by Gene Gant
The fight went on for about an hour. We were both soaked by the time I called an end to the festivities. We went inside, showered (separately), got dressed, and I walked Toff home. Mr. Toffler’s car wasn’t parked in the driveway when we arrived.
I hated to bring up the subject, but I needed to know. “Have you heard from your dad, Toff?”
“I called him while you were in the shower,” Toff said matter-of-factly. “It went straight to voicemail. I left a message.”
“Did he ever call you back?”
Toff pulled out his phone and checked. “Nope.”
Before we left Toff’s place last night, I asked him if he was going to leave a note for his father in case the man came back, and Toff said no. Mr. Toffler was a construction worker with Magnum Home Builders. It was possible he came home late last night or this morning to no Toff and no clue as to where Toff was. Now he’d gone off to work, and the man didn’t even make a phone call to see if his son was alive and well. I didn’t understand Mr. Toffler. I did not understand him at all.
Standing on his porch, Toff slipped his backpack off his shoulder and turned to me. “Okay. I guess I’ll see you later.”
I took Toff by the arm and instinctively pushed him against the wall next to the front door, away from the windows where the absent Mr. Toffler couldn’t see us if he’d been there to look outside. “Yeah, I’ll call you when I get home.” And then I planted a kiss on his mouth.
What the heck? It felt like the right thing to do at the moment.
I AM not attracted to Jake Butcher.
I am not attracted to handsome Jake Butcher.
I am not attracted to hot damn handsome Jake Butcher.
I am not attracted to hell hot damn handsome and oh-so-fine Jake Butch—
“What’s that, Geordi?” said Dad, flicking a look over at me as he drove. “What did you say?”
I felt the heat creep across my face. “Huh?” I said, stalling until I could dream up an actual answer.
“You were mumbling just now. What have your mother and I always told you, son? Don’t mumble. Speak up! Your voice is important, and you should make yourself heard. What were you trying to say just now? Something about hell and hot and Jake Butcher?”
Oh jeez. “Uhm… er… hey, Dad, when you pick me up this afternoon, can we stop by Sears so I can get some boxers? I’m kinda tired of wearing the tighty-whities.”
“Ah. My little buddy is growing up. He’s ready to hang loose like a man.” Dad sniffed and wiped a fake tear from his eye. “Another threshold crossed. I’m so happy for you, son.” He sighed dramatically.
“Yeah, thanks, just drive, Dad, please.”
Even with the relatively light midday traffic, it was going to take a bit more than thirty minutes to reach Arlington. That was like a lifetime when I was riding alone with Dad.
“So. Obviously you were thinking about Jake just now,” Dad said.
“T-shirts. Maybe I should get some new T-shirts too when we shop for the boxers. A lot of the ones I have now have gotten really stretchy. And some of them have got holes right in the armpit. What good’s a T-shirt with a hole in the armpit?”
“You must really like Jake, huh? Tell me—”
“Socks! You should get me some more absorbent socks. I notice my sneakers are starting to stink when I take them off. I can’t go around with stinky feet, Dad. It might get a little awkward if I’m over at Jess’s and kick off my shoes and everybody in the house passes out.”
“Geordi, why don’t we stick with one topic of conversation here? You don’t have to be ashamed of having feelings for Jake. It’s perfectly natural for you to have them.”
“Dad, I don’t have feelings for Jake. I just like him as a friend.”
“Always be honest with yourself, son. No good comes from holding back and hiding things. That’s no way to live your life. Your mom and I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy, Dad. And you know what would make me even happier right now?”
“What’s that?”
“If we could talk about stinky feet. As in, how do I get rid of them? Not the feet, I want to keep those. They kinda come in handy… or feety… sometimes. I just want to get rid of the stink.”
Dad sighed. That one was a genuine sigh. “Okay, son. Let’s talk stinky feet.”
THE BUTCHER house was bigger and a lot newer than the one I lived in.
