Chapter 1B: I used to be a good boy

There were no actual roads leading to Hangman Cove. Just the trails that people made walking to and from it. Most people found parking in the actual lot where everyone visiting the lake parked. Five dollars per vehicle would get you an all-day pass. We never did that. Like a few others, we knew about the old bike trail that always gave us enough room to park, since everyone who had a bike knew about the new and improved bike trail that pedestrians weren't allowed to walk on. That left us a short walk uphill, over the bridge that still covered an old irrigation ditch, and a careful walk through natural terrain famous for its poison oak before our feet hit white sand and the smell of food hit our nostrils. From there, we could see the lake, and the many people frequenting the area under the oak tree where a scarecrow was hanging by a rope from one of the branches. That's how Hangman Cove got its name. Back when my mom was first starting high school and Heywell was a farmer's town, it was rumored that a Freshman had stolen it from Francis Covlier, a trouble-making drunk farmer who liked to shoot at anything that came onto his property. It was an ugly scarecrow that the local youth had liked to call haunted. Except for the guy who stole it, I guess. People said that the kid's dog had wandered onto Covlier's property and never came back, but shots were heard. The scarecrow was stolen for retribution purposes. This rumor had never been proved true, but as easy as it would have been, the scarecrow was never taken down and not even the most juvenile of my peers would be disrespectful enough to attempt it. Although, it had been a longstanding tradition for guys who got laid at Hangman cove to hang their girlfriend's bras up there next to the scarecrow. It was also one of Caleb's favorite hobbies to point at some of those bras and say "Hey, I know that one!"

It was Friday, and summer, and venders were out in full force; but despite the traffic that the area got, Hangman Cove was still a great spot, and it was always clean. At least people, locals and visitors alike, knew what trash cans were for. I helped Haily pick a spot in the sun for our towels while Caleb and Joe went to get a second load from the jeep. Our first trip had consisted of my umbrella and the cooler. It was my birthday, so Haily said I didn't have to help with the rest of the stuff. After applying even more waterproof sunscreen, I was in the water with her and at least fifty other people. Some I knew, some I didn't. I took my time saying hi to those I did, and then more time out of the water following Caleb around to participate in another one of his favorite hobbies--flirting with every girl who didn't look familiar to him and listening to him as he tried to remember which ones he'd already slept with. Caleb liked girls. Always had. And lucky for Caleb, they liked him, too. I could pretty much get along with everyone. Caleb wasn't like that, though. Guys, were a different story. I think he had some sort of alpha-male complex. I was the only guy he ever actually liked. Until Joe had started hanging out with us, I'd wondered if the anomaly had occurred because I was gay, and perhaps on a subconscious level, Caleb knew I wasn't to be considered competition, even though I had just about as many girls coming onto me as Caleb had girls he came on to. I always credited most of the attention I got to Caleb, though. Girls just liked being around him, and sometimes that meant settling for being around his best friend. Not that it made much of a difference to me. I'd play my part, and while I was at it I tended to enjoy the scenery around me, especially at the lake, where guys with no shirts and drenched shorts hanging so low on their hips that I could see the clefts of their ass, passed by regularly.

Caleb and guys, were a different story. Two-hours and a twelve-pack-split-between-me-Haily-and-Caleb later, with Caleb having consumed most of it, he'd already scared the crap out of one poor guy he caught checking out Haily's ass, and he'd shoved another backwards into the water because a girl that Caleb had just met claimed that he'd been bothering her. This sort of thing happened a lot with Caleb. That second time, Haily had been worried that he might take it further as the other guy plucked himself out of the water, so I'd been recruited to get Caleb to go for a walk. This wasn't very difficult. All I had to do was point to a pretty brunette by the snow-cone vender and tell Caleb that she'd been checking him out. And, it was smarter than using physical force. Caleb's dad was a personal trainer, and Caleb had been mostly muscle for as long as I could remember. I preferred to keep in shape with running and playing tennis with Chad a few times a week, and while I wasn't scrawny or incapable of defending myself, I wasn't stupid enough to accidentally get in front of one of Caleb's fists during his testosterone-induced moments.

As we walked over, Caleb gave some of his plans for later today away when he mentioned that he might invite this girl to the party tonight if she looked as good up close as she did from a distance. When I mentioned that I thought we were already at the party, he'd explained simply, "This is the lake."

"Oh. I knew that," I replied, and he elbowed me with a goofy smile; but it faded and he made a disgruntled face when his attention was redirected somewhere else.

