Venomous

by Christopher Krovatin

  “Hi,” I manage to say very quietly. “You’re Casey, right?”

  “I’d prefer you not take the guidance-counselor tone with me, Locke,” he says in a deep baritone voice. “Locke Vinetti, the school friend, Randall’s cohort. Lovely night, isn’t it?”

  I nod. “It’d be nicer if you join us, sir.” What the hell? Where did that come from? Maybe it was the whole “Emperor” thing.

  He finds it funny enough to laugh a little. “‘Sir’? Call me Casey. Or ‘Emperor,’ if you’re into that thing.”

  “Thing?”

  He waves his hand back to the crowd. “Locke, Tarot. Tarot, Locke.” He takes another deep slug of whiskey. “It’s something Randall and I came up with, which all these kids have taken a little too far. There are even gangs now.” I look confused, and he sighs and continues. “The punks and rude boys are the Swords, the hippies and emo rockers are the Wands, the mods and indie kids are the Cups, and the metalheads and Goths are the Pentagrams. Mind you, in the original tarot it’s actually Pentacles or Coins, but they changed it to Pentagrams, what with the Satan-loving and the angry music, and the…Ah, whatever, you know what I’m talking about.” He spits like the idea has left a bad taste in his mouth. “The creators get to be the Major Arcana. Tollevin, Randall, Renée, myself, two or three others.”

  I’m absolutely amazed. I’ve never in my entire life heard something so incredibly wonderful. Tarot gangs. Tarot get-togethers. A youth network based on magical cards from medieval times. I couldn’t have come up with that in a million years. It’s all too great. This kid is fucking brilliant. “That’s insane. You did all this?”

  Surprisingly, he looks enraged. “They did it,” he snaps. “I just came up with the whole idea one day after school with Randall, and it became this THING. Fucking…look at them. It’s kind of pathetic, right?” I fidget a bit. Well, this is awkward. Randall’s warning echoes in my head. Okay. One more question, then I’m done.

  “Is that why you’re sitting off to the side?”

  “No, this is different. This is the heaviest shit you’ve ever known.”

  I’m about to go against my plan and ask him what that means when Tollevin leaps up onto the rock and yells, “PO-PO!”

  The what now?

  And like lightning, the candles are blown out and snatched up, the instruments are packed away, and the kids are running, like stampeding cows. One kid, a hardcore-looking punk rock chick, comes running backward past us. “Didn’tyoufuckinghearhimmanhesaidthepo-poareherefucking-RUN!LaterCasey!”

  Casey waves drunkenly. “Later, Ivy.”

  I spy two policemen wriggling their fat asses over the edge of the rock, grunting stuff about permits and big trouble. A couple of the punks and metal heads start throwing rocks and bottles, which isn’t helping. Suddenly there are two night-sticks in two chubby Irish hands, ready to beat some counter-culture ass. Randall shoots me a frantic look, nods, and bolts into the park.

  “Shit! Casey, c’mon!”

  Casey slowly gets up and nearly falls to the ground in the process. “Shit,” he says, giggling. “Fucking whiskey…”

  One of the cops sees us and points to the other one. Two words come ringing out over the din that make my blood drop a couple degrees: “HEY, YOU!” I’ve never had a run-in with the cops before, and personally I don’t want to. Getting picked up downtown by my mom would suck. Even worse, I don’t want to start an argument with people who won’t listen, which is exactly what these two fat, badged, on-edge pieces of shit look like. If the venom breaks out, there would be less Partying without a Permit and more He Must Be on PCP. So I do the only thing I can think of: I hook one of Casey’s arms around my shoulder and we start running.

  I expect the cops to leave us be when we sprint away, but no dice. They’re on our asses from the moment we hightail it. Zigzagging, ducking through bushes, nothing works; I glance over my shoulder and they’re behind me, stumbling through the park and swearing under their breath. The 72nd Street stairs come into view, and I begin panicking, because our options are down to Riverside or the Trump Pier, both of which are gonna be packed on a Saturday—

  Something catches my eye. The venom twitches nervously, assuring me that it won’t work, that confrontation’s the only option. I swallow it down and go with the only glimmer of hope I have.

