The New Black (17 page)

A
rt school is where I'd meet my sister each Wednesday, and then, the two of us would travel, by cab, to couple's counseling. Although Jane and I were twins, by the age of nineteen, she was already two years ahead of me in school, and because both of our parents were psychiatrists, and because I had been diagnosed with a rare social disorder, a disorder of my parent's own invention, Jane and I were forced to undergo couple's therapy every Wednesday afternoon. The counseling sessions were ninety-minutes long and held in a dentist's office. As both of my parents were well-known in their field, they had a difficult time finding a colleague to analyze their children, and so they were forced to settle on a dentist named Dr. Dank, a former psychiatrist who had turned his talents to dentistry. He was an incredibly hairy man who smoked while my sister and I reclined in twin gray dental chairs. Dr. Dank did all he could to convince me that I was angry at my twin sister for being smarter and also that I was gay.

Once I had made the mistake of mentioning to my sister that the doorman of our building was “handsome”—to me, he looked like a comic book hero with a slim mustache. She frequently brought this remark up in our sessions as evidence of my latent homosexual desires. She would leave various kinds of gay pornography for me on my bed. I would come from school and find a magazine or videotape lying there and stare at it—at the faces of the oiled, suntanned men and their arching, shaven genitals—then return the magazine to my pillow, and back out of my room like a thief. Jane was nineteen and a sculpture major in art school. She was also taking a minor in psychology through correspondence courses in the mail. Technically, I was still a senior in high school. My sister's sophistication, her worldliness and intelligence were absolutely terrifying to me.

In the taxi on the way to our counseling appointments, I would stare across the backseat at her, studying her profile. Jane had short black hair; she was skinny and there was a field of freckles on her nose which made her look a lot younger than she actually was. When she wasn't looking, that's where I'd always stare, at the freckles on the bridge of her nose. “Jack, what's happening with your gym class?” she asked me. One of the reasons my sister was two years ahead of me in school was because I failed gym, year after year. As part of my social disorder, I was paralyzed by a fear of stranger's bodily fluids, their blood, sweat, spit, urine, even their tears. If someone sneezed near me, I would begin to convulse violently. I was unable to participate in any gym activity where bodily fluids were involved. Because of this, and because my disorder was unrecognized anywhere outside our household, I had failed gym every semester for the last three years and had yet to finish high school.

“Dad told me you have a new gym teacher this year,” Jane said. “Is he nice?”

“His name is Mr. Trask. He asked me why I don't participate and I told him I had a medical condition and then he told me to go sit in the bleachers. I'm supposed to meet with him tomorrow to talk about it.”

“Did you give any more thought to what we talked about in therapy last week?”

“What? That the reason I'm failing gym is because I won't admit I'm gay?”

“Dr. Dank completely agreed with me, Jack. You're queer. You're living a lie. The sooner you admit it, the happier we'll all be.”

I decided then, watching the Chicago Avenue traffic drizzling past, not to argue with her. For all I knew I was queer. I had never kissed a girl. Their bodily fluids seemed incredibly dangerous to me. Also, I had a poster from the musical Miss Saigon hanging in my room, a gift from Mr. Brice, my marching band instructor, the only teacher at my school who had made accommodations for my fictional disorder. Jane might be right. It was entirely possible that I was gay.

X

A day later I met with Mr. Trask, who was a tousled-haired, thoroughly-bearded man. He sat across from me in a swivel chair, his running shorts riding up his broad hairy thighs. If I glanced long enough, I could see the dark cavity of his crotch. As disgusting as it was, it was hard not to stare.

“Why do you keep failing gym?” he asked.

“I'm afraid of bodily fluids.”

“Well, they're not going to let you graduate unless you pass gym class.”

“I know. I've already accepted that I won't graduate from high school. It doesn't bother me.”

“Hold on,” he said, leaning back in the chair, the running shorts inching even higher. “Here's what we're going to do. Your parents are shrinks right?”

“Yes.”

“You get me some Valium and I'll make sure you'll graduate.”

