These Things Happen (9 page)

   "Great!" I say. "I hate sense, it's overrated."

   And off he goes now, with this permission. "A
name
," he says. "A name's just a thing you have to
call
a thing so it
has
a name, right?"

   "Right," I say, to keep him going.

"Because you
have
to call it something or it doesn't exist, right?"

   I agree again, almost afraid to move, or speak too loudly; the ground we stand on is glass, suddenly.
If you breathe, it breaks.
"I'm with you," I say. "I'm right there."

   He shuts his eyes. "Because here's the thing," he says. " Which is that there's really no
perfectly
right name for a thing, right? Because
that
name would have to say
all
there is to say about the— you know—"

   I can't hold back; I'm sixteen again, thanks to him, having my first glimpse of the secret wires that work the world. "The particular thing in question. And that's not possible!"

   "Wow," he says, slumping over as if he'd just torn through the tape at a finish line. "Totally. And so the thing is, we believe a thing is the thing it is
because its name tells us to believe that.
Like a command, almost, like if it has the name, then that's what it is."

   "No questions asked," I say.

   "But a name can hide things, too. Which is to say that what a thing
really
is can hide behind its name—"

   But he stops himself. I don't know why. "What's wrong?" I say.

   "I am," he says. "I'm babbling." He looks down the hall again, to the source of words—
lesbian
,
Florida
,
violence—
that float our way as his father moves in and out of earshot.

   I call him back. "You're wrong," I say. "
I'm
the babbler around here. Y
ou're
an interesting man."

   His jaw drops; I've astonished him. And I didn't intend to. I was just listening. "Are you okay?" I ask.

   "I'm fine," he says. "I've just— never been sort of remotely called that before, I don't think. Not like that."

   "Called what? Interesting?"

   "I don't mean that, although it's not true. I mean a
man
." He laughs and puts up a friendly warning hand. "And like I said before, don't get all blindly supportive. It's not necessary, really."

   "Fine," I say. "You bore the crap out of me." I purposely don't say
shit
, just in case, although I'm not sure just in case of w
hat.

   He laughs again. He can laugh at himself. "You're not the only one," he says.

   "Well, screw 'em all, right?" I offer a fist, for bumping, this time with proper placement. Or at least I think it is; as we execute it, Wesley gives me a slightly worried look. "You think interesting thoughts."

   "Me? Hardly."

   "You do. You make me feel dumb. I like that."

   "But you're not dumb!" He flushes; his skin is tracing paper, every feeling evident just beneath it. "And I'm sorry if that came out too enthusiastically, as it might suggest that secretly I think you are, but don't want you to know that I think that. Because I don't. You're not. Which raises like a corollary question? Which is . . ." He flushes some more, and laughs, at himself. "I forgot what it is! But to tie it up? About your dumbness? Not that I actually know anything? You're not. I know that."

   This isn't okay with me, for some reason. "Your father went to Yale."

   "So?"

   "And Harvard Law School."

   "Labels," he says. "I'm actually not terribly impressed, quite frankly. Sorry."

   "I didn't even go to college. "

   "How come?"

   "I wanted to be a star," I say, which I've never said before; I see

that, and it surprises me. I know I've never said it to Kenny; I'm not sure I said it to myself. When the wish began, I was Wesley's age; I wonder if he has something he wants desperately, and knows he can't say he wants. I hope not.

   "So what happened?"

   Kenny is at the door, saving me from having to answer. He is on the phone, still, but rolling his eyes, pretending to fall asleep, holding the phone far from his ear. Why? I wonder. These calls matter to him.

   "Twenty seconds," he whispers to us.

   "So Theo won," I say to Wesley, to get us rolling.

   "In a landslide," he says. "Totally demolishing Shannon Traube, by the way."

   And Kenny is upon us, demonstrating how he's learned to kill the volume on his phone. "See?" he says. "I learned a new thing. So who's Shannon Traube?"

