With or Without You (4 page)

On the drive home, Mom and Dad drone on to each other about the state of the grocery store. I’ve heard this all my life. They might as well be reading from a script. Two topics of conversation in our house: how the store is doing (usually bad) and what Shan is working on. Tonight, they debate changing vendors to cut costs. It’s like they hadn’t just sat for two hours in a fluorescent tomb of a gymnasium watching me graduate.

But this is how we are, my parents and me. Shan was
the outgoing, popular kid. I am the silent enigma. Sad as it sounds, I’ve come to see their indifference as a kind of acceptance. They don’t even care that I’m gay. When I came out, I had a fantasy that they’d get angry. Scream and shout. But they said nothing. Sometimes I wish they’d at least gotten mad. It would have meant they felt something.

Quietly, I thumb open the envelope to find a pink notecard inside. Erik’s neat, slanted script commands:
7:00—Saturday—The Studio
.

“Evan!”

Looking up, I find Mom staring at me in the rearview mirror. Her tone says this is probably the third time she’s said my name.

“Yeah. Sorry. Yes?”

“Shan’s flight lands at six o’clock Saturday night. We need you to pick her up.”

FML.

“Shan. Airport. Saturday. Done deal.”

No worries. This past year with Erik has taught me I can do anything. An hour is more than enough time to span Madison’s two farthest points—the airport and Erik’s studio. I think.

She turns back to Dad and they resume their conversation about … oh, I don’t care what. I stare at the pink notecard, thinking about how Davis and I have finally
graduated. That we’re finally rid of Pete and everyone in school. That, most importantly, I know a secret my tenth grade math teacher never knew:

Parallel lives defy the rules of geometry and find ways of intersecting.

Friday night. Davis and I walk down State Street, headed for the RYC and the Chasers meeting. State Street is Madison’s carotid artery: a pedestrian mall dotted with used clothing shops, alternative music stores, thunderous bars, quirky restaurants, and consignment furniture outlets. Everything a college student could ever want, all within walking distance of the UW. You can wander off a block or two to find great clubs and entertainment. But the heart of it all starts and ends with State Street.

Bohos clot the sidewalks. This might be my favorite place in all of Madison. Here, everyone is someone and no one. People here don’t care if I’m gay or an artist or a grocer’s son, or anything else the dregs of my school think I should be ashamed of. Here is where I come closest to being.

Davis squints at the infant I’ve hastily sketched onto
the palm of my hand with a Sharpie. The baby is just an outline, crawling on all fours, with lines of radiance shooting out in all directions, like how a child draws a sun. It’s actually not a bad replica of the original.

“It’s … a baby.”

“It’s called
Radiant Baby
.”

I started painting when I was ten. Every year, I pick an artist to study. I study how they work, how they manipulate color and light, how they frame the world and how the world frames them. I mentally catalog brushstrokes and subject matter and tints and points of view and media. And once I’ve absorbed it all, I paint. I pick my own subject, evoke artist’s technique, and paint it as they would have done. No. I don’t evoke. I perfect. Teachers have told me I’m good at imitating others. My sister has told me it’s creepy.

Since January, I’ve been studying Keith Haring. And this is probably my four hundredth attempt to get Davis to see what I see. Davis doesn’t get Haring. His brain gets math and computer programs and other things that are binary: either this or that, black or white. He’s not into possibilities. Davis insults Haring’s work, calling it “comic-strip art.” I think Haring’s brilliant. I’m amazed at how much emotion he can elicit with so little.

I trace the baby with my finger. “It’s Haring’s trademark. It’s how people know him and his work.”

“Okay, if you say so.”

I rally. He
will
appreciate this. “I love it because it’s so simple. It could be any baby. It’s universal. But the radiance makes this child an individual. Community and individuality all at once. Perfect synthesis. With this one little image, Haring instantly made people think of him. I mean, no artist can be summed up by their work, but this comes pretty close.”

Davis scoffs, puffing out his chest. “Not me. I’m complicated. You need more than a radioactive baby to sum me up.”

“Radiant
Baby
,” I growl. When will I learn it’s useless to explain my artist obsessions to anyone?

Except Erik. He gets it.

