We Ride Upon Sticks

by Quan Barry

  Boy Cory’s dad was some kind of real-estate lawyer. According to Boy Cory, it involved long hours driving around the state and was way less glamorous than it sounded. It would seem that in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, all home closings had to be signed off on by a lawyer, so Mr. Young spent his days wrangling over PMI points and how much a seller was willing to credit someone for a moldy basement. Neither of his parents had an issue with Boy Cory playing field hockey. They were just stoked he wanted to play a sport. When Boy Cory expressed interest in signing up freshman year, his father drove him down to Coleman’s and picked out a shiny new Bronco, easily the most expensive brand in stock. Maybe Mr. Young was hoping the stick would somehow inspire his only son on to new manly heights. The first time he came to one of our games and saw that Boy Cory was the only XY in a field of ponytails, he stopped coming.

  The Youngs didn’t throw too many questions at their son. Don’t ask, don’t tell was the unofficial house policy. Secretly they kept waiting for the great change to occur, for their boy to outgrow whatever phase he was going through. And it was a conundrum, the whole thing like watching a tennis match, the ball rocketing from side to side. Maybe, maybe not, maybe, maybe not. One day Boy Cory would be glued to the screen of their Commodore 64 binge playing Death Wish 3, the next he’d be running around the house in his sister’s pink sweater with the kitty cat embroidered on the front.

  But that’s life, ain’t it? We are who we are, and most of the time we don’t even know who that is. Boy Cory was no exception. For all Boy Cory knew, Anno Domini 1989, there was no one quite like him in existence. C’est la vie, fuckers! He put the pewter bear he’d swiped for his potion back on the end table and headed for the garage. Yeah, it was a little lame to show up at the Party of the Year on his Schwinn, but he didn’t want to ask to borrow his mom’s Honda, what with half of the Bon Courage he’d just downed already coursing through his veins. “Good night, Mom,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Good night, sweetness,” she said. Mrs. Young was marching in place, her face determined, a soldier off to some brave new world, her buns of steel hard enough you could easily chip a tooth on them.

  * * *

  —

  To put it nicely, a solid-gold palace Karen Burroughs’ house was not. Boy Cory was surprised that the cheerleading queen of Danvers High lived in an underwhelming ranch. To Boy Cory’s eye, it might generously be considered a nice neighborhood of starter homes. Still, Karen Burroughs’ house was big enough one could vomit with a modicum of privacy, as Boy Cory was destined to do later in a wastebasket in somebody’s bedroom. But all that would come after fulfilling his mission and kissing a girl, after the sun had risen and he was more confused than ever. For the time being, he locked his bike up to a SLOW CHILDREN sign out front. He knew these street signs scattered around town in neighborhoods with high concentrations of kids were a perennial favorite of Heather Houston’s, thanks to their missing comma. Yes yes, he thought. Tonight if everything went according to plan, this would indeed be a house filled with slow children made even slower by alcohol. He pulled Bon Courage Potion #2 out of his knapsack. He couldn’t fathom how his father could stand to drink this stuff at the end of a long day, never considering that his father didn’t drink it like juice, opening his throat and pouring it down. After quaffing half of it in his garage, Boy Cory had had some issues riding his bike over to 398 Forest Street, his balance shaky, his head coming loose on his neck. Now standing out front in the dark, he unscrewed the lid a second time.

  Bear of Night, walk the earth,

  Fill my lungs with your breath.

  Give me courage, give me strength,

  Live in me, Bear of Night.

  The rest of it went down easier. He felt as if all his limbs were coming undone, each one doing what it wanted as his brain looked on in utter surprise. He’d been drunk once before, years ago at a cousin’s wedding. The other young cousins had egged him on, calling him a sissy until he drank two full glasses of red wine just like the rest of them. He didn’t remember much about that night except that his parents found him passed out under the DJ’s table, the banquet hall studded with several small pools of barf, each one hidden like a land mine planted by a different cousin. This time, in addition to the sensation of coming apart, he also felt a steeliness settling over him, a feeling of invincibility as the walls he’d built around himself came crashing down. Tonight he wouldn’t be needing them. Thanks to the Bon Courage, he was free to be whoever he wanted to be and then some.

