Openly Straight

by Konigsberg, Bill

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I like joking too, Toby, but let’s just get serious for half a minute, okay?”

  “Sure,” he said. “That was dumb. Stupid. I’m a retard.”

  “Enough,” Albie said. “We love you. You’re not dumb.”

  “That’s right,” I echoed. “You’re loved.” And as I said it, I instinctively wondered if Ben would judge me. But when I glanced up, the creases on Ben’s forehead told me he had more important things on his mind.

  Ben directed us to Sparky’s, a diner in downtown Natick. We parked on the main street, jumped out of the car, and headed in. It was loud. The jukebox was playing some rock ballad from before we were born, and groups of high school kids were hanging out in the booths. Probably Joey Warren kids.

  Every time I saw someone with dark skin, my heart jumped, hoping it was Bryce. It never was. Ben checked the bathroom but came back alone. Bryce just wasn’t there.

  We drove in silence down the semifestive streets of downtown Natick, looking for any sign of him. None.

  I looked at my watch. It was 11:20.

  “What do we do now?” I asked.

  No one had an answer for that.

  “Bryce liked going to Boston,” Ben said.

  Silence again, finally broken by Albie. “Did you call his cell?”

  “No answer,” said Ben, who bit his lip.

  “Because Boston is a big place,” Albie continued.

  “I know,” Ben said, annoyed. “I know. It’s not gonna work. It just feels hopeless going back now. I mean, he’s out here somewhere.”

  “I guess we need to go to …” Albie said, hoping someone would fill in the blanks so he wouldn’t have to say it.

  “I’d say the police and then the hospital,” Ben said, his voice full of fear.

  I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed. It seemed like the right thing to do. He didn’t seem to mind, so I left it there for a few moments, just to let him know I cared.

  The police officer we spoke to at the station claimed he didn’t know anything about a Bryce Hixon being picked up. We drove to the hospital and pulled up at the emergency room, each of us wondering which was best: to find him there, or not.

  “I can’t give out that sort of information,” the woman at the information desk said, glancing at each of us as if searching for one who would understand.

  “Please. He’s our friend, we’re worried,” I said.

  She pursed her lips, and that was the moment I knew something was wrong.

  “Don’t you have a dorm adviser?” she said, her face wrinkled with concern. “Go and talk to your dorm adviser.”

  My pulse soared. I looked at Ben and opened my mouth, but nothing came out. There was nothing I had said that included where we went to school. We’d just said Bryce’s name.

  She knew something. I nodded thanks and took off, running, down the corridor toward the parking lot. I could hear the others as they followed behind me.

  We jumped in the car, and in silence Albie sped back to the dorm. It felt like we were in the middle of a nightmare. I didn’t even know Bryce. Bryce. Poor Bryce.

  Albie turned off the lights, turned into the parking lot, and coasted as quietly as possible into a spot before shutting down the engine. We crept across the parking lot and back behind East Hall, the late-night nip shivering our necks.

  “Why don’t we just use the front door,” a voice said. We looked up, and there, in the floodlight, was Mr. Donnelly.

  Mr. Donnelly walked us back into East through the front door and kept walking toward his room, which also served as the dorm’s office. Once there, he closed the door behind him and pointed to a dated-looking green fabric couch. The four of us bunched together on it and nervously waited for whatever was coming.

  “Got a call from some lady at the hospital, told me four young men were out searching for their friend,” he said, sitting down behind his desk across the room. “Don’t do that ever again, boys. Ever. I don’t even want to know how you got out.”

  He continued, “Bryce is in the hospital, but he’s going to be fine. He had what they call a major depressive episode. In layman’s terms, that’s a depression.” I felt Ben fidget next to me on the couch, and Mr. Donnelly went on, “Bryce wandered off campus and was incoherent when the police picked him up. He didn’t cohere to the rules of the campus, in other words. And when they asked if he was a danger to anyone, he said, ‘Just myself.’”

  Ben took a deep breath.

