Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover (20 page)

“Hey, my name is on this!” he said in utter surprise.

“Do you recognize it?” I asked him.

“No.”

“Do you recognize the handwriting?”

“No.”

It was too dark in the basement to see what it contained, so we carried it out and put it into the car with the other things.

We checked the shed, the barn, and everything else on the property. There just wasn’t much there. Anything of any value in his father’s eye had been sold for whatever money it would generate to feed his addiction.

We checked the room his parents had slept in and looked around there to see if there was anything personal that we should rescue for his mother. Again, there just wasn’t much there. There was a small box in the closet that had her name on it. We looked and saw that it contained some letters and photos. We didn’t take the time to sort through but simply grabbed it. We searched the drawers of the dresser. Bill seemed very uncomfortable doing this so I took care of the task.

When I pulled out one drawer, I apparently pulled it too far and it fell to the floor. When I picked it up to put it back, I noticed that there was something on the underside of the drawer.

“Hey, what’s this?” I said aloud, mostly to myself. Bill was elsewhere in the house. He just wasn’t comfortable in this room.

I saw that it was some sort of paper that was taped to the bottom of the drawer. Pulling the tape away from the wood, I found an envelope. I was absolutely blown away to find money inside. Not just money, but a
lot
of money. The envelope contained a
lot
of hundred dollar bills. I didn’t count them, but I didn’t need to—there were a lot of them.

I pulled out the other drawers again and checked them as well. They each also had something taped to the bottom of the drawer. I quickly extracted those envelopes as well. The first one was the only one that contained money. Another one contained a single key. The third one contained paper with writing. I shoved all three envelopes into my jacket pocket to take home for Bill.

Since Bill’s mother had apparently used the underside of dresser drawers as a hiding place in the bedroom, I wondered if perhaps she had done the same thing in the kitchen. I went quickly back to the kitchen and started pulling out drawers to check there as well. Sure enough, I found more envelopes taped to the underside of drawers in there. I didn’t take time to look in them; I simply pulled them off and shoved them in my pockets to give to Bill later.

Our final task was one I suggested. I had brought my digital camera with me and suggested that we photograph the entire place, inside and out. I didn’t know if it would ever matter to Bill, but it was a part of his history and someday it might be important to him. I would hate to see that day come and to find that the farm was gone. So I took pictures. Lots of pictures.

Bill was reluctant to be in any of the pictures, but I caught him in a couple anyway. He told me he wasn’t good-looking enough to have his picture taken, which led to our usual discussion about how freaking hot he was and that I thought he was so handsome that I got hard just looking at him. I could see that I had a lot of work to do on his ego to get him to see the truth.

Before we left the farm, I took him to the side of the barn, out of the view of the road, not that there were many people out and about, and wrapped my arms around him and kissed him until his knees threatened to buckle. I didn’t find this to be an especially onerous task because he was smoking hot, and not just his body. His mind, his soul, his very essence—all of them were hot and so beautiful. I wasn’t sure if I believed in God or not, but when I looked at the beautiful man who was in my arms at the moment I seriously had to reconsider: perhaps there was a God, because I couldn’t imagine any other way a man like Bill would have come into my life so suddenly, so completely, so wonderfully.

W
HEN
we got back to our house we got things unloaded from the car and moved into the basement. There was a lot of stuff down there, but still space to hold the steamer trunk, suitcase, and box, along with the few other things we had brought home from Bill’s old place. I found it sad that the only parts of his life to that point that were worth salvaging were contained in so small a pile of items.

Upstairs we had something to eat since we both were hungry, and then we retired to my room. With the door closed I pulled out the envelopes I had found and explained to him where they had been hidden. He was as astonished by the envelope of cash as I had been.

“What’s this?” he asked, not believing his eyes. He’d probably never seen or held that much cash together in one place in his life. “How much?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I didn’t count. I found that first and then kept searching to see if there were other things on other drawers. One contains a key of some sort.” I held the key up for him to examine. “Recognize it?” I asked.

“No, I don’t.”

“The third envelope has a letter of some sort. I haven’t read it so I don’t know if it explains the money and the key or not. The other envelopes,” I said as I handed them over to him, “were all in the kitchen, also taped to the bottoms of drawers.”

He took the envelopes and started checking them out. The envelopes from the kitchen each held some more cash, again hundred-dollar bills. “Where in the world did these come from?” he wondered aloud. Explaining to me, he said, “We never had any money. There was just nothing. I always thought it was because the farm wasn’t making any money. I have no idea where this came from.”

“Read the letter,” I suggested, so he did. Sitting in a chair in my room, Bill started reading. The letter was long and personal, so I left him to do that while I took care of something that had been troubling me for some time. Since Bill was going to live here now I needed to make room in my room—no,
our
room—for him. I cleared out space for him in the dresser drawers. I cleared out space for him in the closet. I cleared out bookshelf space for him as well as desk space.

When I finished that task he had finished and apparently returned the letter to its envelope. “Is there some place I can put these?” he asked. Which was a perfect segue for me to tell him what I had been doing.

