The Importance of Being Kevin

by Steven Harper

  Silence fell between us. I said, “Uh… what do we do now?”

  Peter checked his phone again. “It’s an hour before evening rehearsal. When does your dad get home?”

  “I dunno. He got a job hanging Sheetrock or something, and they pay him by the hour, so I hope he’s out there until sunset.”

  “Look, if you guys are short, I’ve got a couple hundred th—” Peter began.

  “No.” I put my hands up. “It’s hard enough to take the phone. Okay? And you paid for the ice cream. I don’t…. I can’t take money from you. It would be too weird. Like I was a hooker or something. That’s what your mom said.”

  Peter looked like he wanted to argue for a second, then shrugged. “Okay. But can I give you something that’s free?”

  “What?”

  I should have seen it coming. Peter kissed me. The kiss went on for a long time, like Peter was trying to devour me or pull something out of me. My skin was a little sweaty against his in the stuffy trailer, but I didn’t care. I let myself mold against him, let the world and its problems fade away for just a while. My insides both melted and swelled, and in that moment, I knew I would be happy forever if I could be with him, and only him. Peter put his arm around my back. His face was a little scratchy, and his breath warm against my face. I sighed inside, lost in him, lost in us. This was how life was meant to be.

  “Twelve,” he whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  Peter slid his other hand over my chest. His touch made me ache and quiver at the same time. He kissed me again, and at the same time, he slid his hand lower, across my ribs and to my stomach. My nerves were on fire. I was aching and ready to break open and scream all at once. I wanted him to keep going, to touch me and grab me and—

  And Les was grabbing me and shoving me. His voice came harsh in my ear while pain pierced me. Fear ripped me in half. My heart stopped, and for an awful moment, I couldn’t draw breath. I pushed Peter away hard.

  “Stop,” I said. “You have to stop.”

  Peter pulled back. The couch creaked again, and it cut loose a little puff of dust. The stupid box fan whirred endlessly in the window. “It’s Les, isn’t it?”

  “Every fucking time,” I said. Anger ate the fear away and left fangs behind. “Anytime you and I… do stuff, he pops up like a jack-in-the-box. I can’t forget him. What if this happens for the rest of my life? I can’t ever…. I won’t be able to….” I wanted to destroy something—smash and crash and break. My hands shook.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Peter said. “Maybe you should talk to a therapist or something.”

  “Talk to a stranger? About this?” My face grew hot at the thought. “You’re crazy.”

  Peter shrugged. “I see a shrink—a counselor—every week.”

  “You do?” I sat up.

  “Yeah. She comes to my house and we talk about stuff.”

  I blinked. “Like what?”

  “Lots of stuff. Emily and my parents, mostly.”

  “Anything about me in those sessions?”

  “I haven’t seen her since I met you, so that would be difficult. Maybe you could see her too.”

  “With what money?” I laughed harshly. “They charge like a billion dollars an hour, and we don’t have insurance. Dad’s a felon, so we don’t get any help from the state.” I pointed at him. “And don’t you say anything about paying for it.”

  Peter held up his hands. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” But he put his hands back down and subtly adjusted himself in his shorts. It made my own equipment tighten again, and even that little bit brought Les pressing in at the edges of my mind. I bit my knuckles to make him stop.

  “Hey, look at me, bro,” Peter said, and I did. “I’m not Les. I’ll never, ever ask you to do something you don’t want to do. Everything we do will happen because you say so.”

  “Yeah?” I said, not wanting to admit how much those words made me want to cry. The anger faded down to a dull-gray coal. “What if I say we go skinny dipping at the golf course in broad daylight?”

  “Let me grab a towel.”

  I moved a little closer to him. “What if I say we get our nipples pierced and we wind the needles up like propellers and let them spin four or five times and the first one to scream has to run naked through the nettle patch behind the trailer?”

  “The piercing place down on Franklin Street takes walk-ins.”

