Know Not Why: A Novel (47 page)

When I voice this aloud to my mother on my way
out the door, I get this in reply: “Oh, little boy, now you’re
trying to monitor Mommy’s bellybutton shots? You just want me to
stay at home and do your laundry all the time, don’t you?”

“I’m just saying,” I reply innocently. “If
Herrick’s going to lick your bellybutton, he should at least buy
you dinner first. None of this free party food crap.”

“Who’s to say it’ll be David?” she replies, eyes
mischievously a-glint, as she slips into her coat. “And, come to
think of it, who says he’ll be the one doing the shots?”

“My mom,” I groan, “the boozy, boozy college
floozy.”

She kisses my forehead. “Have a good night, hon.
Only lick the bellybuttons of the very cutest boys. Or that Rudy.
He’s enchanting.”

“Ha ha ha
ew
.”

“How in the world did I raise such a little
prude?” she fake-ponders, putting a newly-polished fingernail to
her chin.

“How in the world was I born of such
iniquity
?” I shoot back.

“Life’s profoundest mysteries,” she declares,
squeezing my shoulder. I stick my tongue out at her. Love, love,
everywhere.

In the greatest New Year’s Eve gift of all time,
Amber reinstates my Femmes privileges. The heavens sing.

“Here you go,” she says, pulling the CD case out
from behind her back as soon as she climbs into the car. She looks
extra-pretty, with her hair down loose and curly. She’s wearing a
little more makeup than usual (read: enough that I actually notice
she’s wearing makeup), and the neckline of her shirt, while prudent
by normal girl standards, puts her collarbone on gorgeous display.
Mitch is going to go so googly-eyed.

As I take the CD from her and pop it into the
player, I could weep from joy. My boys, back again!

“I’ll even trade you for Tori,” Amber adds,
officially making her my favorite person in the world.

I dig
Boys For Pele
out of the glove
compartment and hand it to her, and feel a whole lot like I did
when I finished my last math class junior year of high school.
Never again. Ahhhh.

Amber turns around to say hi to Dennis and
Emily. Dennis tells her she looks fantastic, and she smiles at
that, but when Emily breathes, “Oh, your hair! You look like Arwen
Evenstar,” that gets a way more pleased grin. She’s gonna be okay,
Amber. Hell, it’s happening: this is her, being okay. It feels good
to watch.

On the drive, we all sing along loud to “Blister
In The Sun” – well, except Emily, who has clearly had nothing to do
with that song in her whole life, but even she bobs her head along
enthusiastically, and she’s picked up the chorus by the end.

When we pull up to Mitch’s duplex, the
driveway’s already packed with cars, and sound is booming out of
the house.

“How does he know so many people?” Amber muses,
shaking her head. “I don’t get it.”

“He’s universally beloved,” I reply wisely.

“You sure you want to go in?” Dennis asks
Emily.

Emily, ever the seeker of all things new, is the
first one out of the car.

“Okay then,” Dennis mutters, smiling, and climbs
out after her.

When we step inside, it’s to discover something
truly baffling: Mitch and Rudy’s place is actually … clean. Sure,
it’s filled with people, but there’s no food on the floor, or the
walls. As far as I can tell, the only place where there
is
food is the kitchen table, which is shockingly conventional. Not
only that, but there are gold Christmas lights strung up around the
windows and streamers draped from the ceiling. A silvery HAPPY NEW
YEAR banner hangs on the wall.

“Oh look,” Amber says faintly, “we’ve wandered
into an alternate universe.”

Mitch comes up to us, wearing a nicely pressed
Oxford shirt and beaming broadly. Maybe it’s alternate universe
Mitch.

“Howie,
yes
! Hey guys! Okay, How,
question: Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man, what what!) or Christian
Bale (Batman,
what what
)?” He delivers the ‘Batman,
what
what
’ in a seriously spot-on gravely Batman voice.

The shock wore off pretty quickly, and ever
since, Mitch has just been curious about the whole gay thing.
“What’s it like to kiss a dude?” and “Who pays when you go out?”
and “So, uh, do you think I’m like …
gay guy
cute? Like,
would you want to get with me, if you weren’t you and I wasn’t me
and I was just some guy you saw chillin’ in the club?” (At which
point I said, “What club?” and he said, “Good point,” and we sat in
thoughtful silence for awhile.) What he’s really been having
relentless fun with, though, are the either-or questions.