Mom talked a lot about carbon footprints. She said you can’t leave small ones living in a big-ass house. When Dad got promoted to director at the museum and started picking up a much larger paycheck, he floated the idea of looking for a bigger house, maybe in Harbor Town on the river. Mom shot that down real quick, saying the modest-sized bungalow we’d lived in since I was born was perfect for us. He practically had to beg to get the pool and landscaping lights installed because Mom said they would just add to the already staggering amount of soot humanity was pumping into the atmosphere.
Yeah, maybe we could survive just fine in a not-so-big house without a pool or landscaping lights, and I worried about how humans were trashing the earth as much as Mom did. But there was a lot I liked about Jake’s house. For starters, it had a large, kidney-shaped, in-ground pool that put the one in my backyard to shame. Also, it had a “media room” with overstuffed recliners and a wall-mounted television sporting a screen seven feet wide. And there was a popcorn machine in the corner exactly like the ones in movie theaters.
But best of all, it had Jake. And maybe that’s why I overlooked all the excesses at the Butcher house that would have driven Mom right up a wall.
“What up, Geordi?” he said coolly when he opened the front door to me. Then he waved over my shoulder and called out, “Hey, Mr. Quintrell.”
Dad waved back, smiling as he drove off.
“So you made it. Come on in.” Jake stepped aside to let me in and shut the door after me. “I was watching a movie. I’ve got the popcorn machine loaded and ready to go, and the chili’s on the stove. This way.”
I would have followed him anywhere. Probably right off a cliff. He was wearing tight cut-off-at-the-knee blue jeans. His butt looked fantastic in those cutoffs. Yes, I was staring.
That’s why I tripped on the rug. “Ulp!” I gasped as I went down on one knee.
Jake came back to me. “Hey, you okay, man?”
“Yeah, I’m all right. I guess I just didn’t see that rug.” The rug was around six feet square and bright yellow. Kind of hard to miss, actually.
As he helped me to my feet, I looked through the window and spotted the pool past the patio. The blue water sparkled in the sunlight. I loved pools and I loved swimming. Sometimes I think I should have been born a fish.
Jake must have noticed my interest. “You want to take a dip?”
“I didn’t bring my trunks.”
“You can borrow a pair of mine.”
“Well… maybe later.”
“There’s no time like the present.” He gave me a crooked grin.
It was too cute to resist. “Okay.”
He took me upstairs to his room. As he went to his dresser, I noticed the guitar leaning against the footboard of his bed. “Oh. Do you play guitar?” I asked. I wasn’t usually so easily distracted, but thoughts of Toff had popped into my head, and I was trying very hard not to focus on Jake’s body.
“I fool around on it some,” he replied. “My mom got me that for Christmas when I was ten. Said I had an aptitude for music. That thing sat in my closet for over a year before I finally picked it up.”
“Well, was she right?”
He paused as if considering his answer. “You be the judge.”
Jake sauntered over, picked up the guitar, and sat on the end of the bed. He began to pluck at the strings, sending a riff of notes sprinkling through the air that I instantly recognized as the opening of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.” He smiled slyly as if he’d just made a joke, and I was hypnotized by the dimples in his cheeks. Then I was mesmerized by his flexing biceps. After giving m
yself a mental slap across the face, I turned and looked around the room.
No posters decorated the walls, just two big elegantly framed photographs of motorcycles, which was probably Mrs. Butcher’s idea as to what kind of ornamentation suited a teenage guy’s room. A big bulletin board was mounted over the headboard of the bed sporting pictures of musicians, each playing an acoustic guitar. I didn’t know who any of them were. There were also pictures of guitars that had apparently been cut out of a catalog. A bookcase next to the desk was lined with trophies and awards, some for baseball, some for swimming, and some for science fairs. A widescreen television stood atop an entertainment center across from the bed, and below it were carefully stacked video game cartridges and a game console.