  He tossed the mason jar back in his bag and pulled out his party offerings, four packs of Winstons at $1.23 per pack plus tax. The gray-haired lady working over on Holten at Your Market hadn’t even carded him, which was a thing stores were starting to do. Apparently he was coming up in the world. The woman had even given him a sly wink. Earlier after getting out of the shower he had done a fifth shot of Irresistible Potion #1. Where had Emilio been all his life?

  From the street he could already hear music playing, Cinderella’s “Shake Me” blasting out into the night. Boy Cory growled, threw back his shoulders, and charged in.

  At first it was hard to see. There were lights on, but the house was already filled with smoke, a thick band of it collecting at the ceiling and working its way down to the floor, the house filling from the top down. There were kids everywhere. On the kitchen counter. On the dining room table. On the TV, which was one of those older wooden consoles that probably weighed a hundred pounds. And everywhere kids with red cups in their hands. Girls with Claws, neon clothes, acid wash, jewelry big enough it would look normal-sized on an elephant. And the boys with hockey hair, boys in Levi’s, boys bathed in Stetson. Then he saw the surprising thing, the reason why this party was raging with full impunity. There was a handful of adults sitting in the living room, a group of women with hair that would’ve given any self-respecting Claw a run for Its money. “Yeah, that’s Mrs. Burroughs,” said Sebastian Abrams. He had appeared at Boy Cory’s shoulder, though if he was an angel or a devil had yet to be determined. Boy Cory stared harder. From a distance Mrs. Burroughs could’ve passed for a teenager, her Jordache just as tight as her daughter’s, her blue eye shadow smeared all the way up to her brows. “Karen’s dad’s a trucker,” said Sebastian. “He’s not here. They had Karen when they were teenagers. Does it show much?”

  For the first hour Boy Cory forgot why he was there. Faithfully, he trailed Sebastian around, a red cup in hand. The whole world was drunk. Possibilities presented themselves that never would have presented themselves at school. Here, nobody seemed to care who or what he was. They were all at that drunken stage where the love flowed freely. People wrapping their arms around each other’s necks and practically crying they were so full of the beer of human kindness. His red cup overfloweth, his heart soaring in his chest. Look. There was Brian Robinson of all people. Brian slapping him on the back and handing him a shot of something golden that smelled antiseptic but wasn’t urine. Did Brian even remember Monday in the showers, the hair endlessly circling the drain? Most likely Brian Robinson was too drunk to even know who he was, but either way Boy Cory accepted the shot and threw it back. O brave new world, that had such depths of inebriation in it!

  None of them heard the knock on the door. Regardless, a sudden hush rippled through the party. Hurriedly kids began to stream out of the front rooms and into the kitchen, the overflow pouring down the steps into the basement. Everyone stubbing out their cigarettes, quickly tossing back whatever was in their hands.

  “Chug,” commanded Sebastian.

  “What’s going on?” asked Boy Cory. He was still holding half a cup of Everclear.

  “Shut up,” someone hissed. They turned out the lights in the kitchen. Boy Cory could feel something furry brushing against his leg. It was so crowded he couldn’t see his own feet.

  Karen was out in the living room with her mom and her mom’s friends. If Boy Cor
y could’ve seen her face, he would’ve seen it veneered with a sheen of boredom. Mrs. Burroughs lit a fresh cigarette, patted her own midsized claw, then opened the front door.

  “Evening, Jackie,” said a voice we all recognized. From his hiding spot in the kitchen, Boy Cory wondered what shape Bert’s unibrow was in.

  “Working late tonight, Adam?” asked Mrs. Burroughs. That’s when the DHS student body officially learned Bert’s first name, though we all promptly forgot it.

