Odds Are Good (27 page)

Stop running. That wouldn't be good enough. I had to stop being afraid. The creature was feeding on my fear, growing stronger every moment.

You have to want him more than he wants you.

I stopped. Heart pounding, I turned to face the creature.

It paused, looking wary.

Summoning every ounce of courage I possessed, I spread my arms and whispered, “Come back.”

The creature's eyes widened. It hissed in alarm.

I took a step toward it.

It backed away, still hissing.

I took another step. It turned and ran. I raced after it, caught it with a flying tackle at the head of the stairs.

“No!” it screamed, struggling to escape my grasp. “Get back!”

I was too sure to let go now. I clutched it to me, for it was my own. Screaming, it clawed its way forward until it managed to pull both itself and me over the edge of the stairs.

We tumbled down, rolling over and over, thumping and bouncing. It felt as if I were trapped in a cement mixer, but I didn't let go. When we hit the bottom, I was on top. Wrapping my arms around the creature, I pulled it to me and whispered, “You're mine. You're mine, and I claim you.”

I could feel it wavering, growing thinner in my arms. But it was still struggling, still real and solid.

Stronger now, I pinned it to the floor. I stared at that fierce and horrid face—my own face, twisted and ravaged by all my anger. Pushing past my disgust, my revulsion, I pressed my cheek to the creature's.

“You're mine,” I whispered in its ear. “Welcome home.”

Then I held it as close to my heart as I could, and howled in sorrow and triumph as my lost anger seared its way back into my soul.

The beast vanished from beneath me.

I collapsed to the floor, where I lay for a long time, weeping but whole, Saint Jonathan no longer.

“Not bad, kid,” said a deep, dear voice, once so familiar, now nearly forgotten. “Not bad at all.”

I looked up and saw my father smiling down at me, translucent and shimmering as Mrs. Hubbard had been.

I reached toward him, but he shook his head sadly and began to fade from sight. “Can't do it, kid. I'm breaking the rules as it is. But I wanted to let you know you did good.”

“Don't go! I need you!”

“I know. You always did. And I was never there.”

He shimmered back into view and stepped closer. Fearful, I started to draw back but forced myself to stay.

My father lifted his hand. I whimpered at the sight. How often when I was five, six, seven had I seen that hand rise like this to strike me? But there was no anger now, only deep, enduring sorrow as the memory of flesh came down to brush against my cheek.

I swiped at a tear, trying to hide it, too aware of how my tears had always stirred my father's wrath.

“I always loved you, Jonathan,” he whispered, his voice cracking. “I was just too dumb to say it.”

He put his arms around me, embracing me as I had embraced the creature, and though no touch could be felt it was as real as salt and as deep as love itself.

Then, before I could say a word, he was gone.

 

After a time I got to my feet.

Moving slowly, I walked toward the mirror's frame. I glanced back only once.

There was nothing behind me.

Turning, I stepped through the black lacquer frame, back to where my own sweet, harsh world lay waiting.

It started the day Butch Carrigan decided I was interested in jumping his bones.

“You little fruit,” he snarled. “I'll teach you to look at me!”

A moment or two later, he had given me my lesson.

I was still lying facedown in the puddle into which Butch had slammed me, as the culminating exercise of my learning experience, when I heard a clear voice exclaim, “Oh, my dear! That
was
nasty. Are you all right, Vince?”

Turning my head to my left, I saw a pair of brown Top-Siders topped by khaki pants. Given the muddy condition of the sidewalks, pants and shoes were both ridiculously clean.

I rolled onto my side and looked up. The loafers belonged to a tall, slender man. He had dark hair, a neat mustache, and a sweater slung over his shoulders. He was kind of handsome—almost pretty. He wore a gold ring in his left ear. He looked to be about thirty.

“Who are you?” I asked suspiciously.

“Your fairy godfather. My name is Melvin. Come on, stand up and let's see if we can't do something with you.”

