Almost Perfect

by Brian Katcher

  But when it comes down to it, you kissed a man. And really enjoyed it. And that makes you …

  “I’m not gay!”

  Maybe not, Logan. But you liked kissing Sage. You wanted to do more.

  “I didn’t know she was a guy!”

  So? You thought Sage would be your girlfriend if you were patient enough. You could have gone out with a real girl, but you were holding out for Sage. You were going to take him to prom.

  I leapt to my feet. “She tricked me!”

  You wanted to screw him. Don’t deny it.

  “I DIDN’T KNOW! IT DOESN’T COUNT!”

  Logan’s a queer! Logan’s a fag!

  “I didn’t know!” Suddenly, to my horror, I realized this dialogue wasn’t going on in my head. I’d been screaming out loud. Terrified, I looked out the door of the shed. Our yard and the road in front of it were deserted.

  I returned to my weight bench and began hefting the barbell.

  I thought Brenda was the one. But she wasn’t.

  Sweat rolled down my face, into my ears.

  I thought Sage would help me forget her. But she was a liar, too.

  A lone June bug, still alive in spite of the frost, buzzed around the roof.

  All I ever wanted was for a girl to like me. I got so excited when Brenda liked me, I never noticed she was having second thoughts. And I was so into Sage, I just assumed things would work out. That I could help her with whatever was bothering her.

  The barbell clanked against the brace as I lowered it too far.

  What is that expression? Fool’s paradise. When I was happy, I just thought everything was going okay. But things weren’t okay. How can I ever ask a girl out again? Sage’s betrayal tops Brenda’s. Christ only knows what the next girl I date might do.

  I let the weight fall back into the rack.

  It’s never going to work out for me. I came so close, but close only counts with horseshoes and hand grenades.

  chapter thirteen

  THAT WEEK, it warmed up and most of the snow melted. That was a good thing; I was not in the mood to shovel drive ways. In fact, I wasn’t in the mood to do much of anything. After school, I’d go home and lock myself in my room and listen to music, or go to the shed and lift weights. I went three days without seeing Mom. Jack called me a couple of times, but I pretended like I wasn’t home.

  Sage came back to school the next Monday. Not to bio, thank God. I saw her in the hall between classes. For a moment, I mistook her for Tammi. She seemed like she had shrunk. Maybe it was because she was hunched down. Or walking slowly, less sure of herself than before. When she noticed me, she immediately hurried away.

  I grinned as I opened my locker. Sage was afraid of me. Scared. Timid. She’d think twice before treating a guy like that again. If she knew what was good for her, she’d keep to herself from now on. Not be so friendly, so joking. No longer be herself.

  I paused. No longer be Sage. Was that really a good thing? Did I really want her to become something else because of me?

  I slammed the locker. Whatever she was going through, she’d brought it on herself. I was the one who’d been wronged. It was all her fault.

  That Sunday, Jack stopped by the trailer to remind me that we were playing touch football that afternoon. I told him I didn’t feel good, but he refused to take no for an answer. Eventually, I let him drive me out to the game.

  Once or twice a month, about a dozen of us would gather in the dirt lot that might or might not have been part of Veterans Park. We called it touch football because sometimes a junior higher or a girl would join us. However, every game eventually descended into all of us pounding on each other in the mud.

  We’d stand in a huddle as Jack barked off plays more elaborate than the Normandy invasion. Then we’d run out on the field and plow into the other team until someone crashed into the bike rack that marked the end zone.

  I normally loved these games. I’d convinced myself that playing in these pickup matches meant that it didn’t matter that I couldn’t make the real team. Today, I was just bored. What was the point of all this? I wanted to go back home and be alone.

  I glumly took my place opposite a big blond nineteen-year-old named Chad. Jack’s brother threw a pass to Tim. Tim wasn’t expecting that (normally, all he did was block). He stared at the ball for a second before being dog piled by the other team. First down.

  It happened when we were about to score the first touchdown. Chad tried to tackle one of our guys, and I blocked him a little roughly. His nose banked off my forehead.