  “This town won’t police itself,” said another voice that obviously belonged to Ernie.

  “You can say that again,” said Mrs. Burroughs. She took a long cool drag on her menthol. “Lemme guess. Old Lady Williams called in with another noise complaint about me.” You could practically hear Bert and Ernie sadly nodding their heads. Later, after the two officers were gone, Boy Cory would learn that Mrs. Burroughs had gone to high school with Ernie, and that he had maybe been sweet on her, that he’d maybe even made it to third base with Jackie “Boom-Boom” Burroughs, née Martin.

  “You know how it is,” Ernie said. “We have to make an appearance, make it look like we checked into it.”

  “Well, it’s just us chickens having a girls’ night,” said Mrs. Burroughs, pointing to her friends in the living room. The women murmured their agreement. “We’d invite you boys in for a beer,” she continued, but then her voice trailed off, as if to say the sanctity of girls’ night could not be violated.

  Ernie cleared his throat. “You know we’re having a pancake breakfast in a few weeks to raise money for—”

  But Mrs. Burroughs was already thinking of her next margarita. “I’ll be sure to make a donation,” she said. She was already closing the door, Ernie’s hopeful “Nighty night” barely audible through the wood.

  * * *

  —

  Ten minutes later Boy Cory saw his mark. With her mane of blond hair and her oversized aquamarine eyes, conversely her nose and mouth tiny as an anime kitten’s. Barbie Darling. That was the name god had seen fit to christen her with. And she lived up to it. Along with Karen Burroughs, Barbie Darling was co-captain of the cheerleaders, but unlike the rest of that clique, she was reputed to be a genuinely nice person. She was standing out on the back deck trying to light a Marlboro. He remembered the Claw’s instructions, the step-by-step seared into his brain.

  “Hey there,” he slurred, hoping she didn’t notice. “Needs a hand?”

  “Puh-leaz,” she said. He relaxed. Like water finding itself, they were at the same level of intoxication. He had thought it was a regular cigarette, but one sniff and he realized there was something else going on. “It’s a reroll,” she carefully explained. “Maybe only abouts a quarter of a joint added to a regular ciggie.”

  They spent the next half hour out in the cold on the deck. It was cliché but also genuine. He showed her the stars in Cassiopeia. She brushed a dried-up cicada casing off his shoulder that had made him scream. They laughed and laughed and kept laughing, even when the cigarette was done. He had never been high before. He wondered why it had taken him this long. The world seemed one big ball of laughing gas. His sides hurt. He hoped it would never end.

  They were coming out of yet another laughing jag that had started up for reasons neither one of them could remember. “I’m s’pose to kiss you,” he said.

  “What?” she said, wiping a tear from her eye.

  “I’m suppose to kiss you in front of Reed Allerton. That way, he won’t ass you to the prom.”

  She started laughing again, her laughter primal and wild, an animal out on the savanna as it finds itself on the verge of a kill. It seemed like the funniest thing either of them had ever heard. “Let’s get Reed,” she said.

  “Nah, it’s a dumb plan,” he replied, but already she was weaving her way back into the house.

  Reed Allerton was the richest kid at school. His dad owned some kind of aboveground pool empire. Reed himself wasn’t hard on the eyes either. Sometimes Boy Cory found himself staring a little longer than he should have at Reed’s rippling back. He was captain of the swim team, and while Boy Cory had never gone to a meet, often at night he found himself wondering what Reed looked like in a Speedo, his body smooth and hairless. The male swimmers were allowed to do that, to shave and wax, keep everything tight and tucked, and nobody questioned their manhood. Reed even ratcheted it up another level and was seen sporting a tan year-round. It was said that he wasn’t above showing any girl he dated how much he appreciated her, lavishing her with gifts. Since the school year began, the Claw had been plotting how to make Reed Its boyfriend. Now there wasn’t any time left to lose. If the Claw wanted to have a prom to remember, Reed was the first and most important step in securing a night of unforgettableness.

