These Things Happen (12 page)

   "So did you text George?" I say.

   We're at the goal and I'm the goalie, I guess. Wesley nudges the ball a little.

   "I did," he says.

"And?"

   He kicks the ball in, hard. I leap, catch it, take it onto the field with this series of interesting moves I've worked on at home for like ninety-three hours, time that might have been better spent, probably, honing my Individuality for application stuff next year. Reza Aliaabaadi's dad, who comes to every practice, screams at him in Farsi; his grandpa was the shah of Iran's eye doctor, apparently, so they're a fairly bitter family.

   "I didn't hear back," Wesley says.

   "But I thought you said you would. You were like
sure
."

   "George isn't r
equired
to text back, like he was my dad, or anything. He's not; he's no one. In the actual sense."

   "No one's no one."

   "Ha."

   "What?"

   "You know who said that exact same thing this morning? My dad."

   "So he did say something, then," I say. "And yet you said he wanted to think. So which was it?"

   "So what did you and your dad do in Chinatown?" he says.

   I just go with it. "We had scallion pancakes," I say. "Sizzling beef
chow fun.
It was all good. So you said your dad—"

   "That's what you
ate
. I mean what did you talk about?"

   "We walked around. He said I was his best friend. So you said—"

   "My dad," he says. "Yeah." I pass him the ball, watch as he does his own set of moves. "He doesn't like Chinese food."

   It's starting to get dark, so I can't see his face too well, but I can tell he's not himself; sometimes, when you know a person, you don't have to see their face to know that.

   "He does, too!" I say. "We had it that night at your house, when we watched T
op Chef. Lo mein,
and
kung pao
scallops—"

   "The
kung pao
was shrimp," he says. "And that wasn't my dad, incidentally. It was George. They're not the
same
."

   "Ha," I say. "Good to know. Because I might have been misled into
thinking
they were, both being gay guys."

   "He couldn't get home that night."

   " Where was he?"

   "I don't know," he says. " Being invaluable somewhere. Which must make having me there really suck."

   "What do you mean?"

   He now does what he saw me do with the ball, and does it well. Wesley picks things up fast; he's observant.

   "Forget I said it," he says.

   "But you did," I say. "So I can't."

   I wait for one of us to say,
Obvious Guy,
which is what we'd usually do. But we don't, and I wonder if he knows that, like I do.

   "You know what your problem is?"

   I didn't know I had one. Not that I'm perfect; I've got lots of faults. But with me and him? Well, it's another first, as it's also a first for me to be suddenly wanting to hear it. "What?"

   "You remember too much."

   "You know what yours is?" I say. But I suddenly feel I'm in a jar, shrunk to a tiny but anatomically proportionate version of myself, that even if I said what his problem is no one could hear me anyway. And besides— I can't think of one for him; all I can think of are mine.

   Practice is starting. Reza's dad screams louder, only at Reza, fortunately, who gives him the finger and tells him they're not in Tehran, while moms on cell phones tell maids what to do about din ner. "Evgenia is going through a gnocchi phase," I hear one say. " Which you're well aware of, Corazón." I can't stop noticing things, or hearing bits of other people's lives; I feel like I'm up a tree, hidden by leaves, and if most of me were to vanish like the Cheshire cat what would be left, in my case, is not a smile but an eye that never closes and an ear sharp as a dog's.

   "I gotta get in the game, okay?" Wesley says, tossing the ball back to me. "That's why we're here."

   "I know that," I say. "I want to get in, too."

   But we'll have to wait; our coach, which has been Jared Zam's dad since he lost his job, puts up a hand to stop us. As we wait, as it seems to be getting darker faster than it ever has, for the first time I feel scared. I didn't yesterday, when I made my speech and came out, but I do now. But— Obvious Guy again— yesterday was then.

   Mr. Zam blows his whistle and calls our names. "I thought I was your best friend," Wesley says as we run out onto the field.

