Foolish Fire (14 page)

I glanced quickly at Mark to see his reaction, but he didn’t show the least sign of noticing anything out of the ordinary. When he turned to say something to me, however, he caught my look of expectation. For a moment we stared at each other with strange expressions on our faces. Then he gave a short laugh and broke the silence. “You know, sometimes I wonder about those guys.”

“What guys?” I had lowered my voice in response to his, though no one could possibly hear us in the car.

“You know…fags.”

“What about them?”

“I mean, what can two guys see in each other? It just doesn’t make any kind of sense at all, does it?” His face was all innocence.

I felt I was treading on dangerous ground. I detected something false in his voice and was wary about replying immediately. Suddenly I didn’t entirely trust him. After all, I had no assurance that he wasn’t testing me, trying to catch me in a slip of the tongue, watching for a clue which would give me away. Was I under suspicion? I shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”

“You know what? One time I was standing at a crosswalk just waiting for the light to turn green so I could cross, when this guy pulls up in his car right in front of me. He was just a regular-looking guy, not a creep or a weirdo or anything. And he rolls down his window and says to me, right there in the middle of the street—in broad daylight—like it was nothing, he says: ‘Hey, kid, wanna come home with me and fuck?’ Just like that!”

“What’d you do?”

“I told him to go to hell, of course. The lousy faggot.”

“Does that kind of thing happen to you a lot, Mark?”

“What do you mean by that?”

I laughed at his look of indignation but he didn’t seem to be too put off. He shook his head with a laugh.

“Let’s change the subject, Guy.”

“Do you think there’s a lot of fags?” I pressed, with what I hoped was a casual air.

“Oh, they’re all over.” He looked at me closely. “Take Mr. Brown, the sophomore English teacher. Wouldn’t you say he’s one?” There was a delighted gleam in his eyes. This was the kind of juicy gossip he liked to regale me with. Much of it dealt with speculations on who in school was queer and who wasn’t. He would furtively point out someone and say, “He’s suspected of being one.” Or: “Him—he’s an obvious one, isn’t he?”

Now he repeated, “Doesn’t Brownie have all the attributes of one?”

I thought of the way Mr. Brown walked, and the fussy way he crossed his legs in class. “I guess so.”

“And look at Glen and Mike, the two lovebirds. They’re pretty obvious, aren’t they?”

“I’ve always wondered about them.” These were a couple of seniors—Glen was president of the student council, and Mike was his inseparable companion. “Are they gay?”

“Oh sure,” he said. “They’re lovers and don’t care who knows it…though they stop short of coming out completely.” He savored my look of incredulity before going on: “I think there’s a covert understanding between Glen and his parents. After all, he transferred from that exclusive prep school he was in, to Freedom High, just so he could be near Mike.”

“How about Mike’s parents?”

“He lives alone with his mother. For her, Glen is just a dear friend of her son’s. She sees nothing strange about the number of times her son spends the night at Glen’s.”

I didn’t think either Glen or Mike were very attractive. Glen was too large and stocky, with a steely stare peering from behind his dark-rimmed glasses. And Mike with his batting lashes was too effeminate for my taste. Yet I couldn’t help feeling a certain jealousy at their exclusive friendship.

“It’s amazing that people haven’t crucified them for their behavior,” I said.

“Oh, when you’re as popular as Glen is, then your reputation is pretty secure. Other boys haven’t been so lucky.”

He went on to tell me about a boy in another school named Kevin who’d emerged from his closet one day with a vengeance. Because it was fashionable among musicians to be bisexual, Kevin, a bass player in a rock band, had let it be known that he was gay. But he’d seriously miscalculated the acceptance of his classmates.

