Chapter Eight
"You just gotta feel the car," Mark said.
We were stalled for about the six hundred and fifty-six millionth time on a hill. The car started to roll back. I stomped on the brakes, then Mark pulled the handbrake. We jerked forward. He put his hand over mine on the gearstick. The bruises on our knuckles were fading to yellow and brown, like the tips of an overwatered plant. A large cut on one of mine was still healing, so Darry had to superglue it every night. The skin pulled around it, as I gripped the steering wheel. I probably should have gotten stitches.
"Now, just let off the clutch and press the gas."
Mark taught me how to drive in stolen cars, after we got back together. He was done with his community service. You might think his arrest would be a deterrent, but if you thought that you'd be giving us too much credit. We were a little more careful though, not driving as fast. He was still on probation.
"Quit riding the brakes."
"I'm not." I was.
Soda had let me drive a little bit before, but only in an empty parking lot. I wasn't very good at it. There was a lot to keep track of. I didn't think I could manage all the pedals and gears and look at the mirrors and speedometer and the tachometer all at once. My brain just isn't good at that sort of thing. And I was terrified of committing accidental manslaughter. Mark thought this fear was funny, but it really did make me nervous. Truthfully, I didn't want to learn to drive as much as Mark wanted to teach me to drive. He was trying hard to be nice since we started hanging out again.
"You can pull over, then I'll drive."
I did. Eager to be out of the driver seat, the car started rolling back again.
"Pony, you're not parked!" He laughed and then crawled past me, and in a few frenzied moments got the car to still.
"...Sorry."
"Naw, that was pretty good for a beginner." - I knew he was just being nice. - "Why don't we go back to my house for a while?"
What he really meant was he wanted to have sex. I knew that since we had done it, he'd want to do it all the time. Maybe that was why I was so reluctant the first time. I didn't mind so much now. It was odd. I wasn't nervous or embarrassed about it anymore. Sometimes it was like I wasn't even there. He told me I'd get used to it, and I did. Besides, it wasn't that bad since he started using Vaseline. And I always got high first. That was the big perk of going with a pusher. He was only selling pills at this point but he could get me whatever he wanted to. He knew people.
There were plenty of drawbacks of seeing a pusher, but I didn't know them yet.
"Hey, you know Buck Merril, right?" he asked, stretching his neck as he checked his blindspot before pulling a u-turn.
I nodded. I guess I knew people too. "Why?" I asked, apprehensive. I knew what went on at Buck's, and I didn't want to get involved in it.
"I thought it might be a good place to push." He was on a deadline. Mark was just starting out then, and it wasn't swinging for him yet. He didn't seem all that worried though. I didn't know too much about that end of things. But I did my best to help him. (I always thought of it as me helping Mark. I never thought I was pushing too, but I guess I was. I'll get to that later.)
I chose my words carefully, so he wouldn't think I was trying to tell him what to do. I had a vague awareness that I had learned to manipulate Mark, the manipulator. I was sorry, but it was how it was. "It's mostly speed freaks that hang around there, and they got doctors and bikers to get it from."
Speed freaks shoot up meth. I thought of the raucous laughter at Buck's, the way people brandished heaters like they were just kids playing pirates with tree branches. I didn't like it there at all. They were beyond taking a couple of pills, or dropping acid, or even shooting up heroin.
Mark didn't know what he was getting into. He was a rough boy, but his heedlessness could make him sort of naive. I thought injectable drugs crossed a line that I didn't want Mark to. People die doing that stuff. I couldn't live with being a part of that. Of course, Mark wouldn't live with anything. I would. I had to live with everything bad he ever did. Somewhere along the way, I started being responsible for his actions. I didn't want to, but somebody had to be. And it couldn't be him. It was just the way he was made. You can't help how you're made. I accepted that.
