Boy Crazy, page 6
But that night I cried myself to sleep, suffocating beneath the weight of jealousy and loss over what Eliza had stolen. Because now, every time I tried to summon my cherished image of Angus in the dunes, it was my sister’s grinning face I saw underneath him, and he was fucking this time, not making love.
If Eliza hadn’t been reading her poetry aloud as she paced the upstairs hallway instead of watching where she was going, she would never have tripped on the third-floor stairs and broken her leg two weeks later. If she hadn’t broken her leg, I might never have wound up on Angus’s boat, and what happened would not have happened.
“You need to go meet him for me,” Eliza pleaded. “Tell him what happened. Tell him I can’t meet him, but that I’ll call him in a few days. We were supposed to go out on his boat tonight. He wanted to take me fishing. This is so tragic.”
“All right, Eliza. But you’ll owe me.” After two weeks of enduring conspiratorial smiles, sighs, and winks from Eliza before and after she slipped out to meet Angus, and listening to my oblivious grandmother compliment Eliza on how nice she was looking lately with a little makeup and her hair brushed, Eliza’s accident was an immensely satisfying experience. I could barely contain my euphoria, especially when I found out that the poem she’d been reading was a new, particularly awful one called “The Fisherman’s Friend,” about her and Angus, whom she now referred to in private as her “muse” and “incubus.” I hated her even more when I looked up the meaning of the word “incubus.”
I parked my bike near the public wharf in Prothro and went to look for Angus’s boat. I soon found it and him waiting beside it. Angus was dressed for the ocean at night. He wore faded jeans, a navy blue Peter Storm sweater, and a worn yellow rubber slicker jacket. He walked purposefully down the steep incline toward me, steady on his feet in spite of the swaying docks.
“Hey, buddy,” Angus said, reaching for my shoulder and steadying me. “Where’s your sister? We were supposed to go out on the water.” He smiled uncertainly. “She’s not standing me up, is she?”
“She asked me to tell you that she’s sorry, but she can’t come. She broke her leg.” It sounded like a lie, so I added, “Really. She was really looking forward to coming out with you tonight. She really likes you,” I said, my voice breaking. “A lot. She thinks about you all the time. She’s thought about you for years, even before she met you this summer. I think she’s in love with you.”
Angus was quiet for a moment. The he sighed. “Loves me, huh? Ah, summer girls,” he said. He shrugged. “Oh, well. I might have seen this coming.”
“Don’t you believe me? I’m telling the truth.”
He shrugged again. “Sure, buddy. I believe you. But the boat’s all ready and it’s a nice night.” He shrugged again. Then he said, “Do you want to go out? I’m going out anyway. Least I can do after you came out all this way to deliver the message, personal like. We’ll be back in an hour or so. Before you’re missed, I promise.”
“Sure,” I breathed. “Yes, I mean, I’d like that. Thanks.”
We walked to the stern. He stepped lightly up onto the swim grid and extended a strong arm. I took it, awkwardly. We were suddenly inches apart on a piece of slatted wood over the water. He led me into the cockpit and started the engine. Suddenly the floor was shaking. I jumped, and Angus laughed.
“Can I help?” I asked, hoping he’d say no.
“Nah, just sit here on this locker beside me and watch.” He walked to the window, and with one arm flipped himself out and onto the dock where he untied some lines. Another swing, he was back inside. He stuck his head out the window on either side to check for room, and the boat began to move out into the water toward the end of the docks. Small waves hit the hull, and it rocked, churning a furious wake. We passed a green buoy in the harbor. The sky was streaked with broad bands of yellow, orange, peach, and blue. Behind us, Prothro harbor grew smaller and indistinct.
“We’re at sea, buddy,” Angus said. “Come here and take the wheel. You won’t wreck anything, I promise.”