A shift in the music drew my attention back to Jake. His eyes were closed and he was bobbing his head slightly as his fingers flew up and down, back and forth, over the strings and struts. He was smiling big, and I could hear why. The music he strummed out was bright, airy, a bouncy tune so playful it filled me with joy and made me want to dance. My head weaved side to side with the beat as if the music had taken complete control. The song flowed over me for several minutes, steadily sweeping me up in happiness. When Jake ended things on a final, dramatic stroke, I was so thrilled I broke into applause.
“Dude! That was fantastic!”
Jake bowed over his guitar. “Thanks, man.”
“How do you do that, get your fingers to move so fast? I could never play guitar like that.”
“Sure you could, Geordi. All it takes is practice.”
“For you, maybe. I don’t have any talent at all when it comes to music. I can’t even sing.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Man, back in the spring, I was sitting in my backyard listening to some of my dad’s old school R & B on my headphones. I started singing along, and my next-door neighbor called 911.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, right.”
“Seriously. She thought somebody was strangling cats in her backyard.” He laughed out loud that time, which was more music to my ears, and I smiled at him. “What song was that you were playing?”
Jake shrugged as he began strumming random notes from the strings. “I haven’t come up with a title for it yet.”
“You wrote that?”
“Yeah,” he answered casually. “I write a lot of songs.”
I found myself admiring his talent, just as I admired Toff’s artistic abilities. I always admired people who were capable of things I couldn’t do myself in a million years. “You put a lot of life into that one,” I said. “I could see blue birds flying and kids playing and sun shining the whole time you were playing. That was real feel-good music.”
“Yeah. When it comes to music, a lot depends on the mood I’m in. Some of the happiest songs I’ve written were done when I was feeling low, when I wanted to lift myself up. Sometimes when crazy shit happens, all you can do is sing.”
“Or scream.”
He laughed again. “Whatever works for you.”
“So you sing too?”
“Occasionally, when the mood hits. And the neighbors haven’t called the police on me yet, so I guess I do all right.”
I suddenly pictured myself being serenaded by this guy. “When do I get to hear you belt one out?”
“Another time.” He put the guitar aside and stood up. “Right now we’re going for a swim.”
He went to his dresser, tugged open a drawer, and produced a pair of white trunks, which he tossed to me. He tossed a red pair, identical to the ones he’d given me except for the color, on the bed and began to undress, pulling his T-shirt over his head. When he unbuttoned his jeans, I thought I was going to start drooling.
“Uh, is it okay if I change in the bathroom or something?” I asked quickly.
“Sure. Bathroom’s right there,” he answered, pointing.
I hurried to the adjoining bathroom. Behind me, I heard his jeans drop on the floor. Don’t turn around. Don’t turn around, you idiot. You’ll turn into a pillar of salt if you turn around.
I shut the bathroom door without giving in to temptation. And it was just about the most difficult thing I’d ever done.
WE SWAM races against each other, floated leisurely on our backs, tossed a handful of dimes in the water and went on a deep-sea treasure hunt. When we finally climbed out of the pool, we slumped in a pair of chaise lounges beneath a towering, stately magnolia tree. Children laughed in the distance. The next-door neighbor’s sprinklers filled the air with a soothing swish. A strong, warm breeze blew across the yard. I felt wonderful, pleasantly tired and completely at ease.
“You having a good time, Geordi?”
“I’m wishing I didn’t have to go home. What does that tell you?”
Jake didn’t smile. He turned away from me, looking a bit uncomfortable, which was ironic in that just seconds ago he seemed to be worried that I wasn’t all that relaxed around him. Maybe it was ducking into the bathroom before taking off my clothes that left him with that impression. I tried to think of something funny or profound to say, to put him at ease, but my mind remained stubbornly blank.
I resorted to a tried and true standard in such situations. “Hey.”
“What?” said Jake, staring up at the white blossoms swaying in the breeze over our heads.
“Nothing. Just ‘hey.’” Stupid, Geordi. You sound stupid. Ugh! “I was just trying to start a conversation.”