I tried to come up with a new place for him to sell on the way to his house, but he was pushing hallucinogens, and those were for people with more money than I knew. Rich hippies, Socs. I'd have been more help if he was pushing narcotics. He had been given more pills than he could unload, and I had taken a fair amount of them that day, which he reminded me he had to pay back. We needed to figure something out.
We got to his house, like we used to, though it didn't exactly go back to like it was before. It couldn't, because I now knew that when Mark placated me, it was an allowance. If he really wanted something, he'd just take it. That's why I never said no to him again. About anything. I knew he didn't actually have to listen. I figured it was better to go along with things and not be in a situation where my 'no' might be ignored. I didn't want to get hurt like that ever again.
But he was being sweet to me now, saying he was so glad to have me back, saying how good I felt, that I was made for this, made for him. It was corny but I liked it. When he finished, he told me he loved me, and I chose to believe him.
I missed being held like this. I felt stupid for making a big deal out of everything. Taking so much sass that day must have confused my perception of time, because it seemed like that first time he had sex with me went on for a long time, but I knew Mark's body. It couldn't have taken more than five minutes. Five minutes was generous, and probably even less, because he had been pretty excited. Five minutes was nothing. We had so many wonderful five minutes together, before and after. It was stupid to be upset over a bad less-than-five minutes. Not to mention, I was miserable when I wasn't with Mark. It was a relief to be back with him. He was the first person to know every part of me, the only one to know all my secrets. I didn't think I'd be able to find that with anyone else.
"You get off work at eight tomorrow?"
"Yeah." His hair was grown out long enough for me to run my fingers through it. I could have done it all day.
"We got places to go, people to see."
"Buck's?" I didn't know if we should go, but especially not on a Friday. Too much chance I'd run into someone who'd tell Darry or Soda.
"No, it's a surprise." I wasn't sure I wanted to be surprised by Mark. He kissed my forehead. "You'll like it, promise."
Library clerk was a great summer job. There was air conditioning, and I got to read while I was there. I mostly had to restock books, things like that, and help Miss Doris with odd tasks. So I was reading more than I ever have, which is saying something, and a larger variety of books. I told you there were more books in the new library than anywhere else. Miss Doris read a lot too and she always recommended good ones.
Even though the Central Library was a bit of a tourist attraction and had a steady crowd, there were still a lot time I spent reading and waiting for someone who wanted to check out. Not many people dig books the way I do, even at the library.
The library also had subscriptions to literary magazines, like Mr. Syme had been published in. They were kept in the "Newspapers, Magazines, & Journals" room. I read through a bi-annual publication and found the Erwin T. Speicher poetry contest. It was in that room I decided, with the audacity that might only exist when you're a teenager, that my poetry was just as good, if not better than some of the selected poems from last year. I don't know why I was so confident. I think my parents may have emboldened me too much.
First prize got two hundred dollars, second got a hundred, and third got seventy-five. The ten honorable mentions each got twenty-five bucks, which was a lot of money. (I was making a dollar an hour, as a library clerk, at the time.) Some of the poems weren't very good. I figured maybe twenty people submitted poems, and if they chose the top thirteen, I had a shot at an honorable mention. I was going to be published like Mr. Syme. I copied down the submission directions and decided I'd choose my best poem when I got home, or at least the poem that seemed the most like what they would pick to publish. It would be about Mark, because everything I wrote was about Mark back then. Even my final composition for English, which was about "A Good Man is Hard to Find," was really about Mark. But I didn't tell Mark about the contest.
It was getting late and the only people left in the library were a bunch of noisy black-haired children. They came for Story Time and normally stayed pretty close to closing. Unlike most of the regulars, they weren't good at putting the books they didn't borrow back on the right spot on the shelf. The biggest kid hauled over twelve books and sat them on the front desk. I put down the copy of In Cold Blood I was reading.
"Find everything alright?" I asked.
"No, but that's okay, I wasn't looking for anything."
He was a weird kid, but I nodded.