  I moved closer still, close enough to feel the heat in the air between us and smell his skin. Tentatively I touched the hard muscle of his leg. It was the finest thing I’d ever put my hand on. Peter sucked in air but didn’t move, not an inch. He was a Peter statue. Was I really doing this? What, exactly, was I doing?

  “What if I said we had to cover ourselves in melted cheese and roll around in pine needles in the front yard?”

  “My family owns stock in Cheez Whiz,” Peter said. His voice was a little hoarse, but he still hadn’t moved.

  I slid my hand up his thigh under the fabric of his baggy shorts, but I paused when that coppery taste came back to my mouth. Peter sat like a marble god, and I could feel the warm skin and fine hairs on his leg. How much hotness could one guy contain without going Vesuvius? And maybe that wasn’t the best metaphor, but from where I was sitting, no others worked better.

  With my other hand, I touched his face again—his ears, his cheek, his chin, his lips. He closed his eyes and let out a shuddering sigh. He was shaking a little. I was doing that to him. Still he didn’t move. My crotch was tight, but I didn’t want him to touch me, not with Les ready to pounce in the background. Right then I just wanted to touch Peter, see what another guy felt like.

  I pushed my hand farther up his thigh. He was wearing boxers, and I had a choice between going between or going for broke. Peter’s breath stayed tightly controlled.

  I lost my nerve and went between. With my other hand, I stroked Peter’s hair, soft and black under my palm. Was I really doing this?

  My lower hand slid higher, and he gasped, even though I was touching him through his boxers. He was hard, and so was I. My heart jerked around my chest like a bird in a cage. I was really touching another guy! Sort of.

  “God,” Peter muttered.

  “Is it okay?” I asked. He still wasn’t moving, but my hand was. I had done this thousands of times to myself, but never to someone else, never with someone whose skin I could smell and whose hair I could touch.

  “It’s good.” Peter’s voice was a grunt. “I’ll be….”

  He gasped, and I yanked my hand away, suddenly scared. For a crumb of a moment, I flickered to Les. Then I was back with Peter. He was trembling and breathing hard, and my hand was damp. I pulled it away.

  “Are you okay?” I asked stupidly.

  “I’m good.” Then he laughed and leaned over to kiss me. “Really good. Thirteen. Or was it fourteen? I think I lost count.”

  “I don’t want to count anymore,” I said. “I want them to be infinity.”

  “Infinity,” he agreed. “I think love is like that. There’s always more.”

  “Is that what this is?” I asked. “Love?”

  “God, I don’t know,” Peter said. “I’ve never been in love before. I’ve only known you for a few days.”

  “What’s a few days against infinity?”

  “Against infinity, everything is just a few days,” Peter said. He put his arm around me. My ear was pressed against Peter’s side, and I heard his heartbeat. It was fast at first, but slowing. We talked about nothing and everything at the same time. I felt safe.

  “You did that,” Peter said. “It was all you. How you feeling?”

  “A little weird,” I admitted. “I’ve never done anything like that before. Except for… you know. Les said he would always be my first.”

  Little pervert.

  “Les lied,” Peter said firmly. “He doesn’t count. This does.” He leaned down and kissed me again. “Infinity.”

  “Okay,” I said in a small voice. “I
nfinity.” But I didn’t really believe it.

  ACT II: SCENE VI

  KEVIN

  THE FIRST part of rehearsal had Peter as Jack onstage with Melissa as Lady Bracknell. Wayne got the rest of us to paint more flats until Iris needed us. Joe and Thad built a staircase out of pale lumber. Their hammers banged as loud as gunshots, and I thought Iris would tell them to stop, but she said it was good concentration practice.

  Bang bang bang.

  “The stage won’t be silent during the show,” she said. “The audience will laugh or even applaud. A prop might tip over backstage. A light might explode above you. Someone might trip and fall. You never know what’ll happen to distract you behind the scenes,” she said.

  Bang bang bang.

  Peter and Melissa—sorry, Jack and Lady Bracknell—dug into their scene under Iris’s watchful eye. The hammers pounded. The rest of us painted with brushes and rollers. But Peter—Jack—kept pulling at the corner of my eye. Damn, he was handsome. And sexy. And my boyfriend. I wanted to tell everyone.