  “Ouch!” he yelped, clutching his bleeding nose.

  “Sorry.” I was already wandering back to my position.

  Chad had pulled a wad of tissue from his jeans pocket. “Just watch it, faggot.”

  He probably hadn’t meant anything by it. When you’re a teenage guy, you pepper your conversations with faggot, butt munch, and douche bag. In the strange world of male bonding, questioning someone’s sexuality and hygiene was a way to demonstrate friendship and camaraderie. Unfortunately for Chad, I was overly sensitive about my sexual identity that day.

  “What did you call me?” I bellowed. Chad, who was blowing his bloody nose, looked back at me with surprise.

  “What did you call me?” I shouted again, enraged. Chad took a step backward.

  The other players were staring at us. Chad, unsure of why I was screaming, blinked at me.

  “I, um …”

  I balled my hands into fists. “Don’t you ever call me that, asshole!”

  If Chad had apologized, I might have realized how much I was overreacting. But you don’t show weakness. Not at a football game with your friends.

  “What’s the matter, pussy?” he taunted, unsure of how he’d been roped into this. “The truth hurt?”

  I grabbed him by his nylon jacket so hard I heard fabric rip. “Take that back, you son of a bitch! I swear, I’ll fuck you up.”

  Chad pulled away, and for a second we almost went at it. When Jack laid a hand on my shoulder, I nearly jumped him.

  “Whoa, whoa there, guys,” said Jack with a forced laugh. “Let’s calm down. No harm, no foul.” Chad started to back off.

  “He’s beggin’ for it!” I yelled, pointing at Chad.

  “You want some of this?” he countered. His eyes darted toward one of his teammates, who shrugged. He didn’t know what the fight was about, either.

  “Then let’s do it!” I started to pull off my jacket when Jack put his hand on my shoulder again. This time it wasn’t a friendly tap, but a restraining grab.

  “Walk away, Logan.” He was not smiling. Tim had quietly joined us and was standing at my other side.

  “But …”

  Jack suddenly sounded quite serious. “Walk away.”

  Jack didn’t release my shoulder until we were almost to the parking lot. Then I twisted free. I turned to my friends. Tim looked at me with concern.

  “Uh, Logan, what the hell was that about?”

  “You heard what he called me! I ought to go back there. …”

  Jack frowned. “Jesus Christ, Logan, so what? I’ve called you worse than that. He was just talking.”

  “So that’s the way it is?” I hollered back. “You’re taking his side?”

  “No one said that. Would you calm down?”

  “Fuck you. If you won’t stand up for me …” I waved my arm vaguely and stomped off.

  When I arrived home, I was ready to punch something. But everything in the trailer was too cheap to stand up to any abuse. By the time I got to the backyard to kick the hell out of the burn barrel, my anger had subsided. I now lay curled up on the couch.

  So some guy called me a faggot and I went nuts. You didn’t exactly have to be Freud to make sense of that. If I didn’t get myself under control, and fast, Sage’s secret would be the least of my problems. I had to remind myself that Sage made a very convincing girl, convincing enough to totally fool me. She was no taller than a lot of women, and that was r
eally the only giveaway. How had she achieved that? How long had she been pretending to be female? Her parents must have allowed it, at least at home. Why on earth would a boy want to be a girl? I almost wished I was still talking to her so I could find out.

  When someone knocked on the door, I knew who it had to be. Tim and Jack stood on the concrete slab that passed for our porch. They had looks of grim determination on their faces. Kind of like furniture repossessers: they had an unpleasant job to do, but they’d see it through nonetheless.

  Jack was holding the football, twisting it in his hand. “Can we come in?”

  That drove home how crazy things had gotten. They hadn’t asked permission to come into the trailer since elementary school.

  “Yeah.”

  We all sat down, and for a minute, there was nothing but silence. Jack stood up and began pacing like a small dog on a short chain.

  “So who won?” I asked after a bit.

  “The game kind of ended when you left. Logan, what the hell were you trying to prove?”

