Foolish Fire (8 page)

*

At school the next morning, before homeroom, I looked all over for Jack. Lately, it was getting harder to find him when I needed him. He was spending more time with friends from his other classes. I finally spotted him in the main hallway just outside the principal’s office.

“Jack! Wait.”

He was walking the other way but waited for me to catch up with him. “What’s up?” There was a trace of irritation in his voice.

“Listen, Jack, I gotta talk to you. It’s important.”

“What’s the matter?”

“It’s Mark Warren.”

“Him? What is it this time?”

“The faggot tried to put the make on me.”

“He what?” Jack’s face seemed to boil with outraged loathing.

We stared at each other aghast for a moment. Then he said in a quiet, menacing voice: “I’ll take care of it.”

He knew immediately what to do, and I felt grateful at the bold way he took charge of everything.

Later, as I left math class in second period, I felt a hand tugging my elbow. It was Jack.

“This afternoon. Behind the gym,” he whispered cryptically.

“What?”

“Me and the guys are gonna beat the shit out of him.”

“I’ll be there,” I said, my heart beginning to hurry.

“I told you I’d take care of it, didn’t I?”

“You sure did.”

I watched him walk away down the hall. After that there was no mention of Mark at all. His fate was sealed.

As the afternoon ticked by, I felt myself getting tenser by the minute. Whenever my eyes met Jack’s as we passed each other in the hallway between classes, we both looked grim and a little scared of what we knew was going to happen. I purposely kept my eyes averted from the unknowing victim.

Finally the last bell rang. The hallway was filled with students, some laughing, others clowning around. Everyone seemed so carefree. I dawdled by my locker waiting for Jack to come by. Now that the time had come, I felt a little scared. Part of me wished I’d never told Jack about it. But then the knowledge would have eaten away at me until I was consumed by it. Mark Warren was a faggot. How could I not tell?

The hallway started emptying, and still there was no sign of Jack. Had he decided not to do anything about it? Maybe that was for the better. But it was so unlike Jack….

I began to worry. A new thought had come to me: What if it was going to happen without me?

A sense of urgency filled me. Suddenly I knew it was going to happen, with or without me. I had to hurry. Fearing I might miss it, I broke into a run.

Outside, I spotted two or three boys moving purposefully in the direction of the gym. One side of the gym was flush against a steep rise; between it and a set of bleachers facing the playing field was a hidden space where boys often smoked cigarettes and passed magazines back and forth. Already there was a group of boys gathered there, including the tall figure of Jack. Beyond them I saw a pair of flailing arms. As I hurried toward them I caught sight of a smaller boy being pulled around by the collar of his jacket. It was Mark Warren, and his eyes looked scared.

I joined the circle of boys at a tense moment when the action was frozen, as if poised for an explosive burst of energy. Boys stood in a threatening circle around Mark whose arms were caught and pinned back behind him. Then the tableau was set in motion: Mark was dragged back toward the far corner of the little hollow where he was shoved to the ground. The bigger boys gathered in a semi-circle around him and he looked up at them with pleading eyes. His lips trembled but he didn’t cry.

I felt a jolt as his eyes caught and fastened upon me. There was a shamed look in them and I felt sick now to think of how those same eyes had once gazed upon me with a look of friendship, and how flattered I’d felt then because, despite his small, pursy mouth with its slightly irregular teeth, Mark was quite an attractive boy. But of course that was before I knew about him—before I found out.

Something like bile welled up from my stomach.

“Stand up!” shouted Jack.

Mark had to be pulled to his feet by one of the boys. Trembling, unable to stand on his own, he backed up against the rusty dumpster next to the gym and remained there in a half-crouch. One boy shoved at him—he went tripping and flailing, flying into another boy who propelled him away. He was shoved from one boy to the next like a helpless ping-pong ball.

Suddenly I felt him lunge against me and caught at him to keep myself from stumbling. Then I realized I was hugging the trembling boy to my chest.

“Faggot!” I screamed in a high-pitched voice that sounded like a complete stranger’s. It echoed in that empty space, the loudest sound yet. I shoved him away from me, tripping him to the ground. Then, gripped by a blind fury, I began kicking furiously at him. As if this were a pre-arranged signal, the other boys moved in and began pounding on him as he tried to roll away, covering his face. Though he couldn’t escape our punishment, not once did he cry out or attempt to fight back. Finally he managed to roll up into a tiny ball with his hands held up to his face. After a few more kicks to his motionless body, we stopped.

