Tradition

by Brendan Kiely

  I couldn’t get away from him fast enough. I had to get out of there. Stop talking.

  “I shut down my account,” I said, turning off my shower. “I don’t have one anymore.”

  “Bro,” Freddie said, finally looking at me through the steam. “You have secrets.”

  Yeah, I did. Secrets that smoldered so deep within me, I could almost pretend they weren’t there, but they shifted, a wind blew, somebody whispered, a memory flickered, and the coals rolled and glowed again to let me know I couldn’t forget what I’d done. Yeah, I did have secrets. But not what he was thinking. I could break someone, as Heather had said, and if I wasn’t careful, I was going to lose it and break him. And I couldn’t afford to do that at all.

  CHAPTER 12

  * * *

  JULES DEVEREUX

  “Back home, they still think I might become a priest,” Javi said. “They’re holding out for it, like it is an actual, actual! possibility.”

  “No!”

  He breathed heavily through his nose. “Jules, they still really have no idea. Or it’s something even worse.”

  We had snuck onto the wooded path behind the sports fields, walked down to the boathouse, and slipped in without anyone noticing. There was something about the shells of the eight-oar boats, dry-docked and stored for the off-season, that felt peaceful to me. As if it was okay to rest sometimes, to not always act, think, perform. Just to hang there like a boat, useless, absolutely still. We sat on the bench and stared out the window at the slim beach and the river beyond.

  The whole way over, he’d been telling me about his last conversation with his pain-in-the-ass grandfather, the one who, even at eighty-two, still called all the shots for the whole family. Javi was always morose after speaking with his family. Wealthy, old-money, Cuban, Miami, parties with his sister: he loved them. It was, as I understood it, the Catholic part that did him in. Only his sister made going home worth it. “Seriously,” Javi said. “She spoils me, I know. It makes me feel so guilty. Javi this, Javi that.”

  “My mom spoils me too, but I hate it.” I had one of the flags coaches used from the shore to send signals to the boats on the water. I twirled the flag handle on the ground between my feet.

  Javi had his vaporizer in his hand, and he looked at it for a second before he hit it. He nodded. “Always better,” he croaked after he exhaled.

  “But it’s not even about me. She spoils me in public,” I said. “Everything’s all about being public. It’s like there’s a Hollywood soft-light haze around her. Like she’s always hovering in the doorway of the bar in Casablanca and she’s about to deliver her line. ‘Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.’ ”

  “And who’s she saying that to?”

  “Anybody. Or no, not anybody. It’s like she’s always just waiting for the right guy. But that guy could be anybody, for all I know.”

  “She’s lonely, Jules. Cut her some slack.”

  “Yeah, well, aren’t we all.”

  I hadn’t meant it to sound so self-pitying. It wasn’t even what I really meant.

  “Yeah, well,” he mocked, “you don’t have to be.”

  I stood up and walked to the window, speaking to him over my shoulder. “Javi, I really mean it. I’m not into that this year. It’s like this. I want something real—I want to know people have my back, and to know I’m spending time with people because they want to spend time with me, not because they want something from me.”

  “You want everything but the sex?”

  I spun around, and he was grinning at me, just like I knew he was.

  “Ahhh! Not just the sex—‘the sex,’ it sounds so clinical. I just want to spend time with people who like me and not just my body.”

  “You say that like they are two different things.”

  I walked over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Yeah, I know, and that is exactly what I feel like right now.”

  “Fine. I get it.” He held his hands in the air in defeat. “I hear you. Anyway, just because you’re alone doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be.”

  I grinned.

  He turned away, suddenly coy. “Some of us aren’t choosing to be alone.”

  “What?”

  “Let’s just say when a little cute finds a little cute, well, the world doesn’t look half bad. You know what I’m saying?”

  “Oh my God, just say it. Who?”

  “It’s just texts, Jules, never mind.” But he couldn’t hold back his smile. Javi. The model with the nonplussed face. The yeah, you think I might care kind of look. But not then. There was something like a ten-year-old’s giggle bouncing deep within him.

