The World of Normal Boys

by K. M. Soehnlein

  Robin looks over to Ruby, who is staring at her hands, her lips moving ever so slightly, as if whispering to a doll. He looks to his mother for help. She waves her hands in front of her, absolving herself from responsibility. “I have nothing to say.”

  Robin pushes his chair back and rises. “I’m not hungry. May I be excused?”

  “Sit down,” Clark commands.

  “Don’t raise your voice,” Dorothy says. “This is obviously difficult for Robin. For all of us.”

  “Difficult for Robin?” Clark mocks.

  “You’ve just given him a very harsh punishment.”

  “Don’t worry, Dottie,” Clark snipes. “You can still take him into the city once in a while. Just check with me first.”

  Dorothy exhales furiously, the tendons in her neck tightening. “Don’t speak to me that way. I will not be condescended to.”

  Robin holds his breath, frightened to find himself in the tightening noose of their anger.

  “Why is everybody yelling?” Ruby moans.

  “We’re not yelling,” Dorothy says, her gaze still pinned on Clark. “This is not yelling, Ruby. You don’t even know what yelling is.”

  Ruby begins to sniffle wetly. “Mom—”

  “Now she’s gonna cry,” Robin spits out.

  Clark stands up, towering above Robin. “Robin, go to your room. Just go to your room and stay there. And don’t come out until I tell you to.”

  “I just said I wanted to go to my room and you said no.”

  Clark’s arm flies up over Robin, his fingers curling tightly together. Robin backs away from him, averting his eyes, stunned by the rage on his father’s face.

  “Clark, sit down,” Dorothy yells.

  Ruby’s sniffles have grown into sobs.

  “Just get the hell upstairs and shut your mouth,” Clark says, shaking his fist.

  “Whose room am I supposed to go to? Mine or Ruby’s?”

  Dorothy stands now. “Robin, come with me.”

  “Where are you going?” Clark says.

  “I’m taking Robin for a ride so we can talk.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about! I’ve explained what’s going on, and you don’t need to baby this kid just because he’s too damn full of himself to take what’s coming to him.”

  “You’re babying him,” Dorothy shouts. “You are bellowing like a madman. Sit down, go to your room, shut the hell up. What kind of way is that to talk?”

  “It’s a damn lot better than filling his head with sissy crap like you’ve been doing for thirteen years.”

  Robin feels his throat go dry, his ears burning. An image of himself at his mother’s side, laughing on a New York sidewalk over some shared joke: sissy crap.

  “Go to hell,” Dorothy snarls.

  “Am I asking too much? Tell me, Dorothy, am I asking too damn much? Am I the only person in this family who cares about Jackson?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “What am I supposed to do?” Clark says. “Tell me what it will take to have a little control of this family?” He reaches out and grabs Robin’s shirt in his fist, trying to pull him toward the door.

  “Let go!” Robin slides free of Clark’s grasp. He darts around the table to stand behind Dorothy. “Mom, make him stop.”

  He watches as Clark’s predatory eyes scan the room—King Kong looking for a pedestrian to scoop up—and land on his plate, which he picks up and hurls at the cabinets on the far side of the room. Clumps of scrambled eggs explode in every direction; ceramic shatters on the pressboard. Ruby shrieks and covers her ears. Dorothy pushes Robin behind her and screams out, “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”

  Robin makes a move, sprinting through the living room, grabbing his jacket on the way out the front door. On the front lawn, he skids to a halt: a couple of little kids are playing with toy trucks across the street. He’s never seen them before, they must be cousins of the Kellys or something, but the effect of them—two boys, one older, one smaller, enjoying themselves so easily—leaves him stunned. It’s so normal and peaceful—the whole street is like that: a car rolling slowly by, a leaf blower clearing a lawn, a voice calling from a neighbor’s porch. Why is his family so full of problems? Why is he running out of his house like a criminal? But then his father is behind him, throwing the screen door open on its squeaky hinge, calling, “Get back in here,” and Robin is dashing alongside the house into the backyard, thinking he’ll cut through to the Spicers, thinking Todd will help him out—a thought that immediately echoes back as ridiculous: Todd’s mad at him, probably won’t ever speak to him again, and besides, his father would just follow him there and drag him home; this is no solution at all.