  I wheel Casey like a sack of potatoes under the picnic table by the park’s baseball diamond, and duck underneath it, squeezed in next to him, our breath quick and purposefully shallow.

  “So gentle,” he slurs.

  “Shut the fuck up,” I hiss.

  Through the opening between the bench and the table, I see the cops, their silhouettes distinguishable only by their cute little hats. They stop, the fatter of the two leaning over on his own knees, panting.

  “You see ’em? Did you see where they went?”

  Pant, pant. “I think”—pant, pant—“I think we lost ’em back”—pant, pant. Goddammit, just leave—“by the restrooms.”

  “Ah, shit.” The less fat one whips back and forth, hoping to catch a blur of frightened teenager, but no dice. “Unbelievable.”

  “Long.” Pant. “Coat.” Pant. “Couldn’t’a gone far.”

  “Fucking kids. Let’s head back, clean up.” The thinner one stalks back to the rock. The fatter one follows, gulping and gasping as he goes.

  A full minute after they disappear, I start breathing again. Casey and I duck out from under the picnic table. We somehow drag our carcasses up the stairs to the tunnel leading out to Riverside Drive. My brain is bobbing in a sea of adrenaline. I can barely hold the cigarette I jam into my face. The night air was never this refreshing before.

  Casey laughs like a terrified madman, head back, brow glistening. “I can’t believe…we…that was inten—” Before the word ends, his body lurches like it shouldn’t, and a seemingly endless stream of whiskey-infused horrible gray shit comes pouring out of his mouth and over the edge of the stone balcony, down onto the grass below. The smell hits my nostrils like acid. I smoke harder.

  When he’s done puking, Casey sits up on the ledge a little ways from me and says, “Thanks. I owe you one for that.” His torso hangs like an unused marionette.

  I just nod and light my smoke. “Why do the cops hate you guys so much?”

  He shrugs. “We leave candle wax and trash everywhere. That and, y’know, the drinking and pot smoking. Mostly, it’s just our healthy disrespect for authority.”

  I nod again, still a little miffed. “I don’t think I like the police.”

  “Good job being a teenager there,” he snorts.

  My mind catches up with the rest of my system, and my train of thought comes chugging back to life. “Is that the heavy shit you were talking about?”

  His head wheels upward, face scrunched. “Pardon?”

  “You said you were dealing with ‘heavy shit.’ Organizing this get-together, the cops—that it?”

  His body shakes with lazy chuckles. “No, no, I have…sort of personal issues.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His eyes focus on some point in the air, and he opens and closes his mouth, like a fish, before he hooks onto the words he needs. “Have you ever just…have you ever gotten angry to, like, the point where it takes you over?”

  Wham. I’m interested. “Yes.”

  “Well, I have that, but not…not like, tantrums. I have this…this uncontrollable thing in me that just cuts loose when I get angry or depressed enough, like this violent…beast inside of me. Like my Mr. Hyde, only worse, only it’s not just evil, it’s me, it’s got my morals and intelligence. I don’t become someone else. I just become a perverted version of myself.” He shrugs and snorts out a shoelace of vomit-snot. “I know this doesn’t make any sense. It’s named the black…. Well, that’s what I call it, anyway. And it sort of took over my life tonight, and so I tried to drown it in booze. That normally works.” He looks at me as though he’s explained this too many times, and he’s used to the
standard response. “It’s okay if you don’t get it.”

  “No,” I say softly, “no, no, wait.”

  My confession ends around the same time the smokes run out. I’ve told him things I realize I shouldn’t have. It wasn’t in my control. I told him about my father, about the few girls I’d tried to be with, and about the violence. The violence was the meat of it, the part full of yelling and swearing and pulling at my hair. But he listened. He heard me, and not like Randall. There wasn’t a lot of “sure” and “yuh-huh.” None of the wise, thoughtful nods that suggested he was thinking deeply on the subject. He listened to me like I was telling him about himself, and then he described his problem, his situation, which was my own. For the first time, both problems were the same. For the first time in…in forever, I guess, I was talking to somebody who thought of the venom as a reality. Imagine that. Imagine what it’s like to finally find somebody who understands not what you’re getting at, but exactly what you’re talking about, after eleven fucking years of people either not giving a shit or screwing up the message along the way. It’s like everyone on Earth has always been blind except for you, and then one day, someone walks up to you and asks you how you feel about the color blue. I couldn’t not talk.

