The World of Normal Boys Page 12

  “He’s not in a coma,” he responds testily, though he wonders what a coma really looks like. Jackson in the bed last night, with those tubes and machines—maybe that was a coma. Wouldn’t his parents have described it that way, though? Or is that one of the “details” his father will provide only “if necessary?”

  “Well, can he talk?” Victoria asks.

  “I don’t think so,” Robin says. “I mean, he’s ... I don’t know.” He isn’t sure how to compress the information he has. He bites on the inside of his lip, understanding that no one has made the situation completely clear to him. “He’s fucked up, that’s all.”

  “Bummer,” Todd says.

  Ethan interrupts. “Hey, Spicer, you think we have time for doobage before homeroom?”

  “Always time for that.”

  “Do you two have to flaunt what major delinquents you are in front of Robin?” Victoria says.

  “Robin’s cool,” Todd says, smiling at him. “Right?”

  “Sure,” Robin says, pleased at the sound of it. Cool. “Hey, can I have a cigarette?”

  “I can’t believe you,” Victoria protests. “I don’t see you for like two days and now you’re smoking.”

  “I smoke my mother’s cigarettes,” Robin says defensively.

  Todd brings another cigarette to his mouth and lights it, passing it across the back seat. Robin’s hand shakes as he takes it from Todd, meeting his stare. Todd’s eyes: brown with pumpkin-gold flecks inside. He puts the filter to his lips, feels the trace of spit on the end, like with the roach at the drive-in. He remembers last night in the van with Scott and makes sure to blow out quickly enough to avoid burning his throat.

  “Thanks,” he says to Todd. Even a simple word is a struggle with so much concentration on not coughing.

  “Anything I can do to corrupt the youth of America.” Todd winks at him before turning his eyes back to the front seat. He reaches to the dashboard and pops in an eight track. A romantic rock piano spills from the speakers.

  “Bruuuuce!” Ethan howls. “Jersey’s own.”

  “I never get sick of this,” Todd says.

  Robin takes a few more puffs, not really liking the taste but liking the moment: the hungry sound of Springsteen’s voice, Todd’s lips moving with the music, the controlled sway in Todd’s shoulders.

  When they pull up in front of the school, Robin slides out of the seat after Victoria.

  “Thanks for nothing,” Victoria says, striding away.

  “Ah, you can walk next time,” Ethan shouts after her.

  “There won’t be a next time,” she calls back.

  Robin raises his eyebrows at Todd. “See ya.”

  Todd leans out the window to him. “You know, what happened to your brother ...” His voice fades out as he exhales a stream of smoke. “If I was you, I’d just not think about it. It’s too heavy, you know. You should get your mind off it—blast some music, get wasted.” He pauses and raises his eyebrows. “Get laid.”

  “Yeah, sure, thanks,” Robin sputters, trying to remain cool even as a blush rises in his neck and cheeks.

  Todd nods intently at him. “Anytime.” He flicks his cigarette out the window, then shakes another one from his pack of Marlboros and hands it to Robin. Robin stamps the first one out and puts the new one over his ear.

  “You know, if I was you, I wouldn’t even go in that place,” Todd says with a look toward the school. Then he says, “Later,” and Robin mouths back, “Yeah, later.”

  Ethan hits the gas and the car roars away. Robin stands in the smell of scorched rubber, trying to understand Todd’s attention, fighting back the notion that Todd is actually his friend now, because how could that possibly be true after so many years of torment?

  The morning crowd is noisy with chatter; Led Zeppelin blares from a radio. Robin catches a glimpse of a short guy in a baseball cap moving through the crowd toward the courtyard. Scott. He feels a nervous clutch in his stomach; an image from his dream last night—with Scott at the empty swimming pool—rears up in front of him. He thinks about trying to catch up with him—surprised at how much he’d rather be with Scott than Victoria at this moment—but a glance at the big clock on the face of the building reminds him it’s almost time for homeroom.