As soon as the word began to spread around, he became the butt of cruel jokes and open derision. His name quickly became a byword via the boys’ room walls—people called after him in the hallway, bigger boys picked fights with him. The teachers only made nominal attempts to protect him from the baiting, trying to hide their smiles as the boys—it was always the boys—called him names to his face, right in class. None of his friends rallied to his defense, not even those who’d already suspected his inclinations and had tacitly accepted it (feeling smug about their open-mindedness in doing so.) Closing their eyes to his “perversions” was one thing—to befriend an avowed homosexual was quite another, and they felt that his brazen declaration was a betrayal of their confidence.

His homosexual friends, according to Mark, felt that their own covers were threatened, and were the most vociferous in denouncing him, abandoning him to his fate. To his credit, however, Kevin never squealed on anyone, for that would have betrayed his own principles. No one knew what his parents’ reaction was, but shortly afterwards, he was transferred to another school in another city where his family was not known.

Mark seemed to take a malicious glee in recounting all this…almost as if he felt that the offending homosexual had gotten just deserts for his vice, and that he himself was free of any such taint.

As for me, I told him I felt disgusted with the way Kevin had been treated. “The school should have done something to protect him,” I said. “They’re always telling us about freedom of expression, but when it comes down to doing something about it, they look the other way.”

“What’s the matter?” smiled Mark knowingly. “Are you pining away over lost opportunities?”

“Get lost!” I said, flushing.

“You know, you just might be the type a gay boy would fall for.”

I hated the expression on his face just then, a look which combined amusement, derision, and a hint of curious questioning.

He laughed at my embarrassment. I wondered if he derived a sadistic pleasure from these games of his, coyly enticing me with illicit possibilities, but leaving a safety net so that if I ever made a move, he could always rear up, act offended, and leave me ignobly exposed. But then I myself sometimes teased him with ambiguous hints, knowing fully well I could never risk my reputation with anything more than that.

“There’s a gas station,” he said.

As he pulled into a self-service station, he suddenly seemed to be filled up with nervous tension of some kind; his knees were pumping up and down.

“Watch this,” he said as we stopped at a pump. He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a pair of old-fashioned sunglasses. As he slipped them on, he altered his face into a puzzled, blankly open-mouthed expression, as if listening intently for something. And I realized that I’d just witnessed his instant transformation into a blind person.

“Give me a hand, will you?” he muttered to me in an undertone.

He groped for my arm. I immediately fell in with the charade, leaping out my side of the car and opening the door for him. Staring straight ahead, he cautiously felt his way out of the driver’s seat. The way he pulled off his act with such audacity gave me a giddy feeling of excitement.

I unscrewed the gas cap as he reached out for the nozzle of the gas pump. Because he supposedly couldn’t see what he was doing, he shot some gas all over the side of the car before I could safely guide the nozzle into the hole. The stench of the gas stung my nostrils, but it was all I could do to keep from laughing.

The other drivers, along with the attendant, were staring in sympathy, not yet realizing the unlikelihood of a blind person putting gas into a car, but responding to an instinctive concern for handicapped people. Perhaps they thought I was training him or something. If they suspected anything, it must have been allayed by Mark’s convincing performance. The attendant came over.

“How much do I owe you?” asked Mark, with the slightest hint of an English accent.

The attendant read the price on the meter, one hand winding the meter back to zero. “$4.75, sir.”

Mark cupped a hand behind his ear. “Excuse me?”

The attendant raised his voice. “$4.75.”

Mark fished into his pocket and pulled out a handful of rumpled bills and coins, poured them cascading into the attendant’s hurriedly outstretched palm. The attendant diligently counted out the right amount and carefully, one hand touching Mark’s other hand in signal, put it back into the palm.

Mark stuffed the change into his pocket, and with my assistance, found his way back to the driver’s seat.

“Thank you, my good man,” he said to me.

I shut the door, skipped around the front and hopped into the passenger seat. Mark started the car up with a roar and we squealed out of there, leaving rubber skid marks all over the pavement. I could only imagine the open-mouthed disbelief of the poor duped attendant.

As soon as we were in the clear, we laughed at the top of our voices.

“How’d you think up a prank like that?” I asked.

