I swing a punch at his face—and miss.
Then I grab ahold of his leg and try to yank him toward me. “You’re right. I’m sick with AIDS, and I’m gonna bite you and give it to you. Like a vampire.” I flare my teeth and go for his bare ankle.
“Art, stop, please stop, you’re scaring me!” Judy pleads.
I pull Darryl’s foot toward my face. He pushes his leg up, kicking my chin hard in the process. My teeth hit my lips. My head doubles back, hits the wall with a thud. The camera swings to the left and smacks against the wall. My eyes flicker with the shock of pain.
When I open them, I see blood on my hand and on my shirt. We are surrounded by people now. Students. Teachers. Most of them look horrified. Annabel de la Roche and her friends look at me with pity in their eyes, which is even worse than horror. Nobody but Judy will stand anywhere near me. She holds me close, some of my blood on her fingernails, like polish. She keeps whispering Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, and then manages an Are you okay? I pull my camera close. Remove the lens cap. The lens is cracked. I let out an audible gasp of sorrow. I would rather lose teeth than my camera. Judy whispers that a camera can be replaced. I know that, but THIS camera can’t be replaced.
“This is insane,” Darryl says. “You don’t . . . do you really have it? Do you have AIDS?”
“Fuck you,” I say.
“That’s not an answer,” Saadi says. “Just tell him if you have it, dude.”
“Go to hell, dude,” I say, turning to Saadi. “We study together, you know me, and you just stand there while your sociopath of a friend . . .”
“Yeah, right, I’m the sociopath,” Darryl says, cutting me off. “You’re messed up.”
Our principal, Mrs. Starr, approaches with a look of fear on her face. “What in the world happened here?” she asks. “Are you all right, Art?”
“He attacked me,” Darryl says. “He jumped me and said he was going to give me AIDS.”
“Is that true?” Mrs. Starr asks.
“It’s true,” Saadi says. “I saw the whole thing.” Yeah, and he did nothing.
“Yup,” I say to Mrs. Starr. “Every word is true.”
“We’ll discuss that after we take you to the nurse.”
“I’m fine,” I say. “It’ll heal.”
Mrs. Starr crouches close to me, but not too close. She won’t come near my blood. I think about what a big deal it was when Princess Diana shook the hand of an AIDS patient without gloves. Seriously, this is the world we’re living in. A world where people are afraid to shake hands with gay people.
“Art,” she says, “you need to see the nurse.”
“I was in the middle of the first meeting of my affinity group,” I say. “And I plan to finish it.”
“I saw the flyers,” Mrs. Starr says. “That group isn’t school sanctioned and therefore can’t meet on school property. But if you want to start a sexual minorities alliance, I would sponsor it.”
“Oh, would that make you feel more comfortable?” I ask.
“It would certainly have more members,” she says.
“I’m a member of Art’s affinity group,” Judy says proudly, and I love her for it.
“I don’t need numbers,” I add. “I need passion. I need people to CARE that we’re dying.” I look at all the shocked students staring down at me, like I’m some zoo animal. They’d throw peanuts at me if they could. I scream out at them. “I’m starting an ACT UP affinity group at this school. We need to fight back and end AIDS, and show the world that young people in this country give a shit. Who’s with me?”
Silence.
“Art, let’s get out of here,” Judy whispers. “They’re not worth it.”
It’s when the crowds start to part, that I see him standing in the back, behind a group of kids. Reza. He looks shell-shocked, but he doesn’t take his eyes off me. Or maybe he’s looking at Judy. I don’t know. But he doesn’t move, and I want to shake him, make the person I know is underneath all that fear break free. I want to kiss him and kill him at the same time.
“Okay, clear out, everyone,” Mrs. Starr says. “The show is over, and so is lunch. Get to your afternoon classes.” As the crowd starts to disperse, she looks at me once more. “There is no ACT UP group at this school, Art. And you’re looking at a lot of detention.”
“Whatever,” I say, having run out of eloquent things to say.