  “Are you coming?” Victoria calls to him. He runs to catch up with her. “God,” she says, “my brother is so mental around you.”

  He pretends to shrug off her comment. “Todd was probably just making fun of me because he knows I don’t know how to get high.”

  “God, what’s he trying to prove anyway? I mean, you’re my friend, not his.” Victoria stops suddenly and looks at him. “But you play right into it, Robin.”

  Robin turns away from her penetrating gaze. “I do not.”

  “I can’t believe you even like him.”

  “You just don’t like him because he’s your brother. I mean, Ruby and I are always bothering each other.”

  “Oh, my God,” Victoria gasps, her mouth hanging open. “How is Ruby?”

  Robin shrugs—he doesn’t want to think about the state his sister is in: she’s sketching psychotic pictures one day and racing off to church the next. He sees Ruby and Nana kneeling in the pew at St. Bart’s: Ruby in her fancy dress, her skinny knees pressed into the plastic-covered footrest, her eyes searching the rafters for Jackson’s guardian angel; Nana next to her, her body twice as wide, eyes closed, lips floating over mumbled prayers, rosary beads spilling from her thick fingers. Looking around the crowded school lawn now—kids hanging out, acting cool, pushing past each other, pushing into each other—Robin is bothered by the idea of his sister and grandmother in church, because maybe he should be there too, acting serious and holy, trying to convince God, whoever He is, that Jackson deserves to get better quick. “I guess she’s OK,” he says to Victoria.

  “She must be so freaked out. She’s the type that would probably feel guilty,” Victoria says. “I bet she didn’t go to school today, right?”

  Robin hears something in Victoria’s voice, sees something in her stance, the way she balances her books on her hip, the way she’s twisting her lip as if she’s suddenly condemning him for not being upset enough, or something—all of it makes him mad. “You don’t know anything,” he growls, and walks past her to the front doors.

  “Where are you going?” Victoria demands. “What’s your deal?”

  Robin doesn’t answer. He moves against the crowd, bumping and pushing his way in, wishing he’d chased after Scott when he’d had the chance.

  He swings open the stained wooden door and the locker room explodes into his senses: boys’ bodies lit from single bulbs on the concrete ceiling, the smell of armpits, sneakers and disinfectant, voices rising and falling between the vibrations of slamming steel. Robin makes his way to his own locker, past Seth Carter pulling his red gym shirt over his head. Robin nods but Seth just looks at him blankly and lets him by. Ever since he jerked off at the Ice Pond thinking about Seth’s pissing contest, he’s been nervous in Seth’s presence, as if his imagination was flickering in his eyes like a dirty movie on a screen.

  Robin sits on the bench, a heavy pile of books in his lap, trying to remember the combination to his lock. He looks up at the clock—11:30. Most of the day still ahead. He shouldn’t have come to school. Every class so far has been a blur, no clearer than a dream. In English they were discussing East of Eden and he couldn’t even follow the questions Mrs. Tadesci was asking. She’d lectured about symbolism, about Cain and Abel and the book of Genesis—what did that have to do with James Dean?

  He is fumbling with the numbers on the lock when he senses someone standing nearby. He looks up; it’s Scott. Again, a snapshot of last night’s dream forms—he and Scott squeezing together through a doorway—and disappears.

  “What’s going on with your brother?” Scott asks, bouncing on the toes of his Keds. His pants, which are too long, bunch up on the floor at his heels.

  Robin feels a surprising flutter in his
belly and looks away.

  “Not too good, huh?” Scott asks.

  “No. He looked really fucked up.” Suddenly the details are pouring out of him. “He was hooked up to these machines and it made me think he was like Frankenstein or something, some kind of experiment. I mean, I knew it would look bad but then when I got there it was even worse and then my parents were mad at me because of me taking my bike there after they told me to stay home—”

  Scott steps closer and interrupts. “I’m ditching. Pintack’s outside setting up hurdles on the track. My fucking favorite.”

