Memorizing You (26 page)

When people don’t believe that some change is possible, I think they fail to know how it’s inherent in the human heart. Because of our intellect, we can only grow and become greater by expanding our horizons. That means as we learn, we have a tendency to keep knocking down barriers, constructing new ones, and then knocking them down again as we continue to evolve. Change is part of what we are.

I was nine years old when I lived across the street from Carrie and Tabitha. Sisters who could jump rope the pants off any competition in our school. Double dutch. The works. They were very proud of themselves. They knew every trick, every stunt, every combination. They were haughty, full of themselves, looking down on anyone who thought they could compete with them. And they were caustic to anyone who thought they could jump rope better. They’d ridicule anyone in the schoolyard who would attempt a show-down. And then literally wipe the yard with them when they did their thing. No one could get into their small circle of friends. No one. They constructed their own pedestal and looked down on everyone from it.

During the second semester, a new girl started at our school. She’d moved here from San Diego with her newly divorced mom. Her name was Becka. She was of Russian descent. Had the accent to go with it. A pale, plain girl who dressed five years out of style. She was almost immediately disliked for her nationality. Very few of our classmates even talked to her, and she had a tendency to stay to herself at recess, seated in the corner by the building near the water fountain on the girl’s half of the schoolyard. She was timid, and didn’t venture to try to make friends. It was clear the attitudes of the others intimidated her. Especially Tabitha and Carrie.

I’d see her walking home alone down the sidewalk. She, on one side of the street. Almost all the girls from the class on the other side. I could see them cup their hands to each other’s ears and whisper about her. And laugh like it was the proper thing to do. No one even made an attempt to be her friend. She always looked lonely. And I felt sorry for her. It seemed to be the way the world worked. I didn’t know why. It had done the same thing to me. I just assumed some of us were meant to be misfits. I’d done my share of lonely walks. I knew the sting of tears of unacceptance.

I knew what she did at night. She’d lay in bed, stare at the ceiling, or out at the sky, and wonder why God had done this to her? Made her a freak. Set her apart. Made life a cliff of tears she fell off every day. She had no choice anyone who thought they ty fy to be born who she was, where she was from, or the way she looked. But all those things that weren’t choices shaped the way people thought of her. Treated her. Doomed her.

But Becka hadn’t been able to tell anyone that she, too, had a talent for jumping rope. Her Russian girlfriends in San Diego and she had filled their idle time, while mother’s and father’s worked, in the parking lots of their apartments, teaching themselves and inventing new routines. Hopscotch while jumping rope. Double Dutch hop-scotch. There was no limits to their ingenuity. She’d seen the sisters’ routines and had practiced and perfected them ages ago before moving on to things that would look like creations of a magician. But they would never let her near. They wouldn’t acknowledge her existence. She existed only in their periphery.

I watched the despair grow in her face daily. The desire to be a part of something that gave her joy just die on life’s vine. Every day it seemed she shrank further and further away. Like bits of her dissolved. And the more she fell away, the more the girls, under the direction of the sisters, ridiculed her. But she wouldn’t cry. I know her spirit wanted to. Mine would have. But it wasn’t something she’d give them. Like it was the last inch of herself she’d save. The part of her soul she wouldn’t surrender to anyone. The only thing left that hadn’t become invisible.

I watched it happen. In the noontime February sunlight. When all things being what they were, should not have been anything different. The crowd gathered to watch the sisters and the dancing ropes at lunch time. To witness the amazing feet, and how they miraculously missed the intricate movements of the ropes.

She sat in the corner, bricks on two sides. Eyes sadder than Bambi. But some alternative will steeling her limbs. She may have glanced at me for a moment, but all I saw was when she stood and marched fearlessly to the dancing ropes. When she drew near, the sisters dived out. She jumped in. And the intricate tap-dance began.

Everyone crowded in to watch. Even those who didn’t care. For no matter what patterns the rope-masters wove, no matter what the sisters demanded of their rhythmic arms, the poor Russian girl in the outdated clothes, matched with a ballet. Every gesture, every movement, was stage-perfect. A glorious musical played with feet.

