by Laurent Linn
The grass is spongy wet, so I take the seat of a swing, flip it over to the dry side, and sit. The chains squeak.
Focusing on the bottle label, he opens the cap, pushes a pill into his mouth, and swallows. Even that looks painful.
The back of the house has two angled attic windows, like staring eyes. “Your parents home?”
“Not yet.” He recaps the little bottle. “Adrian, why are you here?”
“Your message weirded me out.” There. I said it.
He turns the closed pill bottle upside down and back in a slow rhythm, pills sounding like a tiny maraca.
I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans. “What did you mean by . . . well, you said ‘no one will see, ever’?”
He doesn’t answer.
“You were talking about your face,” I say, “about you. It sounded like, well, you might do something.” I look at the pill bottle in his hand.
“Oh.” He shakes the pills faster, like a gambler about to roll the dice. “You’d think these things would help. They kinda do, but not enough.” He stops, considers the bottle, and drops it in the grass at his side.
Almost as if he’s moving in slow motion, he leans back against the slide and rests his head. He mumbles, “Outside of this house, who would miss me? Everyone might just be relieved.”
I twist toward him in the swing, crisscrossing the chains. I can see it in his face, behind his unintended mask. This isn’t empty drama. “Holy crap, Kobe. That’s not true. At lunch, you should see how that whole table of your friends just sit there, worried. They miss you.”
“No, they don’t. Where the hell have they been? No one visited me in the hospital. No one even sent a damn flower. No one.”
“Really?”
Wincing, he sits up and reaches for the pill bottle. Opening it, he looks right at me and takes another pill.
I stare.
He holds the bottle out. “Want one? They’re hydrocodone flavored.”
“Uh, didn’t you just take one?”
“You’re not my mommy, all right? This is my damn life.” He closes the bottle and sticks it in his pocket. “Besides, in my message I wasn’t talking about killing myself, okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m changing schools.”
“Oh! That’s what you meant?” I exhale and slowly spin back to face forward, uncrossing the chains of the swing. “But it’s the middle of the school year. You’re a senior. Would you even graduate on time?”
“Graduate? Who gives a crap about graduating, Adrian? Wake up! Look at me. You think Doug doesn’t want to finish the job? No way I’m steppin’ foot in that school again. Ever.”
I kick the ground and rock back and forth in the swing. “Maybe I should change schools too.”
“Why? Gonna follow me? Please don’t say you have a crush on me, Adrian. Although I know this face must be hard to resist.” He looks down at his hands.
I lift my feet off the ground, let the momentum pull me forward and back. “No, Kobe. You’ve never, like, been my type. No offense.”
“But you are gay, yes?” he says. “I mean, come on, girl.”
As I swing back and forth, reflections of the sky shift on the house windows, like they’re blinking eyes. “Yes, I am. Gay.” My throat catches. “Takes one to know one, I guess?”
“Oh, no, not always. You’d be surprised,” he says. “But I did wonder about you.”
I kick my feet and swing faster. “Well, no more wondering, seems everyone knows now. You’re the one who sent me that video going around. Of me shrieking? ‘Funny fag,’ remember?”
He looks up. “Oh, crap. Right.”
“That’s why I should change schools too.”
“Is Doug . . . ?”
I nod.
He sighs, deep. “Got it.”
I stop kicking and let the swing carry me back and forth. “How do you do it?” I ask. “How do you be so out and proud and not care what people think? Get through it all?”
“Uh, clearly I don’t.” He carefully shifts his legs over the side of the slide to face me. “I’m stupid, Adrian. I do stupid things. But you seem smart. Horrendously dressed with a hideous haircut, but smart. You’ll do better than me.”
“Huh? How?”
He shrugs. “I don’t really know you, but seems to me you look at things, figure things out. I mean, you’re here, right? If the tables were turned, I probably wouldn’t have come to see you.” He smiles. “No offense.”
Skidding my shoes against the little patch of dirt under the swing, I slow to a stop. But my brain keeps going, turning over his words.
