Sons of the 613

by Michael Rubens

  Before she rolled over and went to sleep she gave me that peck on the forehead. “If I start snoring, just elbow me.” Then she turned, shifted around for a bit, and was still.

  She’s not snoring now, just breathing quietly. My hand hovers over her shoulder, follows the topography of her side, moves slowly down to her hip, not making contact. It glides now to her lower back, then slowly traces the path of her spine, pauses between her shoulder blades. I’m two-thirds asleep, the borders of reality blending and mushing, my hand sinking toward her like a leaking helium balloon until it comes to rest on her back. I can feel her heart beating through the palm of my hand. She doesn’t move or react for a moment, and then she takes a deep breath in and lets it out like a sigh, shifts a bit, and is still again, and I think, I should move my hand, I should move it, and then everything blurs and dilutes and spreads and I’m asleep.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE MORNING AFTER

  MERIT BADGE: WOODWORKING

  It’s light when my own snores wake me up. It takes a few seconds for all the parts of my brain to return from wherever they went and reassemble themselves, awareness coming back to me in small units: I’m not in the tent. I’m at Lesley’s, meaning it wasn’t a dream. She’s not next to me anymore in bed. From what I hear, she’s sitting at the table, quietly reading the paper. I’m spreadeagled on my back. I’m wearing the T-shirt and cutoff sweatshorts she lent me.

  I have morning wood.

  Oh my God.

  I’m lying here on my back with a hard-on, which I’m sure I had when she woke up. I roll on my side and go fetal to camouflage my condition, and realize that the sheet is over my lower half, which it wasn’t when I went to sleep, meaning that maybe she noticed my bonerness and tried to save me the embarrassment by covering me up, which is worse. Also bad: I have to pee, like now, and I’m hoping things will sort of calm down down there and I’ll be able to get up and run to the bathroom. For now I pretend I’m asleep and hope she doesn’t realize I’m up, in both senses of the word.

  I hear the newspaper rustle. “You want some eggs?” she says. I don’t think I’m fooling her.

  “Uh . . .”

  “I’ll make some eggs.”

  I take advantage of when she turns to the stove to scurry to the bathroom—she totally knows—and then have to do the waiting thing until my plumbing is in the correct state for peeing. I take advantage of the time to punch myself in the head a few times and bite my fist, trying to replace my embarrassment with physical pain.

  I camouflage my peeing with the shower again, then realize once I’m in there that I don’t have any clothes to change into. Which is when the bathroom door opens partway—panic—and her hand pokes through the opening, holding my pants and another T-shirt. Then she leans her head in, her eyes squinted shut.

  “Hey,” I say, hands cupped over my personal parts.

  “I won’t peek,” she says. She holds up the T-shirt blindly. It partially unfurls, and I can see that it’s the English Beat T-shirt that she was wearing the first time we met. “I’m lending you one of my favorite shirts, so don’t get it dirty, right?”

  “Okay.”

  “Want me to lend you some undies?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “I’ve got some great pink ones with lots of lace.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Okay. You’re either gonna have to recycle or go Canadian, then.”

  “I’ll go Canadian.”

  She suddenly opened her eyes.

  “How you doing in there?”

  “HEY!”

  I can still hear her laughing after she closes the door. After a few moments I start to laugh too.

  We eat breakfast together and talk. I don’t know what we talk about. We talk about everything. We talk in an easy manner, no rush, lingering over our food, laughing and joking, and I think, This is what it’s like. This is what it’s like to spend a night with your lover—that’s the word that comes to mind, lover, a sophisticated word for sophisticated people—and wake up in the morning and break your fast with that person. It’s the daylight, waking version of what I felt last night, everything timeless and perfect. It’s only been about eight hours since we collided outside the strip club, but it feels like that was weeks ago. If she saw me with a hard-on, fine, I don’t care. She saw me naked. I don’t care. I like it. It’s not even about sex. As we’re talking, I see it, understand it, understand something I never understood or felt before: I want her to see me, to know me in every way. I want to be able to reveal myself completely to her and have it be all right.

