The Wisdom of Perversity

by Rafael Yglesias

  It was Sam. He looked much younger out of his NBC page outfit. He had no sign of a beard, not even a wispy blond mustache. He was just another teenager in a beige windbreaker, Levi’s and Converse sneaks; one of the slightly older boys who sometimes let you play stickball with them.

  “Hi.” Brian started shimmying down.

  “Don’t get down ’cause of me,” Sam said.

  “I was coming down.” Brian let go. Sam moved fast to the spot, catching Brian by the waist. While suspended at eye level, Sam put his lips on Brian’s and kissed gently. They smelled of smoke.

  Brian averted his face and shouted, “Leggo! Leggo of me!” He kicked his legs.

  Sam eased him to the pavement and stepped back, shoving his hands into the back pockets of his jeans. “Just trying to help,” he said.

  It had happened so fast, Brian immediately doubted whether it had.

  Sam certainly showed no sign of embarrassment. He was at ease, smiling ingratiatingly as he asked, “That was you sneaking a peek through the deli window, right?”

  “What?” Brian stalled, looking away.

  “Why didn’t you come in?” he continued, as if Brian had confessed.

  “It wasn’t me.” Brian moved quickly to the corner to cross to his building’s side of the street.

  Sam appeared by his side, hands in his pockets, head bowed. In a low voice, he commented, “I’m just like you.”

  “What?”

  “I know Richard likes you. He likes me too.”

  His heart raced. The light turned green. Brian hustled across onto Sixty-third. During winter, especially during a snowfall, on his level street Brian and Jeff liked to imagine they were scaling Mount Everest. When coming home after a really fun day of playing Slug or Running Bases, he and Jeff paused midway, shielding themselves from the wind by crouching low next to parked cars. They peered out at the swirls of flakes and told each other that they were starving climbers pressing on against hopeless odds to become the first boys in history to conquer the world’s highest peak.

  But that day, trudging in the feeble sunlight and chilling breeze of April, he had Sam, not Jeff, for company.

  “Can I tell you a secret?” Sam caught up. He nudged Brian with his hip.

  Brian nodded reluctantly. Brian was ashamed to be talking with Sam about “It” but didn’t want to discourage him. For one thing, he was very curious and relieved that It had happened with someone else besides him. At least he hoped that was what Sam was implying.

  “Promise to keep it a secret?” Sam tapped Brian on his head.

  Brian tried to avoid the contact. Jumping back, he lost his balance, toppling against a car.

  “Whoa.” Sam snagged his arm to steady him. “Take it easy.”

  “I’m all right.” He jerked away, heart pounding so wildly it felt like it was coming out through his chest.

  “I’m not gonna hurt you,” Sam said. “I like you.”

  Brian was humiliated he was spooked by the contact. Why was he afraid of Sam, who was almost a kid like him? Brian tried to make amends: “I’ll keep your secret.”

  “I went out for a smoke. Dick doesn’t like me to smoke. That’s how I saw you peeking in the deli. I was across the avenue having a dromedary.”

  “A what?”

  Sam grinned. He pulled a pack of Camels out of the right pocket of his pants. “Dromedary,” he said. “That’s another name for camel. I’ve been building up my vocabulary. Dick says that will help me get into a good college.”

  “I thought you were already going to college.”

  “Nah.” He looked down, embarrassed. “Dick tells people that so they’ll think I’m older. You’re not supposed to be an NBC page unless you’re already in college. Saying I was seventeen and about to start was stretching it anyway, but I’m fifteen, not seventeen. I am a junior, though, ’cause I skipped a grade! ’Cause I’m pretty smart. One of the smartest in my class.”

  He’s stupid, Brian decided. Smart people didn’t tell you they were smart. Concluding that Sam wasn’t bright made Brian no longer fearful of him. Many years would pass before Brian learned the folly of believing superior intelligence could protect him. “He really doesn’t know you smoke?” Brian asked.

  “Dick thinks I quit. He hates the smell on my breath. That’s why I suck on these.” Sam stuck his tongue way out—cradled in its center groove was a half-melted Life Saver. The long pink snake retracted. “Dick says smoking causes cancer. He says everybody, you know, like scientists and newsmen, knows that. The tobacco companies know it, Dick says. I don’t know how he knows what the tobacco companies secretly think.”

