by Celia Laskey
“Killed the old-fashioned way, with a bow and arrow,” he says proudly.
“Did you kill it?”
“Billy’s dad got this one,” he says. “But I’ll get mine when firearm season starts.”
“Why’s it hanging upside down?” I ask, immediately kicking myself for a question that might mark me as an outsider.
“The tenderization process,” he says, slapping its haunches.
“You’ve got to wait for the rigor mortis to pass,” says another boy, his words slow and sticky from drinking. He tips his head back to finish the last of his Colt 45 and tosses the bottle in the bushes. “About five days will get you some nice, delicate meat.” He smiles at my mortified expression. “Not from here, are you?”
“I’m new,” I say, hoping he won’t ask for more details.
He looks me up and down, his body lilting back and forth like he’s standing in a rowboat. When he sways toward me, he holds his face close to mine. His breath smells like rotting leaves after it rains. “No one here is new. Why would you come to Big Burr?”
I switch my Slurpee to my other hand, wiping the cold condensation on my jeans.
“She’s on a top-secret mission,” Jake says from behind me. I breathe out, not realizing I had been holding in air, and step closer to him.
“What kind of mission?”
Jake rolls his eyes. “It wouldn’t be top secret if I told you, would it?”
The boy regards Jake, then me. His pale blue irises bob near his eyelids. Then he stumbles back against the wall of the barn and falls sideways into the brambly weeds. His friends laugh, help him up, and pass him another Colt 45.
Jake puts his hand on the small of my back, my skin lighting up under his touch, and guides me past the deer. “Let’s go inside.”
* * *
• • •
AS WE WALK into the living room, I can’t help but stare at the animal heads mounted above a gaudy rose-patterned couch. I recognize deer and moose, but can’t figure out exactly what the other ones are. Below each head hangs a picture of a handsome bearded man, who I assume is Billy’s father, holding up the head when it was still attached to its limp body in the wild. Two large windows flank the couch, framed by yellow tulip-printed curtains. I’ve never seen such a straight-looking room: something for the husband, something for the wife. It’s a very democratic, if not visually cohesive, form of decorating. I can practically hear Karen yelling at Billy’s mom, “Divorce your husband!”
A girl who’s just funneled a beer climbs onto the couch and holds her red Solo cup up to the moose’s stiff mouth. Just as she begins to tilt the cup, Billy comes tearing across the room, grabs her arm, and pulls her to the front door, tossing her out. “What is Billy’s one rule?” he asks the room.
“Hands off the taxidermy!” everyone yells back.
Jana and Jake and I wander into the kitchen to see what there is to drink. The infamous bucket of pussy punch sits on the kitchen table, which is covered with a vinyl daisy-printed tablecloth. We dump our obligatory Slurpees in, then stir the sludgy dark purple liquid with a plastic ladle.
Jana dips a Solo cup into the bucket. “When in Rome.” She takes a sip, then shakes her head back and forth and smacks her mouth like a cat after you force a pill down its throat. “It’s good,” she croaks. “Tastes just like a Slurpee.” I reach for her cup.
“Don’t drink that,” Jake says to me. “You, either,” he says to Jana. He hands us each a can of Bud Light and we head back into the living room.
The TV is tuned to the local news, which I’m assuming is just the default channel, because no one is paying attention. The anchor, who looks like she can barely hold her eyes open with all the eye shadow weighing down her lids, is talking about how a man with a shotgun held up a combination KFC/Taco Bell. When it turned out there was only forty-four dollars in the till, he demanded one of each menu item from both restaurants and was arrested halfway through eating a Beefy Fritos Burrito.
“He should have been arrested just for eating a Beefy Fritos Burrito,” jokes the woman’s co-anchor, a man wearing a striped tie almost as wide as his face.
The female anchor gives a small, forced chuckle and then moves on to the next story. “Today, task force members from the gay rights organization Acceptance Across America met with the mayor and council members of Big Burr.” My stomach jumps. I pray no one notices, but the name “Acceptance Across America” triggers some kind of Pavlovian response and everyone in the room snaps their heads around to look at the TV.
