by Diana Wieler
A.J. leaned into the slam with his big shoulder, and sent Tully staggering backwards, clattering hard into some shelves. It was a solid, satisfying check and A.J. leapt forward to finish it.
But he had forgotten how quick Tully was, how strong he was. A forearm snapped A.J.’s head back in a painful explosion. He reeled into a chair, gouging himself. But when Tully grabbed for him, he grabbed, too, and they flipped and stumbled and swung and dragged each other up until … until …
A.J.’s arm was wrenched behind his back, the socket screaming. The textured wall dug into the side of his face.
“Is that it?” Tully hissed into his ear. He shoved again, harder. “Is that everything?” A.J. clenched his teeth to keep from crying out. He nodded. Tully pushed himself away.
A.J. slumped heavily against the wall, his breath like a furnace on his face.
Tully walked a few steps, swaying. When he got to the windows, he leaned on the ledge, which came up under his armpit. Then he put his hand over his face.
A.J. closed his eyes. He’d gotten stitches once, when he was eight. Tobogganing down a hill, he’d slid into a barbed wire fence, tearing his pants and gashing himself. One of the kids screamed and the other one started to cry, there was so much blood. But it didn’t hurt.
His dad had rushed him to the hospital, the leg wrapped in ice. The doctor had shot him full of Novocaine and put in thirty-two stitches, while A.J. watched in fascinated silence. It still didn’t hurt.
Then A.J. had gone to sleep. And in the night the freezing wore off and the shock wore off and he’d woken up, doubled over and shaking in his bed.
This was exactly like that.
“Don’t go near my family,” Tully said through his hand. “Don’t go near my house.” His voice quavered and he stopped, before it broke.
A.J.’s throat was on fire. It was supposed to be better now, right? He had settled himself with Lavalle and proved himself to Treejack and given Tully the message, even though he’d lost. But it wasn’t any better.
“I’ll never forgive you,” A.J. said thickly.
Tully kicked at the wall and spun around, green eyes glittering.
“There’s nothing to forgive! Why can’t you get that through your head? I don’t need your permission, A.J. How I live and who I love has got nothing to do with you.”
Permission. The word snaked inside A.J.’s head.
Tully turned away again, disgusted. A.J. could not keep himself from staring at the boy’s back. Half of Tully’s shirt had come untucked, and one shoulder seam had ripped.
“I never did that to you,” Tully said, his breath touching the glass. “When you were fighting so bad with your dad, I never said you should do this, or that. You were my friend. I liked you. I really liked you.”
There was only the two of them, barely six feet from shoulder to shoulder. The big room was suddenly as close and familiar as the front seat of the Mustang.
“When did you know, Tul?” A.J. blurted.
“Know what?” Tully said tiredly.
“When did you know? How did you know?”
Tully looked up. A.J. hadn’t moved. He was still a shadow huddled against a dark wall. But Tully’s eyes had adjusted now, and he could see the outline of A.J. clearly. So big. So handsome. So scared.
“I was seven,” Tully started quietly. “I know I was seven because that was the year I got my red two-wheeler. You know, the one in the garage?”
A.J. nodded, not understanding what this had to do with anything.
“I was sitting on my bike near the gate in the backyard,” Tully continued. “It had to be a Saturday because Mom and Dad were both home. They were standing in front of the garden, not looking at me, just talking about what they were going to put in that year. It was like a photograph somehow, Mom and Dad and the house and the garden, all pressed into this picture. And sitting there on my bike, I just knew that I didn’t fit there. It wasn’t ever going to be my picture, not even when I grew up.”
A.J. was stunned. Seven. This wasn’t what he’d expected. This didn’t have anything to do with sex.
“Was … was there ever a person,” he stammered, his mouth dry. “Was there ever somebody … that … that started it?”
Tully snorted. “I’m not going to recount my entire adolescence, if you don’t mind. Of course there was somebody.”
“How did you know that was it? How did you know that it wasn’t just maybe that one person you liked who … who …” A.J. broke off, choking.