“It was you, wasn’t it?” Angus said. He was watching me as he spoke. He’d cut the motor, and the boat swayed beneath us. The sun had begun the most dramatic part of its descent, and the sky was now silver-blue and fiery orange against the horizon. Sitting on the deck, Angus had offered me a beer, which I’d declined. He had opened one for himself. “That day, the summer I was fifteen? You were watching me and that girl? I saw you. Do you remember?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” I said. “I mean, why would you think that I—”
“Prothro is a small town. You summer guys think we don’t know you, but we do. We may be townies, but we’re here all the time, and we know when the summer folk arrive, and who they are. I asked around. Was it you? I’m thinkin’ it was.”
I couldn’t speak at first. Then I said, in a small voice, “Yes, it was me.”
“You liked watching me with that girl.”
“Yes,” I whispered. “I liked watching it. I liked watching you.”
He took another pull on his beer. “Is it true what your sister said? That you don’t like girls?”
“My sister says mean things about me sometimes. It’s just her way. She doesn’t mean them.” I looked for malice in his face, or a threat, but saw nothing there but honest curiosity, and even kindness.
“We’re out in the middle of the ocean, boyo,” Angus said, waving his arms to encompass the ocean. “Anything you say out here, well, it stays out here. I don’t care, myself. Sometime, a guy just wants the company of another guy. I’ve been known to—well, let’s just say I’m open-minded myself. ”
I said nothing. My ears were full of the sound of blood thundering and the vast emptiness of ocean and sky all around us.
Angus stood up and walked slowly and surely over the deck to where I was standing. He put his arms on my shoulders and leaned in. “That stuff you were saying back there, about your sister being in love with me? Being in love with me for years?” I smelled beer on his breath, and sweet mint.
Those ocean eyes again, I thought, conjuring the bluff above the dunes in the lambent August light, picturing Angus below, in the sand and the girl beneath him, whose face I again, blissfully, couldn’t picture in my mind.
He whispered, “You weren’t really talking about your sister, were you, buddy?”
When he kissed me, his mouth on mine, his body against mine, I swear I was just about to say, No, of course not, Angus Treleaven. I wasn’t talking about my sister. I was talking about me. I love you. I’ve loved you all these years. But boys don’t love other boys, and boys like you especially don’t love boys like me. Boys like me don’t expect love, we just dream of it and watch other people receive it, and even now I’d never tell you I loved you because there’s only one answer you could give me that I’d survive, and I don’t trust you to give it to me. But his mouth was on mine, cutting off words, so none were spoken, nor were they needed.
Eliza was waiting up for me when I got in at ten. I told her I’d given Angus her message and he was cool with it, and he’d taken me out on his boat. She seemed irritated, but said she’d get Angus to take her out when the cast was off.
“August is almost over anyway,” Eliza said. “I’m going to be back at school in a few weeks, and I don’t see myself bringing”—she laughed here, clearly on the mend, sounding more like her old self than ever—“Angus Treleaven to Brown with me, do you?”
“I thought he was your muse, Eliza? I thought he was your incubus.”
“Well, muses come, muses go,” she replied, already tiring of the topic. “It’s not like I’m in love with him.” Eliza yawned. “I’m going to bed.” She looked at me quizzically. “Did you have fun tonight? You seem different.”
“How?”
“I dunno. Older, I guess. It’s about time you grew up anyway.” She turned with her crutches and began limping down the hallway. “Goodnight, Jem. Thanks for delivering the message.”
“No sweat, Eliza.”
That night, before sleep, I replayed it all in my mind: the weight of his body, the feeling of his cock in my hand, the taste of him. Even the brief, sharp pain, when it had come, had been endurable because he’d held me so tightly and licked away the tears when they’d come. It was the first time for me, and whatever it meant or didn’t mean to him, he honored it.
He asked me not to tell, and I said I wouldn’t. I never did. I never will.
The following year, my grandmother died, and my mother and her siblings sold Flyte for more money than they’d ever seen. My mother remarried, and we never went back to Prothro.
I never saw Angus Treleaven again.
But my sister was wrong, as she so often was in those days. Muses come, but they don’t always go.