  His bicycle is leaning against the garage. He throws a leg across, points the handlebars toward the street, starts pedaling. Both of his parents are in the driveway now, Dorothy with her hand on Clark’s arm as if restraining him. Robin stays to one side, pedals with his eyes closed, afraid he’ll be stopped, afraid they’ll stand in the way and he won’t be able to stop, he’ll crash into their bodies and knock them down and hurt them, hurt them just like he hurt Jackson, just like when he couldn’t stop himself and lifted Jackson’s legs over the edge of the railing to throw him into the air, up into the air away from him. No, he thinks, that’s not how it happened. He opens his eyes just as his mother is tugging his father out of the path of the bicycle.

  When he looks back, Clark has forced Dorothy away from him and has begun a chase. But he’s not close enough. Robin turns down Bergen Avenue and keeps riding. He cannot pedal fast enough to please himself.

  He rides to the center of town and stops at a payphone where a phone book hangs inside a metal cover. He finds Scott’s number. “Hey, it’s me, Robin,” he says hopefully.

  “Yeah? What do you want?” Scott sounds gruff, but maybe a little curious, too.

  “I want to come over,” he says breathlessly. “I’m running away from home, I think.”

  “So what am I supposed to do about it?”

  “I need somewhere to go. I’m on my bike. My father’s probably following me in his car.”

  “Man, that’s lame. You’re not supposed to let them know you’re running away.”

  Robin wipes sweat off his forehead, checks around for his father. “We had a fight. He threw his plate across the room. I couldn’t help it. I always say the wrong thing.”

  “I have fights with my father every fucking day, man. What’s the big deal?”

  He stands silently, wishing he hadn’t made this call. Even though it was so weird between them at the party, today Scott had seemed like the right person to call, the only person to call, someone who’d understand a house full of commotion.

  Robin gets an idea. “Do you have five bucks? I could take a bus to New York.”

  “I shouldn’t even give you the fucking time of day, man.”

  “Are you mad about last night?” Robin asks. “I tried to find you before I left that party. I wanted to talk to you about stuff.”

  “I saw what happened,” Scott says faintly.

  “What do you mean, what happened?”

  “I saw you walk out with Spicer.”

  Robin feels instantly panicked. “Scott, we just went for a walk. I was really drunk and had to walk it off.”

  “Yeah, where’d you go?”

  “Just for a walk,” he insists. “Can’t I go for a walk without getting the third degree? You were the one who ditched me anyway.”

  Scott clucks his tongue against his teeth, then sighs heavily. “Where are you?”

  “In town.”

  He gives Robin his address and hangs up.

  When Robin finally finds Scott’s house, his nose is running and he’s tired and shaky. He pedals up a cracked asphalt drive alongside a two-story clapboard house that his mother would label “quaint” until she noticed that the curtains were dingy and crookedly hung, the paint was peeling and the bushes were overgrown. Scott walks out to the driveway, sort of nods to him b
ut doesn’t get very close.

  “Come on inside.”

  Mr. Schatz is at the kitchen table in a tanktop undershirt, watching a football game on a small-screen black-and-white TV, downing a can of beer. He’s as menacing as Robin remembers, his face expressing only hardness. “You’re the kid that had to go to the hospital that time—what’re ya doing here?”

  Scott pulls Robin by the sleeve. “He’s my friend, Dad. Ever heard of that?”

  “Yeah, sure. I got plenty of friends.”

  “Plenty of losers,” Scott mutters.

  “Watch your fucking mouth,” Mr. Schatz says, tossing an empty can after them.

  Robin likes the sound of that: my friend. Maybe Scott has forgiven him. Following Scott into his bedroom, he lets himself relax, feeling a little protected at last. Scott’s room: a big color poster of David Bowie on the closet door, one of Queen over the bed; a frayed brown rug over a discolored linoleum floor; clothes piled everywhere; albums stacked in the corner next to an elaborate stereo system. The bed sags in the middle, Scooby-Doo sheets crumpled at its baseboard. The one beautiful thing in the whole place is an aquarium containing two dark, delicate angel fish coursing in circles under a soft purple light.