One of the little ones popped up to put her chin on the desk. "Sissy's gonna come home from Aunt Marion's, Pony."
I didn't know this little girl or Sissy or Aunt Marion. But she seemed excited about it, so I smiled and said, "Tuff enough."
She smiled back so big, I could see all the gaps where she was missing teeth. "Yeah! She's out of money!"
"Oh," I said somewhat perplexed. "That's good?"
They passed by Mark as they left and stopped and talked, before he made his way over to me.
"They live in my neighborhood, in that big yellow house on East Haskell, the one where the lawn is always kept up, but they're okay." Leaning over the desk, he asked, "You ready?"
"I still got another twenty minutes."
"That's okay. I'll wait, maybe read or something. Ya'll got any of those Dick and Jane books? I'm on the edge of my seat to find out what they're all runnin' from."
The sun was getting low and Mark wouldn't tell me where we were going.
It was about a mile from the library, when he stopped in front of a bar that had people spilling out and a couple of drunks fighting in the road, holding up traffic. We didn't go in that bar, though. He led me through the alley and to the back, where there was a door down some steps. You couldn't see any light or hear anything from the other side of it. Then Mark opened it and gave me nudge. It was even darker when we stepped inside than it was on the street, with just one lamp hanging from the ceiling that made a circle of light at the center of the room. There was a bar and booths along the walls, covered in shadows. There were people sitting in some of them. Ruckus from the bar upstairs filtered in through the ceiling. It was pretty quiet down there, though.
It looked like a regular dive bar at first, then I noticed the bartender, who looked remarkably like John Wayne, if you see past her sex and race. Mark thought so, too, when I brought it up later. She was even wearing a cowboy hat and neckerchief, but it was mostly how she held herself. I had never seen a woman like her, but did my best not to stare.
She looked up when we walked in. "You're back," she said to Mark. She was wiping a dirty glass with a dirty rag over a galvanized metal tub filled with dingy water. There wasn't a tap behind the bar, it was gross. She looked at my face. "The alcohol kills the germs, anyway, chicken. How old are you?" She had a real twangy accent.
"Fifteen." I rounded up. I don't know why. I thought it sounded better right then, though fifteen was still underage. Then I felt guilty and added, "in a month."
"Jack, this Ponyboy. We'll take some hooch," Mark said with a grin and a wink, which evidently did not work on this woman.
She gave us two cokes. "Ponyboy, huh?" She knew who I was already.
"Yes, ma'am."
Mark sat on a bar stool, but everything looked sticky so I stayed standing. I leaned over to whisper to Mark, but the woman - Jack - said, "Keep yer distance yet."
I pulled back. "What is this place?"
"I found the queers!" His voice was lowered but his eyebrows were up and excited.
I glanced around the bar, squinting through the darkness to see the other patrons. Men were sitting with men and women with women, each pair with appropriate amounts of space between them. They looked normal to me. No one but Jack was dressed too wild (not in Tulsa, not at the time), but a lot of women were wearing pants. But the thing that made a beautiful ache bloom in my chest was the way they were sitting. There were women sitting with their ankles over their knees, and men with their legs crossed. It wasn't everyone, but it was more than a few.
I had to put my hands in my pockets. They were shaking. Up until this point in my life, I didn't think there could be much more than ten homosexuals in the whole state, but there were twelve right here in this bar.
Jack kept a watchful eye on the door, as more and more queers came in, but she was talking to me and Mark. I think she might have been trying to put me at ease. I think I must have seemed pretty skittish. Mark was relaxed, of course.
She told us about how this bar had been there for nearly ten years, and had only been raided a few times, because Jack took precautions and they were quiet. It used to just be for women, but Jack took pity on the male homosexuals after their tap room got shut down last year, and they brought over a jukebox that mostly played things like Dusty Springfield and Martha Reeves, because they were for everyone. That's how she put it, though personally, it wasn't the sort of music I'd be caught dead listening too. I didn't know any guy who would. That is, until now. But no one was allowed to dance until later in the night.
