The Dark Path Read Online Free PDF Page A

friend, Theresa Whelan, another Raven Road girl. They all see the rutting couple and stop.
    â€œMinghia!” says Mike Langini.
    â€œYep,” says Tommy. He stops thrusting and just stands there with his naked middle trapping Lesley’s naked middle against the tree.
    Theresa laughs her nervous laugh and waves. “Hey, Lesley.”
    â€œHey, Theresa.” Lesley waves back weakly. No one seems to know what to say. None of us except Tommy is even fifteen yet. Lesley looks like a specimen in science class, a butterfly spread and pinned to a board. I need her to feel embarrassed and terrified by what’s happening to her, the way I feel, but she turns her face away so I’ll never know.
    â€œI’m inside her,” clarifies Tommy.
    I can’t take it. I run home, alone. My mother and sisters are at a dance show, like they often are, and my father is in Detroit on GM business. When I get into the house I sit on the living room floor, anxious. I need release from what I just saw.
    I go down to the basement, to the carpeted area outside my bedroom where we have a stereo and where my sisters work up their dance routines. I put on the
Grease
soundtrack and cue up “Summer Nights.” Then I perform the routine that I—on previous occasions—have worked up to accompany this song. Dancing is what my sisters do to figure out their feelings and, when I’m alone, I sometimes do it, too.
    I play the song through three times, performing the part that I’ve choreographed for Sandy, complete with falsetto high notes and skipping and flouncing. Then I play the song through three more times, performing Danny Zuko’s part. Performing this girls-versus-guys duet is as close as I can come to processing thoughts about sex.
    I am in mid-pirouette when the music cuts out.
    â€œDavid?”
    I yelp and turn around.
    My father has his hand on the stereo volume knob. He’s wearing a black suit and looking at me, astonished.
    I pray,
Thank you, Lord, that I did Sandy’s part first.
    â€œDad . . . I thought you were in Detroit.”
    â€œI just got back.”
    I hug him and hold on for a while to let my blushing die down.
    â€œDavid, what were you doing? Was that one of the girls’ routines?”
    I step back from him. “Sort of. I just . . . like that song.”
    He studies me. I know he worries that I act too much like a girl, but he won’t freak out about my dancing. In our family we all love to cut the rug. At weddings my father jitterbugs with my mother, but he’ll dance solo, too. During fast songs he has a move where he crouches down close to the floor and then shoots up, splaying out his arms and kicking, with a loopy grin on his face. When he does this, his stern authority melts and he looks joyful.
    â€œDavid,” he says now, “you look keyed up. What’s the matter?”
    In my mind I see the girl I adore getting fucked in the dark place I adore. There isn’t supposed to be fucking on the path. Only contemplation. Only God.
    â€œNothing,” I lie.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I GO TO an all-male high school, McQuaid Jesuit, and for four years I run cross-country. I do other things, too—tons of schoolwork, small chorus parts in a few plays—but cross-country is my obsession. The most addictive part of it is the Five Hundred Mile Challenge.
    This challenge takes place in the summers. Our coach asks each of us to run five hundred miles over ten weeks to get ready for the fall season.
    Each summer morning, rain or shine, I run three or four laps around the edges of Black Creek Country Club. Each lap is two and a half miles. I run shirtless, in shorts and Nikes. I run through woods, skirt the rough beside the fairways, climb grassy hills, and then run down into the cool pockets of air along Black Creek. I know every snarled tree root to dodge, every mossy or brittle patch of ground. I pound my