"Assface," Caleb remarked, and knowing Caleb, that could have only meant one thing. Jame Graham. In first grade, his name had been James. By fifth, he'd changed it to just Jame because there had been thirteen other Jameses in our year. But, whatever trouble he had with Caleb had been an ongoing problem ever since Assface, er... Jame, had been in Caleb's third-grade class. I wasn't exactly sure what had caused it, I just knew that there was something about Jame that Caleb just didn't like. Caleb had always said it was because Jame was a snob, which was kinda true, but I never did think it warranted Caleb's adamant dislike of the guy. By fifth grade, Caleb had pretty much everyone calling Jame Assface. I think the name was chosen because Jame, while being a tall, thin individual, had very round cheeks, which became even rounder when he smiled, and he was always smiling, even at Caleb. But I think that was only because Jame knew it annoyed him. Personally, I had no problem with the guy--other than the fact that he had a problem with my best friend.

"I don't see him," I replied after taking a quick look around. It was a long trail around the cove, and for all I knew, Caleb could have spotted Jame, or someone who looked like him, on the other side of it. Apparently not, though. Caleb stepped behind me, placed his hands on my shoulders and turned me to the left, where I immediately spotted Jame Graham, in front of a painting. Yes, painting, it looked like. Food venders weren't the only ones who'd taken to bringing their shops to Hangman. I'd never seen paintings there, though. Mostly homemade jewelry and every once in a while someone selling sunscreen for fifteen dollars a bottle.

I watched Jame scratch at his shaggy brownish locks of hair as he stood there shirtless, like most other people including Caleb and me. Only, because of his tan lines, it almost looked like Jame was wearing a shirt. He suddenly shrugged indifferently and turned, facing the guy who was very carefully propping the five-by-seven paintings up on a foldout table, and as my attention turned to the vendor, I almost lost my footing when I paused briefly to stare. Milo. He didn't go to my school. That's all I knew about him, really. I'd heard Jame call his name on the last day of school before summer. He'd been driving a green Honda with a dent in the driver's side door. I remembered him because he'd looked directly at me and held my gaze for ten seconds straight with very emerald eyes beneath thick, dark lashes. When you look at most people who you don't know, they tend to look away, or at least blink. He hadn't. Not until Jame got in his car and they drove away. That's the first, last and only time I'd ever seen him, but he'd stricken me enough that it caused me to go home and dedicate a poster-sized comic book over to him. I'd drawn him in a green costume; it matched his eyes without canceling them out. I gave him a cape, too. And, a nice bulge that I didn't bother giving most of my drawings.

I kind of got his hair wrong, though. I could see that now. I'd made it straight and black, slicked back on his head. It wasn't like that at all. It was more like a soft brunette and wavy, framing his face in a way that made his high cheekbones seemed less pronounced and his overall appearance seem more masculine. In the drawing, I'd made him shorter. Kind of stocky. But he was just as tall as I was with shoulders that matched a broad chest, his tanned body tapering down to a narrow waist, to which his black shorts were clinging low. They seemed kinda tight on his butt as he bent over to lift another painting out of a crate. I hadn't gotten the body in my drawing right at all. But hey, I hadn't done that bad, considering that before now, I'd only looked at the guy for ten seconds, and it had only been his face, I realized.

I turned my attention back to Caleb when he lightly backhanded my shoulder.

"Do you think we should go say hi?" he asked mischievously.

"To Assface?" Okay, so that's what I called Jame, too. It was expected, I think, as Caleb Spangler's best friend.

"Yeah, what's he doing here, anyway?" Caleb asked suspiciously.

I rolled my eyes and grabbed Caleb's thick, bicep on his right arm to pull him along. "He's not bothering you," I insisted. Normally, when Caleb and Jame met, there was less-than-friendly banter exchanged between them. But Caleb was still worked up from the last guy, and working on a pretty good buzz at this point. I didn't want to take any chances. "Hey, Sam's here," I said, pointing towards a short blond coming down the same trail we'd come down after parking.

"Oh, nice," Caleb said with a grin. "He said he'd be here--where'd that girl go?" He suddenly turned and looked to where the brunette I'd originally pointed out was walking further down the cove with her friends and suddenly looked torn before he faced me again. "I'm gonna talk to Sam. Could you..."

"Yeah, I've got it," I responded, knowing what was expected of me.

As Caleb went to talk to Sam, the guy who he only talked to when he needed one thing in particular, I caught up the brunette and easily began to flirt with one of her friends. I was good at flirting. It got me invited into their group long enough to go for a quick swim and to introduce Caleb to the brunette. I entertained myself by talking to the other girls for the next hour, figuring out who went to our school, who didn't, and in some cases, girls who were way too young for us to be talking to before Caleb got a phone number and we moved on.

Caleb kept handing me beer as we made our way around the cove. I'm not sure where it all came from, because he wasn't carrying it, but I was having one of those days where it just didn't matter. It was my birthday, and I was having a good time, so I didn't decline anything until I had that nice I-almost-can't-walk-straight feeling. I would have gone for the you-actually-expect-me-to-stand-up? feeling, but it was only two in the afternoon and I had the rest of the day to get there. Plus, the sun was definitely out today, and heat didn't exactly mix well with alcohol.

