Beneath the Stain - Part 1 (4 page)

But Tony was shaking his head. “I’m so stupid,” he muttered, almost to himself, turning toward the drum set for no real reason. “Your brother’ll probably stuff me in a trash can again, and Jesus, this town just fucking sucks, and—” He looked up miserably, almost in tears, his chin wobbling. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I just—”

“I won’t tell my brother,” Mackey blurted, pulled out of his shock by the thought that, yeah, Kell probably
had
stuffed Tony in a trash can, because Kell wasn’t real nice to anyone weaker than him. Wasn’t nice, was probably just Kell.

Tony’s chin wobble eased up. “Thanks,” he whispered, still miserable. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“I….” Mackey stood up, looked at the little gym, decked out with paper flowers and streamers by Tony and his friends, and had the sudden realization that this gym would never be for him. Or for Tony, either, really, who had just spent two hours making it pretty.

“What’d you think?” Mackey asked, his voice gentle and confused. “We’d… dress nice and dance, like everyone else?”

Tony shrugged, rubbing his finger on the hi-hat. “Maybe just someone to hang out with,” he mumbled, and Mackey grimaced.

“I did not expect this,” he said, so startled he found the word/rhythm place without thinking. “That the person in my skin was so plain to someone else, I didn’t expect it. How is it you can see the guy I’ve hidden mostly from myself?”

Tony was suddenly looking at him—really looking at him, his mouth parted, too, softly, like he was begging to be plundered. “Because you say things like that, Mackey,” he said, half-strangled. “Man… just your voice makes me hard.”

Mackey hardened his face against that want.

“So,” Tony said nervously into the silence. The gym was deserted, and without the people to pad it, his voice seemed to echo, unnaturally loud. “You, uhm….”

Grant’s face popped up in the dark of Mackey’s vision. The angle of his jaw, the way his dark lashes fluttered across his gold-skinned cheeks, the unusually straight bridge of his nose.

The way he’d turned away.

The way Mackey would follow him.

“I….” Mackey started, and his eyes flew open when he realized Tony had moved closer, was close enough that Mackey’s voice didn’t echo off the walls like Tony’s just had. “I can’t,” Mackey whispered, and he hurt inside when he saw Tony’s hurt on the outside. “He’s… he’s got a girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Tony said softly. “That sucks. Straight guys—it hurts.”

And because he could, because Mackey had been kissed, because he’d had Grant’s mouth on his body, he had to spill this secret. To somebody.

“He’s not straight,” Mackey whispered, turned away. Because if Grant wasn’t straight, and Tony wasn’t straight, neither was Mackey.

“Oh.”

Mackey busied himself looping the cords from the amp to the guitars. He knew the trick to it that kept them out from underfoot but let the guys on stage have some movement. “This conversation goes nowhere but us,” he muttered.

“That’s a rule,” Tony said, like he was teaching.

“What is?” Okay, this cord to Grant’s axe, this cord to Kell’s, this cord to the keyboard….

“You don’t out anyone without their permission. It’s a violation.”

That
, of all things, actually made Mackey laugh. “Where do you
learn
something like that?” he asked, actually looking up from the cords.

“The Internet,” Tony said, relaxing in increments. “It’s the only place you can see other gay people without being hunted by torches and pitchforks.”

Mackey sighed and looked around the gym. Kell made fun of prom, but he’d heard Jeff and Stevie say something quiet to each other about how the right girl wouldn’t be there and it was a shame.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a minute. “All this work and it’s not for you.”

Tony shrugged. “See, what matters is, I know there’s places it can be. Two years here—how bad can it get?”

That brought Mackey up short. “I got three,” he muttered. But then the logic settled in. “Three years. As long as I can play music, it’s all good.”

He heard a song in that, about light at the end of the tunnel, and for a moment he was distracted by the song and the quiet between him and Tony got natural again. So natural that when Tina Camden ran into the gym trilling Tony’s name, Mackey actually jerked and almost dropped a guitar.

“Jesus,” he hissed, rounding on her, about ready to give her a piece of his mind.

“Making enough noise, Tina?” Tony joked, and Tina laughed.

