When Everything Feels like the Movies (Governor General's Literary Award winner, Children's Literature)

by Raziel Reid

I don’t remember leaving Angela’s. It must’ve been snowing when I walked home because my hair was still wet and knotted. I had already missed first period at school, and I took it as a sign that I shouldn’t even bother with the rest of the day.

  I let Stoned into my room and listened for any signs of life upstairs. The house was quiet. My mom was sleeping, Ray (he’d come back) was already at work for the day, and Keefer was at school. I climbed back into bed, kicking away my dusty sheets.

  I hated the basement. I used to share a room with Keef until Ray decided it wasn’t a good idea anymore. He wanted to protect his precious offspring from my glitter corruption. Ray brought down a rug and a dresser, and my grandma made me curtains, which I think were from one of her old tablecloths. Under my window, I hung up a picture of Marilyn Monroe, which I found in a dumpster, to cover the cracks, but the grey walls just made her eyes seem even more lost.

  Then Angela and I went to the Sally Ann, and she distracted the clerk while I walked out with pillows and a lamp. The Salvation Army is run by a bunch of homophobic religious freaks, so we figured they had it coming. We took anything bright to make my new room seem like less of a prison. It didn’t help; it still felt like there should be bars on the window.

  I couldn’t sleep the first night I spent in the basement. I tried to find the stars through my window—if the stars are spotlights, I wanted the sun—but the sky was empty. I started pretending the basement was a trendy rehab, because that gave me hope that I might one day get out.

  I missed sharing a room with Keef. It was too quiet without him. He was a noisy sleeper who tossed and turned a lot and sometimes talked to himself. It was kind of nice, in a way. His mumblings were a welcome distraction when I lay awake at night, thinking the same things over and over—thinking of insane things and wishing it was over.

  Keefer was the only one who didn’t judge. Even when his friends at school teased him about me, he never brought it up. I wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t punched one of them once and gotten suspended. He wouldn’t tell me what the kid said. Whatever it was, it was bad enough to make him lose his cool, which wasn’t like him. He wasn’t like his dad. I always thought he was sort of like me. Or what I would’ve been like if I had been like him, if that makes any sense. When I kept asking him what the kid said, he started crying. Keefer never cried. He was too busy pretending to be an action hero.

  When I moved downstairs, it was weird for him too. Sometimes, if he had a bad dream or my mom was working or Ray was AWOL, he’d come down and sleep in my bed. I wouldn’t have the heart to tell him to get lost.

  One night, when I came home after sneaking out to meet Angela at the Day-n-Nite, he was there cuddled next to Stoned and drooling on my pillowcase. He woke up to the sound of my ripping shirt as I squeezed through the window.

  “I didn’t think you were coming back,” he said, opening his crusty lashes.

  This morning, my phone blew up with messages from Angela ranting about how she was in Bio and still feeling cross-faded from last night. I told her I was staying in bed for the rest of the morning, then went on Luke’s page. If only Facebook stalking were illegal, my dream of being a prison bitch would have come true.

  He’d posted two new pictures taken at a family meal during the holidays. The description on the first read, “Before,” and it showed him with a huge plate of food—turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes, gravy, veggies. In the next picture, “After,” his plate was empty. His eyes were rolled to the back of his head, and he was smirking. I almost died because it was exactly what I imagined his come face would look like.

  When I was done jerking off, I picked up one of the Old Hollywood star biographies, which I collected. They were scattered all over my room because a bookshelf was too big for me to steal from the Salvation Army. I was always reading about the old stars; if only they had taught Tinseltown Glamour at school, I probably wouldn’t have needed Mrs Adams’ personal pharmacy to help get me through the day.

  I wanted to be them all. Well, all the girls. The only male star I ever wanted to be was James Dean. But that’s just because he sucked so much dick.

  I read for a bit and then tried to go back to sleep, but I wasn’t really tired. I just lay there, twitching under the covers from thoughts that were like spider bites. I hugged Stoned Hairspray and closed my eyes, imagining she was Luke. Stoned had a way of wrapping her paws around my arm like she was holding it, like she knew what role she was playing. I imagined that Luke was holding me back. I could feel his breath on the back of my neck.

