River Boys (Part 1)

Cal stretched and yawned, before falling back onto the long, self-seeded grass; he had a way of looking perfect all the time. Joseph watched him enviously. They had been friends for longer than he could remember - their mothers had been friends before they were born, back before Cal was Cal; when Cal was still known as Caleb. Caleb hadn’t suited him though; Caleb was soft, simple and modest. Not like Cal; Cal had sharp edges, dangerous, pointed vertices. Cal had tried to persuade Joseph to change his name too. He seemed to think that by shortening Joseph’s name to Jo, Joseph would suddenly be filled with the same amount of confidence and vigour that he had. But Joseph knew better – it isn’t a name which makes a person more confident, a person is the same no matter what their name may be. Cal hadn’t needed the name Cal to make him confident, he always had been, Cal just suited him better. Anyway Joseph didn’t like the name Jo; it didn’t suit him at all. Unlike Cal, Joseph was quiet and uninteresting. He didn’t have Cal’s boundless energy or effortless style. Cal had always been popular, bold and courageous – everyone loved Cal. Joseph was just a friend of Cal’s. He tagged along in the background. However, for some inexplicable reason (unbeknown to all except perhaps Cal himself,) Cal had always remained a loyal friend of Joseph’s.

“You’re not drawing me are you?” said Cal, interrupting Joseph’s train of thought.
“No, I... I was trying to draw the hills in the background...” Joseph looked down at his notebook trying not to blush. He was always drawing something, but Cal was his favourite subject. If only he was able to capture how perfect everything about him was, even the way the rays of sunlight seemed to bounce off his golden hair... Cal stretched out one of his toned, athletic looking arms which were just beginning to tan in the first days of the strong summer sun. (Joseph never got a tan – his white skin burnt at the slightest hint of sunshine causing him to spend most of his time in the shade.)

“Let me see.” Cal asked patiently. He never demanded; he didn’t have to. Joseph tried to move the notebook away quickly but Cal was faster as always. He grabbed the notebook easily and held it above him to read it where he still lay on his back in the grass. He didn’t even attempt to keep it from Joseph – there was no point – Cal would always win any fight.
“It’s good... though I guess any drawing of me would be.” He grinned showing his perfectly white teeth, “You always were a bad liar.”
“It’s just a rough sketch.” Joseph mumbled and reached his hands out plaintively. Cal returned the notebook before reclining back onto the grass and closing his eyes once more. Joseph watched Cal’s hair flutter in the breeze and wondered how it was fair that Cal could look so good and he himself could be so plain. The world seemed to move around Cal. In Joseph’s opinion, all the riches and wonders of the earth seemed dull in comparison to him. He outshone them all: something Cal was aware of but said little about. Every one of Cal’s features was exquisite, as if someone had spent hours on each minute detail, making everything perfect. Cal was a finished and perfected work of art on display. Someone’s life’s work. A masterpiece of creation. Every inch of flawless creamy skin turning golden in the sun had been carefully airbrushed. Each of his fingernails had been rounded and shaped to unvarying perfection. His body had been sculpted with a skill Joseph had never seen rivalled by any artist. Each individual golden strand of hair had been attached to his scalp in a way that gave him a glorious, permanently tousled yet effortlessly stunning appearance. Even the way he moved was breathtaking: graceful yet casual. He was never rushed or stressed, he moved through life with such ease. There was nothing imperfect about Cal, no mistakes had been made. Joseph could only sigh; he had known him for too long and liked him too much to be jealous of him. (He was jealous of him.)

Joseph liked it when it was quiet and he could just sit with Cal and not have to worry about anything else, but his happiness was short lived. Cal didn’t share Joseph’s love of the quiet; he preferred the sort of excitement and danger which so easily shattered Joseph’s tranquil, fragile world. And, sure enough, after just a few short yet blissful minutes, Cal was starting to become restless.
“Shall we go down to the river now?” This wasn’t really a question. It was a decision. Cal might as well have said “We’re going to the river now.” But Cal never demanded things. He never had to; if Cal wanted to do something then he did it, anyone else’s participation was optional to him and obviously obligatory.
“If you want...” Joseph didn’t meet Cal’s eyes.
“Come on then.” Cal leapt up and began to brush dry grass from his trousers before heading off. Joseph reluctantly followed him down the valley along the narrow winding path which led to the river.