  She’s showing me the various film-crew badges she has and telling me about how she’s saving up to move to LA, when she glances at her watch and says, “Unless I’m crazy, it’s Friday.”

  “Yes.”

  She smiles at me, eyebrows raised.

  “No,” I say, realizing what she means. “No, I don’t want to.”

  “I told your brother I’d take care of you.”

  “He keeps me out of school all the time. Can’t I just . . . stay?”

  “I have to work.”

  I slump down in my chair and play idly with my fork, tapping it on the plate.

  “You’re adorable like that,” she says.

  I look up and she sticks her lower lip out, imitating me.

  “I’m not pouting.”

  “Yes you are. It’s cute.”

  “Okay, I’m pouting.”

  She reaches out with her fork and gives me a very gentle poke on the hand.

  “Hey.”

  I do some more nonpouting.

  “Hey,” she says, poke-poking.

  “What.”

  “I really enjoy hanging out with you, Isaac. You’re good company.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Really. I’m very comfortable with you for some reason. You’re easy to talk to. You and me”—she does the two fingers pointing back and forth between our eyes thing—“we’ve got that connection, whatever it is.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. You think I’d take just any man home?”

  I smile and blush.

  “C’mon, I’ll give you a ride to school.”

  And so I make my arrival at Edina Junior High School on the back of her Vespa, clinging tight to her, hoping that the entire student body is lined up to see me. They’re not, though, because I’m late and everyone is in homeroom, and Lesley is running late for work, too, so our goodbye is hurried and awkward and I don’t get a chance to say any of the things I had prepared. We pull up to the curb, and I just hop off and hand her the helmet, and she gives me another peck on the forehead, then makes a shooing motion with her hand. “Go, go!” she says.

  I reluctantly start walking backwards, but she’s busy fastening the extra helmet to the seat and not even looking at me, so I finally turn and go.

  “Wait!” she says from behind me, and I turn eagerly. She’s gesturing for me to come back, and I do, practically sprinting, visualizing an intense embrace. Instead she’s holding a tube of product.

  “Can’t let you go in like that.”

  It’s heaven, the twenty seconds she spends fussing over me, her fingers running through my hair, and I have to fight to keep myself from reaching up and placing my hands on hers.

  “There. Go! Fly!”

  Another swat on the butt like at the restaurant, and I fly, soaring on golden angels’ wings toward the waiting entranceway to school. The bell that signals the end of homeroom rings a welcome as I pass through the doorway, a completely transformed Isaac from the last time I was here: triumphant, confident, invincible, the hero returning. Right into the most horrific, humiliating day I’ve ever had.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  REJECTED BY THE HERD

  I’m so deliriously happy. I’m happy as I walk into the entrance, happy as I make my way down the hall, happy as I reach my locker, and happy as I spot my peeps near the trophy case.

  And then I become unhappy
very, very quickly.

  “No, seriously, what the hell are you wearing?” Danny says.

  He’s not saying it as a joke or to tease me. He’s saying it with an edge in his voice, like I’ve offended him.

  “I’m wearing. Clothes.”

  It’s been about a minute since I walked up to them and got stunned silence in response to my greeting. No one has even said anything about my black eye. Steve’s mouth is literally hanging open, like I just told him I’m gay or that I’m his father, or both.

  “What is this shirt? Who are the Beat?” says Paul.

  “It’s just a shirt,” I say, and smile.

  “Is that . . . gel?” says Steve.

  “Yeah. Here.” I lean my head forward for them to touch. No takers. I straighten up. They watch me silently.

  “What?” I say.

  The three of them exchange glances, then look back at me, and then I understand: I’ve betrayed them. I’m leaving them. I’m better than them. That’s what the clothes say.

  “Look, I have some new clothes, I got a haircut. It’s still me,” I say.

