Of Cats and Crazy People
His mother would be a fox. She is tall and pretty, and Polish, of all things. Her hair is dark and her eyes are golden-brown like honey. Her hands are slight and long-fingered; her voice is loud, but friendly, like a fox's bark. His mother is an artist.
His father is a bear. When he wanders about a room, objects shake though he is a short and slender man. He possesses a surprising ferocity in the form of tooth and claw and a deep growl. His father's voice is warm and deep, soft and brown as bear fur. His father is a librarian.
Jimmy, he has decided, is a wolf. There is no debating that. Jimmy is alone in crowds, he is always hungry, and he is proud. Jimmy's eyes squint in the sun and his fur rises when he's angry. He is the pack leader, the alpha, and he has earned it. His voice is a good voice, and he uses it just as efficiently as his fists. Jimmy is a fighter.
Gary is a cat. His eyes flash when his head moves, and his smile always shows his fangs. His tail twitches both when he is pleased and when he is angry. He likes to play with his food before he kills it. Gary likes to be pet, but just as quickly, he will bite and fight until he's down. Sometimes, Gary doesn't speak to him for days, and sometimes Gary drapes himself across Petey's lap and doesn't move for hours. Gary secretly hates water. His voice can either be a purr of satisfaction or a terrifying hiss. Gary is insane.
Petey isn't certain about what he is. He is just an observer; he is only good at classifying other people. He is no bear, because his voice is not big enough. He can't be a fox, because he's not nearly beautiful enough. He is not strong enough to be a wolf and he is not tricky enough to be a cat. He is good at puzzles, but can't think on his feet. He only wins at video games. His hair is too curly and his fingers are too short. His voice is stubborn, but it is too quiet to be heard.
Maybe he is a deer, the flighty friend of the wolf.
Maybe he is the mouse between the cat's paws.
Maybe, Petey thinks, he is a Rubix cube that no one will ever solve and twist into place. Rubix cube should be an animal, he concludes.
They are in the common room, and Gary's head is in his lap, purring, when Petey says, "Gary?"
"Mm?" says Gary, and his toes twitch, wrinkling his socks. Petey stares, transfixed, at the wrinkles.
"What am I?" he asks the socks.
"An idiot?" Gary guesses, and his cat-brown eyes stare at Petey from underneath two eyebrows and a scar.
Petey's lips press together to show that he is serious. Gary laughs, nose in Petey's uniform.
"A human being?" Gary continues trying, "A Pollack? A girl? A dork?"
He stops when Petey sighs and shifts, forcing him into a less comfortable position.
"What's up with you?" he demands, and Petey pulls his eyes away from Gary's feet. "What do you mean, 'What am I'?"
"You're a cat," Petey explains, face solemn, "so what am I?"
"This an English project?" Gary asks him.
"Not exactly," he answers, disappointed. Sometimes, Gary is just medicated enough to go along with him when he starts thinking crazy. It has been a slow day. Petey wonders how many other teenaged boys compare their family and friends to animals and concludes that that answer is probably somewhere around zero. The back of his mind tells him to never borrow books on mythology from Mr. Galloway again. That's what started this whole thing.
"Good. I don't want you writing any love stories about me," Gary says. "That'd just be embarrassing."
Petey has never written fiction in his life, much less a romance story, but the thought makes him blush.
"You look like a lobster," Gary confides romantically. "Maybe you're a lobster?"
"Cats like fish, right?" Petey asks.
A frown forms on Gary's face. "They like to eat them. Do you think I'm going to eat you, Femme-boy?"
Petey doesn't answer, but his mind sings, "Maybe."
"You aren't a fish anyway. You taste good -" Petey's blush gets worse at this, "- so maybe you're a chicken."
Gary laughs again, because Petey's face is funny when it's indignant. This isn't the weirdest conversation they've ever had, but it's high on the list. Gary's head is still comfortably in his lap though, because cats don't move once they're comfortable. Petey pets him behind his ear.
Two months ago, if Petey had told Gary that he was a cat, Gary would have offered up some of his meds. Now he is calling Petey poultry.
"Why do you have to be something?" Gary asks him. "What's wrong with being a Petey?"
Petey thinks. "That's the thing, I guess. I'm not sure what a Petey is."
"Really confusing?" Gary offers sleepily. Petey can't argue with that, so he doesn't, and Gary is irked by his silence. "You don't have to be anything, Femme-boy, you just are."
And what is he when he just is? Not anything but Petey, and what is that supposed to mean?
Gary keeps talking. A talkative mood has struck him. "Are you worried or something? Don't tell me you're going to join one of the cliques to 'find yourself' or some shit like that."
Petey hasn't spoken yet, but conversations have a way of unfolding inside Gary's head all on their own. Petey has no intention of becoming a Greaser, no matter what Gary's brain says. He pets Gary some more.
