A Fine Bromance

by Christopher Hawthorne Moss

  Andy gazed into space in front of his eyes. He had liked Robby from the start, even entertained some mild fantasies about him. Andy had known he wasn’t attracted to girls but was unsure how gay men might regard transmen as potential lovers. But what Robby was suggesting now suddenly opened a door for Andy to be the gay transman he knew he was. He responded with nervous hopefulness, “Does that mean you’re gay or straight? I mean, if you really like me as Andy, then you’re gay. But I don’t have what it takes to be your boyfriend, down there. At least not yet.”

  “What, do you mean a penis? That doesn’t matter to me.”

  Andy’s face reddened. His disappointment was obvious. “Then that must mean you like me as a girlfriend, and I am not a girl.”

  Robby blanched at Andy’s angry words. “I don’t want you to be a girl,” he said.

  Andy glared at him. “Then what do you want?” His eyes blazed.

  Robby looked long and hard at Andy. “I want you.”

  His mouth hanging open, Andy looked into Robby’s eyes, allowing himself to hope. He leaned forward, and Robby put his mouth on Andy’s. Andy felt his heart beat faster. Their tongues came out and explored each other’s mouths. Andy, whose whole body was tingling with the contact with Robby’s hard, firm front, almost trembled with excitement. He reached up and cupped Robby’s cheek. They continued to kiss, and Andy stroked his cheek. Robby put his arms around Andy.

  Andy could feel his body respond strongly to Robby’s touch and kiss. Andy reached to cup Robby’s asscheek and then let his hand come around and just lightly stroke the crotch of his jeans.

  “Wait a minute,” Andy cried, sitting up. “You aren’t excited! You don’t want me.”

  Robby wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared down at his lap. “I know. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I can get excited. I can even whack off. But my dick isn’t getting hard, and I know it should be.”

  Andy gazed at him, the side of his face very red and tears starting to form in his eyes. “It’s okay, Robby. I understand. It’s okay.” But Andy knew Robby couldn’t help but hear the anguish in his voice.

  Robby threw him an angry look. “No, it’s not okay. I’m eighteen years old. I have someone I care about in my arms. Why can’t I get excited?”

  Andy put his arm around Robby’s shoulders and sighed. “And this doesn’t happen with a girl? A real girl, I mean.”

  “You’re a real girl!” Suddenly realizing what he’d said, Robby flushed as if embarrassed. “I didn’t mean you are a girl. I just meant you’re real… oh, damn it all to hell.”

  He jumped to his feet, but Andy grabbed his hand and dragged him down to the bed again. He pushed Robby on his back and stretched out beside him. He put his head on Robby’s shoulder and his arm across his chest. “I know. I know. It’s so fucked up.”

  Robby let his arm, now under Andy’s body, bend until it settled around Andy’s shoulders and hugged him. “I just wish I knew what was going on. With me, I mean.”

  “Shhh, shhhh,” Andy soothed. “Just hold me.” He was in a muddle over how to respond to this lovely boy. He knew he wanted him, but if Robby didn’t feel the same, what did that mean? Did it mean that Robby’s words weren’t true? Andy felt all he could do was hold Robby and reassure him, whether that meant anything or not.

  Robby held him.

  THEY MUST have drifted off to sleep because they awoke when they heard Claire’s voice. “What the…?” She stepped back from the door and called down the hall, “Mom! Robby’s in bed with his girlfriend!”

  Robby and Andy sat up and quickly smoothed down their hair. “Boyfriend,” Robby corrected his sister. He glanced at Andy, and they both started to chuckle. They laughed harder. They both fell back on the bed clutching their bellies against the strength of their laughter.

  Andy choked out, “Girlfriend!”

  “Boyfriend!” laughed Robby.

  They continued to lie back, holding each other and laughing. When their chuckles started to subside, they looked up to find Robby’s mother standing in the bedroom doorway with her mouth open and Claire behind her shoulder, looking triumphant.

  “I told you so!” she said to no one in particular.

