Chapter Three

When I woke up the next morning, I had nearly convinced myself I had dreamed everything: the water tower, the car chase, and even Mark himself. He was an imaginary friend - the Harvey to my Elwood. If he seemed unreal, it was because he was. He was a product of my wild imagination and watching every James Dean movie. I never did anything after wrestling practice but read and watched TV alone. No one ever touched my hair, and I never wanted anyone to. And no boy would ever kiss me. That's how it was and that's how I wanted it to be. Trouble is, the truth always finds a way out.

I forgot that Darry had to work second shift, which was my saving grace for I got home at around midnight but still managed to be in bed when he came home, checked my room and flipping on the light, which might have woken me up had I really been asleep. And that's why we were eating breakfast calmly that Saturday, and Darry was reading yesterday's Tulsa World and not hollering at me.

I tried to read an upside down article on the back of Darry's folded paper about the most recent local boys who'd been killed in combat.

Soda and Steve were already horsing around the living room, where Steve had apparently slept last night. They must have come in late, but Darry didn't care much if Soda stayed out all night.

Soda had Steve in a headlock, but instead of shouting 'uncle,' Steve shouted at me, "Hey, I heard Jennings got picked up for joyriding last night."

Of course, he had to bring up Mark and shattered my delusion.

He broke free, then made a leap towards Soda, who raced into the kitchen and behind Darry, putting both hands on his shoulders to use him as a human shield.

"Really? What happened?" I feigned ignorance and mild interest.

Steve reiterated a version of last night that was inaccurate, but thankfully made no mention of an accomplice who had punked-out and left Mark to be arrested.

"What happened to him?"

"How should I know? He was stupid and got caught, and he'll pay the cost."

Darry barely lowered his paper to glare at me. "You don't go getting caught doin' nothing like that with him."

"Aw Darry, people borrow cars to drag all the time," Soda said, as he pivoted behind him.

"Not you." Dary pointed his finger at me, which was not allowed in our house. We don't point fingers at each other, at least not literally.

"I haven't even done nothing." It offended me that he didn't trust me, even though I had been in a stolen car last night being chased up Interstate 44 by the police. He didn't know that. Despite obviously having terrible judgement, I still thought Darry should think me better than that.

"Darry's right. You ought to stay away from that kid. He's trouble," Steve said, as though it was his place to weigh in.

I thought this was real hypocritical coming from him, because he had taken me to the junkyard before to fence lifted hubcaps.

Steve kept his eyes on Soda, planning his next strike. "There's something wrong with him - in the eyes. Gives me the creeps." He was the only person in the world who didn't like Mark.

'Something wrong with him.' That was one way to say it.

I thought the question that I tried to ignore: Was Mark a queer? Maybe that was what Steve saw in him. There was a lot not to like about Steve, but he was perceptive.

When I pictured a homosexual, I saw middle-aged man with a funny little mustache and dark glasses, hanging around parks. Not someone so vibrantly flawless as Mark.

I started to feel nervous. Mark had kissed me and he was probably in jail and I couldn't really forget any of it, but I tried to push it back a little while longer until after everyone left for work.

"Do you believe in God?" I asked.

Everyone kinda stopped. I guess it was a funny thing to ask like that. Even though I was looking at the crumbs of cake on my plate, I knew Darry and Sodapop were looking at each other.

"'Course," Soda said simply.

"And heaven and hell?"

"Shit," Steve jumped in, "we're already in hell."

"Darry?" I looked up at him. I wanted to know how he felt about it, but I couldn't read his face.

"You don't do nothin' bad, you don't have to worry about it."

It wasn't fair if some people had to rot in Hell for stealing and jumping people and sinning, when they probably wouldn't have done those things if they came from good homes or if bad things hadn't happened to them. If lives are just a big test, is it fair that some people had harder ones than others?

Darry got up from the table to get ready. Soda slid into his seat.

"We can go to church tomorrow, just you and me, if you want."

I thought vaguely of Cherry's words: 'l couldn't ever look at the person who killed him.'

I shook my head 'no.'

I read through the paper as they all made a mad dash outside. No tornado hit Tulsa, if you were curious. Not that night, at least.

I chain-smoked all morning.

