to this topic,
this opinion
before.
A year ago, Simon Adderly,
spiffy new first violinist,
turned out to be a
“special friend” of Viktor Jensen,
the orchestra’s executive director.
And now whenever Simon
has questions about anything—
say the tempo
for some piece of music,
the Interloper comes home and
explodes into tirades
about this “light in the loafers” guy.
(And people in the arts
are supposed to be more enlightened?
Another stereotype bites the dust.)
“There’s no way he’d be
bringing it up at all
if he wasn’t
Viktor’s little boyfriend!”
The real problem
isn’t that a lowly musician
expresses his thoughts about music to
the “great maestro.”
It’s that he’s gay
when he does it.
Claude the Interloper, great
conductor of the philharmonic,
stabs his food with energy
that would make
a serial killer’s mom proud.
“Who the hell
does that little fag
think he is?”
The f word is going too far.
Mom touches his hand,
nods toward Court.
“Sweetie, that’s enough,”
she says.
Tamed
(by her new breasts?)
he shuts up.
It dawns on me that
if he knew about Willows
my mother’s husband
might actually, secretly
approve of my vandalism.
I eat my salmon
and try not
to think about it.
Saturday’s Tournament
My lucky day.
In the second match
I pinned the champ,
Bechert from Hanover Academy.
A way better wrestler
(great defense, killer offense—
seriously painful)
who made a dumb mistake.
I went on to finals
while he languished
in the consolation rounds.
I won second,
he took fourth,
and his eyes were daggers
when I got the medal.
Riding the yellow bus
back to school,
Vanessa curled against me,
feels like another lucky win
(maybe undeserved?).
Teammates drowse away
various injuries.
Singlets stiff
dried sweat
BO, stringy hair.
Vanessa touches
her second-place
medal for 103
to my second-place
medal for 152.
“Twins.” She smiles.
There’s a red lumpy mouse
of a bruise over my eye
which by tomorrow will be
swollen shut,
a monster face.
“You’d better hope not,
this thing’s gonna be ugly,”
I say.
She laughs, low,
kisses me.
Even as I kiss her back,
a little tongue,
I wonder for a second
what it would be like
to have
that smooth cheek,
long hair.
But it doesn’t mean anything.
Now that we’re doing it
I’m better.
That word is quiet.
Flannigan, the thirty-five pounder,
pops his head over the seat.
“Get a room, Casanova.”
Vanessa flips him off
but she’s laughing.
“Drive you home?”
she asks me.
“You know it,” I say.
It takes a long time
to get to my house
from a meet
with a detour down to
Mono Cove—
its nickname earned
through the years,
a place to catch
the kissing disease.
Bluff hidden
private
tucked away
tiny beach
salt-air smell
in our noses
surf pounding
in our ears
aching bodies
come to comfort.
Questions slide back
the waves
at low tide.
I love the feeling
just afterward, too.
Nuzzling love
soft whispers
quiet jokes.
I wish more
than anything (almost)
we could go to sleep
and wake up
the next day
together.
Because Going Home Is Such a Ride
Rain-painted headlights
sweep past in the mist,
I stare at them
to avoid looking
at Willows
when we
go by.
I’m better
in my body
but guilty
in my brain
of taking
my freak
out on them.
And I know
I need to
do something
to soothe my mind,
my conscience.
Sunday Night at Andy’s House
“You guys doin’ it?”
His question out of nowhere.
My thumbs stab the controller.
“None of your business.”
“Oh, Dude! That means
you’re not,” he says. Laughs.
The weird thing is that evasion
might have been the case. Before.
I might’ve even implied
doing the deed. Before.
It’s different now.
This connection,
more than physical,
makes me careful.
I’m protecting her,
protecting us
protecting We.
I raise my eyebrows,
shrug, as if to say,
“What can I do, she won’t put out?”
I’m very manly.
Online Before Bed
I feel even manlier
when I
figure out
a way to
make it up
to Willows.
To that girl.
I discover
the cost
of replacing a window
that size
equals
half my allowance
for the next
five months.
I’ll send money
every week
till then.
And the final payment
will wipe
my conscience clean.
(Angel)
The Second-to-Last Present I Got
from the Sperm Donor
was a pair of boxing gloves
the bite
five years ago, handed over
with a sarcasm attitude, I thought,
of the belt
on Christmas Day
in the morning
stings but
That night he caught me again
this time in heels and eye shadow,
doesn’t cut
Wilderness camp didn’t work. So he
beat me one last time. “No kid of mine”
like words—
and “Don’t come back,”
the last present I got from anyone
Freedom.
&nb
sp; I Showed Up at Tía Rosa’s
one-bedroom apartment
on Christmas night.
“Lo siento,” Mama’s sister
crooned over and over—
warm washcloth
on my cuts. We
sat on the edge of
the tub.
My three little cousins
crowded into
the steamy bathroom
around us.
“Lo siento, Angel.”
Eyes huge at me,
my bruises.
She wanted to call the cops—
I didn’t let her.
Lord knows I hate
the Sperm Donor
but I love Frankie more.
And no one needs to see
their father taken away
in cuffs.
I begged my aunt to just
let me stay with her.
She worked a lot.
Hotel maid in the morning,
cleaning other people’s houses
later in the day.
I watched my cousins
so she could quit paying
the crabby lady across the hall
to look in on ’em
and it was all good
till Rosa’s fiancé moved in.
Gonna Ignore Those Bad Manners
’Cause Baby Jesus’s birthday
is still the Most Wonderful
Time of the Year.
After I buy Frankie’s present
(funkadelic PacSun sweatshirt)
I do a little holiday shopping
for the kids at the center.
Yeah—I’m in school—
part-time job,
counting my pennies.
But, Girl, I know how
it feels to not get
one single present
at Christmas.