“Are you making fun of me?” I asked. After Butch's last attack, I had had about enough of people calling me a fruit for one day.

“Moi?” cried the man, arching his eyebrows and laying a hand on his chest. “Listen, honey, I have nothing but sympathy for you. I had to deal with my share of troglodytes when I was your age, and I
know
it's no fun. I'm here to help.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I told you, I'm your fairy godfather.”

He waited for me to say something, but I just sat in the puddle, glaring at him. (It was uncomfortable, but I was already soaked right through my undershorts, so it didn't make that much difference.)

“
You
know,” he said encouragingly, “like in
Cinderella?”

“Go away and let me suffer in peace,” I growled, splashing muddy water at him.

He flinched, and frowned, but it was a reflex action; the water that struck his pants vanished without a trace.

I blinked, and splashed at him again, this time spattering a double handful of dirty water across his legs.

“Are you angry, or just making a fashion statement?” he asked.

I felt a little chill. No spot of mud nor mark of moisture could be seen on the perfectly pressed khakis. “How did you do that?” I asked.

He just smiled and said, “Do you want your three wishes or not, Vincent?”

I climbed out of the puddle. “What's going on here?” I asked.

He made a
tsk
ing sound. “I think it's pretty obvious,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Come on, let's go get a cup of coffee and talk. All your questions will be answered in good time.”

The first question I thought of was “How much trouble is it going to give me to be seen with this guy?” With Butch and his crowd already calling me “faggot” and “fruit,” walking around with a guy who moved the way Melvin did wasn't going to do anything to improve the situation.

The first question I actually
asked
was “Do you have to walk like that?”

“Like what?”

“You know,” I said, blushing a little. “So swishy.” Melvin stopped. “Honey, I gave my life to be able to walk like this. Don't you dare try to stop me now.”

“Don't call me honey!” I snapped.

He sighed and rolled his eyes toward the sky. “I can't say you didn't warn me,” he said, clearly not speaking to me.

 

We went to a little café on Morton Street called Pete's. It's mostly frequented by kids from the university, but some of the high school kids hang out there as well, especially kids from the theater group.

“Not bad,” said Melvin, as we entered. “Brings back memories.”

Things were slow, and we found a corner table where we could talk in private.

“Okay,” I said, “what's going on?”

I won't relate the first part of the conversation, because you've probably read a lot of things like it before. I couldn't believe what he was saying was real, so I kept trying to figure out what this was really about—
Candid Camera
, an elaborate practical joke, that kind of thing. But after he instantly dried my puddle-soaked pants by snapping his fingers, I had to accept it: Whether or not he was actually my fairy godfather, this guy was doing real magic left and right.

“Okay, if you're real,” I said, lifting my coffee (which had changed from plain coffee to Swiss double mocha
while
I was drinking it), “then tell me how come I never heard of fairy godfathers before.”

“Because I'm the first.”

“Care to explain that?”

“Certainly. Once you buy the farm, you get some choices on the other side. What kind of choices depends on the usual stuff—how good you've been and so on. Well, I was going up and not down, and it was pretty much expected that I would just opt to be an angel; they've got these things all planned out for you. But I said I didn't want to be anyone's guardian angel. I wanted to be a fairy godfather.”

He took a sip of coffee and rolled his eyes. “Let me tell you,
that
caused a hullabaloo! But I said people had been calling me a fairy all my life, and now that I was dead, that was what I wanted to be. Then I told them that if they didn't let me be a fairy godfather, I was going to bring charges of sexism against them. So they let me in. You're my first case.”

“Does that have any significance?” I asked nervously.

“What do you mean?”

“Me being your first case. Does that mean I'm gay?”

I didn't mention that I had been trying to figure out the same thing myself for about a year.

He got that look in his eye that meant he was about to make another wisecrack. But suddenly his face got serious. Voice soft, he said, “You may be, you may not. The point is, you're getting picked on because people
think
you are—which is why I've been sent to work with you. Gay bashing is a special issue for me.”