What the sisters had done, she’d bested. Their eyes tried to follow the movements and got as lost as Houdini’s audience. She hadn’t trampled their pride as much as astonished them.

When Becka stepped out of the latticework of rope, it was like a Cinderella stood$ greaty fy before them. The whole school yard was hushed. The sisters knew a crown had been passed. To someone as silent as a mouse; as graceful as a swan. Pride bowed before a fierce talent.

I remember from that day forward, she never walked down the street alone.

It was as if she looked out the window one day and the scenery had changed.

I didn’t know it then. But I do now. The people most willing to change their opinion of you are the people who either learn to respect you, or the people who want something from you. Either way, they evaluate you differently. As they did Becka.

And why I remembered that at this juncture, had to do with what happened that night with several members of the football team. People who, up until recently, never cast a second glance in my direction when I passed them in the school hallway.

In the course of his conversations with his mates during the evening, Ryan had told them about my lawn care business that I ran with my dad. Something that had grown to the point that it had established its name in the field. A business that hired vacationing students. And, as you may have guessed, they all wanted to know if my dad and I would hire them for the summer? They all wanted to work for me. Eagerly. I gave them my business card and told them to call my dad for an interview.

Ryan was amused by it. He called moments like these “turning points.” In every field the competing players changed.

It was almost midnight. Everyone had left except for Connor and Monica and ourselves. We all pitched in to clean up the party debris. It turned up everywhere. Odd places. In between cushions, behind plants, on the front porch. We filled several trash cans.

I got the last half-glass of wine. Ryan and Connor were down to the last two beers. Monica was drinking a bottle of Coke. We sat in the living room to finish our drinks before the walk home.

Connor scooted in next to Monica on the tweedy sofa. The two of us pushed into the large lounge chair.

His teammate first looked at Ryan, then me. “So how old were you?” he asked. to the panties.

It took a moment for the intent of the question to become clear. “You mean how old were we when we knew?” Ryan wanted to clarify that was, indeed, the question.

Connor nodded. He looked uncertain of himself. “Yeah. Hold old were you when you knew you were…”

“Gay?” Ryan said the forbidden word. He thought for a moment. “Knowing it and sensing it are two different things. I think I always sensed it.”

I agreed with him.

“So you’ve never liked girls?”

“I’ve always liked girls.” Ryan grinned. “I’m just not attracted to them. Don’t hate ‘em but don’t date ‘em.”

We could see by Connor’s face, the mixture of emotions crossing it, that he was trying to understand. “That’s so strange.”

“Not to us,” Ryan replied, confidently. “You say tomato…”

Connor conceded the point. “Yeah. Sorry. I mean, I’m trying to figure it out. I mean, you never know, one day I might turn gay.”

We both laughed out loud at the absurdity of that.

“It doesn’t work like that,” I told him.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not a choice. You can’t just become gay if you’re not.”

“How do you know?” he asked. His face was sincere.

Ryan said, “It’s not like a cold. You just can’t catch it one day.”

“Are you sure?”

Monica looked at me and shook her head in disbelief. “Kiss him, David.”

“Huh?” I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly.

Connor had the same puzzled look on his face.

“Kiss Connor,” she repeated.

I looked at Connor and then Ryan.

“Seems fair enough to me to prove a point,” Ryan said after a long pause.

Connor gazed at Monica like she’d lost her mind. “You want me and David to kiss?”

The neck cranked. “Yeah. I want you and David to kiss.”

“For real? Or, are you high enough for H.R. Pufnstuf?”

“Absolutely for real.” Her voice was resolute.

It seemed furniture moved away from us. Everything found a space on the sidelines.

Nervously, tenuously, he rose from the sofa as I pulled myself up from the chair. Unblinking eyes met my own as we stood virtually nose-to-nose. There was a nervous twitch in his cheek. His face was colored with mild terror; that was white with red-streaked eyes. anyone who thought they ty fy

“Might be easier if you close your eyes,” Ryan suggested. “You both won’t look so much like you’re in front of a firing squad.”

I scoured Ryan’s face. “You really want me to do this?”

“You bet. And put some feeling into it. We want Connor to feel all of his gayness.”

