They talk for a minute and then Tiny says, “Phil, I’m gay.”
Stunned, I say, “No.”
And he says, “It’s true.”
I shake my head. “You mean, like, you’re happy?”
“No, I mean, like, that guy,” he points at Ethan, who’s wearing a skintight yellow wifebeater, “is hot and if I talked to him for a while and he had a good personality and respected me as a person I would let him kiss me on the mouth.”
“You’re gay?” I say, seemingly uncomprehending.
“Yeah. I know. I know it’s a shock. But I wanted you to be the first to know. Other than my parents, I mean.”
And then Phil Wrayson breaks out into song, singing more or less exactly what I said when this really happened: “Next you’re gonna tell me the sky is blue, that you use girl shampoo, that critics don’t appreciate Blink 182. Oh, next you’re gonna tell me the Pope is Catholic, that hookers turn tricks, that Elton John sucks HEY.”
And then the song turns into a call and response, with Tiny singing his surprise that I knew he was gay and me singing that it was obvious.
“But I’m a football player.”
“Dude, you couldn’t be gayer.”
“I thought my straight-acting deserved a Tony.”
“But, Tiny, you own a thousand My Little Ponies!” And so on. I can’t stop laughing, but more than that, I can’t believe how well he remembers it all, how good—for all of our bad—we’ve always been to each other. And I sing, “You don’t want me, do you?” And he answers, “I would prefer a kangaroo,” and behind us the chorus high-kicks like the Rockettes.
Jane puts her hands on a shoulder to bend me down and whispers, “See? He loves you, too,” and I turn to her and kiss her in the quick dark moment between the end of the song and the beginning of the applause.
As the curtain closes for a set change, I can’t see the standing ovation, but I can hear it.
Tiny runs offstage, shouting “WOOOOOOOOOT!” “It could actually go to Broadway,” I tell him.
“It got a lot better when I made it about love.” He looks at me, smiling with half his mouth, and I know that’s as close as he’ll ever come. Tiny’s the gay one, but I’m the sentimentalist. I nod and whisper thanks.
“Sorry if you come across a little annoying in this next part.” Tiny reaches up to touch his hair and Nick appears out of nowhere, diving over an amp to grab Tiny’s arm, screaming, “DO NOT TOUCH YOUR PERFECT HAIR.” The curtain rises, and the set is a hallway in our school. Tiny’s putting up posters. I’m annoying him, that catch in my voice. I don’t mind it, or at least I don’t mind it much—love is bound up in truth, after all. Just after that scene, there’s one with Tiny drunk at a party in which the character Janey gets her only time onstage—a duet with Phil Wrayson sung on opposite sides of a passed-out Tiny, the song culminating in Gary’s voice suddenly toughening into confidence and then Janey and me leaning over Tiny’s mumbling half-conscious body and kissing. I can only half watch the scene, because I keep wanting to see Jane’s smile as she watches.
The songs get better and better from there, until, in the last song before intermission, the whole audience is singing along as Oscar Wilde sings over a sleeping Tiny,
The pure and simple truth
Is rarely pure and never simple.
What’s a boy to do
When lies and truth are both sinful?
As that song ends, the curtain closes and the house lights come up for intermission. Tiny runs up to us and puts a paw on each of our shoulders and lets forth a yawp of joy. “It’s hilarious,” I tell him. “Really. It’s just . . . awesome.”
“Woot! The second half’s a lot darker, though. It’s the romantic part. Okay okay okay okay, see you after!” he says, and then races off to congratulate, and probably chastise, his cast. Jane takes me off into a corner backstage, secluded behind the set, and says, “You really did all that? You looked after him in Little League?”
“Eh, he looked after me, too,” I say.
“Compassion is hot,” she says as we kiss. After a while, I see the houselights dim and then come back up. Jane and I head back to our stage-side vantage point. The houselights go down again, signaling the end of intermission. And after a moment, a voice from on high says, “Love is the most common miracle.”
At first I think God is, like, talking to us, but I quickly realize it’s Tiny coming in over the speakers. The second half is beginning.
Tiny sits on the front edge of the stage in the dark, saying, “Love is always a miracle, everywhere, every time. But for us, it’s a little different. I don’t want to say it’s more miraculous,” he says, and people laugh a little. “It is, though.” The lights come up slowly, and only now do I see that behind Tiny is an actual honest-to-God swing set that seems to have been possibly literally dug out of a playground and transported to the stage. “Our miracle is different because people say it’s impossible. As it sayeth in Leviticus, ‘Dude shall not lie with dude.’” He looks down, and then out into the audience, and I can tell he is looking for the other Will and not finding him. He stands up.