I will remember that night when I am a very old man. I will dream of him off and on for the rest of my life. And in my dreams, the sun is always sinking into the ocean. I see him from my perch above the dunes. He turns, but this time when I look down at the body beneath him, I can see who it is. It’s me. I see my own face. And I know now as I did not know then, couldn’t know then, that boys like me can love.
ARMY BRAT
Dale Chase
My closet stretched from Texas to Germany to Oklahoma to Virginia and so many other places that it often seemed more like a net than a closet, trapping me while letting me see what I couldn’t have—and who I couldn’t have. I learned early on not to fight the net, to keep to my given role, knowing one day I’d be set free.
Standing guard was my father, the Major. Determined to make a man of me, he ignored my musical bent, my love of books and dislike of sports, and went into a tirade when I chose college in L.A. instead of going to West Point. The scene to end all scenes, it was my first open defiance, Mother crying in the background as I told the old man I wanted no part of the military.
He was essentially a good man but narrow in both mind and body so he saw my choice as betrayal. That he sank to name-calling was no surprise, and I stood like one of his soldiers and let him deride my quiet nature and cello playing because insults were nothing new. It was when he called me a little faggot that I broke into a smile.
“Wipe that grin off your face, mister!” he commanded.
“But sir, you’ve finally gotten something right.”
My comment was so far afield he couldn’t understand at first, and even when he started to consider the reality, I saw him hastily attempt to reinforce his crumbling certainty. “Don’t you tell me that shit. I won’t have it,” he bellowed while I kept smiling. Confidence sprang to life in me, net suddenly gaping wide, all because of what he’d said.
“It’s true,” I told him. “I’m gay.”
Already flushed, he went a deeper shade of red and zeroed in on me like something in his rifle sight. “The hell you are!”
“I don’t ask you to accept it,” I said, “but it is what it is. And I am what I am.”
His hand drew back into a fist because insolence wasn’t tolerated, but he stopped himself, probably because I stood my ground. I was empowered now, Superman ready to fight for truth because it was out there and he couldn’t put it back inside.
“Get out!” he said through clenched jaw.
Mother let out a wail. “Shut up, Frances,” he yelled. “Your precious son is a fucking faggot and I won’t have him in my house!”
I gave him a salute, clicked my heels, and walked out into the rest of my life.
He knew nothing of my musical scholarship to UCLA. Mother had been sole parental respondent to inquiries from the Goodman Foundation, which was pretty much the pattern for my entire life. She was the one who encouraged me to follow my interests, who shared my successes and consoled me through my failures. I think she suspected I was gay because I hadn’t dated but she never pressed, probably fearful of the scene she had just witnessed.
I slept in my car that first night, out along a deserted stretch of highway far from the base. Curled into the backseat, I felt only relief because the worst was over. Next day I went back for my cello and my stuff, packed the car, said good-bye to Mother, and left.
I spent the summer making my way west, keeping much to myself but still enjoying freedom from the Major’s command. Along the way I saw the sights and a couple of times was offered sex by unappealing guys at truck stops. As much as I wanted to pop my cherry, I wanted a hottie to do it.
So I saw the Grand Canyon, the Colorado River, the Imperial Valley, and the Mojave Desert before landing in Los Angeles with its freeways reaching out in all directions. Driving along, it seemed like the good life went on forever.
I soon made my way to the beach, where I zoned out for a few days, then took in the sights: downtown, Hollywood, West L.A., and finally Westwood. This little community seemed truly welcoming as it cozied up against the university. It was September now; school was about to begin. I savored the fact that for once the change of locale was my idea.
So I entered UCLA, a wide-eyed freshman among a thousand others. I’d requested a dorm mate from the music program, so I was surprised when I walked through an open door to find a cute Latino boy. Caught off guard, I asked if I had the right room. “I’m Tyler Weeks,” I said.
“Reynaldo Garcia,” he replied, offering a hand, “and yes, you’ve got the right room. The beaner plays violin.”
“I’m sorry,” I said but he grinned and brushed it aside. “No problem and hey, I am an exception, so it’s okay you thinking what you did. Call me Rey. I’m from Salinas, artichoke heart of the west.”
