He crossed the room, stopped in front of me. Took a long sip. He telegraphed his actions to me clear as day, trying hard to concentrate in spite of how falling-down drunk he was. I knew what was coming. I could have stopped him or stepped aside. But I wanted him to do it. I wanted an excuse.
We’d been buddies a couple days before, watching stars in the bed of Tariq’s truck. Or, if not buddies, at least he hadn’t hated me so much that the very sight of me made him want to murder things. What had changed? Was it just the alcohol? Simple intoxication making him lose control of whatever it was that made him so afraid of me?
“Sorry for what?” I asked—and I could see it now, dimly, the anger he carried inside, the thing he fought against, every day of his life—
“For . . .” A bad ad-libber, Ott had to work on that one for a little while. “Being a jerk.”
At this point he skipped to the main event, which was pouring the whole bottle of whiskey over my head.
I let him soak me in expensive booze.
“What the fucking hell, dude!” Tariq leaped up, struck the bottle from his hand, drew back a fist.
“Stop,” I said, my voice sounding eerie-calm. Tariq stopped as much from fear as anything else.
Time slowed down.
“Ott,” I said, and he was an open book, a painting to be read, every hurt and anger spelled out in the pores on his face. I wasn’t reading his mind so much as really seeing him, all of him, the scared damaged little boy inside the bully’s body, and somehow I already knew, or suspected, the truth.
Time stopped.
People were statues all around us. Mouths opened midsentence, arms frozen midflail.
“What . . . happened?” Ott asked, his mouth opening and closing.
He could move. I could move. No one else could.
Time had stopped. Because I wanted it to.
“Ott,” I said, taking a step closer, “why do you have such a problem with gay people?”
“I . . .” Ott’s mind spun open like a scroll. Ott’s mind wasn’t separate from mine. We were four feet apart, but we were one. Two sundered pieces of the same whole. My starvation-crazed body had broken through the delusion of separation, let go of its ego long enough to see that Ott and I—and everyone—were one.
“What the hell are you?” Ott whispered, and I heard his heart pound, and his mother calling him to supper, and every remembered sound inside his head.
And just like that—I didn’t hate him anymore. I understood him, completely. I saw him, all of him, the complex messy angry sad sensitive creature that he was. I saw the true Ott, the pure unsullied part of him, the divine spark, the spirit that was separate from the body with all its blood and shit and needs and flaws, the innocent child Ott had been before he’d been battered and deformed by this broken horrible world.
My voice softened. “Why do gay people make you so afraid?”
Because I saw it. The secret. I don’t know how, but I did, as clearly as if someone whispered it in my ear. I saw it, and Ott saw me see it. Tears flowed from both eyes simultaneously. It would have been so easy to destroy him. To let time start up again, to expose him in front of everyone. But that would only hurt him more. And the more someone is hurting, the more likely it is that they’ll hurt others.
“Is that all?” I said, stepping closer. “A little thing like that?”
He hissed, “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” but by now the tears were a torrent.
“You did something naughty with another boy,” I said. “You were twelve. He was twelve. Baseball camp.”
I’m pretty sure Ott was trying to say How did you know that, but the words weren’t coming out as words at all. More like wails.
“And you’ve been miserable about that ever since.”
He wiped one eye with a clumsy, shaking hand. And nodded the tiniest of nods.
“Do you know how many straight kids mess around? It’s just curiosity. I’m not going to tell anyone,” I said.
He flinched. Made eye contact. Looked confused, mistrustful.
“You’re fine, Ott.”
The world around us sped up. Sound bled back in, slowly. The statues of our fellow partygoers came back to life.
“You fucking asshole,” Tariq said to Ott, his fist still drawn back.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Really. We’re cool.”
Ott stared at me, mouth open, terrified, confused, but not crying anymore.
“Right, Ott? We’re cool?”
Ott nodded.
“I’ll get you a change of clothes,” Bastien said, as baffled as Tariq was.
RULE #40
Few things are more frightening to the body than getting what it most wants. Because what are you, when you get the thing you’ve shaped your whole identity around wanting?
DAY: 30, CONTINUED . . .
Two hours later, Tariq took me home. We stayed till the party had mostly wound down, after most of the people had gone home. I hadn’t been looking at my watch every thirty seconds either or desperately wishing I was somewhere else.
“Admit it,” he said, pulling out of Bastien’s long driveway. “You had a good time.”
“I had a good time,” I said.
“I think you broke Ott’s brain, though,” he said. “That’s the best explanation I can come up with. He tried to pick a fight, wanted an excuse to beat the shit out of you, and you pulled that Gandhi nonviolence turn-the-other-cheek thing, and he just did not know how to handle it.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.”
And yeah, he was pretty much right. Maybe he didn’t know the whole story, but he didn’t need to. No one did. Ott’s problems belonged to no one but him.
Tariq was happy. I was happy. One in the morning, and the town belonged to us. Not even the reek of pig waste on the wind could bring me down.
“And you look sharp in those clothes. Who knew you had some preppy in you?”
“Shut up,” I said. “You know I’d never wear any colors this bright.”
But they were nice clothes. Way nicer than anything I owned. And I enjoyed the way they were too big on me. Like I was slimmer than even soccer-skinny Bastien.
“Pull over here,” I said when he’d turned off the main highway, and onto the narrow road through the woods where I lived. “I don’t want to say good night to you just yet.”
He unbuckled his seat belt and came across. We kissed in darkness, in silence, moving to the rhythm of the clicking of his hazard lights.
“I really want to get in your pants,” he whispered.
“I know,” I said.
“So? Why don’t we?” He put his hand on my thigh, then pushed it up to grasp me through the fabric of my pants.
“I want to,” I said. “I’m just . . .”
“Afraid?”
“Yeah.”
“Afraid of what? You want to get tested for STDs together? Planned Parenthood does it. I’ll do it for you.”
I’m afraid it can’t possibly be as good as I’ve been imagining it will be— Afraid it will be better—
Afraid that once we do it, I’ll be your helpless slave forever— Afraid you’ll see me naked and be disgusted and never speak to me again— “I don’t know.”
He kissed my neck, put two warm hands under my shirt.
“Stop,” I said, praying he wouldn’t.
He slid one hand up, to grab my chest, and the other down, past my waistband, to grab me.
“Stop,” I said, pushing him back.
“Fine.” He gripped the wheel, hard, with both hands.
“I wish I was ready,” I said. “But I’m not.”