I Know This Much Is True (55 page)

Ralph was like one of those stray cats you feed once and then they won’t go away.”

“Come on, Leo,” I said. “Let’s go.”

“It’s
her,
” Dell said, nodding back toward the house. “My wife.

She’s too good-hearted for her own good. White, colored, she don’t care. She’ll take in any stray dog. He ate more meals over here than he did at home. And then the next thing you know—”

“Whose fag magazines are those in there?” Leo said. “The ones in your living room? They yours or his? Or do you share them?”

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Dell crossed his beefy arms across his chest. Looked from me to Leo. Moved to within a few inches of my face. The truth was this: in a fight, he could have probably killed both Leo and me. “What is this, Dicky Boy?” he asked me. “Blackmail? You and Big Mouth here trying to blackmail me?”

Was the tremor in my face visible? The winner of this one was going to be the guy who didn’t flinch first. “Blackmail?” I said.

“Because you and your buddy here and that pansy-ass brother of yours are going to be three sorry little motherfuckers if you fuck with me. You got it?”

My gut was churning, but I was into it now. There was no backing away from what Leo had begun. “No, this isn’t blackmail,” I said. “If this was blackmail, I’d be asking you to
give
me the car. But I’m not. I just want you to sell it for what it’s worth.”

Just when I thought the worst was coming, he nodded. “Two-seventy-five, you said?”

I looked over at Leo. Looked back again. “I said two-fifty.”

“What about you, Big Mouth?” he said, nodding over at Leo. “If your buddy and I make a little private deal here, you gonna keep your trap shut for once in your life?”

“Mum’s the word, my man,” Leo said. “Mum’s the word.”

“Okay, then, Dicky Boy. Bring the money over here Monday night. I want a bank check. Two-fifty. Make it out to Delbert Weeks.”

“No problem,” I said.

“No problem at all,” Leo echoed. “Delbert.”

“Good,” he said. “Now both of youse get off my fucking property before I change my mind. And do me a favor, will you, Dicky Boy?

Explain to Big Mouth here what the difference is between a white guy and a nigger, will you? He can’t seem to figure it out on his own.

Big Know It All he is, but that one escapes him.”

He pounded back in the house, slamming the screen door behind him.

We walked back up to where Leo had parked his car. Got in.

Neither of us said anything. We rode for a mile or more in silence.

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Leo was the first to speak. “Unbelievable,” he said. “Un-fucking-believable.”

“What?”

“All of it! The fact that they’re queers together! The fact that we got you that car for two-fifty! Frankly, Birds, I didn’t think you had it in you, but that was the sweetest victory I’ve ever seen. What’d you say to him?
No, Dell, if this was blackmail, I’d expect you to
give
me
the car.
I wish I had that on tape, Birdseed. You’re my new hero.”

I told him to just shut up. Told him Ralph wasn’t queer.

“Hey, really, Birds. An hour ago, I was thinking you were a pussy because you wouldn’t sell a little weed on the side with me. Now, come to find out, we’re a couple of what-do-you-call-its . . .
extor-tionists!
I’m going to buy us a couple bottles of Boone’s Farm on the way out to the bridge. My treat, my man. This calls for a celebration.”

“I said shut up, Leo. Okay?”

“Okay, my man. Sure thing. No sweat. Because you are my fucking
hero.
”

The wine and two or three hits off of one of Ralph’s joints mellowed me out a little. Out at the trestle bridge, I kept feeling something striking my line but nothing would hook itself. Leo kept talking about queers. “And how about that little fruity kid we went to Kennedy with? He graduated in your year. The guy everyone always used to pitch pennies at in the hallway?”

“Francis Freeman?” I said.

“
That’s
the guy. Francis Freeman. He was
definitely
light in the loafers.”

“God,” I said. “This stuff from Ralph is strong. I am
wrecked.
”

“Me, too. So, what do you think, Birds? Could you ever do it?”

“Do what?”

He took a sip on the roach. When he held out the joint for me, I shook my head. “Make it with another guy,” he said, exhaling.