Connor sprouted lip bead-sweat. “If I do this, I don’t want to hear any of you telling anybody about it, you understand? Not a word to no one!”

Ryan crossed his heart. Monica followed suit. I finished the pact.

The oddness of the situation was not lost on me either. I shut my eyes, reached forward, and pulled Connor to me. His breath beat against my face. His lips were fuller than I thought or noticed. But they covered mine completely. Seemed thick. I felt his tongue press between my lips, and I could taste his beer. I could feel every sandpapery whisker on his face. It occurred to me as we were engaged in this, that we were both twisting and moving in positions we’d done before, but now felt distinctly unnatural. And when I thought I’d done, at least, a fair job of mimicking a kiss with him, I stood back, flicked my lids opened. He was already staring me with an odd expression. Like he was waiting for something to happen.

After a moment, Ryan asked, “How did that feel?”

He was still breathing heavy. But it wasn’t from excitement. “Really…really strange.” Thoughts collating a moment more, he looked down at his crotch, then back up at me. “Yeah. Strange. How long before it kicks in?”

Ryan’s head shook. “It’s not like dropping Fizzies in a glass of water, bud. Ain’t gonna start doing something a minute later.”

Monica was all Cheshire cat as Connor sat back down next to her.

I pushed myself in next to Ryan on the lounger. anyone who thought they ty fy

“It didn’t turn you on?” Ryan pressed him. “Didn’t get your dick hard, or anything?”

Connor’s head screwed a sharp negative. “No.” He touched the zipper of his pants. “Not at all. What did I do wrong?”

I thought that was the funniest thing I’d ever heard. We both suppressed a laugh.

“Nothing. It just means you’re not gay. And you never will be.”

“Did it do anything to you?” Connor’s eyes fastened on me again. It was like he was looking for some kind of vindication.

I shook my head. “Nope.”

Confused, he asked, “Why not? You’re gay?” He seemed offended. “You don’t think I’m good-looking?”

I’m sure my face betrayed my bewilderment. “It’s not that. It’s that I don’t have feelings for you,” I explained.

“It’s about whom we love.” Ryan piped in to alleviate his discomfiture. “Love isn’t indiscriminate. It makes the choices for us. We can’t force ourselves to feel something we don’t. What you and Dave just did was nothing more than play-acting. Shakespeare without the stage and fancy words.”

“But it was hot!” Monica popped in her two cents.

Connor turned to her, gape-jawed. “You thought that was hot? Really?”

Her palm covered a grin that wouldn’t give in. “Way, way hot!” she admitted; no reservations. “Sizzling.” She fanned herself. to the panties.

Thirty seconds of disbelief froze his face. Then pride replaced it. “Really? Hot? Like sexy hot? Me kissing a guy?”

A vigorous head bob preceded the full confession. “Oh yeah. Just like you guys like seeing two girls kiss? That was like the craziest, hottest, sexiest thing I ever saw! You were making my toes curl, babe!”

She eased into his mouth for a wet one. Then, turned back to us. “Show him what I mean guys!” She pointed at the two of us, and then our lips. Universal hand signals.

We were drunk enough to find the idea entertaining. Outside of Judy’s unique group, we’d never done the one thing in front of someone else that most couples took for granted. The simple kiss. The thing you saw thousands of couples do in the park, in the theater, in a restaurant. It felt monumental to be able to do it in front of peers. That they were asking us to do it. It was a reverse turn on for us as well.

Connor consented. “Like she said. Let’s see you guys kiss.” He sat back, folded his arms like a Twentieth-Century Fox logo were going to appear first.

It didn’t take much to get me in the mood. All I had to do was gaze into Ryan’s languid blue pools. They pulled me in like a magnetic force. His hand drifted up my shirt and its warmth was on my stomach. My emotions rapidly stirred under it. Another hand levered me to his face, his lips found mine. I was lost in him again. The room drifted away. All I was aware of was our mutual rhythms. Time found another planet to pester. My body moved under a different master. I folded inside him.

When I came back from the internal garden, I saw both Connor and Monica seated in front of us. Mouths doing circles. Eyes just as wide.

“Holy cow!” Connor exclaimed, hands cupping his groin.