I could see Ian Lamb, but he couldn’t see me.
Principal McDuffy didn’t have any trouble convincing everybody at the prom to go home. I sat in the center of the dancefloor watching them file outside, couple by couple. Occasionally the press would pull a guy and girl aside and ask their opinion of the lesbian lovers. “Everybody thought it would be fags,” they confided. “We had no idea it was gonna be dykes!” Courtney Ciccone left, crying hysterically. I wanted to smack her. Why should she cry? She wasn’t the one who’d be taken downtown and questioned about offenses that weren’t even on the books. She wasn’t the one who would have to explain to her parents why she preferred pussy to dick. And she wasn’t the one who had posed as a Mormon to shake bloodhounds off the scent of her sexuality. You could hand it to Grace—she was one clever cookie. She had blinded everybody with their own hypocrisy.
The limousine driver was nowhere to be found, leaving Anquanna and me stranded on our desert island.
“Had to call my cousin,” Anquanna reported. “Peaches said my mama Artremease has disappeared, so she’s gonna dress my niece and they’re gonna pick us up. Peaches drives a cab.”
“I know.”
“How you know?”
I was sitting on the dancefloor and I showed no sign of moving.
“How you know, Toby?”
“Some things I just know.”
Anquanna looked at me; you could tell she was troubled.
“I’ll be waiting outside. Peaches comes, we’ll toot the horn. You comin’ with, Toby?”
Everybody had left.
Dunno.” I exhaled. “Nowhere to go to.”
You spend the night at my place,” Anquanna suggested. “Then, when Juice gets in, you two, you know, can talk. I’m sorry about Ian,” she said, apologetic.
I smiled.
“You love him?”
I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
Anquanna bent down in her Pierre Cardin gown, swept the bangs off my forehead, and kissed my frigid cheek.
“You love somebody no matter what they do, and then you just keep lovin’ till there’s nothing left of you. Good night, Toby Sligh,” Anquanna said and stood to go. “Why you gay boys gotta be so tasty? Now, you come when my cousin honks the horn.”
Like a little kid abandoned by his family at the beach, I sat amid the ruins of other people’s castles waiting for my parents to come and rescue me. Outside a number of security guards were talking to the press, who hadn’t left yet. In fact, as predicted, CNN had arrived and were setting up lights in the lot outside the building. This made Twizzler, the mafioso, nervous. He stood nearby slicing licorice with a switchblade, chewing it, and staring at me menacingly. So I improvised a kingdom out of beachsand on the dancefloor, playing patty-cake-patty-cake and getting really filthy. “Hey, fella,” Twizzler muttered. “Ain’t you got a lift?” “I’m a orphan,” I replied, and tried to wipe my hands clean. But the sand—funny stuff, a sort of artificial powder—got up my nose, and then I started sneezing. In fact, I sneezed so badly I couldn’t catch my breath, and my heart was pumping wildly as Twizzler helped me up. With his switchblade in one hand and licorice in the other, he led me toward the stage, where someone plunked out “Heart and Soul.” It was the musically retarded two-knuckled version, and Twizzler’s grip closed like a vise around my wrist, and I was saying, “Hey, hey! You can lemme go now, hey!” when Leonard Compton stuck his bloody nose between the curtains and whispered to Twizzler, “Let him go—Tobe’s with me.”
We sat in two clumps on the cluttered-up stage like Vladimir and Estragon having met Godot. Outside we heard reporters, police and security. Somewhere beyond the curtain, someone was sweeping up. I could almost picture Twizzler manhandling a broomstick, masticating licorice, and scowling at the world. If Juice hadn’t been there, would Twizzler have done more than carve licorice with that switchblade of his? I wouldn’t think about it; I was safe, for the moment. My pride alone was damaged; and I was with Juice. He lay down on the stage and stretched out his legs, and I lay down beside him and stretched out my legs. Then we lay together, breathing softly in the dark, our bodies barely touching, side by side, in the night.
“Most of them kegs are filled with cocaine, Toby.”
“I think I kinda sorta went and figured that one out.”
“Somebody accidentally dumped some on the floor,” Juice continued, sneezing. “My boss was really pissed.”
“Your boss?”
“Fella Twizzler. The guy that I work for. His boss—”
Juice’s beeper went off and he hit it.
