Man Made Boy (15 page)

We were right alongside the Brooklyn Bridge, its stone towers stretching up over two hundred feet into the night sky. Liel’s diamond eyes widened when she saw it. She glanced back at me, and her smile got a little mischievous.

I frowned. “What are you—”

She turned and took a huge leap. Her clawed hands reached out and easily hooked into the rocky base of the bridge tower. Then she started climbing up.

“Shit,” I muttered and jumped after her before I had a chance to think about it.

I slammed into the cold rock and scrambled to hold on. I didn’t have claws, so there was a moment of hot panic in my gut when I thought I was going to slide right down the side into the churning waters of the East River more than fifty feet below. Then my fingers found a crevice and I squeezed the massive stone strut with everything I had. My face was pressed against its icy grit and I thought:
This is crazy. I’m going to die
. But then I heard her laughter carried down on the wind. I looked up and she was perched high above at the very top where the tension wires peak. She beckoned to me with one graceful hand.

Did I deserve this amazing girl? Was I enough for her? I wanted to be—so badly that I would do anything. I had to prove that I
was
enough for her. And I was the son of one of the most famous monsters ever. I could do this. I could do just about anything.

I felt this sudden surge of strength in me. Like when I beat the crap out of Shaun, but different. It wasn’t about hurting this time. It wasn’t anger. It was…I didn’t understand it, I just knew that it was something
else
. I reached up with one hand, found another crevice that I could get my fingers around, then the next, and before I knew it I was at the top, my arms aching, my breath pounding in my chest. We stood there and looked out over the city and river that stretched before us, sparkling with white and yellow lights, the muted roar of traffic like a low hum underneath.

“THIS!” she shouted over the shrieking wind. “THIS IS WHAT WE ARE MEANT FOR! NOT HIDING IN CAVES OR THEATERS! THIS!”

She looked so beautiful then, a fierce smile on her face, her eyes glittering in the moonlight. I pulled her to me and we kissed, hard and long, the curtain of Manhattan’s skyline behind us.

Then I knew what this new strength within me was. This new feeling. It was joy.

BUT AFTER A few weeks, Liel got sick of sitting around inside all day.

I didn’t blame her, of course. Here she was, a Broadway dancer, cooped up in a tiny apartment with no hope in sight that it was going to get better. But I didn’t know what else to do. I tried to talk her into finding some kind of online job or something, but she was never really that comfortable with computers. Claws made it hard to type and she didn’t have my advantages of ways to bypass physical limitations. So she just did a lot of cooking and cleaning, like she was a housewife. She must have felt trapped, because, well, she kind of was. She started getting grumpy, taking it out on me. And even though I understood why she felt the way she did, I still wasn’t going to put up with her yelling at me. So we started fighting, mostly about stupid stuff like washing dishes and who left the toilet seat up. Finally, one night it got so out of control that I said:

“Okay, that’s it. I’m gonna find Laurellen.”

“What?” she said, a chair raised over her head.

“This isn’t us. It’s just because you’re stuck in this apartment all day every day. I’m going to contact Laurellen and ask him to
give us some glamour so you can get out of the house and do something.”

“Are you stupid?” she yelled, still all fired up. “What if he tells on us?”

“I’m going to risk it. I mean, do you want to keep
this
up? You’re just about to chuck a chair at me.”

“Uh…” She frowned and looked up at the chair in her hands like she was surprised it was there. Then she put it down. “Yeah, okay. I see your point.”

“I don’t think he’s going to tell on us. Laurellen is cool. I’ve always felt like I could trust him and Mozart.”

She flopped onto the couch. “I hope you’re right. Because at this point, going home would be a really bad idea. My mom would totally kick my ass. And that’s not a figure of speech.”

I didn’t want to think about how my own mom would react. I really didn’t want to think about her at all. Mostly because if there was one thing I missed from The Show, now that Liel was here, it was her. I don’t know why. She never said much and you never knew how she felt about anything, or if she felt anything at all. She was almost like a walking mannequin that happened to be really good at fixing stuff. But I was really starting to miss her stiff, blank-faced presence. I also felt a little guilty. Like I’d abandoned her to that place that treated us so badly. I don’t know why I felt that way. She was an adult, free to make her own choices. Nothing was keeping her there. Except maybe Dad. But that was her choice, too.

“So how are you going to contact him?” Liel asked. “Email or something?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s one of those guys who checks his email like once or twice a year. And prints it out to read it.”

“So what then?”

“Well, I remember hearing him talk about Monday nights when The Show is dark. He goes out to some club in the Village. Stone…something. Stonebridge, Stonegate, Stone…”

“Stonewall,” she said.

“Yeah, that was it. How’d you know?”

“Call it dancer’s intuition.”

It turns out Stonewall was some really famous gay club. I’d never been to a gay club before—or, really, any club at all—so I was a little nervous. But Liel said to just be super polite to everyone and I would be fine.

The next Monday night, I got somebody to cover my shift at work and took the train to Christopher Street. I walked past the tattoo parlors and sex shops until I came to a club with a big rainbow flag hanging over the door. Two guys were out front. One of them was really muscular for a human, even through his wool coat. The other guy was all decked out in a really nice coat with a matching scarf and gloves, his hair perfectly styled in a short, spiky cut.

The big guy took one look at me and said, “You gotta be kiddin’ me, kid. You know this is a club.”

“Sure,” I said.

“A club that serves alcohol. And don’t even try to pretend like you’re old enough.”

“I don’t want to drink,” I said. “I just need to talk to a friend of mine in there.”

“So call him and tell him to come out here so you can talk to him.”

“I don’t have a cell,” I said. “And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have one, either.”

“Right, doesn’t have a cell…” He turned to the well-dressed
guy next to him. “Can you believe this? Kid’s a fuckin’ comedian.” He turned back to me. “Beat it, kid. Come back in, what…like, five years?”