  “So he’s under observation at MetroWest. They will observe him and see what to do next, through observation. But if you asked me, I don’t think he’ll be coming back here. It’s a terrible tragedy, not to mention for the soccer team.”

  I could almost feel Ben wanting to pounce on Donnelly. How could you get to be an adult, much less a teacher, and think that was something to say to kids about their friend?

  “All’s I know is that his parents are on their way. My best guess is that they’ll take him back to Rhode Island.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Ben erupted. “Why didn’t you come up and let me know? I’m his best friend.”

  “I tried, Carver,” Mr. Donnelly said. “Around eleven-thirty. No one answered. I knocked on some other doors, and no one knew where you were. I know you’re not one to sneak out, so I figured you’d show eventually. Then the hospital called.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “This was my idea. We heard on the scanner….”

  Mr. Donnelly looked at me funny. “You guys have a police scanner?”

  Albie raised his hand, guilty, and Mr. Donnelly broke into a bit of a grin. “Well, there’s a lot worse you could be up to than listening to a police scanner in your room. That’s not a punishable offense in my book. But please, guys. Use your common senses.”

  “Can we go now?” Toby asked.

  Mr. Donnelly nodded. “Please don’t do this kind of shenanigans again. You’re the types of boys who should be the least amount of trouble, not the most. Just promise, no more sneaking out, okay?”

  We promised. The four of us walked upstairs in silence and stopped at my room. Toby looked over at Ben, his eyes averted. “I’m really sorry about Bryce,” he said. “And I’m sorry that I was such a jerk. I don’t think sometimes.”

  Ben nodded. “That’s okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

  Albie opened the door and he and Toby went inside. I paused outside. “I’m gonna hang out for a bit, if that’s okay.” I looked up at Ben.

  “Sure,” he said. “I could use the company.”

  We went into his room, and my heart started thumping again. What if I didn’t say the right thing and offended Ben somehow? But then I calmed down. I’d been on campus three weeks so far, and nothing disastrous had happened yet. Maybe I just needed to trust myself.

  Ben flopped down on his bed, and I sat on the floor, facing him. I picked up a single sock next to me and listlessly began to pull on the elastic until I realized what I was doing. I looked up to see if Ben had witnessed me playing with a stranger’s (probably dirty) sock, and he had. He was half smiling again.

  “Having fun?”

  “In Colorado I used to spend all my Saturday nights doing this. I’d go to the laundromat and steal single socks out of different dryers, and take them home, and pull on them. It’s pretty much my favorite thing.”

  Ben jumped up, went to a refrigerator in the closet, pulled out two orange sports drinks, and tossed me one. I was pretty parched from running around all night, so I opened it and took a long swig.

  “Bryce and I used to mix this stuff with vodka,” Ben said. “He called it a plastic screwdriver, I guess because it’s like a screwdriver but the juice is, I don’t know, not real.”

  I sat up. “Do you have any …”

  “Hmm,” Ben said. “I think Bryce does. I guess if he comes back, I can explain.”

  He crossed the room and rummaged underneath Bryce’s bed, pulling out another stray sock, like the one I had been playing with.
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  “He called these orphans. When he folded his laundry, he always called the matching of socks Sock Mahjong, like the computer card game.”

  I picked up and examined the sock I had been touching. “I wish I knew him better. He sounds funny.”

  “He was funny,” Ben said, pulling out a bottle of Absolut from deep under the bed. It was about three-quarters full. “Is. Painfully funny. Like way too funny for the people here.”

  He filled my bottle of sports drink, which was half full, with enough vodka to make it three-quarters full. “You’re sort of like that too,” I said as I closed the top on the bottle and shook.

  Ben chugged down his own drink until it was also half empty, then he filled the bottle with vodka. “I’m a better listener than talker, more of an audience for good comedy than a comedian.”

  I took a sip of my drink, and it was pretty good. I liked the way the sweetness quieted that vodka bite. Truth is, I don’t really love drinking. I just do it when I have to. To fit in.

