The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight: A Gay Teen Coming of Age Paranormal Adventure about Witches, Murder, and Gay Teen Love (Book 1, The Broom Closet Stories)

by Jeff Jacobson

  “And what, may I ask, is wrong with that?” Beverly asked, making sure that Amos had enough water in his drinking bowl before they left. “We’re foodies, that’s all.”

  Randall rolled his eyes at Charlie.

  “I saw that!”

  “You can’t get away with anything, living with a witch. I call it the Darren Stevens syndrome.”

  “I heard that!”

  All three of them had laughed, even though Charlie didn’t know who Darren Stevens was.

  Beverly and Randall ran into some friends near a booth selling fresh flowers. After introductions were made, the adults kept talking about the weather, the produce, and local politics.

  “We’ll be here forever talking about boring stuff, Charlie,” Randall said to him. “Why don’t you go have a look around? Take one of these bags with you in case you want to buy something.”

  “We can meet back up in thirty minutes over by that fountain.” Beverly pointed to a low cement structure wedged between a bank and a pharmacy.

  Charlie nodded, looked around, then headed in the direction of the produce stands.

  People. So many people. Pushing and shoving to taste samples of late summer fruit, to fill their bags with purchases.

  “I’ll weigh those cucumbers for you!”

  “Really? Just add a few cups of the cider right into the bowl? Or do I have to heat it first?”

  “Excuse me, excuse me, I just want to try some of that.”

  He let himself be jostled about, surprised to find that he was enjoying the crowd rather than being afraid of it. He liked the feeling of being among so many people without anyone looking at him or asking him questions. And with so many noises, so many good smells, he was able to take his mind off of his mother’s journal and her frustrating mysteries.

  He walked over to a small booth that sold local salmon, both fresh and smoked.

  “Like a sample?” asked a tall man with a trim red beard standing behind the table.

  “Uh, sure.”

  The man spread something white over a round cracker, then placed a bit of fish on top.

  “This is our smoked chinook, the last of the season, with a little chive cheese.”

  Charlie bit into the cracker, which was hearty and thick. The cheese filled his mouth with a tangy richness. But what surprised him was the rich, oily taste of the salmon: slightly salty, but almost like it had been barbecued. He thought it might be the best thing he had ever eaten.

  “Pretty good, huh?”

  He smiled and nodded.

  “A four-ounce package, that’s the small one, is thirteen fifty.

  That’s expensive, he thought, on the verge of opening his mouth and saying so. His mother would never pay for anything that cost this much. Maybe she would insist on catching the fish and smoking it herself, just to prove how ridiculous vendors could be with their fancy products and outrageous markups. Maybe she would even make a few choice comments about the kind of people who bought extravagant unnecessary things like this.

  But a flash of anger filled him; not indignation at the fish seller and his prices, but at her. She was the one who had up and left him in the middle of the night without even saying goodbye. She had kept an entire world of secrets from him, knowledge of her own background and therefore his own too. And somehow her little lunchbox was supposed to answer all of his questions?

  He had spent years listening to her prattle on about careless spending, about incapable people and their lazy habits. He had swallowed all of it whole, had sucked up her do-it-yourself arrogance without ever questioning the source.

  And yet who was standing here in front of him offering him something good to eat? His mother? No, she had lied to him, lied to him about basically everything in life and had been too chicken to admit to it, had instead dumped him off with random strangers and driven away, had acted worse than all the “stupid people” she had ever complained about combined, had …

  “How much is the bigger one?” Charlie heard himself ask, the words rushing out of his mouth before he could stop himself. He didn’t even hear the man’s reply of, “Twenty-three dollars.”

  He felt a thrill rush through him, welling up, felt himself turning giddy. His mother wasn’t here and, for all he knew, might not be coming back anytime soon. (Or ever? The thought tried to shove its way past his growing excitement, but he pushed it away.) She wasn’t here to police him even if she wanted to. Maybe that’s what it means when your mother leaves you with strangers: that you can do what you want and stop worrying about her reaction.