“Downey Jr., no question, man. Bale Batman’s
just like,
whaa whaa whaa, man pain
.”

“
Nice
! That’s totally what I thought.” He
fist bumps me. “And I was also wondering if—” He goes suddenly
silent, and his mouth falls open, and his eyes light up. Which
means he’s just really noticed Amber. He stares for like ten
straight seconds.

“Ambie,” he finally says, “you look
so
beautiful
!”

She smiles. I think there may be some actual
blushing going on. “Thanks. You look nice, too. What is this, a
shirt with
buttons
?”

“Yeah, well,” he says, looking down when her
hand fleetingly grabs onto one of the aforementioned buttons. “I’m
glad you came. I, uh, tried to straighten the place up a little
bit, I know it kind of bums you out when it’s a mess—”

“You … did well,” she says, staring around in
awe.

He grins. “Cool. Hey, I know you don’t do the
drinking thing, and I know you
looove
Mango Madness Snapple,
so I went and I picked you up a couple of those earlier, they are
currently chilling in the fridge. Those are just yours, everybody
else has gotta keep their hands off. I put a note in there, I wrote
it in all capitals and everything, but maybe we should go grab one
right now because I’m not really sure—”

“Yeah, sure,” Amber interrupts, smiling at
him.

“
Awesome.
”

“I’ll be right back,” Amber tells me.

“Missing you already,” I assure her.

She rolls her eyes and elbows me gently in the
side, then heads off with Mitch.

“Hey, I read King Solomon’s Mines,” I hear him
telling her as they walk.

“All of it? Already?”

“Dude,
yes
, I woke up one morning and it
was right by my bed, and I thought, ‘You know what would be
awesome? Just reading this, and not even getting out of bed.’”

“Oh, gosh, aren’t those the best mornings? I
love those, I need to start doing that more often.”

“Yeah, like, once a week, at least! And dude,
that book was friggin’
craziness
, I loved it! Gagool the old
monkey witch lady, dude, she was freaky. And that part where the
captain guy—”

“Captain Good—”

“Yeah, Captain Good, couldn’t put his pants back
on because the natives were, like, worshiping his shiny white legs
and thought he was a god, that was
amazing
. I busted a
gut.”

“Right? I love H. Rider Haggard, he is just like
total cracky fun …”

I watch them walk off, talking happily away.

“Do you think those girls are kissing one
another because they’re crazy about each other,” Emily muses,
gazing in the direction of the most debauched section of party so
far (oh, far corner of the living room, I always sensed you were
designed for licentiousness), “or because it makes those boys stare
at them with so much interest?”

“Hard to say,” Dennis replies. “I hope it’s the
first one.”

“Me too,” says Emily with a little sigh.

“Hey, Howbell!” Ahhhh. Rudy.

“Howbell,” I say as he approaches me.
“That’s—”

“You see, like ‘cowbell.’ ‘Cause it rhymes. But
then, but then! It works, ‘cause it also sounds girly as
shit
, and that works with the gay thing, because
traditionally (although this is all stereotypical and stuff and
probably pretty offensive, so don’t worry, I don’t
mean
it-mean it) gay dudes are pretty effeminate. So, see, that’s what
I’m thinkin’.”

“I see,” I reply, reaching up to pat him on the
shoulder. “Brilliantly conceived, buddy.”

“Where’s your boyfriend?” His voice is so loud.
I bet you can hear that voice across oceans.

Like six people – a few I don’t know, a few I’ve
seen around, one I went to school with from kindergarten to twelfth
flippin’ grade – all look over at me.

“He’s having dinner with some other friends,” I
say. The words come out easy. “I’m gonna go meet up with him
later.”

“That’s cool,” Rudy says. “Tell him Happy New
Year.”

And the conversation moves on to something else,
and that’s that.

+

When I leave at quarter to twelve, I have yet to
witness any bellybutton shots. There’s some devoted drinking, and a
hearty game of beer pong going on in the kitchen, but all in all,
it’s a near-respectable environment. The two girls Emily was so
worried about stopped kissing and started talking, all smiley and
close, until their male fans got bored and wandered off. My friends
and I have mostly been hanging out around the Wii, where a truly
epic round of Mario Party is going down. Dennis is losing
spectacularly and with immense good cheer; it’s sort of great to
see him suck so bad at something. Not in a spiteful,
Jacob-have-I-loved way, just a ‘check you out, you actual human
you’ way. Emily, who has never as much as touched a video game
before in her life, is totally kicking ass and taking names, but in
a way where she still exudes the vibe that she’s not quite sure
what she’s doing and it’s all a happy accident. Amber has always
been staunchly Wii-opposed, but we finally broke her down. Mitch is
taking the opportunity to walk her through it. I’m pretty sure that
there’s no legitimate reason for him to wrap his arms around her
from behind in order to teach her how to use the controller, but
Amber doesn’t seem to mind.

