by Rick R. Reed
The crowd roared when the entire cast parted, their single line forming into two. The door at the back of the set opened mysteriously, as if by an invisible hand or paw. (Actually, the stage crew had rigged it to some fishing line so it could be pulled open from offstage.) The effect was that the last member of the cast—the rabbit, or pooka, more properly—Harvey, was entering the stage to take a bow.
They all waited as Harvey made his way to the front, and then each cast member bowed to him.
The crowd loved it. The applause was almost a deafening roar, seeming to go on for minutes. There were whoops and cheers. The accolades rose up in Truman’s mind like a bunch of helium-filled balloons.
And Truman, with tears in his eyes, heard not a single catcall or anything derisive.
When they’d all taken a second and then a third bow, Truman squinted a bit to try to see out into the audience. It was too bright to see anything more than silhouettes or dim figures, but he was touched to know that there were several people he truly cared about among the nearly full house. It didn’t matter whether he could see them or not. He knew they were there, cheering, and they were more than visible in his heart.
He could see Stacy in his mind’s eye. He hoped she in particular was pleased with his performance and that she had no bitterness toward him, since the part was originally hers.
Alicia, of course, had shown up. He’d seen her earlier, and she was with her new boyfriend, an older guy who went to the Summitville branch of Youngstown State University. He was a dark-haired, brown-eyed Italian hottie from Wellsville, just down the river from them, and he seemed to adore her. The way he looked at her made Truman think of the term “puppy-dog eyes.” She certainly dragged him around like he was her personal Yorkshire terrier, leashed by her clutching red-nailed hand. And maybe he was. And happy to be so….
And Truman pictured his bedrock, his best friend, his biggest supporter and protector—his mom, Patsy, grinning and clapping, her joy uncontained. He knew those wolf whistles were coming from her. She was a tiny woman, but she could make a big sound by putting just two fingers between her lips and blowing. He imagined the joy on her face, the vicarious pleasure and pride she must have witnessed in her son’s artistry. He couldn’t help being proud of his performance but knew Patsy was ten times prouder.
He was happy to add a little joy back into her life. She pretended like the breakup didn’t matter, but he knew that, however justified it was, she still hurt. Although she’d never say it, he realized she wondered if it might be her last chance at love. The higher our hopes, the farther we fall when they don’t work out.
Truman let out a little laugh as he thought of Mike, at last. Mike, dressed like a woman just to support him. He knew Mike, who passed under the radar with his deep voice, John Wayne gait, muscles, and stubble for days, had made a real sacrifice tonight. He’d effectively come out. Not so much by cross-dressing—that could have easily been done to make fun of Truman, rather than to support him—but by taking a chance and even kind of humiliating himself to underscore his caring for Truman and to make a point about how we’re more than how we dress and, really, even more than our gender.
Just before the curtain went down, Truman closed his eyes for just a moment, allowing Mike’s face, not the made-up one but the true one—with a shadow of stubble, full lips, eyes half-mast with a drowsy yet intense lust—to rise up before him.
Truman’s pulse, already racing because of the postshow adrenaline and exhilaration coursing through him, jumped.
He opened his eyes just as the curtain closed.
All around him, his castmates and even the stage crew were jumping up and down, whooping and hollering. High-fiving each other.
They’d done it.
They had a hit on their hands. Truman thought, if not confined to the limits of a high school production that held them to two consecutive weekends, they might have run for years.
He took in everyone who’d pulled together to make the show such a success and felt a rush of affection for each and every person on the stage. Each for a different reason, Truman thought, they’d remember this night for the rest of their lives—this pure innocent joy, unfettered by judgment.
Mr. Wolcott slid up behind him. His strong hands grasped Truman’s shoulders and gave him a quick little massage. The touch was momentary, but Truman felt swept up in it, a rush of warmth coursing through him. Mr. Wolcott spoke softly into Truman’s ear. “You were terrific tonight. I mean it, really good. Above and beyond what I’ve seen high school kids do—and I’ve seen a lot. I think you have a real future as an actor. I really do.” And then, just as suddenly, he drifted away.