He grunts. “You’d probably even be a better actor than me. You watch people. I only want to be watched . . . well . . . wanted.”
One of the bandages barely clings to his cheek, exposing a few stitches. I point to it. “Should you put on a new one?”
He peels it off and flings it on the ground. “Doesn’t matter. They come off all the time.”
The wind picks up, tossing fallen leaves against the backyard fence.
I stand, lift one leg over the seat, and straddle it to face him. “What do you remember? From Friday night at Boo, I mean.”
“Not much. My car, all those assholes. Doug. I was so—” He clears his throat. “They say you came running out. Tried to stop . . .” He blinks hard. “Shit! Crying hurts. I can’t even effin’ touch my eyes!”
He bends over and, taking part of his sleeve, gently dabs his face.
“Why did you do it?” he asks.
I lean forward and grip the chain, swallow back my own tears. “It’s just that you were all alone. It was you against all of them. Against Doug.”
Wincing, he sits up. “Doug.”
I wipe my eyes. “Your first message said your mom was raising hell with the cops. What happened?”
“Nothing. Haven’t you heard? I’m a tough bitch. So tough that poor little Doug had to defend himself from me attacking him.”
“Damn fucker,” I say.
His eyes pop. “You’re full of surprises, little Adrian.”
Tell me about it.
Reaching into his pocket, he pulls out the pill bottle.
“Just don’t,” I say.
“What is it with you? Stop trying to ‘save’ me.” He looks me up and down. “You sure you’re not hot for me?”
“Quite sure,” I say. “No—”
“—offense?” he says. “Yeah yeah.”
He stands in a woozy way and blinks. “Whoa. Maybe you’re right, Nurse Piper. These pills are wicked. I think I need a nap.”
We head back into the house, I grab my backpack from the kitchen, and he leads me to the entry hall.
“Hold up,” he says. “I have something for you.” Grasping the railing, he goes upstairs, one slow step at a time.
I’m full of surprises? What’s he doing?
After a minute he appears at the top of the stairs. Gliding down, one hand on the railing and the other behind his back, he says in a whispery voice, “There’s nothing else, just us. And the cameras. And those wonderful people out there in the dark.”
Oh, man. Now he’s hallucinating. What was in those pills? “Uh, there aren’t any cameras. Do you need help?”
He rolls his eyes. “Oh, come on—Norma Desmond? Sunset Boulevard? You do know the movie, right?”
I tilt my head. “Huh? I don’t think so.”
“What kind of homo are you?” He finishes his descent and, keeping one arm behind him, sits on the bottom step. “Doesn’t matter, anyway. I’m seriously not ready for my close-up.”
I shrug. “If you say so.”
“Okay, listen. They found these in my hand. You know, when I was unconscious?” He looks up at me. “Must have grabbed hold of whatever I could in the moment. The paramedics assumed they were mine. Hold out your hand.”
I do.
“Let’s call this your reward, for chivalry.” From behind his back, he brings around a set of clinking keys attache
d to a car fob and drops them in my palm.
I squint at him.
“They’re not mine,” he says. “They’re Doug’s.”
I TAKE THE KEYS.
They’re always hanging off Doug’s belt loop, jangling as he walks like a warning signal. But now they’re silent, in my palm. “Why give them to me?”
“You earned ’em,” Kobe says. “Besides, I don’t want any part of that asshole in my house. I think of him enough when I look in the mirror.”
“But—”
“Do whatever you want with them, I don’t care.” He yawns wide, then grimaces. I can’t imagine what it must be like when a simple yawn hurts. “Sorry, Adrian, I gotta lie down.” He goes to the front door.
“Um, okay.” Holding the keys, I slip my backpack onto both shoulders.
As he opens the door, Kobe clutches the handle to steady himself. “Whoa, world’s tilting.”
I step outside. “Well, take care of yourself. And feel better. I mean it.”
“I know you do, Nurse Piper.” He smiles and shuts the door.
