Night Kites (9 page)

“Stop worrying about Dad,” I said, as Pete helped me get on my blazer.

“I worry about him the most,” Pete said. “I think this is going to be hardest on Dad. Most of the time he spent here last night, he was on the phone to Phil Kerin. Do you remember Doctor Kerin? One of Dad’s old golf cronies?”

“Dad told me he called him.”

“Dad must have said ‘This is confidential’ a dozen times during the conversation…. I could have gone from the hospital to Dad’s place last night, but Dad was afraid to let you kids stay here. He said if it ever got out that I have AIDS, and he’d known you kids were here, he’d be responsible for putting you at risk.”

“I don’t get that,” I said. “Dad told me there was no way you could catch it casually.”

“He’s worried that other people don’t know that.”

“Dad makes everything hard!”

“No, Ricky. This time it’s just hard. It’s not Dad.”

We stood there facing each other a minute.

I said, “I just want you to get well.”

“You’ve made me feel better, pal. Thanks,” Pete said. He slung his arm around my shoulder. “The last thing Dad said to me last night was ‘Whoever got the bright idea to come up with the name ‘gay’?’” Pete was doing a good imitation of Dad at his darkest. “‘It doesn’t sound like a very
gay
life to me!’”

Pete began walking me down the hall. “I told him it has its moments…. Who was it that said moments are all anyone gets, anyway? Thoreau? Or was it Oscar Wilde? … Speaking of Oscar, Ricky, Dad keeps reminding me something has to be done for Oscar.”

We stood by the door talking about me taking Oscar to the vet. Pete said we should get the vet’s opinion first. If the vet thought it was time, Pete would come out and hold Oscar while he got the injection.

While we discussed it, I remembered in English class, in eighth grade once, we’d read “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” by Oscar Wilde. During the discussion afterward, Roman Knight got everyone in the back of the classroom laughing, and Miss Rix said, “If you have anything to add to this discussion, Roman, stand up and tell the whole class.”

Roman got up, performed a curtsy, and said in this high falsetto: “Geth why Othger Wilde went to prithin?”

Right before I opened Pete’s door, I said, “Oscar isn’t named after Oscar
Wilde,
is he?”

“That’s who he’s named after,” Pete said.

“You named him that when you were thirteen?”

“Yeah, and you were what? Three? Four?” Pete leaned against the wall. “I was always precocious. Ricky.”

“You were also probably the only one in the family who ever knew Oscar’s last name,” I said.

“Or that he even had one,” said Pete.

T
HE NEXT SATURDAY, RIGHT
after Seaville’s game with Greenport, Dill was driving to Massachusetts with her family to see the Wheaton campus.

“That’s like Dill, to wait until
after
the game,” Jack said. “Dill loves being a pom-pom girl. She’s easy—not like Nicki. Nicki probably won’t even show up to see me play.”

We were heading toward school early, so Jack could suit up. I always drove Jack to games in his Mustang. He claimed he got too nervous to concentrate on the road.

“Nicki’s changed since we went to New York,” Jack said.

I let him talk. All week I’d gone out of my way to avoid Nicki.

“She’s got something on her mind,” Jack said.

“Maybe she’s worried about all the trouble Toledo started,” I said. Charlie Gilhooley’d refused to press charges, but a gay organization had championed his cause, and the local paper’d joined in and said Kingdom By The Sea should clean up its act, not only in their attitude toward customers they refused service, but in their tawdry, honky-tonk ambiance and appearance.

“It’s not that,” Jack said. “She’s cooling off with me.”

I’d seen Charlie Gilhooley walking around with both arms in slings. I could go a year without ever noticing Charlie, but that week it seemed like I saw him mincing past me every time I turned a corner…. I heard differently that week, too. Once I whirled around in the kitchen, where Mrs. Tompkins was listening to the radio while she was getting dinner. I could have sworn the announcer said that homosexuals were at half price.

“What’s at half price? What’d that guy just say?”

Mrs. Tompkins said, “Diamonds is having their fall sale on home essentials. Everything’s half price.”

Jack was chewing on a Milky Way. “Sometimes I think Dill makes Nicki feel inferior. Dill. Jeannie Gaelen—those girls get to her. She claims she couldn’t care less about them, but they’re all she talks about. She knows Dill hates her.”

