Stick (10 page)

And that would most likely mean I'd spend the night in the spare room.

Sometimes, Mom and Dad forgot things when they'd had enough to drink.

So the three of us watched television with the lights off in Paul's room. It was hard for me to pay attention, though. My brain was too full of other stuff.

Mostly, I wanted to talk to my brother.

I sat on the floor, cross-legged, in front of the television. Paul and Bosten were up on the bed. Paul had his arm around Bosten and leaned his head against Bosten's cheek. They rubbed their bare feet together. I heard him say,

“It doesn't matter           what we do or say       in front of        him anymore.”

And I tried not to listen.

*   *   *

One time,
while we were watching a comedian, I heard Bosten say, “Don't!”

And then they both laughed and wrestled on the bed.

But I did not turn around to see what it was that he was telling Paul to not do.

I wished I could just disappear and leave them alone.

*   *   *

Mom and Dad
took the Pontiac home that night.

Bosten and I drove back home together in the small car.

It started out awfully. Neither one of us knew what to say; and it had never been like that between us before. Never in my life.

Bosten didn't even look at me once.

Finally, when we got out onto Pilot Point Road, I said, “So. Are you gay or something?”

Then he looked at me. The reflection from the rearview mirror made a white band right across his eyes.

“Yeah.”

“Oh.”

I wondered if it mattered. What that meant to me.

“And Paul?”

Bosten laughed a little. “Duh. What do you think?”

“Well, I've seen him with so many girls all the time.”

I was glad he smiled. Then he cleared his throat and said, “To be honest,         I don't know about Buck. Maybe he just likes …        well, doing it. I can't say for sure.      We knew for such a long time              that we wanted to, but we were scared. It took me so long               to talk him into trying anything with me     in the first place.”

“It looks like he's adjusted to it pretty good.”

Bosten grinned and shoved my shoulder.

“How long have you guys been doing this?”

Bosten pulled the car over on the side of the road. He turned toward me and put his knee up in the space between our seats. For the first time in hours, he finally looked comfortable. Like my brother, Bosten. It made me feel so much better.

We could see the water.

“It                 started    happening last summer.”

“Oh.”

“Is that               all                   you want to know?”

I chewed on the inside of my lip. “It's kind of weird. I … uh. I don't think I'd like for it to happen to me.”

Then Bosten laughed for real. “Ha-ha … you are such a dumbshit, Stick! It doesn't
happen
to you. It's just how I am. Believe me, I
know
you're not gay.”

“I get a boner every time Buck's mom looks at me.”

“Ha-ha! Everyone          sees it.”

I had to swallow. “They do?”

“Heh … I thought you were going to      bust your zipper in the kitchen tonight.”

I felt myself getting hot, turning red again.

“You don't have to worry. I mean, about me saying anything about you or Paul.”

“I know that, Stick.”

“And it doesn't matter to me about it. Just next time, tell me to leave you guys alone.”

“Shut up.”

“What's it feel like, being in love with someone?” I asked.

“It feels       really good, Stick. Like how things         are always supposed to be.”

I wondered if I would ever feel that way.

If anyone might ever feel like that about me.

Bosten started the car. I rolled down my window. It was very cold now.

“Bosten?”

“What?”

“What if they find out?”

He knew what I meant. Mom and Dad.

“You know what Dad                 said to me yesterday morning? When I was in     the room, he said,      ‘Sixteen is old enough that you can get out any time you don't want to put up with this house.     And I won't chase after you.'        But you know what? I think he would kill me, Stick. I almost thought he was going to kill me over Ricky.”

“Are you scared?”

“Sometimes.”

“I don't want nothing bad to happen to you. You have to be careful.”

Bosten put his hand out, and I held it.

*   *   *

We didn't need to say
anything after that.

It's just how things were.

Everything else could change and go crazy.

But not that.

*   *   *

Next time
we went to the Buckleys' for dinner, I watched television in Paul's room by myself.

*   *   *

Mom didn't forget
to tell Dad about me.

And he was mad because Bosten and I took so long coming home.

“Where do you             get that mouth?” he said. “Where do you get that goddamned mouth,       talking to your mother like that in front of Joy Buckley?”

He pulled me by my neck. His fingers were claws into my flesh, and he threw me over his chair. But he didn't use his belt, only his hand, slapping, stinging like wasps, eating my flesh. He yanked Paul's sweatshirt entirely off me. I thought it would choke me, but it came free and Dad threw it across the floor.

I saw Bosten standing there, watching.

He had to.

That was the rule.

Then Dad pulled at my pants. And he beat my back and legs. He punched me, too, and his hand made a sound that was higher and meatier than the sound his belt would make.

I couldn't help but cry. I was not as tough as Bosten.

I could never be that strong.

My tears felt good and clean, like the water in Mrs. Buckley's sink, and they made a dark circle on Dad's chair. When he was finished, he pulled me up by the back of my arm and marched me down the hallway toward my Saint Fillan's room.

Dad didn't have to stop for me. I knew the rule. I won the race.

“Good night, Mom,” I said.

And I added, “Good night, Bosten, I love you.” And I almost choked on my words, I was crying so hard, but it felt like winning a game when Bosten said, “I love you, too, little brother.”

Then I was pushed onto the cold cot in that dark room. Dad stripped the last of my clothes away. He locked the door.

And this was how everything in the world ever was.

*   *   *

Sometimes Bosten talked about running away.

He had a dream of California.