  “Plastic screwdriver good,” I said, in a weird Russian accent.

  He sipped his and agreed, in an equally bad accent. “Plastic screwdriver very good.”

  Then Ben told me all about Bryce, about how he could do perfect imitations of almost everyone at the school.

  “Did he do me?” I asked.

  “No, not yet. But if you’d given him a little more time, I’m sure he would have.”

  I flinched, trying to imagine what that would sound like.

  We both finished our bottles, and Ben, now a little wobbly, went and got two more sports drinks. We swigged them partway down and filled them again with vodka. This time, we toasted. I pulled up a chair, and he lay on his bed, facedown. When he spoke, he lifted his head toward me.

  “You would not believe his imitation of Coach Donnelly,” Ben said.

  I laughed, imagining.

  “Run as fast as you can,” he said, trying to sound like what Bryce probably sounded like imitating Donnelly, but failing. “Like the French did in the Civil War, when they eluded the Greeks on their way from Charleston to Nashville.”

  “We knew the only way to attack the axis of evil was by storming the beaches at Normandy,” I said back.

  Ben started laughing louder than I’d ever heard, and I figured some of that was the vodka. But that just made me laugh harder too, and my head was feeling it as well.

  “Taking out Saddam Hussein was wrong. We should have gone after Hitler. He was the real danger,” Ben said.

  “Yes. And the Iranians, when they bombed Nagasaki.”

  We were in fits now, Ben cracking up and rolling on the bed and me with my head in my hands, practically snorting. And we just let the laughter flow until we were both tearing up. My chest started to hurt, and I had to breathe deep so that I could get my lungs back.

  Ben dried his eyes with the back of his palm. “I should have said something this afternoon,” he said.

  The change was so abrupt that it caught me off guard, and I had to work hard not to break out laughing again.

  “No, no,” I said. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I didn’t do anything right either,” he said. “And I will never forgive myself for that. If Bryce doesn’t come back, I will never forgive myself.”

  And then Ben really started to tear up, and I was drunk enough that I did what any good buddy would do. I went over to the bed and put my arms around him and hugged him while he cried onto my shoulder.

  “He’s my best friend. He’s made this place bearable for two years. What’s going to happen to him?”

  “He’s gonna be fine,” I said, not sure if that was true or not. “He’ll be fine. He’ll be back here again, I just know it.”

  “I just … Bryce was the kindest person I’ve ever known. Last year when my uncle died, Bryce came to the funeral. And not just to get out of classes. I mean, he really wanted to be there for me, make sure I was okay. I was close to my uncle, you know? Real close, and Bryce was there for me.”

  “He sounds like a great friend,” I said.

  Ben sniffled into my shoulder, still holding on. He smelled like butter and alcohol and garlic, and the combination made my insides melt. I realized, with my nose against his shirt, that I hadn’t ever talked to a guy like this.

  “Why didn’t I just stick up for him?”

  I said, “The same reason I didn’t. We were afraid.”

  Ben thought about this, and the sniffling decreased. We kept hugging each other. I was kind of drunk, and Ben was too, and it was all okay.

  “You’re a really good person, Rafe. I was wrong about you. You’re not like those other guys.”

  “You think?” I asked.

  “I know,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “I think I like the Rafe I saw tonight with Albie and Toby better than the one at football and at the party. Sorry if that hurts your feelings.”

  I kept my face against his short brown hair, my eyebrow against his ear. “It doesn’t,” I said. “I like that Rafe better too.”

  I let go and went back to the chair, and part of me was relieved, because as much as I had enjoyed being on his bed with him, hugging, it was getting a little close there.

  We finished up our plastic screwdrivers, and soon I was yawning. I looked over at the clock. It was 3:17.

  “Getting too late for me,” I said. “Time to go to bed.”

  Ben sat up then, and leaned toward me.

  “I don’t want to sleep alone tonight,” he slurred.

  I wondered how drunk he was, and how much of this was an act. Either way, my heart accelerated.