“How come?”

“It's how I met my maker, so to speak. I was walking down the street one day last year, minding my own business, when three bruisers dragged me into an alley, shouting, ‘We'll teach you, faggot!' They never did explain exactly what it was they were going to teach me. Last thing I remember from life on earth was coming face-to-face with a tire iron. Next thing I knew, I was knocking at the Pearly Gates.”

We were both silent for a moment. Then he shrugged and took another sip of his coffee.

“You're taking this awfully casually,” I said, still stunned by the awfulness of what he had told me.

“Honey, I did a lot of screaming and shouting while it was happening. Afterward, too, for that matter. Didn't do me a bit of good—I was still dead. Once you've been on the other side for a while, you get a little more Zen about this kind of thing.”

“But don't you want to go get those guys or something?”

He shook his head. “I prefer reform to vengeance. Besides, it's against the rules. Why don't we just concentrate on your case for the time being?”

“Okay, do I really get three wishes?”

“Sure do. Well, two, now.”

“What do you mean?”

“You used up the first one on that coffee.”

“I didn't tell you to change it into Swiss double mocha!” I yelped.

“You didn't have to. You wished for it.”

“I'm glad I didn't wish I was dead!” I muttered.

“Oh!” he cried. “Getting personal, are we? Don't you think that remark was a little tasteless under the circumstances?”

“Are you here to help me or to drive me nuts?”

“It hurts me that you could even ask. Anyway, the three wishes are only part of the service, even though that's what people always focus on. I'm really here to watch over you, advise you, guide you, till we get things on track.”

He leaned back in his chair, glanced around the room, then winked at a nice-looking college student sitting about five tables away from us.

“Will you stop that!” I hissed.

“What's the matter, afraid of guilt by association?”

“No, I'm afraid he'll come over here and beat us up. Only he probably can't beat you up, so he'll have to settle for me.”

Melvin waved his hand. “I guarantee you he wasn't offended. He's one of the gang.”

“What gang?”

Melvin pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows, as if he couldn't believe I could be so dense.

I blinked. “How can you tell something like that just from looking at him?”

“Gaydar,” said Melvin, stirring his coffee. “Automatic sensing system that lets you spot people of similar persuasion. A lot of gay guys have it to some degree or other. If it was more reliable, it would make life easier on us—”

I interrupted. “Speak for yourself.”

Melvin sighed. “I wasn't necessarily including
you
in that particular ‘us.' I was just pointing out that it's harder spotting potential partners when you're gay. If a guy asks a girl for a date, about the worst that can happen is that she laughs at him. If he asks another guy, he might get his face pounded in.”

That thought had crossed my mind more than once as I was trying to figure myself out over the last year—and not only in regard to dating. I would have been happy just to have someone I felt safe
talking
to about this.

“Is this gaydar something you can learn?” I asked.

He furrowed his brow for a moment, then said, “I don't think so.”

“It must be lonely,” I muttered, more to myself than to him.

“It doesn't have to be,” he replied sharply. “If gay people hadn't been forced to hide for so long, if we could just openly identify ourselves, there would be plenty of people you knew that you could ask for advice. Everybody knows gay people; they just think they don't.”

“What do you mean?”

“Listen, honey, the world is crawling with faggots. But most of them are in hiding because they're afraid they'll get treated the way you did about an hour ago.”

I took in my breath sharply. Melvin must have seen the look of shock on my face, because he looked puzzled for a moment. Then he laughed. “That word bother you?”

“I was taught that it was impolite.”

“It is. But if you live in a world that keeps trying to grind you down, you either start thumbing your nose at it or end up very, very short. Taking back the language is one way to jam the grinder. My friends and I called each other ‘faggot' and ‘queer' for the same reason so many black folks call each other ‘nigger'—to take the words away from the people that want to use them to hurt us.”