, Tweedy,” Teresa said with irritation.

“No,” he said, looking her up and down. “Not by about twenty years I’d say, but you don’t look half bad.”

She felt her hackles rise but forced herself to be cool. He was baiting her, that’s all. ”Listen, maybe the school moms melt when you turn your puppy-dog eyes on them, but I know you for the conceited twit you really are.”

“Oh Harpie, you don’t have to be defensive. I’d take you in a minute if it wasn’t a sure way to end my career. ”

She stared at him for a moment, acknowledging the fluttery sensation in her chest. He hadn’t said anything about his marriage. “My standards are way higher than that, Twee,” she said finally.

“On the other hand, we could go off into the woods tonight – nobody would ever know.”

“For God’s sake, why don’t you go home and make love to your wife? Maybe then you’d leave the rest of us alone.” She scowled at him. “I hope I won’t have to put up with you again next summer.”

Not that I’ll be here myself, she reminded herself.

“You might, if my house is still under construction. If it is I’ll have to go somewhere.” He snapped the suspenders holding up his khakis and grinned at her. Of course his house would still be under construction – the rumor was it had been under construction for about eight years so far.

Teresa had once observed Tweedy in the classroom and had to admit there wasn’t another teacher who had as much rapport with the kids. The problem was that he knew how good he was. He had built a legacy on it. Every 11th grader wanted him for calculus, and every Halloween several of them could be seen running around campus dressed as “Mr. Twee,” in striped dress shirts, neckties and suspenders, berets perched at cocky angles on top of hair spray-painted with gray streaks. His classroom was always open after school for help with term projects and test prep, or just for lounging around on the old couches he’d dragged in. The janitor hated him as much as the kids worshipped him – what with the constant mess of adolescence that filled the room and flowed out the doorway.

A clap of thunder sounded over the mountaintop and rolled down the ravine. They looked up towards the sound and saw that the soccer players had made it to the top and were relaxing on boulders in the gold sunlight of late afternoon. Behind them the eastern sky had gone to deep purple. Cody and Adam were together at the base of the steep climb and starting up. The lovely Kimberly, taking long strides, had closed the distance between herself and the two boys.

“I think we better hold up here,” Teresa said. If she wasn’t mistaken, the trickle of water had widened slightly. Judging by the darkening sky and the thunder, it was probably raining somewhere higher in the Sierra.

Tweedy gathered the larger group around him and called to Kimberly, but she ignored him and continued up.

What is the girl thinking? Teresa wondered. She moved closer to the pile of rock at the base. “Ten minutes!” she yelled, pointing to her watch. “Wherever you are in ten minutes, turn around and get back down here!” Another clap sounded. The soccer players got lazily to their feet, looking over their shoulders towards the rumbling. They pulled on their shirts and started down, crossing paths with Adam and Cody about halfway.

When the water surged, Teresa and the group down below froze, gaping uphill while the scene unfolded before them. Adam and Cody had just crossed the stream where it flowed ankle-deep at a saddle in the ravine. Close behind and trying to catch up, Kimberly plunged sloppily after them and paused halfway, apparently puzzled, just as the flow thickened, now suddenly knee-deep, chalky, turbulent. Too late, she realized her predicament and lost her footing, slipping into a gulley where the force of the stream now threatened to overcome her.

Adam swung around at the sound of her scream and leaped back to pull her out. Half submerged himself, he managed to push her from behind to Cody’s outstretched hand an instant before an errant log came hurtling by. Even from this far away Teresa could see his teeth bared in determination as he heaved himself out.

None of them saw the rock dislodged from higher up until it had smashed against Adam’s skull and then went careening down the ravine towards the group at the base. Teresa gasped and held her breath as he tumbled over the face of the boulder, landing fifteen feet down in a rocky crevasse. She saw rather than heard Kimberly scream again and try to go after him, watched as Cody grabbed her arm and held on until she stopped struggling. She breathed again when the two had backed off as far from the torrent as the landscape allowed and huddled together on the wrong side of the ravine.

Suddenly aware now of the pandemonium behind her, Teresa tore her eyes from a strip of Adam’s red t-shirt where he lay motionless, away from the flow of water. Thank God for that, she thought. She turned to Tweedy who stood as though paralyzed, a couple of the girls in his arms, their faces stunned and drained of color.

