“I know I came down on you pretty hard,” Malcolm continued. “It’s nothing personal. Everyone gets a come-to-Jesus talk with me. I’m sorry it had to be like this, but there’s no other way around it. And by the way, you can still decide not to do this. Your secret stays with me. I’ve heard ’em all, kid. This one doesn’t faze me a bit.
“But,” he went on, “If you do want to get popped, it can’t be a secret anymore. I’m not going to publish it in the newspaper. It’s up to you how you handle it. But if you lie to yourself, you’re going to have a helluva time learning how to use the craft. It would be like trying to learn to drive with your eyes closed. You might feel the steering wheel and the gas pedal, but you won’t know what’s coming at you, and eventually you’ll crash into something.”
Charlie’s breathing came in gulps, while more tears fell down his face. He stayed as quiet as he could.
“Kid, can I be honest with you?”
Charlie nodded, thinking bitterly to himself, Haven’t you already been?
He gripped the arm of the couch, ready for another onslaught of words.
“I’m glad I’m not gay. I don’t care how open the world says it is these days. I don’t think there’s a very big welcome mat out there for people like you. I think it would be rough.
“But you gotta get this, that if you see it as a problem, then you’re inviting everyone else to do the same. If not, and if other people still have a problem with it, well then, so what? You have bigger fish to fry.” He paused, waiting for a reply from Charlie. When the boy didn’t say anything, Malcolm continued.
“I’m sorry it’s gotta be this way. But you don’t get to have one without the other. You can’t pretend to be someone you’re not and use what you got. It just won’t work. And I won’t let you try.”
He reached into his pocket and handed Charlie a card.
It read “Malcolm Goedde” and had a phone number and an email address printed on the front.
“The last name’s German. Throws everyone off. Just think ‘Geddy,’ like G-E-D-D-Y.” He looked hard at Charlie, as if sizing him up.
“Why don’t you think about it? Give me a call or send me a message when you’ve reached your decision or if you have any questions. But don’t wait too long, okay? You already know what you need, and waiting forever will just make things worse.
“Remember, your secret stays with me, whichever way you decide. I won’t tell anyone. Not your aunt, not your uncle, not the mayor of Seattle.”
Charlie nodded, putting the card in his pocket and wiping his eyes with the back of his arm.
Malcolm pinched his nostrils again and puffed out his cheeks. Just like that, the pressure on Charlie’s eardrums released. He opened his mouth and wiggled his jaw, letting his ears pop.
“Okay, little man, enough for today.” He stood up. “Let’s carry these things into the kitchen, and I’ll say goodbye to Beverly.”
They walked into the kitchen together. Charlie’s feet felt like blocks of cement attached to dead tree-limb legs. He thought he might trip and drop the plates he carried.
Beverly smiled as she stood up from the kitchen table, a magazine laying half open near her hands. Behind the smile, Charlie could see tension and concern in her eyes.
“Come here, gorgeous,” Malcolm said, giving her a hug.
She walked him out. Charlie heard her open the front door and say goodbye.
Then she came back into the kitchen and looked at Charlie.
“He can be intense, I know. But it’s really for your own good. Whatever the two of you talked about is your business. I’m sure he gave you lots to think about. Anyway, why don’t you run up and do some of your homework before dinner?” she suggested. He was grateful for the excuse to go to his bedroom and think about, or try not to think about, everything that Malcolm had said.
CHAPTER 41
Shivering
CHARLIE SAT ON THE DECK off the kitchen watching the wind turn the waves of Puget Sound from gray to white. Beverly was off doing something in the basement. Randall was reading the newspaper in the living room.
“Leave it alone,” Charlie scolded Amos, who was pressing his nose up against the glass on the other side of the sliding door and whining. He wanted to come out on the deck where Charlie was. The dog couldn’t hear him but wagged his tail anyway, as if he could summon the boy to open the door through sheer animal enthusiasm.
He knew he should get up and go inside, or at least put on a jacket. Goose flesh covered his arms. He continued to shiver. Maybe he could blame his shaking on the cold wind.
His thoughts were loud, as if he stood in a room filled with shouting people. He was having trouble keeping up with it all.
If you want to get popped, it can’t be a secret anymore.
Okay, little man. That’s your first lie to me.
But you don’t get to have one without the other. You can’t pretend to be someone you’re not and use what you got. It just won’t work.
I’m not gay.
You think this is a game, kid?
No, no, he wouldn’t let it be true. He didn’t …
Boys’ faces that he had known over the years floated into his head. Hadn’t they just been his friends?
No way. No way would he let this be true. He couldn’t …
More like butt toy.
Don’t you mean “Charlie Darling?”
He didn’t know what it all meant, and the terror he felt kept him from being able to figure any of it out, making everything stop short in his chest, his throat, cranking the volume in his head so high that the shouting voices blurred together, becoming mind-numbing rants.
Senior high school student, Ted Jones …
People are nice to me and all, but …
I’m the president of the GSA.
What was he supposed to do?
* * *
“How long have you been sitting out here?”
Charlie jumped. He hadn’t heard his aunt come out onto the deck. “A while.”
