Caring Is Creepy by David Zimmerman

Author:David Zimmerman [Zimmerman, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
ISBN: 978-1-56947-978-0
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2012-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

The First Real Lie

“Do you think I can slip out and go to the bathroom? I’m about to pop.” Logan leaned up against the wall with a pillow behind his head and Harriet the Spy folded on his chest. It was late afternoon and my mom had been missing now for several hours on some work errand. Logan had jammed the flashlight into the rafters above him, so it shone down on his head like a spotlight. All he had on were boxer shorts, but sweat dripped from his chin and darkened his side burns. The flap in the front of his boxers was open and I could almost but not quite see in. A dark, fluffy shadow of hair. I tried not to stare, but my eyes kept landing there like flies on something stinky.

“There’s no way,” I said. “My mom’s in the kitchen. She’ll see you for sure.”

“When’s she leaving? I mean, I’ve seriously got to pee. I thought you said she’d be at work by now.”

“She usually is, but her work called up and said she had the day off. Tomorrow too.”

“Shit,” Logan said, “I’m beginning to think this wasn’t such a great idea. There’s no way I could slip out without her seeing me?”

“No way, Jose,” I said.

“Could I maybe climb out your bedroom window? This is near about emergency mode. In a little while, nothing’s done about it, I’ll explode and you’ll have quite a mess on your hands.”

“Wounded in the line of duty.”

“I’m serious.” He pulled a pout.

“You can’t. The window’s nailed shut.” These were the first lies I told Logan Loy, and even now I’m not entirely sure why I told them. Of course I wanted him to stay for a little while longer, but there was more to it than that. The scary part was I didn’t even think about it. Not till afterward. I just lied and he believed me. “If she sees you, she’ll call the police. The station’s right down the street. You wouldn’t even make it to your car.”

“Shit,” he said. His sweat smelled strangely spicy in that small, hot room, but I didn’t mind. I kind of liked it. Since he was in my room and I was taking care of him, I thought of it as kind of like my sweat. And your own sweat never smells as bad as other people’s.

“Look,” I said, “I’ll go get you a can and you can use that. It’s all we can do for now.”

You’d think it’d make me feel like a servant or something, fetching him stuff and taking away his piss in Coke cans, but I felt the opposite. He really needed me. And this felt as good as, maybe even better than, it did when he touched me.

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