Every Visible Thing, page 13
“Hello?” he says weakly.
“Suck any dicks today, faggot?” a boy’s voice says in high-pitched disguise. Even so, he can tell it’s not Danny. He thinks he can hear Danny’s laugh leading the chorus in the background. He hangs up quickly, imagining their laughter seeping through his brain and out his other ear, trumpeting through the house.
The phone rings again three minutes later. Lena, clearly fed up, calls his name, and his father looks up from his newspaper and raises his eyebrows. Luckily, his mother, who would ask what was going on, is at the hospital. Owen returns to the kitchen, picks up the receiver, and instinctively closes his eyes.
“Pussy,” a voice hisses. “You should get a sex change operation. Then you can be a hooker and get paid for what you do best, which is suck—” Owen hangs up again.
When it rings the third time Lena bellows for him to get it himself, and Owen walks toward the ringing phone as if it is a bomb. He thinks he hears the click of Lena picking up as well, and hangs up the instant the voice starts with the word faggot. Owen stands in the kitchen for three more calls, hanging up soon after answering, but still able to distinguish that each call has a different voice. There is a party somewhere, and Owen is the entertainment.
“Owen?” his father says, standing in the kitchen doorway, paper folded in his hand. “Everything all right?”
“It’s just Danny,” Owen says. “We keep getting disconnected.” His father looks skeptical, but nods and wanders away.
The next time it rings, Owen raises his hand, rubbing a few escaped tears on the arm of his pajamas, but before he can get it, a hand reaches over his shoulder and grabs the receiver.
“I’ve called the cops,” Lena barks into the phone, not waiting for them to speak first. “They’ve traced your number and are driving over to cut your little dicks off.”
She hangs up, turns around, and, in a gesture so rare Owen almost starts in response, puts a hand on the crown of his head as she passes by.
“Boys,” she says with scorn. She disappears back into her room, slamming the door.
He is having the dreams now, the ones he was warned about by his father and Mr. Gabriel and the sex book, but they are not what he expected. Owen’s wet dreams are nightmares. He is usually in a crowd, either in the classroom or on the playground or at a birthday party, when Danny begins to touch him. Because Owen resists, Danny is rough, pushing the gun to his neck, tearing at the zipper of his jeans, forcing him down to the ground. As he works Owen with his hand or, in and out of his mouth, Owen is paralyzed by mortifying pleasure, unable to push him away. At some point he realizes, from the comments and stares of the crowd who stand by and watch, that Danny is invisible. All they can see is Owen writhing, his pants around his ankles, his exposed erection. The boys from school laugh, the girls shriek with disgust. Mr. Gabriel makes notes in his attendance book, Dr. Cloherty on his clipboard. The worst dreams are when his parents are there; his father tries to pick him up and pull his pants back on, confused at the invisible force keeping them down, and his mother pops a thermometer in his mouth. No matter what anyone does, his ascent to climax can’t be stopped, and eventually, jerking like a puppet, he explodes and Danny disappears. He wakes still convulsing, the crotch of his pajamas full and warm. He has to change and hide the soiled bottoms in his laundry bin, and washes them himself while his parents are at work.
He takes out Changing Bodies, Changing Lives again, hoping to find some comfort or explanation. He reads the section he’d been afraid of: “Exploring Sex with Someone of Your Own Sex (Homosexuality).” It goes on and on about a horizontal line, a spectrum with gay at one end and straight at the other and how most people are somewhere in between. A few stories about boys who fooled around with other boys and grew up normal, and others who did nothing but ended up gay. He finds out what anal sex is. All in all, it is not very helpful or enlightening. It doesn’t tell you what to do if your best friend gives you a blow job and the whole school finds out.
Owen finds his father’s manuscript frustrating and hard to understand. The parts he does understand disturb him. In the introduction his father states clearly, and with such repetition Owen can barely read on, that angels are not human. They are a separate race of beings created by God, spiritual in nature, without bodies or the finite lives of their inferior human friends. Though popular culture holds that people can become angels when they die, there is little of this tradition in most major religions. Dead people can be, and often are, returning ghosts, but they are never angels.
