Misconception

by Ryan Boudinot

  "Not that I think your breath is gross or anything," I said.

  Paul motioned for us to be quiet, then showed us up the exterior steps of the garage to the loft, the kind of place we envisioned Fonzie living in. He left us alone.

  I remember Kat putting me in her mouth. I couldn't figure out what I was supposed to be feeling. There were a lot of teeth involved and then nothing happened. I didn't want to hurt her feelings so I made some pleasurerelated noises. And then in the half-dark she let me look upon the origin of the universe between her legs. Years later I would occasionally think of this moment when fucking my girlfriends.

  Kat had preserved my sperm in a secret compartment beneath her bracelets and necklaces, but it wasn't released that night, or any of the subsequent moments we managed to steal from our unsuspecting parents. Maybe my body didn't yet understand what an orgasm with another person was supposed to mean. For whatever reason, I couldn't come. On the couch that night we were just tongues, patches of warmed denim, a cold nipple pressed into the intersection of the life line and love line of a boy's hand. We arrived at a pause. My balls ached.

  "Is it okay I didn't, you know, come?" I said.

  "I think so."

  "Did you come?"

  "It started feeling lots better but then, I don't know." I pulled my sweatshirt down over her shoulders. She seemed disappointed.

  "I can try again." I said.

  "It's not that. It's not you. I just can't stop thinking about my mom and George. They want me to go with them on this idiotic boat trip to Alaska."

  "How long will you be gone?"

  "The whole month of July."

  "Oh."

  "I don't think I'll make it," she said. "Just think of me in that stupid boat with George the perv and me puking over the side. Maybe I can get a doctor's note that I'll get too seasick. Maybe I can stay at Margot's and be with you every night."

  "I want to sleep next to you," I said. "I want to wake up with you."

  "Promise me," she said.

  In the weeks before the trip, Kat used some babysitting money to buy a microscope of her own. While other couples our age traded notes and broken-heart lockets, we furtively exchanged slides, my sperm for her vaginal mucosa. In the parking lot behind theater nine two weeks before she set sail, she presented me with a little box wrapped in an exchange student's origami paper.

  "Swear you won't open it until you get home," Kat said. A stream of blinking people exited a matinee. "That's my mom's car. I gotta go."

  I waited until she was out of sight before I peeled open the package. In the box I found a slide imprinted with a single droplet of blood. It burned a dark mystery in my pocket as I hurried home. That night, in my room, I peered into my microscope, hoping to discover the one thing on the mind of every one of my sperm: Kat's egg.

  One night after playing Nintendo at Paul's I came home to find my parents sitting quietly at the kitchen table. Before I could make it to the fridge, my mom said, "I was looking for my scissors in your room and found these instead."

  My dad pulled from his pocket a halfconsumed pack of Camel Lights and set them on the table.

  "Are you smoking?" my mother said.

  "They're Paul's. He told me to hang on to them for him."

  "So what did I smell in your room the other night?"

  "I already told you. I lit a stick of deodorant on fire."

  "Fair enough," my father said. "Let's see what burning deodorant smells like." He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out my stick of Brut. "Was this the kind of deodorant you did your experiment on?"

  "Yeah."

  My dad unscrewed the deodorant cap then struck a kitchen match and held it to the green dome in which a single armpit hair was embedded. The surface ignited easily, sending up a blue flame. The hair flared and turned to soot. My dad sniffed the air and turned to my mom. "Is this what you smelled the other night in Cedar's room?"

  "No."

  "According to Cedar, your sense of smell must have deceived you. Is that what you're telling us, Cedar?"

  "I dunno," I said, picking at the rubber sole of one of my Chuck Taylor's with a ballpoint.

  "On to exhibit B." From the laundry room my father fetched one of my sweatshirts, which he held to my mother's nose. "What does this smell like to you?"

  "Cigarette smoke," my mom said flatly.

  "Jesus! Paul and I went to Denny's and sat in the smoking section. Big deal."