“It’s cold out here. You’re shivering. Shouldn’t you …?” She paused, then shook her head, as if her mothering were silly.
“Malcolm doesn’t exactly soften his blows, does he?”
Charlie stared at her.
“Becoming a full-fledged witch is a big decision. He wants to make sure that you don’t rush headlong into something that will affect you for the rest of your life. I’m sure he gave you the ‘once you decide, you can never turn back’ speech.”
He nodded, then looked out over the water as Beverly continued to talk.
“And the part about how being a witch isn’t just broomsticks and parlor games? He wants you to be very clear, because your decision will not only affect you, but countless others, throughout your whole life.
“People like me had a long time to think about all the issues, Charlie. Our parents engrain it in us from the moment we start to learn about our community. All of this has been dumped on you so fast. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to face these facts any less than the rest of us did.”
Charlie drew his gaze away from the water and looked directly at his aunt.
“What did Malcolm say to you?”
Beverly looked down at her hands. When she looked up, she attempted a smile but her face showed fresh hurt, as if she too had just been ripped open by Malcolm a few hours earlier, not over three decades ago. She blinked several times before she spoke.
“He said I was too much of a daddy’s girl. That my father had huge shortcomings as our community leader. That he was not infallible. I had to either grow up and learn to think for myself, which included seeing my dad as a human being, not as a god, or live the rest of my life as his little hand puppet, brainwashed, just like my mother.”
Charlie’s mouth fell open.
“He couldn’t have been more right. It’s even clearer to me now than it was back when he told me.”
She wrapped her arms around herself and looked out over the water.
“Okay, it’s officially freezing. We’re going inside, Charlie. Turning blue isn’t going to help you with your decision.”
As they stepped into the warmth of the kitchen, he could hear Amos’s toenails clicking on the wood floor. The dog rounded a corner and ran to them, pressing into their hands with his back, breathing hard out of his nostrils and quivering as they both bent down and rubbed his fur.
“That’s right, buddy, that’s right,” Beverly said. She slid the door closed behind them, then placed her hand on Charlie’s shoulder.
“It’s your decision to make, Charlie. I want you to remember that. Don’t make it for me, or for your mom, not for Randall, not anybody. You’re the one who needs to mull over what Malcolm told you.”
Her eyes softened, losing their stern gaze.
“And I trust you to make the right decision.”
“What decision?” Randall yelled from the living room. “Does it involve dinner? A guy could starve around here!”
CHAPTER 42
The High Dive
AMOS PULLED AT THE LEASH, trying to inch over to the side of the road to investigate a clump of wild ferns.
“Come on, boy,” Charlie grunted as his arm was yanked nearly out of its socket.
“That sure is a big dog,” Diego said as they walked farther into the woods.
“Tell me about it.” Charlie had to pull hard not to be knocked off balance.
“The first time I came here was in preschool. My mom was the classroom parent for the day, and she and the teacher took us kids for a nature walk here. I remember … hey, did you hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“It sounded like …” Diego paused, looking around and trying to pinpoint what he heard.
Chills ran all over Charlie’s skin. What if that dog was back? Or what if the witches were following them?
Just then a thrashing sound erupted to their right as a large bluejay flew up from the bushes and into the sky.
“God, that scared me!” Diego exclaimed, laughing. “Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, I remember how big the woods seemed then. And how wet and green everything was.”
Charlie inhaled deeply, trying to let the fresh piny air calm him down, relieved that it had only been a bird.
The temperature felt warmer today. Amos stopped yanking on his leash, finally understanding that Charlie wasn’t going to let him pull the boy wherever he wanted to go.
“Diego, can I … can I ask you a question?”
“Sure, amigo, ask away.”
“How can you be sure that you’re gay? Don’t you ever wonder if you’re wrong? I mean, how can you really know?”
“Whoa, that came out of left field.”
“Sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I mean, I’d rather you ask me about it than just ignore it and hope it goes away. Let’s see. I’ve always liked other boys. Just been attracted to them. I paid way more attention to them than to girls growing up. My uncle told me that when I was little and my mom and I would be visiting him in Yakima that I’d always want to go talk to the farmhands that helped him in the orchards, never the pretty girls in town, or even my girl cousins, who are really gorgeous.
“He said he wondered about it when I was little. Even asked my mom about it. She said I was just sensitive. I think she got angry about it all. Didn’t want it to be true.”
“Your mom didn’t want you to be gay? But I thought you said she was cool with it.”
“She is now. She wasn’t when I told her. It was really hard at first. We fought a lot. I can be a little opinionated when it comes down to it, and I told her she was being stupid and Catholic and mean. She said, ‘You don’t know what you want. You can’t! You’re only thirteen,’” Diego said in a high-pitched voice, imitating his mother.
“Well, I just knew, you know? The way you know things? I read stuff about it at the library, and I always had crushes on guy movie stars and stuff. Oh my god, remember Wolverine in X-Men? I think I saw it when I was ten years old, and I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I told my mom I wanted him to babysit me. What I didn’t tell her was that I wanted him to kiss me. A lot!”
Diego laughed as if this was the funniest thing he had ever heard.