  Somehow the cold November air was making Boy Cory feel even more drunk. He could see the breath issuing out of his mouth. Inside the house they were playing Cinderella again, only this time it was the band’s power ballad. He could picture the music video with the semi-androgynous lead singer and his jet-black hair spilling down past his waist, the dude swaying, his body a pendulum as he rocked out at the bridge on his guitar. Then Boy Cory heard the screen door open and steps coming toward him on the deck. “Stand up,” someone was commanding. He did. “Barbie says you have something to show me.”

  The world was spinning. There was Reed and there was Barbie and there was a grill and a pair of patio chairs, and then he was circling back to Reed and Barbie and the grill and chairs and Reed again. “Nah,” he was saying, “nothing to see, we were just—” and then Barbie was grabbing him and locking her lips to his lips, and he could feel her tongue darting in and out of his mouth, a small pink minnow, the whole time him thinking, gee, I’ve never kissed a girl, I’ve never kissed anybody, and he was immersing himself in the sensations, her hands sloppily running through his hair, her thigh somehow cupped in his palm as they were grinding their bodies together and he felt himself stirring, the light of the world turning on in his center, his mind thinking, wow, this is who I am, I am a boy who kisses girls and likes it, and in the distance he heard the screen door slam shut, the two of them left out in the cold kissing on and on until it began to lose its appeal as he suspected something else was at play—was Emilio making him do this?—something beyond the weed and the endless red cups, maybe a dash of sugar and cinnamon, a baby tooth, a mirror, and he pulled back and looked at Barbie’s face, and for the briefest flash in the moonlight she looked haggard and spent, like Karen Burroughs’ mom, like an old woman trying hard to hold on to youth, her mouth gumless and gaping hungrily at him the way a fish gasps for air, the space behind her teeth black as night, and he was backing away, he was down the deck’s steps, he was gone, the light of the world flickering before going dark at his center.

  * * *

  —

  He was sitting in the bushes by the side of the house when Reed Allerton found him an hour later. The Bon Courage was finished but had been thoroughly replaced by other forms of liquid courage. Reed held out yet another red cup to him. “There room in that bush for me?” he said. He started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You hear what I said?”

  Boy Cory accepted the cup and drank half of it straightaway. “You here to beat me up?” he asked.

  “Why would I do that?” Boy Cory didn’t answer. They sat there in the bushes drinking in silence. “Come on,” said Reed. Boy Cory didn’t ask where they were going.

  They walked to the end of the street, then kept going on into the woods at the entrance of Endicott Park. It was dark, the moon still a week from full. They walked along a path until they came to a small hollow under some trees just big enough for two. “You ever come here before?” asked Reed. Boy Cory nodded, but they both knew it was a lie. He could still hear Cinderella playing in his head.

  You take your road, I’ll take mine—

>   The paths have both been beaten.

  He knew this time when the light at the center of the world turned on, it would never turn off.

  * * *

  —

  Monday before classes when Boy Cory saw Jen Fiorenza, he assured her he was successful. “Don’t worry,” he said. “He’s not going to the prom with her.”

  The Claw looked at him suspiciously, a counterfeiter studying a forgery. “Why can’t I sense what happened?” Jen said. Boy Cory shrugged. “Where’s your armband?” she demanded.

  It wouldn’t have done any good to lie. “It fell off,” he said.

  The Claw gasped. Immediately Jen grabbed him. She headed toward the Home Ec room. Within minutes he was tied up with a stretchy piece of blue polyester. We all felt him come back online and into our presence. And so the marvelous adventures of Boy Cory, the Irresistible and Courageous, came swiftly to an end. He was one of us again. Honestly he felt relieved. For the time being he was safe. He didn’t have to think anymore. Maybe it was a lesson for all of us. Eleven sticks bundled together can withstand anything. One stick out in the cold all on its own can’t even withstand itself.