  Robin approaches the tank. “They’re so pretty,” he says, drawing his fingertip along the glass.

  Scott tucks a towel along the bottom of the door, then pulls down the shades, sealing the room into darkness. He opens a dresser drawer and pulls out a joint.

  Robin looks at him skeptically. “I can’t. I gotta get out of here.”

  “You just got here,” Scott says, lighting up.

  “I told you, I’m running away.”

  “You can hang out for a while. They’re not going to come looking for you here.”

  Scott’s words make sense, and since he doesn’t know what else to do, Robin takes the joint. “Your father won’t get mad?”

  “He’s always mad,” Scott says matter-of-factly.

  The first puff sends Robin into a minute-long coughing fit. Scott watches him through the whole thing, almost enjoying it, Robin thinks. Then he feels the rush in his head. He knows why they call it stoned: it’s like his brain has turned into a weighty rock rolling around inside of his skull. He’s just sinking into the high when Scott pulls out a water pistol and starts shooting it at him. Robin tries to dodge and, when he can’t, lunges at him, grabbing for the pistol. Scott knocks him onto the bed facedown, then gets on top of him and starts humping Robin’s ass through their clothes.

  “Cut it out,” Robin says, trying to squirm away.

  Scott keeps his weight on him and relights the joint. He holds it in front of Robin’s mouth until Robin sucks in some more smoke.

  “We should play wiener in the bun,” Scott says, grinding his boner into Robin’s tailbone.

  “What’s that?” he asks, though he thinks he gets the picture.

  “Take your pants off.”

  “No way.”

  “Why? You did it for Todd Spicer last night.”

  Robin tries to fidget out of Scott’s hold, dragging himself across the bed on his stomach. Scott leans in and pins him in place by the shoulders. “Scott, what’s your problem?” he asks, talking quickly. “You’re preoccupied with Todd Spicer. All we did was go for a walk.”

  Scott leans more heavily into him. “Who do you think taught me how to play wiener in the bun?”

  Robin feels a pit open up in his stomach, feels a lump of lead dropped in there to fill the gulf. Todd and Scott, doing what Todd and he did last night. It makes him jealous, jealous of both of them, of the situation existing before he knew anything about it. He takes a gulp of air and summons enough strength to flip Scott off of him.

  From across the bed, Scott looks him in the eye and says teasingly, “Sissy boy.”

  “Shut up,” Robin barks. He gets up to move toward the door. “Takes one to know one.”

  “That’s what he called you.”

  “Who? Todd? When?”

  Scott looks away coyly. “Never mind.”

  Robin takes a step back toward him. He feels his mind dancing between stoned and sober, making it hard to find the right thing to say. “If you have something to tell me ...”

  Scott grabs a pillow and hugs it. He stares into the aquarium, his eyes following the fish as he speaks. “One time me and Todd were at his house, on mushrooms.”

  “You mean, like funny mushrooms?” Robin asks.

  “Duh,” Scott mocks. “We were totally tripping at his kitchen table, and he looks out the window, and you’re sitting on your roof, listening to the radio.”

  “When was this?”

  “I don’t know, like a year, year and a half ago.” He wipes his nose. “Doesn’t matter. It was back then, when we were still friends. So he sees you from the window, and he’s like: That’s Robin MacKenzie. I had a dream about him. ”

  “He did?”

  Scott nods, his eyes look drowsy now, almost sorrowful. “He said in the dream you were naked and dancing in front of him, or some shit like that, and he was calling you his little sissy boy.”

  Robin sits down on the bed, dizzy, not sure whether to believe this, though Scott is telling it very calmly, the way secret things sound when they surface. “That’s so weird,” Robin says. “Are you sure he wasn’t just hallucinating on drugs?”

  “All I know is, he told me when he woke up from that dream he had come in his pants.”