“Get all of them to higher ground,” she said. She turned and grabbed one of the soccer players. “Niko, find two branches about five feet long.” He jumped to obey and Teresa looked for a place lower down to cross the stream. She found it and motioned to Niko.

Tweedy came to life. “Hold on now,” he said breaking away from the girls. “You’d better stay here with the kids – I’ll go.”

Teresa’s irritation rose again. Of course he would want to go – that would make him the hero. “Tweedy, I have paramedic training and I’ve climbed this mountain twelve times in the past six summers. How many times have you?”

“Well, none, but I’m stronger and taller. It’s not right for you to go.”

“Physical fitness is my profession,” she snapped, “and Niko is taller and stronger than anyone here.” Besides, she thought, Adam is my student. He won’t be yours until Fall.

“Then I’ll go with along with you both,” Tweedy said.

“One of us has to stay here until Kimberly and Cody get down, then take the group back to camp.” She paused. “The kids are upset, Tweedy. They need you to stay with them, not me.” She saw him accept the compliment, then turned back to Niko. “Come on – we’re wasting time!”

They crossed the stream and hiked quickly to assist Kimberly and Cody with the sticks Niko had collected, then turned their attention to Adam. Twenty minutes later they had managed to pull him from the crevasse and lay him across the level top of a large boulder. He was conscious, but barely. His head was gashed and bleeding above the right ear. One leg was obviously broken, his skin cool and pale.

“Much hurt,” Adam mumbled. He shivered uncontrollably, in spite of the late afternoon warmth.

“I know it hurts but we’re going to take care of you,” Teresa said. “Let’s get these wet clothes off him and let the heat of the rock warm him up,” she said to Niko. She found a pocketknife in the fanny pack with the first aid kit. While she treated the head injury and stabilized the bone in his leg, Niko cut off his clothing, careful not to wrench his leg or move him too much.

“Ms. Harpe, I forgot my gym clothes today,” Adam said, slurring the words. Teresa took off the windbreaker tied around her waist and covered him. If he was delirious, getting him back to camp would be difficult. She worked faster.

When finally they could concentrate on getting off the mountain, the sun sat nearly on the western fringe of mountains in the distance. For half an hour they tried lowering the boy from the boulder, but he was in too much pain to cooperate. Teresa remembered hearing that an ordeal like this was a lot easier if the victim was unconscious, and now she understood. She had painkillers in her kit that would put him to sleep, but Adam had symptoms of hypothermia. If that was the case it was crucial to keep him awake. She pulled out the walkie talkie attached to her belt and radioed down. The rest of the group might be halfway back to camp by now, she thought.

“I need dry clothes for Adam,” she said when Tweedy answered, “and two sleeping bags. A pup tent, flashlights, some rope, a thermos of hot tea, and some cookies. Put everything in a backpack and have someone start up to meet me. We aren’t going to be able to bring him down ourselves, so call for assistance.”

Niko had made Adam comfortable on top of the boulder again. “I want you to cover him with your body until I get back,” she said. “And keep him awake, do you understand?” She looked to Niko for confirmation and saw that he was staring at her with an unfathomable expression on his face.

“I can’t do that Ms. Harpe,” he said.

“What? You can’t do what?” she said, but already she knew. In the six years she had been doing these trips with the kids, they always spent one night in a motel on the way up here. Of course she had never been the boys’ chaperone during these overnights – that was a man’s job – but she remembered a remark made by one of the male teachers on a former trip. There would be four boys in a room with two queen beds, but only two would end up in beds because two of them could not, would not share a bed, no matter how uncomfortable the floor. Girls had no problem with it, but boys at this age were hopelessly homophobic.

“Niko, this is a matter of life or death. Nobody is going to see you, and Adam could die if his body temperature drops too low.”

Niko shook his head and refused to look at her. “No,” he said quietly.

“Okay,” she huffed. “I will stay here. You will go down the mountain and get the supplies. Get going now. Be careful, but get back up here as fast as you can.”

Niko took off like a bolt, and Teresa stretched out beside Adam on the boulder. It still held the warmth of the sun, but his skin was cool and the air temperature was dropping fast. She was always surprised at how cold the nights could be here in midsummer. She adjusted the jacket over them and wrapped herself around him. He moaned very quietly, and she patted his face to rouse him.

