I reached up to touch the silver chain around my neck and the silver wolf’s head that hung from it. It had been a gift from my parents—well, really from my mom—on my last birthday. Before Sylvia. Before Altman.
“You’re my lone wolf,” she had said, trying to act like my isolation was cool and not pathetic. “But don’t worry; you’ll find your pack.” I wondered what she’d think if she saw me like this, covered in sex mess in another boy’s bedroom and still all alone. I felt a stupid tear start in the corner of my eye and shook my head violently to stop it. The little wolf’s head banged against my chin.
By the time Altman returned, I had my emotional shit on a tight leash. He stood at the mirror, towel around his waist, applying product and gentle caresses to his hair pouf, which I had secretly named Norman. I put on a face of unabashed confidence, as if to say, “This is exactly how I want it. No strings, no worries.”
“Here, clean up,” Altman said, pulling a dirty T-shirt from the hamper and throwing it at me. “We need to look at my Hemingway essay and then get to class.”
As I settled in for thirty surreal minutes of English tutoring, tasting essence-of-Altman on my breath as I fixed his sentence fragments, I found myself wondering for the hundredth time why he’d chosen me. Was I wrong to feel special? I thought of that first time behind the equipment locker, when he grabbed my hand and pushed it down his pants. I was shocked, but I wasn’t going to say no; I’d been crushing on Altman since we were twelve. As we neared our first orgasms that day, I already knew it was just a matter of time before the grunting jock found the words to express his love. Three months later, my faith was getting a bit ragged around the edges, but I still believed if I loved him hard enough, he would realize he felt the same. Besides, I really, really wanted the sex.
With Altman’s essay at least resembling an earnest attempt, we headed back to school. Walking with the wind in our faces, we passed leafless bushes full of squabbling sparrows, and I pulled up my collar against the cold. Altman—one hand keeping Norman the hair pouf in place—was reading a text from Sylvia, snorting in amusement.
“Hey!” I said, trying to wrench his attention back my way. “Your family’s driving down to Florida for Christmas holidays, right?”
“Yeah.” Text, text, snort, chortle.
“Why don’t you tell your parents you want to stay here? Then I can come over every day and, you know, maybe even spend the night.”
“I don’t think so,” he said, without betraying much regret.
That was the end of the discussion, and I knew better than to push it. There were rules to our relationship. Lots of them. Mostly for me. In lieu of conversation, I recited a poem in my head, one I had written for Altman:
O, Captain of the hockey team
Offence is your game
But you will bend to my sweet charms
When I call out your name
O, Captain of the ice men
Your bulging pants so tight
I’ll make you mine, I’ll make you cum
I’ll make you love me right
Hardly T. S. Elliot, I know. But as my English teacher liked to say, “Always write your truth.” Not that she or Altman even knew about the poem. It had been folded up in my back pocket for the past month. Sometimes I reached back and touched the top crease to reassure myself. At those times, maybe I imagined it was Altman touching my ass.
When we got back to school, Sylvia was waiting by our lockers. She gave my shoulder a quick squeeze before turning her boyfriend around to face her and throwing back her head like a swooning diva. Altman pulled her tight and brought their mouths together, tongues tangling like wrestling ferrets. I turned abruptly away, my eyes filling with tears, and hurried down the hall toward the bathroom, same as when I was six.
Chapter 2: Visit from an Octona
So, shocking but true, just having access to some kind of regular sex is not enough to satisfy a teenage boy! The old people on Facebook must be right about our generation being ungrateful. The rest of the day went by in a depressed blur. I kept my eyes resolutely on the floor and did my best to remain the kind of student whose reports read, “Crispin consistently fails to live up to his potential.”
When I emerged through the school’s front doors at three thirty, my dad honked twice from across the road. This was a pleasant surprise, as taking crowded public transit home is one of my least favourite things. I tossed my knapsack on the back seat and slouched into the front beside him.
“Why aren’t you at the office?” I asked. “Fired again?”
He ignored my blistering wit. “Working from home today. How was school?”