  The salmon vendor took Charlie’s silence for reticence.

  “I know it’s kind of pricey. Tell you what,” he said, opening his hands palms up, eyes crinkling at the corners as he smiled, “for twenty-four dollars, I’ll give you the larger smoked Chinook, a tub of the chive cheese, which is normally four fifty, and throw in a box of crackers too.”

  Charlie smiled and quickly nodded. He didn’t know if he was getting a good deal or not, but he didn’t care. He took out his wallet and handed over the two twenties that Randall had given him that morning.

  “This is the first thing that I bought in Seattle. Smoked salmon!” he imagined himself saying to the salmon vendor. Like shy people the world over, Charlie held many conversations inside his head, all of which turned out better than reality. No one ever embarrassed him during these fantasy chats. They only included him in their collective fold. He imagined himself saying it, imagined the red-bearded vendor clapping him on the back and congratulating him on his choice.

  Of course, he said none of this. Instead he placed his purchases inside his canvas bag, thanked the vendor, and turned away.

  But he could still taste the rich flavor of the salmon. He smiled. It tasted like freedom.

  * * *

  Charlie wandered over to where a small crowd had gathered near the produce stalls.

  “… must be from last year’s supply,” he heard a woman say.

  “No, ma’am. These are early Braeburns, I assure you. Try one and tell me if it isn’t the freshest apple you’ve ever tasted,” another voice said. It was male, and younger than the woman’s. Charlie couldn’t tell where it came from, but an unexpected thought ran through his head: I like that voice.

  As he stood there, he saw a sign that read “Ramirez Yakima Produce” above a stand selling several different kinds of apples. People were trying small slices. He could see the back of the black-haired person passing out the samples, only a few feet away from him.

  That person turned and caught Charlie’s eye.

  He looked to be about Charlie’s age, or maybe slightly older. He was taller than Charlie’s five feet nine inches, probably over six feet. His skin was cinnamon-colored, and he had wide eyes, nearly as wide as Beverly’s, but much darker. His teeth were bright white as he smiled at him.

  Charlie’s mind felt empty in that moment, all thoughts draining away. People were pushing against him to try the apple samples, but he just stood there, looking back at the boy. For some reason he held his breath.

  “Hi, I’m Diego,” he said to Charlie. “Wanna try a sample?”

  CHAPTER 23

  Rubbing It In

  CHARLIE WALKED OVER TO WHERE the boy stood and took a small slice from the plastic container he held.

  “They’re really good this year. It was a hot summer over in Yakima. My uncle couldn’t believe they were coming in this early, or this sweet,” he said.

  Charlie looked up at Diego’s face, focusing on his lips. They were thick, and they moved quickly as he spoke, blocking, then exposing, the boy’s white teeth.

  Like the sun behind curtains, he thought.

  What are you doing, staring at him like that? he berated himself, horrified. He put the fruit sample in his mouth.

  Sweetness flooded over his tongue, causing Charlie to momentarily forget his embarrassment. The flavor of the apple was softer, had less sharpness, than the Granny Smiths he was used to eating. And instead of clashing
with the taste of the salmon, it blended with it, causing his mouth to water.

  “Pretty good, huh?” said the boy, then turned to offer samples to other passersby. Charlie was struck by two feelings at the same time: relief at being spared further embarrassment and dread that the boy would never speak to him again.

  Both feelings disappeared when, moments later, Diego turned back to face him and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Oh. Charlie. Charlie Creevey,” he said. A small fleck of apple flew out of his mouth when he pronounced the “ch” sound of his name. Heat flared in his cheeks. He was sure he had turned as red as the tomatoes two stands over. It was all he could do not to run out of the farmers market as fast as his legs would carry him. Diego either didn’t see the piece of apple or chose not to mention it.

  “You live around here?”

  “Uh, yeah. Yeah, over on Washington.” Charlie said, relieved to hear that he sounded normal. “I, uh, I go to Puget Academy.”

  “What?” The boy stopped. He walked over and handed the sample container to an older man with a thick mustache, then came back to Charlie.