“My mom just finished making up my dress,” she said. “Tony, I can go tonight!” Tina was a little plump—she’d probably needed some adjustments to that dress—and Mackey was irrationally glad, even though he didn’t know Tina at all.
Someone
got to come to the gym and dance.

“That’s great,” Tony said. “Can Lynn and Sarah make it?”

“Yeah,” and Tina’s voice dropped a little. “But, you know, I was sort of hoping you and me….”

She looked up, biting her lip, and Tony winked at her.

“It’ll be better in a group, I promise. Besides, I’m not really a ladies’ man, honey, you know that.”

Tina nodded, but Mackey could tell by her disappointment that she didn’t understand at all.

“That’s okay,” she said, her voice picking up some of its trill again. “I just wanted to let you know. Do you all want to meet at my house?”

They made plans as Mackey finished up the sound check on his own. When he was done, he picked up the lead guitar and brushed a few chords, losing himself in that flawless communication between plucked string and air.

He played a few more notes, mumbled some words, strung them together, talked about being open inside. Like a pomegranate, all the little seeds that make you bleed.

He paused and saw Tony, down on the floor, looking at him longingly.

“That was beautiful,” Tony said. “Don’t stop.”

Mackey smiled a little and was going to shake his head, but Tony stopped him.

“Please,” he said quietly. “There’s no one here. Let’s play pretend. Let’s pretend you’re not after someone else, and I’ll pretend you’re playing at the prom just for me.”

Mackey thought Tony had it all under control, the being gay, the hanging with all the girls, the asking and being rejected. But that right there taught him something he’d remember forever.

Nobody had it under control. Nobody had it buttoned down all the time. Sometimes all you could do was play pretend. And the people who looked at him on the stage and pretended were just as bare on the inside as Mackey, who got lost in the music on the stage for the very same reason.

“Okay,” he murmured, picked up the guitar again. He played the riff a couple of times, because he had the words in his head for the singing. “Can you copy the words for me?” His notebook—this one battered and halfway done—was at the foot of the stage.

“Yeah,” Tony said, looking like he always did around school, like he was thrilled to be asked to help.

“Tony!” Mackey almost panicked for a moment, remembering the personal stuff in there, wondering if he’d ever mentioned Grant by name. “Just flip to the back where it’s empty, okay?”

Tony caught his gaze again, and for a minute, Mackey was sorry. Why not this kid? Why couldn’t it be
this
kid? But as warm as Tony’s eyes were, they weren’t Grant’s gold, and that’s what Mackey wanted to see.

Mackey fingered the melody with delicate, dancing notes, and sang the words while Tony watched, and then he looked at the lyrics and ran through the song again and again.

He was on his fifth run-through when Kell and Grant came in to pick him up. They stopped and listened while Tony wrote the words at Mackey’s direction, and when Mackey was done, they both clapped.

“I like it,” Grant said. “Can we play it tonight?”

Mackey smiled and looked at his hands before he could flush. “I don’t have the band set up for it—”

“You should play it!” Tony said. “That can be your last song. It’ll get everyone into slow dancing again.”

“The faggot’s right,” Kell grunted, and the moment shattered.

“Don’t call him that,” Mackey snarled, taking his notebook from Tony. “He’s done nothing but help us and you’re being a dick.”

Kell rolled his eyes. “What
ever
, Mackey. See if you get to play your dumb song now!”

“Don’t be an asshole,” Grant intoned, and Kell, who lived and died by Grant’s opinion, hunched his shoulders and grunted.

“You can call me what you want,” Tony said, after shooting Mackey a grateful look. “But that don’t change that if you don’t let Mackey shine a little, you’ll be cutting your band off at the balls.”

With that he turned around and headed for the door. “I’m sorry, Mackey. You guys gotta go so I can lock up, okay?”

Mackey nodded. While he was putting his guitar in the case and grabbing his notebook, Grant walked over to Tony and shook his hand.

“Don’t mind Kell—he’s a dick. We appreciate the help with the equipment and the setup.”

Tony nodded. “Thanks. It was worth it to watch Mackey write a song.”

Grant smiled, and Mackey looked up to catch his gaze. “You got lost in his words, didn’t you.” And for a moment, it was the two of them alone.
I got lost in your eyes.

“Jesus, Grant, stop dicking around with—” Kell tossed a glare over his shoulder at Mackey, like Mackey was forcing him to do something. “—with
Tony
, and let’s go.”