  “Oh, my God.” Robin rubs his forehead with his fingers. “He had a wet dream about me?” He searches Scott’s face for the truth, but Scott just throws his pillow at him.

  Robin falls backward onto the bed, feeling somehow dirtied by the story, as if Scott’s intention wasn’t to reveal something about Todd but to humiliate Robin. He curls into the pillow, in a fetal position. The high is raging through him, truncating his thoughts. He tries to mold questions for Scott but nothing congeals. He suddenly feels very weak.

  “Take your pants off, Robin.” Robin lets Scott roll him onto his stomach and obediently unclasps his pants, helping Scott slide them down. He hears Scott doing the same.

  A warm fleshy thing presses between his butt cheeks. Scott spits into his crack and then rubs his dick back and forth, spreading the wetness around. Each pass across his asshole is like an electric tickle, sending a charge out in waves. Robin’s skin goosebumps; he hears himself whimpering, a doll’s voice being squeezed out of him. He tries to imagine Scott and Todd doing this—he is Scott and Scott is Todd. He feels like he’s at the bottom of some food chain.

  Scott moves faster and faster while the bedsprings sing beneath them, finally gasping and holding still. Robin shuts his eyes and waits through a long pause until Scott’s goo sprays the small of his back. Scott hops to his feet, grabs a sock off his bed, and wipes Robin clean.

  “That’s it?” Robin says, still not looking at him. “Do I get to do it to you?”

  “No, man, it’s over.”

  He rolls over dejectedly and watches Scott pacing about, acting like he’s busy doing something though he’s clearly just trying hard to not stand still. “That’s not very fair,” he mutters. His own dick is wet at the tip, just getting started.

  “It’s just a game, Robin.”

  “Oh.” He relights the joint, almost burns his hair in the flame. Takes a puff. “So you won and I lost?”

  The high feels protective now, soothing him through a situation he isn’t very happy with. He spends a moment in complete forgetfulness—unsure what just happened, what he felt about it, why he came here to begin with. Then something breaks through the cloud. “Do you have five dollars now?” Asking the question makes him feel better, like Scott owes him something and he can cash in.

  Scott frowns, digs through a drawer. “Here. Here’s three dollars and another joint. You can sell it and keep the money.”

  “Sell a joint?” The idea is perplexing, makes him giggle.

  “Just find some kid looking for one and tell him you can
hook him up. Then make a meeting place and sell it to him. Go to The Bird.”

  “Why don’t you just give me the money?” he asks, liking this demand, happy to see Scott squirm a little.

  “You’re the rich one. Why you asking me for money?”

  “Yeah, right, like I can just go back home and ask for money.”

  “You should have planned it better.”

  Scott’s father interrupts their bickering with a loud bang on the door. “I’ll kill you kids, smoking that shit in my house.”

  Scott motions him to the window. Robin follows Scott out onto a small, steep roof, like the one outside his own bedroom. They walk a few steps then climb back into another window, which leads them into a different boy’s bedroom, though this one is so clean it looks unlived in. Robin tries to recall if Scott mentioned having a brother, but he hardly has time to consider this before they are dashing down the stairs and past Scott’s bellowing father. Robin gets on his bike and Scott gets on his and they race away down the driveway as Mr. Schatz yells his booze-thickened threats from the front door.

  Once they are far enough away to be sure Mr. Schatz is not following, they slow down, and their ride drifts into aimlessness. They recount their getaway again and again, each time embellishing the details until what was a quick escape is transformed into a full-fledged romp. Now that they are both running from their fathers, the tension between them has leveled. Scott doesn’t mention anything about the party or Todd anymore, and Robin lets himself forget that Scott has been playing hot and cold with him. He still doesn’t know whether or not to believe the story about Todd’s wet dream, but he puts it out of his thoughts for now and concentrates instead on the sweet pleasure of circling their bikes around each other while they talk the afternoon away.

  They ride out to the Ice Pond, where they sit side by side on the rocks throwing stones into the water. “Whoever throws farther gets to make the other one do anything he wants,” Scott says.