“What’s it all worth?”
“Couple hundred million dollars.”
“Why’d they bring it here?”
“Because the ports was crawling. And who’s gonna raid, like, a senior prom, Toby? We called in the bomb scare. I arranged the whole thing.”
“Z’at why your mother slapped you?”
“She slapped me ’cause she loves me.”
I slapped him.
“Thanks, Toby,” he said.
He slapped me back.
“You should stop dealing,” I said. “It’s fuckin’ stupid.”
“And you should stop fucking Ian Lamb up the ass.”
“I haven’t fucked Ian up the ass!” I protested.
Juice rolled over.
“Has he fucked you up the ass?”
I was quiet.
“Who’s stupid? Who’s stupid, Toby Sligh?”
Juice reached over and draped an arm across me. Reaching over, I draped an arm across him.
“You’re talking less black.”
“And you’re talking less faggot.”
“I talk like a faggot?”
“Sometimes you do, yeah.”
Juice raised his head and I slid my arm beneath it; I raised my head and he slid his arm beneath.
“Juice, who’s E-Eye?”
His body twitched a little.
“Who’s E-Eye, Leonard?”
I could feel him looking at me.
“Who told you ’bout E-Eye?”
“Nobody told me… . Anquanna talked about him in the limousine, remember?”
Outside, in the night, thunder boomed across the sky. We could hear it, like God rearranging furniture.
“E-Eye was my half brother,” Leonard Compton said.
“What happened?”
“He died.”
“And what did he die of?”
“Crack,” Juice whispered. “Smoking crack, like my father.”
“Why’d they call him E-Eye?”
“ ’Cause Eddy lost his eye.”
“And how’d he lose his eye?”
“Someone shot him with a gun.”
“Who did?”
“I did. We was just kids. We was playin’ with a BB gun. I pointed it and—”
Thunder.
“That was my fault,” Juice said. “And everything. My mama even said so. She told me so tonight.”
“What was he like?”
“What do you care, Tobias?”
“I just wanna know.”
Juice moved in closer to me.
“E-Eye was smart. He was smart and he was funny.”
“So why’d he do crack?”
“Because he got a taste. Would you like a taste, Toby? I got some in my pocket.”
“No, thanks,” I told him.
“You just saved your own life… .”
“You really loved your brother?”
Juice nodded in my shoulder.
“Did he overdose on crack?”
“E-Eye … he got killed.”
“How’d he get—?”
“Um, he was teaching me, Toby.”
“Teaching you what?”
“Teaching me how to score. I asked him to teach me—E-Eye was a teacher—and he stole a bunch of crack, and somebody gunned him down. He was crossing a street, he was running toward me, and I was calling to him … and it burst right through his chest.”
�
��What did?”
“The bullets. The bullets did, Toby. He was running toward me. And they shot him through the back.”
Outside, in the night, we could hear sirens calling. We could hear rain falling on the corrugated roof.
“So you deal even after your brother got murdered?”
“I have my reasons, Toby Sligh,” Leonard Compton said.
“Who killed your brother?”
“Cunt Twizzler works for.”
“How do you know?”
“ ’Cause he’s owned the streets for years.”
“How can you deal?”
“I got my reasons, Toby. You can’t bite the hand that bleeds you, not unless you’re sly. How’d Ian lose his eye?”
“You know, he never told me.”
“Guess he got his reasons too,” Juice said, and slapped me. “Or else he doesn’t love you.”
“Ian Lamb loves me.”
“If you love someone …”
“Yeah?”
“Then you tell …”
“What?”
“Everything.”
Juice’s beeper sounded and he slapped it again. Then he sat up and his hand fell on my ankle.
“Juice,” I said, sniffling. “I wanna ask you something. Why do you like me?”
I was looking up at him.
“Sit up, Toby.”
He poked me in the ribs.
“Sit up, Tobias, and ask me that again.”
“Why do you like me?” I repeated, in a whisper. “Of all the people in our class, why’d you choose me for a friend?”
Juice wrapped his arms around his knees and pressed against me. I wrapped my arms around my knees and pressed against him.