He just smirked.

“You’re crazy, Mark, you really are.”

“Thank you, my good man. I take that as a high compliment.”

He stamped his foot down heavily on the accelerator and I felt myself pulled back into the seat as we shot straight ahead into an intersection whose traffic light had just turned yellow.

Class Flirt

After Judy, it was another girl. Events outside my control, it seemed, were conspiring to push me and Vanessa Hunter together. I’d known for quite some time that she was interested in me. Before class she always asked me about the homework assignment or the reading…and after class walked with me to my next class. And all during class she stared at me. When our eyes met she smiled awkwardly and glanced quickly down at her notes and then just as quickly looked up again to see if I was still looking.

She was very pretty, one of the more attractive girls in the junior class. She had a unique half-skipping stride which made her breasts bounce under her sweater when she walked. And she was constantly aware of all those boys’ eyes on her, for she was always getting in trouble with the teachers for violating the school dress code. One time she’d been sent home for wearing a loose knit sweater with no bra underneath. She was the type of girl that the boys loved and the girls hated…. Yet despite her reputation as a flirt, she wasn’t one of those girls whom we joked about in the locker room. She seemed more mature than most other girls, and a little distant. Her beauty put her in a class of her own.

There was something about her that scared me a little; she was such a free spirit that I felt intimidated. And there might have been a part of me that was jealous of the way she drew people’s attention. In any case, she was around me so much in school that many people thought we were already going steady.

I was putting my books away just after saying good-bye to her when someone slammed into me from behind, sending me crashing into my locker. I whirled around, fists clenched, ready for a fight. But it was only Jack.

He feinted some punches at me which went whishing past my ears—a little too close for comfort.

“Hey Willard, I saw you talking with Vanessa Hunter just now.”

“Oh? What about her? She’s always talking with me.”

“I know. That’s why I’m pissed off.”

Though he was joking, I sensed a very real anger beneath the banter. Vanessa had told me that Jack had asked her out several times, but she’d always refused.

He was still one of the more popular boys in school, but lately I’d lost my awe of him. Perhaps it was because I’d grown physically bigger since those far-off junior high days when I’d idolized him. In fact, we were now the same height, and thanks to my weight-lifting, I even had a better build.

And the girls seemed more attracted to me. Jack was definitely a guy’s guy, interested mainly in sports and cars, while I was able to talk about music, art, and other topics which girls found more enjoyable.

“Come on, Jack, I’m not interested in her. She’s not my type.”

“Well it sure seems like you’re
her
type.”

“We’re just friends, that’s all.”

“Just friends, my ass. I wish she’d be friends with me. She don’t even wanna talk with me.”

I looked into his eyes and saw the real hurt there. Despite all the girlfriends he’d had, he seemed to have fallen hard for Vanessa. And perhaps for the first time in his life, the object of his desire was not a sleaze; he knew now how it felt to fall in love with someone who cared nothing for him. Perhaps because of this, he often disparaged Vanessa in front of the other guys. I could tell it was his envy of me now which had put him in an almost belligerent mood.

“Jack, I’m not interested in her, period.”

“Not interested in her?” He gave me a disbelieving look. “Guy, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“What’s so great about her? I mean, she’s nice and everything, but you make it sound like she’s a goddess. I don’t think she’s
that
great.”

“Shit.” He pulled out his wallet and showed me a photograph. It had apparently been taken at the beach last summer with a telephoto lens; Vanessa was lying back on a beach towel wearing her famous string bikini.

“Where’d you get this?” I asked.

“I bought it from Fred Gale.” Fred Gale was one of the school yearbook’s photographers, a boy who always walked around with a camera slung around his neck. It was rumored that he would sell pictures of girls undressing in their bedrooms—for a hefty price.

I had a sudden image of Jack lying on his bed gazing at this picture, and it depressed me. Vanessa was a cut above his usual girlfriends, and his obsessive yearning for her was probably putting her more out of his reach. I handed back the photo.