There were four books in the house that mentioned homosexuality: the H encyclopedia, The Carpetbaggers, a parenting book, and our Bible. I knew this because I had read everything in the house.

In The Carpetbaggers, there's a guy Claude. He realized he was a homosexual, because he was so aroused by the boy in the yellow jacket and "all the indignities the young man had subjected him to" before robbing him. Then he killed himself by cutting off his dick while he cursed his mother. The thought that Darry had read this made me want to crawl in some hole somewhere.

I didn't think Mark was like Claude, but maybe he was like the boy. I wasn't sure. I reread the part over and over again, until the ashes fell off my cigarette and singed the page. Not wanting to have anyone to think I was reading that scene, I threw away the entire book in the garbage, ripped and crumpled the pages, buried them beneath some of the trash and dumped the coffee grounds from the percolator on top, then all the ashtrays.

I doubted Darry would miss it.

I could not find the H encyclopedia anywhere, but our encyclopedias were old and probably outdated, anyway. Mom had bought them at a yard sale. She never fell for door-to-door salesmen's pitches. I did find her parenting book, though.

Mom tried really hard at everything she did, even if it came easy to her. She read those books, even though she was a great mother naturally, like she used recipes even though she was a great cook and wouldn't have needed to.

I had read this book a few years ago, and I knew, even at eleven, that I had to keep my face blank. There was no reason this would bother me, because it had nothing to do with me. I read the pages that would always stick with me, the gist if not verbatim: (1)

16. What is self-abuse? This is usually called masturbation. It is an attempt to secure sexual stimulation by some artificial means. Sometimes boys get into bad sex habits during their early teens. This should be avoided. Every boy should know that masturbation may be the first step toward homosexuality.

I wondered how much Mark jerked off. I knew he would tell me if I asked, in the same easy way he talked about everything. I worried I was doing it too much, but didn't think it was more than any other guy. Had I been doing it more lately? I'd just had a lot of pent up something. I couldn't help it. But I didn't see how it would be a gateway to anything more criminal. It wasn't like doing it made me think about other boys. I didn't think about anything, really, just how it felt. I decided right then to stop, just to be safe.

17. What is a homosexual? This is a person who tries to get sexual satisfaction from someone of the same sex. Of course, this is unnatural and all kinds of problems can arise from it. Frequently it starts out with masturbation, and then the individual seeks a partner for mutual sex play. These practices are destructive to the personality, and frequently this type of individual disintegrates to the point where he becomes involved in various types of sex crimes. In fact, the moral degenerate is responsible for some of the most vicious and sadistic sex crimes on record.

Though he was my buddy, I knew he didn't have much in the way of a moral compass. Was this all just another example of Mark's disregard for rules and social norms? He broke all kinds of laws, why should this be any different? Was that what Mark was doing with me, 'seeking a partner for mutual sex play'? The thought did something to my stomach. I lit another weed - my last one - with a trembling hand and kept reading.

18. Aren't some people born homosexuals? This is so rare that whenever a case occurs it is considered a medical phenomenon. In practically all cases, homosexuality is cultivated. Individuals who get into abnormal sex habits during early youth can develop them into such a fixed pattern that they soon think these deviations are perfectly normal. When homosexuals are arrested, they try to excuse their conduct by saying, "I guess I'm just made this way."

I put the book back where I found it. When Mom used recipes, she'd make her own variations and corrections, leaving little neat notes in the margins. She didn't write in books. I wished she had.

I didn't need to check our Bible. I knew what it said.

I finished my cigarette and considered smoking one of the joints, but I didn't want to do it alone. It was really more of a thing I would do with Mark. He didn't like grass too much though. He said it made him sleepy.

I wondered if Mark was still jailed. I hoped he was okay. I wondered if he was sweating the kiss. Was he worried about my reaction, that I might tell someone? Was he planning on trying it again? Or maybe in all the excitement of being arrested, it was the last thing on his mind.

Maybe they'd lock him up for good and I wouldn't have to worry about any of this. I was scared they would.

I wanted to talk to him. I called his house, but I didn't know who answered because I hung up as soon as the dial tone cut off. Twice.

We didn't have any books in the house that could satisfy the questions I couldn't bring myself to ask.

