“Too big a star for us already, Boogie,” they teased, but our teacher put it another way.
“Maybe he’s holding out for valedictorian,” Mr. Hedgehog said. “Now that’d be a plot twist!” Then he clapped the air in applause.
Boogie was barely passing English, barely passing all his classes, even though, rumor had it, his college test scores set a campus record. Teachers constantly found him dozing in his seat—when he showed—or drawing odd shapes instead of writing answers for fill-in-the-blank exams. For multiple choice or true/false, Boogie placed an X in every box, and for essays, he wrote with backward letters in a cursive hand that caused our English teacher to wrinkle his nose.
“Give a jock a pen,” Mr. Hedgehog said, “and he uses it like a rip saw.”
When he taught Civics, his other subject, he called us “miscreants and reprobates” and pronounced “civilization” like it was a congenitally contracted disease. Close contact with Mr. Hedgehog, we were sure, would be worse than any STD. He’d leave you bloody with quills.
We were riding across the Atchafalaya Basin, Boogie and me, down one of the longest bridges in the world, eighteen miles of concrete rising over muddy swamp. The water below looked nearly black, but it was covered in patches with a green overgrowth that looked like the hide of some prehistoric creature. Through the patches, tall gray trees rose up, bald and spiny, the skeletons of a day when cypress was cut down like reeds. They looked like old debutantes, those trees, with their branches spread out for a waltz and their trunks arranged in billowing rows of pleats. The whole picture was frozen in time, except for the quivering nose of the car and the quick tongue of the running back next to me. For that moment, I had no idea where we were headed and little idea of where we’d been. As if the swamp itself gave us permission, we lifted right out of the car, right out of high school and the roles we played: the football star and the quiz kid, the stag and the fag.
Nearly dizzy from the night heat, I struggled to remember how Boogie ended up in my car. Already painted a Jenny Woman at school, I’d openly set my sights on studying the cheerleader stunts. During the game, I couldn’t tell a route from a sweep, but I knew every step of an arabesque. All season, I followed our football team to away games, this time to a school in Assumption Parish in a town called Confederate. I secretly hoped to join the cheerleaders, to sit on the bus next to the players and their broad backs and wide grins. In the locker room, I might’ve been taunted for the direction of my eye, but in the bleachers I could stare openly at the boys in padded shoulders and tight lace-up pants. And when they lifted each other off the ground or delivered slaps to backs and rear ends, I could throw my hands together with the cheerleaders and yell each player’s name out loud.
After the game in Confederate, I’d sat at a red light, yards behind the school bus, while tumbles and twirls ran through my head and a circle of players huddled before my eyes. Without warning, the passenger door opened and Boogie sat down beside me. He said not a word. He just looked straight ahead until the light turned green.
On the long drive back, he pumped me with questions, and to each one, I lied. Yes, I drank every lewd shot he could name. Yes, I smoked this, snorted that. Yes, I yanked it in the lockers, in the bleachers. Yes, I’d nailed a girl, nailed her good, nailed her again and again. I hadn’t done any of it, not yet, but I knew the signs of a test, and I knew how to score an A. Still, I didn’t know where the test would end. Suddenly, Boogie looked me in the eye and asked, “Ever stick it in a guy?”
I stammered and pretended to look at traffic, not ready to switch on the truth.
“A guy ever stick it in you?”
My eyes stared at the school bus ahead, and my tongue thickened.
“Ain’t any different,” he said. “A hole is a hole.”
The words hit the windshield and burst like fruit. No one had ever talked to me like Boogie, like I was another player on the field. His talk made my ears burn and my head throb, but his voice wasn’t the only one I heard. All around, I heard the furious sound of pent-up laughter. The laughs slipped out of the cracked windows of the school bus ahead, crammed with the rest of the football team, the pep squad, and the cheerleaders. The players rose and fell in shadows against the window with pantomime movements and quick jerking arms. The cheerleaders beat time with their gloved hands, and the pep squad opened their mouths in unison. They looked like they were cheering Boogie and me from the back of the bus, but I knew they weren’t. Already the rumors were starting, already the talk was hitting the air like splinters of glass, clear and piercing. What was Boogie doing with that fag?