As he slipped it into his wallet, he peered around furtively before leaning in to whisper in my ear: “She puts out. I know it for a fact.”

“Who told you?”

“Ron Holmes.”

Ron was the big sports hero of Freedom High, idolized by the teachers, adored by the girls, and the envy of all the boys. He was everything a boy could wish to be: handsome, statuesque, friendly and outgoing. And he had an almost magical charisma. Though still only a junior, he was perhaps the most popular boy in school. As for girlfriends, he had his pick of the lot. There wasn’t a girl who would willingly turn him down. Every two weeks he had a different girl on his arm. The thought that Vanessa might have slept with him gave me a strange thrill. I tried to hide my excitement. “Ron’s always bragging,” I said. “I don’t know how far to believe him anymore.”

Ron wasn’t the only one who bragged about his conquests—a lot of boys did. The talk in the locker rooms recently was getting raunchier and raunchier. Boys who’d had sex with girls made no secret of it. And talking about it later in the locker room was like a ritual, a rite of passage which sanctified the act and gave it status. It almost seemed that boys did it just so they could tell the others about it, cementing their macho camaraderie. A sexual conquest was the ultimate badge of masculinity, and the guys who’d scored formed a select group. I was feeling more and more left out of their circle.

Jack was looking right at me.

“She’s an easy lay. You’ll have no trouble scoring with her.” It certainly was true that Vanessa had made her willingness quite evident to me, yet I was bothered by Jack’s taunting.

“I don’t know about that.” I began moving the books around in my locker.

“Why not?” he insisted. “What’s the matter? You know she likes you, right? She’ll give it to you if you press hard enough. Girls like to play hard to get. It’s part of their act.”

It was almost as if he himself stood to gain from my conquest of Vanessa. I knew in my heart he wanted it so much more than me that I was tempted to say: “Go ahead. You can have her. I don’t want her.” But instead I said, “Come on, I can handle my own love life.”

“Hey, listen,” he said. “When you take her out next time, promise me one thing. Promise me you’ll try to get into her pants.”

“All right, I will. But remember,” I smiled, “I’m only doing it for you.”

“Get outta here.” He punched my arm.

As I walked away, he called to my back in a mocking voice, “Guy, if you can’t fuck her, there’s something wrong with you.”

I whirled around and stared at him. The mad glint in his eye—which could only be envy—was like a challenge to me. A challenge from which I couldn’t back down anymore. A challenge I couldn’t keep putting off indefinitely.

At noon I spotted Vanessa in the lunch room and went over to her table. She was sitting with a couple of girlfriends, but as if it had been pre-arranged, the other two girls got up and left after a brief greeting.

She said to me with a serious face, “I thought you were trying to avoid me.”

“Avoid you? Why? What makes you say that?”

“Well, from the way you’ve been acting. I thought—well, I don’t know.”

I toyed with my milk straw for a moment, then leaned down and sucked up a cool stab of milk from the half-pint carton. She was smiling when I looked up.

I noticed several places on her cheeks and chin where the pimples had been skillfully covered up with make-up. Her skin had an unnatural sheen to it, caused by the skin-tightening effects of her acne soap. Her eyebrows had been plucked recently, and she wore a purplish shade of lipstick. The edges of her hair where it brushed against her cheeks were dyed silver.

“Are you mad at me?” I said.

“No. Not really.”

“I sure wish I could figure you out.”

“Why don’t you try?”

“Okay, I will.” I looked at her. “How about going out with me tonight?”

She lazily twirled a lock of her hair around and around a finger. “Well, I had some other plans, but since it’s you who’s asking….”

“Come on, Vanessa, will you go out with me?” I saw her eyes shift in intensity.

“Um, sure.” Calmly she lifted her milk, jabbed the straw absent-mindedly between her lips several times before looking down, guiding it in. As she sucked up the milk, her eyes were on mine, big and shining.