   "You are!" I say. "I'm just telling you what my dad said! Which is more than you seem able to do!"

   "Oh, I can do it," he says, as we make our way into the scrimmage. "Believe me."

   "Well, at last."

   "He said no," he says, as he keeps running, out into the dark field. "He doesn't think it's a choice."

   "Just no? That's all?"

   Mr. Zam is blowing his whistle again, shouting our names, telling us to get in or get out. We stay in, running now.

   "It is," he says. "Because he also said that a thing can't be a choice if no one would ever choose it. That sounds like an answer to me."

   "Me, too," I say, which is all that comes to me at first. "What did he mean, do you think?"

   "I don't know!" he says. And as he's shouted it, and that's exciting to people, some boys drift to where we are, hoping more shouting will follow. "Figure it out!" But he doesn't wait for that. "He meant who would
choose
to mess up their life and be this fucked-up fag!"

   "He said that?"

   "I don't know!"

   "But you were there," I say. "Sorry. Obvious Guy. But you were there."

   "I don't know why I'm there," he says. "I walk in a room, he walks out. I say 'Good morning,' he suddenly has to go find something. I say, 'How are you,' and then— every time, like magic, practically, before he can tell me his phone rings." He acts it out, becoming his dad. "
Oh, shit, Wes, sorry, gotta get this, blah blah, fag, dyke,
tranny . . . Wes? You're still here? Tell him how I am, George, I'm
dealing with crucial significant gay stuff . . .
And maybe
that's
it, why I'm there, that is. To find his phone, and hand it to him, to understand when he has to take it because any person would."

   "But I thought you said—"

   "I didn't say anything!" he says. "So forget I said it."

   He takes off, into the game, where I see that he's suddenly awesome. When did he get so good? He's better than me, which he wasn't two days ago; one more new thing in this day that's full of them. I try to get in the game, too, but Mr. Zam shouts to me to sit it out. I find a practice ball, work on my move, and just as I'm thinking how good it is I suddenly think:
Don't do this. Don't let anyone see. Stand very,
very still.
And it's more than thinking; I
hear
those words, in a whisper. And I do what they say, which is the newest thing of all.

   I never get in the game. On the bus back to school Wesley sits with Jake Kuperman, who has a Stradivarius he never plays, and Jake Krantz, who sells Adderall. I sit by myself, which is new. My locker is in the basement; they put some of us down there this year because some parents got worried that the halls were too crowded in case of a fire. I see no one has painted
Fag
on my locker, which would be terrible, obviously, and wouldn't speak well for Youth today, or at least Youth in our school. But I still wish someone had tried
something
. I'm not sure why, which worries me; I usually know the why of things.

   I hear someone coming down the stairs, think I recognize the step, and find out I'm right; it's Wesley, with a soccer ball, doing the move he saw me do in the park. From upstairs, from the auditorium, I hear gunshots and singing; they're rehearsing
Assassins
, which is the fall musical.

   " Would you show me something?" he says, capturing the ball with his foot and gently sending it over to me. "I keep fucking it up in the same places, for some reason. I want to make sure I'm doing it right."

   "It's this," I say, showing him.

   "That's all?"

   I send the ball back and he's got it, perfectly, and the chance I didn't get in the park I get down here; we play our own game in the hall, so I guess everything's all right again.

   "I have a Fact," he says. "A leftover one, but too good to not use."

   "Do it."

   "During the Ottoman Empire, they had these assassins? And what they'd do to them is break their eardrums and cut out their tongues, so they'd hear no secrets and couldn't tell what they saw."

   "That's pretty imaginative, in a barbaric kind of way," I say. "And it introduces a new culture, which is also good."

"Yeah, I thought so. I have some others, too."

I put up my hand, to stop him.

"What?" he says.