  "Cedar. Quit bullshitting us," my mom said. "We know you started smoking. And it's going to stop tonight. Do you understand?"

  "Yes."

  "You know what smoking does to your body. But in case you forgot, let me show you."

  My mother emptied a manila folder, spreading pictures of blackened lungs across the table. "These are real people's bodies, Cedar. This is what the inside of a smoker's body looks like. This is supposed to be pink."

  As they delivered their lecture, I focused my attention on the glossies. I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of thinking I'd been swayed. I'd heard this kind of patronizing shit before, at a school assembly, delivered by hospital volunteers who dressed as lungs and sang a song about emphysema. My parents didn't need to show me pictures to convince me that the inside of a human body was a sacred, incredible place. I had seen blood cells, I had watched sperm die. I had touched the mollusk protuberance of a cervix.

  Then I saw the picture of a girl, her body cavity opened from neck to navel, her organs scooped out, an empty canyon between her young breasts. Her slack-jawed head lolled to one side.

  "She was your age," my mom said. The floor underneath me appeared to tilt a little. I held onto the table and for a moment lost my sense of vision. A little vomit climbed up my throat then burned its way back down. When I opened my eyes again my mom was dabbing my forehead with a cold dish cloth. "I forget how upsetting those sorts of pictures can be," she said.

  "Let me see it again," I said. She showed me. Looking at it made me wonder the same sorts of things I wondered when viewing pornography, like where did this person live, what were they doing hours before this revealing photograph was taken, what did their house look like, did their families know. I filled my lungs with air and let it out slowly. "What happened to her?"

  "She killed herself drinking industrial solvent."

  "Fuck," I said. "Why do you show me these things?"

  "So you won't forget you're mortal."

  In Kat's neighborhood the elms had lived long enough to entwine their branches above the street like praying hands. I parked my bike against a tree and considered not ringing the doorbell of their split-level. I could still blow off their invitation to dinner. Kat answered the door, quickly kissed me, and led me by the hand up the stairs into the kitchen where her mother was preparing the meal. Veronica looked older than my mom, which startled me. She wore lots of beads, a head wrap, a loose yellow sweater that hung from her body in a manner that suggested she advocated women's lib.

  "Welcome to our madness," Veronica said, stirring pasta in a metal bowl, then laughed when I didn't respond. "Oh, grab a soda. There's Sprite and Tab. I hope you like pasta 'cause that's what we're having. I grew the tomatoes for the sauce myself."

  "Her sauce is awesome," Kat said.

  "You have a nice house," I said.

  "This dump? Please. We've got dry rot, wet rot, the pipes freeze every winter and this summer it looks like we have ourselves a ladybug infestation."

  Kat exhaled and slumped against the refrigerator. "Gol, Mom, he's only trying to give you a compliment."

  "Come to think of it, it is kind of a dump," I said.

  We laughed. Veronica's boyfriend George clomped stiffly up the stairs. He was an angular format of a human being with tiny eyes in the kind of bald head that seems to automatically come with a mustache. He wore a necktie tucked under a cardigan sweater vest. I couldn't tell whether this was his standard at-home attire or if he had just returned from somewhere more formal. Kat had told me George worked wit
h computers at a bank. He shook my hand and some featureless words got lost between us among clanging dishes. Veronica set the table with the pasta, bread, salad, and a bowl of steamed broccoli and we took our seats under a dimmed fixture.

  "Let us say grace," George said, grasping my hand, squeezing my fingers against a gigantic class ring. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, then arched his eyebrows upward. "Oh Heavenly Father we ask that you bless this food with the blood of thy son Christ Jesus. We offer our everlasting praise as you nourish and nurture us in body, mind, and soul. And Heavenly Father we welcome our guest with the fruit of thy bounty the Lord our Savior. May you guide these young people in their budding relationship and bar them from temptation. For as their lust is strong so shall you give them the strength to not go past first base. Ah-men."

  "Amen."

  "So," Veronica said, passing the broccoli to me, "I understand you're the reason Kat has become so interested in science."

