I'm back! (I've had very limited free time as of late; funnily enough, I'm applying to law school right now.) Warning from this point on for LGBT issues filtered through the lens of the late 80s; views depicted/language used aren't necessarily my own.
I traced circles on the sheet with my fingertip as I waited for Jason to come back from the bathroom; I'd draped it over my torso like the world's worst-arranged toga, suddenly more than a bit shy and awkward, though the room was only lit by his desk lamp in the corner. He had a ton of movie— film, whatever you wanted to call them— posters up on the walls that I preoccupied myself by scanning, enough to cover most of the white space: La Dolce Vita, Alphaville, Annie Hall… Ferris Bueller's Day Off? At least we finally had something in common, shit, I'd liked that one. I was halfway down Apocalypse Now's sinking, scarlet sunset and Marlon Brando's tormented face when I realized I was in love with him.
He padded back in, the front of his hair smoothed down with tap water, smelling like the lavender Softsoap he kept in a pink-veined marble holder. We avoided eye contact, as he climbed into the bed again and we tried to work out what to do with our limbs; we might as well have each had as many as an octopus, and were maneuvering them about as deftly, until I managed to settle myself half against his chest and half against the pillow pressed up to the wall. They sure didn't have as many helpful diagrams about the post-coital process in The Joy of Gay Sex, which I'd found at a shady bookstore in Greenwich Village and blushed at every page of, than they did of positions I figured Nadia Comaneci would have a hard time bending herself into.
I didn't imagine it'd all be so— messy. Or that he'd have to slap his hand over my mouth at one point to keep the neighbors from banging on the walls, which shot a dark, electric thrill down my spine and somehow made me get even louder. I was learning all sorts of new things about myself, things I didn't even know I had lurking inside of me before. Like I'd been alchemized into somebody else altogether.
"Guess I must've lost track of time, back at the bar," Jason finally said. "That definitely wasn't five minutes."
"Shut up." My hand shot out like a firework to smack him in the bicep, but what he said worked to ease the tension; I laughed and relaxed back into his chest, still damp and sticky with sweat. "It was my first time, okay? I'm pretty sure you need a little more practice than that to build stamina."
"Your what?" He pulled back and looked at me in a way that was half-amused, half-incredulous, like he thought I was cracking a joke and wondering if he'd fall for it. "I didn't exactly take you for the 'waiting for marriage' type."
I had, actually, been 'waiting for marriage' with Jennifer, but I didn't mention her. "Exactly how much of a thriving scene do you think there was to explore in East Tulsa?" We had Brett Sanders, who got beat up twice a week, minimum— hell, maybe he would've been down for some experimentation if I'd asked, except I wasn't sure if he even was gay or just took regular showers and kept his hair sort of long, which was all it really took to get labeled 'fag' at WRHS. "Trust me, I wasn't desperate enough to start unzipping at the truck stop, or the abandoned Shell station."
The corners of Jason's eyes crinkled as I craned my neck at him, making him look even more handsome to me, the hint of fragility in his features. That being said, I hated to think that it was out of pity, and already knew that was the case. "It must've been hard, growing up in Oklahoma," and then the pity was naked and obvious. (In all fairness, my junior year at Rogers, we'd actually had to sit through an assembly about how the 'suggestive' lyrics in Like a Virgin and You Shook Me All Night Long were going to turn us all into sex fiends, which was at least a change of pace from our usual 'what to do if a nuclear bomb falls on the school' programming.) "Are you… you know. Out? To your family?"
I hooked my big toe into the heel of my left sock, which I'd forgotten to take off, and then I just couldn't find a decent opening to do anything about it. We'd been all over each other a few minutes ago, but now he felt far too close, like he was trying to crawl inside my skin and take up residence there. "I'm not really sure who I'm sleeping with is any of their business, honestly."