“Call me Ty. Army brat, born in Texas but lived all over.”
“Cello, huh,” Rey said.
“Yeah. I tried violin but something just connects me with this big guy, ya know?”
As Rey nodded, I started to feel for maybe the first time that life wasn’t built entirely around escape.
“So are you on scholarship?” I asked before I realized it was another stereotype. “I am,” I quickly added.
“Yes, the Goodman Foundation,” he said, and we stood in silent gratitude that university administrators had taken time to place the two Foundation-sponsored students together. Grinning like the schoolboys we used to be, Rey broke the spell. “Well, then we have to be good friends.”
We started unpacking, and amid the mess Rey suggested we play some music. It was like he wanted to try us out, and I liked the idea because music was where I lived. As I began a Bach cello suite, Rey followed on his violin and soon we had a real symmetry going, a foursome of two guys and two instruments, one cohesive sound. People began to poke their heads in, and soon we had a little cluster of silent faces. I had never been happier.
Rey was cute in a baby-faced, slightly chunky way, and sexy as hell. His black hair had a delicious curl and he left it long enough to become tousled but short enough to flatter. His lips were the fullest I’d seen on a guy, which made me wonder if he’d ever considered playing the horn.
I never thought he’d be interested in me. Skinny Anglo, brown hair spiked in rebellion against years of military cuts, I was pure nondescript, which, up against Rey’s dark good looks, made me feel nearly invisible—yet in his company, I thrived. He was nineteen to my eighteen, having gotten behind in school early on because his family traveled to work the fields.
“I picked crops until I was eight,” he explained, “then we settled in Salinas where my parents got jobs at the cannery. That was when my music finally had room to grow because I got to stay in one school long enough to play an instrument. I worked after school to pay for lessons and my own violin, and the best day was when I got to turn in the loaner from school.”
As I listened to stories about his early life, I began to see my own upbringing in a whole new way. I’d pretty much had everything, even if it came with the Major. A child picking crops seemed like something out of Dickens.
Rey and I shared music classes as well as freshman English, and while we became acquainted with other students, we clung to each other because we’d arrived by the same route, far from the luxury most of our peers knew. Evenings we practiced together and were surprised at how many dorm mates preferred our sound to the hip-hop blaring down the hall.
We also had long talks on music theory, punctuated by typical student chat about our instructors. Oddly, it was our music theory professor, Austin Deal, who opened a door we hadn’t yet approached.
We both admired the prof for the easy way he shared his wealth of knowledge, and we both, independent of each other, pegged him as gay. Not quite a queen, he still had an exactness of speech and a tidy walk that gave him away. He was also a sharp dresser among a faculty given to jeans and Birkenstocks.
“So do you think he’s gay?” Rey asked me one night. It was late, hot, and we lay in our beds in the dark.
“Totally,” I said, thrilled to approach the subject.
“I heard he’s involved with Drummond, the swim coach.”
“No, really?”
From there we crafted an underwater sex scene that was carefully supportive, neither of us owning up to any deep interest even though I had a hard-on just from talking about such a thing.
Rey was always casual about nakedness in front of me, far more at ease than I ever was, and I wondered how he’d gotten to be so comfortable on display. Was that what growing up in the fields did? I’d always been uneasy in locker rooms, afraid I’d get turned on, so my nakedness had a hurried quality, but Rey would come from the shower and just drop his towel, then stand combing his hair or looking through his closet—and I’d be trying not to look but seeing every inch of his adorable butt, his solid torso, his broad shoulders, and a dick that always looked halfway hard. His chest was smooth, and sometimes he’d absently rub a tit while deciding what to wear. Even though his wardrobe was nothing special, he still was selective, and this got my hopes up. That, and the fact that after a whole month he’d never mentioned girls, nor asked me why I hadn’t. Then one day I came back from class to find myself alone, and there on Rey’s bed a magazine lay open to a colorful spread of naked guys with hard dicks.
