“Are you making a video out of me telling you to leave me alone?” Dmitri says to the guy. “I am sixteen years old. You put that up and I will sue you. My parents will sue you. I have rights. I am a minor. What you are doing is illegal.”
Now Robert is standing. Dmitri has not been shouting, but he can see that he’s attracted the attention of a few other people on the hill. Every person has a screen. You never know. This is why outside is shit. Two cookies and a rose, it’s a fucking joke.
“I’m so sorry,” says the baby-woman. “Look, I just thought it sounded pretty. I’m deleting it.” She shakes her screen and then looks up at the man.
“It’s cool, it’s cool,” says the other guy of the threesome. “Oliver, delete the thing. You don’t need this.”
“You don’t have to be such a jerk,” says baby-woman, it’s not clear to whom. Maybe to her baby.
Dmitri grabs his bag and begins marching down the hill. He’s never kissed a man with his tongue. He’s kissed girls that way. He kissed a girl that way last week. It wasn’t anything with a girl, but it would be something with a man. Now he just wants to get inside somewhere, where people can’t see him. There is a tunnel to the right of the fountain, the under section of a bridge.
“Hey.” Robert’s voice echoes in the tunnel.
Robert’s got the shopping bag in one hand and the blanket is over his shoulder and the instrument is sticking out of the top of his backpack. “What was that?”
“I don’t want to talk here,” Dmitri says. He knows how to get out of the park. He can run if he has to, run without stopping.
“Yeah, you don’t want to talk anywhere.”
“It’s okay. It’s over.”
“Yeah, no kidding it’s over. You’re sixteen. You can still act like a human being.”
Dmitri stops. They’re on the other side of the tunnel and exposed again, but at least out of sight of the hill people. He can follow this path out of the park. The park benches on either side of the lane are filled with people. The world is crammed, is stuffed with bodies.
“Human beings are the worst,” Dmitri says. “You should say that I could still act like a wolf or elephant. At least an elephant doesn’t tell lies.” He starts walking, but Robert keeps pace with him. Dmitri is embarrassed by his last words, so dramatic and childish.
“What are you lying about?” Robert asks. His voice has no anger in it, as if he’s only mildly curious, or as if Dmitri had said “I like cheese” and Robert merely wanted to know which cheeses. This makes Dmitri feel calm. He takes a deep breath, but can’t think of what or how to say things. It would be nice if they could just walk in silence for a little bit.
“Look, we can be friends,” Robert says. “Obviously I like you. Because I have problems, I guess. Your manners are atrocious, and you’re a liar. Are you even Russian?”
“I’m a liar,” Dmitri agrees. “I’m Russian. My English is fluent unless I’m writing. I’m sixteen. You should leave me alone. Fuck. Fucking shit.”
“Who’s your cousin?” Robert shifts his stuff into one hand so he can walk closer to Dmitri. Their arms are almost touching. Dmitri would really like to die, really.
“My little brother. He goes to a ballet school here on Saturdays. We live in New Jersey. I’ve never kissed a guy. In the real way.”
“That one I sort of figured out.”
All these people on park benches, people walking. There are crazy people here, homeless people. Nothing is ever going to be really good.
“My father is a cosmonaut,” Dmitri says.
“Okay, let’s stop for a second.”
Dmitri stops, but not for Robert. He is having trouble breathing.
“You think I’m crazy?” he asks. “You can look it up. I thought you already looked me up.”
“I tried to look you up,” Robert says. “I couldn’t find anything. I didn’t think you were in high school. I thought you were an illegal alien. I thought maybe you were in the Russian mafia. I thought you were a hustler. I hide my wallet before you come over.”
Dmitri wants to sit down. He wants to lie down. He wants to go back home to Russia, to childhood. He wants to go to space and just do things and not think, like his father.
“Okay,” he says. “I live in New Jersey with my brother and my mother and stepfather. I go to Maplewood High School. On Saturdays I bring my brother to ballet classes in the city. My father is a cosmonaut. An astronaut. He’s in Utah with Prime Space right now. Pretty soon, he might be going to go to Mars. I love him. He has everything. My brother is also this incredibly talented person. I love him too. It’s not that I am jealous of them, or maybe it’s only a little jealousy. Everyone loves them, you see. I love them too. I know I am not lovable the way they are. I am not remarkable. I am good at school, but am I brilliant? No. I don’t have new ideas. My father, he is amazed by what Ilya can do. He cannot dance like that. I am not creative. There is nothing I will ever do that will be as good as my father, and I cannot amaze him. No. I am not even very good at making this confessional speech. I am pretending that I have father problem. A father problem. It is not a father problem. I don’t have a gay problem, I don’t have a father problem. I don’t want my father making a speech to the whole planet about how he loves his gay son. I don’t want to be special for only being gay, that isn’t anything amazing at all.”
Dmitri is not crying, though he does feel very ill, and is worried that he might get a nosebleed. He pinches his nose together and tilts his head back.
“Sometimes I get a nosebleed,” he says to Robert.
Robert pats him on the shoulder.
It’s okay. He’s not bleeding. He looks at Robert.
“Man,” Robert says. “If you ask me, I don’t think you have a problem. You’re just a little sad and the world is so stupid.”