Jason laughed, and I guess it did sound pretty funny on the surface, except for the fact that I was dead serious. "I have a gay uncle," I tried to clarify, so that he didn't paint too bleak a mental picture of my home life, "it wouldn't go too bad. They had a couple decades to get used to the idea and everything. My dad and I just don't get along that great… we fought all the time, before I left home. I'd be puttin' extra stress on a building that wasn't up to code in the first place."
Out of all the members of that family, Curly, on paper, should've been the one I was least worried about— Uncle Darry had just recently stopped referring to 'Uncle Ponyboy's roommate' as though they shared a one-bedroom in San Francisco to save on rent, and while God knew we had bigger dramas, they hadn't spoken much for the better part of a decade. But even though Curly wouldn't let my friends say 'faggot' in the house, there was a difference between having a gay brother-in-law, who lived safely tucked away in California, and having a gay son, you dig? Sure, I didn't figure he'd beat the shit out of me, or ship me off to some camp where they'd strap electrodes to my head and flash me the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, but I still hadn't been able to shake the suspicion that his love was both arbitrary and conditional, and considerably better parents than him would shut it off like a spigot over this. I didn't want to push my luck any further than I already had.
Besides, it wasn't like I hadn't wanted to sleep with Jennifer— mostly, I was just scared shitless of becoming a teenage father even more than I was religious or not ready or waiting to be in love, stuck repeating Curly's mistakes in Tulsa forever. I got two point five bases in with Kimberly Wilkins next door while I pretended to be helping her mama move heavy furniture, and I wasn't exactly sanitizing my entire body after that, either. What if I was going through some bizarre phase, activated by prolonged exposure to New York nightlife and the Calvin Klein cologne Jason spritzed on the nape of his neck? Maybe if this whole thing with men continued, I'd come clean before I brought a 'roommate' of my own home, but this wasn't a shot I wanted to take unless I was a hundred percent certain.
He'd blame himself, he was never around growing up, and now I was looking for a daddy in all the wrong places. He'd blame me, and pull out a line he kept holstered for these situations, that he loved me, but he sure as shit didn't have to like me. He'd smile his charming and completely empty smile and tell me that he respected my choices, and then let contact dwindle down to next-to-nothing, and he'd know I'd know why. I'd been rejected by him enough times, and though he hadn't meant it and it was probably unfair to still hold it against him, did I ask to have you? still lingered in quiet corners of my mind when I least expected it. I didn't need to finally give him a good reason.
"I have a gay dad," Jason said, stretching one arm above his head. "Biological father. It's kind of a long story." He gave me a sphinx-like grin, and didn't hurry to elaborate. "So Carole probably wasn't too surprised I turned out the way I did."
Soon enough, at least, I had bigger problems than navigating my nascent sex life: my Lit Hum midterm, returned to me facedown, a teacher's telltale way of signalling you done fucked up this time. My C plus scrawled on top in red ink, for maximum dramatic effect.
I wasn't used to getting bad grades, and it was sending me into a panicked tailspin; I could count on one hand the amount of times I'd gotten a C on anything, much less an assignment that carried so much weight. Worst of all was the pitying rhetorical question on the last page, as I flipped through it— a first draft? I'd turned in all sorts of garbage cranked out the period before back in high school, almost made a game out of it, and not only earned A's, but also been press-ganged into tutoring the other kids and proofreading college essays— but for once, I'd put some actual thought into what I'd wanted to say. And that was all my deepest thoughts ended up being worth?
Lion's Head was a student joint that didn't card, as long as you didn't make too much noise or leave too many puddles of projectile vomit for the staff to mop up. I nursed a beer there with enough dejection, you'd think I'd just received a terminal cancer diagnosis. "Everyone bombs sometimes," Jason said, touching my elbow, and even the slightest brush of his fingers electrified me like I'd banged it against the bar. "And Davies is a notorious dick, anyway, it's written on the bathroom stall in—"
A cluster of English majors in the corner were talking about Bright Lights, Big City, loud enough to drown out anybody else's conversation. "They're turning it into a movie, but I don't know how they're going to get the second-person narration across," one of them said, shaking his head ruefully. "Voiceovers? Not every book can or should be one."