  “No you don’t,” the boy said, laughing. “I go to P.A. I’ve never seen you before.”

  Charlie blushed. “Oh. Um, I just moved here. From California. I live with my aunt and uncle.”

  “Wow, that’s great!” Diego said. “Welcome to Seattle. How do you like it so far?”

  Diego was the first person not to mention anything about Los Angeles or San Francisco when Charlie said he was from California. He answered the boy’s questions easily, though he couldn’t remember exactly what he had said.

  They fell in to talking about school, about the late summer weather, about what Charlie thought of living in West Seattle, and he noticed that there was something very easygoing about Diego, about the way he convinced people to try the apple samples, about the questions he asked Charlie, about the things he said.

  Most people overcompensated for Charlie’s shyness by either becoming overly cheerful and chatty or quiet themselves. He hated it and wished he could just be normal so people didn’t feel that they had to change around him, but so far he hadn’t been able to overcome being so bashful. When he tried to be more talkative, it only made things worse.

  Diego didn’t seem to notice, or at least it didn’t bother him. Charlie found himself relaxing, even as the shoppers crowded around them. Even though the boy had been a total stranger up until a few minutes ago, he found himself wanting to tell him things, about his mother, about his fears and concerns, about …

  “Ven aqui, mi’jo,” shouted the man with the mustache. “Necesito ayuda.”

  “Vengo, vengo,” Diego turned his head and yelled back at the man. “Momentito.”

  “Hey look,” Diego said to Charlie. “I gotta get back and help my uncle. We’ll be closing up shop here in a little bit. But my friends are having a P.A. party Tuesday night. Wanna come? They do it every year as a bit of a kickoff for the new school year or as a funeral for the end of summer. It’s all legit, the parents will be there and everything. It’d be turbo-bitchin’ if you came.”

  Charlie laughed, having never heard “turbo-bitchin’” before.

  “Oh, um, yeah. Yeah, sure,” Charlie heard himself saying, shrugging his shoulders, as if he always got invitations to parties, as if confident people like Diego asked him to do things all the time.

  “Cool!” Diego said, and for some reason, Charlie believed that he meant it.

  “Gimme your cell number,” the boy said. Charlie’s mind went blank.

  “I, uh, I forgot it,” he blushed. “The number. Not the phone. I forgot the number. It’s stupid,” he said, pulling the phone out from his pocket. “I, uh, I just got it and …”

  Diego laughed and took the phone from his hand. He touched the screen a few times and typed in a number. Then he began typing. “D-I-E-G-O R-A-M-I-R-E-Z,” he said, spelling his name out loud. “Now I’m in your contacts. Call me later today and I’ll give you the 411,” he said.

  “¡Diego! ¡Ahorrita!” the uncle yelled.

  “Gotta go. Really great meeting you!” And with that, the boy pushed through the crowd and started taking cash from the shoppers impatient to finish with their apple purchases and be on their way.

  Charlie put the phone back in his jeans pocket and walked away, his mind once again empty of thoughts. His face felt funny, like it was bigger than the rest of his head, like it was ballooning outwards, full of so much air, that at any minute it would detach itself from the rest of him and float up toward the blue sky.

  He wandered from stand to stand, not seeing much but hoping it looked like he was shopping.

  “This stuff is really good for your skin,” said a voice nearby.

  He looked down and saw that he was standing in front of a small table displaying organic sunscreen. A heavyset, middle-aged woman with bleached-blonde hair and a pink plastic visor was sitting on a folding chair and pointing to the different bottles and tubes on the table. She was talking to him.

  “All of them are SPF 50, some scented, some unscented. Which kind would you like?” she asked him. Her eyelids were covered with thick green eyeshadow, and she wore a pink T-shirt with a faded decal of a stuffed teddy bear and the words, “I love you BEARY much,” on the front.

  “What? Oh no, I don’t need any …”

  Before he could say anything more, the woman squeezed a dollop of white lotion from a tube in her hand onto Charlie’s arm and started to rub it all over his skin.