  Robby and Andy finally sat up, wiping their eyes. “That was wonderful,” Andy said.

  “I haven’t laughed that hard since… since… well, I don’t know.” Robby gave his mother a frank look. “We were just kissing. Nothing more.”

  Andy gave him a nothing more? look, and they started to laugh again.

  Robby’s mother shook her head. “Keep the door open,” she said, then pushed a protesting Claire down the hall.

  “So…,” Andy started slowly.

  Robby looked at him and said, “So?”

  With a mischievous look, Andy suggested, “Well, since we have to keep the door open, we probably should study for Quiz Kids.”

  Robby shrugged. “Makes sense. What are those books you brought?”

  Andy climbed off the bed and picked up the books. “One of them is about astronomy. This one is about world cuisine. And this other one is about European history.”

  Robby looked at the books as Andy handed them to him. “And what are we going to do with them? We can hardly read them all.”

  Shrugging in return, Andy said, “We could quiz each other, and if we need to, one of us can read the book and teach the other.”

  Nodding regretfully that their affection had been stymied, Robby said, “Sounds good.”

  As Andy pulled out the desk chair and sat down, he turned to look at Robby to see his pensive look. “We’ll get it figured out,” he said reassuringly.

  “What? How to study?”

  “No. Why you aren’t getting excited.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Robby placed his hand on Andy’s shoulder. “It can’t be as hard as Quiz Kids.”

  Andy smirked. “From your mouth to God’s ear.”

  Chapter 11

  THE FIRST competition for Quiz Kids was the following Monday, and both Robby and Andy were excited. It would be televised as usual on the school district’s cable channel. They got a ride to the studio from Mr. and Mrs. Kahn, who would be in the audience. Robby’s mother said she would wait to watch the competition when it was made available to parents. Needless to say, Robby was disappointed about that. He couldn’t help but see how much Andy’s mother and father supported him, while his own mother seemed always distracted. He realized he hadn’t thought all that much about it since he was younger, but watching the Kahns made it start to hurt.

  The man who directed the competition greeted the two boys and Andy’s parents when they arrived in the cramped studio at the school building. He seemed harried and rushed but tried to be gracious. Mrs. Kahn fussed over Robby and Andy, and the director seemed more bothered than pleased. Luis had caught a ride with them and grinned at Andy when his mother made such a big deal about him. The two boys were so nervous they didn’t really mind.

  Andy elbowed Robby as the director explained the rules of the competition. “I wonder if any of my old schoolmates from Olympia will be watching.”

  Robby looked at him and shook his head. “This is King County. Olympia is in Thurston. I doubt their cable company even has our shows.”

  “Oh. Of course,” Andy said. “I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose they won’t see us until, or if, we make the state finals.”

  “We will,” Robby said, grinning.

  “Cool,” said Andy without conviction.

  Robby was surprised at Andy’s reaction, but just then they were herded into their places behind the two sets of desks and he didn’t have time to think about it.

  The emcee was a teacher from a high school in Issaquah and looked to be in his early forties but neat and trim. He had a good speaking voice and introduced all the contestants from Highlands View High and Eastlake High. He also introduced the alternates and the scorekeeper and judge, a rather humorless-looking teacher from Redmond.

  Then the competi
tion got underway. The questions covered the scholastic board, from literature to geography to history to biology and more. The teams knew their members’ areas of expertise. When a question came up in one of them, the members would turn to the teen who knew that topic and he or she would supply the answer. The system worked well, so long as another team member didn’t try to overrule the subject expert.

  Andy was a specialist in literature and also math. Robby knew math as well but also the other sciences. The other two members of the team were a junior named Mark Hamilton and a senior named Bella Bianchi. Mark knew history, and Bella knew her arts. They were well balanced, and no one seemed to think he or she knew more than they did.