  “That’s sort of, I dunno,” I said. “I mean, it’s a small bed….”

  He cracked up. “In Bryce’s bed, you maniac,” he said.

  I laughed and nodded. Sure, I could sleep there. And I went over to Bryce’s bed, took off my pants, and climbed under his covers. It felt weird being under someone else’s sheets. I could smell him, Bryce, the faint musk of his sweat.

  “G’night,” I said.

  “Thanks for staying, friend,” he said.

  “You got it, friend,” I said back.

  I’M NOT REALLY a believer in fate, or that everything happens for a reason, or that we have soul mates or whatever. I mean, if there’s a God and everyone has a soul mate, why doesn’t everyone find theirs? Does God put some people’s soul mates in another country, just to be cruel? And if only some people have one, why? What did the others do to piss God off? I think stuff happens, and then people try to figure out why, and then voilà! Fate and soul mates.

  I write that because I definitely never thought Clay was my soul mate. I thought he was just a decent guy who could have been a passable boyfriend.

  The first time I saw him was outside of chemistry class. It was about a month into sophomore year, and I had never noticed him in class. I was the last to leave the room that day, because I had to ask Mr. Stanhouse a question about the upcoming test. When I got into the hallway, there Clay was, this unassuming, quiet-looking kid with light brown hair, a little bit of acne on his chin and left cheek. A nerd type, I thought. When I looked at him, he nodded.

  “Hey, Rafe, you’re good at this chemistry stuff, right?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  “Would you help me with it? I don’t get it.”

  I was confused. Did he mean right then and there? Another class period was four minutes from starting.

  “Sure …”

  He looked relieved. “I could come over to your house.”

  “Oh,” I said, like I had been pinched on the butt. “Sure. Okay.”

  “Thanks,” he said. He averted his eyes, and I noticed them. Maybe hazel? Cute nerd. He wore a pine green Lacoste shirt that was too short for him, and a pair of generic jeans with no belt. Terrible taste in clothing, not stylish at all, but cute. Definitely not out.

  “Um, when?” I asked.

  “Today?”

  I knew this was
kind of weird, but I was interested in the same way you get interested when a Facebook friend you barely know comments on a random picture in your photo gallery. You know they’ve been paying more attention to you than you have to them, and you want to know why.

  “Sure, I guess,” I said. “Um, who are you?”

  He looked down at his shoes. “Clay.”

  “Hi, Clay.”

  “Hi.”

  At lunch, I saw him again, eating at a table with some other guys, all bookish types. I tapped Claire Olivia on the shoulder.

  “Whatever you do, don’t make it obvious,” I said. “But will you tell me if you know the kid with the green shirt, at the table two behind us to your right?”

  Good old Claire Olivia immediately turned the opposite way, and looked three back, and made a big deal about it, so anyone watching us would think I had just asked her to check out a person at that table. She always did that. Throw them off the trail. Then, once she was done with that, she surreptitiously looked where I told her to look.

  “Never seen him before in my life. Maybe the most generic boy in the history of Rangeview.”

  “Thought so,” I said.

  So Clay came over to my house that afternoon. My mom was home, and she was pretty surprised to see this boy with me. Usually I was with Claire Olivia or no one. I saw her raise an eyebrow as we went up to my room, and I just wanted to tell her to PLEASE. BE. NORMAL. For once.

  It was my first time having a boy in my room. Clay sat at my desk, and I went over the three types of radioactivity. He was close to me, his nose near mine. I could actually hear his breathing in my ear. It was all a little surprising.

  That’s when I felt it.

  One thin finger. Gently touching my thigh.

  I kept talking about how alpha loses two protons and two neutrons, like his finger wasn’t on my thigh. And I think he liked that, because he kept asking questions, as if his finger weren’t on my thigh.

  Nobody had ever touched me that way before, and even though my mouth kept motoring, I felt a little bit under a wave, maybe, water rushing everywhere and the shock of chill and the sound. It was almost deafening, the sound of us not talking about it, and I loved the dizziness it gave me.