Mackey trotted toward the big heavy double door and slid by Tony after Grant and Kell. As he cleared the door, Tony stopped him with a touch on the shoulder.

“Grant has a girlfriend, doesn’t he?”

Mackey turned away. “Some shit’s private,” he muttered.

“Yeah,” Tony said under his breath. “But if you ever want to talk—”

Mackey shook his head and, conscious of Kell striding toward Grant’s minivan, disentangled himself and hustled to keep up. “See ya tonight. Have fun with the girls,” he said, and he meant it sincerely.

He felt bad when Tony winced, but there wasn’t a thing he could do about that, was there?

H
ALF
AN
hour before they were supposed to leave, Mackey looked in the mirror, horrified.

“Jesus Christ, Mom—”

“McKay James Sanders, don’t you take the Lord’s name in vain!”

Mackey’s hair was plain sandy brown.
Was
plain sandy brown. His mom had streaked it gently, cut his bangs, cut the sides of it around his face. He looked like… like….

“I have no idea who I look like,” he said. “It’s someone I saw in a television show once—what the hell did you do to me!” He had gray eyes, big ones, framed with dark lashes, and with that haircut, his eyes looked even bigger, his nose more turned up, and his chin sharper. He was already smaller than most everybody else in his grade
still
, but now, he looked like some sort of stuffed animal or Barbie or something.

His mom grinned and nodded. “You look like a ’70s pop star, Mackey. With that getup that Grant gave you, it’ll be perfect. Trust me.”

Mackey grimaced at his mother. All he’d said was that his hair was getting in his eyes and he wished he had time to cut it before they played. That was all. And their mom, who had to find a babysitter for Cheever because she worked that night, had suddenly brightened.

“I can help!” she said, her voice full of wonder. “I can help. I
trained
to be a hairstylist between you and Cheever. I can fix that!”

“Mom?”

Their mom was young—Mackey knew that objectively, although it didn’t really settle in for many years to come that if she was thirty-four and Kell was eighteen, she would have been Jeff’s age when she was tossed out of the house. But now, getting excited about doing Mackey’s hair, Mackey saw some of that youth in her. Her hair was always dyed blonde and black and put up in a little fan on the back of her head, and her eyes were always smudged with kohl and mascara, but when she smiled like she was at Mackey now, talking about doing his hair for the big performance, he suddenly felt it.

Their mom wanted to be a good mom. She
wanted
to be a good mom. She wasn’t always there, and they spent a lot of time in charge of Cheever and a lot of time worrying about money to keep their shitty little apartment. He knew that some of their Christmas presents came from coat donation and that most of their clothes came from Goodwill, and he knew that their birthdays were usually celebrated with cake and a book—one book, new—because that’s all she had. She bought school supplies in gross when they went on sale and had cleaned the church lady’s house so they could have music lessons, and her temper was short when she came home late and her boys were still up.

But she wanted to be there that night. She wanted it with all her soul.

And fixing Mackey’s hair was what she had.

So Mackey let her, and the results were….

“Oh God,” Kell muttered, looking in. “Mom, he looks like a girl—can we just buzz cut it and let it go?”

She looked so hurt.

“I like it!” Mackey said staunchly, and she smiled almost desperately, desperate to help, to be included, to be a part of her sons’ lives. “Thanks, Mom. It’ll look great.”

“Grant’ll laugh himself senseless,” Kell muttered, but he turned his solid, hunched shoulders away and barged into the boys’ bedroom. “Jeff, please tell me you’re not putting on makeup!” he hollered.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Jeff sounded really confused. Mackey’s mom laughed and wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek.

“Poor Jefferson,” she said, and Mackey smiled at her in the mirror.

“Yeah. Poor me, if Grant doesn’t like it.”

But he looked in the mirror, at his eyes, almost inhumanly large. For a minute he thought of eyeliner, like he’d seen on David Bowie, but decided against it. Even without the eyeliner, Grant would get lost in his eyes.

“Everyone will like it,” Heather Sanders said proudly. “I wish I could get someone to tape it for me, Mackey. I’m so proud of you boys, practicing, performing. I wish I could give you more time to do it, but you boys are just so good.”