  And now we’re sitting on the ledge and looking out at the tunnel. We’ve both gone silent now; we have been for about ten, fifteen minutes; a little embarrassed on top of all our massive relief. It’s as though we’re naked for the first time in our lives, proud of each other for facing up to ourselves. I feel more comfortable than I’ve felt with anyone else in a long time, except maybe my mom, but that’s different, because with my mom, even though she doesn’t understand, she loves me. And while I don’t really know this guy, he understands.

  When I turn to look at him, I realize that he’s staring straight at me. He’s got something slightly resembling a smile on his face, and I’m not quite sure what is going on.

  “I know, right?” I say, nodding. “Incredible.”

  He cocks his head to the side. “Yeah, that’s one way of putting it.”

  And then he reaches up and takes my glasses off, and my vision gets blurry, and I start to get nervous, because I know that movement and I know what it could mean, and it begins to worry me, because if it turns out that I’m right, I’ll be dealing with the most ridiculous, ass-backward thing I could ever imagine, which, given the context of the night (partying, kissing Goth girl, drinking a little bit, running from the cops, and finally releasing my demons to a kindred spirit), would be appropriate while at the same time really, really harrowing. And it means exactly what I think it means, because Casey leans over and kisses me really softly, on the lips.

  The first thing I think is, Mmm. Vomit. Then I wonder if I should elbow him in the stomach and knock him off the ledge, but that’s the venom talking. I’m not really pissed at him anyway. I’m just…surprised. And uncomfortable, sure, horribly uncomfortable. But the weird thing is, I let him do it. I sort of sit there and…get kissed. Not because I enjoy it or because I’m attracted to him, just ’cause…Well, honestly, I feel like I owe him one for hearing me out and understanding, for making me feel anything but crazy. Which feels cheap. And wrong. And easy. But I don’t know…This is new. Everything is new. Tonight has been a series of firsts; this is just the worst one of them so far.

  He breaks the kiss and I say, “Casey. Casey. Hey.”

  “Mmm,” he purrs tipsily, “that was nice.”

  “Casey. Wait.” He doesn’t back off. Not good. This has to stop before my owing him one turns into him taking it as a go-ahead or a come-on. “No, we can’t. No.”

  “No one’s stopping us,” he says slowly, leaning his face toward mine again. His breath blows hot on my face; it reeks of puke and dude.

  My senses slingshot back to reality, and my hand snaps onto his shoulder and shoves him back. I snatch my glasses back and fumble putting them on.

  “I’m stopping us,” I say solidly. “I’m not…y’know. I’m not.”

  He stares at me for a second, dumbfounded, like a little kid. All of a sudden, I feel terrible. I shouldn’t have let him kiss me. That was wrong. I should have pushed him away the minute he tried. But no, like a timid little idiot, I let him go ahead and expect something of me that I—

  And then it happens. I notice a cord on his neck stick out and a vein near his forehead bulge a bit. His face goes tight. The mouth curls into an oyster of resentment while the eyes stay bugged and hard. Something inside of him goes away; what replaces it is hate. Not rage or passion but hate—cold, dead, twisted hate.

  I can see the black rising inside his eyes.

  “Hey, wait. Casey. Wait.”

  “Fuck you.”

  He’s not listening. He shoves me hard, throwing me off the ledge and onto the concrete. My shoulder blade screams in pain, but I manage to start lifting myself up slowly, just as he leaps down from the edge. Something registers that I’m lucky he didn’t throw me off the edge of the stairs. There’s no good end to this.

  “You’re not what?” he snarls, pushing his face in front of mine. By now, all the cords on his neck are taut, like wires, and there are little flecks of spit at the corners of his mouth. “You’re not a faggot, huh? You’re not a cocksucker, is that it?”