Joseph sat on the riverbank with his trousers rolled up to his knees, his feet softly caressed by the running water. It was cold and clear and insisted on being touched with bare skin – like the stone walls of old buildings with their rough, textured surfaces and ridges in between the stones, demanding that you run your bare hands across them as you walk beside them or even press your forehead to the cold surface and inhale the scent of damp and earthy decay. (Joseph had spent a lot of time sitting, leaning against old walls and houses in the heat of the day drawing, while Cal and the other village boys played team sports and the like.)
Joseph watched the water rush past him, the current wasn’t as strong near the edge but towards the centre it grew more powerful and the currents were such that anyone other than the stronger swimmers would get pulled along and swept away. On the surface however, the river remained deceptively calm. Joseph shivered. He disliked something about the water; it worried him. One of the village boys screamed and water droplets flew from the surface of the river, racing upwards before losing momentum and plummeting back down, gleaming in the sunlight like thousands of grass beads forming a huge chandelier just before they hit the surface again; a cascade of tiny mirrors, causing the previously calm water to spin and swirl, with ripples streaming off in every direction.

Joseph watched the boy resurface from the water, choking, but grinning all the same. It was the thrill they did it for. That rush of excitement and adrenaline, making their heads spin and pulse quicken. The boy shouted something and waved up at the other boys. There were quite a lot of them today - Joseph could just about make out Cal with his golden blonde hair. It was their favourite game; they would climb up the steep, rocky cliff face and then take it in turns to hurl themselves into the river below from a great height. Joseph didn’t go with them. The very idea terrified him; all he could ever think about when he watched them was how their broken bodies would look if they miscalculated the distance and jumped too close to the cliff, plummeting like stones and landing on the jagged rocks below. So he just sat on the riverbank and watched. That was all he could do. Joseph always found it painful; he, like everyone else suffered from the infectious desire to follow Cal about (in fact he suffered from it much more than most) but Cal would insist on going places Joseph simply could not follow. So, every day, regardless of season or climate, Joseph would follow Cal about from place to place and, more often than not, be forced to sit and watch him participate in something Joseph couldn’t do. And any minute now it would be Cal’s turn, and he’d have to watch as Cal’s body plunged downwards endlessly it seemed, before hitting the surface of the water. In Joseph’s nightmarish dreams he would scream out desperately to him but Cal seemed unable to hear. And when his body hit the surface, the water all stayed completely still, as if it had frozen over – though it never did. And Cal’s beautiful, strong, sculptured body just lay there, limp and lifeless. And all Joseph was able to do was stand there and scream. In the real world Cal resurfaced and called up gleefully to the others. He didn’t look at Joseph.

The boys played this game for hours until dusk started to fall and the shadows became too long and dark to climb the cliffs or even to make out the dark, ominous rocks lying just beneath the surface of the river. It was the dark that stopped them, not the cold; they never seemed to feel the cold. Joseph shivered and wished he’d thought to bring his jacket. Although it was summer now, that didn’t stop it getting cold at night. The wonderfully clear skies of daytime were less pleasant at night without a comforting blanket of cloud to keep in the warmth when the sun went down. But Joseph had to admit it was worth it for the stars. He had heard that if you went into the cities, the endless array of dazzling lights lit up the night sky, polluting it to the extent that the stars were almost impossible to see. Joseph didn’t think he would be able to cope without the stars at night; he never really wanted to leave the little village where he lived. He had no desire to see the big cities, with their flashing lights, constant noise and disruption with the air so thick you could barely breathe. And what about the water? Could he really bring himself to drink something that had been through so many people and recycled before he got to drink it? It all sounded disgusting.
But the other boys didn’t seem to think in this way; they longed to get a chance to leave the security of the village and explore the big wide world. There would be no stopping them, they said. And Cal had sat there planning adventures with the rest of them - heroic tales of excitement and exhilaration. Cal was intending to leave with the others. And what would Joseph do then?

Joseph walked slowly over to where Cal and the other boys were getting dressed, laughing and teasing each other. But not about their bodies – only girls ventured that far, grouped together and speaking in hurried whispers with malicious tongues they used their vicious vocabulary and sarcastic voices to fuel their ferocious appetite for the carnage of human pride which, in its own way, easily equalled if not surpassed that of the boys. The village boys were never openly mean to Joseph, never spiteful. They just didn’t care about him either way. He was a friend of Cal’s which granted him some respect (Cal earned more than enough of that to cover Joseph as well) but this was not enough to fain an interest in him. Their indifference was total and absolute.

