The Misfits

by James Howe

  Joe says the same thing about Pam. He calls her his fairy godmother, because she showed up just at the moment in his life when he needed somebody to let him know it was okay to be himself. Pam always tells him, “You didn’t need me. You had your parents. You would have been just fine.”

  I agree with Pam, but Joe doesn’t buy it. He insists that if his aunt hadn’t come along when she did, by now he would be calling other guys “dude” and pretending to like football and hating himself inside. I say that’s just Joe being dramatic, but I never say it to him.

  Meanwhile, Addie is going on and on about the Freedom Party and how we have to have posters that really stand out and how we need a symbol because the Republicans have the elephant and the Democrats have the donkey.

  It turns out that Heather O’Malley said no to being on the Freedom Party ticket. After getting turned down by every other minority student she could think of—except Tonni, who she didn’t ask—Addie begged Skeezie, and Skeezie, to her surprise, said yes.

  “Man, it was pitiful,” Skeezie tells me. “The girl was desperate, what could I do? Besides, there is not a chance we are going to win, so it’s not like I have to worry about actually doing anything. Although there is the factor of public humiliation up until the elections, but, hey, I’m used to that.”

  Not the best reason to run for office, but I am willing to bet there have been worse.

  Anyway, when I see Skeezie and Addie with their heads together at one point during the evening, I find it kind of strange but assume it has to do with the campaign. I am wrong, as I will find out later.

  The way it goes with posters is this: Addie and DuShawn are working together. Joe and Kelsey are working together. And Pam and I are working together. Which explains why for a period of time previously considered humanly impossible, I maintain my life force without benefit of breathing. I am actually relieved not to be working with Kelsey, because then I would have to deal with not breathing and coming up with something to say. Kelsey is the quietest person I have ever met. With Joe, it doesn’t matter; he does all the talking. Pam is also chatting away while we work (I figure it must run in the family), telling me all about these paintings she’s just finished and how this friend of hers is trying to get her a job at a gallery in New York City and, as if transitions had never been invented, how great it is that we are all doing this, meaning the Freedom Party, and I just keep going uh-huh to everything she says and clamping my arms to my sides so I don’t drip sweat on fresh marker.

  You may have noticed that I have not mentioned what the Skeeze is doing. That is because he is not working on the posters. He has taken it upon himself as secretary of the Freedom Party to lie around on the sofa reading People magazine.

  Before we can start on the posters, however, we have to choose a symbol and a slogan. These are the ones we vote on:

  Freedom for One, Freedom for All (dolphin)—Kelsey

  Freedom Rocks! (guitar)—Skeezie

  Be Strong, Be Cool, Let Freedom Rule! (Madonna)—Joe

  Fly Like a Bird, Let Freedom Be Heard (dove)—Addie

  DuShawn and I do not make any suggestions, except for DuShawn’s “Down with Slavery!” (watermelon), which nobody takes seriously, including DuShawn. I am learning he has a wicked sense of humor and think this is an admirable trait. Joe and Skeezie agree, but Addie is not so sure and her lips get a little puckery when she talks about it.

  Anyway, Kelsey’s idea wins and we spend the next hour copying pictures of dolphins out of wildlife magazines and writing:

  Freedom for One, Freedom for All!

  Vote for the FREEDOM PARTY

  And your voicewill be heard!

  Our candidates care!

  President. . . DuShawn Carter

  Vice President. . . Addie Carle

  Treasurer . . . Bobby Goodspeed

  Secretary . . . Skeezie Tookis

  Isn’t it time for a change?

  We are all congratulating ourselves on how brilliant we are and how Brittney and the Republicans and Drew and the Democrats don’t stand a chance against us (not that any of us except Addie believes this, but it is easy to get caught up in campaign fever), when Joe’s mom comes in and tells Addie her mom has just called and she needs to get home. I personally am glad, because I do not think I can stand being so near to Pam any longer, what with her giving off the scent of magnolias the way she does.