  “Yeah,” Brian said, bringing in a true authority. “My mom says it’s bad. And Dad knows it’s bad for him, but he says it’s an addiction.”

  “What?” Sam stopped their climb to lodge a protest. “An addiction? You mean, a habit. It’s a habit, right?”

  “No. Dad said it was an addiction, not a habit,” Brian said, stopping and turning to argue this point.

  “Your dad’s wrong. You get addicted to stuff like heroin. Smoking is just a habit.”

  “No, he’s not wrong.” Brian was deeply offended that Sam dared to contradict his father. “He explained the difference to me. He meant addiction.”

  “Oh yeah? So what’s the difference, smarty-pants?” Sam put his hands on his hips, like a little kid. He really wasn’t very smart.

  Brian resumed walking, bored by Sam, eager to reach Jeff’s. “An addiction is something you gotta keep getting more and more of, like being a drunk, Dad says. You keep wanting more even if it makes you sick. Same thing with cigarettes. No matter how long you stop yourself from smoking you still want to.”

  “So?” Sam, catching up, tapped him on the shoulder. “How is that different from a habit?”

  “That’s kind of obvious. You can change a habit.” Brian vividly remembered how much he missed sucking his thumb for the first week he stopped. The wanting ached like a deep bruise, then got weaker day by day and finally faded altogether. “You may miss it for a while, but the missing goes away.” While he explained Brian half-turned to Sam. He awkwardly tripped over his Keds. He tried to right himself by putting his arms out. He listed one way then the other.

  While Brian recovered his footing, Sam said, “I just can’t believe they would do that.”

  “Who?” Brian said, resuming the climb, Sam tagging along a step behind.

  “The tobacco companies. I don’t believe they would make cigarettes if they knew they would make you sick.”

  Brian shrugged. “Why not?” he said. His father and mother had told him all advertising was a lie. “They’re lovely lies, don’t ya know,” Danny Moran had said, imitating Grandma’s Irish lilt.

  “It’s . . .” Sam hesitated, then said helplessly, “I just can’t believe they’d do that.”

  Brian was puzzled. That bad guys will do anything for money was a principle widely accepted in comics, TV, movies, and the handful of novels he’d read. “Why not?” he insisted. “They got no choice. Even if cigarettes make people sick they can’t stop making ’em, right? They’d go bankrupt.” He finished as they reached his apartment building. He opened the door and held it for Sam, who was gaping at him, astonished. He didn’t move, so Brian, in the style of his exchanges with Jeff, encouraged him. “Come on, stupid. Don’t just stand there.”

  Sam hit him. Later Brian tried to figure out whether Sam used a fist or an open hand or maybe he just pushed Brian’s face with the flat of his palm. It happened too fast to be sure. Abruptly he was on his ass on New York pavement. His nose stung. It didn’t hurt.

  “Jesus,” Sam said. He bent over Brian. “You okay? I barely touched you . . .”

  Brian jumped to his feet and in one motion—a feat he had mastered dodging bullies in the playground—scampered around Sam, jerked the door open, ran to the stairs, taking them two at a time up to the sixth floor. Years later, obliged to analyze every detail of this day, it occurred to Brian his
dashing upstairs probably implied that Brian was planning to tattle on Sam. He had no such intention. He hoped getting inside would forever erase his mistake of calling Sam stupid and the disgrace of Sam’s knocking him over so easily.

  He reached Jeff’s, breathless, and leaned hard on the doorbell. It opened to reveal a delighted Richard Klein. “Brian! There you are!” Brian was shocked but still in running mode, so he scurried around Klein, down the long hall, past the invalid’s door—“Brian!” Harriet croaked as he got an impression of a crowd around her—and banged into Jeff’s door, crashing into his friend’s room. What he saw shoved aside all thoughts of Sam and Klein.

  Jeff was sitting on a low stool whose original use (now forgotten) came from when he was a toddler and needed extra height for the toilet. His back was to the door, face in his hands, shoulders trembling. Without looking, he said, “Go away,” his voice breaking with tears.