“Terrorist attack. Sarin gas in the ventilation system. Seven students with permanent nerve damage, and they still gave us a pop quiz in math.”
“Well, you can’t let standards slip. Do you want to practice driving?”
“No.”
“How about a few rounds of parallel parking?”
“God, no.”
“His Majesty is in a mood.” Dad sighed and handed me a bag of chocolate croissants from Estelle’s. I all but shoved one down my throat, the buttery, chocolaty pastry immediately melting away the sharp edges of my misery. The truth is, my dad’s okay. He never really loses his cool, which I admire. Still, if I give him a hard time, it’s because of how freaking superior and Yoda he sounds when he lectures me about stuff. That and his ridiculous habit of whistling early 90s grunge songs.
I watched him as he pulled into traffic, checking his mirrors and blind spots, which I always forgot to do. He looked good driving—competent, masculine. When I’m behind the wheel, I’m more like a frantic chicken, lurching an erratic course down the street as if some farmer is chasing me with a hatchet.
Dad was whistling “Jeremy” by Pearl Jam, and I watched the scenery go by for a while before venturing, “There’s a party this weekend.”
Dad nodded. “At whose house?”
“Karen Parkenter. She’s a friend of Sylvia’s.”
“Listen, I’m glad you’re finally making friends. Your mother and I were frankly concerned about you last year. But, Crispin, the last time you were at a party, you came home not exactly sober.”
I felt something unclench in my chest. Maybe I actually wanted Dad to say no. Sure, being Sylvia’s friend got me invited to parties, but what fun was it to sit alone in a broken IKEA chair in the corner of some tacky family room while everyone else got drunk and stupid and asked me, “What are you, anyway? More white or more Chinese?” and then watch Sylvia lead Altman up the stairs to some deserted bedroom with that glow of pink-frosted triumph on her face? Given those circumstances, getting a little wasted was really the sanest option. Still, I felt obliged to show some outrage.
“I wasn’t anything like drunk! There was beer, okay? People drink beer at parties. God!”
“I know, Crispin. But you need to take responsibility for your own actions. Just because your friends are drinking—”
“Fine, I won’t go.”
Dad laughed. “Clever ploy. Okay, you wore me down…go. But be home by midnight and promise you’ll call if there’s no one sober to drive you.”
We turned off the main road into our neighbourhood, and I was already looking forward to just being in my room with my headphones on, blasting glitchy alt-dance and puzzling my way through a text-adventure game. But then Dad had to ruin the mood. “How’s your buddy Altman? You two hanging out a lot? I hear the hockey team’s having a good season.”
Instant panic! Visions of oral sex so vivid, I figured they had to be projecting onto my eyeballs like a dirty multiplex. I said, “I-I’m just helping him out…with English…because Sylvia asked me to.”
“That’s nice of you.”
“No, it’s not!” I shouted, blushing and looking away out the window again. Congratulations. Another awkward conversation courtesy of my cowardice. Here’s the thing: Despite everyone at school knowing I was gay, I had never officially come out to my parents.
I was pretty sure they knew and were just waiting for me to get up the courage to tell them, but that communication gap was only making me feel more pathetic. I almost wished they’d corner me one night in the family room. “Admit it! You’re a little rainbow refugee! You’re the glittertastic leather grand marshal of the Pride parade!”
But my dad just said, “Being rude is not a job requirement, Crispin.” Even without looking, I could feel his eyes burning into me.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Just watch the road.”
“You know you can talk to me about anything, right? Anything.”
“Watch the road, Dad. Seriously, oh my God, watch out!” Because I had looked up at that moment, just as the woman stepped into the street, right in our path. The same woman that was spying on me and Altman. Short copper hair, silk suit, and shoulder pads that, while formidable, were not going to be much help if we ran her down.
Dad stomped hard on the brakes, and the car stuttered angrily to a halt maybe three feet from where she stood. Dad was gasping, I nearly crapped my pants, but the woman didn’t seem the least bit concerned. She just walked to Dad’s window and tapped on it twice with one of the many rings she wore.