Later that afternoon, when I stepped into the boys’ room, a bit of graffiti above the urinal caught my eye. Someone had scrawled roughly in pencil: “Vanessa Fucks.”

I had a strong suspicion it was Jack’s doing.

*

We watched a movie at a downtown theater. I was unable to concentrate on the screen at all—my head was so filled with what was coming up later. I’d determined to have sex with Vanessa tonight at any cost. The time had come for me to join the ranks of the experienced boys.

My stomach was all knotted up at the approach of the test, for, inevitably, it had taken the form of a challenge which I had to face up to, a call to combat. I had to do it in order to be accepted by the guys.

I felt the sweat in my palms.

The end of the movie came almost without my noticing it. We walked out to my car in the theater parking lot. Vanessa skipped around to the passenger side as I slid into the driver’s seat and unlocked the door for her.

As soon as she sat down, she punched in a dance station on the radio and immediately the synthesized thumps of the bass, the ticks of the drum machine filled the car. Re-arranging the rear-view mirror so she could see herself in it, she flicked her hair back several times, then fussed with her make-up.

I started up the engine and joined the line of cars nosing out of the parking lot. “So…where do we go next?”

She looked at me. “Someplace where we can be, you know, alone.”

“And where might that be?”

“Well, there’s no one at my house right now.”

As I stared at her in the dark interior of the car, her face was suddenly illuminated by a passing headlight.

“Sure.”

As I drove, she slipped her hand into mine. The moon was off to our right, just nudging over the mountains. Vanessa gazed at it for a while in silence, then pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket and lit one up, blowing the smoke out with a long exhalation.

She lived at the far northern end of town, in a sprawling old wooden two-story house approached by a long dirt driveway. In the moonlight I noted its peeling paint and rusting rain-gutters. Attached to the whole back side of the house was a long, screened-in veranda.

My car bounced around as it hit the potholes hidden in the road. I slowed down and drove forward at a crawl until I found an open space where I could park. I shut the engine off and the radio sounded unbelievably loud in the silence. I turned it off.

The house looked dark and unlived-in.

“Like I said, there’s no one home,” she said. “Come on, let’s go in.”

We got out and walked to the veranda. Opening the door, she turned on the light.

There was a comfortable clutter inside. In one corner was an unused washing machine with a hand-cranked wringer. Leaning against it were half a dozen fold-up lawn chairs. An assorted pile of Christmas tree ornaments and colored lights was in one cardboard box. Another box was filled with yellowing paperbacks—Westerns, murder mysteries, and science fiction.

As I gazed about, Vanessa walked over to a small stereo and turned on the radio; it was already tuned to the dance station we’d been listening to in the car. Then she dimmed the light she’d just turned on and led me by the hand to a low collapsible sofa in one corner.

“I like to sit here at night and watch the moon sometimes,” she said. “Why don’t you sit here next to me?”

“All right.” I sank down onto the soft cushions and gazed out the screened window. The moon was not visible from here, though I could see its pale light shimmering on the leaves of the trees in the yard.

“Brrr, I’m cold,” she said suddenly, hugging herself. She took my arm, pulled it behind her and snuggled back into it. “There.” She looked at me impishly. “Isn’t that so much better?”

“Yes.”

She leaned in for a kiss. Her soft lips shivered into mine with little nips and caresses. Soon her tongue was brazenly probing inside my mouth with experienced curls and rolls. Where had she gained such mastery, such expertise? I suddenly envisioned all the other boys she must have kissed, in movie theaters, in the backseats of cars, on baby-sitting couches. How many had there been? I tried to picture this army of predecessors and suddenly felt as if I could taste all those other boys’ mouths.

Her muffled moans made tiny vibrations within my own mouth, almost as if I myself were moaning. She came up for air and pulled slowly away. A long string of saliva stretched between our mouths, lengthening like spun glass as she pulled farther back. It glistened in the dark for a moment before she reached a hand up and plucked it away with a finger. She giggled.