Tully took a step closer. “A.J., what are you trying to say?”
A.J. closed his eyes. Goddamn him. Goddamn him for not knowing.
“Everybody wants you, Tully.” He rushed the words out, trembling. “Can’t you see that? Everybody loves you and everybody wants you, even if they can’t, even if they shouldn’t.”
The realization settled on Tully like snow. “Even you?” he said.
“Yes,” A.J. whispered. A car rumbled past in the street, a small vibration in the floor and walls.
“I’ve always wanted you,” Tully said quietly, finally.
A.J. did not speak. There was a hurricane roaring inside his ears. His heart was thudding so hard he was afraid he would black out. The night had stopped.
He ran his hands over his face. How had this awful moment ever gotten into his life? I’m just a regular guy, A.J. thought numbly. I play hockey. I go to school. I live in this crummy little city in the middle of nowhere. I’m just so freaking regular. Except I want to die.
A.J. folded his arms over his chest and stared at the floor. “I’m scared, Tul,” he said. “This can’t be happening — but I don’t know how to stop it. What are we going to do?”
Tully was dizzy. It was like he was standing at the edge of a precipice, and even though he was so high, every detail was sharp, exhilaratingly clear. He could hardly believe this opportunity was in front of him, the one he had never dared wish for, the one he could throw his heart into. The very rush of air urged him over, pulled at him like a magnet.
And he knew it was wrong. Knowing A.J., knowing himself, it was completely wrong. This time Tully took a breath and stepped back, away from the edge.
“Nothing,” he said. “We’re going to do nothing.”
A.J. wondered if he’d heard right.
Tully leaned back against the wall that had the window. “Look,” he said. “It’s no big deal to have a crush on somebody. Everybody has crushes. But there’s a big difference between having a crush and being gay.”
“What’s the difference?” A.J. asked softly.
“How do you explain the colour red to somebody who’s never seen it?” Tully wondered aloud. “Jesus, I don’t know.”
But the silence told him he had to explain it, that it mattered very much. Tully tried again. “I know what you’re thinking, what you’re worrying about. But don’t. If you were gay you’d know by now. You don’t turn twenty-one and wake up one morning to find a note from God on your pillow.” A pause. “This is me, but it isn’t you, A.J. As real and as scary as it seems right now, for you it’s going to go away. Not today, not tomorrow, but pretty soon. And that day we’ll both be glad that we didn’t let anything happen.”
A.J. finally had the courage to lift his eyes, and he was overwhelmed. He thought he knew that face, but this man’s profile cut into the window light, he hardly knew at all.
When had it happened? the boy wondered. How had Tully grown up in less than a season, less than a semester? When had he learned such control?
A.J. felt small and sick and alone. A corner of his heart resented that Tully wasn’t going to be alone, even with Derek Lavalle out of the picture. There would be somebody new because there always was. Tully was one of those people other people loved.
“They’re going to find out some day,” A.J. said, meaning the whole world but thinking of Treejack and Doerkson. “They’re going to find out and it’s going to be rough.”
“Hey, I’m Prince Charming, remember
?” Tully said, bitterness sharpening the words. “There’s only six months before grad, anyway. School’s the worst.”
School. That reality jogged A.J. He pushed himself off the wall. He started walking around to restore his circulation, moving his shoulder gingerly.
“I think you broke my freaking arm,” he said.
“That’s nothing compared to what Summer’s going to do.”
A.J. stopped. The memory of her snapped open inside him like a switchblade. For an instant he saw her vividly, backing away from him, her hands clutching her shirt.
“I have to see her,” A.J. blurted. “Right now.”
“What? Are you nuts? It’s after one o’clock,” Tully said.
A.J. wavered. Maybe he should just let it go, for now. He could call tomorrow. Or sometime. Or …
He shook the thought off and took a breath. “Tonight, Tul. I scared her, and I … I hurt her, and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to say, but it’s got to be tonight.”