“The head of the task force, Karen Roxford, spoke to us today about Acceptance Across America’s main objectives, and the strategies that businesses and residents can use to make their communities more LBGT-friendly,” the anchor goes on, botching the order of the initials, but it doesn’t seem like anyone noticed. I fight the urge to bolt out of the room or huddle into a ball on the floor as the camera cuts to my mother, wearing a white blazer with a large AAA pin fastened to the lapel. As shouts of “Dyke” and “Go back where you came from” echo across the room, I make eye contact with Zach, the guy we followed from the 7-Eleven, who seems to be the only other person not yelling some kind of epithet. He pulls his mouth into a grimacey smile and starts walking toward me. Oh, Jesus. Has he somehow realized that Karen is my mom? Is he going to out me right now, in front of everyone? He has a gentle, dopey face, the kind of guy who looks like he wouldn’t be able to grow a full beard no matter how hard he tried, but appearances can be deceiving.
He leans against the wall next to me and widens his eyes at everything going on around us. “You’re new here, right?” He shakes his head. “That’s a stupid question. I know you’re new. I would ask how you’re liking Big Burr so far, but I don’t think this party is doing us any favors.”
I cross my arms. “I’m having a fine time.”
He laughs. “A fine time. What everyone wants to have at a party!”
I laugh, too, but keep watching the TV out of the corner of my eye, waiting for Karen’s face to disappear.
Zach leans in close to me and lowers his voice. “I’m having a terrible time, to be honest. I’m only here because my best friend Ramona has a crush on Seth Braun.” He shoves a fist into his mouth. “Oh, shit. Don’t tell anyone I said that, will you?”
I roll my eyes. “I don’t really have anyone to tell.”
“Oh, right. I heard you’re from L.A.?”
I nod.
He smiles a big, goofy smile. “I’ve always wanted to go there. Have you ever met a celebrity?”
I shrug. “Sure. Not, like, been introduced to them, but I see them around all the time. One time Kristen Stewart tried to pet my friend’s dog, then the dog growled at her.”
“That’s crazy.” He shakes his head in disbelief. “What was it like at your old high school?”
My old high school—the word sends a jolt through my gut. “It was like a different country,” I say. “A way more developed one.” Karen is still on the goddamn TV, talking about how businesses can put rainbow flags in their windows to signal acceptance. When I look back at Zach’s face, I see that it’s fallen. “Sorry, that’s so rude. I only said it because you don’t really seem like everyone else.”
He gives me a sheepish look. “Is it that obvious?”
We both laugh, then stop when we see Billy sauntering up to the TV with a mischievous look on his face. He unzips his fly and pantomimes taking his dick out. He cups the air in front of his pants and guides his imagined member into my mother’s mouth. Someone hoots. A few people laugh. Encouraged, he humps the screen, starting out slowly, then quickening to a frenzied pace. His pants sink lower as he thrusts, and the top of his boxers becomes visible, little red hearts on white fabric. I wonder why someone like him would wear boxers like that. Maybe they were a gift from his mom. Maybe it’s laundry day. Or maybe he’s actually a very sensitive person.<
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“You like that, huh?” he says, looking into my mother’s eyes with an amount of hatred I’ve never felt for anything. He jerks his crotch forward and groans enthusiastically, pretending to come on her face, as the room cheers. My heart beats in my ears, and I realize Zach has disappeared from my side. I look for Jake and Jana and they’re not cheering, but they’re definitely laughing—either because they actually think it’s funny or because they feel like they have to, and I don’t really want to know which it is.