“But it doesn’t say that dude shall not fall in love with dude, because that’s just impossible, right? The gays are animals, answering their animal desires. It’s impossible for animals to fall in love. And yet—”
Suddenly, Tiny’s knees buckle and he collapses in a heap. I jolt up and start to run onstage to pick him up, but Jane grabs a fistful of my shirt as Tiny raises his head toward the audience and says, “I fall and I fall and I fall and I fall and I fall.”
And at that very moment, my phone buzzes in my pocket. I dig it out of my pocket. The caller ID reads Will Grayson.
chapter twenty
what’s in front of me is the trippiest thing i’ve ever seen. by far.
i honestly didn’t think gideon and i would make it on time. chicago traffic is unkind to begin with, but in this case it was moving slower than a stoner’s thoughts. gideon and i had to have a swearing contest in order to calm ourselves down.
now that we’ve made it, i’m guessing there’s no way our plan is going to work. it’s both insane and genius, which is what tiny deserves. and it required me to do a lot of things i don’t usually do, including:
• talking to strangers
• asking strangers for favors
• being willing to make a complete fool of myself
• letting someone else (gideon) help me
it also relies on a number of things beyond my control, including:
• the kindness of strangers
• the ability of strangers to be spontaneous
• the ability of strangers to drive quickly
• tiny’s musical lasting more than one act
i’m sure it’s going to be a total disaster. but i guess the point is that i’m going to do it anyway.
i know i’ve cut it real close, because when gideon and i walk into the auditorium, they’re carrying a swing set onto the stage. and not just any swing set. i recognize that swing set. that exact same swing set. and that’s when the trippiness kicks in, big-time.
gideon: holy shit.
at this point, gideon knows everything that went on. not just with me and tiny, but with me and maura, and me and my mom, and basically me and the whole world. and not once has he told me i was stupid, or mean, or awful, or beyond help. in other words, he hasn’t said any of the things i’ve been saying to myself. instead, in the car ride over, he said
gideon: it all makes sense.
me: it does?
gideon: completely. i would’ve done the same things you did.
me: liar.
gideon: no lie.
then, completely out of nowhere, he held out his pinkie.
gideon: pinkie swear, no lie.
and i hooked my pinkie in his. we drove that way for a little bit, with my little finger curled into his little finger.
me: next thing you know, we’ll be blood brothers.
> gideon: and we’ll be having sleepovers.
me: in the backyard.
gideon: we won’t invite the girls.
me: what girls?
gideon: the hypothetical girls that we won’t invite.
me: will there be s’mores?
gideon: what do you think?
i knew there would be s’mores.
gideon: you know you’re insane, right?
me: this is news?
gideon: for doing what you’re about to do.
me: it was your idea.
gideon: but you did it, not me. i mean, you’re doing it.
me: we’ll see.
and it was strange, because as we drove on, it wasn’t gideon or tiny i was thinking about, but maura. as i was in that car with gideon, so completely comfortable with myself, i couldn’t help but think that this was what she wanted from me. this is what she always wanted from me. and it was never going to be like this. but i guess for the first time i saw why she would try so hard for it. and why tiny tried so hard for it.
now gideon and i are standing in the back of the theater. i’m looking around to see who else is here, but i can’t really tell in the darkness.
the swing set stays in the back of the stage as a chorus line of boys dressed as boys and girls dressed as boys lines up in front of it. i can tell this is meant to be a parade of tiny’s ex-boyfriends because as they line up, they are singing,
chorus: we are the parade of ex-boyfriends!
i have no doubt the kid at the end is supposed to be me. (he’s dressed all in black and looks really moody.)
they all start singing their breakup lines:
ex-boyfriend 1: you’re too clingy
ex-boyfriend 2: you’re too singy
ex-boyfriend 3: you’re so massive
ex-boyfriend 4: i’m too passive.
ex-boyfriend 5: i’d rather be friends.
ex-boyfriend 6: i don’t date tight ends.
ex-boyfriend 7: i found another guy.
ex-boyfriend 8: i don’t have to tell you why.
ex-boyfriend 9: i don’t feel the spark.
ex-boyfriend 10: it was only a lark.
ex-boyfriend 11: you mean you won’t put out?
ex-boyfriend 12: i can’t conquer my doubt.
ex-boyfriend 13: i have other things to do.
ex-boyfriend 14: i have other guys to screw.
ex-boyfriend 15: our love has all been in your head.
ex-boyfriend 16: i’m worried that you’ll break my bed.
ex-boyfriend 17: i think I’ll just stay home and read.
ex-boyfriend 18: i think you’re in love with my need.
