Beautiful Children

by Charles Bock

  Ponyboy took her hand and wouldn't let go, which was sweet and assuring, but also kind of strange.

  They passed the batting cages of a softball complex, and the long flat greens of a public park, and then made a right on Tropicana. Cheri checked the mirror attached to the back of the sun visor, and made sure her mascara was fine. Ponyboy roused from his thoughts long enough to stare at her. He said that right now she had to be the most lovely person on the planet, and he squeezed her hand, and they idled, waiting to make a left turn. Ponyboy was unlike his normal self in that he did not chance it and try to zip through some minor opening; rather, he waited for the coast to clear, then made the turn, and started the Jeep down a wide road busy with billboards for weekend room rates and flashing ads for cabaret shows. He pointed out a series of buildings where he used to crash when he first came to the city, which Cheri already knew about, but smiled at anyway. Her hand caressed his. Just ahead, distinct blue and maroon parking structures stood out against a wide backdrop of jagged, purple mountains. The sky was spacious and calm, off-white and thin, like a weak tea, maybe.

  The small, toylike shell of a jumbo jet flashed its landing lights in tandem, leveled with the horizon, and gradually started its descent. A plain and everyday sight, it seemed to Cheri to contain an elegance that was just as regular, and she stared at it for a time. Immediately ahead of the Jeep, colored signs were hanging above the road, each sign above a different lane: ARRIVING FLIGHTS, DEPARTURES, LONG-TERM PARKING. Taxicab traffic was thick. Ponyboy got into the through lane. Cheri felt a rush of love for her boyfriend that was so ferocious as to throb. She leaned over and pressed her lips into his cheek with all the force in her body.

  And so it had come to this: an office structure that looked like you'd visit for tax help, a maze of unlit corridors with cement floors, a black metal door without a company name or logo. Standing at the threshold, Cheri flashed back to another crappy office complex and that skeezey doctor—his pathetic comb-over, his patient leer. She reminded herself of all the money her new breasts had brought, told herself things had turned out more than okay. “Guess I'm nervous,” she said.

  Ponyboy seemed to be looking at the window, those grimy blinds of faded yellow plastic, pulled all the way down. For a horrific instant Cheri worried he was going to go in through the window.

  Thank goodness he went to the door.

  Cheri smoothed out her outfit. Once more she asked about logistics, the order of how things were going to go, just to make sure she had things right, just so she could hear, yet again, that everything would turn out okay.

  “Hey, hey there's that smokin’ body!”

  The deep voice came as the door swung open. And just like that, this huge hulk of a man was in front of her. No neck, just a wide, flat head that seemed to have been screwed into his massive body.

  “Hey, Jabba.”

  Ponyboy stepped inside, eagerly taking one of the man's hands. “We made it. Right on time.”

  Jabba's monstrously large forehead made an easy transition into a huge, bald dome, both of which were tanned to a char, the gray hair above his ears slick with styling gel, his smile revealing deeply grooved wrinkles around his eyes. Patting Ponyboy's shoulder, Jabba moved straight toward Cheri, opening his arms, his shirt almost blinding her: bright oranges and flaming yellows, unbuttoned to the middle of his stomach. He kissed her on each cheek; she smelled coconut oil, and a tart cologne, and beneath their layers, Jabba's natural body odor like the stench of sardines.

  “Caught your set the other night.” His eyes drifted toward her chest. “Sensational.”

  Cheri did exactly what she was supposed to—first giving her brightest, fakest smile, then straightening her back so Jabba had a better view. Leaning forward and returning his peck on the cheek, she gave him a better angle to stare down her blouse.

  “You're sweet,” she said.

  Jabba showed her in and she latched on to Ponyboy's hand, squeezing so hard that the blood left her fingers. The office was gloomy, its walls the color of dried vanilla pudding, its ceiling panels stained with nicotine soot. A crappy desk was covered in dirty magazines, littered with a few large, opened plastic containers of coleslaw. A revolving fan blew on one of the magazines, threatening to flip the foldout.