  And it felt so real, I didn’t know when I was dreaming.

  When I woke up again, it was to the sound of creaking floorboards from my mom practicing her striptease.

  I managed to crawl out of the window, shoving my way through the snow, and then I walked to the Day-n-Nite. I was supposed to meet Angela, but she texted to cancel because she was hooking up with some high school jock. “Just one?” I texted back, trying not to care that she was ditching me again. Everyone in Angela’s life had a switch. She turned you on and then shut you off.

  I was eating fries at the back booth by myself when the bells on the door rang. Luke and Madison walked in. I ducked so they wouldn’t see me, watching as they slid into one of the black and pink leather booths. Luke put his arm around her, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I just wasn’t sure if it was from grease or jealousy.

  Although I was crouched down, Luke still saw me. Our eyes met for a second, and then he looked away and leaned forward to block me from Madison. He knew she’d make a scene. She was a Movie Star, after all.

  I paid my bill with singles because my allowance always came from my mom’s tips and then stood up and walked past them to make sure they saw me. Luke looked at the menu, and Madison called me a faggot. I loved the sound. Faggot is such a sexy word, it made me horny. That’s what I wanted Zac Efron to call me when he finally took my virginity.

  I didn’t want to go home even though it was getting late. My mom would still be getting ready for work, and her stilettos would be cracking through the floorboards straight into my brain.

  I never wanted to be home. It made me mental. But I never wanted to be anywhere, really. That was the problem; everywhere was the same. I was the same, no matter where I went. I put concealer on the dark circles under my eyes, but I was still a shadow.

  I walked by the park to see if Abel was there, even though usually he was there only in the middle of the night; he was an insomniac. I started waking up to go sit with him. Looking up through the tree branches to the stars in the sky, I always felt an urgency to find the brightest one. Like if I found it first, it was mine.

  The first time we met in the park, it was by chance. I walked past the entrance and saw his golden curls, the same colour as the dirty leaves stuck in the wet mud. I wouldn’t have gone in if he hadn’t been sitting on the graffitied park bench, staring out at the river. The park was creepy at night. The tree branches creaked like the devil on tiptoes, and the wind was like his breath over your shoulder. I liked Abel because he was easy to talk to and to not talk to. Sometimes we’d sit on the bench and not say a word, but it was okay.

  I made it happen. Then, once it did, it was like there was no going back. It started near the beginning of the school year. I had gone to his house to see if Angela was home, but she was hanging out with one of her boyfriends. I’m not sure which one—number six on her list, I think. But it might’ve been number 666. Anyway, I was about to leave, but Abel called out to me halfway down the driveway and asked if I wanted to hang out. He put his hands in his pockets and shrugged from the door. His face was so red, I thought blood might spill out of his ears. I couldn’t tell if “hang out” meant play Nintendo, roll on molly, or make out. But secretly, I hoped for all three.

  We were home alone because Mr Adams was working and Mrs Adams was at the casino. We went to the living room, and he rolled us a joint while I flipped through daytime TV. I settled on The Ellen DeGeneres Show while he s
parked it. “I am not a second-class citizen,” Ellen said to the camera, tears in her eyes.

  “Who died?” Abel asked, blowing a smoke ring that I popped with my accent nail. He passed me the joint, and after a few puffs, I already felt different. Like each time I batted my eyelashes, it was in slow motion. I looked at him through the smoke, lifting my hand to brush a curl out of his eyes. I took the lighter, which he’d dropped in his lap, and flicked the flame. He sucked on the joint so hard he must’ve got ashes at the back of his throat. His cough almost blew out the flame. He watched with watering, bloodshot eyes as I licked my finger and held it to the fire.

  “It’s a lovely way to burn,” I told him, but he just stared at the commercials playing on the screen. I kept the flame burning and brought it closer to his face, so close it was like that time Angela tried to light the pipe for me and burned off some of my eyelashes. Abel didn’t even flinch. I blew out the flame, and when my breath hit his face, his eyes closed. I waited for them to reopen, but they didn’t. The roach burned out between his fingers as I placed the lighter back in his lap. He tensed, but I didn’t take my hand away.