* * *
• • •
THE NEXT MORNING, I wake up to “Let’s Have a Kiki” by the Scissor Sisters blasting from the other side of the house. I shove in earplugs but can still hear the bass vibrating through the floor. I throw off my covers and stomp into the living room, where Karen and Cory are having a dance party. “A kiki is a party for calming all your nerves,” Ana Matronic sings. Karen is doing her mashed-potato mom dance, while Cory does his inexpert version of voguing, which involves a lot of wrist-flapping and falling backward onto the carpet with one knee bent behind him. Karen mashed-potatoes over to me and grabs my hands, moving them from side to side. I stand completely still, obstinate. She places one hand on my hip and points the finger of my other hand, pulling it up to point at the ceiling and then down to point at the floor à la John Travolta. I smile a little bit against my will, and Cory runs up behind me, placing his hands on my hips and rotating them in wide circles.
“I’m not a puppet,” I yell over the music.
“Then dance on your own,” yells Karen, letting go of my arms. Cory releases my waist and shimmies in front of me, holding his arms out to his sides and shaking his chest. I laugh and shake mine back.
“More!” he shouts. “Work those B cups!”
I shake more earnestly, my braless breasts swinging from side to side in my oxford pajama shirt. I lean my head back and close my eyes, spinning in a circle, my hands above my head, spreading my fingers as wide as they can go. My breath glides in and out of my body. I imagine tiny silvery beads of bad energy forcing their way out from under my skin, floating into the air and popping in a Technicolor burst of gas like a miniature supernova. Who cares if everyone at school thinks I’m a weirdo? Who cares if they find out Karen is my mom? Who cares if Karen finds out I like boys?
The song ends and I open my eyes, the last wisps of Technicolor vanishing. We all flop down onto the couch.
“That’s what we need,” says Karen. “A kiki.”
“A good ole Kansas kiki,” Cory says sarcastically, giggling.
“I’m serious,” says Karen. “Let’s have a party tonight. A fancy one with classic cocktails and canapés. I’ll invite everyone from the task force, and you kids can invite whoever you want from school.” She looks at me and winks as she says the last part.
“I think Billy Cunningham would love to attend our kiki,” Cory says. “Just the other day, he was asking me for canapé recipes.”
“Venison sausage and spray cheese on a saltine would be to his taste, I think,” I say.
“I don’t know about that, but we’ll need something to eat,” says Karen, standing up and clapping her hands. “Let’s go to the grocery store.”
“I have to write a paper about World War II,” says Cory, face-diving into the throw pillows.
Karen looks at me. “Shall we?”
* * *
• • •
“SO HOW ARE things going at school?” Karen asks as we drive to the store in what’s probably the only Prius in all of Big Burr. I stare out the window as we pass by a field clustered with silver grain silos, all huddled together like they’re cold. A metal structure with long poles connects the silos at the top, and from far away it looks like a daddy longlegs.
“I don’t fit in very well,” I say.
Karen shrugs and puffs her cheeks, blowing out a long breath of air. “That’s high school for you.”
“I fit in fine in L.A.” It physically hurts to think about what I’d be doing on a Saturday back home—getting the best breakfast burrito ever at the bakery in Los Feliz and people-watching in Silver Lake, then seeing an indie film at the ArcLight on Hollywood, where my friends and I once saw Chris Pine buy a ticket to his own movie. We’d have Sugarfish for dinner, which puts all other sushi to shame, and we’d end the night at my friend Scout’s house, whose mom is internet-famous and would let us take over her Instagram account whenever we wanted.
When I first left L.A., my friends and I texted all day every day, but as the weeks have gone on, everything is suddenly a long story they’ll tell me later, though later never comes. It’s even been hard to keep in touch with Steph—half the time I don’t know what state or country she’s in, and when she tries to FaceTime me her screen always freezes. She keeps telling me to “hang in there,” which makes me think of this poster I had when I was little, of a kitten dangling off the end of a tree branch, over big blocky text that says OH, SHIT.
“Transitions are hard,” Karen says. “Growing up as an army brat, I had to move every two years. It was tough to maintain relationships.” She honks at the car in front of us as it slows to a crawl and turns without using its blinker.
“Were you out in high school?”
“I came out to just my best friend during my senior year, while I was living in Virginia,” she said. “That was 1988. Needless to say, it didn’t go very well.” I know it didn’t go very well with Karen’s parents, either, who never came around to her being gay, and thus whom I’ve never met. It’s why Karen dedicated her life to fighting homophobes—when I think about that, I feel pretty guilty about how much shit I’ve been giving her for being here.