  Being so up close and personal with Pam, I have forgotten to think about Kelsey for whole minutes at a time and now I notice out of the corner of my occuli that Joe is still chatting up a regular storm with her and she is listening with both her ears and laughing in a quiet but semihysterical sort of way, and when her dad arrives and she’s saying her goodbyes, she gives Joe the same now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t smile she gave me just last week. And this gets me to wondering, but I am not entirely sure what it is I am wondering about.

  DuShawn leaves when Addie does, but the Skeeze and I do not have to depart immediately, so we retire with Joe to his room, where he invites us to hang out.

  “Hey, Joey,” Skeezie says as he turns on Joe’s Lava lamp and we settle in on the lime green shag carpet. “Looks like Kelsey’s got quite the thing for you, my man. She was on you like fleas on a dog.”

  “What?” says Joe.

  “Not that you weren’t encouraging it. You kept talkin’ and talkin’ and she kept listenin’ and listenin’ and laughin’ at your dumb jokes.”

  “So?”

  “So she likes you.”

  “So?”

  “Just makin’ an observation.” Skeezie turns to me. “Sorry, Bobby, ’cause I know you’ve got this major crush on her and all.”

  My cheeks turn the color of the big red glob rising to the top of Joe’s Lava lamp. Do I have a crush on Kelsey? I think maybe I do, but then being around Pam tonight I’m not so sure. I decide that I hate hormones.

  Joe shrugs. “I’m just being nice to her,” he says. “Nobody talks to her because she doesn’t talk back. And my jokes are not dumb, for your information. I happen to be a very funny person. Anyway, if Bobby likes Kelsey, he can have her.”

  “Nice,” I go. “Like she’s a cookie that fell on the floor.”

  “I don’t mean it that way,” says Joe. He starts picking at the carpet while Skeezie finds a Koosh ball to toss around.

  “Well, what do you mean?” Skeezie asks, bouncing the Koosh ball off his knee.

  “I mean if Bobby likes Kelsey, he can have her. Hello.”

  “I thought you’d be happy she likes you. I thought havin’ a girl like you was supposed to be the key to eternal happiness or somethin’.”

  “Boy,” I say, “for somebody who thinks love is a four-letter word, you sure do have it on the brain a lot.”

  “Just makin’ conversation,” says the Skeeze.

  “Well, here’s a three-letter word to help the conversation along, okay?” Joe says. He stops his picking, which gets Skeezie to stop his bouncing, and they eyeball each other. “G-a-y.”

  “Huh?”

  “I’ve told you before, Skeezie. I’m gay.”

  “You said you thought maybe you were. I didn’t exactly believe you.”

  “Well, now I’m telling you I am.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Don’t tell me what I don’t know. Look around my room, okay? What do you see?”

  Skeezie gives Joe’s room the once-over and starts ticking off what he eyes: books, CDs, computer, tie-dyed butterfly chair with smiley face pillow, big stuffed flamingo on the bed, antique floor lamp with fringed shade, posters of Madonna and Cher and Leonardo DiCaprio in a T-shirt.

  “So?” he says when he’s done taking inventory. “So you’re a little weird. We all are. That’s why we’re friends.”

  “There are different shades of weird, Skeezie. Mine’s pink.”

  “Look,” Skeezie says, “I know you’re kind of girly—no offense—but that doesn’t mean you have to like boys.”

  “True,�
� says Joe.

  “So how do you know you do?” Skeezie asks.

  “How do you know you like girls?” Joe throws back at him.

  Skeezie laughs. “I don’t like girls. I mean, I don’t like girls right now. But I like lookin’ at them and all. And I guess maybe one day... geez, I don’t know how I know, Joe, I just do. I don’t have to think about it.”

  “Well,” says Joe, “that’s how it is with me and boys. I don’t have to think about it.”

  This stops Skeezie cold and he resumes his Koosh ball tossing. I can tell he’s thinking by the way his face is all scrunched up.

  Finally, he says, “What do your mom and dad say about it?”

  Joe shrugs. “I’ve never come right out and told them I’m gay, but I think they know. I mean, they’re not stupid. No offense.”

