The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight (The Broom Closet Stories)

by Jeff Jacobson

  He turned his head and looked up into Charlie’s eyes. “Are you ready?”

  “I don’t know. I just know that I like you. Can’t that be okay for now?”

  “Of course it can. That’s what I’m trying to say. I’m worried that every time I call you to hang out with me, I’m sort of pressuring you to come out more than you want to.”

  “It’s okay. Don’t worry.”

  Diego sighed, and then turned his head back to rest again on Charlie’s stomach.

  Charlie had been worrying. He was glad Malcolm had told him that lying would block him from being able to work his own witchcraft; that all made sense to him. But now what? Was he supposed to tell someone? Beverly and Randall? Maybe. He’d thought about it. But he didn’t know how they’d react. Would they be embarrassed? Angry? Disappointed that he didn’t seem to like girls? At least not right now?

  If he continued feeling like this for Diego, but kept it to himself, would that stop him from learning more as a witch?

  “I should get going on my homework. I have a lot to do tonight.”

  Diego sat up on the bed and looked at him. “Did I say too much? I always say too much around you.”

  Charlie was still getting used to the fact that his outgoing friend needed reassurance. It surprised him. It also made him wonder if everyone else on the planet wasn’t always as confident as they looked. That would be nice. If it were true.

  Charlie smiled at him, hoping it looked reassuring. “I like what you say. I like talking to you. A lot. Even if,” he added, “you are completely ridiculous sometimes.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Diego yelled, shoving him down on the bed. Charlie pushed back, which led to tickling and wrestling, which in turn led to more kissing. It was quite some time before they came up for air again.

  ––-

  Well past midnight, as Charlie headed down the hallway and back to his room with a bowl of half-eaten cereal in his hands, he saw light spilling from underneath his aunt and uncle’s bedroom door.

  ‘What are they doing up so late?’ he wondered. Then he heard their voices rising up out of the heat vent on the floor.

  “What are you talking about? I can’t believe you’re even suggesting that!” Beverly’s angry voice bounced down the hallway toward him.

  “I can’t believe you’re just sitting there with your head in the sand!”

  “My head is not in the sand! Just because you have an opinion about this doesn’t mean I’m being blind.”

  “Bev, I seriously doubt that this is just an opinion. Think about it!”

  ‘I shouldn’t be listening to this,’ Charlie said to himself. He was just about to walk into his bedroom when he heard his name.

  “I am thinking about it. Charlie’s still getting used to being here. He finally has a friend, someone great, who likes him, and you have to suggest that?”

  “What do you mean, ‘that’? You make it sound like it’s dirty!”

  “He’s not even sixteen yet.”

  “As if that’s ever stopped a teenager before. Beverly, think about how much time they’re spending together. Diego’s openly gay. He’s president of the Gay/Straight Alliance.”

  “So what! The last time I checked, gay kids could be friends with straight kids. Plus, all they’re doing is homework, Randall! And going for hikes!”

  “Every day after school? Homework at Diego’s house when Lydia isn’t there?”

  “She works late on cases!”

  Beverly’s angry words thundered over the walls, pounded across them like carpenter’s tools. A dull thud followed, as if something fell on the floor.

  “Bev, calm down. Unless you want to remodel the bathroom.”

  “Okay. Okay. Sorry.”

  Pause.

  Then: “Look, what makes you so sure you know what you’re seeing?”

  “Don’t start that up again with me, Bev. We can figure things out too, you know. It’s not like you people have cornered the market on seeing the invisible. You all think you know what’s happening everywhere, yet you miss what’s going on right beneath your noses!”

  Silence. Thick, heavy, hair-prickling silence.

  “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you like that. But why do I have the sneaking suspicion we’d be having a very different conversation if this was about Charlie and a girl?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that you don’t like it that Charlie might be gay.”

  “Damn it, Randall, lower your voice. Of course I don’t want Charlie to be gay!”