Jack spat down onto the ground. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

He began walking away, calling back over his shoulder: “If you try to tell anyone about this, we’ll
really
kick the shit out of you.”

We followed him one by one, gloating over what we’d done, our faces calm again after the furious venting of our hatred. (However, once out of sight of our victim, most of the boys broke into a run, laughing and hooting to hide their real fear.) The whole incident had taken place in a few minutes, in an unnatural silence.

Filled with a fascinated loathing, I hung back at the corner of the gym as the last of the boys joined Jack over at the teachers’ parking lot. Alone now, one part of me wanting to join the other boys, I watched Mark get slowly and carefully to his feet, brushing himself off. He didn’t appear to be as hurt as he’d let on. In fact, it almost seemed as if he was consciously divesting himself of a role he’d temporarily assumed for his own protection. He turned his head and suddenly froze like a startled animal as his eyes met mine…as if he’d been caught in a very private act. I saw the blood that ran from one nostril, the torn and dirty condition of his jacket and slacks, and wondered how his mom would react when she saw him in that condition. Then I turned and ran to join my companions.

Graffiti on the Boys’ Room Wall

The old swimming hole still looked the same as ever. Jack and I had come out here, the scene of so many of our childhood games, in a strange mood of nostalgia. It was the spring of our eighth grade; junior high school was almost over for us.

I was surprised when he’d told me he wanted to come out here. Lately, we’d been growing more and more apart; he seemed to prefer the company of older boys, even high school boys, with whom he had more in common. Ever since we’d beaten up Mark, I sensed a distance in Jack’s feelings.

Now I tried to revive his interest in some of the games we’d played here; for us, the scrubland had once been transformed into a Wild West full of treacherous enemies, a land where almost anything was likely to happen.

To my disappointment, he didn’t seem interested in anything I suggested, peering about and nodding distractedly as if searching for something else to amuse him.

“Hey, come here,” he said. Stepping into a clump of bushes on the bank of the gully he nudged at something on the ground with the tip of his shoe.

“Here. Look at this. What do you think it is?” he asked challengingly.

I bent down to examine the object, a shapeless, yellowish discarded something which had become hard and stiff from being out in the sun for so long.

“I don’t know. What is it?” I asked. I looked up at him for enlightenment, but suddenly knew from his expression that I shouldn’t have asked…that I should have just snickered and pretended to know.

“It’s a used rubber. They’re all over the place around here. Didn’t you ever notice them? I must have seen a million of them out here.”

I looked down at it and felt an almost nauseous disgust, as if I’d been confronted with a piece of human stool. Jack prodded it with a stick and snickered. His expression was that of a wicked faun, and a provocative gleam flashed in his eyes as he squatted down in front of me and pulled his wallet out from his back pocket.

“Look here,” he said conspiratorially. He fished out a small square packet which he flipped over in his palm and handed to me for inspection.

I examined the cardboard packet. There was a photograph of a handsome young couple frolicking in a sunny, grassy field. I knew immediately what it was.

He took back the packet and worked it open, extracting a plastic-wrapped object. As he tore the wrapping free, I felt a coolness settle in the pit of my stomach.

He held up the condom. It was a circle of translucent pink with a more solid-looking rim of darker pink. Looking at me with an amused confidence, he stuck his thumb in the middle and began slowly unrolling it, showing how snugly it would fit over that for which it was intended. When he was done, his thumb looked as if it were encased in one of those disposable plastic raincoats sold at drugstore counters. He wriggled it around.

I noticed a tiny, cylindrical extension at the tip provided for the ejaculate. Somehow the mundane practicality of it made the condom that much more “real.”

“Where’d you get them?” I asked as casually as I could.

“From Ron. The high school kids all have them.”

He slipped it off his thumb and brought it up to his lips, blowing it up until it swelled into a fat sausage of a balloon, like the balloons of childhood birthday parties. Laughing, he sent it sailing into the air, and I watched as it lazily dropped into the gully.

“Come on, let’s go to Hamburger Heaven.”