  I said my own little silent prayer that they hadn't seen my slides in her jewelry box. "It's my best subject," I explained. "I like thinking about how living things work."

  "Like biology?" George said.

  "Sure. I'm most interested in what happens at the cellular level."

  "So you believe in evolution," George said.

  I looked at Kat to see how I should respond. She speared her broccoli.

  "Sure."

  "Hmm. Well I do, too, to an extent. But how come the seas don't have more salt if they're so old? No one's been able to answer that one."

  "So I guess you're going on a big trip," I said.

  "That's correct," said George, "Can't wait to get out on the water with the orcas and the sunshine and the foam splashing across the bowsprit. I guess you could say I've always been a seaman at heart."

  "A what at heart?" Kat said.

  Veronica interrupted, "Cedar, do you like music by the band Black Sabbath?"

  George wiped his face and leaned back in his chair. "Oh, honey, you're not going to pollute this young man's mind with that trash."

  "It's not trash, it's part of my life. Maybe I've grown up and moved on to Ashford and Simpson and Peter Cetera but at one time I was what they called a go-go dancer and dang proud of it."

  "You danced for Black Sabbath?" I said.

  "Ozzy Osbourne autographed her butt," Kat said.

  "That's enough," George said.

  "What music did you listen to when you were ..." I asked George.

  "When I was what, young? You calling me a dinosaur? Hey, I personally own Sports by Huey Lewis and the News. And you might be surprised to know that on weekends I wear Jordache jeans. But since you asked, there were a whole slew of groups I enjoyed back when I was a greaser. The Platters, Four Tops, Paul Revere and the Raiders, you name it. I grooved down to it all."

  "`Ozzy' on one cheek, `Osbourne' on the other," Kat whispered.

  Veronica frowned. "What does your family usually talk about at the dinner table, Cedar?"

  "Homicides."

  "Cedar's parents-" Kat started.

  "I know what Cedar's parents do," George said. "I understand your old man is a public defender. Must be difficult. How come he didn't go into prosecution? All those sleazeballs he has to represent."

  "He wanted to make sure everyone got fair representation in our system. Not just people who can afford it. And he wanted to defend the innocent."

  "Can someone please pass the margarine?" Kat said.

  "What about the ones he knows aren't innocent? What do you do when you've got a guy you know deserves to get locked up but you help put him back out on the street? Maybe it's just me, but I don't see how a guy could live with himself defending some of those creeps."

  Veronica leveled a knife at her boyfriend. "If you have any other questions about Cedar's father, you might consider asking him instead."

  George shrugged. "It's a philosophical question."

  "So what route are you taking on your trip?" I said.

  "We'll be going up around Vancouver Island, to Ketchi- kan, Skagway, a bunch of other Indian names I can't remember. We'll make a stop in Port Hardy, which, I just found this out today, was founded by a survivor of the Titanic."

  "You think it's a good idea to talk about the Titanic before you go on a boat trip?" Kat said.

  I twirled linguine around my fork and kept misjudging how much I could eat in one bite. The whorl of pasta kept growing larger than bite-size, and I kept having to unroll it and start over again.

  "What subjects are you taking in school next year, Cedar?" Veronica asked me.

  "I think the basics. Geometry. State history," I said.

  "Going out for any sports?" George said.

  "Maybe golf or tennis."

  "Of course. Doctor and lawyer sports. So you can play with your father."

  "My dad doesn't play either. He swims."

  "What about your mother? What does she do?" George said.

  "She jogs."

  "I mean for a job."

  "She's a medical photographer."

  "Now that's something I just couldn't do," Veronica said. "I can't even stand it when I see a run-over cat in the street."

  "She says the trick is to not think of them as people anymore. They're just bodies. They're just systems and organs," I said.

  Kat scrunched up her face.

  "Yes, but what of the soul?" George said.

  "I don't believe in a soul."

  "And God? You don't believe in Him, either?"

  "I guess, no, not really."