They all look really happy. There’s a lot of
laughing and a lot of good-natured bitching, and I stop in the
doorway to take one last look at them before I step outside into
the cold night air.
Such a good bunch of humans,
I
think.

By some grand miracle, I parked in the one spot
where there aren’t like three cars behind me, so backing up and out
of there is just fine. I am inclined to suspect that maybe, just
maybe, sometimes the universe loves me. As I pull out onto the
road, I crank the volume up. “Please Do Not Go” spills out of my
speakers with so much force that the bass shakes the car.

Oh, yeah.

I sing along in my loudest, ugliest, pluckiest,
most ardent Gordan Gano-style warble. It’s cathartic as hell. I
find myself wondering what, exactly, it is that makes this song so
great. It’s sort of a downer, subject matter wise: this guy loves
this girl like crazy, even though she’s totally oblivious and she’s
got a boyfriend. That ought to be, like, the
lie-on-the-bed-stare-at-the-ceiling, “Fake Plastic Trees” type of
woeful, but instead, it’s so friggin’
great
. I can’t think
of another song on earth that gets me in as good a mood as this
one.

At a stoplight, I’m like a minute and thirty
seconds into the song, the part where shit really starts gettin’
angsty. I’ve started bopping forward along in time to the music;
the music, just so you know,
demands it
. I look over to my
left, only to discover that there’s a couple in the car next to me,
and they’re totally the audience to this little performance. They
stare at me.

Caught. Dumbassery witnessed.

I don’t care so much, I realize. I wave at them,
and I mouth “Happy New Year,” and I keep on drivin’.

+

I step into the store, humming to myself. The
bell on the door sings out. Arthur’s waiting for me behind the
counter, resting his elbows on it.

“You’re here,” he says, pleased, and stands up
all the way.

“Here I am,” I agree, beginning to unzip my coat
as I come over to him. “Where the ladies at?”

“None of that,” Arthur orders, reaching for my
hands and stopping them. He slides my zipper back up the few inches
that I’d pulled it down. His hands are a little more fumbly than
usual. “Outside is our destination, as it just so happens.”

“You’re drunk,” I realize, a grin spreading
across my face.

“I’ve had a bit to drink,” Arthur corrects me,
all smiley. “That’s true. But drunk: very undignified. I don’t
think so.”

He’s drunk. Arthur Kraft the Second is drunk.
Best night ever, immediately, starting now.

Turns out the festivities are out on the roof,
because Cora and Kristy would like to die of hypothermia for New
Year’s. Arthur and I make our way up the rickety staircase to his
office. (The ladder to the roof is in through there, which is news
to me. I didn’t even know we could go out on the roof. Way to keep
your grunts informed, Kraft.) He holds onto my arm, like another
staircase ascent oh so long ago; there’s some stumbling, like
another staircase ascent oh so long ago. This time, though, when we
get to the top, he leans in and kisses my neck, his mouth warm and
my skin still cold from outside.

“Wow,” I say, with (I like to think) the air of
a levelheaded gentleman whose instinctive reaction is nothing along
the lines of ‘
mmmmm yeah’
, “you’re slutty when you’re
drunk.”

“I am not.”
Kiss.
“Drunk.”
Kiss
.
“Just happy to see you.”
Kiss.

My neck might, at this moment, be having an even
better night than I am. “That’s what all the sluts say.”

“You’re insufferable. I don’t know why I suffer
you.”

“Right back atcha, baby.”

We climb out onto the roof to find Kristy and
Cora. Cora’s in her trusty lime green yak coat. Kristy’s wearing
pink earmuffs, and is, I have no doubt, the only person in the
world who is capable of making this cute instead of stupid. They’ve
got a blanket spread out with an upside down picnic basket serving
as a mini-table. It’s covered in bottles and cheap plastic
champagne flutes. In one corner of the blanket, there’s an ancient
tape deck. Neil Young’s crooning away.