"I lock the door at 9:30 sharp, so that's when the real excitement will start. People are gonna start funneling in pretty soon. You can stay, Mark. But glory, you boys stick together. Don't let your friend stray too far from you, not with that face. "
I was surprised when she went to lock the door, because she was so small. She stood on a crate while she tended the bar - she couldn't have been taller than 5'2. But she shouldered her way through the gathered crowd with little effort. There might have been thirty to fifty people there that night, but it wasn't a huge space.
And then the excitement did start.
It was getting louder and rowdier, as it got later and people drank more, though it wasn't half as wild as the bars Dad used to hang out in. Everyone was still hiding. But there were a few men who I would later learn to call screamers. Flamboyant men, who were so repressed in most of their lives that when they finally got a chance to let loose, they screeched. There was a whole language to be learned. I was a chicken - not chicken like coward, just young - there were chickenhawks, who I apparently needed to be weary of, but so far everyone had been kind. Some guy even snuck us rum to put into our cokes, repeatedly topping off our glasses. Mark and I could save a lot of money doing our boozing here, I thought. I was getting a little tipsy.
Mark and me were a novelty, being so young. And me being well known. And Mark being magnetic. He was talking to people, getting their life stories. I mostly stayed quiet. It was overwhelming, seeing all these people. Couples like me and Mark.
I marveled at how Mark could be so casual, while my entire world was rapidly expanding. I sat next to him completely enraptured by all our queer silhouettes, which were cast as characters in a bawdy vaudevillian act across the wall. Jack had to keep the light low, but it was enough.
And there was another thing - there were even a few interracial couples, which you didn't see too much of then. It was one of the least segregated spaces I'd ever seen before. I supposed people like me, who have to meet their kin in the shadows, might get to meet people from other parts of town. We all had this other commonality. I thought about that a lot. I'm not saying it was perfect (Is anything?), but it was better than anywhere else I'd ever been.
Mark saw it, but he put it differently. "All these perverts, lookin' past their differences to get laid," he said. "Really makes you think."
Everyone in this bar shared this secret with me. Probably the biggest secret we all had. I guess that's why no one seemed to mind much my hanging around. They had all been lonely, confused kids. There were bits of me in these people. I'd spent my life modulating my voice and mannerisms. Something about the way I talked that I never liked, something that kept me from speaking, I picked up on this quality in the cadence of some of voices of the men here. And maybe for the first time in my life, I could picture myself as a grownup.
Mark left me. He said he had to take care of something. I didn't know. I felt lost without him, so I wandered around with both our drinks in my hands, until I bumped into a man and the drinks sloshed out over my wrists and on the front of his shirt.
"Sorry, mist- Mr. Syme!" I gripped the glasses hard. My mouth fell open like a cartoon, all I could think tp say was, "You're like me."
"You can't be here," he said but he didn't do nothing but stare.
We were still frozen in a stand-off, when Mark grabbed my hips from behind and stuck his chin on my shoulder.
"Oh hey, it's that teacher you're always talking about."
I felt my face heat up. I wasn't always talking about him.
But I guess Mark didn't find it that noteworthy, because he casually plucked one of the glasses from my hand and said, "Come on, you got to see what's happenin' in the bathroom."
"No!" Mr. Syme reached out and gripped my forearm with his free hand, and I noticed for the first time he had a glass of liquor in his other. His eyes were a little bloodshot. He was half-crocked. And though I've been around my share of drunk people all my life, this shocked me. Maybe because he was a teacher. I don't know. He looked down at where he had my arm, dropped it like he'd been burned.
"Pony, you can't be here," he repeated.
A short guy joined his side. "Pete-Oh, I heard we had some fresh meat tonight," he said when he saw Mark and me.
"He's my student, Sam." - This sent Sam into a fit of what could only be described as giggles. He was fully stoned. - "And he needs to leave."