I watch as Darryl, Saadi, and their complicit buddies walk past Reza. “What are you staring at, ayatollah?” Darryl asks Reza as they pass him, and Reza says nothing, and Saadi says nothing.
Eventually, there’s no one left but me and Judy, and Reza, who approaches us. He doesn’t come too close, though, and this distance feels like a dagger being plunged into me.
“Are you guys okay?” Reza asks.
“Do I look okay?” I snap back.
“Jesus, Art, he’s not the enemy,” Judy says.
“Anyone who isn’t a friend is an enemy,” I say.
“I thought we were friends,” Reza says.
“No, we were just saying that to make Judy feel better. But it’s obvious we’re not. You didn’t show up to my meeting. You’re too scared to come close to me right now. You stood there while your brother’s buddy tried to kill me.”
“He’s not my brother,” Reza says. “And I didn’t come to the meeting because I was . . .”
“Studying?” I ask.
He nods.
“You’re always studying when Judy hangs out with me. You’re always studying when we have movie nights. Not that I want you there. It’s our thing. It’s our tradition, like those fish pins are yours. You should never have been invited in the first place.”
“Art, come on,” Judy says.
“No, he’s scared of me. Of us. Look at him. He’s scared of getting too close.” I grab Judy’s hand and thrust it toward Reza. “Hey, your girlfriend has my blood on her fingers. You scared she has IT?”
“Art, stop!” Judy demands.
“Fine, I’ll stop,” I say. “I’m leaving.”
“Leaving where?” she asks. “It’s the middle of the day. We have class.”
“What are they gonna do, expel me?” I know I sound like an ass, but I don’t care. My wrath knows no boundaries right now. I want to lash out at everyone and everything that doesn’t understand me, at everyone and everything that isn’t queer, and yeah, maybe that even includes Judy. I want to erupt, to explode, and then to be reborn in a new world where I don’t have to feel different every day, a world where our blood is immune to infection.
I exit the school into the cold air, and it hits my face like a slap. The pain is still there, and as I walk the streets, I can feel people’s eyes on me. I walk. And I walk. And I walk. To the only place where I might possibly feel at home right now.
When he opens the door, he’s wearing one of his kimonos and he looks like he’s been sleeping and sweating. The concern in his eyes softens my anger. His hand on my face makes me cry. “What happened?” he asks.
“I . . .” But I can’t seem to get a word out. I just cry. He pulls me into his arms and closes the door behind us, and I sob onto his silk kimono, probably destroying it.
“Shh,” he says. “It’s okay.” He strokes my hair. I can feel the clamminess of his hands on my skin—he has a fever. He smells metallic from all the medication he takes. “It’ll all be okay,” he says.
“How can you say that?” I ask. “José is dead. Everyone who’s good in this world is dead or dying. The world is ending. Our world.”
He doesn’t say anything. He leads me to the couch and sits me down. He leaves for a moment, then returns with a warm, wet cloth and an ice pack. He holds the cloth to my face, carefully wiping the dried blood from my lips and my cheeks. Then he holds the ice to my lips. “You’ll be okay,” he says.
“Why am I so angry?” I ask. “What do I do with all this anger?”
“Not whatever you just did,” he says. “What did you do?”
�
��I jumped a kid who called me a faggot at school,” I say.
Stephen nods. He moves the ice to the other side of my face. It chills me and makes me feel better. “We need to be better than them,” he says.
“Why?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Because we have no choice. We’re held to different standards.”
“He cracked my camera lens,” I say.
“I can buy you a new lens,” he says.
“No,” I say. “No.” I lift my camera. I point it at Stephen and manipulate it until his face is in focus. The crack in the lens shows up in the viewfinder, like a thunderbolt from above that cuts his face in half. It makes the image look like it was attacked. I snap a photo. “I’ll keep it for now. I want to photograph you and your friends if you’ll let me. I’ll make you beautiful. But there will be a crack in each image, so everyone knows. So everyone remembers that we’re under assault.”
He smiles. Nods. He gets me.
“On one condition,” he says.