“Hey, you’re a real hero, you know? Saving Kimberly like that?”

He opened his eyes but didn’t say anything.

“She would have been in deep shit if you hadn’t been there.”

“I like her a lot,” he said.

“She likes you, too.”

“Naw.”

“Sure she does. Why else would she try so hard to catch up with you?” Teresa had no idea why the girl had tried so hard, but anything to keep him awake and thinking.

He moaned again. “My leg,” he said. “I need to go home now.”

“I know, Adam. You’ve probably never hurt as much as you do right now. But everything’s going to be all right. We’re going to get you home.”

“Once before I moved here …” he said and stopped. His breathing had become shallow. Teresa shook him gently and he took a deeper breath and went on. “uh, I was riding with my step dad on his tractor. We hit a bump and I fell off and my head came down on the plough. I could tell it was bleeding ‘cause the dirt around me was all bloody wet. My dad told me to go on home so I walked back to the house and looked for my mom. She was working in the garden and called me a crybaby, then everything went black and I bonked my head on the steps in front of the house.”

“Wow, twice in one day?”

“This hurts more.”

“How old were you?”

“ Mm … eleven?”

“Do they still have the farm?”

“Naw. They broke up and sold it. That’s when I came here to live with my dad and step mom.” The story seemed to have exhausted him. He started shivering again, and Teresa took off her t-shirt and shorts and laid them over him, then rearranged herself around him as best she could without hurting him. She felt his coolness drawing her warmth, and snuggled closer to create as much contact as possible. As long as he kept shivering he was probably okay – it was when they stopped you had to worry.

Her mind wandered. Last night in the lull before dinner, bending over his backpack with hair falling over his face, Adam had looked up and locked eyes with her for a moment, startling her with their blue intensity. In that instant he reminded her of another boy with startling blue eyes and full lips, one she hadn’t thought of in a long time.

Tim was his name. He was someone she knew in high school. She had gone to a few football games with him, to a drive-in movie once, just around the time her father was transferred to another city by the company he worked for. After she moved away, Tim called and invited her to come back and go to prom with him. Her parents, probably to assuage their guilt for moving her in the middle of junior year, had let her fly back for the dance. It was a fun time. They got a lot of attention, she as the out-of-towner, and he as the just-elected student body president for the upcoming school year when they would both be seniors.

That summer he had ridden his bicycle almost five hundred miles, half the length of California, to visit her. It took him a couple of weeks, and along the way he sent postcards. One she remembered was written from a convent somewhere off Highway 101 where he was held up for a few days with water on the knee. When he finally got to her family’s new house he slept in the den downstairs, where one night she snuck down and slipped into bed with him. She didn’t intend anything, really, but maybe the convent business had made her feel a little like she owed him. Anyway, her dad had come down before much could happen and sent her back upstairs. When Tim finally loaded up his bike and flew home a week later, still nothing had happened. The letters that came afterwards expressed frustration at first, then despair, and finally became distant.

In the Fall he was crowned Homecoming King and took one of her girlfriends to the dance. “I wanted you to come,” he wrote. “But being with her reminds me of you, and besides, she’s here.”

Teresa didn’t care much one way or another. She had discovered surfers, with their wide muscled shoulders and narrow waists, and by then had given her virginity to one of them instead. Later she married one, but divorced him five years later when he had developed a beer belly and it became clear he would never keep a job. The ten years since then she had devoted to her career.

I would have been Homecoming Queen. The thought startled her, and she felt something shift inside. I could have stuck with Tim, even though we lived far apart. I could have married him, and by now we might have a son just like this kid in my arms. I wouldn’t neglect him like his parents do, bouncing him from one step family to another. I would keep him safe.

Adam stirred. She became aware of his physical presence again and gathered him closer, protectively. Her next thought startled her even more. I want this boy.

Nonsense, she corrected herself. I’m tired and I’m losing it. I’m just a pathetic, tired old maid. All the same, she couldn’t prevent the surge of emotion washing over her. Sometime later when Niko and another of the soccer players arrived with the pack of supplies she was still grappling with her feelings.

“Mr. Twee says it’ll take a couple of hours to get a rescue crew up here,” Niko said.