  I attempted to smile. “Lost my temper. Sorry.”

  Now, normally, that’s all a guy needed to say. Men don’t discuss their feelings. Sorry usually covered just about any mistake.

  Jack and Tim didn’t smile. Tim sat in the recliner looking solemn. Jack tossed the football into the air until it almost kerbonged the ceiling fan.

  “Logan,” he said, still looking up. “Your mom called me yesterday.”

  “Very funny.” But no one was laughing.

  “He’s serious,” said Tim. “She called me too.”

  My eyes widened. “Why would she call you?”

  For the first time in years, Jack stood motionless. “She wanted to know if you were on drugs.”

  “What would she think that for? She knows I’m not into that shit.”

  Jack and Tim exchanged glances. “That’s what we told her,” said Tim. “But she said that for the past week you’ve been hiding in your room. Said you were acting all angry and wouldn’t talk to her.”

  Jack spun the football on the coffee table. “We thought you were just pissed off. But today at the game … Logan, you’re not doing meth, are you?” He wasn’t kidding. That was a serious question.

  “No, I’m not on meth.” I was too embarrassed to pretend to be indignant. “I guess I really went nuts back there.”

  Tim smiled, just a bit. “I wouldn’t go back to the game next month if I were you. Listen, Logan. We know what’s bothering you.”

  I had been getting up to get some sodas, but I froze. They can’t possibly know.

  “So she lied to you,” said Tim. “You’re not the only guy that’s ever happened to.”

  I leaned against our entertainment center, trying to act like I wasn’t bracing myself. The trailer suddenly looked unfamiliar, like this was all some sort of post-enchilada nightmare I was having. Jack and Tim wouldn’t look at me. They knew Sage was a guy. They thought I was gay. Now I was going to have to run off and join the navy so I wouldn’t have to spend the rest of my life living this down.

  “Who told you?” I shrieked.

  Tim suddenly looked uncomfortable. “Jack did. It’s not exactly a secret at school.”

  I was about to cry. Everyone knew Sage was a boy. She must have told. Or they’d figured it out.

  “Logan,” said Jack in a tone like someone trying to communicate with a drunk. “She’s not worth it! I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Brenda wasn’t even all that pretty.”

  They aren’t talking about Sage. They think this is still about Brenda.

  I managed to smile, my first real smile in over a week. “Yeah. I know. Listen, thanks for being worried. But I’m not on drugs, and I promise I’ll try to calm down. And, um, you know. Thanks.”

  After Jack and Tim made their escape, I propped my feet up on the table. Sage was gone, and my problems were more in my head than anywhere else. The solution was never to think of her again. In a few months, I’d leave Boyer forever, and she’d be less than a memory.

  Mom was working the lunch shift. She arrived home at about six looking like she’d spent the past ten hours slopping pigs. In a way, she had; I’d eaten at Ron’s before.

  It took Mom a minute to compute that the dishes on the table weren’t just a mess I’d left for her. For my first attempt at cooking dinner, it didn’t turn out too badly: slightly burned burgers, undercooked vegetables, and rolls that didn’t look nearly as fluffy as the picture on the can.

  “What’s all this?” asked my mother warily. She was torn between her joy that I’d cooked and her fear that I must have done something really bad.

  I finished tossing the salad, hoping she wouldn’t notice that I’d accidentally made it with cabbage rather than lettuce. “Dinner,” I replied, and she left it at that.

  We didn’t talk much as we ate, though several times I caught Mom looking at me with a mixture of relief and curiosity. I hoped this made her realize that her drug fears were unfounded. Things were finally returning to normal.

  chapter fourteen

  JANUARY WAS a good month. I stopped hanging out in the shed and got back to work. I earned so much money shoveling snow and doing odd jobs that I was able to pay for the repairs when the trailer’s furnace died. Mom hated to take the money, but … well, you know. I think the fact that I was working and showing responsibility again was what convinced her I didn’t have a drug problem.

  As for Sage, the only time I ever saw her was in the halls. I’d look away every time. She never made an effort to talk to me, either. I’d see Tammi, too. She’d usually sneer at me, but she never said anything.