"Don't be such a wet blanket, Petey."
"Does Jack know you're here? Where's Jack? Jacqueline!"
He found Jack and they argued like Mark and me weren't right there. I was kinda sore that Mr. Syme wanted me to leave.
"It's this or they'll go to Mohawk Park. You want that one strollin' Bird Creek?"
Mohawk Park wasn't that far from my house, and I knew from the glint in Mark's eyes we'd be going there soon. I almost wished Jack hadn't mentioned it, but I was curious too. Were there more homosexuals there?
"You'll explain this to Doris, then, Jack?" Mr. Syme's tone was clipped.
My head snapped around at that. Miss Doris?
"And you boys realize how important it is that no one finds out about this place?"
I nodded. I wasn't an idiot.
"Then it's settled," Sam proclaimed with a happy clap. "The kids are staying!"
"But you're not drinking that." Mr. Syme took our glasses, which were obviously more rum than coke at this point.
I felt pretty dizzy, anyway, but Mark opened his mouth to say something smart. Sam cut him off, "Be a good boy, now, and listen to your teacher."
"Petey ain't my teacher. I'm take remedial English with Miss Roberts. He only teaches the smart kids."
Sam ignored him and shook his head. "Sit with us!"
Mark and I sat in a booth across from them. Mr. Syme seemed uncomfortable at first, but then he drank the rest of my drink and seemed fine.
"Fourteen! You're a baby. That's real cute." - I stiffen instinctively at Sam calling me cute. - "I didn't have anyone to kiss until I was in my thirties. You're lucky to figure it out so young."
I hadn't considered that, but I guess he was right.
"I never -" I started, but didn't really know what I wanted to say. "I didn't know places like this existed."
"If you think this is good, you ought to take a trip down to Oklahoma City. That scene will blow your mind, honey." I liked it when Mr. Syme called me honey. I don't know why, but I knew it was a good thing I had stopped drinking.
"Among other things," Sam muttered, and Mr. Syme said jovially, "Shut the hell up, Sam."
"It's not as good since the Mayflower got burnt down. Too many cops. Ya'll ought to see a really city someday - San Francisco or New York."
We talked with them until we had to leave. I was supposed to be home by midnight. I wanted to ask if they were together. I wasn't sure. Did they have sex? I wondered who did what. I imagined it, Mr. Syme's face sweaty and flushed as it was now, him on top -I thought he should be on top - moving … I scooted so my chest hit the table. I had to stop thinking like that. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I tried to just listen and not think.
"I knew you'd love it. Aren't you glad I brought you here?" Mark asked on our way out, with his hand on the back of my neck in a way that was intimate and public.
I nodded, and he kissed me. I felt his grin against my lips. Someone whistled.
I loved it. I loved him.
We stumbled up and onto the street at about 11:30, which gave me only half-an-hour to sober up enough and not get into trouble. It was cutting it close, but I didn't care. Under the flashing neon signs of downtown, we were illuminated. I don't know if I had ever felt so happy. I jumped on Mark's back, nearly knocking him over.
"I wish it was like that everywhere all the time," I said. We never talked about what it meant to be a homosexual, because it didn't mean much to Mark. It did to me though. It meant a lot.
"You're telling me. I get to sleep with the best looking guy in school whenever I want," - Feeling pleased, I ducked my head, though I knew it wasn't true. The best looking guy in school was named Bill Turner. He was in the grade above us, and I had never spoken to him. I knew better than to tell Mark this, even though it was an objective fact. Mark was still my favorite, though. - "and I can't brag to nobody about it. What I wouldn't give to dig the look on Angela Shepard's face, if she knew."
Mark had something against Angie lately. I guess it was just loyalty, because she and Douglas broke up. I kept running into her, and she still seemed nice to me.
After we got a little aways from downtown, Mark took out a wad of cash from his pocket and started counting. He had a lot more than he started the night with.