There was a message on the machine from my mother—she was going to be stuck late at work but would bring home pizza. Fine by me. It saved me from having to make dinner for the two of us, like I usually did when she worked the day shift. Suddenly I had a couple extra hours on my hands, and as I grabbed a bag of chips from the kitchen to stuff my face with, it occurred to me what I should do.
“Goddam it,” I muttered, fishing the DVD from my coat pocket. Sitting down to watch a musical after a shitty Monday was the last thing I felt like doing, but after what I’d said to Stewart, I figured I owed him. Guilt sucks.
I stuck Man of La Mancha in the DVD player, flopped onto the couch with my bag of chips, and settled in. I wasn’t looking forward to it at all. The idea of people breaking into “spontaneous” song and dance annoyed the crap out of me, and the songs are always so corny I wanted to barf just listening to them. And even they wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t go on forever. I mean, by the third or fourth verse I’m like, okay, I get it already.
At least I’m still high, I thought as the movie started.
I say all this merely to give you some context, so you’ll understand just how shocked I was to discover that I actually liked the damn thing. Maybe it was the mood I was in. The kind of day I’d been having, the kind of life I’d been having. Maybe my guard was down. Maybe it was the pot. Maybe it was Sophia Loren with her big, beautiful boobs. All I know is that by the time it ended, I was sort of starting to think that musicals weren’t so bad after all. At least not this one.
As it turned out, I already knew some of the story. It’s mostly about Don Quixote. You know, the crazy old knight who attacked the windmills? He’s from La Mancha, which is some place in Spain, hence the title. I was a little confused at first, because the movie actually starts out with this guy named Cervantes—who happens to be the actual author of the book Don Quixote—getting thrown in jail by the Spanish Inquisition. They’re going to torture him and his servant or something. Anyway, he’s screwed, especially when the other prisoners grab up all of his shit and threaten to burn his manuscript containing his life’s work. He’s in a bad spot: He’s not rich or anything, but he’s a bit of a dandy. They’re a bunch of hardened criminals and whores and dirtbags, and they’re screwing with him just for the hell of it, telling him they’re going to put him on trial and then punish him. But Cervantes is a pretty sharp dude, and before long he’s got them eating out of his hand. Being an actor and all, he puts on a play with the help of his servant about these two characters he’s created—Don Quixote and his sidekick, Sancho Panza.
Most of the movie is about the two of them having crazy adventures, though from time to time it cuts back to the dungeon, where Cervantes has to keep scrambling to keep the prisoners’ attention so they don’t take everything he’s got. The bad part is that there’s some guy who calls himself the Duke, who’s pissed off about something and seems to have it in for Cervantes. There’s always a Duke, isn’t there? Lord knows I’ve met my share.
Yeah, there were plenty of songs, and some of them were gag-inducing. Others weren’t too bad, though. Some were even pretty funny. There were a lot of funny parts, actually, and I don’t think it was just the pot. I laughed hardest when I saw old Don Quixote charging the windmills on his pathetic old horse. No wonder Stewart liked the story.
Oh, and did I mention Sophia Loren is hot? Actually, I don’t know what she looks like now, but she sure was a babe forty years ago. She plays this tavern wench named Aldonza, who’s also a bit of a whore. But Don Quixote calls her Dulcinea and tells her she’s a first-class lady, and he’s so good, she almost believes him. I wondered who our school would get to play that part.
It wasn’t all fun and games, though. Actually, it’s a pretty sad story. I don’t want to spoil it too much in case you decide to see it for yourself, but I can tell you that it doesn’t end well. Or does it? It’s kind of hard to say. Those are the best kinds of stories. I will say that I felt bad for Don Quixote, all caught up in his delusions of grandeur, with everyone laughing at him and bullying him. Crazy or not, he strikes you as a better human being than all of them put together. But I felt even worse for poor old Sancho. At least Don Quixote was crazy. I mean, it was something he could fall back on when things got rough. Sancho had nothing except old Don, and he was pretty goddam worthless.