"Cut that out," Gary tells him, batting his hand away.
"I'm not worried about anything," Petey assures him, "I just wanted to know what you thought of me."
"Well obviously I like you," Gary replies grumpily, giving him the 'you're-acting-like-a-girl' look, "… Or something. You don't have to be a dog or a goat for me to like you."
Petey makes a face. "Ew."
Gary laughs again. It is a nice sound, and Petey thinks that if cats could have laughs, they would have this one. His hand finds Gary's hair again and this time he is allowed.
"You think I'm a goat?"
"I told you. I think you're a Pete."
Petey wonders if a Pete is different than a Petey and if either of those is like a Femme-boy.
He smiles. "And what is he, exactly, aside from really confusing?"
"Sometimes he's infuriating, like when he wants to talk while I'm trying to sleep. Sometimes he's really stupid and does things like speak to Jocks or walk into Prep territory without wearing the latest fashion, and there are other times when he's so smart it's scary," Gary says into Petey's shirt.
"Like when?" prompts Petey.
He can feel Gary grin – it's muffled into his school uniform just like Gary's voice. "Like when a teacher calls on him and he knows the answer even though he's been reading a book under the table the entire class period, or how he can predict people so easily. It's easy for him to get into other peoples' heads."
"Am I in your head?" Petey asks the way a child interrupts an exciting story.
"Please," says Gary, "no one can predict me."
Petey smiles because they both know he's wrong.
"Most of the time he's quiet," Gary starts up again, "but it isn't because he's afraid. At least, he yells at me all the time."
"You deserve it if I do," Petey tells him.
Gary chooses to ignore him. "He's good at everything he does, though he wouldn't want anyone to know it. He beats me at Future Racer every time and then doesn't put his initials in. But he's most amazing in art class. I've never seen anyone hold a paintbrush like he does, like it's part of his hand, and he sculpts like he's just… I don't know, like he's not even making the sculpture – just touching it and smoothing it out, like it was buried in the clay the whole time."
Gary is just a little bit breathless and Petey can feel the vibrations from Gary's voice in his stomach. The other boy has never said anything like this to him before, and all Petey can think about is cats who scratch and bite and struggle but wait for their owners by the door all day long, refusing to move.
"You okay?" Gary asks when Petey doesn't break the silence.
Petey swallows. It is loud in the empty room. The Future Racer machine beeps behind them.
"What else?"
"He gets what he wants," Gary says evenly. "He's always polite about it, though. Even if he has to… to beg."
Petey's face is aflame now, and his whole body feels just as hot.
"Like when?" he repeats, and Gary makes an odd noise that is hidden in his shirt.
"Petey," Gary mutters.
"Like when?" Petey says again, voice unwavering. Gary's fingers twitch on Petey's legs.
"Like on those nights when I share his bed with him, and he begs me to do things to him or for him that I'd ordinarily never do."
"Do you do them?" queries Petey, knowing the answer.
Gary's voice is soft, as soft as the velvet bottom of a cat's paw right underneath the claws. "Always. Every time."
"Is it worth it?"
"Always," Gary says again, lips against cotton against skin. "Every time."
They are quiet again and Gary's breath is warm through the fabric of his shirt and to his stomach, which makes a feeling that's more than warmth soar upwards through his bloodstream.
"He makes me do other things I never thought I'd do, too," Gary adds.
Petey tries to breathe and, remarkably, succeeds. "Oh?"
"Petey," Gary says seriously, "do you really think that I'd be having this conversation with anyone else, ever?"
The first person that jumps to Petey's mind is Jimmy Hopkins, and the mental picture makes all the breath he just found come out in a rush of laughter. In that moment, he realizes that, while Gary is most definitely a cat, he is also a lot of other things. Gary hibernates like any bear, and sometimes sleeps entire weekends away inside their dorm. Gary's laughter is the clear, surprising yelp of a fox. Gary's eyes across the art room and his eyes inches from Petey's are hungrier and lonelier than any wolves' have ever been. Gary's rage and happiness and all that is off-kilter about him is something not found anywhere else. It is something distinctly Gary Smith.
"You forgot something," Petey tells him, bending to kiss the top of Gary's head. The fact that they are in the common room in plain view isn't even in his thoughts. "About Petey."
"What's that?" asks Gary, feeling obliged and also pleasantly warm and therefore agreeable.
Petey grins goofily above him. "He's really lucky."
Pulling a sour face, Gary shoves Petey's head away from his. "Ugh! You're such a girl!"
Petey just laughs, because the world slid into place for him a long time ago and he hadn't even noticed, and every one of Gary's movements and expressions just locks it in tighter. Gary is Gary and Petey is Petey, and maybe, Petey thinks, that's all they have to be.