“What?” I ask.
“No more beating people up, not even the worst homophobes.”
“Deal,” I say.
We shake on it. Then we put on Cover Girl, an old Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly musical. Stephen says he needs something candy colored and optimistic, but he falls asleep almost as soon as the movie starts. His breathing is labored when he sleeps, like he’s gasping for air. I watch the movie to the end. Rita plays a singer who performs in her boyfriend’s nightclub. She gets discovered and almost chooses fame and money over love, but in the end she chooses love. I decide there’s nothing optimistic about it. What’s optimistic about other people falling in love?
Judy
I know that dressing like Madonna won’t make me look like her, or allow me to magically turn men on the way she does, but I decide that the time has come for me to inspire Reza to do something more than kiss me. Art’s parents invited my parents to go see City of Angels tonight, which means Reza and I will have my place to ourselves. No mom offering him tea and talking to him about her fascination with Persian rug patterns. No dad asking him to play racquetball with him sometime, and telling him how proud he must be of his fellow Iranian Andre Agassi. No book club. Just a boyfriend and a girlfriend in an apartment free of parents. So that’s why I’m making myself lingerie, inspired by the slip and garter Madonna wears in the “Express Yourself” video. If Reza likes her, then I’ll turn into as close an approximation as I can manage. I can be sexy. I can writhe around the room wearing next to nothing, lick milk out a bowl like a kitty, do whatever it takes to turn him on. It’s been two months now, and I’m ready. I’m ready to feel his skin against mine. I’m ready to put all those lessons about how to use a condom to use. I mean, what’s the point of education if the knowledge is never implemented? I don’t even eat ice cream as I design. I don’t need it this time, since I’m basically copying an existing outfit in my size. All I need is skill, which I have, and a body, which I have. When I’m done, I try it on and stare at myself in the full-length mirror. I don’t look like Madonna, but I look hot. And if I love myself, then others will love me too. That’s what Uncle Stephen told me once.
I see my doorknob turn, my mom trying to shove her way in like she always does. “Sweetie, will you zip me up? Your father can’t seem to make a zipper work. Why is this door locked?”
I quickly throw a sweater and jeans on over the lingerie and open the door. I force a smile. My mother is wearing her little black dress, the same one she wears anytime she goes somewhere nice. She says the beauty of the little black dress is that it can be worn anywhere and never goes out of style. I want to explain to her that when the little black dress first became popular, when Audrey Hepburn wore one, it was like a revolution. Back then, women were supposed to be all busty and curvy and frilly, and here came this skinny, boyish woman wearing sleek, simple clothing. She was a middle finger to the establishment. But then her style became the establishment, and now it’s like all the moms of the world want to look and dress like her. I hope that when I become a designer, my creations never become the establishment. And if they ever do, I’ll change. I’ll reinvent.
“What were you doing in there?” she asks, peeking into my room for a clue, like I’d be stupid enough to leave one for her.
“Turn around. I’ll zip you up.”
She hesitates for a moment. She doesn’t want to turn around yet. She wants to know why I would lock the door. But she turns, and I carefully zip her up. “Honestly,” she says. “What is it about men and zippers and clasps? Your father still can’t help me put on a necklace either.”
“Hand me the necklace,” I say.
She does. The necklace is gold, with a tiny little diamond dangling from it. Simple. Elegant. Classic. The clasp is small and tricky. You’d need a microscope to see it. My hands are behind her neck, and she pulls her hair up for me. There’s something so painfully intimate about this, these rituals of ours. “This necklace belonged to my mother,” she says softly. “She gave it to me for my thirtieth birthday.”
“So she was capable of kindness back then,” I say coldly.
“She’s capable of kindness now,” my mom says. “Just not toward Stephen.”
“Are you defending her?” I ask.
“I am not,” she says. “But I think it’s important for you to remember that we are complicated people. Who we are at our worst doesn’t define us, just as who we are at our best . . .”
“She won’t speak to her own son,” I say.