Tully just looked at him. A.J. couldn’t guess what was going on behind those green eyes. Finally he smiled, a little grimly. “I’ve got something to tell her, too,” he said. “Let’s go.”
They moved silently across the floor, heading for the stairway. But halfway up the stairs, A.J. hesitated. Tully almost stepped up into him, then backed down.
“What?” he said.
A.J. stared straight ahead. “I know what you said about you and me not being the same, Tul. But I can’t risk it. I can’t ever have the chance to know, for sure.”
“No,” Tully promised. “Never.”
A.J. swallowed. “I’ve got to have my weights back. In my house. Tonight.”
It was a wounded silence. A.J. knew Tully didn’t believe how necessary this was. But after a moment the other boy said, “Sure. Whatever you want.” Tully reached up and thunked A.J. solidly on the back. “Let’s go,” he said again. And they walked up into the light.
SEVENTEEN
AND SO A.J. started lifting again. When he set up the weights in his room, he was surprised by how inconsequential they looked — just the small bench and slender bar; the innocuous plates and bells. In his head the past few months, they had seemed much, much bigger.
He woke up looking at them and went to sleep too tired to dream. “Every time you drop one of those things, I think somebody keeled over,” June said, but the weights filled the gap. And in the longest, coldest months of the prairie winter, there were a lot of gaps. A.J. had found out what Tully already knew. When Summer got mad, she stayed mad.
Facing her that night had been punishment in itself. Stammering, shy, he’d told her about the fight with Lavalle, and getting suspended from the team, and Treejack.
“So you were feeling threatened and stressed,” Summer analyzed in her merciless way. “You think that makes you something special? Welcome to the human race, He-man. Everybody has troubles, but that doesn’t entitle them to attack people. You would have thought of that — if you ever thought of anything except yourself.”
She cut and cut, and he sat, his hands clasped, bleeding silently. But he had to let her settle the score her way.
“I hope you didn’t come here to apologize,” she finished flatly, “because if you did, I don’t accept it.”
Tully’s story she accepted, so calmly and so quickly A.J. was bewildered. There was something about families — or girls, or Summer — that defied him. It was almost as if she’d known, as if she’d been expecting this.
A.J. had not expected it. Listening to Tully made him break into a cold sweat. Summer just said, “Oh, Tulsa.” Then she launched into a drill about safe sex, so detailed and knowledgeable that Tully rolled his eyes, and A.J. blushed into third-degree burns.
January was a cold month. A.J. divided his time between home — the weights — and school. Doerkson and Rasmussen, even Treejack, pestered him to hang around. Word about his spectacular goal had gotten out. It was almost as though his suspension didn’t count, or that it somehow added to the mystique. Bad Boy, A.J. thought, shaking his head. He shrugged their invitations off.
He went to the outdoor rink late in the evenings, when it was too cold and too dark to be crowded. He skated endless laps, and ran relentlessly through the drills he hated, letting the pain and exhaustion soak him like rain.
This is how you’re safe, the boy thought, racing under the moon. This is how you’ll be sane.
That didn’t keep him from knocking on Landau’s door the first day of February. The verbal whipping was everything he’d expected, and more. A.J. felt the objections rising up his esophagus like breakfast, but he clamped his mouth shut. Landau, like Summer, had the right to his shot.
Eventually the coach ran out of steam, and relented. “But don’t go getting cocky,” he warned. “You’re on probation, mister. You’re marginal.”
So what else is new? A.J. thought.
It was after one of his first practices, when he was just starting to feel settled again and thinking that his plan was working, that Tully wandered by the sink while A.J. was shaving. “Hey, you want a ride home?” he said.
A.J. almost cut himself. “Nah, it’s okay. I can walk,” he said casually.
Tully was hanging onto both ends of a towel around his neck. “It’s about Summer,” he said quietly. “I’ve got to talk to you.”
The hook reeled him in. In a few minutes A.J. found himself sitting on the passenger side of the Mustang, a place he’d sworn he’d never be again. The rush of nostalgia caught him by surprise — the familiar buttons and dials, the smooth leather seat that was so easy to slide into.