“I like you, Toby Sligh,” Leonard Compton began, his mouth in the darkness breathing breath into mine, “I like you, Toby Sligh, ’cause you’re such a goddamn baby, and because you believe all the bullshit everybody tell you, and because you’d follow Freddy Krueger into Toys‘’Us. I like you, Toby Sligh, ’cause you’re so fuckin’ white. Everything you do is white— folks can always see it comin’! You’re a fag and people know it! You’re a kid and people know it! And when it comes to other people, Toby White Boy don’t know shit! You’re the baby sea tortoise in Biology movies, at night, in the moonlight, busting outta its shell—and the birds a’ prey are circling, and the cameras are rolling, and I just wanna help your little bootie along. ’Cause if you make it to the water, and the waves don’t getchoo, and the sharks don’t getchoo, you’re gonna swim a thousand miles. You’re gonna swim a thousand miles and you’re gonna find your island. That’s why I like you, Toby Sligh,” Juice said.
“How come you like me?” Juice asked, after a while, when he had let me think about the things that he had said.
“I like you, Leonard Compton, ’cause you helped me with that statue.”
“What statue?” Leonard said. Then he grinned. “Oh, that.”
On the dancefloor, somewhere beyond the drawn curtains, security guards and janitors were breaking down chairs. Twiz- zler the gangster had finished sweeping up—the empty kegs of cocaine were probably full again. Of course, with all those cameras, the mafia were helpless. They couldn’t move their shipment till the media cleared out.
“How much money will you make tonight, Juice?”
“Already been paid: a hundred thousand.”
“So why’d you tear up all that cash in the chapel?”
“That was funny money. The coke was fake too.”
“Then why does Thomas want it?”
“Thomas wants something, boyee?”
“I meant to—”
“Tobias?”
I was looking at my hands.
“I promised I’d tell him where your drugs were stashed, Juice. I promised I would help him hand you over to the cops.”
“When did you promise?”
“By midnight tonight.”
“It’s past midnight, Toby.”
Juice’s beeper started beeping.
“Those drugs weren’t real. That money wasn’t real. Det. Thomas isn’t real. And he wants something else.”
“What does he want?”
Juice switched off his beeper.
“I dunno, Tobe. You’ll just have to wait and see.”
Outside, in the night, we could hear helicopters. They charged the cafeteria and chattered away.
“But that stuff in the kegs—that stuff is real, right?”
“Is it ever, Tobias. Colombia’s finest.”
“And they’ll turn it into crack.”
Juice didn’t say a word.
“And the crack’ll be used by people like your brother.”
Juice popped his knuckles and sighed a feeble sigh.
“It should make you sick to be a dealer, Leonard Compton.”
“Maybe I should go and get a job at Burger King.”
Juice’s beeper beeped, and he slapped it off again.
“Who’s beepin’, Juice?”
“Just my fuckin’ father.”
“What does he want?”
“What else? He wants a hit.”
“Who’s Det. Thomas?”
“A punk, like I tol’ you.”
“I saw what he did to you back in that alley.”
“You saw that?” Juice said.
I nodded.
“Uh huh … Why’d you let him do that?”
“Two against one.”
“You were bigger than both of ’em.”
“G., I ain’t that big.”
Juice started shivering softly in the darkness. I was shivering, too. We pressed up against each other.
“Thomas has a picture of you and me dealing.”
“Can’t prove nothing with a picture, Toby Sligh.”
“He showed it to me outside your dad’s apartment.”
“When was that, Toby?”
Juice had stopped breathing.
“I was outside in your Buick. Thomas pulled up in the Plymouth. I left Donna playing jacks with some girls in the stairwell. When I got back down, Det. Thomas was there. He had a briefcase with some pictures. They were pictures of my parents.”
“Did he see where my daddy lived?”
“What?”
Juice was nervous.
“Do you think he saw the apartment you came out of, Toby Sligh?”
“Dunno,” I told him. “He was waiting outside. He might have. He might have seen me coming out of—”
“Shit!”
Juice was sitting up now, shaking in the darkness. I huddled up against him.
“What’s the matter, Juice?”
“I don’t want my father getting caught up in this bullshit!” His beeper went off, and he slapped the thing again. “My father’s got problems enough, Toby Sligh.”
“Do you think Det. Thomas—”
“He’s capable of anything.”