“If you were a teenager living here, would you come out to anyone?” I ask.
“Definitely not.” She pulls into the strip mall and parks in front of Dillons, then shuts off the engine but stays in her seat, buckled. “Is anyone giving you a hard time?”
I replay the look of hate in Billy’s eyes as he thrust into Karen’s mouth on TV. What would they have done if they discovered I was her daughter? What would Jake have done? I picture myself hanging upside down from the beam in front of Billy’s barn, a long slit from my crotch down to my neck, my internal organs fed to the dogs, the white bones of my ribs scraped clean from the surrounding red flesh. “No,” I say.
“Good.” She puts her hand on the door handle but doesn’t open it. “Your friend Jana sounds nice.” She looks out the window as she says it, playing aloof, but her voice has that saccharine, suggestive quality.
I nod, trying to forget Jana’s laughing face from the night before.
“I’m glad there’s someone here you’ve connected with,” Karen says. “You should invite her to the party tonight.”
* * *
• • •
THE DOORBELL STARTS to ring around eight o’clock, and I’m introduced to a stream of Karen’s coworkers: a woman named Tegan who kind of looks like Carey Mulligan and who’s wearing a jean jacket that says VULVA on the back; a striking androgynous person named Harley; a tall man in a bowler hat named Jamal, who is also the only Black person I’ve seen so far in Big Burr; a handsome pair of middle-aged men named David and Miguel; and a bunch of other people I can’t remember. They all give me a kiss on each cheek or a heartfelt hug. The house smells like warm cheese and caramelized onions, and a mix that Cory’s made rotates through LCD Soundsystem, Robyn, and Calvin Harris. Karen even lets me have a glass of champagne. It feels so much like we’re back in L.A. that I expect to look out the window and see palm trees. I go into the kitchen for a goat-cheese-and-fig crostini, where Jamal is in the middle of telling a story to a rapt audience.
“The pastor says, Raise your hand if you’re alive, so obviously, we all raise our hands. Then he says, You know who you have to thank for being alive? Your mother and your father. That’s right, not your mother and your mother or your father and your father. For
all of us to be here, you need a man and a woman, the way God in his ultimate wisdom intended.”
Everyone groans. “Ignoring the fact that straight couples are the ones who keep having queer babies,” says David.
“Let’s not talk about all that tonight,” says Karen, waving her hand in the air as if to dispel a swarm of gnats. “We’re here to have a good time.”
“You know what?” says Tegan. “I know we’re supposed to be better than them, to keep our poise while they fling around their First Amendment rights, but I just have to say this.” She slams her highball glass down on the counter and teeters a little bit, making me wonder if she’s already drunk. “When this is all over, when we’re in charge and doughy half-wits like that pastor are stuck doing line work in our glitter and dildo factories, we’re not going to forget the bad old days. We’ll mumble slurs when we pass them on the street, we’ll pick a disease and say it’s just for them, we’ll stand by doing nothing as they get beat up and raped and murdered all because of who they fuck.”
Everyone blinks, stopping mid-chew or mid-sip.
“Whoa,” says Harley. “That’s intense, Tegan.”
“Well, I say Amen to that!” says David. He raises his glass, and a few other people raise theirs. “Amen!” they yell.
I hold my glass in front of my chest, wondering if I should raise it, too. Then my phone buzzes in my pocket: a text from Jake.
U wanna hang tonight? I stare at the gray speech bubble, then switch my phone to silent, putting it back in my pocket. I eat another crostini, and David pours me another glass of champagne after checking to make sure Karen isn’t looking.
“When in Rome.” He grins at me deviously, topping off his own glass. “So how are you surviving here? Teenage girls in small towns are even cattier than gay men.”
“Treading water, I guess.”
He licks champagne from his mustache. “I’d like to think I’m doing the butterfly. Which reminds me, I need some Mariah Carey.” He pats my arm and floats away to the stereo in the living room.