  “Come on,” I said, punching his shoulder. “Who? Who? Who?”

  “All right, calm down, owl girl.”

  I grabbed his arm and yanked him toward me. “You’re killing me. Come on. Who have you been texting with this past month? I’ve seen you. I know it. It’s that junior. What’s his name? Charlie? The kid from California?”

  He shook his head. Remained tight-lipped. Tossed his eyes over his shoulder.

  “Javi!”

  “Max Burke,” he said, snapping back. “But if you tell anyone, I’ll put Nair in your shampoo.”

  “Max. He’s megahot.”

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t even know he liked boys.”

  “Yes you did.”

  “No.”

  “Well, I knew.” He grinned. “I want a little bit of that ginger now.”

  His happiness was there, oozing all over the place in the boathouse, seeping through the cracks and out into the sand, and for a moment, there we were again, Jules and Javi—the dynamic duo up against everything Fullbrook had to throw at us, and getting by it all. But the moment passed as quickly as it had come. Just as I was about to squeeze him in a hug, we heard tires crunching in the gravel outside the boathouse.

  It was definitely the slow, heavy roll of a car. The gray front hood nosed up near the front door. At first we just sat there. Silent. Frozen. But when one of Fullbrook’s little green campus security golf carts came zipping up beside it, we bolted.

  We dashed back through the rows of boats, crouched behind a giant crate of life vests and buoys, and wedged ourselves between the crate and a giant plastic barge. It smelled like the bottom of a pond, with little hints of bleach here and there. I almost gagged, but couldn’t because I was holding my breath. Nobody ever came down to the boathouse in the fall or winter, which is why Javi and I used it as a place to escape. Shoulder to shoulder, we hid with our backs against the wooden slats and our knees tucked to our chests.

  “Yo,” Javi said. “Who the hell?”

  I shushed him. “Don’t even speak,” I whispered.

  He’d smoked a vaporizer, which never stank very much, but we were inside, not outside, and without the breeze it had left a little something lingering in the air. I just hoped whoever had come here didn’t have a clue. Or didn’t want to have a clue. That, truthfully, was what you could count on a little more at Fullbrook. Teachers wanted to talk about chemistry, or the transcendental movement in literature; coaches could help you perfect your butterfly stroke. They didn’t want to get caught up in this. Drugs. Sex. Those things just made them uncomfortable. Or most of them. You always had to look out for the ones who wouldn’t let anything slide.

  The door to the boathouse squeaked open. The warped wood stuck and then popped free of the jamb, just as it had for us, and I felt the vibration shudder down into the pit of my stomach. Two men were speaking to each other. I recognized Cray-Cray, but not the other.

  “It’s that it should be locked,” Cray-Cray was saying. “Hey!” he bellowed. “Anybody in here?”

  We sat as still as possible.

  “It stinks in here,” he continued.

  “It always stinks in here,” the other guy said.

  “No. Like weed.”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “Oh, give me a break.”

&nb
sp; They got closer.

  “I’m not here to inspect anything,” the other man said. “I just need the gear.” As he walked through the boathouse, I realized it wasn’t one of the swim coaches or crew coaches. It was O’Leary, Mr. Hockey.

  “If they see us,” Javi whispered, “I’m going to kiss you.”

  “Just be quiet,” I said. “Don’t talk.”

  “It’s the only way they’ll let us go.”

  “Shut up.”

  “It just drives me nuts,” Cray-Cray went on. “I’m not their father. I’m not their cool uncle. I’m here to keep them safe. Here to protect them. Even if it’s from themselves. Anybody here?” he shouted again.

  They were much closer, only a few steps away now. If they stopped talking and listened carefully, I worried they could hear my heart banging in my chest. I understood Javi’s plan. If they poked their heads over the crate and saw us, and we were kissing, groping, sticking our hands down into each other’s clothes, we’d embarrass the hell out of Cray-Cray and O’Leary. Maybe they’d be so weirded out, they’d just ask us to leave and shuffle us along.