Anyway, when it finished, I felt so odd—sort of wired, with this strange feeling that everything around me was suddenly both less real and less awful. You know how a good movie can do that to you? I mean, you know it’s not real, but somehow it makes your own life feel more dreamlike, more like a movie, at least for a while.
Then my mother came home.
I could tell right away she’d had a bad day, even worse than mine. Her days usually are. I can always tell. It’s the eyes—red and swollen from crying during her drive home.
She dropped the pizza box onto the counter with a sigh as I came into the kitchen. Seeing me, she gave me an exhausted smile. I hated that smile—it was a guilty kind of smile, trying to cover up all the shit that had followed her home.
“I’m sorry, sweetie,” she said. “Janice had a doctor’s appointment that went late, so I had to cover the first part of her shift, then a bunch of calls came in, and the boys were out, and…” She sort of drifted off. I opened the fridge, grabbed a beer, and handed it to her. She smiled again, only this time it was for real.
“Thanks, Frenchy,” she said, popping the top and taking a sip.
“Tough day at the office, huh?”
“There was a girl,” she said, then faltered.
“What happened?” I hated asking. Sometimes she’d tell me, sometimes she wouldn’t. I liked it better when she didn’t.
“There was a little girl,” she whispered again. It was all she could manage.
I went to the cupboard and got a couple plates while she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. She set her beer down and took the plates from me.
“Pizza’s still hot. Go wash your hands and we’ll eat.”
“Right,” I mumbled.
I hated washing up. It meant I had to go into the bathroom, where the hand soap was—my mother wouldn’t get any for the kitchen sink (that’s where dish soap belonged, and dish soap was for dishes, not hands)—and I hated using the bathroom sink. It meant I had to stand right where he stood, look into the mirror just like he did the night he did it. It meant I had to stare at the reflection of that cheap-ass imitation painting of the fuck-ugly flowers covering up the stain on the wall behind me as I looked into the mirror.
My aunt had spent a whole day cleaning, but some stains don’t come out, no matter how hard you scrub.
I kept my eyes closed in the bathroom and washed my hands by touch alone. All the songs, all the energy I’d felt from the movie, all of it was gone, chased away by reality. It was Monday all over again.
Stewart picked me up the next morning at the usual time. As far as I could tell, everything was back to normal. One of the advantages of being a guy, I guess—sometimes it’s more peaceful for everybody if you pretend you don’t have real feelings. Or maybe Stewart was just playing nice because he still wanted me to try out with him tomorrow.
It had been cold last night like I thought it would be—dipping down into the teens—and the grass was crunchy underfoot as I dashed from the trailer in my new coat. The frost was still thick on his car, with just a tiny circle scraped away on the windshield in front of him, so that once the door was shut, I felt like I’d closed myself into a crystalline egg, the morning light pale and opaque around me. I didn’t like heading down the mountain blind, with just Stewart’s little peephole to show the way, but I stayed quiet. After all, I was just along for the ride.
Neither of us said much on the way to the pit stop, but we never did anyway. It took a bit of enhancement to stir us from our morning stupor.
He waited until after we were well enhanced before asking, waited until I was all full of brotherly euphoria before putting me
on the spot.
“So, Frenchy, did you watch it last night? Did you? Huh? Huh?” he said, all in my face.
I tried my best not to answer him, to look just past him and keep my eyes focused on the wind towers, standing silent and still in the frigid distance. But as scenes from the movie flashed through my mind—Don Quixote charging the windmills on his crappy old horse, he and Sancho Panza and Aldonza fighting off the thugs at the inn, Cervantes squaring off in the dungeon against the Duke—the slightest smile sneaked out before I could stop myself.
“I knew it,” he crowed. “I knew you would. So, what did you think? Pretty good shit, huh? You liked it, didn’t you?”
He was babbling now. I let him go. Times like this, it was better just to let it run its course. And he seemed more jacked up than usual, in a way that set me a little on edge.