  No one answers. I can see the suspicion in their eyes, the resentment, and all my prior happiness is suddenly drowned by a helpless fear that I never saw coming, a queasy panic that my friends might abandon me.

  “You see this?” I say, grinning, pointing to my eye, hoping to redirect everything back to the path it should be on, the one where we’re all friends. “My brother hit me.”

  What, for dressing like an art fag? Why, because you think you’re one of the Jonas Brothers? How come, because you . . . ?

  But no one makes any joke or says anything about it. Instead, Danny says, “Where the hell were you last night?”

  “Danny, I’m really sorry, I just . . .”

  “Just what?”

  “I was going to call you.”

  “It was his birthday party,” says Paul. “We’ve been talking about it for weeks.”

  “I know, but—”

  “You blew us off three times in a row,” says Steve.

  “My brother—”

  “I called you, like, fifty times,” says Danny.

  “I told you, my brother threw my phone in the creek.”

  “I called your home phone, too. And e-mailed.”

  “I know, I just . . .”

  They stare at me like I’m a stranger.

  “I didn’t mean to miss your party. I was going to call.”

  Nothing.

  “Can we just play this weekend? I promise, promise, promise I’ll be there.”

  They’re all silent, glancing at each other.

  “What.”

  “We’re starting a new game.”

  “A new map? A new campaign?”

  “Yes.”

  I’m not sure where to start asking questions.

  “Well . . .”

  “We already started,” clarifies Steve.

  We all stand there, the next part obvious, but no one wanting to say it out loud. Finally I do, hoping the answer will somehow be different: “Without me?”

  “You should have called me back,” says Danny, and then he turns and walks away, and Paul and Steve go with him.

  I’m literally shaking as I walk to the next class. I sit in my seat, staring at my desk, trying to calm myself down. I’ll talk to them at lunch. I’ll talk to them and make everything better. But when I take my tray to our table they’re not there. And they don’t come. Which means they all talked about it and decided to eat outside.

  There’s part of me that’s able to believe that it was unintentional, that they just forgot to tell me where they’d be. That’s what I tell myself as I walk the perimeter of the school, looking for them. Then I spot them on the grass by door seven, and then Paul sees me and says something to the other two, and they get up and walk in the other direction.

  The rest of the day I am a tooth chewing on tin foil. I’m trapped in a room where a thousand fingernails squeal over chalkboard walls. Everyone in the school can sense it, I know. Everyone can see me now, can see that I’ve been abandoned and rejected and shamed. I’m burned by eyes glancing at me and my new clothes, my idiot clothes, my idiot hair, people whispering and smirking. Even Sarah Blumgartner looks at me with derision: I pass her in the hall and she stops dead, staring at me, and then covers her mouth as she laughs.

  I was right this morning: I am a different person now, but different in the wrongest way; I’m John Slenkar when he jumped into the middle of the dance floor during Spring Fling and started break dancing, thinking he was cool when everyone was laughing at him.

  Eric Weinberg notices me. He stops as we pass each other in the common area, stops and stares at me and doesn’t divert his gaze, almost in surprise, like I’ve joined his wraithworld and we’re fully solid to each other while everyone else is transparent vapor. I drop my eyes and turn away.

  I’ve gotten too excited, run too far away from the herd, rolled in the wrong grass and drunk the wrong water and shed my camouflage and I don’t smell right anymore, and the herd is rejecting me. And now that I’m visible and smell wrong for the herd, the predators pick it up, and my day gets far, far worse.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  THE BULLIES ARE CONFRONTED. OR CONFRONT

  MERIT BADGE: PUBLIC HUMILIATION

  “Hey, faggot!”

  I fumble with my backpack, my desperate desire to zip it closed making it take twice as long. All around me kids are streaming out of the school, heading home for the day.

  “Hey, faggot!”

  It’s all of them, the whole group, the Assholes and their Associate Assholes: Bill and Jason and Kurt and Guy and Tim and Kevin.

  “What’s up, faggot?”