  And let them know I was seeing a suspected killer. Who had killed for me. Whose powerful billionaire parents hated me. Shit.

  “Watch what you’re doing there, bud,” said Wayne behind me. “The paint needs to be even.”

  I jumped and dropped the roller onto the wet flat. Wayne squatted next to me and plucked it from the canvas. Paint flecked his fingers, and his bowling-ball biceps bulged under his sleeves.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I should’ve remembered you’d be wound up.”

  Bang bang bang.

  “Remembered?” I said.

  “Iris told me you got jumped in the park. Can’t blame you for being nervous after something like that.” He sloshed the roller through the paint pan and ran it over the canvas. “Smooth and even, like this. We don’t want thin spots.”

  I took the roller back from him. “She told you about that?”

  He shrugged. “Was it a secret?”

  “I guess it’s… not,” I said slowly. “I just don’t want to talk about it much.”

  “Sure, sure.” Wayne picked up a roller of his own and set to work beside me. “Must’ve been scary. I’d be pretty pissed off at the guy who did it.”

  “Yeah,” I said, not sure where this was going. I didn’t want him to ask for details.

  “And now Peter’s a suspect in Les’s murder,” he continued. “That’s rough on you.”

  “Back up,” called Iris from the house. “Lady Bracknell, come a step downstage at the previous line and turn.”

  Bang bang bang.

  I froze for a tiny second. My heart jerked sideways, and I couldn’t help shooting a zap glance at Peter. Then I kept painting with my chest all tight. “Rough on me?” I repeated. “Why would it be rough on me? I mean, we have a lot of scenes together and stuff, sure, but—”

  “But you and him have something going,” Wayne interrupted in a voice that carried no farther than the two of us. “Ain’t that right?”

  “I have always been of opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either everything or nothing,” said Lady Bracknell. “Which do you know?”

  I paused with my heart at the back of my throat. “We don’t have anything going.”

  “I know nothing, Lady Bracknell,” said Jack.

  “Sorry. My mistake.”

  Wayne dipped his roller again. The soft sound it made as it glided over the canvas made my skin itch. I wanted to drop my roller and take off, but that would look like I was hiding something, so I kept on painting without looking at Wayne. Shovel-beard Wayne. Jesus, why would he say something like that? Had he seen us together, like Les had? Was he going to make me do something too? My breath came shorter and faster.

  Bang bang bang.

  “Kid,” Wayne said quietly, “don’t freak out on me. It’s okay. I’m like you.”

  “Ah,” said Lady Bracknell. “Nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability of character.”

  Now my head snapped around. I felt balanced on the head of a pin. “What do you mean you’re like me?”

  He shrugged again. “I have a boyfriend too.”

  “You’re gay?” The words popped out before I could stop them.

  “Sure.” A grin split his beard, but he kept his voice low. “There are more of us around than you think, even in this town. Don’t you watch TV?”

  “I don’t…. My dad doesn’t have a…. We read a lot at my house,” I said lamely.

  “Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me,” said Lady Bracknell.

  “Good for you.” Wayne glanced pointedly at the others, who were painting and chatting only a few steps away, and set down his roller. “I need a walk. Want to come with? We can talk where it’s quieter.”

  “A walk?” I followed his glance to the others. Overhearing. “Oh. Okay, yeah.”

  We wandered backstage to the maze of hallways and rooms behind the theater itself—dressing rooms, prop storage, the green room. It was cool and dimly lit, with half the lights out.

  Wayne waited until we were out of earshot of everyone else and then said, “I figured you and Peter had something going. The way you look at each other set off my gaydar in a big way.”

  “Gaydar,” I repeated.

  He laughed. “You develop an instinct for spotting guys like us after a while. Mine’s pretty good.”

  I felt weird. Was he going to hit on me or something? I flashed on Les—

  Bang bang bang.

  —and backed away.

  “You okay, buddy?” Wayne’s face changed. “Oh, hey—I didn’t ask you back here to…. Jesus, you’re half my age, even if I didn’t have a boyfriend. I just figured you might want to talk to someone who’s been through it.”