“Yeah, right,” I said. “Bring him on.”

“No, I mean it. How about if it was a matter of life or death?”

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“How’s something like
that
going to be a matter of life or death?” I said.

“I don’t know. Suppose . . . okay, suppose this psycho-fag pulls a gun on you and says, ‘Okay, I got a bullet ready for your brain, but I’ll let you live if I can bugger you.’ Would you do it?”

“Jesus Christ, Leo,” I said, casting. “Give it a rest. Will you?”

“
Would
you?”

“That’s such a stupid question, I’m not even answering it.”

“All right, all right, how about some guy comes up to you and says, ‘See this four-on-the-floor ’69 Chevelle SS-396? How would you like to cruise up to Boston College on the weekends and visit your little honey in this mean machine? All’s you gotta do is let me suck your dick once a week.’ Would you do it then?”

“What are you, nuts or something?” I changed my mind about the joint—reached over for it. “Why? Would
you
?”

“Me? No way, man. I ain’t no three-dollar bill.” I reeled in, cast again. Leo cast. “I might consider doing it for a Mustang, though,”

he said. I looked over at him. “I’m kidding, Birdseed. I’m kidding, I’m kidding.”

My mind floated from the Valiant I’d just bought to Drinkwater standing at the screen door at Dell’s to the sound of the ringing phone over at Dessa’s house. Fish or no fish, it felt better to be out here in the late afternoon sun than back at the house with my stupid, screwed-up brother. Better to fish and get stoned than wait all day long for
her
to pick up the phone. Let
her
wait now, I reasoned.

Let
her
sit and wait for a call from the guy her father said wasn’t good enough for her. . . . Unless she agreed with him by now, after that stupid stunt I’d pulled out in her mother’s car. I’d scared her: that was the thing. Blown her trust.

I reeled in my line. Cast out as far as I could. Man, I was wasted.

“You ever have a guy hit on you?” Leo said.

“What?”

“A queer. Did a queer ever try and pick you up?”

“Man, Leo, would you get off it about queers?”

“Did you, though?”

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“No. Why? Did
you
?”

“Nah. Not really. . . . Just this old guy once. Down at the beach.

He came up to my blanket and asked me if I wanted to take a walk with him and let him give me a hum job.”

I looked over at his dope-glazed eyes. “And what’d you say?”

“I told him no. That I was saving myself for you, Birdseed. Hey, you know what? Maybe you and me and Ralph and Dell can go on a double date sometime.”

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe Dell’s one. But not Ralph.”

“You mark my words, Birdsey. Believe me.”

“Why? What makes you such a big expert?”

“Well, for one thing, I’m a theater major, aren’t I?”

“Yeah? So? What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Because there are a lot of fags in theater. There’s tons of ’em.

You know that professor I was talking about before? The Shakespeare teacher?
He’s
one.”

“Yeah?” I said. “And how do you know that? He announce it in class one day?”

Leo reeled in his line. “This is hopeless,” he said. “Come on.

Let’s go.”

“No. Answer the question,” I said. “You tell me your teacher’s a homo. You tell me you’re an expert about it. I’d just like to know how you know.”

“I just do, that’s all.” I sat there, watching him unhook his lure.

As wrecked as I was, the operation was totally interesting to me.

“Because the guy kissed me once. Okay?” I looked from Leo’s fingers to his face.

“He
kissed
you? Some professor
kissed
you? That’s bullshit, Leo.”

“Why would I bullshit about that?” he said. “You think I go around—”

“Whereabouts? In class? Up on the stage?”

“At his apartment.”

“His apartment?” I didn’t know whether to believe him or not.

“What were you doing at the guy’s apartment?”

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bunch
of us went over there.” He chugged the last of the wine. Flung the bottle against a ledge. We both paused for the satisfaction—the sound of smashing glass. “He had this cookout thing at his place at the end of the semester. For the whole class. He’d bought all this food and wine and shit, but then only about six or seven of us showed up. I got wasted—I mean, the guy had bought enough stuff for about twenty people—and before you know it . . . I don’t know. I was the last one there. Me and him. . . . And he just . . .”