   But he stops talking; he trusts me; he gives me the quiet I need. Because I know something that's close to happening, and I need to listen. I don't have to wait long. It comes first as footsteps; sneakers, squeaking. Are they New Balance, maybe? My dad and I ordered pairs, online; we chose the colors; shipping was free. More footsteps now; someone else, and then someone else again; three now. "Did you hear that?" I ask, not because I'm unsure but just that it feels like the right thing to do. "Yes," he says, as the lights go out. And in the dark I think of things, one after the other, each of them separate and clear.
Monsters, Inc.
, how it was the first DVD I ever owned; my grandma's old hips, and what did they do with them; Micah Kinzer's hands, which I've never thought of before. I think of facts for our Fact-a-Day, and how now might be the time to share one.

   But then I hear some words. Loud or quiet; I don't know.

   
Get the door.

   Do I know the voice? I don't. But maybe I don't try too hard to know it, as I know it doesn't matter.

   "Who's there?" This is Wesley. "Put the fucking lights on."

   It stays dark, though, as I know it will; I know stuff, suddenly, that I've never known, all of it coming at me like text bells, loud ones that startle you but that are also helpful, in a way. Like I know what I'm going to hear next, the next word, like I could cue them if they forget. F
aggot.
I almost say it with them. Will a second voice say it? Yes. Then a third, the difference being that this one says,
Fag.
One syllable. Like cigarettes in England, where I went last summer on a teen tour.

   "Who's there?" Wesley says again. Which even as he says it seems more like something I'm remembering, from far off; as if it had happened, as if we were long past
now
and being here and reminding ourselves of it. When I get shoved, kicked, punched all over it's the same; the far-off thing. As it is when I'm lifted, held there, punched again.
It kept getting worse
, I think; again, like I was looking back, or reading a story about myself. Like when I fall, too, feel the concrete against my cheek and my body flipped, turned, hit with something; an object now, not just a fist.

   But then it stops. I'm here again, sure of certain things; that this is my school, that's my friend, that we're in the middle of something sudden happening to us both. And what's next is seeing words, glowing, in different bold fonts, turning and spinning and floating. They're words
I'm
making, I know that, that I'm sending out for Wesley, who it seems is over me and holding me and shouting my name so maybe he misses the words I've sent.

   So I read them, out loud, it seems, so he doesn't miss them.
Go
is the first word. Then: T
hey want
me.
And then:
Really. Thank you.
But this is
mine.

W
e met at Camp White Way, me and George, at twelve. That summer we played gamblers in
Guys and Dolls
, Cockneys in
My Fair Lady
, the only Siamese children in the history of productions of T
he King and I
who were also, soon, to b
e Bar Mitzvah
boys. At eighteen we reconnected in a tour of
Les Mis
, where we both played Revolutionaries without ever knowing why we were supposed to be so darn agitated, aside from the show not being very good. We kept this up, in this show and others, until we were both twenty-five, sharing an apartment on Ninth Avenue, supplementing our income with Bottled Free-Trade Artisanal Chutney. One day we looked at each other and, simultaneously, said,
Fuck it
, end of dream; cue real life.

   So we're here now, in that other form of urban theater: r
estau
rants. W
e're doing okay; not w
ell
, because no one is, but well enough to keep the lights on, low, at a flattering level. And we want to stay here; this theater district means something to us both. I remember our Saturdays thirty years ago, when we'd meet to slip into the second acts of flops. Times Square was still disgusting then, and fabu lous; its true squalor may have already started to fade, but there was enough left to get the idea. People were still furtive, and wore hats. I miss hats and furtiveness; maybe they'll return, with the
World-
Telegram.
I'm waiting.

   I walk through Times Square, round the corner, and make my way up Eighth Avenue. George has called this morning, asking me to come in early, which he never does. As I turn on to Forty-seventh I Gene Kelly my way around a lamppost and hop down the brass-edged steps that lead from the street to the restaurant, where I see all the chairs are on tables, like flappers. As I come in George sees me and steps out from the kitchen. I can't read his face; why does he want me here? He bears, as always, a gift, a warm ham-and-cheese croissant, and then he takes down a chair and signals me to sit.