Gabriel makes a circuit from the dance floor to the bar where he borrows a pen and a napkin, writes a note, and brings to me. Let’s go somewhere more private is scrawled in swirling script.
It’s like he’s reading my mind. Giving me what I want. What I’ve wanted for a while. I hope he knows someplace.
But if it’s what I want, why the hell am I so scared?
We stop just outside the door. Deafened by the sudden silence. Both aware that we’ve crossed the threshold from private to public. Outside, there’s no bar or bathrooms or DJs or music. No crowd to lose ourselves in, no pillars to hide behind.
Outside The Echo it’s only us, and the pressure to be in the real world, who I am at the club, is almost unbearable.
Where should we go? Gabriel asks too loudly because we’ve been screaming over the music for hours.
I mean, he asks—quietly now, smiling—Where to?
I shrug.
I’ve lived in the city all my life.
Connor and I learned to ride bikes in Riverside Park.
Our parents took us to Yankee Stadium before either of us could lift a bat.
I once walked across the Brooklyn Bridge with my eyes closed on a dare from Becky.
But I’m totally out of ideas for private places in New York City where two boys can go to make out.
On a whim, we take the L crosstown to the 1. We stand on the subway, shoulder-to-shoulder, barely speaking, hanging onto the same center poll, the vibrations from the tracks pushing us together, bouncing us apart, over and over.
Becky would tell me to make sure that someone knew where we were going, “just in case.”
In case, I guess, Gabriel turns out to be a serial killer. Or in case the subway loses power, and we’re stuck between stations, and my parents start freaking out. Or in case… Well, who knows?
It isn’t that I disagree with her, but I’m so damned tired of doing the right thing all the time. Tired of being safe simply for lack of anything else to be.
In the garish light of the subway, against the thick black graffiti, and the advertising, and the dirt, Gabriel’s smile is somehow even more intoxicating than in the club. And when he reaches over to fix my collar, his fingers linger on my skin, and that’s intoxicating too.
I’m out of words, anyhow.
We get off the train at Christopher and walk through Sheridan Square, and then around a corner. It started to rain while we were underground, and the street is oddly quiet and dark under these huge un-city-like trees.
I don’t spend a lot of time in the West Village, except when I visit Connor at work.
The gay stores, the gay boys, the gay girls, so sure of themselves and who they are, make me feel self-conscious. It isn’t like I would change anything. And it isn’t like I’m really in the closet. But it isn’t as if I’m all the way out either; it’s more like I’m standing in the doorway.
I don’t walk around school advertising the fact I’m attracted to boys, and it’s clear my parents sure as hell have no clue since they haven’t kicked me out. I mean, Becky and James know, and Connor, and probably everyone at The Echo and maybe the staff of The Strand, if they bothered to look at the books I’ve read in their darkened corners.
And Gabriel. Gabriel knows, and Gabriel likes it.
He takes a step toward me and kisses me hard, like he needs to more than he wants to. I’m a mass of contradictions. Of live wires, electricity, and conga drums. Of caffeine and cotton candy.
His hand slips up the side of my shirt, and my muscles spasm against his fingers. The sky spins like I’m going to pass out, the brick wall of the townhouse the only thing holding me up.
This is different from being in the club. This is different from anything.
There was a boy in music class my last year at St. Sebastian’s. His name was Eli, and he had a light Afro that he was forever combing with a pick. His skin was so smooth that I used to stare, wanting to reach out and touch it, and his voice was so soft I always found myself leaning toward him to listen. We stayed after school one day to help decorate the gym for the band concert and found ourselves standing behind stage when the lights suddenly cut. The only way out was on the other side of the room. We couldn’t see a thing.
He took my hand and started to walk, but it felt like something more than two boys guiding each other through the dark. Or maybe it was exactly that. Maybe we saw something in each other that we each needed to see, and we were trying to help each other.
We both hesitated before pushing the door open. In the darkness, I was aware of him leaning in toward me, close enough to feel his heat, drawing me in.
And then the power came back on.
Eli’s family moved, and he transferred out a week later.
I always wondered what it would have been like to kiss him.
But I know now that it wouldn’t have been like this. Gabriel tastes like cinnamon, and kisses me in a way I feel with my whole body. In a way that pushes reset on my world.
Some guy walks by and grunts “fags” under his breath, but I don’t care. I’m falling, falling, falling. Feeling like I’m part of this city. Feeling like I’m part of myself. Feeling like being with Gabriel at this specific moment in time is my reason for being born.
Feeling like there’s no damn reason for the whole world not to see us.
When we stop kissing and catch our breath, when the rain stops and we walk around, when shift change comes and yellow cabs flood the street, Gabriel says, My papa drove a cab. He was the best. He was always working. But he never missed a single one of my gymnastic meets. He sat in the front and yelled so loud he embarrassed me. I used to tell him, Stop, Papa. Can’t you just clap like everyone else’s parents? But I didn’t really mean it. The first time I tried to compete after he died, I fell off the high bar. No matter what I did, I couldn’t hold my grip. It wasn’t important anymore.
