The Wonders of the Invisible World by David Gates Read Free Book Online Page B

young—leads them to an empty booth. Billy guesses that with his Diamond Dogs cap and nylon bomber jacket he can pass for a divorced dad with weekend custody. If that’s his beau ideal.
    Mostly he avoids taking Deke to restaurants, not because of the catamite issue but because the two of them look so alone in the world. The only person either of them has leftis Cassie. Well, Deke does have another grandmother: Vic’s mother, who lives in Provo, Utah. But the extent of her involvement is a hundred-dollar check every Christmas and a card signed
Mammaw,
the alias she devised for herself since Cassie’s mother already had
Grandma.
Billy should probably make overtures: call every week or two, put Deke on. If only for practical reasons. Suppose he had a head-on crash coming home from work: Mrs. Bishop would take Deke that night, but then what?
    Deke orders oatmeal and bacon; Billy has oatmeal and a half grapefruit. He cuts a section free, spears it with his fork and holds it out to Deke.
    “No way.”
    “No,
thank you.
” Because if he’s doing this, he’s damn well going to do it right.
    “Oh, yeah,” Deke says.
    Billy’s been sneaking looks at the entertainment listings in the
Times Union.
This is already shaping up as a long day, but the movies look either inappropriate or unbearable, and mostly both. “Aha,” he says. “Looks like they’re having a young people’s concert.”
    “What’s that?”
    “You know, a big concert that’s geared to kids? Somebody usually comes out and talks about the instruments and whatnot. They must have those in Boston, right?” Which Billy flatters himself is a neutral way of asking.
    “I don’t know.” Deke clamps his teeth on a piece of bacon and tugs it back and forth.
    “Sound like something you’d be up for? Oh. Cool. They’re doing
The Planets
today. That’s this piece of music where each part is about a different planet. You want to check it out?”
    “No, thank you,” Deke says, chewing.
    “Hmm. Looks like pretty slim pickings otherwise. Our alternative would be just to go home and hang out.”
    Deke crams the rest of the bacon into his mouth and nods.
    On the way home they stop at the video place and return
Top Hat,
whose plot Deke hadn’t been able to follow, and take out
Star Trek IV,
the whale one. Billy steals a glance over the top of the louvered doors into the back room, where all the covers have bodies with the same shade of tan. He happens to know they stock a few gay videos, in a section called ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLES. But this will have to be a distant good.
    They spend most of the afternoon playing Candyland, during which Billy gets to listen to Tatiana Nikolayeva’s Shostakovich preludes and fugues. God knows what this Shostakovich obsession is about; anyhow, it’ll run its course. He hits the Cherry Pits again and again, and Deke wins three straight games. During the fourth game, Billy starts feeling cooped up—which
couldn’t
have to do with losing at Candyland—and they go out in the yard and toss the little rubber football around. Most of his throws bounce off of Deke, and Deke’s return throws either fall short or go wide. But Billy says “Good arm” and “
That’
s the way” whenever it’s remotely applicable. Then they go back in—Billy checks the answering machine: nothing—and watch
Star Trek IV.
Deke doesn’t follow this one either, but at least it’s in color and feels contemporary. The first week Deke was here, Billy rented a compilation of ’30s farm-animal cartoons: pecking chickens making typewriter sounds, that sort of thing. When he was little he used to love this stuff. After a couple of minutes Deke said, “Do we have to watch this?” What was bizarre was that Billy instantly saw how crude and depressing it was.
    Since they had a late breakfast instead of lunch, Billy calls Domino’s and has them deliver a pizza around five. Afterward he gets Deke into the tub and starts straightening up. The actual vacuuming