  “Will you listen to yourself? I can’t believe you don’t…”

  ––—

  Charlie had been standing still, barely breathing, one foot resting on the carpet inside his bedroom, the other one still in the hallway.

  He shook his head, then stepped into his room and closed the door behind him, as quietly as he could.

  He set the bowl of cereal on his desk and walked to the middle of his room. He stood silently, arms at his sides, hearing his aunt’s words in his head: “Of course I don’t want Charlie to be gay!”

  He had wondered earlier today what they’d think if they knew about him and Diego. He didn’t have to wonder anymore. Or at least not about Beverly. A snort escaped his nostrils. Now he knew where she stood on the topic. Loud and clear.

  “Of course I don’t want Charlie to be gay.”

  He was surprised when he felt wetness on his cheeks. He didn’t feel sad. Just empty, numb, and a little tired. Then why was he crying?

  His mind began to race.

  They knew. He thought he’d been hiding it. But they knew. Everyone at school knew. His aunt and uncle knew. Maybe even his mother did too.

  Embarrassment and shame filled his face, surged through his spine like grease, leaving a trail of slime behind. It seeped into his heart, so that all the blood pumping through his body flowed with filth, with dirt, with scum.

  His aunt and uncle didn’t want him. His mother had said she couldn’t raise him, that she couldn’t protect him. Maybe she meant she didn’t want to raise a gay son. That’s probably what it really was. It hadn’t made any sense to him that she would just leave him up here, drive all this way and dump him off on long-lost relative. Now it did. She’d wanted to get as far away from him as possible.

  But they didn’t want him either. He was disgusting. What had he been thinking? That he could just sneak around, kissing a boy over and over again, and no one would find out? They always found out, didn’t they? He thought of scenes in movies, on TV, where they teased boys about being girlie, about wearing women’s clothes, about all those funny, “single” uncles and their weird humor.

  It was dirty, what he was. It was lower than low, the worst. And they always found out, didn’t they? They came for you. The way they came for Ted Jones. They beat you into a pulp, leaving you by the side of the road.

  They drove you from your school, like they did Diego. The kids beat you up while the teachers looked the other way. You couldn’t count on anyone. You couldn’t hide it, could you? It always leaked out, and they always found out.

  They always hated you.

  His body shook and his chest heaved. Snot ran down his nose.

  “You little faggot, crying like a girl!” he hissed, turning and looking at his red, wet face in the mirror. He flung his hands out at the glass as if trying to strike his reflection. Even though he was several feet away, the mirror cracked, streaking down the middle, leaving webbed fissures on the surface like frozen streaks of lightning.

  The sound of the breaking mirror startled him, yanking him from the dark swirl of hate and shame.

  He felt his mind clear.

  And he knew what he had to do.

  Charlie walked over to his closet and pushed aside his hanging clothes. He saw the long length of wood leaning against the wall, the bristles at the bottom glowing a golden brown from the bedroom light.

  He reached in and pulled his broom
stick out of the closet.

  Even though he’d promised, he knew now that all bets were off. His aunt and uncle had finally figured out who he was, just what kind of monster, what kind of sick freak they had living under their roof. Promises didn’t matter anymore.

  “Fine,” said Charlie as he dressed in warm clothing. He grabbed an extra sweater and some books and threw them in his backpack.

  “If you guys don’t want me, then…he said quietly, as he slipped his wallet into his pants pocket.

  “Then I’m outta here!” he finished, hoping his voice sounded tough. It didn’t. It shook and warbled.

  He slid the straps of his backpack over his shoulders, then opened up his bedroom window.

  Charlie, this is not a good idea. You’re gonna get into trouble. You don’t even know where you’re going. What if you get caught? What if you fall somewhere and nobody finds you?

  “Then everybody’ll be happy,” he said.