“Dad…?” I said, confused, because he was just sitting there, white-knuckle grip on the wheel, eyes closed, mouth moving like he was reciting a prayer.
“Should I call 9-1-1?” I squeaked in a stupidly high voice. “Or…Wait, do you know her?”
Without turning to look at the woman, Dad lowered his window and asked in a husky whisper, “Are you here for me? Or for him?” Which is some creepy shit right there.
The woman’s voice was calm and authoritative. “Let us go to your home, Elliot,” she said. “I will explain the details there.”
“Me or him?” Dad said, angry now, still not meeting her gaze.
“I am here for Crispin. May I get in the vehicle, please?”
She was here for me? What? I considered calling 9-1-1 anyway.
“Crispin, get in the back and give the Consul your seat.”
But the woman was already opening the back door and pushing my knapsack out of her way. “I will be fine here. Let us proceed to your home. We have much to discuss.” She climbed in, stowing her big cloth bag at her feet, and fastened her seat belt.
It was intensely bizarre having this Consul person follow us into the house. Something about her didn’t fit the mundane reality of our suburban inner sanctum, with its piles of unsorted mail and the worn carpet with the stains of long-dead pets. Dad led her into the living room and offered her the best armchair. Much as she freaked me out, I had a million questions and wanted to interrogate her immediately. But Dad ordered me to the kitchen to help him prepare snacks, and I had the distinct feeling he didn’t want to leave me alone with the woman. His phone rang, and he looked at the display nervously before switching off the ringer.
“Was that Mom?” I asked and got no answer.
Soon, we were sitting in silence, sipping our drinks. I hadn’t even been introduced. She drank with her eyes closed, and I took the chance to observe her. She didn’t wear any makeup other than a bit of lipstick. The silky fabric of her suit was like waves of woven colour—sea tones shot through with strands of scarlet and gold. I hadn’t noticed before, but she was wearing long, sea-green opera gloves. Her rings, with their big green stones, were pushed up over the gloved fingers.
Suddenly, she opened her eyes and stared right at me. I felt my breath catch. Her eyes were the strangest colour I’d ever seen, bright copper, flecked with crimson and green. They almost glowed.
I felt a blush rise in my cheeks.
“Crispin,” said the woman. “I’ve waited a long time to meet you properly. How would you like to take a trip with me?”
A paranoid chill went through me. Was this one of those deals where your parents have you kidnapped and taken off to a camp with a barbed wire fence and crosses on the wall, where they try and make you forget your love of hairy legs and prominent collarbones? I pulled myself deeper into the corner of the sofa.
My dad raised a reassuring hand and said to the woman, “Consul Krasik-dahé, we have a lot to explain to Crispin before we get to, uh, travel arrangements.” He stared at me, and I knew he was about to say something that, once heard, could never be unheard.
“The thing is,” Dad said and cleared his throat elaborately like he’d accidentally swallowed a slug, “I’ve never really told you the whole story of your…ancestry.” His phone vibrated noisily, and he gritted his teeth until it stopped. I had never seen him so uncomfortable.
“My ancestry? Your dad’s Norwegian, right?” I said, grabbing cracker after cracker from the tray and munching manically. “And Grandma was Irish. And then on Mom’s side, it’s all Filipino. Maybe some Spanish.”
The Consul spoke then, her eyes widening, and I swear the reds and greens seemed to pulse in them, like lava seeping from the rim of a volcano. “Your father is not referring to your terrestrial origins, Crispin. You were born with the copper in your blood. You are of the cloud beasts, the inscrutable rulers of the Elemental Realms. You are dragon!”