  Brian shut the door. “It’s me,” he said. “What’s wrong, Mr. Jeff?” he asked, using his nickname for his friend, inspired by the talking horse on Mister Ed.

  There was a silence. Jeff’s shoulders quieted. “You know,” he mumbled.

  It took Brian a second to remember. “Oh! I gotta tell you something. I got good news.” He was very pleased that this time, unlike any other occasion he could remember, he was sure he could make someone feel better. “Your mom’s not sick. She made it up.”

  Jeff raised his tearful face, hope dawning. From the hall Klein called, “Boys? You in there?”

  “Lock it,” Jeff whispered.

  Brian hurried, fingers fumbling at the task. Klein’s voice came close and loud: “Boys?” Brian slid hook into eye a split second before Klein pushed from the other side. Klein whispered through a slight crack the hook and eye allowed, “Brian, don’t be upset. Sam’s sorry. He says he’s very sorry.”

  Brian moved across the room, next to Jeff.

  He mouthed, What is Sam sorry for?

  Brian stuck to his good news, whispering, “I heard your mom talking to your dad on the phone while you were at Zolly’s. She didn’t realize I was here. She said—”

  “Boys?” Klein rattled the door.

  “ONE SECOND,” Jeff shouted, so near Brian’s ear Brian winced. “Go on,” Jeff said.

  While Klein said something about locking doors and called out an answer to a query from Harriet, who could be heard shouting from her bed, Brian whispered, “Your mom called your dad to warn him not to say anything to your uncle about her not having breast cancer.”

  “What?” Jeff shook his head to indicate he wasn’t following. “What was that?”

  “It’s got something to do with money. Your mom told your uncle she has breast cancer so you wouldn’t have to grow up poor. Or something. Anyway, she doesn’t have cancer. It was just something she made up for your uncle.”

  Jeff wiped away a lingering tear from his left eye. “Yeah, but she also said it to your mother,” he pointed out.

  “Yeah,” Brian agreed. “Why’d she do that?”

  “She’s crazy,” Jeff said, rather sadly, as if that were a matter of regret more than anything else.

  Klein shook the door again, harder. “Come on. You heard your mother, Jeff: Locked doors are rude.”

  Jeff shouted, “JUST ONE SECOND.” He grabbed Brian’s bicep, squeezing to emphasize the crucial nature of this detail. “Did she talk about the money Dad owes my uncle for starting his store?”

  “Yeah, that’s it!” Brian agreed. “She didn’t want your dad to pay him back—”

  Jeff interrupted, “He can’t pay him back. The store’s not making any money.”

  “Oh,” Brian said, understanding now. “I guess that’s why she told him she has cancer. It doesn’t really make sense. But that’s why she made it up.”

  Jeff’s eyes were clear of tears. “She’s crazy,” he said, sounding himself again.

  “Jeff! Your mother says you should—” Before Klein finished, Jeff crossed to the door, flipped the hook up, and opened the door.

  “Well, well . . .” Klein entered with a knowing smirk. Old Spice immediately snaked into Brian’s nostrils. “What were you boys doing in here”—he flicked the dangling hook playfully—“with the door locked?”

  “We were talking. Is Dad home?” Jeff spoke imperiously, as if the vice president were his secretary.

  Klein appeared ready to object but then frowned and reported dutifully, “Everybody’s here. Your cousins, your aunt, your uncle. Everybody’s in your mother’s room.”

  “Great.” Jeff pushed past him, disappearing into the hall.

  Brian was stunned to find he was suddenly alone with Klein. Before he could recover and dash out, Klein said to someone obscured from Brian’s view, “Come in. Don’t be shy, Sam.”

  Sam appeared, eyes downcast. Klein put his hands on Sam’s waist and positioned him in front of Brian. “Well? What do you have to say?”

  Sam glanced at Brian from lowered lids, barely able to sustain the contact. “I’m sorry I lost my temper. I don’t like being called stupid. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just . . .” His eyes seemed to lose all hope, falling to the floor permanently. “I just got upset for a second,” he said, a whisper. “I’m sorry.”