I exhale deeply and head down the block. He’s all right, just changing schools. Still, all those pills . . .
I study Doug’s keys as I walk. Feels like I’m holding something toxic. What the hell am I supposed to do with them, waltz into his house or steal his pickup truck? There’s a car remote fob, a few keys that must be to his house, and a dangling keychain. Wait. The keychain is the Hulk, bare chest and arms open wide. Don’t tell me Doug reads comics? Must be the movies he likes, the limitless destruction. I can’t imagine him actually reading anything or looking at art . . . or understanding what it is to be a mutant.
Anyone who could do what he did to Kobe doesn’t have a soul.
I stick the keys in my backpack and continue the long walk home, sorting and filing everything Kobe said. At least he was honest and didn’t dictate how I should solve the woes of the world—or avoid them all. Strange how someone I barely know could understand me more than my friends do.
As I get closer to my house the streetlights flicker on.
I arrive home and have a fun exchange with Mom, her asking, “Why are you so late for dinner?” and me saying, “If I had a phone I would have called you.”
For most of dinner we eat in silence. But, hoping she’ll perk up and maybe even have money soon for a new phone, I ask, “Hey, Mom, how’d the house showing go today?”
She doesn’t perk but slumps. “They barely spent five minutes at the showing. The kitchen wasn’t big enough for them. That kitchen’s as big as this house!” She glances toward our kitchen. “And completely renovated. Sub-Zero and everything.”
“Someone will want to buy it,” Dad says. “You’ll see.”
“Yeah,” I say.
Mom reaches for her wineglass and the silence resumes.
As soon as I finish I head to my room. Harley helps me find a good hiding spot for Doug’s keys in the recesses of my closet. I tuck them in one of those bright-red sneakers I never wear.
As I get into comfy clothes, I empty my jeans pockets and—oh, yeah—find the notes.
I shove the locker note in the back of my desk drawer. Out of sight, out of mind. I hope.
Lev’s cartoon is luckier. It goes between a couple pages in Symbolism in Renaissance Masterworks on my bookshelf.
Harley stretches, then hops on the drawing table. I click on the lamp and she curls up in her warm spot. She’s always so carefree, needing only food, toys, and a place to nap to be happy. Must be nice.
I extract Audrey’s bright-pink folder from my bag. She’s un-freakin’-believable. Inside are all these articles, websites, stories . . . gay kids on a crusade for justice, Gay-Straight Alliances to the rescue. Well, at Rock Hollow High, not only are Gay and Straight hardly allied, but they have yet to be formally introduced.
Everyone talked about how Kobe tried to start a GSA last year. But evidently only he and a couple straight sponsor teachers showed up for the first and only meeting. Big fail.
And why is there crap in this folder about gay celebrities getting married? What does she think a lesbian rock star’s wedding in People magazine has to do with me?
Thanks, but no thanks. In the drawer goes the pink folder.
I need better resources, better inspiration. It takes a little while, but I pull out every graphic novel, comic, whatever I have with a gay character. From Northstar and Midnighter to some indie comics, I dig up everything I have. Piling them on the drawing table, I explore. Then I go online and pore over site after site, seeing how comic creators deal with this freakin’ world that thinks I shouldn’t exist.
I know these superheroes inside and out, straight or gay. They battle oppression and evil. They hide their identities with their masks and costumes, then speed off to destroy the enemy. They call in their masked friends and destroy some more.
Well, my mask got torn off. And I don’t destroy.
Knock, knock. “Ade, it’s me.”
“Dad?” I jump up and crack the door enough to look out but not enough for him to look in. “Yeah?”
“I’m off to bed,” he says.
Huh? He never tells me when he turns in. “Do you need something?”
“Naw, just thought I’d say good night.” He angles his head to get a peek into my room. I close the door a bit more.
“Just reading. Homework.”
“That’s good. Keepin’ up with your studies.” He nods. “Everything all right?”
“Uh, yeah? Why?”
“Oh, dinner was a little quiet, that’s all.”