“Yeah,” I said at last, when he’d finally settled down. “It was pretty good.”
“I knew you’d like it,” he said. “It’s got something, doesn’t it? This sense of hope.”
I started. He saw me and broke out laughing. “You felt it too!” he shouted, pointing. “I knew you would, Frenchy. Imagine having that, every day, for two months. Two months, dude!”
I shook my head. “You’re crazy.”
“So you’ll do it, right? Tomorrow afternoon, we’re there, right?”
Fucking Stewart. He never gave up when he really wanted something.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, still staring past him at the wind towers. I winced. That was it. I’d said it. There was no going back. A wave of fear and excitement all mixed together washed over me.
Stewart clapped me on the shoulder and nodded, quiet in victory. Then he followed my gaze to the horizon.
“Those fuckers have got to come down,” he said.
I laughed. Mixed up as I was, it was good to know some things didn’t change.
CHAPTER SIX
“Let’s go, let’s go.” Stewart took me by the arm, walking so fast with his long, gangly legs I had to practically trot down the hallway past the trophy cases to keep up.
“What about the auditions?” I asked. It was twenty past two. Tryouts were at three.
“Don’t worry. We’ve got plenty of time.”
“So where are we going?”
“We have to get ready.” He let go of my arm to slip through the crowd of students making for the exit. “Just follow me.”
I had a sneaking suspicion what “getting ready” entailed.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Stewart,” I said, catching up to him.
“Of course it is. We’ll take a little drive, have a few tokes of the good stuff. Just the thing you need to relax.”
“Fuck, Stewart, it’s the last thing I need. What if I tweak out?”
“You won’t. You’ll do great. Trust me.”
I could tell by the way he was walking and talking that he was nervous too. Maybe even more than me. It was an odd thing to see. Of course, it only made me more anxious.
We followed the pack out into the parking lot and then headed for Stewart’s Volvo in the far corner. As we drew closer, I heard him groan at the sight of the group gathered around the cars parked beside his own. We both slowed our pace.
It was the Pokers.
That was what Stewart called them, anyway—the dickheads who had made a point of hassling us since freshman year.
Our school had two kinds of hicks: good hicks and evil hicks. The good hicks wore canvas trousers and steel-toed work boots and liked to listen to country music while driving around in their old pickup trucks, drinking cheap beer with their chubby girlfriends. The evil hicks wore black heavy-metal T-shirts, sported low-hung baggy jeans, and played angry-sounding hip-hop music really loudly on the stereos of the lamely tricked-out shitboxes they called their cars. Though they were really just hicks, they fancied themselves “gangstas,” which, in the hills of northern Vermont, was just plain sad.
Needless to say, the Pokers fell into the latter category.
“Hey, faggot, where’s your faggy little dress?” one of them called out to Stewart as we approached.
“Look at the little sperm-burpers!” another cried.
“Bag-lappers!”
And so on.
That was their schtick—the “gay” thing. I don’t know, maybe it was because Stewart had long hair, or maybe they couldn’t get the idea of two guys hanging out together. The poor kids weren’t particularly imaginative in their bullying. I’ll give them one thing, though—they never actually touched us. Mostly they were annoying. Sometimes I found it downright funny.
Stewart didn’t. It really got to him. Even now, I could see him whiten and pick up the pace, stepping around a pair of Pokers making a halfhearted attempt to block us from Stewart’s car. He never looked at them. Just kept his eyes on the ground, his mouth screwed back in silent rage.
I stopped in front of the pair, looked them in the eye, and waited. I’d known most of these guys my whole life. Some of us had even been friends back in middle school. Funny how things change.
They glared and glared, nostrils flaring, before finally stepping aside to let me pass. It was the same old dance—just like with Stewart’s mother at the door, only a nasty version with zits.
“Come on, Frenchy.” Stewart’s voice sounded strained.
“What’s the rush, queerbait?” one of the Pokers—a pug-faced moron named Scott—called out. “Got a date with your homo buddy here?”