"It's meant to be a critique of all the shit that goes down in this city, you know, the yuppies, the consumerism, the drug abuse," another one said, before he started to spread out a white line like he was shaking parmesan onto a pasta dish. The girl behind the bar said nothing as she dashed a stream of vodka into a glass. "The movie'll probably just turn into one long porno, or get interpreted that way, anyhow. People are dumb." He sucked it up like a vacuum on the highest setting.
"Here." Jason passed me a joint I hadn't seen him light, and I stuck it in my mouth, the tip still wet with his spit. The strain was stronger than I expected, and my heart kicked hard against my breastbone with every inhale, like a horse Uncle Soda was struggling to break. I should've handed it back, but I hated admitting defeat or looking weak, even in the most trivial things. "Take a load off. And just go in during office hours and talk to him, if you're still this upset—"
"Nah."
Jason snorted; nicely, but it was still a snort. Kept prodding. "What, do you think Davies is mad at you or something? He doesn't even know your name."
He was right, especially that I melted into a faceless, formless mess of freshmen to him, but I didn't want to admit it. "Getting an A wasn't enough for you, you've got to rub it in my face, too?"
I was steadily making an ass out of myself, and the alcohol wasn't helping; like the worst thing that had ever happened to me was getting a mediocre grade instead of setting the curve. What really bothered me was the idea that it was a harbinger of worse to come, flunking out, having to return home with my tail between my legs the way even half my family had grimly predicted. My future stretched out in front of me like I was a helpless maiden tied to the railroad tracks, unable to change my fate no matter how hard I tried. I'd been pretty remarkable— sure. By the standards of a shitty, failing public school in Oklahoma.
This was reminding me why I'd cut back on smoking dope. It often gave me the 'sense of impending doom' I'd heard was a warning sign of a heart attack.
"Don't be a jerk," Nadia chided, which made me feel even worse. She was wearing a powder blue jacket with padded shoulders that was too cold for the weather, a few grains of sugar from the rim of a half-drunk amaretto sour ringing her mouth; she didn't drink beer. They exchanged a knowing look above my head. "C'mon, he's just trying to help—"
"It was an A minus." He smiled easily at me, evaporating my irritation and turning my blood to warm honey in my veins. I'd never felt this way before, drowned by desire, like it had soaked into every crevice of my brain and could strike whenever it pleased— you know, like when I was staring at the blackboard while Davies droned on. Maybe that was the reason I was bombing. "Let me buy you another one," he said, picking up my drained beer glass and tilting it to find nothing but foam. We didn't touch in public, but his breath rustled the faint hairs on my cheek, his fingers brushing against mine. I quivered. "You need to loosen up."
We teetered out of the bar at one in the morning. Nadia was on stiletto heels that were a size too small for her, and needed to be extracted from a drainage grate right outside the door; I got her by the arm to steady her, and when we'd both regained our equilibrium, I had my coat balled up in a scarred fist. "Give me your wallet."
Not the most subtle come-on in the world. He was a big guy, a head taller than me and a fair bit broader, with a faded tattoo running down the side of his neck, but I'd been raised by current and former gangbangers and could sniff out bravado and inexperience like a sixth sense. Jason immediately started fumbling around for his; Nadia stumbled backwards and fell into the grate again. I slid the switchblade out of my back pocket. "Get bent." I didn't even think about it, much less hesitate; I waved it in a wobbly arc, like it was a magic wand I could ward him off with. "I'm not giving you any of my fucking money."