We stop and listen to three girls sing in harmony for a while, and then I ask, Did he know? Did your father care that you were gay?
Gabriel looks off into the distance and then shrugs. I was doing a shitty job of pretending I was seeing Gloria then, he says with a crack in his voice that stabs me in the stomach. But my papa would have been cool so long as I was happy, I think.
I try to imagine what it would be like if my parents were “cool” and cared about me being happy. I wonder what it would be like to bring a boy home for dinner. For Connor to do the same. To be able to really talk to my parents. To be able to live without hiding.
I tell Gabriel about Connor being kicked out and then feel oddly guilty. My father wasn’t always like this, I say to Gabriel. I mean, maybe he was, and it didn’t matter because we were little and hadn’t done anything to upset him. But I remember him teaching me to play catch and helping me with math homework.
Now I try to avoid him. I wish, I start to say…
What?
Nothing, I reply. True as it is, I can’t bring myself to say the words or stop myself from wishing that his father were still around and mine were gone.
After it stopped raining, after we stopped kissing, after we stopped talking, Gabriel bought a pretzel from a vendor in Washington Square Park and held it out to me.
We break the dough like a wishbone. He gets the bigger piece and smiles mysteriously when I ask what he’s wishing for.
We divvy up the rest of the pretzel and watch some guys dive off the side of the fountain into cartwheels and handstands.
Gabriel studies them and shakes his head. Their form is all off, he says.
Can you do better? I ask and swallow down a wave of excitement at the thought of him balancing and performing in front of me.
I’m rusty, he says. But I can see a hungry light in his eyes that kind of turns me on, and before I know it, he’s pulling off his jacket and stretching out the muscles in his shoulders.
Then he’s in flight. A blur of muscle and skin tumbling over the concrete so fast I don’t think he’s touching down.
He stops when the boys begin to applaud and comes back to me, barely having broken a sweat, rubbing his calloused hands on his jeans.
That was… I start to say. The rest of the words catch in my throat.
Told you I was rusty, he says. I haven’t done that in a long time and concrete… My coach would have benched me for doing something so stupid.
I stare at him. His eyes are on fire reflecting the streetlamps, and there’s a breeze that’s ruffling his hair, and I’m acutely aware that no song I’ve ever written or even played is as intense as what I’ve just seen.
I’m still speechless as he pulls out his wallet and shows me a picture of himself with a little girl on his lap. She has dark pigtails and a huge smile, and she’s looking at him with the same expression I probably have on my face, like I’m looking at someone so good he probably can’t be real.
He says, That’s Sophia, my little sister. She’s why I gave it up. She’s the reason I work so hard.
I cough to clear my throat and bring my thoughts back down to earth. You didn’t want to finish school first?
After my father was killed, it wasn’t about what I wanted. It was about not getting evicted.
Maybe you can go back someday, I say.
Gabriel turns and takes my hand, blocking the action from the boys with his body. His eyes are on his own rough hands as they run over my fingers, calloused from playing guitar.
Does it matter to you? he asks, not looking up. That I didn’t finish school. Do you care?
What? No, I say, backtracking, because really, it doesn’t make any difference. Then I add, But I’d like to see you do that again. I gesture at the fountain. You’re really good.
He pauses. Then says softly, That was another life, but I’m glad you think so.
When he turns, opening us up so everyone can see, he doesn’t let go of my hand.
I don’t have your phone number, I joke as we get back to the subway station…well, half joke. How do I know you’re really who you say you are?
Gabriel, serious, says, I’m never home. I’m like my papa, always working. I try to pick up odd jobs when I can. My mother cleans apartments all day while my sister is in school. At night, she needs to sleep so we keep the ringer off. Also, her English isn’t so hot.
I nod like I’m okay with all of his justifications that sound to me like excuses. But I still wonder.
I miss my curfew.
Mom tuts. Disappointed. I thought we could trust you, Michael.
My father glares, face reddening as if he’s been waiting for this moment since I was born. Where were you? he snarls. I hope to hell you have a good explanation.
I don’t remind him that I’m only forty-five minutes late. Not like Connor when he used to stumble in at five in the morning, drunk and high and smelling of sex.
Still, I let my hand snake around my stomach, thinking of how Gabriel’s was there a little over an hour ago.
The subway was late, I say, trying to keep my voice from shaking, not from fear but from an intense stab of desire, And the pay phone on the platform was broken, smashed to bits. You should have seen it.
I look straight at my father, daring him to come up with a response.
For a minute, I think he’s going to hit me, although he hasn’t gone there since I was ten. We stare at each other, and I realize we’re the same height; I’m not sure when that happened.
He narrows his eyes and says, You’re grounded for a week, and walks out of the room.
Mom?
Sorry, she sighs. You know how he is about breaking the rules.