“Just what?”

“I told you already. He kissed me.”

I sat there.

“It wasn’t that big a deal, Dominick. You don’t have to look at me like that. He just did it, and then the two of us laughed a little, and I said thanks but no thanks, and he said fine, fine, he was just—how did he put it?—he was giving me an option I could exercise if I felt like it. And that was that.”

“That’s
weird,
” I said.

“Why?” he said. “What’s so weird about it? It’s different in theater. . . . Hey, I swear to Christ, Birdsey, if you ever tell anyone about—”

“I just can’t believe some teacher would just—”

“That’s because you’re so fucking naive,” he said. “You were brought up in this one-horse town. You never been anywhere, man. Come on.

Let’s get out of here.”

I stood up, reeling a little from the dope, and followed Leo down the path.

Back in the car, we decided to smoke the second joint. Leo lit the thing up and passed it over.

I was just sitting there, thinking. “It happened to my brother one time,” I said.

“What?”

“Thomas. This gay guy started coming on to him once while he was hitchhiking. He was . . . he told me about it.”

“Told you about what?” Leo said. He was wasted.

“This . . . this guy in a station wagon pulled over. He had out-of-

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state plates. Michigan, I think he said. . . . And he . . . Thomas said he looked like somebody’s grandfather, this guy—white hair, one of those old-man sweaters with the patches on the sleeves, all these family snapshots magnetized to the dashboard. So he . . . he gets in the car and . . .” Leo looked so stoned, I couldn’t tell if anything was registering. If he was even listening. “And the guy says how he’s visiting his daughter and her family. How he’d just decided to go out and take a drive. Says he’s lonely. So . . . so they’re riding along.

Thomas and him. He just seemed like some friendly old guy. And then, out of the blue, he says, ‘You know what? You’re a good-looking son of a gun. Why don’t I find someplace and pull over so the two of us can get to know each other a little better?’ He said he’d pay him twenty bucks to . . .”

I sat there, remembering. That guy’s hands groping me, petting me like an animal. His not listening when I told him to stop.

“
Dominick, stop it! You’re scaring me!
” I heard Dessa say, and floated back to the Dial-Tone parking lot the night before.
“Stop it!

Stop it!
” I told myself it wasn’t the same thing at all: the way that old pervert had scared me in that car, on that road, and the way I’d scared Dessa the night before. How were those two things anything alike?

“And then what?” Leo said.

“Huh? What’d you say?”

“He told your brother he’d pay him twenty bucks and then what?”

I looked over at Leo. Why were there gray pants at the driver’s side window?

“Evening, gentlemen,” someone said.

Leo jumped. Cursed. Tried, ridiculously, to shove the joint under his seat. I was so out of it, I didn’t get it at first. The officer asked to see Leo’s license and registration.

“My partner and I have been observing you two gentlemen and we have probable cause to believe you may be in possession of an illegal substance.” A car door slammed. A
cruiser
door. In my sideview mirror, I saw the other cop approach us.

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Oh,
fuck,
I thought. We were royally fucked now.

“We’re going to have to search your vehicle,” the first cop said.

“Would you gentlemen please get out of the car and stand over here please?”

“Absolutely, officer,” Leo said. “However my friend and I can be of assistance.”

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23

f

1969

When my stepfather warned me not to trust the Leo Bloods of the world any further than I could throw them, I dismissed the advice as Ray’s usual warm view of humanity. But that night, in the interrogation room of the Connecticut State Police Department, Barracks J, I saw what he meant.

Within the first minute of their examination of Leo’s Skylark out at the trestle bridge, Officers Avery and Overcash had discovered both the unsmoked joint and the burning one that Leo had chucked under the seat. “Hey, how’d
that
get in there?” Leo asked stupidly about the smoldering roach. “Birdsey, you know anything about this?”