  I wanted to banish Sage to the corner of my mind reserved for those I hated, along with Hitler, Bin Laden, and whoever stole my weed eater last year. But I found myself remembering her at odd times, wondering what she was doing and what she was thinking about me. Whenever I caught myself, I’d mentally replay that scene in her living room. I had to remind myself of how she had betrayed and deceived me.

  Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why Sage wasn’t honest about her … situation right from the start. She could have told me the truth when I asked her out the first time. Or after the movies, when I tried to kiss her. Or at the basketball courts. Or a thousand other times. Then we could have just been friends. I never would have made a move, had I known.

  Then again, how do you tell a friend something like that? Could you pass the salt, Logan? Oh, and by the way, I’m really a boy. Shit, I would have run for the hills! I wouldn’t have been able to think of anything else. I would have asked Mr. Elmer to move me to a different table in biology.

  It was bad enough to know that when things had gotten rough and I’d found out Sage wasn’t what I thought she was, I was so hateful to her. Jesus Christ, I’d almost punched her! I’d never imagined I was capable of that. It scared me.

  I guess no one could blame me for my initial reaction—all things considered, I’d kept my cool. But later, at the cemetery, I’d called Sage some names … said some things that I shouldn’t have. Looking back, it would have been better if I’d just kept my mouth shut and let her talk. Then, when she was done, I could have said, Sage, under the circumstances, I don’t think we should see each other anymore. We wouldn’t have parted as friends, but there wouldn’t be all that hate. And I regretted throwing away the blanket she’d made me. That was a dick move, no matter how you looked at it.

  Recently, I had begun contemplating whether I should talk to Sage again. I could take her to some isolated place and explain why I’d been so disgusted.

  The only problem with that was I had no idea how to put any of my feelings into words. All I knew was that Sage brought out something in me I didn’t like. A violent, paranoid man. Whatever she was trying to do with her life was none of my concern. We’d avoid each other from now on. It was better that way.

  On the day after Valentine’s Day, the skies opened and it poured. Missouri rain can be harsh, second only to (your state’s na
me). Mom insisted I take her old station wagon to school; she had a friend drive her to work.

  Using our English books as hats, Jack and I hurried to my car. The windshield instantly fogged up. Rather than wait five minutes for it to clear, I sailed my way off school grounds, peering blindly though a tiny patch just above the heater vents.

  Through the flapping, erratic movement of the wipers, I spotted a pedestrian. A girl. Someone in a glaring yellow rain slicker. She carried a folded umbrella by her side and stared up at the clouds like a drowning turkey. There was something familiar about her; in fact, she kind of looked like …

  “There’s Sage,” said Jack, wiping his window with his sleeve.

  I made no comment and just kept driving.

  “Aren’t you going to give her a ride?” Jack realized Sage and I were no longer close, but he didn’t think I was going to let her stand out there in the rain.

  “No.” I wasn’t going to offer, and I doubted she would accept.

  “It’s pouring,” he said as if I hadn’t noticed.

  “She won’t drown.”

  “Lemme put it this way,” said Jack. “Give her a ride.”

  There’s a fine line between being hurt and being an asshole. Maybe by giving Sage a lift I could show that I’d calmed down. Even though she’d hurt me worse than Brenda had, I’d gain nothing by making her live in fear of me. Just one final, friendly gesture to the girl who’d baked me cookies. Sage would realize that so long as she kept her mouth shut about what she really was, I could let bygones be bygones.

  I waited until we were about ten yards away, then braked so hard we almost spun out. Sage jogged to reach my car.

  She looked uncertain as she opened the back door, though she did smile warmly at Jack. We drove in silence. Bitter, uncomfortable silence. All I could think about was her tear-streaked face on New Year’s Day, her telling me the secret I wished I had never found out. And I’m sure Sage had her own nasty memories of me as well.

  Jack began to squirm. I think he realized Sage and I were happier not seeing each other. He nervously crossed and uncrossed his legs.