  Klein nodded at Brian. “Sam was a bad boy. This is what we do to bad boys.” He raised his right arm high, holding it up in the air long enough for Brian to anticipate what he was going to do and then brought the flat of his hand down on Sam’s behind, hard. The teenager’s jeans muffled the noise of impact. Sam blushed but didn’t wince or object. “That’s what we do, right, Brian?” He ordered Sam, “Turn around.” He gave his back to Brian. “Why don’t you spank him, Brian? That way Sammy will know you forgive him.”

  Brian was appalled. “But he didn’t hurt me!” He moved alongside Sam, talking to his profile. “You didn’t hurt me. Understand?” It was very important to make them understand that the whole thing was something no one should talk about. “Nothing happened.” Brian made this point to Klein. The adult cocked his head, regarding Brian with a puzzled frown. “It was no big deal,” Brian insisted. “Okay? Don’t talk about it.”

  Klein considered this carefully. He nodded once, pursed his lips, nodded again, then looked very solemn. “Of course, Brian, we won’t talk about it.” He put a hand around the back of Sam’s neck, lowering the teenager’s head enough to speak directly into his ear. “Right, Sam? You understand? Brian doesn’t want us to talk about it.”

  Sam seemed to smile a little but then looked very serious. “Okay.”

  Klein released Sam. He grinned at Brian. “It’ll be our secret, Brian.”

  “It’s not a secret,” Brian said, irritation in his tone. “I just don’t want people talking about it.” His cheeks felt hot: the strain of expressing himself was almost unbearable. Run, he thought. Just run. But that had failed before. And then there would be more talk, more questions, more lies.

  Richard raised a hand to the corner of his mouth. “Our lips are sealed,” he said, then zippered them shut. He turned to Sam. “Now that you two are friends again, why don’t you give Brian a hug? Show him you’re sorry.”

  Sam opened his arms and came toward him. Brian stuck out both hands and said firmly, “No.”

  Sam stopped, looked at Klein for direction.

  “Okay,” Klein said. “Sam has to go now anyway. You’ll be gone for an hour, right? Running that errand?”

  “You bet!” Sam was abruptly very cheerful. “Thanks again, Brian, for understanding. See you soon.” He walked around Klein and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Brian was appalled. He was exactly where he didn’t want to be. Despite his best efforts, he was all alone with Richard Klein.

  Whom Do You Trust?

  February 2008

  BRIAN DIDN’T RECOGNIZE Julie; he recognized her eagerness to see him. As soon as he entered the restaurant, a silver-haired woman’s head bobbed above a customer who was blocking her view of Brian; then she weave
d around an obstructing waiter to maintain her sight line. What’s happened to her? he thought with dismay as he approached her table, then reminded himself, Of course. She’s forty years older.

  He offered a smile of welcome, cautioning himself not to reveal any awareness she had aged. “You look great,” he planned to say no matter what. Perhaps she did. His habit of meticulously assessing physical attractiveness was momentarily impaired by the shock that Julie’s long raven locks were gone, replaced with a cropped gray hairdo that bordered on butch. As she stood up to greet him, he was favorably impressed that she had retained as much of her lean, girlish body as could be reasonably expected. Her narrow face was fuller, but that was an improvement; she looked less stern, friendlier. More good news came as he got close enough to see that she was genetically very fortunate. He could tell it wasn’t Botox or surgery that allowed her skin to look a decade, maybe two, younger than her age—parentheses around her mouth but few wrinkles elsewhere. Her black eyes were still bright with that intense curiosity he remembered. Her smile was eager too. She hadn’t subsided, as had so many of his friends, into the frowning smugness of middle age. Best of all, although she had put on a makeup base that dulled the two beauty marks under each eye, they were still there—old friends.

  He noted all that while he leaned in for the obligatory peck on the cheek between the sexes expected by all New Yorkers—unless the person you were greeting had recently made an attempt on your life. Julie stiffened as his lips came near the beauty mark at the point of her high right cheekbone. She relaxed when, as was Brian’s custom, he kissed air, not flesh. He assumed he knew why she was shy of contact and felt sorry for her, but then immediately scolded himself: Don’t be a hack writer. You don’t know that Klein had any effect on her. Not everyone is a fragile flower like you.

  “You look great,” he said and, as it turned out, meant.