Like the world forgot
you because you
weren’t what it
was expecting.
And I know
one lip gloss tube
if what you
isn’t gonna erase
really wanted
years of getting a
was just a
toy fire engine
baby doll
action figure
Barbie
football
tutu
plastic gun
manicure set.
I’m all for what they call
gender-neutral toys.
Girls can like football
boys can play with dollhouses
and it doesn’t mean a thing.
But when you know you’re a girl and
you ONLY get boy toys
(and not the yummy boy toys you can
play with when you’re older)
then Christmas is
the Most Suckiest Time of the Year.
So I fill
my dollar-store bag
with little presents:
shiny bangles
nail polish
scented body lotion
trial-sized Christmas cheer.
For myself, three dollars’ worth
of symphony carols
plus a pair of red-sparkle tights.
Just call me Miss Santa!
Back at the Center
everyone’s checking out
the artist-type hottie
standing on a ladder
painting letters on the
window we replaced weeks ago.
Willows has to pay for that—
insurance only covered the glass itself.
I pray again the asshole’ll get caught—
a regular prayer on my list now.
I start to feel like that Grinch
and I hate it,
so I snap myself out by asking a regular,
Daniella, to help me wrap presents.
I’ll leave some without cards
for extra just in case
but there’s a set of hair clips
I know have to go to Liberty.
They have hummingbirds,
her totem I guess you’d say.
Daniella cops an attitude.
“Why you give anything to
THAT skank? She pumps!”
Some girls do.
Not safe
but hard sometimes
to wait for hormones
to kick in
and even with their help,
you usually wind up a cup size
smaller than your mama—
so if your mama
had no tits to speak of,
you won’t either.
Not without surgery
or pumping.
Some girls
think pumping
is trashy—
judge those who go
to pumping parties,
strip down in apartments
or hotel rooms,
let someone with
no medical connection
inject that silicone
right into their
chests, hips, lips.
Dangerous, like I said.
Lopsided tits sometimes
aren’t the worst of it—
silicone gets in your lymph nodes
or lungs and shit.
I hand the tape to Daniella. I usually try
not to preach—but sometimes …
“Girl? Don’t you know
it’s the season of kindness?
“Your tolerance would be the
best present for everyone.
“Including yourself.”
She’s huffy, but quiet.
Thinking, I hope.
Because Honestly
is it trashy
to want something so bad
you go for it
even if it might kill you?
My opinion?
It’s judging that’s trashy.
Bad enough the world looks at us
under a (distorted) microscope.
Like the good Lord says,
we don’t need to
judge each other.
(BRENDAN)
O
Christmas Tree.
“Wake up! Up! Up! Up!”
Courtney jumping on my bed.
I open one eye (the only one I can).
“Go away, squirt.” “Get up! We’re getting
a tree!” Every year, even without Dad, Chase
Family Tradition. Four-hour
round-trip to kill a tree for Christ.
We wear flannel shirts, pose for the
holiday card: “Look! A family of lumberjacks
living in the wilds of Wisconsin” or
something. Mom fills a thermos:
hot chocolate. (It must get down to fifty
degrees two hours northeast of San Diego,
got to stave off hypothermia.) She’s mad
about my eye. “It’ll spoil
the Christmas card!” Claude claps
me on the shoulder. “It just shows the
world he’s the man!” He’s proud. Like he’s
the one who got injured and still went on to
pin the kid from Lind High to the mat. Must be
hard to be a nerdy philharmonic
orchestra conductor when you have
the soul of a caveman. Still, I go along.
Flex my muscles, wield the saw, wipe my
brow, sniff my pits, smile for the camera, gulp
hot chocolate, burp without apology.
I AM THE MAN.
No Doubt
About It.
Home from the Ordeal
Claude the Interloper uncoils
white twinkle lights while
Mom puts cinnamon rolls
in the oven.
Court settles in
at the coffee table,
an explosion of markers,
Mom’s stationery and envelopes
a mess around
her.
She’s writing Santa a letter.
“Looky, looky!”
So proud.
“Very good,”
I tell her, though it’s
just her name over and over—
the only thing she knows how to spell.
“Can you help her?”
Mom calls from the kitchen.
“Sure—just a minute.”
I grab a handful
of blue envelopes
to take up to my room.
I’ll send
them to
Willows with
cash inside
and
some-
day
be
able
to
forget
about
that night.
When I head back down
to take dictation
from a five-year-old
I’m feeling pretty good.
(Vanessa)
Early Christmas Present
from my mom.
We’re in the kitchen.
I’m inhaling a plate
of apple slices,
she’s keeping me company.
“Oh, I almost forgot!”
She grabs something
from her purse,
hands me
tickets to the Nutcracker matinee.
“I thought you could take Julie
or Tanya.” She’s smiling.
Guess she hasn’t noticed
I don’t really hang out with them
too much anymore.
I called Tanya again to apologize
but she just repeated what Julie said,
like a parrot:
“We like you and we like
Brendan, but we don’t
like you together.”
and that’s bullshit.
I’m sorry if they’re mad
but there’s nothing I can do about it.
It’ll blow over eventually. Until then …
“I’ll take Brendan,” I say.
As if he wants
to watch ballet
(like I want
to watch ballet?).
I get that look.
“What?”
Mom goes to the sink.
She rinses her paisley teacup,
part of a set I made for
her birthday,
then comes back
to sit with me.
“I’m glad you and Brendan
enjoy each other”—
I can tell she’s being careful—
“but it would be a mistake to
exclude everyone else.”
She does that serious-Mom
look-you-right-
in-the-eye thing.
“There’s so much more
to life than having a boyfriend—
and you need your friends, too.”
“Are you saying
I can’t bring Brendan?”
“I’m just saying you
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