“Actually, Scott,” I said, “we’ve got to hurry so we can get back in time to try out for the school musical.”
Everyone burst out laughing. I glanced over at Stewart, waiting by the car. Even he managed a grin.
“Besides,” I continued. “Stewart and I broke up. There’s a new love in my life.”
“Oh yeah? Who, fairy?”
“Why, you, of course,” I said. “You’re much better looking. And even though everyone says you have a tiny pecker, don’t worry—I like them that way.”
The Pokers practically fell over screaming in delight, like it was the funniest thing they’d ever heard. Everyone except Scott, that is. He looked all pissed off and kind of confused. I think he thought I was serious or something. To be honest, I don’t know why I was egging him on. He could have easily kicked the shit out of both Stewart and me at the same time. I guess I was wired over the audition. All that nervous energy had to go somewhere.
“Shut the fuck up, asshole.”
“Okay, Scott,” I said, walking to the car. “Just let me know if you change your mind.”
I blew him a kiss and then hopped in the Volvo. Stewart had already started the engine. He pulled out as fast as he could, then gunned it toward the exit, weaving around several cars trying to back out. Looking through the rear window, I could see Scott yelling at his fellow Pokers.
“That was funny, Frenchy,” Stewart said a few minutes later as we headed through town. “Good stuff, good stuff.”
He laughed a few times, but it was a nervous laugh, all high-pitched and fake sounding.
“You shouldn’t let the Pokers get to you.”
“I know, I know,” he said, his eyes blinking like crazy. “I really shouldn’t. They shouldn’t be assholes, though. They shouldn’t be pricks. Why can’t everybody just leave each other alone?”
“They’re just Pokers.”
“Right you are, Frenchy.” He waved a hand in front of his face. “Put it away, put it away.”
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, which freaked me out a little since we were heading toward a curve.
“Stewart,” I said. His eyes snapped open. “Let’s get this show on the road.”
He nodded and reached up, pulling down the visor above me. A big fat joint fell into my lap. He turned left and we headed out of town. Thirty minutes to go.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The stage was flooded with light, making the rest of the auditorium seem even darker than normal. In the shadowy back of the aud
itorium where we entered, the quiet had a thick, heavy feel to it, the voices down front dampened despite the crowd of kids gathered under the lights.
“All right, Frenchy,” Stewart said, putting a hand on my shoulder, “let’s give them a show to remember. No fear.”
He whispered “No fear” again, quieter.
I giggled. “No fear,” I whispered back.
I followed Stewart slowly down to the stage, drifting past row after row of empty seats. I felt like I was diving, submerging into some deep underwater cavern, its bottom illuminated by a few rays of sunlight cutting through the roof, shining down onto the grinning multitude of sea monkeys just grooving out in their own little sea monkey world. It was pretty fucking magical.
I held back when we reached the stage, taking a seat in the front row, while Stewart climbed up onto the stage, a big grin on his face, oblivious to my withdrawal.
The stage was busy. Students were clustered in groups, chatting anxiously as they filled out forms, or flitted about, bristling with nervous energy. A middle-aged man doodled on a piano off to the side. I caught snatches of music I’d heard from the movie. The drama teacher, Ms. Vale, meandered among the students, beaming as she handed out papers and made small talk or offered words of encouragement, trying to put everyone at ease.
For a teacher, she was a hottie: short blond hair, tight blouse, long skirt, all young, urban, and chic. She’d joined the staff my freshman year, and I’d been in awe of her ever since. So had Stewart. She came up to him with a warm smile. He didn’t seem intimidated at all. In fact, they started chatting as if they’d spoken before, as if they were old pals. It was really weird, and I suddenly wished I’d followed him onto the stage to hear what they were saying.
A second later, I got my wish. Stewart paused, turning in confusion, before spotting me in the seats below. With an urgent look, he waved me up. I stumbled to my feet and climbed onto the stage, my heart pounding as I stepped into the light.
“Frenchy, hello,” Ms. Vale said, taking my limp, sweaty hand.
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