  At the last minute he took off the bracelet from his wrist, the one that Beverly had told him to where at all times, and threw it on his bed. He didn’t know why he did it. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

  He climbed out onto the sill with his broom in hand. As he turned to shut the window behind him, his foot slipped on one of the wet shingles. He grabbed the sill with one hand and slid into a crouching position an inch short of the rain gutter, stopping himself just before losing his balance and falling off the roof.

  Trying to catch his breath, he felt his limbs begin to shake. He looked down at the cement sidewalk nearly two stories below his feet.

  “Come on, Charlie, don’t be a stupid baby. Get up!”

  Carefully, still holding onto the rain gutter with one hand, he slipped the broom handle between his legs and let the quiet Words find his mouth. The stick shuddered to life.

  “You’re such a stupid baby,” he said again, more quietly. He scooted the toes of his shoes out over the edge of the roof, looked to his right then his left as if checking for traffic, took a breath, then pushed off the rain gutter and floated out over the front yard, wiping the tears from his eyes so that he wouldn’t hit the thick tree branches as he left the house behind him.

  Part IV

  Chapter 62

  Although Charlie had mostly stopped crying by the time he flew out over the street, his tears blurred his vision, making it hard to navigate. After nearly flying headlong into a telephone pole, he leaned back and rose above tree level. He wasn’t thinking about where he was going, or if anyone could spot him. He had the vague idea of heading west, out over the Sound, with its lack of telephone poles and tree branches.

  But he looked down and found himself flying south, over the top of Puget Academy with its solid brick structure and blocky HVAC unit mounted on the roof.

  Charlie could feel defiance building in him. He had done his best to ignore the gay part of himself for so long, until he’d been told that if he lied to himself about it, he couldn’t be a witch. He had decided to open up as best he could. But he couldn’t even do that right. Diego wanted more, even though he said he’d be patient. Beverly didn’t want him to be the way he was. His mother dumped him off at her sister’s house and drove away like he was radioactive material. It was time he decided for himself how he should do things. Too many other people had been making his choices for him, for far too long. And none of it ever worked. He just kept getting yanked around or thrown away.

  A pocket of air caused his broom to drop a foot. He gasped, and tightened his hold on the handle.

  For some reason an image of Mavis formed in his head. He remembered how she had grabbed his arm, and the feeling of nausea and light-headedness that came from it.

  He thought about how she tried to get by, selling lotions at farmers markets, tricking people.

  He thought of his mother, tucking herself away in some rural town, letting her gifts atrophy, unable to protect herself.

  Their hidden lives. Being sly, or scared all the time, seemed awful. Could he do that? Could he be a hermit, or a scam artist? He didn’t think so.

  But then, what world could he inhabit? What was left for him?

  There was the normal world, where you clocked in at work, raised a family, worried about mortgages, grew vegetables. But that was the world where men and women liked each other. That wasn’t going very well for him.

  There was the witching world, where you learned your craft, and had a community surrounding you. But in that world, you had to be raised in a witch family your whole life, where you knew about your legacy and where you fit in, instead of being some freak castaway.

  There was the world where boys liked boys. You could walk around, knowing who you were, reading pamphlets and going to meetings. But you had to be popular, and confident. You had to be the president of things.

  He couldn’t find himself in these worlds. All the instructions seemed to be for other people. There wasn’t anybody to tell him how to get it right. He really was on his own.

  Why hadn’t he seen this earlier? Why had it taken him so long to understand that all the rules, all the guidelines, weren’t for him? He just didn’t fit. He’d tried to hide, but all those parts of him leaked out. The witch part that he didn’t even know about leaked out in the kitchen during the Dog Man attack. The faggot part leaked out enough for Diego to spot it at the farmers market. What good was it to try and hide when everyone just found out anyway?

  What good was it to try and live in any of the normal worlds when he was just a screwed up freak who couldn’t pull any of it off to save his life?