I opened my mouth and laughed, a tinny nervous laugh. Boogie laughed along, his eyes shining like copper pennies in a fire. Did either of us know what the hell we were doing together?
To avoid any more of his questions, I started asking Boogie some of my own. Why didn’t he talk in class? I’d seen him write down an answer when Mr. Hedgehog called a question, but Boogie never spoke it out loud. Why?
“Don’t play by the rules,” he said, “when the game is rigged.”
“But what about your grade?” I asked.
“Got that in the bag.”
“How?”
For a moment, Boogie fell silent, his face set in concentration. Whether from the stadium bleachers or the seat next to him, his sturdy body looked built for the game, built for running, catching, and tackling men on a wide field. Yet up close his face looked delicate, like a guy about to play a cornet, with a shadow around his eyes and a worry on his lips. Did he have the breath ready? The notes right?
“Oh, I’ll pass,” he said, almost in a whisper. “Wanna see my study guide?”
I gripped the steering wheel and nodded yes. What would he show me?
The bar was named after one of its lewd shots: Between the Sheets. Only everybody called it Sheets. “Don’t skid the Sheets,” I heard one guy say to a burst of laughter—before a cloud of silence moved overhead. Once Boogie passed through the door, a hand went up in my direction, palm forward. Then a string of eyes lit up, feet spread, and nostrils flared. No one said a word, but I heard them clearly. “What is it you want?” Drinks rattled in glasses, and a funk song throttled the floor. “What is it you want, white boy?”
Suddenly, I wasn’t just the fag. I wasn’t just the queer quiz kid. Here, I was white before all. Even with the red flashes of Sabine skin, even with the wild bush of hair, I wasn’t black. At Sheets, there were only two options, no choice, the same as Boogie’s award at school. Other people may have argued about prairie Cajuns and swamp Cajuns. Other people may have argued about pure French and Sabine French, Creole and mulatto, quadroon and octoroon. Here, there was no argument. Everything was clear as black and white, and I was the pink-eyed opossum in the room.
In the static of the moment, a hand on my shoulder jolted me into a chest-exploding gasp. When Boogie shouted “Boo” into my ear, and I jumped, the rest of the crowd laughed then turned back to pound the bar for more shots. “Slippery Nipple!” “Screaming Orgasm!” “Cocksucking Cowboy!” they hollered, and the names echoed in my head. Down at the end of the bar, Boogie introduced me as “little bro” and told everyone I was there to help with his studies. The guys in jerseys scoffed but looked at me as if a quiz kid might have some use after all. First time at Sheets, first time as “little bro,” I thought. What was next?
Most of the guys towered over me, and their hair rose even higher in geometric shapes, flat tops, blunt sides, sharp tips, sometimes with angular lines cut through the hair and to the scalp. Or else their hair fell in a sheen of loose curls. The cloud of pomade filled my nose like musk, and I would’ve played little bro to any guy in the room. None of them laid a hand on me, though. None grabbed my shoulder. Instead, they barked at the girls in shiny spandex and chunky gold necklaces and grabbed at the air left in their path. Just past the bar, the dance floor filled with couples jerking hips to song
s about freak-a-zoids, robots, and neutron bombs falling from the sky. The whole place shook when a growling singer commanded them to “tear the roof off the sucker” and hands testified when a voice shouted about a black First Lady, but the dance floor really turned to riot with a song about an atomic dog. All at once, everyone shouted “dogcatcher” and bared teeth at the mirror ball as if it was the moon. The glistening bodies and surging beats drove the heat way up until bottles exploded and the guys in jerseys rained forty-ounces of beer over Boogie’s head, and I suddenly remembered they won, our team won, and Boogie’s name would splash all over the papers again. With fiery eyes, he schooled everybody on his moves and boasted of going pro faster than any rookie in history. His voice roared in a way it never did in class, and his hands looked wider than ever as they arced the air. Right then, I wanted to be the hips jerking next to him, the knees dropping to the floor, and the feet twisting into the ground. I wanted to be his freak-a-zoid little bro.