We arrive at the Rainbow Youth Center and find Malaika Achebe sorting mail at the front desk. She’s a beautiful, dark-skinned woman, wearing intricate purple and brown robes from her native Nigeria. The RYC is
her
radiant baby. She moved to Madison seven years ago with her partner, Alyssa Holt, a poet who teaches at the UW. Malaika became very vocal when she found that the city had no place for gay youth. She and Alyssa wasted no time ingratiating themselves into Madison society and raising money for a youth center. She’s what Davis calls “a power lesbian.”

As always, she smiles when we sign in.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she says warmly, then spots the crumpled flyer in Davis’s hand. “I see you’re here for Mr. Sable’s meeting. Let me know how it goes.”

We nod, no clue who Mr. Sable is. Davis peers just past Malaika. On the wall is a small row of mailboxes, one for each of the shelter’s bedrooms upstairs. Next to each mailbox is a hook where the keys are kept. Only one of the six sets of keys hangs there: Room Three. Malaika follows Davis’s gaze.

“Reserved in your name,” she says reassuringly. “We’ll be seeing you next week?”

“Yeah.” Davis frowns. “Tuesday.”

Malaika smiles at us again. “Mr. Sable is in Room Four. Have a good time.” She turns back to sorting mail.

We walk through the pool hall and up the creaky stairs. Room Four is halfway down the hall, door propped open, muted chatter just beyond. Davis raps on the door-frame. The room is sparse, like a nun’s cell. A twin bed on a rusty frame, a small trunk at the foot, a lamp and a bedside table.

Half a dozen mismatched folding chairs form a semicircle in front of the bed. Each chair is filled. I recognize most of the guys from seeing them around the RYC, but there’s no one we know by name. Everyone’s our age, more or less.

On the bed is a guy sitting cross-legged, swathed in
a huge black trench coat. He looks up as we peek in. A mess of thick dark hair, like the kind you see in Japanese anime, hides his eyes. Cargo pockets, most looking hand sewn, litter the coat. Army boots dart out from under. His build is hidden beneath the coat, but it’s obvious he is neither thin nor a bodybuilder.

He smiles. His face is at once humorless but friendly. There’s something uncanny about him, like God forgot to give him lips, and two thin black scratches were an afterthought, a compromise for a mouth.

“Here for the Chasers meeting?” Trench Coat asks, beckoning to us. His voice is scratchy. I can’t get a read on his age. Twenty-one? Twenty-four? “Good to have you. You wanna catch the door? Then we can start.”

I shut the door, and Davis and I go to sit on the floor when Trench Coat stands. He is
very
tall.

“Plenty of room over here.”

He moves to the head of the bed and pats the mattress. Davis casually sits next to our host and leans in, no doubt hoping for an “accidental” touch. The first sign that Davis is smitten.

Trench Coat extends a huge hand, first to Davis, then to me. “I’m Sable.”

When their hands meet, Davis grins. “I’m Davis. This is Evan.”

I reach out to shake and, just like my dad taught me,
I meet Sable’s gaze. His face is sallow, his eyes a little sunken in, but there’s a hard beauty to his features, like something that just stepped out of Tim Burton’s wet dream. As Sable shakes my hand, I catch a glimpse of the black T-shirt beneath his trench coat, which declares, “I’m the one your mother warned you about.” Of this I’ve no doubt.

“Is Sable your first name or last?” I ask him.

Sable brushes it off. “Your pick.” Then he gives his meaty hands a single clap and addresses everyone. “Okay, so, thanks for coming, everybody. I always hated doing this part in school, but we’re not getting very far if we don’t know each other. So let’s just go around and say our names. You don’t have to do anything retarded like say your favorite color. Just a name is cool.”

A thin-faced, mousey guy named Ross starts off. He introduces the sour-looking guy next to him as Del. A small guy—about Davis’s size, build, and demeanor—looks at the ground and introduces himself as Micah. Next to him is a chunky Asian kid who wheezes when it’s his turn: Danny. On Danny’s left, a confident-looking tanned guy slouches in his chair wearing a backward baseball cap.

“I’m Mark,” he asserts, “and I think this group is gonna be fucking cool.”

Sable’s head goes back and he laughs like a demonic PEZ dispenser. “That it is, my friend, that it is.”

The final chair is occupied by a string bean with tawny, bowl-cut hair who avoids all gazes. When he finally looks up, he’s got a shiner to rival Davis’s.

“Will Carter.” He sighs. Sable gives him a thumbs up, though it hardly seems Sable’s style. The raised eyebrows, the overly emphatic smile … everything about the gesture comes off as awkward. He’s mocking Will’s shyness, but I think I’m the only one who sees it.