  Charlie was surprised to see that the route he was flying had taken him along the coastline and had brought him to the northern tip of Lincoln Park. Maybe he had planned to head here the whole time. He didn’t know. He just knew he wanted to keep flying.

  He tried not to think that his mother had done the same thing he was doing, nearly sixteen years ago. He didn’t want to be like her, someone who hid out, someone who was worried and shy all the time, someone who was weak. Someone who cared about dumb stuff like coupons and correct posture, while lying about all the things that really mattered.

  No, he wasn’t running away from things the way his mother had. He was running toward something, flying in a direction where he could figure out just what sort of world he could inhabit.

  He heard the soft rustling of fabric beside him, and turned his head.

  “Hello, Charlie.”

  Chapter 63

  He jerked in fright, nearly tumbling off his mount. Looking to his right, he saw a woman on a broomstick, flying parallel to him, her dress flapping in the wind. She had bright red hair pulled back from her face in a bun. She was smiling.

  He barely managed to keep his hold on the shaft of the broom. His heart thudded cannon balls against the walls of his chest.

  “Wh-wh-who are you?”

  The woman laughed. She sat sidesaddle on her broom, perfectly balanced. As she laughed, her head tilted back, exposing a creamy white neck.

  “You know who I am,” she giggled. “Don’t be silly.”

  Charlie did know who she was. He knew it the moment he heard her say his name.

  “Wh-wh—wh…”

  His pulse was beating so hard in his throat that he feared his head would explode off his neck like a rocket.

  “Are you stuttering? How adorable. Why, there’s no reason to be nervous,” the woman cooed. “It’s just me. An outcast like yourself. Out for a nice evening ride.”

  She shot several feet in front of him, then turned her head and looked directly at his face.

  “Isn’t it thrilling to be out on your own, with no adults to boss you around, just you, that trusty piece of wood, and freedom?” she asked, her green eyes shining.

  Charlie knew he should change course, but he wasn’t sure where to go. He had no doubt she could outride him. He looked around, desperate to come up with a plan of escape.

  He heard fabric rustling again, and jerked his head to the side. She w
as on his left now, so close that he felt her breath in his ear as she talked.

  “Charlie. Charlie. You don’t have to be scared. I just wanted to meet you. Your reputation precedes you, you know.”

  The sound of flapping came from somewhere below. He looked to his right and saw two large crows flying next to him, side by side, their wings beating the air in steady movements, the glass-bead eyes on the sides of their heads trained on him. In them, he could see a reflection of his small shape, and the gauzy, orange figure of Grace, the witch.

  Two more crows joined them, flying just beneath his feet, and another pair soared into position above his head. They kept their spindly legs tucked straight behind them as they flew. Charlie could see the thickness of their black, oily feathers, could see their beaks, curved like ebony knives.

  His whole body began to shake. The sheer blackness of the birds, and Grace’s warm, soft scent overwhelmed him. He tried to make his broomstick descend, but it wouldn’t budge.

  More birds flew in front of him, behind him, all around him. The sky was filled with black feathers, the shoosh shooshing of flapping wings, a profusion of harsh bird calls.

  They rose above the treetops and turned left, away from the water. He wondered what they must look like: an odd cloud of birds, a cluster of wood and feathers and hair.

  He tried to turn his broom to the right, but again it wouldn’t budge. It was as if a tractor beam had locked onto the tip of his handle and was pulling him. They were turning together in a long, wide arc.

  “So many people seem to be talking about you these days, Charlie. Out of nowhere you show up, and then you’re the talk of the town. Elizabeth…”

  The sound of his mother’s name on Grace’s lips sobered him and stopped his shaking. He felt his veins heat up with courage.

  “You leave her out of this, you witch!”

  “Oh ho, a feisty little one. How very cute,” she said, her voice as calm as if speaking to him from a park bench on a pleasant spring outing, not thirty stories in the air, flocked by black wings and razor-sharp beaks. “No, let me finish, Charlie. You deserve to know some things, things that nobody has told you.