I want to say: Probably because you shut off the TV for once. But instead I say, “Just tired.”
He nods. “All right then, son. ’Night.”
“Good night.”
Lit by the sliver of light coming from my room, he shuffles down the hall, his cane taking much of his weight.
I shut my door. What was that about? He must’ve had one beer too many tonight or something. It’s nice of him, but like I’m gonna tell him anything?
Whatever. I put the pile of superhero books and comics aside and get out Michelangelo, my unwavering Renaissance friend, always there to inspire. When he lived, you could be executed just for being gay like he was. Yet he filled churches and palaces with hot naked guys and got praised to high heaven. How did he get away with that?
I pull out my sketchpads. Just seeing Graphite is like plugging into a power socket. Damn, I’ve missed you.
I sketch so fast I zip through one pad of paper and start another, drawing line after curve after line. It’s better than words, better than plotting and planning—or doing nothing at all.
And it’s far better than playing bloody video games.
Graphite has a lot to express tonight.
CHILLY WIND WRAPS AROUND ME this morning on my march to school. I’m determined, though. No more meltdowns, no more getting caught off guard, and no more empty bathrooms.
I turn the corner and—uh-oh. On the opposite side of the street from me a police car slows to a stop at the edge of the school’s front lawn. I hang by a tree in someone’s yard.
The black-and-white car’s front passenger door opens and—What?—Doug steps out. Oh. He’s getting a ride from Daddy. I can make out his father’s profile in the driver’s seat.
This has nothing to do with me at all.
I exhale and slip behind the tree, leaning into the rough bark. But I don’t move a muscle since the tree’s not wide enough to cover me. I cup my hand, ready to tap on my palm as if I’m absorbed in a nonexistent phone and not watching him in case he looks over. It’s lame, but it’s all I got.
Doug scans the schoolyard but no one’s nearby. He doesn’t even look in my direction. Good.
I can’t hear the words, but his dad’s yelling from inside the car.
Standing by the open passenger door, Doug puffs up to his full bulk and puts his arms out to the sides. His voice is clear. “Don’t worry, I get how it makes you look!”
/> More muffled dad yelling comes from within, but I can’t make it out.
“God, it’s like—I got it!” Doug grips the edge of the car door. “Really. I’m not some wuss kid.”
Whatever his dad responds is lower, more muted.
Doug’s shoulders slump. “I know I’m your kid. Whose else?” He grabs his duffel bag from the backseat. “Okay, fine.”
His dad barks out something.
Doug inhales. “Fine, sir. Yes, sir.”
As he shuts the door, the car pulls away down the street. He just stands there a moment watching it disappear.
Glancing around again (and not noticing me, thank god), Doug flips off where his dad’s cop car was, shooting his middle finger straight in the air. Then he drops his bag and looks at the ground. Taking off his red cap, he ruffles his hair and growls.
Please don’t look over here.
A couple cars zoom by, so he fits his cap back on tight and his expression goes blank, forming his usual mask. He hefts his duffel bag over a shoulder and puffs out his chest, stands tall, then cuts across the lawn away from me and toward the school.
Holy crap. What the hell was that?
I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans.
So things aren’t so great at home . . . good! But his dad couldn’t have been giving him crap about beating up Kobe. It probably made him proud. Plus, that was almost a week ago, so maybe all this was about “losing” his pickup truck keys? Or maybe it was about having to drive Doug to school?
Well, whatever it was, I hope it gets worse for him. Much.
Unless that means he’ll just turn around and take it out on somebody else.
Like me.
Oh, man.
Doug gets smaller and smaller as he heads off in the distance. As soon as he’s through the front doors I step away from the tree and slowly make my way across the street and over the lawn. I give him lots of time to get to wherever the hell he goes first thing.
On full alert, I enter the school and snake through the halls. Taped along the walls, the Halloween Hoedown flyers are now joined by ones saying PEP RALLY TOMORROW!!!
Obi-Wan, help.