After class, I called my father. A day or so later, I gave Mr. Trask what he had asked for. From then on, I spent gym class watching the other boys my age sword-fighting with upturned tennis rackets and knew I was missing nothing.

X

The next week, I met my sister Jane for our counseling appointment in front of her art school, where a number of young men and women gathered to smoke cigarettes, looking purposeful and shabby. Jane marched up to me, said hello, and then pointed at a gawky-looking young man who was leaning against the wall, lighting a clove cigarette. “Look? How about him? Go tell him you'd like to give him a blowjob.”

I looked way, shaking my head, and said something like, “I don't think so.”

“You need to grow up. Part of being an adult is dealing with adult feelings. Do you want to end up an old dirty queer getting teenage boys to suck you off in bathrooms or something? Because that's what will happen, Jack. You have to deal with this openly before you sublimate it.”

I had no idea how I was supposed to answer.

Just then a girl named Jill Thirby came up to us and said, “My name is Jill Thirby. My father and mother are both famous artists. You may have heard of them.” Jill Thirby had a yellow dress on and long brown hair. She also had black-framed glasses and these dangly yellow earrings. “I'm working on this really intense project right now and I was wondering if you guys would like to help.”

“What is it?” I asked, staring at her long yellow scarf.

“Basically, I'm trying to make things fly.”

“What does that mean?” Jane asked tersely.

“I'm basically attaching hundreds of balloons to different things to see what'll fly and what won't.”

“Wow. That sounds cool,” I said.

“That sounds fucking stupid,” Jane cursed. “That's exactly what the world needs. More childish, performance art bullshit. Why don't you do something meaningful? Like confront what's happening in the Middle East?”

Jill Thirby looked ashamed all of a sudden, her yellow eye-shadow going red. “You don't have to talk to me like that. I was just trying to be…I'm just trying to do something nice.”

“Well, why don't you do something nice somewhere else?” Jane asked.

Jill Thirby nodded, still shocked, and walked away. I looked over at Jane and asked her, “What's your problem?”

“She is my problem. I can't believe how many girls there are like her. Their fathers don't love them enough and so they go to art school and everything they make is this twee, meaningless bullshit. They don't ever deal with anything serious, you know. Like I bet that girl never even heard of the Situationists. I bet she has no idea what's going on in Palestine right now.”

“What?”

“Forget it. We're late for Dr. Dank. Let's go,” she said and then, unfortunately, we did.

X

That afternoon in therapy, Jane suggested that the real reason I was afraid of bodily fluids was because I was in denial of my own sexuality. I did not argue with her. The whole next week during gym class, I watched the other boys in class doing windsprints, their bodies virulent with overripe sweat. It was the intimacy I did not like, I wanted to tell her. The idea of sharing something vital with someone I did not know or understand.

Outside of the sculpture building the next Wednesday, while I was waiting on my sister, I ran into Jill Thirby again. She was still dressed in yellow, this time with a yellow stocking hat, with a yellow ball on the end. She had yellow mittens on and was chewing what appeared to be yellow gum.

“Hey,” I said. “I wanted to say I'm sorry. You know, about my sister, the other day.”

“I don't get why some people have to be so negative. She's really, really mean.”

“Have you gotten anything to fly yet?”

“Not yet,” she said, itching her nose. “I've tried a chair, a pineapple, and a bowling ball. None of them even got off the ground.”

“Well, if you ever need any help, I'd be happy to give you a hand.”

“What are you doing right now?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said, glancing around, seeing my sister was late once again.

“Do you want to help me then? I was going to try and float a birdcage.”

A few moments later, we climbed up the fire escape to the roof of the student dorm and stood looking out over the city. Jill Thirby had about fifty red helium balloons with her, which she promptly tied to an empty birdcage. “Okay, here we go,” she said, and we both stepped away. The birdcage did not move, though the balloons fluttered back and forth in the wind, dancing ferociously.

“Maybe you need something smaller,” I said.

Jill Thirby kneeled beside the birdcage, inspecting it, and said. “Or more balloons possibly.” I thought about leaning over beside her and trying to kiss her. I think she saw me looking at her in a funny way and said, “What is it? Is there something in my teeth? It's this weird problem I have. My teeth are too far apart. I always have food stuck in them. My dad's always reminding me to brush them.”