Rules.
My father’s rules:
• Don’t make noise
• Don’t draw the wrong kind of attention to yourself
• Don’t stand up for anything you believe in
• Don’t show any emotion that isn’t anger
• Don’t be yourself
I’m working on that song for Gabriel. Trying to get the chords to fit together, only they’re fighting me and each other. They’re dissonant and ugly and not at all how I feel.
Except when I think about the fact that Gabriel won’t give me his number, and then I’m all about the jarring notes.
What do you think of the space shuttle? Becky asks. I get to see her at school, which not even my father can forbid. The shuttle just landed, and like always, the teachers turn on the TVs, and all the classes cluster around, watching.
It’s the first step toward jet packs, I say. Can you imagine that someday, this will be normal? Like, we won’t even notice when shuttles are launching and landing. It will be business as usual and no one will care. Maybe we’ll even colonize the moon or find life on Mars.
Maybe then everything on Earth will make more sense.
I duck into the library at lunch and head to the fear room, amazed that no one ever seems to use it the way it was intended.
Under my note about Gabriel, the one I couldn’t finish is this: And?
I drum the pen on my palm.
I write: I want to know everything about him.
Then, I turn the period into a comma, and listening to a tiny voice inside me, I add, but I think he has secrets.
Becky says everyone has secrets.
I used to have this awful fear about having to choose which parent I wanted to live with if they broke up, she tells me. I always chose my mom, because she was fun when I was a kid and my dad was the one who made me do my homework. Then he left, and I felt like it was my fault.
After I hug her, I try to think of what secret I could share in return. Becky knows I’m gay. She knows I miss Connor, even when I’m giving him shit. The only thing she doesn’t know is that I’ve always wished she were right about James being in love with me.
And I’m not telling anyone about that.
My parents are both out, so after school, Becky, James, and I sit in Connor’s old room playing Pong. The TV is a little off-center, and you can’t see one of the paddles, but I’ve gotten good enough that I can mostly guess where it is.
I’m two points up on Becky, when James says, So, where’s Andy these days, kitten?
Becky drops the controller, and I score the winning point. Why? she asks. I can see her knuckles go white against the plastic knob.
James fiddles with an unlit cigarette. He doesn’t look up when he says, Well, he’s never around now, is he?
He’s around enough, she replies, but her tone is defensive, and James and I both know he hit a nerve.
Before they leave, James grabs Becky’s hand and spins her into his arms as if they’re starring in some old MGM musical.
You know I only give you a hard time because I care, he tells her.
Do me a favor and care a little less, she says. In response, he smiles a smile that lights up the room, and I know that everything between them is okay again.
Saturday morning, I take a page out of my brother’s book (“better to ask for forgiveness than permission”) and leave the house before my dad is awake and complaining. I meet Becky and James outside The Strand. James has his head stuck in a book of Frank O’Hara poetry, and he keeps stopping to read bits of it to us as we walk through the Village.
Becky and I glance in the windows. Pastry shops. A cigar shop where Becky goes in and buys a pack of clove cigarettes. I took the money from my mother’s purse, she says. I figured if she could buy drugs for her boyfriends, she could buy me a pack of cloves.
James pulls his head out of his book to respond, but I shoot him the same look I give Connor when I want him to stay quiet.
We pass a couple
of sex shops. James keeps walking. I pretend to look away, glancing out of the corner of my eye. Becky stops in front of the window. Cocks her head. I wonder how you’d use that, she muses.
James and I keep walking forward, and she has to jog to catch up with us.
Later, James asks if we should be worried about Becky.
I don’t know, I reply, but she said she’s worried about you.
Why on earth would she be worried about me?
Before I can think better of it, I jump at the least frightening thing on Becky’s list. She thinks you’re lonely, I say.
He stops, leans back against the wall of a bodega, and takes a long drag on his cigarette. Why does she think that? he asks, measuring his words.
I shrug, regretting I’d said anything. You know her, I say. She thinks everyone should be in love.
James’s eyes cloud over as they seem to do so often these days.
There’s a reason that love is a four-letter word, he says as he pushes off the wall and starts walking again.
We’re quiet until we make our way up the stairs to James’s apartment.
She needs a name, James says, draping himself around an armless mannequin that one of the roommates found on the street. She’s painted gold and wearing a shiny red ball gown with steel-tipped boots and a black scarf decorated with tiny white skulls.
You let my brother dress her? I ask.
James smirks, happy, I guess, to be speaking of things that don’t matter. No, he says. But Connor gave me a ten-percent discount. Decent of him.
Mmmm… Well, don’t let Becky see that dress. She’ll be pissed you didn’t loan it to her.
That’s okay, James says with a glint in his eye. I have others.
There’s a melody I can’t get out of my head.
It might be the best thing I’ve written.
Now I’m worried I’ve heard it somewhere before.
From the radio? The club? Where have I heard it?
I hum it for Becky. For my mother. For James.
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