When we were small,

when Bosten still played,

we liked to play California,

and we would drive on freeways

smoking pretend cigarettes with our arms out the windows.

We believed

boys like us could make our own rules in California.

          But I told him I could not run away with him.

I thought they'd put me in mentally retarded school

in California,

and I would miss Emily

too much.

*   *   *

When he was in grade nine,
Bosten really did run away.

    He was gone for four days.

I was terrified

he was dead.

The police came every day.

He'd gone to Seattle.

When they brought him home, two things happened:

I begged him to promise he would never leave me,

and Dad beat him to exhaustion

and locked him

in this same room.

*   *   *

It was so cold
in there I could not sleep.

EMILY

Bosten went off to school.
Paul Buckley came and gave him a ride in the morning when I was downstairs getting dressed. If I thought about them being alone together, I would imagine bad things, and I felt that wasn't fair for me to do. But I was jealous because I knew my brother was in love, and I was afraid that Paul was going to take him away from me.

And what else did I have without Bosten?

I didn't get a chance to take my regular Sunday night bath, but it didn't matter. They had to let me out of the room to go to school, and my hands still smelled like Mrs. Buckley's soap. As soon as Mom said I could come out, I ran to the bathroom. I didn't use that pail during the night, because I knew it would sit there the whole day while I was at school, and I'd have to clean it out when I got home.

So I held myself and ran, naked, down the stairs to the basement so I could piss in a toilet just as soon as I heard the key turn in the lock.

I almost didn't make it.

Things like that happened a lot at our house.

*   *   *

I wore my Steelers cap.

I carried a book bag with my things for school, a sack lunch, and my every-Monday-morning-laundered gym clothes, rolled up perfectly, the way Mr. Lloyd showed us he wanted them to be. On the outside, a T-shirt with
S. M
c
CLELLAN (8)
showing, written in black marker, wound tightly around the green shorts, white socks, and athletic supporter.

That was another thing they made us do: wear jocks. Mr. Lloyd would check that off every day, too: which boys were wearing their jocks, and which boys weren't.

For Mr. Lloyd, gym grades depended on two simple things: wearing jocks and taking showers.

I realized, in eighth grade, that physical education was far less about fitness than it was about
fitting
. And how could a kid with only one ear ever be expected to fit in with everyone else, even if he did wear a jock and take his showers every day?

I never understood what jocks did for boys other than make us follow rules. They were supposed to protect our balls, Mr. Lloyd explained, but I'd seen at least a hundred guys who wore jocks and got hit in the balls, and it always seemed to hurt just as bad as if they had their balls hanging out and fully exposed. I mean, a shot to the balls is a shot to the balls, pretty much no matter what you're wearing.

Well, I guess an exception could be a suit of armor, but you can't shoot free throws in one.

Twice per year, the school would line up all the boys so they could weigh us and check our height. Mr. Lloyd would write that down, and the entire class period of boys' gym classes would have to wait in line, by last names, wearing only our jocks, for our turns to have this important information recorded in Mr. Lloyd's book.

To me, it felt like we were all in some kind of cruel Nazi science experiment, but we didn't question it. I realized that it's hard to question rules when you're standing in alphabetical order, waiting in line, freezing and scared, wearing nothing but a jockstrap.

The last time we had weight-check day was in January. Ricky Dostal and Corey Barr, who had gone through the line and been measured by Mr. Lloyd ahead of me, went and put their gym uniforms on and then pulled me out of my place between the other kids with Irish last names. I thought about fighting back, but it was only a thought.

Apparently, being dressed in only a jock makes you even more of a pacifist.

They forced me out of the boys' showers, and pinned me up to the outside wall, facing the tennis courts, with my bare ass cheeks pressed against the icy and damp bricks of the locker room, while the girls' classes all came out from the other side of the building and stared at my freezing, pale near-nakedness. Ricky and Corey announced it was to show all the girls what a retarded one-eared stick looks like wearing nothing but a jock.

Later that day, and for a few more days after that, about half of the girls who'd seen me asked why do boys wear jocks, and I felt like I was lying when I said, “Because they keep our balls safe.”

My jock never kept anything safe on me.

Thinking about it that day, as I dutifully carried with me my cleanly laundered jock, perfectly rolled up inside my gym clothes, I thought Corey and Ricky must have been two of the “key guys” who Emily thought I should grow some balls and punch.

I had balls.

But I wasn't sure how punching someone would make me feel like having balls made a difference.

*   *   *

It was St. Patrick's Day.

Emily waited for me by the mailboxes.

She had a green scarf slung around her neck. I noticed her so much more now.

All of a sudden.

And I wore a green flannel shirt, buttoned, tucked into my jeans, of course, with a white undershirt beneath it. She smiled as I walked toward the mailboxes. It was a smile that said she approved of my green.

I am Irish, after all.

“Neither                 one of us gets                           pinched,” she said.

“The crab kids will have to leave us alone.”

*   *   *

Once,
while we walked in the quiet woods last summer, I told her the story of my name.

“Sometimes,” I said, “names make you the opposite of what they say.”

“Oh.”

“It's supposed to be strong and unyielding,” I explained. “Stark. It couldn't be farther from the truth if it meant ‘boy with two ears.'”

“I don't like that,” she said.

“What? My name? Neither do I.”

“No. I like your name. Stark.”

That was the first time I can remember Emily saying it, and she made it sound almost musical.

“But I don't like it  when you make fun of yourself.”

“Oh. Okay.”