  As I undid his zipper, he slowly opened his eyes and said, “I’m not … ”

  7

  Casting Couch

  T obey Field lived next door to my grandma. When I was a kid, I’d play with him in my grandma’s basement on the weekends. My mom could only commit to five days of parenting a week. Tobey was the only boy who was ever my friend, not counting Abel, but I guess that’s different. I don’t know if Abel was my friend. I don’t really know what Abel was.

  Tobey never made me feel weird like every other boy did. He didn’t care if I sounded like a girl and wore a tampon up my ass. I guess Tobey was different, too. But he didn’t seem different, so he got away with it in a way that I never could, being the male JonBenét Ramsey and all. Well, I always did walk around like there was a tiara on my head, and everyone wanted to choke me out …

  My grandma spent all her time cooking in the kitchen, so Tobey and I would hang out in the basement and watch Mean Girls, which I kept playing on repeat just to give my grandma something to pray about. I knew each line by heart.

  One day, right when the sales lady was all like, “You could try Sears,” Tobey looked over at me. I can’t remember exactly how it happened, I just remember being down to our underwear and humping on the couch while my grandma was upstairs baking pies of contrition for the church.

  I was pretty much in love with Tobey because he was two years older than me and had pubic hair. I always wondered how he’d end up. I’d get depressed thinking about it, as depressed as I got when wishing I were a character in one of my mom’s Jackie Collins novels. I thought Tobey would probably end up getting a girl pregnant, and he’d work at the mine, same as everyone else.

  Then, one weekend, I went to my grandma’s, and he was gone. He’d moved across town. I saw him around sometimes after that, but he always pretended like he didn’t know me. His face faded a few shades, and Tobey Field became a ghost. I thought about him a lot, though, I couldn’t help it. I hated the past, but sometimes I wanted to curl up in it because at least it was familiar and safe. Sometimes I wanted life to be like Mean Girls; I wanted to know exactly what was going to happen right before it did.

  Tobey told me what being gay meant, as if I hadn’t downloaded Grindr when I was like, nine, and my mom gave me her old phone. He said that I was gay, but he wasn’t because he had a girlfriend.

  And then we took turns fucking each other with my Barbies.

  The first person I came out to was my grade-two teacher. Her name was Mrs Schaeffer. She took me out of class because I spontaneously broke out singing Britney Spears during a test. When she told me to “Stop that racket!” I said, “It’s not racket. It’s Britney, bitch.”

  Mrs Schaeffer didn’t know what to do with me. She had already called my mom and told her she should take me to the doctor. Mom did. The doctor prescribed Ritalin for me after diagnosing me with ADHD, even though my mom said I was just an attention whore. I never did take the Ritalin; Ray got to them before I could. Mrs Schaeffer took me out in the hall and crossed her arms, looking down at me. “Every day it’s the same thing, Jude. You insist on causing trouble for yourself.” I tried to make myself cry because tears get you out of everything. “What’s wrong with you?” she asked. I didn’t know if I was supposed to answer. She looked at me, waiting.

  What was wrong with me? Well, I never watched cartoons growing up because my mom always wanted to watch her shows: Days of Our Lives, Gossip Girl, and The Real Housewives of Orange County. What do you expect from a boy whose only role model was Blair Waldorf?

  “Well?” She asked again, crossing her arms to stop herself from hitting me. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I looked up at her and shrugged. “I’m gay.” That was what everyone else seemed to think was wrong with me.

  “How do you know that word?” she gasped.

  Mrs Schaeffer called my house that night. I heard the whole conversation because I was sitting next to my mom on the couch, helping her sew one of the broken straps of a sequined bra. Most kids had to vacuum once a week for allowance. Not me. I had to wipe down the latex.

  “Do you have anything to tell me?” Mom asked once she’d hung up the phone.

  I shook my head.

  “Something you told your teacher?”

  I shrugged.