Owen stops after this. He feels as he does when he tries to speak to his father while he is reading or on the phone, and he is waved away with impatience. Rejected, but also righteous in his anger. His father was supposed to be one of the brightest professors at the divinity school; Owen has heard this phrase whispered, emphasis on the past tense, at PTA meetings and family reunions. He was a leading authority on angels. And yet he knew nothing. Even Owen, eleven years old and a mediocre student, knows he is wrong.
He prefers reading his father’s notebooks, full of collected facts and illustrations, particularly the ones about modern angel experiences. For years, his father interviewed people and pasted the type-written transcripts into the pages of the book. Most angels were not seen, only heard as a voice of comfort or warning, or their presence felt in times of great danger. A number of people told of invisible hands lifting them up, moving them just out of reach of a speeding car or collapsing bridge. Sometimes an interview is followed by a skeptical comment in his father’s handwriting. “Inconsistent details,” or “Seems flaky.” Owen flares with anger at these add-ons. The people interviewed all seem very sure, some slightly amused at his father’s questions. “What makes you think it was an angel,” his father asks over and over. “What else could it have been?” is one woman’s reply.
When Owen is supposed to be asleep and his parents are still up roaming the halls and liable to peek in on him, he bides the time by daydreaming about life-threatening situations. An overturned bus teetering above a ravine. An airplane hijacked by terrorists. Alone in a sailboat on a stormy sea. In each fantasy, Hugh arrives at the last moment, unscathed and handsome as a superhero, massive wings aiding the rescue. Sometimes he is invisible and Owen merely feels him, his man-sized hands gripping under his arms and lifting him as easily and familiarly as his parents once did, when he was still young enough to be carried.
Mr. Gabriel rings the doorbell. Owen sees him coming up the porch steps and crawls across the rug to turn the TV volume down. He crouches beneath the front window, trying not to breathe as Mr. Gabriel rings the bell again and then knocks on the glass-paned inner door, calling Owen’s name with the same impatience he uses in class. He stands there for a long time while Owen sweats and his legs cramp from squatting, and he starts to get the feeling that Mr. Gabriel can see through the wall. Can see his crumpled, orange-juice-stained pajamas, his greasy, dandruff-flecked hair, even smell that sort of musty, cheesy smell that takes over when he spends too many days inside. He is about to give himself up when Mr. Gabriel shuffles some papers, sighs, and leaves. Owen peeks out at him walking down the front steps and across the street. He looks strange and out of place, not like his teacher at all, in a black wool overcoat and a ridiculous hat with ear flaps.
Owen checks the foyer and finds a thick manila envelope with his name written on it in Mr. Gabriel’s neat cursive. Inside are assignments for him to do at home, including a fractions test he has to take under a parent’s supervision. There is also his graveyard paper, which his father brought to school for him last week. Owen had not been able to find anything about the Ash family at the library, so he’d created an imaginary life for them, with children who died as often and as easily as hamsters and parents who had no time to grieve, just replaced them with new babies and moved on. Mr. Gabriel has given him an Incomplete.
On his wall, bordering the grave rubbings, Owen hangs a series of drawings he has done in the sketchbook and removed by running a craft razor along the spine. They are reproductions of the seraph mosaic, three pairs of wings fanning out from the center, the feathers varying shades of gray and black, or red and fiery orange, sometimes blue-green like a peacock, as they are described in his father’s notebooks. Eyes like clusters of pox run up and down the layers. Instead of drawing a seraph’s face, he makes a collage by cutting up the pages in the Copy Cop box. He pastes Hugh’s ninth-grade photo, blue sky cut away, at the center point of all the wings, so that the drawings look like a series of otherworldly paper dolls. Hugh doesn’t look bored or preoccupied like the seraphim and cherubs, or fierce like his mother, or absent like his father, or bright and feverishly determined like Lena. Hugh is the only member of Owen’s family who actually looks at him.
11. igloo
Sebastian talks a lot about sex. Though it makes me feel kind of sick and trapped, I can’t get him to stop bringing it up. He’s kind of obsessed with sex, in my opinion. And I’m a little curious, underneath feeling sick to my stomach.