“Three and a half,” I said. This guy wasn’t making it easy to be polite. “Look, could you just do me a favor? Maybe you or your friend here could give him a message for me.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” he said. “You want me to leave my post, wander through the club looking for some dirty old queen who likes high school football players, and give him a message for you?” He shook his head, looking at the other guy again. Then he looked back at me. “Look, kid. It’s a big club, there’s a lot of people in there. It ain’t gonna happen.”

“Maybe you know him,” I said. “He’s a regular here.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. ’Cause I know every guy who comes in here on a semi-regular basis.”

“Come on, Jeffrey,” said the fancy guy. “Don’t be an asshole.”

Jeffrey sighed. “Okay, I’ll bite. What’s his name?”

“Laurellen,” I said.

His eye went wide.

“Uh…” he said.

The fancy guy said, “
You
know Laurellen?”

“He’s a friend of mine,” I said.

Jeffrey shook his head. “No way. There’s no way you know Laurellen.”

“Ask him,” I said. “Just tell him Runaway Boy needs to talk to him.”

They looked at each other for a moment.

“I had no idea that’s how he rolled,” said Jeffrey.

The fancy guy shrugged. “It’s Laurellen. You’d better find out, just to be safe. I’ll watch the door.”

Jeffrey nodded, suddenly looking a little nervous, and went inside.

The fancy guy and I stood there in silence for a moment. Then he said, “I’m Vinnie.”

“Most people call me Frank,” I said, holding out my hand.

He shook it gracefully, with small, leather-gloved hands. Everything about him seemed classy.

“Sorry about Jeffrey,” said Vinnie. “He’s usually not that much of a bully. I think your size intimidates him.”

“
My
size? He’s huge!”

“And he’s not used to some healthy competition,” said Vinnie, and smirked in a knowing kind of way that suddenly made me think they were probably dating. “So, how do you know Laurellen?”

“We used to work together.”

“You were in The Show?”

“Backstage stuff,” I said quickly.

“I love The Show. I mean
love
it. I think I’ve probably seen it about twenty times.”

“Oh, yeah? What’s your favorite act?”

“I absolutely adore the underwater mermaid pool number.”

“The what?”

“It’s one of the newer acts,” he said. “They just put it in a couple months ago or so.”

“Oh,” I said. “I…uh…quit a little while back, so I guess that’s why I don’t know it.” Of course Ruthven had brought in a new act. He added one act every year, sometimes more if someone new showed up looking for shelter. But the idea of an act in The Show that I hadn’t watched through rehearsals, that some random human knew better than me…it hurt way more than I expected. I’d never met a mermaid. Did they breathe air or water? What did she look like? Did Ruthven bring her in to make the Siren happy? Or to punish her? There was so
much I wanted to know, starting with how they did the water part onstage. But I refused to ask this human. That would have been too much.

“What was your favorite act?” he asked quietly, maybe somehow sensing that I was feeling a little homesick for The Show.

“I liked the trowe dance best.”

“Oh, that.” He nodded. “Yeah, that used to be good. Not sure what happened, though. I think they lost their lead dancer or something, and it just doesn’t have the same sizzle now.”

“She quit, too.”

“A shame. Well, hopefully she quit for a better gig.”

“Yeah. Hopefully.”

“Well, the kid checks out,” said Jeffrey as he came out from the club. He still looked a little scared, but there was also a weird awe in his eyes. “Laurellen said send him back right away.”

“I’ll walk him back,” said Vinnie.

“Thanks,” said Jeffrey, clearly relieved he didn’t have to see Laurellen again. I wondered what the big deal was. It was just Laurellen after all.

Vinnie took me into the club, which turned out to be a lot smaller than I imagined. Granted, I’d only seen clubs in movies, so my expectations were probably a little unfair. There were a bunch of guys and a few girls all jammed up together near the bar. There were a few tables, and those were also pretty packed, with other small random groups just standing around. The speakers were blasting some cheesy dance music, and everyone was shouting over top of that, so it was really loud. The whole thing felt completely claustrophobic and I had this weird impulse to just turn and leave. But when I thought about it, this was probably less crowded than a night at the Cantina, and not too long ago that had felt totally normal. It wasn’t just The Show that had changed.
I had changed, too. I wasn’t sure yet whether it was for the better.

Vinnie led me into another room in the back that had a DJ spinning and a dance floor with people bouncing up and down to the beats and the bursts of neon-colored light. All the way at the back of that back room was a shiny red, round booth. And sitting at the booth, surrounded by a bunch of humans, was Laurellen. That’s when I saw what the big deal was. Laurellen was totally drenched in glamour. So much that it almost hurt to look at him. Those humans had to be completely under his spell. It made me wonder if he wasn’t cheating a little on his promise to Ruthven to not steal any more humans. Not that I would tell on him, of course. But it made me feel a little better about asking for some glamour for Liel. He looked like he had some to spare.

Vinnie presented me with a big show of hands, like a magician. “Look what the wind blew in,” he said.

Laurellen gave me a smirk, and waves of glamour rolled off him, making me feel a little stoned.

“Oh, that tricky wind…” he said. He raised his long, thin hand and gave it a regal flip. “Begone. All of you.”

It was amazing how fast they split. Totally in his thrall.

Once everyone was gone, his smile faded. “Boy,” he said. “Sit.”

“Okay.” I suddenly felt sheepish as I sat down next to him in the shiny red booth.

“Of course you realize that if your mother finds out about this she will rip my limbs off.”

“She still pissed?”

“It’s going to be a very long time before she isn’t. Possibly decades.”

I winced.

“But, more important…” He leaned back a little and his face
softened. “How are you? You look in shockingly good health, I must say.”