At least I could hold my liquor, though. That didn't mean that I was out getting wasted with my friends every day, either. Usually just at parties, or days like today when we found something to celebrate. And, I was celebrating as Caleb and I drifted from one group of people to the next. We didn't know all of them but at some point I began to tell everyone I could that it was my birthday, and I started passing out free hugs.

It was around three o'clock when Caleb told me that we were going to get going soon, and then I promptly lost him in the crowd when I saw some guys that I knew from school but hadn't seen since it let out. All four of them were on the swim team, and I went to talk to them mostly because they were all hot and half-naked. Almost drunk equaled shallow thinking for me, and being the only gay guy I knew, inviting the swim team to my own party, even though I didn't know where it was, was pretty much the closest kind of thing I ever did when it came to flirting with other guys. That, and when I'd pinched Caleb's nipple earlier in the day to ask him if it was still sore from his unplanned dream pregnancy.

I said goodbye to the swimmers around the time they headed for the water, and I went to find my friends. I didn't have to look very far when one of them abruptly wound their arms around my neck from behind and jumped on my back. Definitely Haily. She was the only one with boobs and I could feel them squashed against my back. Plus, she was really light, and I didn't lose my balance at all as I grabbed her legs, right behind her knees so I could better carry her as she kissed my cheek.

"We've been looking for ya, birthday boy," she announced. "Are you ready to go?"

"Where are we going?" I asked, noting that Haily was already dressed, having pulled her boy jeans and t-shirt back on over her black one-piece swimsuit.

"Caleb wouldn't say, but we need to hurry because him and Joe are about ready to head back to the car and they're threatening to leave you here."

I paused long enough to pout.

"The birthday boy?"

"Sorry," Haily responded indifferently, and then giggled against my ear as I spun us around so fast that her long braid flew over my shoulder and hit me in the face. She shrieked when I pulled the thick strand into my mouth and chewed on it before realizing it was covered in sand and I spit it out.

"Oh, Nelson! No!" she scolded around giggles.

"I'm hungry," I complained.

"Then hurry up!" She used her sandal-clad feet to give my thighs a kick and I laughed before I took off running across the sand with her holding on tightly and shouting for me to be careful while I tried to remember where we'd left the cooler. If I found the cooler, I'd find Caleb and Joe.

I apologized to a girl as I passed her too closely and she spilled her drink, earning me a dirty look from her girlfriend; and just as Haily began to order me to put her down, we started to pass the little foldout table with all the paintings, and rather than the vendor catching my eye this time, one of the five-by-seven framed pieces of art did. This caused me to stop paying attention to where I was putting my feet and the next thing I knew I was landing in the sand, going down face first. I let go of Haily to catch myself, and I still managed to break her fall as she came down hard on my back.

"Oh my god, are you okay, Nels?" Haily asked, already moving onto her knees in the sand next to me. I was still staring at the painting, but became distracted when I heard familiar male laughter above me and glared up at Assface, whose cheeks were nice and round as he laughed at me.

"What the hell do you think you're doing, Nelson?" he remarked, and then turned his attention to Haily. "If your dog's gonna run wild you might wanna consider a leash," he told her.

"Fuck yourself," Haily responded. She was always quick and to the point when dealing with irritating people.

Assface threw some very pointed eyes at her.

"Well, if you're not busy, Haily..."

"Watch yourself," I warned Jame as I pushed myself up, and then pushed him aside because he was blocking my view of the painting.

"Hey!" Jame objected, and then objected again when Haily pushed him aside, too.

I was almost to the small table when I was met with emerald eyes and a body as tall as mine blocking my path. I blinked and took a moment to look Assface's friend, Mr. Nice-ass, over as he stood in front of me, arms crossed and his jaw set in a way that I'm sure was meant to be very intimidating. I just wanted to ruffle his wavy, dark hair and maybe brush it out of his eyes, which were narrowed at me. Didn't, though. Not that far gone.

"Can I help you?" he asked coldly, and I watched his eyes widen slightly as I carelessly stepped around him and lifted the painting with the black frame that had held my interest.

"Did you do this?" I asked as I looked over a very detailed portrait of the scarecrow hanging from the oak tree. He'd even painted in that the thing was missing one boot, and the tiny little tear in its left sleeve.

"Yes," he responded simply as he reached for the painting, and then looked seriously annoyed when I held it away from him as I looked at the others. They were all of Hangman Cove, or things in Hangman Cove, and all just as detailed, everything from the colors to proportion, each one looking almost like a photograph taken at different times during the day. The only thing identical on each one were the initials of MT on the bottom right-hand corner. The one I was holding was dark, but it didn't seem like sunset, more like dawn. He'd placed just enough warmth in the sky behind the hanging scarecrow to make it look like the sun was coming, not going.