“Perfect timing!” I said. “I’ve been moving things to make room for you.” I showed him his half of the dresser, his half of the closet, his space on the bookshelves, and his space on the desk. I asked him if there was anything more he needed, but he said no, that he had more than he could possibly need.

“I don’t own much,” he said. “My clothes are pretty ratty, and there aren’t that many of them. I don’t have a computer. I don’t have books.”

I decided that I needed to cut him off before he talked himself into a depression. “So you have lots of options for storing the envelopes. In terms of clothes, I don’t know if these would fit you or not, but I got some new pants before school this summer and the legs haven’t been shortened to fit me yet. You’re a little bit taller than me, so the leg length might be just right for you. We both have about the same waist, I think.”

Bill held the pants up and they looked just about right for him.

“Try them on,” I instructed, so he did.

“You just want to see me naked,” he said with a smirk.

“Of course,” I said simply, knowing that he was going commando that day. But I really did want to see if the pants would fit him. We were both pleased that they fit him beautifully. I pulled out another pair, which he tried on. I made a big production of checking out the fit, running my hands across his beautiful butt, checking the tightness of the fit in the crotch.

“They look good on you,” I said.

“What are you going to wear,” he asked, “if I take your pants?”

“Not to worry, I’ve got more.” I grabbed a couple of shirts from the closet, but I didn’t have any new shirts I could give him. “We’ll have to go to the mall and get some shirts for you.”

“How?” he asked. “I don’t have any money.”

“What was the money in the envelopes?” I asked, curious about what he had learned.

“My mom had been sticking money away for years, little bit here and there, for my college education. She knew my dad would never be able to do anything for me.” He was quiet for a moment. “I can’t take it. She needs it to start her new life. But I don’t know where she is or how to get it to her.”

At dinner that night I told my mom that Bill needed some clothes. He complained and again said that he had no money. My mom and dad reassured him that that was not an issue, and that he had to have clothes to wear to school.

“I owe you all so much as it is!” he objected, looking almost panicked.

“No you don’t,” my mom said. “Someday you’ll be older and have money and you’ll do the same thing for a friend in need. It’s the circle of life,” she said simply, and it was. The next night she and Bill drove to the mall where she bought several shirts for him as well as underwear and socks. He objected once again, but she simply told him to hush.

T
HAT
week Bill heard that the local farm supply store needed some assistance on weekends. He seemed to be increasingly focused on money, or more accurately on his lack of money. So one night after school we stopped by the farm supply store on the way home. I had been in there with my dad before. They sold a lot more than farm supplies, although I can’t remember what it was he was after the time he brought me there.

The manager seemed delighted to see us, although I was just along for moral support. He told us what he needed help with and said that he needed a couple of young guys like us. I started to shake my head to correct his false impression. But I stopped when I saw the pitiful look on Bill’s face. Sighing, I nodded slightly, accepting what was being proposed. Bill accepted on our behalf, and we agreed to work one day a week—Saturdays.

I had always valued my weekends. They were the only time I had free to sleep in, read, surf the Internet, do stuff that I wanted to do. I wasn’t happy about giving up one of my two free days a week. But I decided to focus on the good point, that I’d get to spend the time with Bill.

So Saturday at 7:00 a.m.—yes,
a.m.
—we were at the farm supply store ready to get to work. And work we did. The place was busy as soon as it opened at 7:00 a.m. Maybe my mom was a farmer at heart, and that explained why she was such an early riser. The manager put us to work unloading a couple of delivery trucks that arrived. We lifted, toted, and hauled more boxes and bags than I could believe. The rolls of barbed wire were the toughest.

Between deliveries he had us unpacking boxes in the storage area adjacent to the store and stocking shelves as needed. We also helped to load purchases into customers’ cars and trucks. Everything from bags of seed to bales of hay to horse saddles, axes, fencing, wood, salt buttons, and stuff I couldn’t even identify. The work that day made our day of unloading the chocolate truck look like kid’s play. When we finished at five o’clock that evening we crawled home, exhausted and stinking to the high heavens from sweat and the various products we had been hauling.

In the car I laid my head back, and Bill looked over at me and simply said, “I love you.”

“Good,” I said, not raising my head or opening my eyes.

“What? No ditto? No ‘I love you’ back?”

“Mark is tired. At the tone leave a message. Messages of love and devotion will be returned following a nap and dinner. Beep.”

“Mark, this is your boyfriend. He loves you. You better say it back to me later tonight. Bye.”

I sat up, suddenly realizing that he had called me his boyfriend.
I
thought of us in those terms, we behaved as boyfriends, and we told each other that we loved the other, but I don’t think I’d heard him say the word. I liked the way it sounded. Boyfriend. I had a boyfriend. I had a hot hunk of a boyfriend.

“I love you,” I said. Bill smiled. I just sat there and stared at him, a serious expression on my face. “I love you. Today. Tonight. Tomorrow. Always.” If we hadn’t been in public I would have taken his hand and kissed it. We were in his car on the way home, which I guess is not technically “public,” but still, I didn’t want to invite any trouble if I could help it.