I would've been up shit's creek if he'd had anything on him— even my grip was all wrong, the handle starting to slip through my sweat-slicked palm. As unbelievable as it sounds, no one in my family taught me how to fight or encouraged it, until Curly gave me that last-minute goodbye present. When I was in fifth grade, after Eric Thompson pulled a truly egregious foul in rec basketball, I broke his nose; another parent would've spanked or grounded me, but Uncle Tim told me that if I wanted to act like a little thug over some game, he'd take me to El Reno to go visit my daddy and see where that'd get me. Apart from the time I'd gotten my ass kicked by Brian Reynolds plus entourage, the only fights I'd ever been in were schoolkid scuffles, nothing serious. But I still had what I did then, an ember of self-confidence burning inside of me that bordered on recklessness, and a refusal to back down even if it killed me. "Go on," I said, the words hurtling out of my mouth. I waved my other hand like he was a stray dog I was trying to coax out the door. "You heard me. Shoo."
I was lucky he didn't take it off me and leave me to bleed out in the alleyway, but maybe it was my sheer audacity, or the shock of finding me armed when he expected three drunk college kids would be easy prey. He spat into a puddle with a spreading rainbow of gasoline, called me something crude but accurate, and stalked off. Letting out a breath I hadn't known I was holding, I flicked the blade shut again.
Nadia extracted herself and edged closer to the nearby phone booth, a scratched sheen of graffiti covering one side of its glass. I couldn't believe that five minutes ago, my biggest problem was some midterm grade. "We should call—"
"No, don't, what's the point?" My voice was as definitive as it had been facing the mugger; I could feel my body shaking from residual adrenaline, fine vibrations like the beginning of an earthquake, but my mind was as clear as ever. The police wouldn't have done shit— even by the late eighties, they still had better things to do than investigate some half-assed attempted mugging— and I could've happily gone my entire life without seeing another cop again, or finding out what the inside of Rikers looked like. "Let's just go home."
Nadia was the bluish color of fresh milk, her pulse fluttering in the side of her neck; however she'd grown up, it had been with the assumption that the cops were there to help, and where nobody carried a blade as a matter of course. "Are you fucking dumb?" I hadn't heard Jason swear before, too posh for that even with his lips slightly parted, his head tilted back. "You just hand over the money, first rule of getting mugged— you can't buy yourself a new life. And that knife's illegal— you're right, we need to get out of here before someone finds it on you—"
I wasn't as upset by this as I should've been. It was kind of interesting to see him rattled, cut through the layers of coolness and irony and reach something real at the core— and beneath the explosion of scolding, I could tell he was grudgingly impressed, which, as embarrassing as it is to admit, was part of why I did it. We brushed fingers again, brief enough to look like an accident, on the walk home.
"Please tell me you used a condom."
Of all the possible things Ponyboy could've said in response to my confession, this was the last one I'd expected— and seemed like a bit of an invasion of privacy. Yet he was obviously waiting for an answer, and not too patiently, either. "Who's fixin' to get pregnant?"
I really didn't know any better. At school, at church, they didn't even tell us how to use those for the regular kind of sex— just not to do it— and besides, when you're a teenager, you figure you're invincible, anyway. I thought the only way you could pick it up was if you were exchanging party favors for poppers, or shooting up horse with dirty needles. But my uncle wasn't so much in the mood to deal with my ignorance. "What else could you possibly need a condom for— let's rack our brains here, Michael." His voice dripped with disdain, like he'd caught me trying to reverse on the highway after missing an exit. "What disease might you get, you know, maybe the one that's always bein' talked about on the news?"
"Uh—"
In the second it took for the other shoe to drop, he'd already slammed the receiver down, and then the dial tone struck me like a hammer through the eardrum.
I was using Jason's hallway phone while he was in gen ed math; he didn't live in the dorms, he had his own apartment close to campus, which must've cost an arm and a leg to rent even back then. I sunk down to the carpeted floor, the cord curling around my torso. Ponyboy had never spoken to me so cuttingly before— even when I spent the summer with him in San Francisco and came home one night stinking like cheap, synthetic grass, he'd just smirked and told me I'd better not tell my mama what he'd been letting me get up to. I was his namesake and favorite nephew, the one he dug up Strawberry Switchblade records at flea markets for and let complain about the unfairness of life with Curly and Dani for hours. Hurt and confused in equal measure, after a few paralyzed moments, I snatched up the phone again.