“Dill doesn’t hate her. She doesn’t know how to relate to her.”

“We shouldn’t have gone on that weekend. That did it.”

“You didn’t do it? The weekend did it?”

“I shouldn’t have passed out on the rug. Did I snore?”

“You snored. Your fly was open.”

“Sure, and I suppose I farted, too.”

“What do you want to hear? That you were beautiful? Why don’t you just stop drinking around her?”

“Why don’t you stop growing chin pimples? … You don’t even listen to what I’m telling you anymore. I’m changing. I want to be somebody now.”

“Maybe you could be a cartoon character in one of America’s theme parks.”

“That’s what I mean. You’ve got a million zingers, but not one word of advice.”

“Jack,” I said, “what in hell am I supposed to say?”

“Help me figure this girl out! You’ve been around more than I have. You just keep saying not to pounce. I know damn well she was probably in the sack with Ski on the first date!”

“Forget about Ski. Don’t try to compete with Ski. But let her talk about him if she wants to…. Talk with her, Jack”

“About
what
?”

“About anything she wants to talk about.”

“Yeah. I’m not a big talker, but she’s one.”

“You’re not going to be able to compete with Ski, so go the other way. Pretend you’re fascinated by her mind.”

“I sort of am.”

“Good. Then you don’t have to pretend.”

“But I’m more fascinated by her body. I get so hot around her, it’s embarrassing.”

“Try to forget her body for tonight.”

“How do I do that?”

Good question. “Just do it,” I said. “Just tell yourself you’re not going to treat her like riffraff. She claims you’re the first one who didn’t treat her like riffraff. Be affectionate. With
words,
not your hands.”

“I told her I love her.”

“You said I love you?”

“Yeah.”

“I love you? I. Love. You?”

“I. Love. You. Yeah.”

“Well, good. Good.”

“What’ll we do after the movie?”

“Take her to Sweet Mouth.”

“Not to Montauk Point?”

“Not tonight.”

“Maybe I’m scared shitless to have sex with her! Maybe I should get some experience first.”

“Where are you going to get experience? What is she supposed to do while you’re getting experience?”

“I’m just going to take her out to Montauk Point after the movie,” Jack said. “I’ll talk with her out there.”

“You’ll screw it up out there is what you’ll do.”

“I’m not going to listen to you,” Jack said. “It’s like the blind leading the blind!”

“Do what you want to do!” I snapped at him. “I’ve got my own problems!”

“I know you have,” Jack said.

“What do you mean you know I have?”

“I know what’s bugging you, buddy. Don’t you think I know you by now?”

I waited.

“Dill’s going to get into Wheaton,” Jack said, “and where does that leave you? Right?”

He got out near the gym. I drove the Mustang down to the parking lot behind school.

I turned off the motor, turned the key back in the ignition, and sat there listening to the radio for a while. I listened to songs by Glenn Frey, Wham!, DeBarge, and Survivor. They were all about love: losing it, getting it, wanting it, leaving it.

I finally got out. I started walking toward the stadium.

It was real football weather: blue skies and sun, but cold.

People were trooping along in coats and scarves, and the wind was shaking what autumn leaves were left off the trees.

I saw her right away.

I think she saw me see her. She was with Cap. He had on sunglasses and that hat he always wore tilted over his eyes, his arm around some girl who didn’t look much older than Nicki.

I changed direction.

I headed down the bleachers toward the field, where the pom-pom girls were warming up in their maroon skirts and white sweaters.

Dill ran toward me, hugging herself against the cold. She wanted to know what the doctor said about Oscar. She knew I’d taken him to the vet’s that morning.

“It’s definitely time,” I told Dill. I’d told Pete the same thing on the telephone. Pete said he’d try to get out next week. He said there were a lot of things keeping him in New York, and that Jim was having daily meetings at NBC about the new series he was writing.

Dill said all the things you say, what a long happy life Oscar’d had and how lucky we were we could help pets out of their misery, that it was too bad human beings couldn’t do the same for people they loved. I said yes, right, I know it, and Dill asked me if I was okay.

“Fine!”

“I have to get back!” Dill said. “We’re working on our new jump-and-turn cheer. … What are you going to do tonight?”

“Think of you,” automatically.

“Besides that?”