Shields up.

Davis and I mutter our names again. Sable nods approvingly and surveys us all slowly, face like stone. I swear Davis beams when Sable looks at him.

Sable sniffs. “Okay, cool. So, why are we here?”

We all look around uncomfortably; we weren’t warned there’d be a pop quiz.

Micah’s the first to chime in. “’Cause we’re all gay?”

Mark scoffs, throws his head back, and rolls his eyes. “I think we’d figured that much out.” I’m not a Mark fan.

“Cut the kid some slack. He’s pretty much right,” Sable says, gesturing to Micah. “No matter what school you came from, what neighborhood, what family—it’s the one thing you have in common. On second thought, there are two things you have in common.” He sweeps the room, pointing an accusing finger at each of us. “None of you has any clue what it means to be gay.”

Mark’s derision continues. “Gee, last time I checked, it means I get stiff for guys and not girls.”

Sable sits up straight and reminds me, just for a second, of Erik in the lotus pose when we practice yoga. But where Erik’s face exudes tranquility and peace, Sable’s face contains a maelstrom. I can’t help but feel something bad is about to happen.

Sable fixes those eyes and that smile right at Mark and says, “Well, hell, if that’s all it means, I’m just wasting your time. You wanna take off? Don’t let me hold you back.” He jerks his thumb at the door, never breaking eye contact with Mark. They sit there for a moment—predator and prey, but it’s hard to tell which is which. Mark shifts in his chair, then looks away.

“So, what else does it mean?” Mark asks the wall above Sable.

Sable looks first to Micah, then to Davis, and says in a throaty whisper, “Power.”

I almost laugh at how dramatic he sounds, but Davis is enthralled. When he’s really into a movie or a TV show, his eyes glaze over and he’s totally in the moment. Just like now. I swear I can see him mouth “power” in a silent echo.

Ross holds up a flyer. “So, what’s this? What are Chasers?”

“Not what,” Sable corrects. “Who. Everybody in this room has the potential to be a Chaser.”

Ross looks baffled. “Yeah, but I don’t get it. What does ‘Chaser’ mean?”

Sable shrugs. “We’re all chasing after something, right? Respect. Friends. Love, maybe. A place to belong. Chasers can give you all that, if you’re willing to listen and put in the work.”

Micah leans in. Mark’s posture improves. Even Will manages to tilt his head up and keep his eyes parallel to the ground. I’m listening too.

Del’s sour look softens. “So, it’s like a club.”

Sable slaps the mattress and grins. Why do I get sick to my stomach whenever he smiles?

“It’s better than a club. It’s like a fraternity. It’s a ticket to a past you never knew you had and a passport to places you never thought you could go. It’s not gonna be easy. This isn’t the fucking Girl Scouts where you sell cookies and sew shit. You gotta prove yourself, show that you’ve got what it takes to be a Chaser. And I promise you, if you listen to me and follow my lead, your lives will change.

“You’ll be with people who understand you. You’ll be able to go anywhere with anyone and not worry about getting messed with. No more disrespect. No more”—Sable grabs Davis’s head and turns Davis’s face sharply for all to see his eye—“getting the shit kicked out of you. You’ll have respect … and you’ll have power.”

When Sable releases Davis’s face, my friend’s eyes lower. If Sable’s words weren’t enough to get Davis’s attention, physical contact did the trick. Davis doesn’t get much of that. Rough as Sable was, it wouldn’t take much for Davis to imagine it as a lover’s caress. Which I’m sure he’s doing now.

“Okay, boys, show me what you got.” Sable gets up and starts pacing, weaving in and out of the arc of chairs. “When did the Stonewall riots occur? A date, I need a date.”

Seven sets of eyes hit the floor. Davis continues to watch Sable with rapt attention.

“No one?” Sable frowns. “Okay, something easier. What
were
the Stonewall riots?”

We’re all quiet until Ross ventures an answer. “Wasn’t that, like, a bunch of gays who got beat up or something? In New York?”

Sable slaps his hand down on Ross’s shoulder and squeezes it. “So close, man, so close. See, guys, that’s the problem. You don’t know anything about your own heritage. You ever feel like you don’t belong? Any idea why? It’s not because you’re gay. It’s not because you get picked on or shit like that. It’s because you can’t connect. You have no idea where you came from.”