He shrugged in response. What the hell was going on here? Only a minute ago, we were having such a good time. Now everything was just weird.
“Geordi… can I ask you something?”
“Sure, Jake.”
“How long have you been gay?”
“I don’t know. My mom says gay people are born this way. But I got attracted to guys around the time I was twelve.” I studied his face. He was still looking up into the tree, avoiding eye contact with me. “Why do you ask?”
He shrugged again, looking even more embarrassed. “I wonder about myself sometimes.”
“Wonder what?”
“If I might be gay.” He sighed and closed his eyes. “I like girls. I think they’re hot, and I’ve done my share of fooling around with a couple of them. But sometimes… sometimes I get this thing where I kinda want to… kiss a guy.”
“Sometimes when? I mean, does this urge just come out of the blue or what?”
“I guess it started as a crush, more or less. Last year this dude named Ricky Spencer moved into the neighborhood, in that big gray brick house two doors down from me. He fell in with me and some of the other guys I hang with. Nice fella and all. I like him. And then, after a couple of months, I realized that I really like him.” He turned to me, his expression uneasy. “You know what I mean?”
“I think I do. I’ve felt that way before.”
“Well, I haven’t. It’s hard to be friends with Ricky now because I feel so… off when I’m around him. I want to see what it’s like to kiss him and touch him. And what kinda sense does that make when I still like girls?”
He waited, looking at me as if he expected a completely logical, totally expert answer to come spilling out of my mouth. I was still hoping somebody would pop up and tell me what to do about Toff, so what could I say to Jake? “I don’t know what to tell you, man.”
“I don’t know either,” he said with a tiny sigh. “I don’t think Ricky is gay. All he talks about is girls. Nobody would think I’m gay either, because all I talk about is girls too. But there’s this… I guess, bi part of me, sometimes, that wants to do something with another dude….”
I got a tingle in my groin that made me want to squirm. “Like what?”
“What I said before… kiss and touch. I didn’t know another guy anywhere who had feelings like that. Then, a couple of weeks ago, my dad told me your dad had called and said you had come out of the closet and there was going to be this big coming-out party to celebrate. I was totally surprised.”
“You were
n’t the only one,” I said drily.
“I have to say, I admire you. That was really bold of you, man, coming out to your family and all your friends.”
“Don’t admire me too much. It was more like I came out to my parents, and then they outed me to everybody else.”
“Your parents are cool with it, then. You being gay.”
“They threw me a fick-facking, hello-world-I’m-queer party, Jake. So yeah, I’d say it’s a safe bet that they’re happy with my thing for boys.” A moment later his true concern dawned on me. “You think your parents won’t accept it if you’re gay?”
“They wouldn’t kick me out of the house or anything. I don’t think it would bother my mom too much. But I know my dad will be disappointed, if I’m gay or bi or something other than straight.” He twisted his mouth as if that thought left a bad taste. “So have you ever actually kissed a guy?”
“A few times, yeah.”
“What’s it like?”
Scary as hell. “I enjoyed it well enough, but it was a little… no, it was fine. It was good.”
“That’s what it all comes down to for me. I won’t know if I like it or not until I actually try it. When I thought about things, Geordi, after I knew you were gay, it hit me how good-looking you are. And I started wondering if maybe you’d kiss me.”
“Is that why you wanted to hang out with me? So you can experiment at the whole gay thing?” Make me your lab rat, dammit. Please make me your lab rat!
“No. I wanted to hang with you because I also realized that I actually like you and I thought we could be friends, real friends. We don’t have to kiss… but I think I’d really like to. If you want to, that is.”
“Jake, to be honest, a year ago nobody could have paid me enough money to kiss you.”
He looked shocked for a moment and then barked out a laugh. “Way to make a dude feel good about himself, man. Damn!”
“That was then. When I saw you at my party, you looked so freaking good to me I wanted to do a lot more than just kiss.”
“Well, I want to start with a kiss and then see where it goes from there. So, I’m game if you’re game.”