  Nice clothes, nice hair, what a faggot, what a faggot, Jewboy, faggot faggot faggot.

  The zipper is jammed and there’re too many books in there, but I throw it over my shoulder anyway and start walking. So it bursts open, and two-inch-thick textbooks spew forth and thump thud thump onto the pavement, slipping from my hands when I try to gather them up, my haste again undoing my efforts. I’ll have to drop my books and bag and make a run for it, but while I’m trying to decide what to do they’ve already surrounded me, grabbing at my backpack and jerking me to a halt.

  “Leave me alone!” I say, and immediately wish I hadn’t.

  “Oh, leave me alone!”

  “What a faggot!”

  “Leave me alone!” they all mimic, a chorus of them mocking me, whapping me on the top of the head with open hands.

  “Nice bag, dumbass,” says Tim, and yanks it out of my hands.

  “Give it back!”

  Why say that?

  “You want to make me?” he says, the others jeering and laughing. “Come on, come and take it.”

  How is it a circle of kids can form so quickly? There’s suddenly a dense wall around us, layers thick, everyone crowding in, people shouting, “Fight! Fight!”

  Tim pushes me, saying things, pushing me more. He’s got me by the shirt, Lesley’s shirt, and it’s starting to rip.

  “Don’t wreck my shirt!” I say, and again it’s the stupidest thing I could possibly say at the moment. He spins in a circle, pulling me to stumble along, the shirt tearing further. He hurls me to the ground, and I get up again and he pushes me. I want to punch him, to tackle him, but I’m powerless. The tears are coming, and I don’t want them. The crowd around us feels thousands deep, every single student there, faces fascinated or eager or pitying or hungry, and then I see them: Steve and Paul and Danny, just watching, not doing anything to help. My peeps.

  And then I see her: Patricia Morrison, staring at me with the same excited curiosity as the rest. The first time I’ve ever registered in her consciousness, imprinted in her brain as a victim who deserves what he gets because he’s too weak.

  And then I see him: Josh.

  I think for a second that I’ve imagined it, but no, he’s standing in the back of the circle, towering over everyone, his
arms crossed, his expression completely dispassionate.

  “Help—” I breathe before Tim tackles me to the ground and scrambles on top, sitting on my chest. He’s saying stuff to me, horrible things, but I can barely hear him, and he’s slapping my face. He’s spitting on my face now. I know Josh taught me how to get out from this, but I’m paralyzed, pathetic. Tim spits in my face some more and slaps me, and again, and I don’t do anything. I know that Josh is just watching and judging me.

  Then Tim stands up, bored with me, fresh out of ways to humiliate me. More taunts delivered from an upright position, gleeful cackling from his cronies, other kids saying things. My life is over. Even Eric Weinberg wouldn’t talk to me now.

  “Get up.”

  Josh stands over me.

  “Get UP!”

  His huge hand gathers up a fistful of my already-ruined shirt and lifts me roughly to my feet. The seams making tearing noises.

  “Get your books.”

  I go to retrieve my books, head down. Kids are dispersing or lingering, not sure what the arrival of the golem means. Danny and Steve and Paul are gone. Patricia is gone. Tim and the Assholes seem to sense that Josh isn’t a threat to them, and they’re still nearby, darting close to talk smack to me and then retreating, and then repeating it again. Josh doesn’t pay them any mind, because he agrees with them, and it makes them bolder, showing off in front of him, still calling me a faggot, an asshole, a pussy. And then Tim says, very clearly, “Stupid Jew.”

  What it is, I realize, is that he somehow doesn’t get that Josh is my brother.

  Josh absently reaches out and grabs Tim by the upper arm and spins him around to face him. There is a long two seconds where Tim and Josh are looking at each other, Tim with a face caught in the transition between scornful snarl and surprise—how dare this guy grab me!—Josh with a calm expression that says, Look at me. Look at me, because I want you to understand that what’s about to happen is very intentional. Then he slaps Tim across the face.