that’s it - hundreds of texts and conversations, thousands upon thousands of words spoken and sent, all boiled down into a single line. is that what relationships become? a reduced version of the hurt, nothing else let in. it was more than that. i know it was more than that.
and maybe tiny knows, too. because all the other boyfriends leave the stage except for boyfriend #1, and i realize that we’re going to go through them all, and maybe each one will have a new lesson for tiny and the audience.
since it’s going to be a while before we get to ex-boyfriend #18, i figure it’s a good time for me to call the other will grayson. i’m worried he’ll have his phone off, but when i go out to the lobby to call (leaving gideon to save me a seat), he picks up and says he’ll meet me in a minute.
i recognize him right away, even though there’s something different about him, too.
me: hey
o.w.g.: hey
me: one helluva show in there.
o.w.g.: i’ll say. i’m glad you came.
me: me too. because, you see, i had this idea. well, actually, it was my friend’s idea. but here’s what we’re doing. . . .
i explain it to him.
o.w.g.: that’s insane.
me: i know.
o.w.g.: do you think they’re really here?
me: they said they would be. but even if they’re not, at least there’s you and me.
the other will grayson looks terrified.
o.w.g.: you’re going to have to go first. i’ll back you up, but i don’t think i could go first.
me: you have a deal.
o.w.g.: this is totally crazy.
me: but tiny’s worth it.
o.w.g.: yeah, tiny’s worth it.
i know we should go back to the play. but there’s something i want to ask him, now that he’s in front of me.
me: can i ask you something personal, will grayson to will grayson?
o.w.g.: um . . . sure.
me: do you feel things are different? i mean, since the first time we met?
o.w.g. thinks about it for a second, then nods.
o.w.g.: yeah. i guess i’m not the will grayson i used to be.
me: me neither.
i open the door to the auditorium and peek in again. they’re already on ex-boyfriend #5.
o.w.g.: i better return backstage. jane’s going to wonder where i went.
me: jane, eh?
o.w.g.: yeah, jane.
it’s so cute - there are like two hundred different emotions that flash across his face when he says her name - everything from extreme anxiety to utter bliss.
me: well, let’s take our places.
o.w.g.: good luck, will grayson.
me: good luck to us all.
i sneak back in and find gideon, who fills me in on what’s going on.
gideon (whispering): ex-boyfriend six was all about the jockstraps. to the point of fetish, i’d say.
almost all the ex-boyfriends are like this - never really three-dimensional, but it soon becomes apparent that this is deliberate, that tiny’s showing how he never got to know all of their dimensions, that he was so caught up in being in love that he didn’t really take the time to think about what he was in love with. it’s agonizingly truthful, at least for exes like me. (i see a few more boys shifting in their seats, so i’m probably not the only ex in the audience.) we make it through the first seventeen exes, and then there’s a blackout and the swing set is moved to the center of the stage. suddenly, tiny’s in the spotlight, on the swing, and it’s like my life has rewound and is playing back to me, only in musical form. it’s exactly as i remember it . . . until it’s not, and tiny’s inventing this new dialogue for us.
me-on-stage: i’m really sorry.
tiny: don’t be. i fell for you. i know what happens at the end of falling - landing.
me-on-stage: i just get so pissed off at myself. i’m the worst thing in the world for you. i’m your pinless hand grenade.
tiny: i like my pinless hand grenade.
it’s funny - i wonder if i’d said that, and if he’d said that, then maybe things would have played out differently. because i would have known that he understood, at least a little. but i guess he needed to be writing it as a musical to see it. or say it.
me-on-stage: well, i don’t like being your pinless hand grenade. or anybody’s.
but the weird thing is, for once i feel the pin is in.
tiny’s looking out into the audience right now. there’s no way for him to know i’m here. but maybe he’s looking for me anyway.
tiny: i just want you to be happy. if that’s with me or with someone else or with nobody. i just want you to be happy. i just want you to be okay with life. with life as it is. and me, too. it is so hard to accept that life is falling. falling and landing and falling and landing. i agree it’s not ideal. i agree.
he’s talking to me. he’s talking to himself. maybe there’s no difference.
i get it. i understand it.
and then he loses me.
tiny: but there is the word, this word phil wrayson taught me once: weltschmerz. it’s the depression you feel when the world as it is does not line up with the world as you think it should be. i live in a big goddamned weltzschermz ocean, you know? and so do you. and so does everyone. because everyone thinks it should be possib
le just to keep falling and falling forever, to feel the rush of the air on your face as you fall, that air pulling your face into a brilliant goddamned smile. and that should be possible. you should be able to fall forever.
John Green & David Levithan Page 24