  The first questions were toss-ups that either team could answer. The emcee asked, “They say curiosity killed the cat. It did not help this mythological person either, who received gifts from all the gods. She was given a box that—”

  Someone from Eastlake hit their buzzer first. As one of the girls from that school answered “Pandora,” Robby realized he would have answered, “Who is Pandora?” He had to remember this wasn’t Jeopardy! and that answers didn’t need to be in the form of a question. He chuckled under his breath.

  The second question was “This novelist was born in India. He fought in the Spanish Civil War, and his novel 1984 predicted a grim future.”

  Andy had his finger on the buzzer first. “Andrew Kahn for Highlands View High,” called the emcee.

  Andy said, “George Orwell.”

  “Correct!” said the emcee.

  Robby grinned and nodded to Andy, who smiled shyly back.

  The first set of questions in the toss-up round continued. One question asked about a president who fought in the War of 1812, the Blackhawk War, and the Mexican War; ran as a Whig; died of gastroenteritis; and was succeeded by his vice president, Millard Fillmore, got a wrong answer from a boy on the Eastlake team. “Franklin Pierce.”

  “That is incorrect,” said the emcee.

  Highlands View’s Mark hit his buzzer and answered, “William Henry Harrison.”

  The correct answer was Zachary Taylor.

  More questions came up about the Quakers, Upton Sinclair, and a Scottish engineer whose last name was chosen to refer to a measurement of energy at the rate of one joule per second. Robby buzzed in for that one, correctly answering “James Watt” and congratulating himself again that he hadn’t said “Who is….” He could hear one of the members on Eastlake team groaning and sighing when they got questions wrong. He counseled himself to keep mum and just answer when he could.

  The competition went by so fast that Andy sounded breathless when he answered a question about a Shakespearean play set on a magical island with The Tempest.

  Robby shook his head at how badly the other team did when the emcee announced a lightning round. All the characters were in novels even he easily could have identified, but the other team only got one correct, The Great Gatsby’s Daisy Buchanan. When it was Highlands View’s turn to try, Andy answered all but one of the characters, Jack Dawkins, better known as the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist.

  But when Highlands View got a lightning round about US history, Robby misunderstood one of the questions. He thought the emcee said “1864” in a question about the Voting Rights Act and got a hateful stare from Mark when he answered “Abraham Lincoln” instead of Lyndon Johnson.

  They were all cross and breathless at the end. The last question was about a state which entered the union in 1845, whose state flower was the bluebonnet, and which had just increased its speed limit statewide to eighty-five. The Eastlake High team member who buzzed in said “Oregon.” Mark took it for Highlands View with “Texas.” The emcee gave the final score, Highlands View with 230 and Eastlake with 95. They had won and would face the next high school in a week.

  Afterward the Kahns took Andy, Luis and Robby out for ice cream at Dairy Queen, where they ordered Peanut Buster Parfaits. They were punch-drunk and got hysterical quoting the donkey in Shrek about how nobody doesn’t like parfaits. They couldn’t stop laughing, and Mr. Kahn finally made them leave the Dairy Queen. Robby and Andy hung on each other all the way back to Robby’s place.

  When Robby got inside, his mother was gone, and Claire wouldn’t answer her locked bedroom door. He sighed and headed to his bedroom. He texted Andy and told him he was awesome and that he thought he loved him.

  When Andy texted back that he definitely loved Robby, Robby realized he and his friend were in danger of taking their relationship to a serious level. He didn’t know how he felt about that. He didn’t know if Andy knew what he might be getting in for. For that matter, neither did he.

  THAT MONDAY at school, Luis, Max, and Rhonda were the only classmates who knew anything about the Quiz Kids competition. They congratulated Andy and Robby. A couple of the teachers did too.

  Robby was nervous around Andy, watching him to see if he had taken the text conversation too seriously, but Andy was his usual sardonically humorous self. Robby decided not to sweat it, though he did find a chance to talk quietly with Max.

  “Do you think Andy is, um, into me?”

  Max stopped walking and looked at him. “Do you think he is?” he asked.

  “I dunno.”

  Max gazed at Robby speculatively. “How about you? Are you into him?”

