The Tricky Part: One Boy's Fall from Trespass into Grace by Martin Moran Page B

he worked there sometimes. Who knew? His doings, his life, his past, were all so vague. (I still told people he’d once been a seminarian, though by now I knew that not to be true. How or why he’d ever been hired at Malo, I didn’t know.) There were cars, two or three of them, jacked up on the silver columns of hydraulic lifts, wheels off, engines dismantled. The smell of oil and electrical wire lurked everywhere. Bob said he had to gather some tools, and I went to the toilet to pee.
    The next thing I knew he was standing behind me. I remember feeling embarrassed, for an instant, that he’d just walked into the john while I was standing there peeing. But the embarrassment vanished quickly. There was little in the world, I think, that could shock me by then. Or so it seemed. Something had changed: my reticence was gone and my want, fierce. His fingers on me were a drug, electric, and I remember how I reached behind and grabbed him, squeezed him with both hands, then cupped my palms around the mound of his penis. Like finding the root of a tree right below the faded cotton of his jeans. Like rediscovering, holding on to, my own secret. Nothing timid now. I was admitting, holding, the shape of my very own desire. And I could tell this surprised him. I wasn’t being a cold fish now; I’d show him. We moved, tumbled to a bench. There were greasy work boots and sneakers lined up below us in neat little pairs. I studied the stains and shoestrings, thinking:
Yes, it’s happening again
. There’d always been one small part of me that wondered, each time I was planning to see him, if perhaps
this
would be the time it stopped. This time it wouldn’t happen and we’d simply be friends, do normal things. We wouldn’t end up naked and out of control. But it always, always happened. I could never, didn’t know how to, stop it. It was happening again and this time I
knew
how much I wanted it. This night, head dangling over the dirty work boots of the absent mechanics, I felt any reservations I might still possess melt away. Utterly. And I wanted, I tried, to please him. I gave him what he desired. He spit and I entered him for the very first time and I squeezed him for dear life, for all the many weeks I’d grown older and hadn’t seen him. I fucked him. And after, as he rolled tools into a rag and I tied my boots, I felt more lost than ever. Riddled with shame, terrified that there was no going back now. Ever.
Seventh grade and my fate is sealed
, I thought.
I’ll never be other than
this.
    Once, I convinced my scoutmaster that, instead of going to one of the usual scout campgrounds, we should pitch our tents on the land of a friend of mine who was building a house near Nederland. “It’s near a creek,” I told him. “In a beautiful canyon. Some great climbs around there.”
    He finally agreed, and one Friday night Troop 63 packed into two station wagons and went to make camp about a quarter mile downcreek from Bob’s house. We built a fire and roasted our weenies and said our goodnights, because we were going to get up early for a real climb. Mr. Welton, our scoutmaster, was big on hikes. His favorite piece of equipment was his pedometer, which was attached to his belt. He kept close watch on it whenever we went off on our adventures. His rule was that it wasn’t a real hike unless we’d trekked at least ten miles.
    That Friday night, after everyone else had fallen asleep, I slipped out of the tent I shared with my fellow scout and good friend, Mark, and made my way through the bushes to the creek. There was an old rope that I knew of, tied to two trees on opposite banks and suspended about two feet above the water. I knelt down and wrapped my hands, then my ankles, around the rope and shimmied across. It felt unbelievably exciting to me. The whoosh of the water just below my dangling head.
One false move and I could drown
, I dramatically thought. I felt like crazy Romeo risking his life, climbing the wall to get to