  In the middle of the room, a skinny Japanese guy was figuring out the right height for a lighting apparatus. A man in coaching shorts was sitting on a sofa sectional whose dark leather remined Cheri of bitter chocolate. The guy was older, some, a bit thick in the stomach, his golfing shirt tight and short in the sleeves. He was patiently unpacking his bag, removing a flesh-colored dildo, a syringe kit, and a blue Velcro-looking sleeve of some sort.

  Both men stopped what they were doing and watched Cheri's entrance, and the feeling was something she well knew. Putting some oomph into her hips, she sashayed into the room, graceful on four-inch heels, deftly avoiding a stack of videotapes, making herself the show, letting their eyes linger on her body. She pretended to examine the lone wall hanging, a poster of the Las Vegas Strip at night, black velvet inside a flimsy metal frame, and it was impossible not to feel something of a letdown, being in this office for what she was about to do.

  Just as hard was faking that she did not recognize the colored videotapes as ones Ponyboy had her watch.

  But she betrayed nothing. A quick pirouette gave the techies a nice view of her backside, and she made her way back toward the desk now. The increasing attention of the men behind her was palpitant, and Jabba's leer had her on edge. But at the same time, in a different way, it gave her more confidence. Nervous as these guys had her, their looks had her understanding the potential of this idea; and suddenly the blooms of love Cheri felt for Ponyboy flowered; suddenly she was on top of the world, horny as a fucking toad. Man oh man was she looking forward to giving Ponyboy some horny toad love in front of all these exploiter pervs.

  She took the cigar from Jabba's mouth, put it in her own, blew smoke in his face.

  “Real first-class operation you got here.”

  Jabba coughed. “We're renovating.” He cleared his throat. “Your tests came back. Everything's great. All we need now is a picture of your ID.”

  “Got it,” Ponyboy interjected. “Right here.”

  Jabba took the card without looking, his attention staying with Cheri. “Hiro!”

  Halfway across the room, the guy stopped fiddling with the portable lights. Cheri noticed a large camera around his neck, an even more imposing telephoto lens.

  “You need anything?” Jabba asked. “A few drinks to loosen you up?”

  “Thanks,” Cheri said.

  “Amyl nitrate? Poppers? Blow?”

  Again Cheri reached for Ponyboy's hand. “I'm good.”

  “Great. You sure I can't convince you to show us those flaming nipples today?”

  Ponyboy took an uncertain step forward. “Yeah, Jabba, about that.” His hesitance surprised Cheri. She wasn't used to him being deferential. Not to another man, that was for sure. “We just think it would be better if we saved it,” he said, and smiled apologetically. “I mean, why give away a gold mine, right?” A shrug now. “Let's keep it for the box covers, is what I'm saying.”

  Jabba grunted, turned into the room. “How we doing over there? Rod, all systems go, or what?”

  On the sofa sectional, the overtanned and unshaven guy continued working a blue sleeve up his leg. With painstakingly slow and almost ritualistically distant movements, he fit the metal construct of his knee brace around the sleeve. Cheri could see a doughnut of flab pouring over the waist of his coaching shorts. He might have been handsome a long time ago.

  “Wow,” said Ponyboy. “That really him?”

  “Live and in the flesh,” Jabba answered. “Five-pound cock and all.”

  “I love his work.”

  “You're lucky. Normally he won't travel for these. But Vegas is Rod's kind of town.”

  Cheri pulled on Ponyboy's shirt, whispered into his ear: “Who's that?”<
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  6.5

  Newell had completed the first of his three guaranteed innings when the coach had moved him over from left field to right. The move had dropped Newell's place in the batting order as well; and instead of being the second batter in the upcoming inning, he missed out on getting to the plate entirely. Newell reacted with shouts as to the bogusness of the switch; he called the coach completely bogus and refused to participate in the traditional postgame handshakes with the other team. His folks watched in silent horror in a row near the top of the bleachers, but Newell did not care, and chucked his mitt into a trash can. Ignoring the coach, who shouted “Get back here,” Newell removed his jersey and stalked away. Thoughts of walking home entertained him, but he stopped at the back of his dad's Suburban, his face flushed now, his body sweating. Kids from both teams were gathering around the ice cream shack; his mom and his coach were standing in the middle of the diamond, colluding against him, he was sure.