  O’Leary and Cray-Cray stopped moving. They stood by the cabinets at the foot of the barge. “I’m just here to get the bungee cords,” O’Leary said.

  “If no one’s here now, they’ve been here,” Cray-Cray said, ignoring him. “I swear, my days are like a never-ending game of whack-a-mole with these kids. Think they can get away with everything.”

  The metal locker slammed shut. “Not my guys. I keep my guys in line. They know. That’s the benefit of a five-thirty a.m. practice.” O’Leary laughed. “Those boys are too damn tired to go looking for trouble.”

  “Are you crazy or kidding? I can’t tell.”

  “That’s what the kids all call you, Donald. Not me.”

  He laughed again and both men walked away. They hovered by the door, inspecting the lock, Cray-Cray jingling his massive all-campus key ring that always hung from his belt like some kind of medieval weapon. We hadn’t even noticed the lock when we’d come. The boathouse was always open. I’d always been able to get in. But the dead bolt flipped with a thud when they left.

  “Hey,” Javi said. He cleared his throat. “That was close.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But we made it.”

  “Yup.” I rolled out from behind the crate and stretched.

  “Hey,” he said. He stood and followed me back to the bench. I sat and he sat beside me. Putting a little space between us.

  I was also feeling awkward.

  And Javi knew.

  “I wasn’t trying to be weird,” he continued. “I mean, I’d have kissed you just so we wouldn’t get in trouble.”

  “No, I know.”

  “I mean, there are some girls who’d be into that.” He tried a half smile, and I knew he was kidding. But not really. There were. I’d been all into that our first year. “But for real. The look on your face, when I said that? Jules, I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “No. You’re right.” He smiled that beautiful smile again.

  “Yeah.” It was hard not to wonder what it would have been like if Javi wasn’t gay, if he and I had stayed together. Sometimes I let myself stray and think about how we’d be the perfect couple for each other, but I always circled back. The Javi I loved wouldn’t be the Javi I loved now if he wasn’t who he was. We were perfect for each other now—perfect friends.

  “But what about Max? That boy can kiss?” I teased.

  “I don’t know yet, but I’ll know soon.”

  “Oh my God, what if your first kiss had been here, like that, all forced and crazy. What a story you’d have for your first kiss!”

  He let out a little sniffle of a laugh and I nudged him with my elbow. “What?”

  “But that’s just it, right?”

  “What?”

  “If Max and I had been here, and if Max and I had been making out, it would have been different. It just would have.”

  I nodded.

  “I never feel nervous about it. I’ll kiss a boy out in the academic quad if he’s down. But think about this. If Cray-Cray comes in here and sees me and you making out, maybe he’s like, ‘Kids, you go on and get,’ but if he sees me with Max, and catches me and Max making out, maybe there’s this something else inside him—maybe he says, ‘You know what, you boys are trespassing and breaking school rules and I’m writing you up and sending your names to the office.’ He’d never say it was because we were two boys kissing, but how can I know? There’s just something about it. I feel it.”

  I nodded again. I wanted to think about that. About what I took for granted. When Javi had come out, he’d been shy about it, but then he’d let that go, and by junior year everything seemed so easy. There were a handful of kids who were openly gay and I just assumed nobody felt any which way about it—or most people anyway. But if I’d been letting my dreams get away from me and dreamed about Javi and me, who’s to say other people’s thoughts didn’t get away from them—but not with affection, with a denigration.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think about that.”

  “Cray-Cray? O’Leary?” Javi paused. “They would have strung us up. Stuck us in the stocks.” He nodded silently and looked out to the water. “I’m sorry,” he finally said. “Because actually, I wouldn’t stand out there in the middle of the academic quad. I want to. I mean, you and Hackett last year. I saw you up against the wall in the arts center, or on the stupid steps of the admin building, you know?”

  I nodded, trying to hide the blood rushing to my cheeks.