  Robby didn’t answer right away. He was thinking about his own lack of response to either boys or girls, and he finally said, “I dunno that either.”

  Max’s eyebrows went up. Robby noticed Max was eyeing him speculatively, even with interest. I wonder if he is getting into me? he thought. “Hey, we missed wrestling lessons Saturday so you could practice for your competition. We still on for this weekend?”

  Robby thought about it. “I guess so. The taping isn’t until 8:00 p.m., so we could get together earlier in the day.”

  “You’re taping again this weekend? Oh yeah, you guys won. Who you going up against this time?”

  Shrugging, Robby admitted, “I haven’t heard who won the other round.”

  Max waited for him to say more. Then he asked again, “Well, how about 10:00 a.m. for your next lesson?”

  Distracted, Robby said, “Yeah, sure. That should work.”

  IT OCCURRED to Robby that he hadn’t heard from his Aunt Ivy in a couple of weeks, and he decided to go over to her place that evening. When she answered the door, she was all smiles.

  “Nothing else missing?” he asked her.

  “Oh yes,” she said with a shrug. “Lots of things. But I decided since they always turn up later, it must be my brain going. I just misplace things and then eventually put them back. Come in and have some tea and cake.”

  He followed her through the cluttered foyer and down the hall to the kitchen. “What’s been missing?”

  She walked to the stove and turned on the burner under the tea kettle, then went to the refrigerator and took out a cake with several slices already gone. “Oh, this and that. Nothing important.”

  Robby didn’t know what to say. He had never really thought someone was stealing from his aunt, but then again, he and Andy had started to believe her after her trip to the hospital. “Are you sure, Aunt Ivy? They said your brain was fine.”

  He sat at the table as she laid out a small plate with a piece of German chocolate cake on it and retrieved a teacup from the cabinet. She set milk and sugar on the table too.

  “Oh, I don’t know. You can be absentminded without having anything organically wrong with your brain. I bought some new things I want to show you. I found them at a junk shop. Some really quite lovely things.”

  Robby accepted the cup of tea and started to put sugar and milk in it. He picked up his fork. “I don’t think you’ll ever stop collecting all these things, will you?”

  She leveled a look of mischievous glee at him. “Never, never, never.”

  They wandered into her office after they had eaten and cleared away the things. On her desk were some small items, the usual treasures Ivy woul
d find. Robby went over and picked one up. They were a set of postcards, old photography of a Midwestern-looking city. He turned the packet over and saw the legend. “World’s Columbian Exhibition, Chicago, 1893.”

  “Aren’t those beautiful? It was quite the exposition. The Columbian they called it. It was supposed to be the 400th anniversary of Columbus discovering America. Sort of poetic, it being in 1893 instead of 1892, given that Columbus didn’t discover America at all. He didn’t even think he did.”

  She took the packet from his hand and removed the rubber band that held them together. She selected one and showed it to him. “They called it the White City because of all the white marble classical buildings. Of course, they weren’t made of marble, except the one that is still there. They were just painted boards. But not too many people know that before the Columbian Exposition the grand buildings, city halls, museums, weren’t made like that. It was revolutionary and set the model for decades. Good old Daniel Burnham and Frederick Law Olmsted, the designers.”

  Robby looked at the postcards one by one. “What did you mean about Columbus not discovering America? You mean like the Vikings or the Indians or something?”

  She looked at him for a moment, gathering her thoughts. “Oh well, yes, them, but also Columbus had charts, in Spanish or Portuguese, I think, so he obviously was hardly the first person to set foot on the continent. Even among Italian explorers.” She took a new tack. “Did you know that all that about no one knowing Leif Eriksson was here is also nonsense? The Vatican has record of a Bishop of Vinland and Thule from before Columbus was even born. What I don’t understand is why we continue to believe things that just aren’t true. Like how everyone thought the Earth was flat. All you have to do is look at the ocean and you can see the surface of the Earth is curved.”

  Good old Aunt Ivy always had some provocative new information or theory about history and geography. Robby loved being around her.