Truman basked in the warmth for a moment. How did he know what’s in my heart? What my deepest dreams are? A real future on the stage? Really? A sort of giddy joy rose up inside him.
Amber Wolfgang, who’d played his mother, Veta Louise, to comic matronly perfection, sidled up to him, smiling. “You did great.”
“Thanks. So did you.”
“You are coming to the cast party at my house tonight, right?”
Truman’s breath caught.
He was as far from popular as probably anyone in the school. Although he’d never admit it to Amber, this was the first time in his whole high school career anyone had ever invited him to a party—or to anything social, really. There was a reason he considered Patsy and Odd Thomas his BFFs.
“So get your little butt over to my house, huh? My ma’s ordering pizza and meatball subs from D’Angelo’s. And there’s a rumor Kirk’s going to smuggle in some beer and wine.” Amber giggled. “More than a rumor, actually, so you gotta come.” She took off toward stage right but stopped to call over her shoulder, “And Tru? Wear whatever you want.”
Truman laughed and gave her a thumbs-up. He knew she wasn’t teasing him or making fun. And yet…. As excited as he was to go to his first high school party, he thought he just might have other plans.
He thought of Mike in the lobby, waiting. The notion of him, wearing not the feminine attire he’d donned for him tonight but nothing at all, left Truman with a delicious feeling of anticipation.
He slipped quietly backstage, where there were two crude dressing rooms set up with just a couple of stage flats separating the boys from the girls. One thing Truman appreciated—no one had ever given him shit about which one to use.
He entered the boys’ dressing room and slipped out of the dress, the hat, the heels, and the white lace gloves. He rubbed at his face with cold cream and then used tissues to remove the makeup. He put his blonde wig on its Styrofoam head.
Behind him he could still hear everyone chattering excitedly onstage. He knew he had a moment alone—but only one or two—and he would use them to consider the young man staring back at him in the full-length mirror propped against the cinder block wall.
There he was, a skinny boy shivering in a pair of black boxers with yellow penguins. The outline of his ribs shone through his pale skin. His legs, if he were being honest, were little more than twigs, crowned with a little covering of golden hair.
He wondered what Mike saw in him, scrawny and runty as he was, and then immediately chastised himself. It’s just that kind of thinking that can hold a person back. It’s just that kind of thinking that lets morons like the ones from earlier tonight get inside your head and your heart and make you believe you’re less than. Don’t.
He looked back, turned a little in the mirror. Where before he saw scrawny, he now saw lithe. Skinny and bony morphed into trim and maybe even, if he would allow it, boyish. Yes, he was a pretty boy. But pretty boys can rock pretty—and they can be fierce.
He then considered the face looking back at him—with its silky, limp, straight blond hair tumbling down over his forehead, his oversized but penetrating eyes. And those full lips….
It was the same face he’d started the night with—and it wasn’t. Maybe tonight, after all that had happened, there was change. Just maybe… there was something a little mo
re mature in those features, something kinder and a little more compassionate, despite being hurt by others who seemed to lack those same qualities. Truman’s face, in the mirror, reflected back the ability to rise above those who would seek to wound him.
And that, he thought, is what will make me a fearless and uninhibited actor—not only on stage, but in life.
He heard the patter of many footsteps, along with laughter, coming toward him and hurried to dress in his street clothes.
Chapter 20
MIKE LEANED against his truck outside, waiting for Truman. It was at moments like this one that he wished he smoked. There was something he couldn’t deny in his mind’s eye about a man waiting for the person he loved to arrive, leaning against a pickup truck, smoking a cigarette, eyes full of longing. It was sexy. Romantic.
Reality check! Think about your two-pack-a-day dad and his disgusting hacking every morning, right before he lights up. Consider the stink of him. The premature age lines, drawn by smoke, on his face. Mike shook his head at his thoughts. There was nothing sexy or romantic about smoking.