  My face turned red. “Oh yeah. I wasn’t worried.” I changed the subject fast. “You said you have a boyfriend?” It was weird asking another guy that question.

  “His name is Jake,” Wayne said without blushing or stammering. “Our first anniversary is coming up in a couple weeks.”

  “You’re married?” Yeah, I know it’s legal for guys like me to get married, and I know there are lots of places where it isn’t a big deal. Ringdale isn’t one of those places. There was supposed to be a judge at the courthouse who wouldn’t marry two men or two women, even though the law said he had to, but no one had sued about it. Not around here.

  “He’s my boyfriend, not my husband,” Wayne said. “We kinda dance around getting married. Maybe we will and maybe we won’t.”

  I imagined me and Peter in tuxedos, standing in front of a minister saying, “I do,” while my dad cried into a Kleenex. That was weird too. Online at the library, I’d seen pictures and videos of guys marrying each other, but they always looked like something out of a fairy tale—long ago and far away. It wasn’t anything to do with me.

  Actually Peter would look really good in a tuxedo.

  Bang bang bang.

  “Where did you meet?” I asked, and more questions poured out. “How did you know he was gay too? Were you scared? How do you go out? When did you know you were gay?”

  Wayne leaned against the wall. “Well, let’s see. We met online at a dating site, so that’s how I knew he was gay too. He asked me out. I was a little nervous the first time we met. That’s the way it always is on a first date, right? But when I met him—wow. He was cute! And funny. And smart. With a tight little….” He laughed. “Anyway.”

  “What else?” I said. It was the first time I’d talked to someone about this besides Peter, and this was different. It was like talking to a big brother who knew a lot about girls. Boys. Whatever.

  “We started talking, and coffee turned into dinner, and dinner turned into clubbing. And we’ve been together ever since.”

  “Do you have a picture?”

  “Sure.” He pulled out his cell phone and thumbed through it until he came to a headshot of guy with bright red hair, longish on top and shaved on the sides. He had viv
id green eyes, lots of freckles, and a long jaw. A blue sun symbol was tattooed on his chest so it just peeked above the neck of his tank top. He was good-looking. Sort of.

  “I have a thing for ginger guys,” Wayne said.

  “Does your family know?” I asked.

  “Well, yeah,” he said. “Most of them.”

  “How’d they handle it? Did you tell them, or did they find out?”

  “Iris knew when we were in high school, but I didn’t tell my parents until way later. Mom was okay with it. My dad pitched a shit fit. It’s why I waited until I was out of the house. He’s kind of come around, but we don’t talk much these days. I think if Jake and I ever get married, he won’t come, you know?” Wayne looked sad. “His loss, I guess.”

  “I told my dad yesterday,” I said.

  “Really? Congrats. You’re brave. Course, these days, a lot more teens tell their parents. How’d he take it?”

  It was a relief to talk about it. I hadn’t realized how much I’d been holding in. “He was fine with it. Kinda surprised me. He’s met Peter, and he likes him. That surprised me too.”

  “How’d you and Peter meet? Here at the play?”

  “Yeah.” I gave him a thumbnail sketch. It was stuff I hadn’t even told Dad yet.

  “So Peter’s your first boyfriend.” Wayne sighed theatrically. “First time. You always remember your first.”

  Les kissed my temple again in my head, and I looked away.

  Wayne misread what was happening. “It’s gotta be hard with you getting beat up and Peter under suspicion for murder and you just figuring all this gay stuff out, right?”

  “Kinda,” I said.

  Bang bang bang.

  “Look,” Wayne said, “you said you don’t have internet at home, and there’s no real gay scene here in Ringdale. It’s isolating. I know. I grew up here too. There’s a Pride festival down in Detroit. Starts tomorrow. Jake and I are doing a day trip. How about you come with us? You can see the community up close.”

  I balked. Me at a Pride festival? And it was all the way down in Detroit. I said, “What about the extra rehearsal tomorrow?”