“No. I was just…it's nothing.”

“Do you want to try and float something else tomorrow?”

“Okay,” I said, and took her hand as she stepped back onto the fire escape.

Jane was waiting outside the sculpture building swearing to herself when I found her. She squinted at me angrily when I said hello. “Do you know what time it is? Where the fuck were you? Mom and dad pay by the hour if you didn't happen to notice.”

“I was helping out that girl Jill Thirby.”

“What? Why were you hanging out with her?”

“I don't know. She seems nice. I like her glasses and everything.”

“Why are you in such denial? Jesus, Jack, everyone's trying to help you but you're not even trying.”

“What did I do?”

“Just when we're getting somewhere with your therapy, you decide to ditch your appointment to go ‘hang' with a ‘girl.' That's textbook denial. Seriously.”

“I just wanted to see if she could make something float.”

“I guess we should just stop worrying about your severe emotional issues because, all of a sudden, you like some Jewish girl.”

“What? She's not Jewish.”

“She's definitely Jewish.”

“So what? Mom's Jewish,” I said.

“You are so completely clueless. Why don't you screw this girl and get it over with? And maybe then you'll be ready to admit what your problem really is.”

“I don't want to screw anyone.”

“Bullshit. You want to screw her in her little Jew butt.”

“I'm going to walk home by myself now,” I said and then, for once, I did.

X

The following week I did not wait for Jane to go to couple's counseling. Instead I met Jill Thirby outside the sculpture building and we walked up and down the street looking for things in the trash that we could try and make fly. We were sorting through some garbage cans when she found a small gray cat. It was undernourished and hiding under a moldy cardboard box. Jill Thirby held it to her chest and decided to take it back to her dorm, where we washed it in the common bathroom sink, and then fed it black licorice from the vending machine. “I have the perfect name for it,” Jill Thirby said. “Blah-blah.”

“That's good,” I said. Jill Thirby leaned over and held the cat to her chest, burying her face in the animal's wet gray fur.

“Do you want to spend the night here?” she asked me suddenly. “I don't have intercourse with anyone I don't know intimately, but you can sleep here if you want.”

I told her okay. Later that evening, as we were lying in bed together, Jill Thirby began to cry. I did not know what was happening at first. I laid there, holding my breath, pretending to be asleep. Her shoulders were shaking, her back trembling before me. She was holding the cat to her chest and the cat was meowing, trying to get free. I thought about putting my hand on her arm or saying something out loud, but I was afraid of what would happen if she knew I wasn't asleep. Finally, I asked her what was wrong, and she said, “I'm sick of being related to my father and mother.” Then she sniffled and said, “But I miss them both a lot,” and then turned away from me, the cat leaping off the bed. In the darkness, Jill Thirby became quiet and it seemed like she had momentarily disappeared.

X

The next day I was late for school. I hurried into gym class and took my spot on the wood bleachers and watched the other poor saps running laps. Mr. Trask saw me and climbed the bleachers, and then took a seat beside me, staring off into the distance at something that I don't think existed. He turned and looked at me and said, “How old are you, Jack?”

“Nineteen.”

“Nineteen. Jesus. You should have finished school a year ago.”

“I know.”

“Don't you want to get out of here?”

“Not really. I don't have any idea what's supposed to happen next.”

Mr. Trask nodded, then fumbled through his extremely tight shorts for a pack of cigarettes. He offered me one. I shook my head, feeling pretty uncomfortable all of a sudden. He inhaled deeply and then started to cough, his rasps sounding exactly like a gym whistle, high and tinny. “I'll tell you something: I don't think anybody knows what the hell comes next. I mean, I see these kids, and some of them walk around like they got it all figured out—they're going to this college or that college or what, I dunno. I'll let you in on a little secret: if someone comes up to you and tells you they got anything figured out, you can be sure of one thing. They're full of it. Because the thing is, as soon as you figure one thing out, you see there's a whole other world of shit you don't understand. The people who think they know it all, those are the ones to beware of. And that's all I got to say about that.”