The moment each of the boys had finished dressing, they charged off into the trees, racing along the narrow and otherwise peaceful paths. Joseph followed along behind them for a while but for some reason or another he lacked the ability to run like they could. He wasn’t sure what it was exactly, some sort athletic skill, agility, the ability to leap over fallen tree trunks and avoid the most treacherous of potholes, the endurance perhaps or even just basic physical fitness. Joseph came to a halt in front of the tangled remains of an old tree which had fallen across the path, panting. He had fallen behind the others. Cal would be with them, at the front where he always was, surrounded by his other friends, all wanting him to know how much they liked him. He wouldn’t take the time to notice Joseph’s absence. Joseph’s eyes stung and his nose began to run. He was shivering again and it was getting too dark for him to see properly. It wasn’t that Joseph was afraid of the dark, not in the way that small children are afraid of it, but it unnerved him. The way it distorted his vision, blurring things in the distance, making everything seem unfamiliar and untrustworthy. Joseph just stood in the middle of the track looking up and watching the branches of the trees silhouetted against the last faded rays of the dying sun.

The rain poured down in sheets, running off the streets and into the gutters (although only the main streets really had them in such a sleepy little village). It rolled off the roofs and gushed out of the drainpipes. And still the heavy grey clouds continued to pelt down raindrops, furiously hurling them to the ground. Sheet lightning lit up the dark sky intermittently and forked lightning struck down spitefully at the highest trees which dared to come so close to the ever self-righteous sky. Terrified and excited children ran screaming around their houses, daring each other to peek through the curtains and stare in awe at the immense and destructive power. Too distracted to concentrate on counting the seconds between the violent flashes of light and ominous roars of thunder to try and work out how far away the eye of the storm actually was, instead they shrieked when they saw the lightning flash and waited until the much anticipated sound of thunder continued, fuelling their frenzied excitement. Hearing the animated screams of his sisters from downstairs, Joseph looked up and smiled; it was nice to remember the simple delights of childhood. He, however, had never enjoyed such animation. Flashing lights and loud noises had scared him and he would run terrified to his mother’s open arms where she would stroke away his tears and try to reassure him of his safety. Joseph sat on his bedroom windowsill and watched the rain pour on. It was a long time before the sky began to clear.

“Hey, come on!” Cal stood impatiently at the end of the road waiting for him. The cobbled stones glistened in the sun, still wet from the passing storm. Joseph increased his walking speed a little to meet him (he would normally have run just to appease him but he wasn’t in an obliging mood – even for Cal). Cal noticed and watched him quizzically.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.” Cal, despite his copious attributes, wasn’t the most gifted when it came to deciphering other people’s emotions. But he could still tell that Joseph was lying. Once again, Joseph wouldn’t meet his eyes.
“You’re a bad liar, I’ve told you before.” Cal grinned playfully but Joseph wasn’t in the mood to be teased either. Cal had stopped in front of him, preventing him from going any further and forcing him to look at him. Joseph glared resentfully into Cal’s deep oceanic blue eyes. The sudden desire to hit Cal was overwhelming: to strike him so hard he would fall backwards onto the stone street and smash his skull open on it with a look of shock and pain on his beautiful face. Joseph wasn’t accustomed to feelings of such hatred, it swept through his body like a bush fire on the dry open African plains. He was shocked; Joseph would never hurt Cal physically - that was pointless. Joseph’s battles were always fought with words; his weapons were pointed steel syllables, short sharp sentences and poisonous condescension.

“I’m just surprised that you managed to remember that I exist for a change.” Cal’s smile faded. The tone of Joseph’s voice was enough to tell him he was angry; Joseph appeared calm but his voice was full of bitterness. Cal wasn’t used to being spoken to in such a way. He never got into fights or arguments; everyone liked him far too much to wish to hurt him in any way. And the idea of Joseph being the one to turn on him was something which had not even occurred to him.
“Did... did I do something wrong?” Cal just stood there with his large blue eyes looking hurt and confused. Like a puppy left out in the rain. Joseph’s rationality told him that being cruel to Cal wouldn’t do his conscience any good or do anything to improve things but he had let himself get too upset to care. A small belligerent part of him wanted Cal to suffer; that part of him was determined to get its way.
“No, no you were perfect.” Joseph mocked, “Perfect as always. Just about as bloody perfect as anyone ever could be. And I’m so sorry that people don’t tell you enough how bloody wonderful you are every moment of the fucking day but quite frankly I don’t give a damn about it. Just because everyone else thinks you’re so fucking marvellous doesn’t mean I have to, you know!” Joseph’s speech got faster and faster and more and more high pitched as he went on until the last sentence came out as one long  barely distinguishable scream. It was probably the angriest he’d ever been and certainly the most he’d ever sworn out loud. And, having finished his outburst, completely overcome by shock and emotion, Joseph turned and ran all the way back along the street to his house, slamming both the front door and his bedroom door behind him before collapsing into tears on his bed.