Once, in the Store 24, he asked me to lend him five dollars, and along with a pack of Marlboros he bought a small square box of condoms. I was mortified. First of all, the guy behind the counter looked at me instead of him. Then, when we got outside, Sebastian opened the package right on the street and offered me one. I backed away and shook my head, and a homeless guy laughed at me. Hugh’s wrinkled condom package was still hidden in the pocket of my leather jacket. The condoms Sebastian bought were a different brand; one side of the package was clear and you could see the rolled, flesh-colored latex underneath. You might as well have been looking at a penis.
“I don’t actually need one, remember?” I said. Sometimes, I suspected that Sebastian was beginning to forget that I was a girl.
“I know more girls who carry them than guys,” Sebastian said.
“Yeah, well, I’m not one of those girls,” I mumbled.
“Are you a virgin?” Sebastian said, smiling as though this had just occurred to him, though he’d asked me before. I’d just avoided answering so far.
“Pretty much,” I said. This was an exaggeration. Except for one incident in the eighth grade I choose not to count, I have never even been kissed. Sebastian smiled at me as though he found this information adorable.
“You’re not, I guess,” I made the mistake of asking. I flinched when he laughed.
“No,” he said. “Not since I was twelve.”
“You did it when you were twelve?” I shrieked. “With who?”
“My brother’s girlfriend.” Sebastian shrugged, as if this were a traditional family activity. “It was my birthday present.”
“That’s disgusting,” I said before I could stop myself. Sebastian didn’t seem offended; he laughed.
“What about all those girls,” I said quietly. “The ones you go off with?” Sebastian had a lot of girls who liked him, and he was always finding new ones at my high school or in Harvard Square. He often left me alone for an hour or two while he disappeared with one of them, and returned cheerful and generous with his cigarettes.
“Yeeees?” Sebastian joked.
“Do you have sex with them?”
“Most of them.”
“The first time?”
“What did you think we were doing? Playing Monopoly?”
What I imagined was endless kissing. I don’t know how to imagine anything else.
“I just thought you were fooling around.”
“Like in grammar school?” Sebastian laughed. Then he stopped and squinted at me in a way that made me squirm.
“You’re sort of innocent,” he said. “It’s sweet.” I couldn’t decide between my two urges. One was to punch him, the other to bury my face in his neck. I did neither, just shrugged and walked toward some people we knew so he’d have to change the subject.
What I don’t understand are the girls he does it with. The girls I know, or overhear talking at the high school, are saving sex. Not for marriage, which is considered old-fashioned, but for true love or senior year or at least for the man they think they might marry someday. Sex is something boys want and girls try to put off until the right moment. I thought only sluts actually slept around. I never realized there are so many girls willing to do it, and so casually, as if it were a kiss in a game of spin the bottle instead of the farthest you can go with no coming back. I wonder if they even think of it as far, or if once you do it, it’s no longer a big deal. I hope this isn’t true. I like the idea of it being important. I would never tell Sebastian this. Clearly, it is exactly this kind of thing that makes me innocent.
One afternoon in the Pit it starts to sleet and everyone disappears. Sebastian brings me to a house we’ve never been to before, with a red-tiled roof and a tall stone wall enclosing the yard. He punches a code into the back-door alarm pad, letting us into a huge kitchen with a butcher-block island in the middle and copper pots hanging from the ceiling. The refrigerator, the fancy kind with side-by-side doors and ice and water dispensers, has next to no food in it. We find Frosted Mini-Wheats but no milk, so we eat the rectangles straight from the box. Behind the kitchen table is a wooden desk with bills and papers organized into piles by size. A picture of two boys, a blond one about seven, the other a brown-haired toddler, posing on the low branch of a tree, is on the windowsill behind the desk. I figure these kids are grown by now. This house doesn’t feel like it has a family living in it.
“C’mon,” Sebastian says, and I follow him up narrow back stairs to the second floor. Upstairs there are two long hallways separated by an open, skylighted foyer that looks down over the main staircase, which turns twice and is carpeted with oriental rugs. The doors to all the rooms are closed, but Sebastian walks purposefully to one at the end of the hall and turns the knob. It’s a boy’s room. I can tell by the cheesy sock smell before I even see the racecar and punk posters. There is an expensive-looking stereo system in a built-in cabinet along one wall, and a television. The green carpet is almost completely hidden by volcanoes of dirty clothes and towels.