I hadn't been to the new library downtown since it was built. It was a big deal. It was kinda a tourist attraction. It was supposed to be a center of community education and usher the city into the future. They'd been planning it for years, and it had cost the city a lot of money. I was ten when they voted on it. Mom had been excited. She didn't like reading stories, like I did. What she liked was non-fiction - biographies and how-to books. She loved to learn and could do just about anything on her own, if she had a book to teach her. She was maybe the smartest person I'd ever known.

It seemed absurd that she would never get to see it.

The Central Library was sleek and modern, contrasted against the art deco architecture of the other buildings surrounding it. Glory, but it seemed like the Parthenon to me.

Inside was airy and pristine, with more books out in the open then I had ever seen in my life. At the Carnegie Library, you looked through the card catalogue to find a book, took the card to a librarian and she got it for you. Now, you could browse, which I was grateful for.

Social Science books are in the 300s. I knew the Dewey Decimal System better than I knew the Scripture. There were quite a few people in the library, but most everyone was mulling around minding their own business. I couldn't help glancing around, as I searched for any book that mentioned things like "pathology" or "sex" and even a couple that boldly titled with the word "homosexual." Book after book, I sat on the ground hunched over, sheltered between isles, and looked through their table of contents. I read until my eyes burned, my mouth dried, and my mind swam with fragments:

… An important cause of homosexuality is isolation from the opposite sex. (2) … When cases of homosexuality are brought to the attention of the psychiatrist during adolescence, the possibility of an ultimate adjustment to normal heterosexual life is always present, except in the cases with a very obvious constitutional or endocrine basis for their anomaly. (3) … They do not deserve contempt. Pity, sympathy, and understanding would constitute a far prescription … And, to see just how the Pretty Boy is led into homosexual paths … (4)

My head was congested with new information.

Normal people were called "heterosexual," which was a word I'd never heard of. People don't have to talk about what they are, if they're normal. There were a lot of different things to call queers, though. These books didn't use words like queer or faggot or pansy. I guess because they're impolite. They used words like Homosexual, Invert, Homophile, Pervert, Deviant, Sex Criminal. I even read the word Gay used to mean homosexual in an interview with a queer. That gave me a big laugh. There was nothing gay about being a queer.

It was an interesting book though, where the therapist guy interviewed a bunch of homosexuals. That was interesting, to get into someone's depraved head. I skimmed through the book and tried to see if Mark was like these men. I read:

MORSE: How did you feel towards girls?

LEE: I'm not sure, exactly. I didn't dislike them or anything. I was shy. I think I may have been a little bit afraid of them. (4)

Mark wasn't shy around girls or scared of them.

I read about different guy, and about how he became a homosexual because he was bad at being a boy: 'A boy did not sit around and read books, did not draw pictures, and took a very minuscule interest in his school work.' (4)

This didn't describe Mark at all. He didn't have any trouble fitting in. He was rough and rambunctious, everything a guy ought to be.

One guy though - a bisexual, someone who was normal and abnormal, and could progress to being an "all-the-way fairy," as one guy called it - sounded like Mark: 'You know what a kick is? A kick is like a thing that reminds you that you're alive and swinging. When there's no kicks, then you know you're dead.' (4)

Was it just a kick for him? Was he just trying to cure his perpetual boredom? I kept searching for answers.

I held my breath when I came across what homosexuals did together. No lurid descriptions, just clinical language: … fellatio ... mutual masturbation ... active anal intercourse … passive anal intercourse ...

"Ponyboy!"

I snapped the book shut, but could not remove it from my lap. My jeans were tight. "Miss Doris - hi."

It would have been a nice time for one of the book shelves to fall down and kill me. My face burned.

I glanced at my lap. At least the book was face-down. There were so many books here, surely she wouldn't recognize this one's back cover.

"It's so good to see you. It's been so long."

I should have stood, so she could have said something about my height, then ask about school, you know those types of questions grownups ask kids when they don't know them too well. But I pulled my knees toward me and looked up at her.

"You work here now?" I already knew the answer.

Miss Doris was a librarian and Mom's friend. They'd chat while I picked out books, but they were more than a librarian and library-enthusiast. They drank tea together and Mom divided her hostas and brought them for Miss Doris to propagate in her own yard. It was a beautiful way to have a friend. I thought Miss Doris was a little younger than Mom, but maybe she just seemed that way because she didn't have kids.