“No plans.” Mom and Dad were both driving back from New York sometime that night. Mom in her car, Dad in his. Mom had driven in Thursday night to have dinner with Pete and Jim Stanley. The one thing we hadn’t done all week was talk about it. If I wasn’t working, Mom was at play rehearsals. Evenings at dinner, Mrs. Tompkins was right nearby in the kitchen.

Dill said, “We’re leaving right after the game, so I want a kiss now. You know Daddy. He’d hate it if he had to wait while I tried to find you after the game.”

While I was kissing her, the Greenport High School band came marching out on the field playing “Alouette.”

I could see myself when I was a little kid, patting myself on the head while Pete sang
“Je te plumerai la tête, Et la tête, et la tête,”
then we’d both chorus
“Alouette! Alouette!”

“I’ll be in some tacky New England motel watching
Saturday Night Live
tonight, thinking of you watching it, too,” Dill said. “You’re going to watch it, aren’t you?”

I did an imitation of Martin Short playing Ed Grimley, with his pomaded hair coming to a point on the top of his head. I did his little kooky skip and said what he’d have said, “It’s an awfully decent show, I must say.”

The team came running out on the field. The pom-pom girls began shouting,
“Kick ’em in the shins! Kick ’em in the knees! We get higher S. A. T.s!”

I went up in the bleachers and talked with Dill’s folks for a while. Dill’s father asked me how my college plans were coming. I never talked with him when he didn’t ask me that. I said things were in the works, and he had that same slanted smile Dill had as he said you’re always saying that,
what
things are in the works?

“Don’t interrogate him, Bertie!” Dill’s mother said. I thought of the sampler his sister had on her wall, with the words “Give fate a good fight, anyway.”

“I’m not interrogating him,” Mr. Dilberto said. “I’m asking him what things are in the works?”

“I’m trying to decide between Harvard and Yale,” I said.

Mr. Dilberto said, “You’re a real wiseass, aren’t you?”

I moved around, sat some, stood some, and halfway through the game, she came down to where I was standing.

She actually had on pants. I don’t think I’d ever seen her in pants. They were blue cargo-pocket pants she wore with a man-tailored jacket several sizes too large for her, a white sweater under it, a white silk scarf around her neck, and the black-leather fedora tipped over her green eyes. She had on high heels. Her blond hair was spilling past her shoulders. She kept pushing it back from her eyes with her long, thin fingers while she spoke to me.

“How are things with you?” she said.

“How are things with you?”

“I asked you first. I get the feeling you’re ignoring me.”

“Jack’s not playing very well today.”

“I’m not talking about Jack.”

“What are you talking about?” I felt cruel. I knew what she was talking about.

“Are you mad at me, Erick?”

“Un-uh.”

“You act like you are.”

“I’m not.”

“I never come to these things.”

“Well, you wanted to see Jack play.”

“I didn’t come because of Jack…. You act like you’re mad.”

“I’m Jack’s best friend,” I said. “That’s how I’m trying to act.”

“But what about how
you
feel?”

“You’re Jack’s girlfriend.”

“Because he says so?”

“That’s good enough for me,” I said.

We just stood there. I was thinking that someday I’d find out the name of that perfume.

Behind us Roman Knight began singing his own version of Billy Squier’s “Eye on You.”

He was singing it at Nicki: Got my eye on you, tossing her name into the verse.

“What does he want with you?” I asked her.

“Ask him.”

“He always seems to start in when you show up.”

“He’s probably bored out of his gourd with Jeannie Gaelen…. I’m not talking about Roman Knight now.”

“What perfume do you wear?”

“It’s called First.”

“First at what?”

“It’s just called First. First in the hearts of your countrymen. First at bat. First in line. I don’t know why it’s called First. See, I didn’t name it…. First in your heart?”

“Nicki, I’ve got to go.”

“It’s only halftime.”

“I’ve got an appointment. I’m already late for this appointment.”

“Here’s something for you,” she said. She reached into her jacket pocket and handed me a piece of folded paper.

“What’s that?”

“You won’t know until you look at it,” she said, “but don’t look at it now.”

I said I’d see her, and I gave her a little two-fingered salute and started walking. I kept going. I guessed I was going home. I knew that when I got there, the house would be empty. I’d start thinking about Pete again.