Still, he hoped that when Truman finally emerged from the field house, he would find Mike sexy and romantic.
Earlier, Mike had struggled out of that insane women’s get-up (and the makeup! Lord, that was a whole ’nother story) he’d donned to show his love and support for Truman. Someone passing by the truck might have thought he was wrestling a bear in the cab, such were his contortions. He’d hoped a cop wouldn’t happen by once he was naked! After all, he was in a school parking lot, even if it was at its outer edges.
But he’d changed quickly into the kind of comfy stuff he felt like himself in—a pair of jeans, so soft and pale they were almost white, with holes worn in the knees, and his favorite hoodie, back from when he lived in Washington State, gray and purple, with a University of Washington husky on its front, faded. The sweatshirt was also soft. The fleece inside felt good next to his skin, like a mother’s touch. Not his mom, of course, but he could imagine. Someone like Patsy…. He had on a fleece Carhartt jacket handed down from his dad and a pair of old work boots. He didn’t wear any of this crap because he thought it was sexy, but because he simply could forget the clothes on his back when he wore them. They were him—like a second skin.
He’d hopped down from the truck’s cab into the cool night air and decided that, no matter how chilly he got, he wouldn’t succumb to the temptation to get back inside. He wanted to be here for Truman when he exited through those doors. He wanted Truman to know that, even if the parking lot was empty, there was one person who couldn’t, wouldn’t go home until he’d had at least a glimpse of his favorite Myrtle Mae Simmons.
A few minutes before, Patsy had driven up to him in her belching beater and rolled down the window.
“You waitin’ for the superstar?”
Mike grinned. “Yeah. Do you mind if I whisk him away for a couple of hours?” He nodded toward the truck. “I got wheels.”
“That’s up to him.” She stared up at Mike, grinning, as though the two shared a secret. “He was amazing tonight, wasn’t he? Just so funny, so real.” She shook her head. “Sometimes I can’t believe he’s mine, that I raised him. Because Lord knows, I wasn’t able to give him much!” She snorted. “You’ve seen our house.”
Mike didn’t know what to say. Or rather, he did know what to say but was unable to get the words out around the big tangerine-sized ball in his throat. He would have told her that Truman was lucky to have a mom like her, one who loved him unconditionally, one who’d always put him first, sometimes—often, Mike was sure—sacrificing her own happiness and well-being to ensure her son got the best she could give him. Mike sure would have liked to have had some of that kind of love. Never mind the material crap Patsy seemed convinced Truman needed. He put his hand on Patsy’s car door and said, “You’re a good mom. Anybody can see that.”
Dark eyes shining, she stared at him for a moment. And in that moment, Mike felt the two of them became friends.
But he wanted to share a special moment right now with Truman and not Truman and his mom, so he broke the moment by stepping away from her car and said, “Yeah, he was something else. But then you and I aren’t surprised, are we?”
“Not at all. We’ll see you later, Mike. Come by the house if you guys want. Raid the fridge.” She laughed and rolled up her window. She drove away, leaving Mike waving his hand in front of his face to dispel the exhaust fumes.
He watched the parade of headlights as everyone headed out—and home, or to wherever they were going afterward, Patsy’s Elite Diner, or maybe the Mexican joint up in East End.
Now he was alone, shivering, and worried that he’d missed Truman exiting the field house. Wind blew out of the north, hard enough to moan like a howl. The moon had risen, almost orange, hanging like an impossibly big sphere near the tops of the Appalachian foothills. Mike wondered if this was what people meant when they referred to a harvest moon. He swore he could see a face in its cratered surface. Whatever. It sure was pretty, despite making a guy feel very alone.
The darkness all around him seemed to press in. Mike felt as though there were ghosts among the dark shadows, and they were whispering—knowing, as ghosts often do, what his fate was to be.
Did I really miss him? Am I standing here waiting for nothing? The thought chilled him even more than the wind out of the north. He had a six-pack of Iron City beer, a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, and a bouquet of red roses waiting on the bench seat. His idea of an after-party. He hoped Truman would be surprised—and pleased.