"I do." She was lovely, with her floral-print dresses and kind hazel eyes. "When you're ready you can come to the front desk and I'll get you set with a library card."

"Thanks."

Mercifully, she left.

I had to wait a while before I could get up to leave. I picked the two least incriminating books I'd been reading, and four more books at random from one of the kiosk displays.

I felt so strange after reading all that, not even that the lure of thousands of books was strong enough to keep me in the library. I wasn't in the mood to explore.

I went to Miss Doris to check out. She filled out a library card for me and started removing the borrowing cards and stamping the pockets in the back of each book. We made small talk, which I've never been good at. I felt awkward. She looked sad.

I guessed she missed Mom, too. I wondered if when she looked at me she saw my face wanted in the newspaper or the boy who licked stamps for all the envelopes stuffed with letters about the voting for the library. I don't know why I liked to do that so much. They tasted awful, but I was eight, and when you're eight stuff like that is fun. I hoped that was what she saw. It didn't make me feel too hot, having Mom's friend think I was a juvenile delinquent now.

She paused as she got to the books about mental disorders.

"It's for a school assignment - I'm writing about Boo Radley for English." I thought this was a good lie.

"For Mr. Syme?" That startled me. It must have shown on my face, because she clarified. "Peter's a good friend of mine. Us reader-types have to stick together, I think. He says you're very talented."

Mr. Syme liked my theme. He said it was the best piece of writing he ever got from a student. He said it could be published. He said he was getting a new typewriter, and I could have his old one. He had told Miss Doris I was talented.

I could hardly picture him out of school, much less being friends with Miss Doris. I wondered if they were dating. They were about the same age. I hoped she wouldn't mention this to Mr. Syme.

After she stacked the books in front of me, she said, "We could always use another library clerk, if you're ever looking for an after school job or anything. I could put in a good word for you."

"I'd have to ask Darry."

"Of course."

"Thanks, miss." I turned to leave.

I walked home feeling like I was an actor and my life was a movie and everyone was working off the same script but me. I just stood there scene to scene, not knowing my lines, rapidly losing the plot.

I knew I was made wrong from a young age. My parents never made me feel bad about it, but when you're cut from a different piece of cloth than anyone else you know, it's hard not to notice.

The truth is, I was afraid I was becoming a homosexual. I didn't have an earth shattering revelation. I knew I was susceptible to homosexuality like I knew my middle name. I wasn't like Darry or Soda or Two-Bit or Curly Shepard or the guys who drank beer and belched and sat around bragging about the things they did to girls. I had no desire to do anything with a girl. There was something missing in me. I found it last year in Algebra, looking at the back of Dennis Samuels's neck. I found it in Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire. I found it in Mark Jennings's dangerous grin.

Mark had picked up on something that was in me long before I met him. The way a ham radio receives a signal. I must have been emitting a frequency. He would have never sought me out, or kissed me, if I hadn't.

I thought about him a lot - in bed and in the shower. It frightened me, but I couldn't stop.

I was in third grade when I found out about sex - you know, normal sex. I think it was about twenty minutes after Soda had learned about sex. 'Wanna hear something gross?' he had asked, then proceeded to tell me something I can't quite recall. Then he finished it off with, 'And we know he did it to Mom at least three times.'

Soda had been my primary source of sexual education ever since. But I couldn't ask him about any of this. This was one thing not even Soda could understand.

I had to talk to Mark, because he was the only other boy I knew who I thought might feel this way. Next time he found me, I would confront him and convince him that we could not be queer.

Only Mark didn't come find me. I was left wondering why. It'd been nearly a week. Since we became friends, we'd never gone so long without seeing each other.

I knew he was out of jail. Terry Jones had told me. They had talked since that night, even though Mark thought Jones more a lackey than a buddy.

I worried Mark was mad that I ran. Maybe he was bored of me. He had a lot of friends. He could hang out with anyone. Or maybe he wasn't a homosexual after all. Maybe had kissed me, tasted the vomit on my lips, and decided it wasn't for him. I didn't care if he was repulsed by kissing me. He should be. Maybe he was kissing somebody else by now. Good for him.

I went to go find him. I don't know why.