Charlie frowned. Their conversation wasn’t helping things much.
He had never talked to his mom about this stuff, let alone fought with her. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe it was just …
But he felt a chill in his chest, the same one he had felt yesterday, when Malcolm confronted him in the living room. That, and a growing concern that maybe all his life he, too, had thought about boys more than girls.
“I used to play Diego’s Kissing Class with the kids in my neighborhood when I was like five or six,” Diego continued. “I’d line up the kids in a row in the hallway outside my bedroom, then make them come inside the ‘teacher’s office’ one at a time and ‘teach’ them how to kiss. I got in trouble because one of the girls told her mom that I kept her in the waiting room too long while her brother got longer ‘lessons.’ So embarrassing, but it’s true. The girl’s parents talked to my mom, and my mom tried to explain to me that I shouldn’t be teaching kissing to other boys. She said I could kiss girls only after I grew up. I didn’t really get it. I thought we were all having a lot of fun.”
They came around the corner of the small path, and there in front of them was the bridge, spanning a good forty feet in the air, both ends marked by giant pine trees.
“I forgot about this place!” said Diego. He ran forward, then plopped himself down on the same bench where Charlie and Beverly had sat just before she had leapt across the creek bed. Charlie tied Amos to the bench then sat next to Diego.
Charlie felt some relief. He had never kissed other boys when he was little. Diego had. And he had never really thought about Wolverine before. So maybe he wasn’t necessarily …
“When did you and your mom stop fighting about it?” he asked.
“After she talked to her priest. Here I was, telling her she was too Catholic, but it was Father Heneghan who really helped her. She told him she prayed and prayed for me to like girls and wanted him to help her pray harder or to learn a better way to ask God for help. But he just asked her if she thought I was going to change. I guess she started crying and told him she didn’t think I would. So he said that it was her job to love me fully, even if she didn’t like all of me, and let the rest be between God and me. Can you believe that? Pretty cool for a priest.”
“But don’t you think you could be wrong? Maybe you just didn’t, I don’t know, try or something?”
“I did. I totally tried to like girls. I used to pray for the same thing my mom did. I thought I had a crush on Tawny for the longest time because she was nice, and fun, and we really got along so well.
“But I never felt the things for her that I did for other guys. There was this kid in Tawny’s and my seventh grade class, Ken Nishimura. He was tall, and quiet, kind of the brainiac type, but good in sports too. I had such a huge crush on him. I couldn’t even think straight when he was around. It was Tawny who told me that I should just get over it and admit to myself that I was attracted to guys.
“She said to me, ‘It’s “Ken” this and “Ken” that. When are you gonna face the fact that you’re in love with him?’”
“She did? She just said that?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you do?”
“I didn’t talk to her for like three days. As you can see, I’ve really gotten a lot more mature in my old age.” Diego laughed. “But then I talked to her about it. I cried, she cried, we both cried, and then well, that was that.
“I told my mom, and she went a little nutty on me. That’s when we started fighting. I got in her face about it, like any snotty thirteen-year-old would do, and she pushed back. But a couple of weeks later she talked to Father Heneghan.
“She sat me down one night. At first I was ready for another fight, but instead she told me to be quiet, th
at she had something important to say. She said that she would love me no matter what, even if she didn’t understand it or like it.
“Oh my god! I cried so hard, and then she cried, and then we both cried. You can see the pattern here.” He smiled and shook his head. “Anyway, after that it got a lot easier. Well, that’s not true. It got easier between my mom and me. I started coming out to people at school, and that’s when things started to get really hard. Kids began teasing me. Some of the eighth graders beat me up a few times.
Charlie shivered. It was hard to imagine anyone wanting to beat up Diego, who just seemed so nice and friendly. Who would do that? But he remembered the three upperclassmen taunting him and Diego near the soccer field and how mean they had looked. And of course, there was always Ted Jones
“My mom talked to the school principal. He was a total tool about it. The school didn’t have a policy on bullying, and he kept saying that if I just stopped telling everyone, there wouldn’t be any trouble.
“She tried to push it at the school, getting all lawyer-like with them, but they got really nasty with her, telling her she would need to document the bullying, she couldn’t prove who had beat me up, blah blah blah. So she pulled me outta there. I went to three different private schools that year and the next. But once freshman year rolled around, I started at P.A. and have been there ever since.
“I know what you saw the other day, with Julio and Dave and Randy, was kinda bad. But believe me, it’s way better than middle school. Plus, Principal Wang really does enforce the no-tolerance policy. I’ve never had trouble with any of the teachers. They’ve all gone through a diversity training program, so it works pretty well.”
“I thought you said it was hard at school sometimes. That people treated you special, like being extra positive or something,” Charlie said.
“Yeah, but it’s still way better than getting beaten up. And really, I was kind of upset yesterday when I told you all of that. I feel like there’s good support for me at school, with the GSA and the policies and stuff.
The Boy Who Couldn't Fly Straight: A Gay Teen Coming of Age Paranormal Adventure about Witches, Murder, and Gay Teen Love (Book 1, The Broom Closet Stories) Page 23