  “This has a nice pine scent. Guys love it,” she said, continuing to rub.

  Charlie wasn’t sure what to do. He wished the woman would stop, but he didn’t want to appear rude by just yanking his arm back and walking away.

  “There, isn’t that nice? Can’t you just feel all of that …?” she stopped, mid-sentence.

  Her eyes left Charlie’s arm and slowly scanned up his chest, to his chin, then his eyes, like she was looking for something.

  “Hey! You’re a …” she said. She stopped her rubbing motion and increased the grip on his arm.

  Charlie felt the same prickling sensation on the back of his neck that he had at Carson Park a few days ago.

  He tried to pull his arm away, but he found that he couldn’t move.

  The woman’s lips started to mumble something, saying words that were too quiet to make out. His field of vision narrowed to a dime-sized circle of light surrounded by complete darkness. Tiny sparks began to dance across the blackness. He felt sick to his stomach. He wondered if he was going to pass out.

  “What’s going on?” Charlie heard someone saying next to him. A woman’s voice. It was sharp, and familiar, but he couldn’t remember whose it was.

  The sunscreen vendor let go of Charlie’s hand and sat back in her chair. Instantly his head cleared. The tiny lights disappeared as the day’s sunshine glared in his eyes again.

  “Beverly!” the woman said, sounding surprised. “Nothing! Nothing’s going on. Everything’s fine, honey.” She looked very frightened, though she tried to hide it with a smile.

  Charlie watched as his aunt leaned down over the table until her face was only a few inches from the woman’s, pointing an outstretched finger at her pink T-shirt.

  “Don’t you ‘honey’ me, Mavis. This boy is mine, all right? Mine! You wouldn’t want to touch something that is mine, would you?” Her words sharp like steel.

  He watched as the woman’s lips quivered, causing her double chins to jiggle. Her eyes flickered between his aunt’s face and her extended finger.

  “No, no, really, Beverly, really, I wasn’t doing anything. Anything. Please, you gotta believe me, I …”

  “This is the only warning you get, Mavis. You and all your bosom buddies. Understand? You screw around with me and mine, I’ll screw around with you and yours. Bad. Got me?”

  The woman started to whimper, and tears sprang to her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, I g-g-got you, I won’t, uh, we won’t, we wouldn’t �
� wouldn’t do …”

  “Good. I don’t want to see you back at this market. Not in this neighborhood either. Take your crap and get out of here.”

  “All right. All right, Beverly. You got it.” The woman’s hands shook as she started to gather her wares together. Nearby shoppers had begun to look over at the booth with curiosity.

  Beverly turned to face Charlie. Her eyes, which he had come to know as kind, held him fast with their violent brown glare. For a split second he thought she was going to strike him.

  “We’re done here,” she said, her voice snake-soft and scary. She led him away from the table.

  * * *

  “I got the last item on our … what’s going on?” Randall asked as he stepped up to them, several filled canvas bags swinging from each arm.

  “We’re going,” said Beverly, already walking toward the street.

  “But we haven’t …”

  “We’re going. Now!” she said over her shoulder. Her hand searched around in her purse until she found her car keys.

  Randall looked at him for an explanation, but Charlie couldn’t find any words. He was still shaken by the dizzy nauseous feeling. And by the way his aunt had completely terrified the vendor.

  “What happened back there?” Randall asked again as his wife pulled the car away from the curb.

  “Later. We’ll talk about this later,” was all she would say as she turned left, then right, and drove the car north toward home.

  CHAPTER 24

  An Echo

  ONCE THE SHOCK OF THE whole experience wore off, Charlie began to wonder if he had done something wrong. His aunt was very angry, and he was worried that it was at him. He was also afraid of her. While he had been wary of her when his mother had introduced Beverly as his aunt and while he had been in awe of how she had bewitched the candle, he hadn’t been afraid of her. But Charlie had just seen flint in her eyes, and he was pretty sure that it wouldn’t take but a small spark to set her ablaze. He would bet that the sunscreen vendor had been thinking the same thing.