Mark lived in a slightly better neighborhood than mine, in a slightly worse house. It looked so strange and small as I approached. It was framed in the shadows of two regular sized houses. I wondered why it was built there. We weren't so friendly that I could go in without knocking. I felt stupid, waiting there on the porch for someone to answer.

It was Douglas's mom who did answer. She was very large and very kind. Her foot was all bandaged up and she used a walker. They'd amputated some of her toes. She had diabetes.

"Oh, Ponyboy! Mark's told me so much about you. You're even more handsome in person."

"Thanks." - My stomach did a happy flip. Mark had been talking about me. - "Is Mark around?"

He showed up behind her, before she could respond.

"Hi," I said.

He smiled - not grinned, smiled - like he was happy to see me.

I was gonna suggest we take a walk or something, but he spoke first.

"Mom," - He only ever called her that if she was around. - "We're gonna go play in my room." Like we were little kids.

He shared a room with Bryon. It was small and musty, with two parallel twin beds, covered in with dingy sheets. There was a copy The Sun Also Rises. I never thought of Douglas as a reader.

"That's Bryon's bed," he said like it was necessary. "You two have a lot in common. He's going with the Shepard girl now."

I didn't know what to do, so I picked up the book and sat down on the side of the bed, facing Mark's. I'd read this book before. I thought Hemingway was overrated. His prose was okay, but I could tell he was an asshole as a person. I just could.

Mark sat down, mirroring me on his own bed. There was only a yard between us. If I stretched out my legs a little, they would touch his.

"You in big trouble 'bout the Fury?" I asked.

"I have to pick up some trash and then do some probation. No sweat." He was still smiling.

"I haven't seen you in a while."

"I knew you'd turn up. You worried about me?"

"Why'd you do it?"

"You said you wanted to drag."

"That's not what I'm talking about." He knew what I was talking about.

He glanced at the closed door. I could hear the TV from the living room. I wanted a cigarette.

"Guess I just wanted to. I was thinking about it on the water tower, but I didn't want you to freak and jump off it."

"But why?"

He shrugged. "I just look at you and want to kiss you and stuff. Simple as that. Don't be bugged."

And stuff.

I needed to leave.

Mark leaned forward and put his hands on my knees, gold eyes steady and challenging. I sucked in a trembling breath.

If you ever wondered how an antelope feels before it gets eaten by a lion, I think I could tell you.

"I can't." It came out a weedy whisper. The air had gotten denser, and with each inhale, my lungs grew heavier and heavier.

"Curtis," He moved one palm to my face, as light as his voice. "I ain't gonna tell nobody and you ain't gonna tell nobody. It don't matter then, like a tree fallin' in the forest without nobody to hear it."

I don't know if it was the argument or his confident, relaxed tone that won me over, but I suddenly couldn't think of a reason why I wouldn't want to kiss Mark Jennings.

He leaned in, his face seemingly bigger in the foreground, the background completely obscured and irrelevant. There wasn't room for it or objections as Mark kissed me. He took up every bit of me.

For the first time, I wanted to kiss someone back. My hands were tentative, as I reached for him. His were not.

I had one hand on the back of his neck, fingertips sneaking down his collar. The tag of his t-shirt brushed against my knuckles.

His hands were everywhere.

There was licking and touching and sucking and biting and spit - so much spit but I didn't care. Didn't care about anything but Mark's mouth and the fine hairs on the base of his skull, and his hand on my stomach.

Soon, as he pressed closer, I tried to hide how much I liked it with my forearm, awkwardly bent between us covering my crotch. But after a few minutes Mark decided I would have no secrets from him, and moved my arm to the side and held it there. He leaned forward, so I leaned back on the bed. He rocked against me, and I could feel that he wanted just as bad as I wanted.

It was so electric, I thought I might die.

(1) So You Want to Raise a Boy? by W. Cleon Skousen (1958), pp. 260-261

(2) Sex Perversions and Sex Crimes by James Melvin Reinhardt (1957), p.47

(3) Clinical Psychiatry by W. Mayer-Gross, Eliot Slater, & Martin Roth (1960), p. 190

(4) The Homosexual; a Frank Study of Abnormal Sex Life Among Males by Bangamin Morse (1962), pp. 9, 39-40, 50-51