He won’t be much of anything if he already left. Mike clutched the keys in his pocket, ready to depart. He could catch up with Truman later. That idea, though, weighed heavy on his heart. A sad, self-defeating part of himself told him Truman wasn’t coming. That his performance tonight was a triumph and he would be too busy to find time for the likes of Mike. And besides, why would Mike think Truman would meet up with him when Mike had to admit that, in the recent past anyway, all he’d done was ignore the guy.
But….
But….
But…. There was no need for those dark emotions because there he was, pushing through the heavy glass doors to emerge into the night. Alone. The sight of him, unaware of Mike for just this moment, made Mike catch his breath.
What a handsome boy. The wind caught the hair that was always coming down over his forehead and lifted, revealing for a moment Truman’s whole face. Sexy. Vulnerable, yet strong. And yes, manly. Even in a dress and long blonde wig, Truman was a man. Because of his confidence, his unwillingness to bend to convention, his willingness to love….
Truman Reid, will you be mine? Mike stepped forward to make himself more visible in the pool of light from one of the parking lot’s tall lamps. He imagined himself as Truman might see him and flattered himself with putting a kind of quiet joy—and lust—in Truman’s heart.
When their gazes connected, across the dark sea of asphalt, Mike felt simultaneously chilled and warmed—as though a shot of something hot had been set loose in his veins, filling him with a heat like liquid sunshine. The temperature of that heat skyrocketed when Truman, spotting Mike, smiled. Truman’s smile was megawatt, even in this dark, deserted parking lot. And it thrilled Mike beyond words because the smile was his and his alone.
Mike raised his hand in a shy wave. And grinned a bit as Truman hurried over to him.
Truman slowed as he neared Mike. “Hey, stranger,” he said in a voice that was just a notch above a whisper.
“Hey yourself.”
They stood in silence for a few moments, each shifting their weight from one foot to the other, considering the starry night sky, eyes meeting furtively, shyly.
Finally Truman broke the silence because Mike never knew what to say. “You make a shitty woman. I mean, if all the women in the world looked similar to what you put out there tonight, I’d have my pick of any man I wanted because, honey, all the men in the world would turn gay.”
They both cracked up.
Mike wasn’t insulted, not really, because he could see the warmth in Truman’s body language and in his smile. Besides, Mike liked to believe, had to believe, that if all the men in the world turned gay, Truman would still pick him.
“So that’s the thanks I get for going to all that trouble? You dis me? Fuck you.” Mike turned as though he were going to hop back in the truck and drive away.
He knew exactly what would happen. He smiled as he felt Truman’s hands grab at the back of his fleece jacket. He turned.
Truman’s eyes shone. He shook his head. “I do thank you, Mike. I don’t think anyone has ever done anything so selfless and so brave—for me. I can’t tell you how much what you did means to me.”
Mike felt heat rise to his face. “Ah, it was nothin’. All in a day’s work, right?”
“You know that’s not true. So, thank you.” Truman hugged him tight, his face pressed against Mike’s cheek. Mike felt like he could stay in the warmth of Truman’s embrace—just like this—forever. But a voice from the south, from a different head, was stirring and begging for more. Some parts of us are never satisfied….
Embarrassed, Mike pulled away, hips first, the rest of him following. “You got plans?” he asked, knowing the hope in his voice was so apparent as to make him a pathetic creature, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t help it.
“Well, Amber Wolfgang is having an after-party at her house. She’s rich—they even have an indoor pool! And there’ll be pizza.” He grinned. “And beer, or so I hear.”
Mike said, “I got beer. Iron City. And Cool Ranch Doritos. And these—” He hurried around the side of the truck, opened the door, and came back to Truman holding out the dozen red roses he’d bought earlier at the Giant Eagle supermarket. “For my superstar.”
Truman took them shyly, staring down at them as though they were something rare and precious. Voice choked, he managed to say, “No one ever gave me flowers before.”