   Wesley shrugs, for some reason guarding his facts, suddenly. "I don't know," he says. "No one."

   "No one?" Kenny says. "No one's no one. Is she a hottie?"

   "I beg your pardon?" says Wesley, turning to me.

   "I didn't say it," I tell him. "Don't look at me."

   " Wrong word?" says Kenny.

   "Well, yes," Wesley says. "For this decade. And not to mention for Shannon."

   "Shannon Tr
aube
," Kenny says, gagging on the name as if he'd found a bone in it. "God, that's an awful name."

   I laugh, not at Shannon's name but at, or with, the memory of Danny, who lived across the hall from Lenny and me when we first came to New York. He has passed, as they say now, which means that he's dead, too.

"What?" Kenny asks.

"Nothing," I say. "You just made me think of Danny."

   "The guy with the dogs!" Wesley says. He turns to Kenny, brings him in on it. "He had these dogs, and he always gave them last names. So he'd go like 'Have you met my dog—' . . . What was her name, George?"

   "Birgit," I say. "Birgit Effie Melody Fabrikant." I turn to Kenny. "I've told you about her."

   "You have?"

   "George has awesome stories, Dad," Wesley says.

   I want to say,
Of course, they're a little gay.
But I don't.

   "I know he does," Kenny says. "And who is this young lady, exactly? Not Birgit Fabrikant. Shannon."

   "Shannon?" Wesley snorts. "I just told you. She's no one."

   "And I told you that
no
one's no one. If they were, it would be quite a feat." He turns to me. "Right?"

   "Her dad's like a violinist, or something," Wesley says. "I think. For the Philharmonic."

   "Is he first chair?"

   "How would I know?"

   "Because these things count."

   "Not to me."

   "And speaking of stories," Kenny says, "awesome or otherwise, did you finish
The Grapes of Wrath
?"

   Wesley picks at the waffle bits while I squeeze blood oranges. "Umm," he says, staring at the floor. "You know. Basically."

   "What happens in it?" Kenny asks.

   "Well," Wesley says. "You've read it, right?"

   Kenny just looks at him.

   "So, okay. So what happens is— Tom Joad? Who's the guy? Who

George was when he was in the play of it? Well, he eats the grapes." He looks from me, to Kenny, to me; I give no encouragement. "And then what happens is, he kills the mockingbird." He's home free now, and he knows it. "That he catches in the rye."

   There is a pause, which I feel called upon to end. "And then he burns his hand with hot silver," I say.

   "What?" Wesley says.

   "We should go to more concerts," Kenny says to me. "Speaking of the Philharmonic. Charles and Margaret want to subscribe again, with us as their guests. They say they love to experience great music through your eyes—"

   "Because I'm such a moron."

   Wesley laughs. I see I'm performing for him a little. And, even though I see it, I can't stop.

   "No one said that," says Kenny.

   "No one
says
a lot of things."

   "You loved that series we had last year!"

   "I
pretended
to. It's always the night T
op Chef
is on."

   "So record it."

   "I hate when people say that," I say, claiming my right to be Teen Boy for a moment, pointing out to the adults their emptiness and hypocrisy. I never got to do that when I
was
a teenaged boy; it could all too easily lead people to the hollowed-out tree where, like Jem and Scout, I kept my box of secret things. "Like it's an
answer
to anything."

   "I give up," Kenny says. "And I'm going to get all the papers and see if I got quoted right, for a change. And some muffins—"

   I put myself in front of the door. "We have everything," I say. "It's all right here." Kenny, even as I say this, still seems pitched for exit, as if arrested midmovement, turned to stone. And I see some thing I might not have seen otherwise; he's got a heart, a big one, tuned to creatures in need, as long as they're collected in a mass and represent an idea. Wesley needs Kenny, but as he's only Wesley, and not some initial-bearing group, Kenny has to run. Kenny has to have not shown up, even as he's here. And he can't see it.