A.J. tried not to show it. He stared out the windshield and asked, “So what’s the trouble with Summer?”
“She’s in a bad way,” Tully said seriously. “She’s pining for you.”
A.J. almost laughed out loud. “Get real! She hates me.
“No, no, I mean it! She mopes around, she can’t sleep. The girl is lovesick.”
A.J. snorted. “She’s probably preoccupied planning my crucifixion.” This time Tully laughed.
“Well, she has had a few estimates done …. You’ve got no idea what a good old-fashioned execution costs these days. Whips, cross, thorns — it all adds up. I tell you,” Tully continued, “when my sister wastes somebody, she does it right.”
A.J. started to giggle. He couldn’t help it.
“And since she’s going to such trouble,” Tully said, “since she’s going to such expense, there’s no need for you to do it yourself.”
A.J.’s grin tightened and shifted. Goal. Unassisted. On a fake shot. You never miss, do you, Tul? A.J. thought. You’ve got the angles down pat. But in his chest, the amazement was running through him like an underground spring. How did Tully know him so well?
They drove quietly through the snowy streets. When they pulled up to A.J.’s house, Tully said, “I didn’t lie.”
“About what?”
“About Summer. She wouldn’t make this much noise if you weren’t important.”
“Oh, sure.”
“Anyhow, I think you should give the kid a break. Thrill her with your presence. Come over and hang around. Even my parents wonder about you. They keep asking why we’ve got so much food in the house these days.” Tully paused. “Everybody misses you, A.J. And there’s no future in being a hermit. No salary, no benefits.”
One side of A.J.’s mouth curled ruefully. “Yeah, but at least I have job security.” He got out of the car.
“See you!” Tully called out his window. A.J. felt a small gust of warmth, like the barest breath of spring, and his hand leapt up in a wave. But then he caught himself. This wasn’t part of the plan. He had it all mapped out in his head, what he had to do and the way it had to be, to be safe.
AJ. stood, watching the snub back end of the Mustang as it roared down the street. Nothing personal, Tul, he thought. Live your life however you want. But don’t expect me to be part of it.
He went inside and up to his room an
d in a few minutes he was under 150 pounds, trying to push it through the ceiling. But he couldn’t help remembering how the laughter had felt in his throat.
In March he received an invitation to his secondcousin Georgette’s wedding. The envelope was addressed to Mr. A. Brandiosa. It shocked him to think he was a Mr. to anybody.
He read over the embossed script on parchment, then tossed it carelessly on the table. His father picked it up.
“Are you going to go?” Decco asked.
A.J. shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably not.”
“Why not?”
A.J. felt an uncomfortable tightening under his rib cage. He pictured himself in the crowded dance hall with all those strangers, or worse, family. He could see himself standing miserably against the wall, alone.
“I don’t have …”
“A date?” June asked, walking into the room.
A.J. coloured from his neck to his hairline. “No. A decent suit. I don’t think my old one fits.”
“Try it,” Decco said.
A.J. tried, grumbling, self-conscious. When he reached down to uncurl his pant leg, he snapped the shoulders out of the jacket.
“I don’t believe it,” Decco said, circling him, surveying the broken seams. “Look at you.”
“Yeah, look at me.” The boy was grinning with amazement. “Now I really don’t have a suit,” he said. “I guess I can’t go.”
“Well, isn’t grad coming up, too?” June asked. The woman clung like a barnacle, A.J. thought. How could she be thinking ahead to his grad when even he wasn’t?
“Maybe we should go look around,” Decco said.
That Saturday A.J. found himself in the unusual circumstance of being out with his father. He stared at the passing scenery, not knowing what to talk about. It was rare for them to be alone these days.
“This is where I go,” Decco said, pulling into a parking lot. “It’s a good store.”
It was a good store, with silver-haired clerks in shiny shoes, and razor-sharp pleats in their flannel pants. There was no music in the background, only the distant hum of a sewing machine.