Instead, I was the hands on the wheel leaving the bar, taking directions from Boogie as the car winded through a neighborhood nearly as crooked as the bayou next to it. Lights from another car blazed in the rear view mirror then vanished before blazing again. Houses leaned in and out of view, most with a steep pitched roof and long galley porch. Then Boogie pointed his finger at the only Victorian house I’d seen in Lafayette, with millwork like tattered lace and a small domed doorway. On the steps, he grinned at me, and I grinned back. What would he show me now? At Boogie’s first knock, a voice shouted “Entrez” and he pushed the door open with one hand. The night was hot and damp, but the house was cold and dry, with vents blowing from the floor. A single light clicked on at the end of the hall. Boogie walked straight ahead with sure steps, but I held back and eyed the street. When I heard the hum of a car engine, I slipped inside the house, feeling for the wall and blinking at the dark until my hands tipped over a coat rack. As I set it back, I could barely see the outline of a frock coat. I froze. Now I knew Boogie’s study guide. It wasn’t any spandex girl at Sheets and it wasn’t ever to be me.
Down the hall, Boogie’s hands flagged me toward an open door. His face beamed like a fugitive with a free boat and a way out. On the bed, a man’s bare ass rose in the air, while a white silk nightshirt pooled around his face. Could he see me? I worried. Could he see anything? A chill had me rubbing my arms until Boogie laid his hand on my shoulder.
“You first,” he said.
My hands dug deep into my pockets, and I shrank into my shoes then shook my head. So Boogie dropped his pants and jumped right onto the bed and right into Mr. Hedgehog, thrusting his haunches back and forth with his teeth bared and his head aimed at the ceiling. Outside, the moon shone like a disc of ice, white and cool and quiet. Yet inside, a grunting sound came from the bed, and it wasn’t Boogie. The sheets were twisting and a set of hands were shaking and Mr. Hedgehog started to scream. A shrill sound tore out of his throat and rang overhead. In the window, a face eclipsed the moon. First one, then half a dozen guys in jerseys stared straight at the bed, straight at Boogie riding Mr. Hedgehog. They’d tailed us here, the football players, and now they crowded the window with flared eyes. Boogie didn’t stop, though. He didn’t see them, so he kept thrusting into our teacher while his teammates kept moving their mouths until a loud word rose up, then two: “Dog! Gay dog!”
At that, Boogie’s head whipped down and caught sight of the players in the window. Suddenly, he was the dead-eyed guy in class again, wordless and blank. He slipped out of Mr. Hedgehog, slipped off the sheets and onto the floor. Then Mr. Hedgehog fell too, clawing at the air and gnashing his teeth. He tore a chunk off Boogie’s shoulder and anointed his own skin with the blood. Then he curled into a ball and started moaning about headlines and reputation and a wrecked career.
Boogie’s eyes flickered back to life, and he bolted down the hall, out the back door and hit the ground running. The players howled into the air, shaking the houses awake, then revved their car and left a hot streak on the road. I should’ve busted through the window and emptied my chest to the night. I should’ve torn the roof off the house and chased the players with a mad fury. I should’ve run after Boogie and hollered his name to the moon. But I dropped to the floor and tucked tail, lower than any dog and stiffer than any opossum.
Yet when the cops showed, I found my feet and a story, however wrong or full of lies. I told them Mr. Hedgehog had lured me to his place with the promise of an A and a shot at a trophy. I told them he had pounced on me in his nightshirt and had shoved my face into a pillow. I told them he had a seizure in bed and had fallen to the floor. The teacher stayed silent as a corpse in a morgue. What could he say? That the promise went to a black boy? What could he do? Point his baton at the truth? No, he kept his thin lips shut while I told the cops my sidewinder of a story and Boogie ran free, with his long legs and his strong back leaving not a trace on the ground or a scent in the air.
Behind closed eyes, I followed his moves. He ran all the way down the street to the end of the bayou and right out of this city, right out of this state, right out of history, as far away as his feet could take him. Come winter, he wore a second hide, wrapped himself in a cloak of wool and slept under the northern lights. No one’s dog, he studied the sky and redrew the constellations. No shepherd to heed, no flock to fold, he cut a crisscross path in the snow like a guide for the outlaw and the wayward, the outcast and the misfit. When I finally reached him, he shaded me in the sun, warmed me in the moon. Under his cloak, we lay together, and no one could tell the black sheep from the white or the field of stars from the dome of night.