  Newell had a good sweet while to sit and sulk and think about what he'd done, before Lincoln arrived at the Suburban. He was alone, had recovered Newell's baseball glove, and was hiding it (sticky with soda and smelling of refuse) out of Newell's line of sight. He also had a Bomb Pop. Lincoln said Hey in the low small voice that adults talked to one another in when they were serious, and asked if Newell was all right. Newell kept looking down, the wall of defiance inside him suddenly becoming that much thicker. Lincoln did not seem to mind. “We don't need to talk about what happened,” he said. “There's time for that later. And we'll get to punishment, too.”

  Patiently unpeeling the wrapper of his confection, revealing its hard, fluorescent colors, Lincoln began telling his son about a phone call he'd once made, and the night he had told his father he'd had enough of minor league baseball. “It was an important moment for me. But my dad, he didn't take it so well. He was sure I could make it to the show, you know, because parents love you, they believe in you. He was sure I could do anything. But it wasn't going to happen, and I could see it, and, well, I don't know how long we talked. Felt like forever. But by the time it was over, I could tell I'd made my point, the old man understood where I was coming from, not that he could do much about it anyway.”

  Lincoln passed the Bomb Pop to Newell, who took it with a soberness that matched the mood. Then Lincoln put his hand around his son's wrist, held it there. “But my dad told me some other things that day, and they've stayed with me a long time now.” A hard squeeze; he looked his son in the eye. “Newell, all anyone can ask a man is to do his best. When he does his best, he doesn't look back and wonder. He knows.”

  Waiting, Lincoln let his point sink in. “Dad also told me, you quit one thing, it gets easier. Soon you're quitting everything. Giving up before you even started.”

  Inside the FBImobile, all of Kenny's sidelong glances, mannerisms, and fumbling silences registered with Newell. Instinctively, subconsciously. The way Kenny started over on his little lecture and talked all low and serious, the effort Kenny was making; the gravity with which he was trying to address his mistake; the logic of his words and the palpable want behind them.

  Newell felt the same repulsion that hit him whenever his father tried to buy his friendship, or just tried too damn hard.

  He turned away. He looked out the window.

  The coach was dragging a bag with the team bats and helmets back to his car when Newell went up and, using the exact words his father told him to say, apologized. The coach offered his own in return, saying he had not meant for Newell to miss his at bat, and asking Newell no hard feelings, right? They shook on it, and the coach said, a good thing about pencils, they have erasers. The coach followed this by informing Newell that he could not have any more tantrums and stay on the team. He asked if Newell understood, and when Newell nodded, the coach said Newell would have to work off his mistake at the next practice. Newell had accepted his punishment, running two laps around the playing field with only a minimum of grousing, and though the tantrum had caused further rifts between him and the more gung ho players, and had caused Newell to be ostracized even more by the core of popular teammates, Newell had not missed another practice or game. And after the pizza party at the end of the season, his dad had proudly placed his trophy on the mantel in the living room, next to the framed copy of Lincoln's first and only professional baseball contract. It was something that still made Newell proud, whenever he saw it.

  Probably it was every two weeks or so that Kenny got up his courage and said he'd be there this time. He promised and Newell tried not to get excited, because he'd sworn he wouldn't get burnt anymore, but the boy always ended up thinking this time was the time, for reals. Lorraine would tilt her head in that way she did, tut-tutting because she did not want Newell to be let down again, and this would get Newell mad and he would defend his friend, and that Saturday, Newell would be at the comic book shop half an hour before the guest artist was scheduled to start signing books, and two hours later he would still be waiting, listening to older kids make their sex jokes, acting like he understood what they were talking about, resenting Kenny for not being there to explain the jokes to him, for not being there to tell him not to worry about it in a way that always made Newell feel better. Newell would feel the absence and empty space that came with getting let down, and he'd feel the rancid humiliation of getting burnt the same way over and over. He'd be angry at Kenny for being such a coward, and he'd be furious with his mom because she'd known better than him after all, and he would resent her for trying to be nice to him and saying she was sorry, and would resent her even more when she got upset at him, and sniped that she did not understand why he'd thought it would be different this time.