Joseph’s mother was a sensible and immensely practical woman who handled even the most chaotic and distressing situations with total ease. Joseph was her eldest child and only son and was not in the least bit spoilt. She had tried, perhaps in vain, to encourage a good sense of work ethic in her son and to bring him up with a realistic and comprehensive understanding of the world as well as the ability to actually live in it. However she was well aware that these things did not appear to come naturally to her son and he was often daunted by the world in which he lived. She was often disappointed and exasperated by her son’s lack of enthusiasm for almost everything unknown, yet she loved him more deeply than anything else in the world. Although, of course, she loved his sisters with equal intensity, he was the child whom she felt needed the most protection.

She usually blamed her own actions for Joseph’s inability to take hold of life but she was well aware that his father’s death had had a large impact on him. But death, as she had tried to explain to him at a young age, was beyond even the most fierce objections and piteous pleas. Death does not have ears; he does not hear the anguished cries of distraught mortals any more than we are able to see him. Joseph’s mother would always love him, care for him, protect him, but death was undefeatable. In the end, everyone loses. Joseph at the time hadn’t wanted to hear it. His mother, his wonderful, powerful, courageous mother, was telling him that they would all be defeated: defeated by something he couldn’t even begin to understand. No ifs, no buts, no maybes. Joseph had shaken his head and run off crying. He hadn’t shouted or screamed; he was never that sort of child. Joseph took after his father in many ways; they were both quiet, slight and artistic. His father had never raised his voice in all the time she had known him. (Something she herself would never have managed.) But he had been far too fragile; whatever you did, you felt that you might hurt him.

Eventually her husband’s delicacy made him ill and he became thinner and paler and weaker and weaker until the only thing he seemed able to manage was his soft, shallow breathing. By then he had been hospitalised. (Even the word sounded ominous.) She herself had never been before then, having given birth to her children at home and not being the sort of person to fall ill. Just stepping into the place was enough to make her feel sick; there were so many brightly lit corridors and endless pale figures in white clothes, lying between white sheets in wards with white walls and a white tiled floors. Everywhere stank of disinfectant and linoleum. The stench of chlorine filled her senses and later her nightmares. The staff all dressed in pale blue uniforms with detached smiles and perfect hygiene. The intrusive ticking of various monitors and machines. The squeaking wheels of trolleys in long blank corridors. Scalpels and blood. Death. It was everywhere. Joseph’s father hadn’t lasted long there (although she didn’t doubt the efforts of the people there to keep him otherwise); he died only a few days after being brought in. He hadn’t wanted to go in the first place. He had asked her not to take him but he didn’t protest more than that - not physically or with words. But his eyes were different. They pleaded with her.

It was a shame he was not here to be Joseph’s father; he would have known how to deal with Joseph and his secret, subtle talents. No, shame was not the right word. The word she needed was powerful, bitter, vicious and full of anger. But the word she needed wasn’t a word she felt she could use in terms of death; you couldn’t lash out at death, it was final; it always had the last word.

Joseph’s mother pulled herself together and finished putting out the washing. She worked methodically, with the air of someone who was busy, and pleased about it. In her mind however she considered how best to handle her only son who had just stormed into the house in tears. She had, in fact, overheard the latter part of his conversation with Cal, whom she thought of as an excellent, well adjusted boy who hopefully left a good impression on her son. She wasn’t exactly sure what to make of their conversation other than that her son was rather upset and was, whether justified or not, taking his anger and frustration out on Cal. She sighed, collected up the wicker washing basket and little wooden pegs and turned to go inside; she would have to try and reason with and/or console her son.

“Joseph?” Joseph’s mother’s knuckles rapped smartly against the hard wood of Joseph’s bedroom door. “Joseph honey, I know you’re there.” Joseph didn’t answer and his mother quietly opened the door. She moved across the room with surprising swiftness and sat down beside him on the bed. Silence. She sighed and ran her fingers through his fine dark hair then looked up sadly and watched the cloudy grey sky through his bedroom window, with water droplets still trickling down the pane. Everything was quiet and still, the entire world frozen in motion. It was a while before she spoke again. “Did you have an argument with Cal?”
Joseph still didn’t say anything. She looked down at him, so delicate and fragile, like a china doll... Joseph was never meant to be a boy; he was never meant to be real. Nothing seemed to break the deep penetrating silence. Outside the rain began to fall once more.