11.
Feathers
The show was set to begin, signaled by strobe lights, smoke machines, and a red flasher lifted from a cop car. Feathers irritated the air as if in search of a head to dress or a sleeve to drape. Synthesizers accused the dancers of sin, and in answer they raised their hands up to the mirror ball. In a bar full of sweaty men and powder-faced boys, everyone wore a guilty face.
On a pillar near the makeshift stage, a poster announced memorial services for “our angel,” a teenager who died at the end of a bat. In the picture, he was a slip of a girly boy with a slinky boa around his neck and a tilted fedora on his head. I recognized the face but not the painted-on beauty spot. He’d been in the class ahead of me and vanished from campus before the end of the term. Rumors flew in the air yet nothing landed in the papers, not even at school. He got called a lot of names in the locker room but never “angel.” Unlike me, he didn’t deny those names, even when bestowed with a fist. I should’ve spoken up, risen up, but I sank like an empty sack.
Now I wanted to trace his movements, so I headed to the bar where—rumor had it—the angel boy had performed. On my third night in a row, I sat staring at the poster, at that beauty spot, when a bartender’s shaker banged against glass. The crack rang in my ear, and my body shook as if it’d been hit. One of the powder-faced boys offered me a whiff from an amber bottle. The chemical burn made my nose flare and my eyelids twitch, so the boy handed me a damp hankie and told me to hold it to my mouth and suck as if my ever-loving life depended on it.
“Spirits for the spirit,” he said.
Once I huffed, my ears picked up sounds all around me. Through the blur, I could hear two queens conduct a trial for the angel boy’s murder. One blamed a breeder, the other blamed rough trade, but both agreed the cops would never find the basher, would never try.
“When it comes to a dead queen,” one said, “those pigs bury their head in the mud and lose all scent. Trust me, there will be no justice, Mary, and no mercy.”
“Fuck mercy,” the other declared, “This queen seeks vengeance.”
Then the avenging queen turned his quiff my way with a proclamation.
“If one angel falls,” he said, “another will rise.”
After a deep huff on the bottle of poppers, I saw the vision in his eyes. He’d be that rising angel,
his quiff streaked from a bottle of peroxide and a knit halter top stretched tight as cellophane against his breasts. He’d race out the bar with a pistol in hand. Jump in the open window of a white hatchback, throw the stick shift into gear. Speed through the gravel parking lot, take turn after turn as if his wheels were greased for the ride. He’d hang his head out the window, laugh at all the flat-chested boys. Weren’t their nipples little pimple titties? Weren’t theirs eraser-head tits? Weren’t his tits better? They’d win him dates with the barback, the bartender, the bouncer. All the studs and gigolos on the sidewalk, all the ex-quarterbacks and jocks in the alley, wouldn’t they stand back in amazement now, in absolute awe, for his surely were top-shelf, gold star, blue ribbon, head cheerleader, most-popular-boy-at-the-bar breasts. Before the crowd, he’d cock a gun in the air like a flaming blow dryer and shoot a turbo-charged inferno at any basher in the street who dared take a bat to a queen again.
The rush of the bottle left my head, and I saw the angel of vengeance as he now was: a petite wasp-waisted figure in a black velvet jacket. He looked right at me, tossed back a gold shot, then slapped a hand down on the worn oak.
“Senior year,” he said, “that little angel never even finished school. Where’s the mercy in that?”
He shook a hand at the ceiling before bringing it to his chest.
“In my senior year,” the avenging angel said, cutting an exclamation mark in the air with his finger, “they voted me Most Likely to Suck Seed. Positively clairvoyant. After a couple of jocks delivered the award with their fists, I ended up with false teeth that pop out for a blow job. False tits would just complete the set.”
He pointed toward his wigless head, a sign to call him he, he said, not she. He was en route to full-time she but didn’t have the dough for a trip to Mexico and a pair of silicone pillows. Until then, she was only she when she made herself up.
Black Sheep Boy Page 9