Sebastian kicks off his boots, adding a new level to the unbearable stench, and roots around in a bureau for socks. I’ve never seen him take clothing from people before, but I don’t say anything, just find a semiclean spot on the bed and try not to watch him change. He grabs a flannel shirt from the closet, layering two Tshirts, one long-sleeved and one short, underneath it. There is a distinct gray circle where his neck meets his shoulders. He occasionally borrows showers, but I guess it’s not his priority today. At first I thought it was gross how he went day after day unwashed and in the same clothes, but now I understand it more. I’ve stopped showering every day. It’s like being a little kid again. There’s a smell that develops that’s not bad, just strong, and kind of comforting. Because it’s your own, I guess.
I look away while Sebastian changes his dirty blue jeans for black Levi’s. I didn’t mind seeing his ropy shoulders, but the backs of his thighs, with curly brown hair sprouting from potato-white skin, make me feel like I’m hurtling too fast at something I don’t want to be anywhere near. While he’s buttoning his fly, I hear the sound of a car pulling in, then a door slam.
“Shit,” he mumbles, peering between the slats of navy blue blinds.
“What?” I say. I’ve dreaded this all along, people returning while we are in their house.
“Be cool,” Sebastian says. High heels march purposefully up the back stairs and pause by the door to the room. It’s as if someone is deciding whether to knock.
“Sebastian,” the woman says when she finally pushes open the door. She’s dressed in work clothes, a suit jacket and skirt, heavy nylons shimmering at her knees. A gold chain snakes against her protruding collarbone and diamonds sparkle at her ears. The only thing about her that isn’t perfect is her hair, which is trying to escape her bun in angry, springy curls.
“Hi, Mom,” Sebastian says, ignoring my stare. “We were just leaving.”
“I don’t think so,” his mother says, looking at me with a quick, dismissive flick of her eyes. “We haven’t seen you in weeks. Dr. Ackerman says you’ve missed three appointments. You can’t treat this as your home only when it’s convenient for you.”
“You kicked me out, remember?” Sebastian says.
“No one kicked you out, Sebastian. You were given an ultimatum you refused to agree to. You are the only one to blame for where you are.”
“That’s rich,” Sebastian says. His hands are fisted in anger.
“Maybe I should go,” I say in the tight silence that follows.
“No,” Sebastian says at the same time his mother says: “Please do.” I rise from the bed then freeze, not sure which one I should listen to.
“At least wait downstairs.” His mother sighs, and I hurry out, relieved at not having abandoned him completely.
I creep down the big staircase without touching the mahogany banister. The house is freezing, the big living and dining rooms drafty and spotless, like no one is ever in them long enough to leave a trace. There are cold, clean fireplaces in every room. On the mantels are pictures of Sebastian—I recognize him now in the eyes and chin—with a little boy’s nose and soft, mousy-brown hair in a bowl cut. His older brother poses next to him, smiling knowingly or hamming it up, stealing the camera’s attention. In one later photo, his brother is our age, and his hair has been bleached white and spiked with gel, looking like their mother around his forehead. His smirk is aimed at someone off camera, his face turned away from whoever is trying to take his photo.
A man walks into the living room while I am studying this picture. He is sorting through a pile of mail, a briefcase still tucked under one arm. He is not surprised to see me, and doesn’t ask what I’m doing there. He just looks, then wanders off to the kitchen. I follow him.
“They’re upstairs,” I offer, though he hasn’t asked. I forget to disguise my voice, but he doesn’t seem to find this weird. He nods, but makes no move toward the stairs. Instead he fills a red kettle with water from the tap and puts it on the huge black stove, turning the gas on with a violent pop. With the sounds of argument tumbling down the back stairs, the man makes us tea, adding honey and milk without asking if I want it, placing the fat pottery mug on a coaster on the island and gesturing to an empty stool. He doesn’t say anything as I sit down and start to drink it, just flips through the mail, glancing at return addresses but not opening anything. When he gets to The New Yorker, he turns the pages and reads the cartoons first, just like my father and Hugh used to. The tea is delicious. I wrap my hands around the mug and let the steam rise up to my face.