  “No, hey, c’mon man, that’s not what I meant—”

  “Then why not fucking say it, huh? Why even talk to me about all this if you’re just going to freak out and gawk at the queer? Jesus, most guys don’t fucking KISS ME if they’re not at least a little interested. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “That’s a really good ques—”

  “Save it, shithead!” A gob of saliva wheels off his lower lip and dangles. His eyes are glowing white, surrounded by a road map of creased skin. “I don’t want to hear any more of your BULLSHIT. I don’t have TIME for people as worthless as you. Wow, no wonder Randall never brought you around. He must be hard-pressed for friends at your fucking school.”

  In the back of my skull, the venom starts buzzing, vibrating my teeth, my eyes. Asking for it, it almost whispers, he’s asking for it. Go ahead. Simple solutions are often the best ones, Locke. No, no, no. There has to be a painless way out of this.

  “Look, I didn’t mean that at all,” I say pleadingly. “I was just surprised and scared. Please don’t—”

  “Oh, fuck you, Locke. Fuck. YOU. You tell me all this stuff about yourself, and I think, ‘Wow, here’s someone who’s different, who understands!’ But you’re just like everyone else. You don’t know anything. You don’t know about the black. I’ve had to deal with bullshit from people like you for as long as I can remember, and just because you got teased, or your daddy ran away, or life didn’t hand you a bouquet of peonies, you think you’re fucking Hamlet. Shouldn’t you be off cutting yourself somewhere?”

  Part of me starts saying that he’s drunk and he’s got the black in him and he doesn’t mean all this (and that peonies are sort of an odd choice), but it’s all white noise to the Locke that’s standing here. I can feel my pupils dilate and my veins wash over with emotional poison. The muscles flex. The dam breaks.

  He understands, my mind pleads, he cares. He’s just in a mood. There’s no need to be too hard on him for it. He’s confused and hurt. This can’t happen.

  You tried, you failed. Fuck off. My turn.

  I’m not sure whether his throat feels soft or if my hand feels oddly strong, but soon one’s around the other. His face goes from hardened to clueless; he should have considered that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t the guy to piss off. Just like his little outburst took me off guard, he’s never met anyone else who’s felt the venom before, he’s only experienced it firsthand.

  Let’s see just how fucking well he enjoys a fistful of his own medicine.

  “How dare you,” I growl, “how fucking dare you, you presumptuous piece of dog shit. Just because I don’t want your tongue in my fucking mouth doesn’t mean I’m a goddamn bigot, you hear me? DO YOU?”

/>   The twitch his head makes is, I’m pretty sure, a nod. It’s worn off for him, so now it’s my show.

  “I just wanted someone to talk to! I never told you I wanted you to fuck me, now did I? DID I? Now I realize you were only in it for a quick fuck, huh? You’re just like the rest of ’em, you fucking ASSHOLE. All you want is to get your way and feel good about yourself for it. I don’t need to take shit from anyone, but especially not from a poor, lonely queen like you.”

  My hand snaps open, and he thuds to the ground with a gasp. He’s so little to look down on. Not even worth the strain of a good kick in the ribs.

  “I hope you fucking DIE,” I hiss. “And if you ever mention my father again, I’ll see to it you DO.” There’s a swirl of my overcoat, and I’m walking uptown.

  By the time I get to 79th Street, the venom has gone out for drinks, and I’m left sobbing. I didn’t mean to hurt Casey, but it just happened. Why’d he have to treat me like the enemy? I didn’t even know he was gay. It didn’t matter. I’d finally met somebody who really, truly understood the way I felt, and it all went to shit. When you’re a fucking monster, not even the other monsters will be there for you.

  Once I’m home, I walk slowly to my room, hoping to just get there and fall right asleep. No such luck: My mom, waiting up for me as always, sees me and motions for me to sit next to her on the couch. Once I’m up close, it’s obvious that things aren’t okay. She claps her book shut and sits up attentively.

  “Hey,” I say, focusing on my hands.

  “What’s up, honey?” my mom says. Her head ducks to try and make eye contact.

  I shrug. “Nothing. We hung out in the park. Played some music.”