  “None taken,” Skeezie says.

  “They’ve always let me just be myself, you know? Playing with dolls and dressing up and all that, they never told me it was wrong. Of course, they never told me it was right, either. So I worried a lot, especially about my dad. I figured he probably wanted a son who was a lot more like Jeff. It was Pam who helped me see that Mom and Dad were letting me be who I was instead of trying to make me into something else. She told me that was just about the best kind of love anybody could give anybody.”

  Skeezie nods. “Your parents are all right,” he says. “Still, it’s got to be tough. Being gay and all.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Well, take the dance, for instance. If Bobby wants to go to the dance with Kelsey—”

  I start to object.

  “I’m just sayin’,” Skeezie says, heading me off. “If Bobby wants to, and let’s just say for the sake of argument that Kelsey wants to go with him, well, that’s okay. Nobody’s gonna make a big deal of it, y’know? But what if you want to go with somebody?”

  “I do,” says Joe, before he thinks to stop himself. He glances my way on account of my knowing his secret.

  “You do?” says Skeezie. “Who?”

  “Not that it’s going to happen,” Joe says. “But I like... somebody.”

  “Come on, give.”

  “You won’t tell anybody?”

  “JoDan. It’s me. The Skeeze.”

  “Okay, okay. I like Colin, all right?”

  “Colin?”

  “Yes, but if you tell anybody... I would’ve told you before this, Skeezie, but I don’t know... I wasn’t sure you’d understand.”

  “Oh, man,” Skeezie says, hitting the side of his head with his hand. “Did you know about this, Bobby?”

  “Uh-huh,” I say. “Since the end of fifth grade.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? If I’d known last week, even, it would’ve saved me ... oh, I feel so stupid, man. What’s Addie gonna say?”

  “Addie? What’s she got to do with anything?”

  Skeezie leans in, like he’s going to tell us some big secret, which in fact he is. “You gotta promise not to tell her I told you, okay?”

  “Pinky swear,” Joe goes, and Skeezie gives him a look.

  “Addie likes Colin, too, man, and I told her I’d be, like, a go-between.”

  “So that’s why you were putting something in Colin’s locker!” I say. “I saw you.”

  Joe asks, “What did you see?”

  “I’ll bet it was a ’somebody-likes-you’ note. Am I right?”

  Skeezie nods. “I’m trying to fix them up.”

  “So much for being a cynic about love,” I go.

  “I am for me,” Skeezie answers. “No reason other people can’t be happy. If that’s what they want.”

  Joe gets quiet. “It doesn’t matter,” he says. “Go ahead and fix Addie up with Colin. She’s got a lot better chance than I do. Who am I kidding?”

  All of a sudden, we’re both staring at Joe—Skeezie and me—like we’ve never seen him before. I’m thinking about the first time I ever laid eyes on him, him standing there behind the screen door wearing a dress and all, telling me he’s a boy, and I get to wondering if Skeezie’s remembering the way he used to pick on Joe in kindergarten. Next thing I know, I’ve got in my head the Easy-Bake Oven Joe got for his birthday when he was six, I think it was, and how much he loved that thing. Whenever I came over to play, he would tell me I had to be the father and he was the mother and he would give me cookies he made himself and I would always say, “You’re a good cook, Molly.” Because that was his name when he was the mother. Molly.

  And then I’m looking over at Skeezie and I am pondering on the fact that his real name is Schuyler and I do not know when he first started getting called Skeezie or dressing like a 1950s young hooligan, but I’m remembering that his dad used to ride around town on a motorcycle, all decked out in a black leather jacket, which is not the usual thing to do in Paintbrush Falls, and he got a lot of grief over it, but he did not care. Or at least that’s what he said. But then one day he just up and left.

  And then there’s me. Pork Chop, Roly-Poly, Fluff. And I’m thinking there’s a lot more to all of us than the names we’re called or what we show on the outside.

  “Can I tell you guys something?” Joe says. “Will you promise not to laugh at me or say it’s gross?”

  “Promise,” I say, and Skeezie goes, “Pinky swear,” and smiles.