  “But let’s say I do. Let’s say Max is like—what was that Casablanca line? ‘Kiss me. Kiss me as if it were the last time.’ Let’s say that happens. Then let’s say Fullbrook is sooo liberal they include a photo of it on their website. ‘Gay friendly,’ the banner reads above that.” He stood and folded his arms. “First of all, that is never going to happen and you know it. I’ve been going to private schools my whole life, and no matter what they say, you know I don’t get to make out in the halls like you do with Ethan or whoever. Why? And what’s more, you know who isn’t down with that? Seeing their son as the poster boy for the gay-friendly school?”

  He tightened his jaw as he continued. “That’s not why they sent me here, or actually, why he sent me here. They wanted me away from trouble. Mi Pipo, I’ll never forget his old, hairy finger tapping the picture of Fullbrook’s admin building in the brochure. ‘Un buen elemento,’ Pipo said. Whatever. It’s his money. We’re all just supposed to fall in line.” Javi swiped at the air in front of him with the back of his hand. “Fuck that.”

  He walked over to the window, sucked another big hit from the vaporizer, and let the cloud swirl around in front of his face as he exhaled. “But no, fuck me, really, because if they catch me and Max playing Casablanca, you know who calls up Father Jiménez to speak about an intervention? You know who yanks me out of Fullbrook and sends me back to Belen so they can keep a close eye on me?” He shook his head. “You think that capital campaign donation he gave to Patterson last year doesn’t come with some pressure on me too? Hell, he still gives money to Belen—just in case I need a backup. That’s how a guy like him works, how he works the whole family. Un buen elemento, my ass.” He stabbed a finger toward me. “That’s the worse I’m talking about, Jules. That’s the worse I’m always thinking about when I talk to my family.”

  I got up and walked over to him. I put my hands on my hips and screamed at the window—belted out my loudest and most unhinged. I doubled forward, yelling at the glass, and if I’d been a superhero, the glass would have shattered everywhere and the pine trees on either side of the river would have bent back like they might flip right out of the ground, but I wasn’t a superhero and none of that happened, and instead all I did was hurt my throat.

  My face tingled like I’d been slapped around. I sat down, exhausted and ready to cry. Why? Why did I have to live on this cracked edge all the time? I clo
sed my eyes.

  “What was that?” Javi asked.

  “That’s all I know to do,” I said. “It’s so unfair.”

  He nodded and put his arm around me.

  “No,” I said. “Like, I want to do something for you, but there’s nothing I can do about that. That’s fucked.”

  “Yeah, well.” He mustered a smile, and for a moment it hung there, a little lifeless, but then all the energy of his million-dollar flash came back. “You can be happy for me.”

  “I’m happy for you, you know it,” I said to him.

  “I know you are.”

  “I’m happy for him, actually,” I said, trying to lighten things up a bit. “I don’t think he knows how lucky he is.”

  “Oh, he might,” Javi said, teasing back.

  We were quiet for a moment, but then he spoke again.

  “I don’t know how it works, Jules. I don’t think you’re going to wake up one day and the clouds will be gone forever. I just think—no, I know. I know it. If I need you, I’m going to call out to you. That’s what I need too. To know you’ll be there.”

  “I promise.”

  “Good.” He paused. “But promise me something else.”

  “Okay.”

  “Promise me you’ll come to me too.”

  “Javi.”

  “No. Promise. This is a two-way street, Jules. You’re not superwoman and this ‘I’m all alone’ thing is fine, but you’re not all alone. You know what I’m saying?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let me hear it. Promise me.”

  “I promise. I promise I’ll come to you if I need you.”

  CHAPTER 13

  * * *

  JAMES BAXTER

  The knock on my door shortly after Mr. Hale made his rounds on Friday after lights-out surprised me. It was Javi. I opened it quickly and he snuck in. “Wow,” I said, looking him up and down. Skinny jeans. Pale green eye shadow that sparkled in the light. Feet slipped into what looked like two rainbows.

  “You have the magic room,” he told me, as he moved toward my window. “Come on, I know you’re cool, man. Jules said so.”