“What’s he want from me?”
“How should I know, Toby?”
“He told me those kids at Anquanna’s school were busted.”
“That’s a bold-faced lie,” Juice said. “Nobody was.”
“But they beat up Anquanna.”
“She blames me for that.”
“She has a right to blame you.”
“I know it,” Juice said.
“Our lives are complicated, Leonard Compton,” I concluded.
Juice was very quiet; then his laughter blew the roof.
“That’s just the kinda stupid thing Toby Sligh would say! That’s just the kinda lame-ass comment Toby Sligh would make at a moment like this! You’re one big dumb motherfucker, ain’tchoo, Toby?” Juice hooted, and caught me in a headlock, and pinned me.
“Lemme up!” I shouted.
“You’re Jacob! I’m the angel!”
“Since when’d you get religion?”
We were breathing in the dark.
“I guess we’d better go,” Juice said.
We were lying there. We were both just lying there
. We were lying there.
“Uh-huh,” I said. “I guess we’d better go.”
I was looking at Juice; we were looking at each other. “Juice?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Have you ever?”
“Uh-huh?”
“Have you ever, umm—”
“What?”
“Have you ever … Never mind.”
Juice wasn’t moving. It had stopped raining. We could hear raindrops dripdripdripping off the roof.
“Have you ever, uh—”
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever, like—”
“What?”
“Have you ever, um—”
“Toby … ”
And I put my lips to his.
Juice started coughing. His hand was on my shoulder. I tried again to kiss him, but he turned his face away.
“I think we better go now.”
“Uh-huh.”
“We’re just friends.”
“My best friend,” I told him.
And I helped him off the floor.
We were sitting in the cab of the white limousine that was owned by the mob and which the driver had abandoned. It was hidden behind punk trees, and Juice had the keys, and we saw a raincloud in the shape of a hand passing over Sacred Heart as we left our alma mater. Juice was very quiet as we headed crosstown. He pulled onto the interstate, driving too smoothly. I’d stashed Ian’s yearbook in the backseat of the limo and when I went to look through it, there were pages ripped out. I flipped to the index and double-checked quickly: they were the pages on which Ian’s photo had appeared. I abandoned the yearbook and stared at the night, and Leonard Compton looked at me and handed me the cellular.
“Dial 911.”
“What?”
“Dial it, Toby.”
I dialed 911 and Juice said, “Give it here.”
“This is Leonard Compton,” Leonard Compton announced to the little voice chirping at him on the other end. “Am I being tape-recorded?’’ The little voice chirped yes. “Well, that’s good. ’Cause I’ll only say this once. I’m driving on the interstate in an unmarked limo owned by Santo Rondi; he’s a druglord, and my boss. Tonight we got a avalanche of cocaine from Bogota and it’s sitting in about a couple dozen empty beer kegs in the Sacred Heart cafeteria, where they just had prom. For the last four years I have worked for Santo Rondi and have sold bogus drugs to different suckers in the area. The narcotics I received for distribution from Rondi have been given to my guidance counselor, Mr. Jerry Kickliter, who has kept them in a safe deposit box in his office. I have made in excess of three hundred thousand dollars selling phony product to students and friends—money I intend to return, after expenses. I was recently threatened by one of Rondi’s stooges—a white guy who goes by the alias of ‘Thomas’—for pushing bogus product at my cousin’s public school. And I was given an additional hundred thousand dollars for planning the storage of the Bogota shipment at the senior prom at Sacred Heart High. My confession and my efforts to get Santo Rondi arraigned have been part of a special community service project designed under the supervision of my counselor, Jerry Kickliter. Mr. Kickliter has advised me to request the intervention of the Witness Protection Program provided by the FBI and will appear with my mama and my auntie Artremease at the downtown police precinct at six o’clock this morning, after and on the condition of Santo Rondi’s arrest. If Rondi is not arrested, I will not make my appearance and Mr. Kickliter will deny everything I have just said. Rondi’s the motherfucker whose punks killed my brother and if you guys don’t bust him I sure as fuck will! I haven’t worked four years just to go to the prom, even though it was a good time, wasn’t it, Tobias? So this is Leonard Compton, informer, signing off. See you in the dawn’s early light, motherfuckers.”
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