  “You know what I want more than anything?”

  I am guessing by the way he takes a deep breath that the answer to this is not to be found in any of Joe’s usual wish-list categories, such as home decor or celebrities-I’d-most-like-to-be-stuck-on-a-desert-island-with.

  “I think about this a lot, but I’ve never told anybody. Not Aunt Pam or anybody. What I want more than anything is to hold hands with somebody I like.”

  Joe pulls his knees up then, sharp, and crosses his arms over them, so he can lay down his head, like now that he’s told us this terrible secret he doesn’t want to see our faces telling him what we think.

  “Does that gross you out?” he asks from inside his folded-up arms.

  “No,” I go, and so does the Skeeze.

  “If that’s how you feel, then you should just go for it, man,” says Skeezie, getting all serious. “I mean, you’re a pretty outrageous character, JoDan. I never seen you exactly lacking for nerve.”

  Joe lifts his head.

  “Right. Can you see me walking down the hall holding hands with Colin the way Brittney holds hands with Will, or Sara with Justin? Not that I’m saying Colin would want to or anything, but it’s not fair.”

  Skeezie nods. “Hey,” he goes, “you know what this makes me think of? Remember that time we were in first grade, I think it was, and we went on that field trip over to Saratoga?”

  “Uh-huh. You put a worm in my chocolate milk.”

  “I wasn’t thinkin’ about that part,” goes the Skeeze. “And if it helps any: Sorry about that.”

  “It helps,” says Joe. “So what part were you thinking of?”

  “I was thinkin’ when we were walkin’ down the street that time, remember? After we got off the bus? You had to hold your buddy’s hand, and you and I were buddies. Remember?”

  Joe nods.

  “And this lady goin’ by looks at us and she says, ’Aw, aren’t you the cutest things?’ And after she walks away we look at each other and go, Tuck’.”

  Joe says, “I remember.”

  “So how come we’re not cute anymore? I mean, how come little kids are cute to everybody, doesn’t matter what they do, but when you do the same things a little older you aren’t cute anymore. Y’know? I mean, what kinda stinkin’ deal is that? If you and I were walkin’ down the street now and we were, y’know, holdin’ hands like back when we were buddies in first grade, nobody’d say we were cute. They’d call us fags. Or do somethin’ even worse. What’s up with that?”

  We sit there quiet for a time until Joe says, “That’s the million-dollar question.”

  The doorbell rings right below us and I figure it is my dad come t
o pick up the Skeeze and me.

  “Promise you won’t tell anybody about Colin,” Joe says as we’re standing up and Skeezie tosses him the Koosh ball.

  We both slap Joe’s palm and Skeezie says, “Don’t sweat it, buddy.”

  As I’m riding home and my dad and Skeezie are shooting the breeze, I get to thinking about the two of them—my dad and the Skeeze—and about Joe, and Addie, too, and Mr. Kellerman and Pam and Kelsey, and even me, and what I’m thinking is this: This business of really knowing people, deep down, including your own self, it is not something you can learn in school or from a book. It takes your whole being to do it—your eyes and your ears, your brain and your heart. Maybe your heart most of all.

  I feel like I have figured something out here, something important, something that I thought was hard but turns out to be pretty simple. It doesn’t take a genius.

  13

  THE NEXT morning, Addie and I get to school early so we can put posters up before classes start. I’m standing there with tape on four fingers and Addie is balancing on a folding chair she found someplace when Mrs. DePaolo comes out of the office and says, “Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  Mrs. DePaolo is the school secretary. She is nice but nervous. Kids are all the time telling her, “It’s okay, Mrs. DePaolo.” I do not know if this makes her less nervous or more.

  “It’s okay, Mrs. DePaolo,” Addie says. “We’re just putting posters up for the election.”

  Mrs. DePaolo rubs her hands together like she’s standing in front of a fire. I think she must have cold blood. She’s always got these sweaters draped over her shoulders.

  “I know,” she says. “I know that’s what you’re doing. It’s just that, oh, did you speak to Mr. Kiley?”