He liked to hang out at this popular burger joint near Freedom High, but I hated it because of all the cigarette smoke which always hung in the air like a thick haze, and the noisy crowds around the video games. But he was convinced that it was
the
place to pick up girls.

When we got there, he stared so boldly and openly at every pretty girl who passed by that some of them began staring back. Most of them were high school girls who seemed so adult to my eyes, but there were also some younger girls from our school whom I recognized.

“A lot of good-looking chicks hang out here, Guy. We should come here more often.” His eyes glowed as he appreciatively eyed a long-haired girl sitting at the counter. “Who’s she? Do you know her?”

I glanced up. “Oh, that’s Debbie Meyers,” I answered. “She’s in high school. Her brother’s in my algebra class.”

“Does she have a boyfriend, do you know?”

I shrugged. I noticed Debbie casting occasionally glances our way as if looking at the clock on the wall behind us, but really to ensure that she was still the object of Jack’s attention. She was fiddling with the paper wrapper of her straw, twisting it with her fingers into a crooked flat pretzel.

“So what do you think of her? Not bad, eh? She’s got tits, anyway.”

“Sure does.” I examined her breasts without much enthusiasm.

The vulgar way he always talked about girls secretly thrilled me—particularly when he said things like “Look at the size of those jugs” loud enough for them to hear. Most of the girls acted offended, but I suspected some of them really enjoyed the attention. Although he was a relentless chaser of girls, I sometimes believed he secretly despised them—especially those who were considered easy. He called them sleazes and bitches behind their backs and loved to hear the nastiest rumors about them.

The waitress, a slightly plump girl in an orange and white striped uniform, began wiping the tables. Jack kicked my shin under the table and nodded toward her.

“Look at her thighs,” he whispered. “They look like sausages. And her ass—it’s practically dragging across the floor.”

I couldn’t help snickering, almost spitting out my mouthful of hot dog. The girl, sensing our teasing, turned around and gave us a dirty look before continuing her work.

“Something tells me she doesn’t like us,” I said.

“That’s no big loss. I wouldn’t screw her even if she had a paper bag over her face.”

“Come on, let’s get out of here.”

We went outside and started walking toward the mall. As we were waiting at the intersection for the light to change, Jack spotted some boys across the street.

“Hey, there’s Ron and them. Come on, let’s go over.”

I didn’t recognize any of the boys; they all looked old enough to be in high school. I hesitated. “Naw. You go ahead. I’ll see you in school tomorrow.”

“All right.” Though he made a show of disappointment, I sensed he was secretly relieved. He ran across the street to join his friends and I turned for home.

It was true: we were growing apart. He wasn’t the Jack I used to play with. Yet my sadness at this loss was being replaced by something quite different.

Jack was undoubtedly the most popular boy in my classes. Because of his interest in girls, he was paying more attention than ever to his personal appearance. While he used to keep his hair cropped short, now he was letting it grow out, parting it to one side so that it hung low on his forehead, almost covering one eye. He had a habit of tossing his head lightly to clear the hair out of his eye, and this mannerism—and the languid, half-conscious motion of his hand to straighten his hair into place—became much imitated among the boys.

He was also growing sideburns which came down almost to the bottoms of his earlobes.

When I’d been his closest friend, I hadn’t really noticed how attractive he was. Now I couldn’t help but notice how his full lips formed a sensuous natural pout…how long and silky his lashes were…and how piercingly clear his eyes.

He knew, too, that he was the object of much envy. I often saw him standing in front of the boys’ room mirror carefully grooming his hair—his already perfect hair—with a long-handled comb. This comb was made of a clear, reddish plastic shot through with streaks of orange, and when he walked down the hall, it stuck jauntily out of his back pocket. Occasionally, when he was bored, he pulled it out right in class and combed his hair, to the shocked admiration of our classmates who snickered in approval. The teachers always chastised him (but only half-heartedly because they, too, were under his spell) and confiscated the comb until the end of class period.

One day I was in the boys’ room when I spotted this comb on the ledge above the lavatory sink. Seeing no one about, I slipped it into my jacket pocket. At first I toyed with the idea of returning it with a joke. But as the days passed and I saw him with a new green comb, I decided to keep it. I grew to treasure it, examining it in my bedroom at night, holding it up to the light to make it appear transformed into a fabulous jewel. I turned it over and over in my hands, rubbing it as if it had talismanic powers of evoking its owner. I slept with it by my pillow.