"… And this is why nobody lets you do youth outreach at the Y anymore, 'cause you think 'scare them straight' is a winning tactic," Uncle Randy said bitingly, talking away from the receiver. "Hi, Mike. Listen, HIV is not necessarily an automatic death sentence—"
"Don't encourage—"
"We didn't do that." If my face was any hotter, magma would've erupted from it. Nobody in my family had talked to me about sex before, most likely because they all assumed someone else had cleaned that responsibility off their plates— and if Curly had ever sat me down for a father-son talk about always using a rubber, what I would've unleashed on him in response would have been ungodly. "We didn't do what you're thinkin' we did."
"Okay," Randy said, with the practiced, unshockable calm of someone who was successful at doing youth outreach at the Y. One of their dogs— Salinger?— scratched at the door in the background. I suspected he didn't believe me. "But if you do, with him or anybody else—" like I was about to head out to the nearest glory hole and try my luck— "you need to use protection."
"I know," I said, my voice creaking like a badly-oiled hinge, though I hadn't.
Uncle Ponyboy took the receiver; he didn't apologize, but he sounded like a stripped wire, raw and exposed, when he spoke again. "My entire social calendar's funerals, Mike." I didn't know that, and not even because at seventeen, the axis my universe revolved around was myself; he'd always shrouded any of the grittier realities of his life in San Francisco in fog for me, presented a tasteful array of photography shows and craft fairs. He was deeply private, either by nature or by necessity, had an ephemeral quality to him like he resisted being perceived. "There's families that refuse to pick up the bodies, more than you'd think. They won't let you be buried in a Catholic cemetery."
When I closed my eyes, Curly made the sign of the cross on my forehead before I got on the Greyhound, the same way Aunt Gabi did every night after bedtime prayers. I knew what I was doing was wrong, I just wasn't planning to let that stop me, the same way Tío Alberto kept a Jesus bobblehead in his car until the day he died. My aunt with the phone cradled between her ear and shoulder, digging around for Elena's pediatric neurology paperwork with one hand and her pointe shoes dangling from the ribbons in another: well, sure, it's a sin. But if we closed the gates to every sinner in the diocese, we'd sure have one empty cemetery.
"Nobody's tryin' to shove you back in the closet," Randy said, though in all honesty, that was exactly how this was coming off to me. "And there's a lot of exciting stuff happening in New York right now—"
"Though don't think New York's gonna just be some Shangri-La, neither, don't let your guard down too much," Ponyboy made sure to interject, as Mapplethorpe started yapping. "Bigots live everywhere, and they don't always wear cowboy hats and spurs on their boots so that they're easy to identify—"
"We're saying that you might have a very different life than you envisioned." He was trying to phrase it delicately, but I knew what he was referring to regardless. Randy went to law school for three weeks before he got arrested— charges dropped, but expulsion remaining— for starting an anti-Vietnam 'riot' he still insisted had been misinterpreted by both administration and local news media. Now he crossed community organizing with a moderately successful photography career, but for the first time, I wondered if he wished he'd taken the money and run. If San Francisco ever felt less like a paradise and more like a prison. "A good one, a rewarding one in a lot of ways, but…"
"But we love you," Ponyboy finished, putting a cork in the world's worst pep talk. I needed to hear that a lot more than I was willing to admit. "And you'll always have somewhere to go. I promise."
I didn't tell them my secret suspicion about girls, because what brand of crazy was I, for wanting to go down this road when I had such an obvious escape hatch? Why the hell would anybody choose this? Except what I felt for Jason made me understand the term crime of passion, even as it derailed my meticulous five-year plan like a hijacker on the train. This was the worst decision I'd ever made in my life, bar none, and I couldn't just stop myself from making it every time he pressed me up against his velvet wallpaper.
"And don't tell Darry nothin' unless you have to." Amperes of nervous energy coursed through me, until Ponyboy broke the tension with a good-natured scoff. "He still thinks it's fun to stay at the YMCA 'cause of the rec basketball, for Chrissakes."