“And she deserves our silence,” she says. “But she also read to me every night when I was a little girl, and made us the most delicious birthday cakes every year, and took us on trips, and gave me this necklace.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure Ronald Reagan read to his kids too, but that doesn’t mean I forgive him for killing all of Uncle Stephen’s friends.”
I finally clasp the necklace.
She turns to face me. “You know Reagan didn’t literally kill them, right?”
“He could have stopped it.”
“Maybe,” she says.
“Definitely,” I say.
“That’s the thing about the past, sweetie,” she says. “You can never go back and say a different outcome is definite.” She lets out a sigh and shakes her body, like she’s ridding herself of my bad energy. “So, how do I look?”
“Fine,” I say. And then, because I know I need to be kinder but don’t want to be fake, I say, “You look just like Audrey Hepburn.”
She smiles. She loves hearing that. “We’ll tell Art’s parents you say hi.”
My dad emerges now. He’s wearing the same blue blazer, white shirt, and khakis he wears every time he goes out. Not exactly style icons, my parents. Yet I can’t help but feel a twinge of affection for their consistency. “Nice of them to invite us,” my dad says. “Such nice people.”
“Kind of,” I say. “Except they basically don’t want Art to be gay.”
“Sweetie,” my mother says, “no parent wants their child to be gay. They should accept it, but don’t ask them to want it.”
“When I have kids, I want them to be gay,” I say. “But I’ll accept them if they’re straight.”
“You’ll change your mind,” she says. “You’ll want grandkids.”
“Major assumption there, Mom,” I say. “Anyway, I’m sure Art’s parents would never mention any of this to you at the theater. I’m sure they don’t even tell people their son is gay, or that he just beat up a homophobe at school.”
“Did he . . . Is he . . . You know, it’s none of our business, and we’re going to be late.” My mother goes to the living room to grab her purse, then returns and gives me a peck on the cheek. “Are you seeing Reza tonight?” she asks.
“Yeah, he’s on his way,” I say.
“Have fun, and lights out by ten,” my dad says, with a smile that indicates he knows how absurd he sounds.
My mom lingers after my dad leaves. There is something unfinished about our conve
rsation. There’s always something unfinished about us, like we’re a sentence that ends in a comma.
“I don’t want grandchildren too soon,” she finally says.
“Gross and goodbye,” I say.
“I’m assuming no girl who has helped her uncle distribute condoms would . . .”
“Mom!” I squeal. “Goodbye.”
Seriously, how does she know tonight is the night? It’s like she has some maternal sixth sense about me.
“Bye, sweetie.” She gives me a hug this time, and I hug her back.
The twenty minutes it takes until Reza arrives feel like multiple lifetimes. Time has slowed down in our tiny apartment. And when he knocks on the door, time speeds up, going too fast.
“Hi,” he says before giving me a quick kiss on the lips.
“Hi,” I say, smiling nervously. “Come in.”
I lead him into the kitchen, where we stand awkwardly. “Do you want something to drink?” I say.
“I’m okay,” he says.
“Food?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I have to tell you all about my sister,” he says. “Her new boyfriend has named himself after a candy.”
“Wait, let me guess,” I say, excited to have found a little game to ease my own tension. “He goes by Pop Rocks.” Reza shakes his head. “Fun Dip.” He shakes his head again, laughing now. “Big League Chew! Bazooka! Ring Pop! Push Pop!”
Reza is cracking up now. “No, but these are so good. DJ Bazooka.”
“Wait, he’s a DJ?” I ask. “You left that detail out.”
“Yes, and his name is DJ . . .”
I cut him off and practically scream, “DJ Gobstopper.”
“DJ Starburst,” he says.
“It’s definitely catchy,” I say. Then, with a flirtatious smile, I add, “Speaking of DJs, I just got the new Pat Benatar greatest hits record. Wanna go to my room and listen to it?”
“Sure,” he says.
We head to my room, and I put the record on. We lie down, side by side on my small bed, our bodies crushed into each other, listening to Pat tell us that love is a battlefield, like we needed to be reminded.
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