It was almost as if I had a crush on Jack, and I felt a little silly at being prey to such childish emotions.

Our English teacher sometimes asked me to help her grade tests, and I stayed after school many times to do so. Whenever I corrected Jack’s, I always made sure to overlook a certain number of wrong answers. Sometimes I even “accidentally” misplaced the test sheet and the teacher had to take my word for the score. If Jack was surprised at his unaccountably high test scores, he never showed it. Meanwhile, in my bedroom, a secret cache of Jack’s tests and worksheets was growing. Other possessions rapidly joined them: a spiral-bound notebook lost in the student lounge one day; a small rubber ball, confiscated and forgotten in a teacher’s desk; a comic book which had been tossed away during lunch hour…all Jack’s.

I tried in every possible way to be like Jack. I tried combing my hair the way he did, but it never fell just right. My own hair was wavy and didn’t look the same at all. I began dressing as much like him as possible. And one afternoon I spent two long hours searching through all the shops in the mall trying to locate the cologne whose elusive scent I’d detected when we’d chatted in the hallway.

I wanted to
be
Jack.

What bothered me about my feelings toward him was that I knew if he ever learned of them, he would be repulsed and sickened. I had to keep my tortured shame locked inside me, nursing a secret fever I couldn’t admit even to my closest friend for fear of the horror it would evoke in him. And the illicit nature of my infatuation only made it burn that much more fiercely, until sometimes I was afraid it would rage out of control.

I envied girls who could openly show their feelings by writing Jack’s initials on their notebooks. I knew they often slipped love letters into his locker through the ventilation slats, so I thought of penning a love letter—unsigned, of course—and slipping it in as a prank. But though I wrote dozens of them, I never worked up the courage to take them to school. I was scared to death of being suspected.

In most of our classes the students had assigned seats, usually arranged alphabetically. This meant that I sat behind and to the left of Jack. From that position, I was allowed a view of the back of his head, and his perfect pink ear peeping out from under a neat overhang of hair. Whenever he turned to his neighbor to say something, the open collar of his shirt revealed the smooth tanned column of his neck with just the barest trace of an Adam’s apple.

I found that I could secretly make him aware of my attention, even from behind. I would stare at the back of his head and concentrate my thoughts until I could sense that he was made distinctively uncomfortable, but without exactly knowing the reason why. He would jerk his shoulder, stare around at the kids behind him in a puzzled manner while I secretly laughed.

Gradually, against my will, my feelings became tinged with erotic overtones. In the boys’ room, where I would have shied away before, I found that I could now step up and use the urinal adjacent to the one Jack was using. And in the PE showers, I secretly lived for my glimpses of his muscular back all wet from the water, and the compact firmness of his buttocks. Afterwards in the locker room, when he dried his hair vigorously with a towel, the jiggling dance of his penis was like an impertinent pink tongue being wagged at me.

Wag, wag, wag….

I lay in bed at night going crazy from the memory of such sights, and from the aching desire to feel his hard-muscled arms around me, his chest against mine.

And I turned onto my side and hugged my pillow to my chest, feeling as if some unholy enchantment had cast its spell over me, and (like Sleeping Beauty deep in her death-like sleep of oblivion) only the kiss from the lips of a handsome prince could awaken me…. And the pillow became Jack, upon whom I proved my love…and it offered me a temporary salvation, a moment of freedom from the pain of thinking, from the pain of being a boy.

*

School was becoming a miserable place for me; I could no longer concentrate in class.

In social studies, Jack always sat in the farthest row over, by the windows. Today he had the wide-awake look of a farm boy—the ideal farm boy of my fantasies. The light from the window illuminated the spray of light brown freckles dotting his nose and cheeks, and the pale peach fuzz shading his high cheekbones, fading into his sideburns. He was wearing a loose, bulky pullover.

His face, which seemed so dreamy at times like this, was lost in reverie. His head was cocked slightly to one side, his mouth pensive and half-open as if in expectation of a kiss. But in his eyes was a certain laughing mockery, the insolent look of a little boy who has pulled a prank that you don’t know about yet. At times, without warning, this look would turn sullen, as if you’d just insulted him and he was looking you up and down, trying to decide whether or not to challenge you to a fight.