   And he doesn't have to; I can, and do. I see that he needs to do his good work, unaided by me, out there in the world, and I need to help him do some of that work here, in our kitchen, with this kid who's come here because he needs him more than anyone, and doesn't know it, and could never say it.

   "It's okay," says Wesley, who's well trained. " Really."

   "It's not," I say. "So you've got us." I give us a little kick-start. "School."

   "Is everything okay at school?" Kenny says.

   "What do you mean?"

   "It's an easy question," Kenny says, looking to me. "Isn't it?"

   "Well, no," Wesley says. "Everything's
not
okay, to be quite frank—"

   Kenny cuts him off. "Now, I'm going to sound like a lawyer here," he says.

   "Don't," I say.

   But it's too late. " Words count. Every word we say. So when you say 'to be quite frank,' what you're also saying is that, often, you're not—"

   Now I cut Kenny off. "Why isn't it okay, Wes?"

   "Well," Wesley says, with the sad-for-us laugh I sometimes think should be his ring tone, "because it's school!"

   We all laugh, which feels "nice," which is a word I hate, but hate a little less when it's the right word, as it is now. Then Wesley cuts our laughter short.

"I just have a question," he says.

   "Go for it," we both say at once. I hear garbage trucks, gunshots; I hear Henry, downstairs, playing "You Must Meet My Wife," a song from the Sondheim canon which he tells me is especially cherished in the leather community. Other than that, it's as silent as New York is going to get.

   Wesley looks from Kenny to me, then back to Kenny. "So," he says, "I was wondering if you think it's a choice."

   Kenny looks to me, I look to him; we are tin men now, our necks crying out for oil. "Is what a choice?" Kenny says, creaking back to Wesley.

   "You know," says Wesley. "What you are."

   Again the two of us, call and response. "What we are."

   "You know. Like your general gayness."

   I nod, along with Kenny, the two of us dashboard bobble-heads.

   " 'General gayness'?" Kenny asks. "Where did that come from?"

   "Oh," Wesley says, "you know. Nowhere."

   "Nothing's from nowhere," Kenny says.

   "You can think about it, if you like," Wesley says. "Because I know it's like a significant query. But the faster the better. I promised Theo."

   "Good, good," I say. "I do want to think it through." I'm lying. Think things through? I
say
things; I don't think about them. I see Kenny looking at me, as if he knows this, and feel a need to explain myself. "Because that's a big question. Right? Quite big, actually." My heart races, or at least sprints.
Choice.
I summon my references, from the holes in the wall where they squeak and scamper, with their small sharp teeth.
Hobson's choice
;
Sophie's choice
;
pro choice.
And I wonder, looking down into the hollowed blood orange in my hand: How many choices have I made in life? "It's so big, in fact," I go on, "it should be the fi
fth
question, at Passover." I'm not Jewish, but Lenny is. He has a seder every year, where I am always seated next to his Aunt Esther, who brings the
haroset
, which Lenny says, in the case of her recipe, not only symbolizes grout but, actually,
is
grout. "Right, Kenny?"

   "I don't know," he says. Then, turning to Wesley: "I'd like to know more."

   "That's all there is," Wesley says. "I have this friend who asked me at school, because both you guys are, well, you know."

   Kenny and I are synchronized swimmers as we provide Wesley with the adjective, which, at least for me, is still hard to say in a room where there are other people, even gay ones. "Gay."

   "Well," he says, "obviously."

   "I don't like the sound of this," Kenny says; I can tell his injustice antennae are up; I know him. "You're not leaving anything out, are you?"

   "That's it, Dad. The whole megillah."

   He's never used a Yiddish word around us before.

   "Your little boy's becoming a New Yorker," I say to Kenny. Then, to Wesley: "Not that you're little."

   "Theo uses Yiddish words all the time." He turns to me. "Do you know what
mishpucha
means?"

   "But your
question
," Kenny says. "Is someone giving you shit?"

   "No," he says. "There's no shit involved here, Dad, okay? Just believe me."