Teresa released Adam and got busy unpacking the tent. “Help me out here guys,” she said. They didn’t move, and she looked at them in the moonlight. Both were staring at her, motionless, mouths hanging open. She remembered what she must look like to them and thought of grabbing her clothes, but that would leave Adam unprotected. “For heaven’s sake, you’ve seen half naked women before – you live at the beach!” she said, crossing her arms over her body. “Now please, please, let’s get this tent set up.”

When the rescue team arrived, they had erected the tent and arranged Adam under it with one sleeping bag as padding and another as covering. He had drunk a cup of tea and eaten a cookie. The three of them had settled on a strategy of chitchat that kept him busy answering easy questions that didn’t tire him too much but kept him awake. They knew his favorite ice cream, pie, movie, and a dozen other favorites. They knew there were a lot of people living in his house – “They won’t stop moving long enough to count ‘em.” Humor, that was a good sign.

Teresa and the two soccer players arrived back at base camp ahead of the rescue crew and found the group gathered intimately around the campfire, comforting each other while Tweedy spoke quietly with one and then another. Kimberly looked up when they arrived, her face beautiful in the firelight, soft cheeks slick with tears. “He’s going to be all right,” Teresa said, and Kimberly buried her head in her arms.

******

The first time Teresa stood on the doorstep of Adam’s family’s house, she hesitated a minute before knocking. She had never had reason to visit a student at home and was surprised how easy it was to find the address in the student directory – shouldn’t they be more anonymous than that?

But this is just a courtesy call to see how he’s recovering, she told herself. Yes, and you know you want to look at him again. You want to see that spark in his eyes.

The family received her with ease, which boosted her confidence. She became a frequent visitor in the remaining weeks of summer. She brought pecan pie (his favorite), raspberry sorbet (another favorite), and gifts for the little brothers – who truly did move too fast to count. On more than one occasion Kimberly was also there visiting, each time registering a brief look of surprise before politely returning the teacher’s greeting and retreating shyly into Adam’s room with him. In spite of herself, Teresa felt a jolt of jealousy each time the door clicked shut behind them.

It wasn’t until school began again in the Fall that she became aware several different versions of the story had circulated around campus. She was surprised, but made no effort to give an official version. Eventually she noticed that the easy way the kids used to have around her had become strained – no longer did they divulge information in her presence, and when she approached their little groups during class they often became silent.

When she overheard Adam telling a friend that his counselor wouldn’t let him switch out of a class he didn’t want, she ran interference for him in the counselor’s office. Soon after, when they crossed paths and she asked how his leg was healing, he crossed his arms and leaned against the wall before answering.

“Ms. Harpe,” he said quietly without looking at her, “I’m really fine. Please don’t help me anymore.”

In October there was a memo in her mailbox from the superintendent of the school district. Not an email, but a memo typed on letterhead, stapled closed and left in her box in the faculty office. She didn’t fail to consider the implication. Her presence was required at an informal hearing, it said. Legal counsel wouldn’t be necessary but allowable if she so desired.

It had come to their attention that some of the soccer players were uncomfortable in her PE classes, they told her at the hearing. Under questioning, two of the boys mentioned the incident at summer camp, which was not objectionable per se, but several others alluded to a continued relationship with the injured student. When Adam was questioned about it, he had not verified that any kind of relationship had ensued, but was clearly uncomfortable about the whole thing.

It was also hinted she may have ordered one of the kids on the trip to commit a homosexual act, and that she had openly discussed Roger Tweedy’s sexual relationship with his wife in front of the students.

Of course she was to be commended for the valiant manner in which she had responded to a life-threatening situation, but surely she also understood their position. She could resign now, or they could launch a full-blown investigation into her background and the incident in question. Every student would be questioned, every detail of her behavior that day gone over with a fine-toothed comb.

She thought the truth would prevail if it came to that, but lately she had been ruminating on the details of her own life in a way that felt inappropriate, even to herself. Perhaps she was no longer fit to work with teenagers, especially the boys. When she announced her decision to resign, a shockwave ran through campus. “See?” she overheard a faculty member say, “It’s all true then, everything they’ve been saying about her …”

And maybe it is, Teresa thought to herself, yes, maybe it is.

The Perils of Time Travel
by Ben Greenstein