  George shrugged. "That's odd, I could have sworn I heard you say amen a short bit ago."

  Veronica pointed her knife again. "George, I'm serious. Stop with the inquisition. You're making our guest uncomfortable."

  "Inquisition?" George said. "Cedar, am I making you uncomfortable?"

  "No," I said.

  "See?"

  "What else is he going to say? God!" Kat said.

  "I don't believe in God at all," I said.

  George said, "And yet you believe in justice."

  Veronica tried to interrupt, asking, "Who wants more bread?"

  George continued, "Let's get down to brass tacks. You come over to dinner, pray with us without believing a word of it, then claim to believe in giving everyone a fair shake, yet have nothing to base it on, no eternal consequences for our earthly deeds. No God, no reason for being, just people trying to be just in a godless void. Not the kind of world I want to live in."

  "What's wrong with being just?" I said.

  "Nothing at all, friend," George said, "but justice without the power and grace of God backing it up is arbitraiy. Makes no difference if you're just or not if you don't have to answer to your deeds in the next life, if you believe in a next life at all. I feel sorry for you if that's the kind of world you think you live in."

  "Who's up for watching my videotape?" Veronica said.

  Kat stared at her food. A sharp glance passed from Veronica to George. I tried to fill the silence by digging the hole deeper. "I believe in things that can be proved. Or tested, like with the scientific method."

  George laughed a loud "Ha!" and dabbed his chin with a napkin. "You have much to learn, son."

  "I'd like it if you didn't call me son."

  "Say again?"

  "Don't insult my father, then call me son."

  George slowly set down his knife and said, "I don't appreciate you coming to my house expecting to date myVeronica's-daughter and telling me what I can or can't say, son."

  Kat slapped her palm on the table. "Shut up, George. This is so not your house and you have no place making my boyfriend uncomfortable."

  George threw his hands up and laughed. "What is this? Can't a guy have a conversation? Maybe at the Rivers household they talk about open-heart surgery and how to spring dope dealers out of jail, but here I'll talk about whatever I damn well please."

  "George, you're being an asshole," Veronica said. After that the man did some grumbling and we consum
ed the rest of the meal amid the excruciating noises of silverware striking porcelain. When George left to work on his boat Veronica put her hand on my shoulder and said, "Cedar, I am so sorry. I don't know what his problem was tonight, he's usually not like this. Will you stick around for pie?"

  We went into the living room with our apple pie a la mode. Veronica inserted a Betamax tape into the player.

  "Kat thinks it's soooo embarrassing when I show this but I bet you'll get a kick out of it. This was when I lived in California."

  What appeared on the TV was an early Black Sabbath music video, with lots of zooming camera action and swirly psychedelic colors. Over Ozzy Osbourne's right shoulder stood a platform on which a younger version of Veronica danced in a mini skirt and white go-go boots. As we watched the grainy tape, Kat occasionally buried her face in a throw pillow in mortification. During the slow-tempo bridge, the camera zoomed in on Veronica's young face. Years later, in a suburban living room, as Ozzy sang of children of the grave. She shook her head in wonderment.

  Twenty years and

  six months later;

  Albany, New York.

  Here's upstate New York, brutalized by a sadistic winter storm. Across the slippery parking lot of the Extended Stay hotel was a bar. From outside I recognized the muffled, pubic grunt of seventies rock. Inside, a gin and tonic was placed in front of me, capturing smeared bits of ESPN in the ice cubes. I waited for Kat. She had found me on the Internet and we'd arranged to meet in Albany. In her email she'd said she was writing a book in which I played a significant role and she needed me to read it and sign some legal documents giving her permission to publish it.

  Earlier that day I had enjoyed a mimosa in a geothermal hot tub in Reykjavik. The storm made me nervous about getting stuck here too long. I was happiest en route, with my laptop and a coffee in a sleeved paper cup, arranging ground transportation, stepping from gate to plane to gate. Inhaling jet fumes in the optimism of rental-car parking lots. Now I was paused in a city bled by politics and punished with ice.