  She looked at me for a second and then lit a cigarette. “That Mrs Schaeffer sounds like a real bitch,” she said, blowing smoke.

  I told my mom a few days later. We were standing in line at Safeway when I read a headline on the front of a tabloid that said, “Kanye’s Secret Shame: He’s Gay!” I stared at it as we waited and kept thinking about it while we put the groceries in the trunk of the car. When we were driving home, I asked my mom, “Do you think Kanye West is gay?”

  “Does taking it up the butt with your own head count?” she asked.

  “Do you think it’s bad to be gay?”

  “What? Didn’t I tell you to forget everything Father John Paul says as soon as he says it? I don’t even know why I let your grandmother take you—”

  “It wasn’t anything Father John Paul said,” I interrupted. “It was just that a magazine made it sound like a bad thing.”

  “What maga … Well, magazines make everything celebrities do seem like a bad thing.”

  “Yeah, Lindsay can’t even do a line in peace.”

  “I know,” my mom sighed. “Poor girl.”

  “Well, I’m gay,” I said. “But I hope Kanye West isn’t. Straight people can keep him.”

  My mom looked surprised for just a second and then she smiled. I don’t think she was acting. Sometimes my mom would smile, but it was as real as her tits.

  “Shocker,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’ve only been walking in heels better than me since you were three years old!”

  8

  Movie Poster

  All the girls had crushes on Mr Dawson. Alexis Crane was always squeezing her chest together, trying to give herself cleavage in front of him. He liked to start each class by reading to us for fifteen minutes. I could tell that what he liked the most was hearing his own voice. It was totally narcissistic but also kind of cute. When he read, he got so into it, you couldn’t help but feel transported. Everyone else thought he was a loser because he read Jane Austen with an English accent, but I started having sex dreams about him when he asked us to write an essay on a movie that changed our lives.

  I chose The Rocky Horror Picture Show, obviously, and even dressed as Frank-N-Furter to read my essay in front of the class. When I whipped off my cape to reveal my corset and garter belt, Matt yelled from his desk, “Go back to Transsexual, Transylvania freak!”

  “What country is Transylvania in, Matt?” Mr Dawson asked, once everyone had stopped laughing.

  “I don’t know,” Matt shrugged. “Who cares?”

  “So you know more about transse
xuals than geography?” Mr Dawson smirked.

  Suddenly, it sounded like the room was full of owls. I’m surprised Matt didn’t get up and punch Mr Dawson in the face, but for the first time, he looked embarrassed. I was never intimidated by him after that. Shame is so boring. I traced my tongue over my glistening red lips and stared straight into his eyes, arching one of my thick, illustrious brows.

  “Everyone keep your mouths shut, please,” Mr Dawson said. “Jude, you may continue.” I kept reading with my voice shaking because the room was so quiet. I was waiting for someone to laugh every time I said a word with an “s” in it. And I couldn’t have that, so I started singing, dancing on desks, shaking my ass. Soon, everyone was cheering for me. Everyone wanted a part in my movie.

  When I finished, I got a standing ovation. Then the bell rang and everyone got out of the class as fast as they could. I went back to my desk and got my books. As I was about to leave, I tried to think of a way to thank Mr Dawson. That was the first time anyone had ever stood up for me, besides Angela, who usually just butted in because she liked the drama. I was worried that “thank you” would sound lame, or worse, like I was hitting on him, which was basically what every guy thought I was doing whenever I gave him a little attention. On the rare occasions I talked to Ray, he always looked at me like I’d just asked if I could give him a blow job.

  I decided not to say anything at all and started to walk out of the class, but Mr Dawson stopped me. “Remember, Jude,” he said, “don’t dream it, be it.”

  As I walked out of his classroom into the hall, I imagined him slamming the door shut before I could leave. He ripped off his tie, and I fell onto his chest. His breath was hot. He was bulging. My garter belt snapped as he pulled off my necklace, pearls scattering to the floor. I ran my hand through his finger waves as he pushed me against his desk. A satin heel slipped off my foot. He pulled me onto his lap, and as my legs spread, the seam in my black underwear ripped down my ass crack which he spread open and …