And I laughed. The sound that came out of me was an awful “whoop” like a howler monkey, and cracker crumbs shot from my mouth in a geyser of gluten. But everything was going a little wonky inside me because a single tear was rolling down my dad’s face, and I was thinking, This is screwed, this is utterly…
Dad picked up one of the napkins from the snack tray and dabbed at his eyes. He said, “I know, Crispin, it doesn’t make a lot of sense at first, and—and maybe I should have told you before—”
I leaned back in the sofa and stuck my legs out, like I was born casual, like lounge music followed me around. At the same time, I was hugging myself so hard, my arms ached. “I am dragon? What does that even mean? Is this some ridiculous frat you pledged in university or what?”
Dad looked at the Consul, and she rose to her feet imperiously and crossed to the window. The last of the bleak November afternoon light was snuffed out as she closed the drapes, leaving only the swag lamp in the corner to illuminate us. The woman returned to her seat and undid the ornate gold clasp on her big cloth bag. She rummaged inside, probably for something else to shock me with—a severed baby’s head? An enormous sex toy with Satanic symbols on the shaft?
My mouth was dry from all the crackers, and I slurped my milk as the woman pulled five stones from her bag and laid them on the coffee table. They were nothing special, just rough, porous grey rock—lava rock, maybe—the smallest the size of a chicken egg, the biggest more like a grapefruit.
In the darkness, my impression her eyes were glowing was even stronger. “There are many ways off your planet, Crispin. Humans recently learned to harness fire to escape into the cold of outer space.”
“Not so recently,” I shot back, sounding pissy and superior, like I do when I’m freaking out.
“Oh yes, in the grand scheme of things, very recently. But that show of brute force is only one way to leave the Realm of Earth. I want to take you somewhere through subtler means, somewhere rich in wonder and terrible in its primordial beauty. It will be your first time there, and yet it is your home. I am speaking of the Realm of Fire, the land where the fire dragons rule.” She began to remove the rings from her right hand, dropping them into the pocket of her jacket.
I desperately wanted to make some brilliant sarcastic reply or retreat to my room and blast my music loud enough to erase everything in my brain. But I kept listening to her.
“Humans live there, too, and they serve the Dragon Lords. And not just humans. Beings such as myself also serve the Five Dragons.”
“Aren’t you human?” I heard myself ask. I looked at Dad, who was looking at the floor. Great.
The Consul woman was now peeling off a glove like a moulting lizard. I was relieved to see it was just normal skin underneath.
“I am of the mixed beings,” she said. “I am an octona.”
It sounded like a skin produ
ct, or an exercise machine from a late-night infomercial.
“It means one-eighth of my genome is derived from the great dragons. Watch!” She reached down and put a bare finger on one of the rocks. From inside the porous stone, light glowed, sending a cascade of little beams out through every hole. Her face, lit by this effect, looked a lot less human.
“Cool trick,” I said, a quaver in my voice.
She removed her finger, and the light vanished. “Elliot,” she said, and Dad’s chin snapped up. “Touch the stone.”
He looked at me apologetically and then reached out a hand to touch the same stone she had. This time, three of the stones lit up, a different coloured light radiating from each one. Where the beams intersected, more lights were born. Each corner of the room was touched by this weird, pulsing display, and I could hear a faint humming sound. Dad removed his finger, and the light and the humming both stopped.
My spinning brain was trying to make some sense of the craziness. “Dad? You’re a-a…octona, too?”
The woman answered for him, and I almost told her to shut up, because suddenly I really needed to hear my dad’s voice, which, I should explain, is a very rare desire on my part.
“Your father carries the copper blood. He is one of twenty on this planet. The copper is passed from generation to generation, and there are always twenty.”
“Generation…?” I breathed. “Are you trying to tell me that I’m also…whatever Dad is?”
“Touch the stone,” she said, and her voice was stern.
Again, I almost got up and left, because what good outcome could there possibly be here? But, no, I got up from the far reaches of the sofa and kneeled by the coffee table. I could feel her eyes and Dad’s eyes on me, but I just stared at the little family grouping of lava rocks. The biggest act of defiance I could muster was to touch a different rock than they had. It didn’t matter, because as soon as finger connected with stone, the light show was on, but bigger and better, because when I touched one of the rocks, all five lit up.
The Dubious Gift of Dragon Blood Page 2