  But today it had been different, Kenny had shown his drawings, and the comic book guy had liked them. But then Newell's mom had forced him to leave before the good stuff happened. Newell always got shafted. If he wanted a measly twenty bucks Newell had to listen to his dad's boring stories; he had to be back home by ten o'clock on what was supposed to be the funnest night of the week, only even when Newell stayed out way past his curfew, the night wasn't so great. Gambling didn't turn out to be such a big deal, and he ended up chased out of the casino, and the vampire guy had tricked him on that bet, and those homeless pieces of shit had stolen his phone. Newell couldn't even grab candy from a 7-Eleven without having a midget threaten him. Every shell Newell insisted the marble was under was empty, every turn he made led to a dead end. Time after time Newell was let down, deceived, corrected, Newell was swindled, scolded, taken for a ride. All the times Newell's mom had bugged and warned Newell, all the times she had worried that something was wrong with Kenny, and it turns out she was right, Newell was wrong. Wrong for all the times he had defended his friend. Wrong for getting touched in a bad place. Wrong for how the touch made him feel.

  Throughout the FBImobile the rattle and grind of the working engine was the only audible sound. The car stopped at a red light.

  6.6

  Then an ocean. Cascading breaks. Froth lapping at her arms and legs. Half-submerged, the girl with the shaved head floated, supported by tides, rocking in their swell and ebb, the waves caressing and enveloping: purple the color of blood before it hit the atmosphere, crimson the color of blood in broad daylight. The lull in her ears was calming, and now was joined: by an amplifier fizzing in the not too distance, the incremental sounds of a guitar being tuned. Then the indistinct noise of multiple conversations, a small crowd buzzing from somewhere beyond the girl's reach. Now there were more voices, closer to her, over her, someone expressing joy that the opening acts must have run late. She heard heavy clomping sounds and when the girl opened her eyes, she saw lumpish forms jumping out of the ice cream truck, bodies abandoning the vehicle before it had lurched and stopped. For a few bizarre seconds the girl did not understand how a truck could be in the middle of the ocean. She could not determine whether her eyes were playing tricks on her, if her senses were off track, or what. She started to rise and even this was cu
rious because she definitely was in the breadth of something warm, the hold of something strong, which suggested a body of water—only this thing wasn't wet, but solid, pulling on her arm, though gently. The girl recognized the voice.

  “Let them go,” Ponyboy said.

  She gave herself to his arms and he brought her toward his musky chest and his hand was alive on her knee once more. The girl opened her mouth and pressed it to his, and each following sensation was a miracle and a revelation, the prayer and its answer. They slipped down onto the floor and the rush made her head spin, and when the girl closed her eyes the ocean returned and spun around inside her eyelids, and when she opened her eyes, the waves receded and the world returned, but spinning at an even faster pace. Shag follicles and the crumbs of all kinds of snack foods dug into her back and the girl was aware of the scratching sensations, but felt removed from their irritation. She was lucid enough, barely, to know she was drifting between hallucinations and lucidity, but not together to the extent where she could differentiate between what was real and what was imagined. The associative leaps blurred: the girl was on the cordless with Francesca, complaining that her mom could not seem to grasp the concept that a dress wasn't old, it was vintage; she felt her skirt bunching up, warm air around her hips. There was an instant when a hand came to rest on the outer lining of her panties and there was the eternal second when the girl decided to let it linger on the elastic band.

  Drool had accumulated in the corner of her mouth but she was too disassociated from her body to do anything about it. She was barely able to raise her head from the carpet. The absence of all other sound in the truck sounded very much like joy and she marshaled all of her strength to experience the sensation of that hand and she was eight years old and had straight golden tresses down to the middle of her back and was dressed up like a cheerleader for Halloween. The boats were lined up and sitting quietly in the boat basin and the girl smelled the muskiness and salt in the air and the ocean washed up onto the shore and her mom told her not to think of dinner as leftovers but as vintage casserole. The girl turned the stereo up and juggled the cordless and said, I'm such a martyr I should get my palms pierced.