I wasn’t sure where I belonged. There were some other younger siblings, but none from my elementary school. Two boys began chucking croquet balls at each other’s heads, while I stood apart, pained by their childishness. As the sun disappeared behind the trees, the house seemed to glow. It was like watching a huge ant farm, only these ants were not particularly industrious. They milled about with drinks in their hands, availing themselves of tiny bites of food—miniquiches, quail eggs—passed by waiters. (On the bottom level, there were hamburgers and hot dogs coming nonstop off a grill, a refrigerator full of soda, even a keg of beer.) I realize now how expensive the Robinsons’ home must have been, how exquisite their taste. That was the point of the party, to let people observe their superior taste. I saw my father talking to the Robinsons. I wonder if he was remembering the first time Davey had come to our home, how he assumed Davey would be the first person in his family to attend college, that quiche would be exotic to him.
I could hear the teenagers—they were blasting the soundtrack of La Mancha and singing along, laughing as they changed the lyrics to private jokes about various cast members—but I couldn’t see them behind the curtained sliding doors of the rec room. They were in high spirits, largely natural ones. You’d have to work hard to get drunk at a party such as this. The one keg, positioned near the man working the grill, made it hard to overindulge, although it was pretty clear that the “rule” about drinking only if a parent were present was being flouted. The cast seemed to feel that the Sunday show was their best yet and were giddy with their sense of achievement. I couldn’t say that the matinee was their best, but it was hard for me to imagine something better than what I had seen. I was especially impressed by how Ariel, normally a tiny mouse, had been transformed into a powerful, big-voiced woman. It was strange to see her at the party, reduced to her usual self, not that much bigger than I was. The experience made me yearn to perform, but even then I knew I had no talent for acting or singing. AJ had gotten all those gifts. I sometimes think that was the beginning of wanting to be a lawyer—my desire to be the center of attention, combined with the knowledge that I could not sing, dance, or act. How else does one perform if one has no talent for playacting?
Suddenly, the curtains that hung across the basement entrance flared, as if from a sudden burst of wind, and two boys in polo shirts emerged, running at top speed, Davey and AJ in pursuit, girls screaming. I didn’t recognize the running boys. They probably weren’t from Wilde Lake High School. Another boy, also a stranger to me, ran out after the others, but headed in the other direction, toward the woods behind the house.
“Assholes!” AJ shouted as he chased the boys up the steep hill to the street. “Why do you have to be such assholes?” The incline was so severe that the four boys, the pursued and the pursuers, were all but crawling up on their hands and knees, grabbing at trees and bushes to keep their balance. “Maybe you cow-tipping Howard High farmers act like that, but we don’t.”
“We’re from Glenelg,” one called back. “And you Wilde Lake people are white-trash hippies.”
Davey didn’t say anything. He was focused on the climb, his face grim. He would have no problem overtaking them.
I ran inside the house and climbed to the top floor, where I told my father breathlessly, if somewhat inaccurately, that AJ was in a fight. Alerted by this self-appointed and self-important town crier, all the adults streamed into the front yard, most still holding their drinks. By now, AJ and Davey had the two strangers cornered in an old-fashioned convertible parked along the curb. My brother and Davey stood on the outside, gripping the passenger-side door. The driver could have tried to pull away, I suppose, but the look on Davey’s face seemed to suggest that he would hold on to that door until it was wrenched from him.
“Okay, okay, let’s calm down, everyone,” my father said. “What’s going on? Davey, you start.”
He didn’t want to show favoritism by asking AJ to recount the story; I understood this somehow. Even as a child, I was acutely aware of my father’s methods.
“These ass—these guys grabbed some poor kid and pantsed him while he was chugging a beer, pulled his pants down in front of a bunch of girls. The guy’s totally humiliated. What did he ever do to you?”
“He’s a creepy little faggot, always spying on everyone. We told him to leave us alone and he didn’t,” the driver yelled.
“He’s the cast photographer,” AJ said. “That’s his job.”
“In the theater, when we’re performing. Not at the cast party. Little creep never puts his camera down.”
“You’re mad because he took a photo of you doing something you didn’t want photographed,” Davey said. “I saw you light up in my parents’ house. That was uncool.”
“Oh, who cares, you stupid nigger. You think you’re so fancy.”
In the deep, shocked silence that fell, I noticed how few black people were in attendance at the party. Davey and his parents, of course. The girl who had been Ariel’s understudy, whose skin and eyes were almost amber. Three of the waiters, and the man who had been tending the grill. Of the fifty or so people still at the party, maybe eight were black. Still, I don’t think you could have said a more shocking thing in Columbia, not at that time. We were good people. Our choice of Columbia was the ultimate proof of that. We were the people tree, sixty-six strong, indifferent to class and race.