  “Yeah, right?” Robin groans. Last time they ran track, he could barely keep one foot in front of the other, worrying that he was running too much like a girl. “Where are you gonna go?”

  “Town,” Scott says. “Maybe to The Bird after that.”

  The Bird is the county park on the other side of Five Corners, at the end of Greenlawn Avenue. The name is short for “bird sanctuary;” once upon a time there was an aviary there, though the building has been empty for years. It’s a place like the Ice Pond where teenage things are supposed to happen, a place Robin has never dared to go. “How are you getting there?”

  “I dunno. Hitch, maybe.”

  Hitchhiking is another thing he’s never done, another thing he’s been too scared to do. He mutters, “Cool.”

  “So you wanna come?”

  “Is anyone else going with you?”

  “Fuck no. I’m pretty much a lone wolf, you know?”

  The expression makes Robin smile—he thinks of Call of the Wild, of Scott traveling through the Arctic, beyond the bounds of civilization. “I probably shouldn’t ditch,” he says.

  Scott looks disappointed for a moment, then seems to cover it up. “Never mind,” he says. “I gotta hit it before Pintack starts tooting his fucking whistle.” He stands for another second, shifting his weight back and forth on his legs, his darting eyes hinting at the promise of escape.

  From the next row Robin hears someone bragging about getting a blow job. He recognizes the deep voice—the infamous Long Dong Danniman. A voice responds, “I’d never kiss a chick who just had my dick in her mouth. No way.” Another voice: “Ah, you probably suck your own.” “Faggot.” “Cocksucker.” Jittery laughter.

  “Man, I’m getting outta here,” Scott says.

  “Hold on,” Robin says. “I’m coming. I got a cigarette I want to smoke anyway.” He grabs the lock and spins the dial around—he remembers: 32, 8, 17. He feels a jolt of energy as he drops his books inside and clicks the door shut. Scott is in front of a mirror, his baseball cap pinched between his legs, running a long-handled comb through his hair. He watches Scott’s shoulder bones rise and fall beneath a David Bowie concert T-shirt and a loose, unzipped sweat jacket; he lets his eyes drift to the curve of his ass inside tight, worn-down jeans. He sucks in his breath, tries to let his face slide into the same tough expression Scott wears so effortlessly.

  They reach the door at the same time as the group of guys from the next row. “Man, I’m telling you, you gotta get some head,” Long Dong Danniman is saying. Seth Carter, standing next to him, says, “Yeah, sure. The chicks’re just knocking down my fucking door.” Robin starts to step past Danniman and his friends, but Scott grabs his arm to let them go first.

  Danniman gives Robin a withering look. “Nice shirt, girlie.”

  “Shut up,” Robin whispers.

  “Hey, girlie, you wanna give Seth someone to practice on?” Danniman teases, punching Seth in the arm.

  “He’s not my type,” Robin mutters. The circle of boys seems to tighten around him.

  “I guess she’s shy,” Danniman says and pushes Seth into Robin.

  Robin and Seth shove each other away. Robin steps back into the wall.

  “Cut the shit, man,” Seth whines.

  “Ah, you’d just be a snack anyway,” Danniman says to Seth. He grabs his crotch and shakes his bulging red gym shorts at Robin. “This girlie probably wants a meal.”

  “Fuck you,” Robin hisses, looking from Danniman’s crotch to his eyes. Danniman takes a step closer to him, and then Scott steps in.

  “Hey, man, he’s cool. Just take a pill,” Scott says. Robin is amazed as they all back away. Even though Scott looks like the runt of the litter, they listen to him. It’s that face again, Robin thinks. There’s something about Scott’s face that tells you not to cross the line with him. There’s something there no one wants to know too much about.

  The gang moves past. Scott waits for the last of them to go before moving toward the door himself. “Come on, man. Are you coming or what?”

  Robin follows him past the red-and-white Exit sign, away from the gymnasium, the squawking of sneakers on polished wood, the cacophony of boys’ voices. It is only when he gets into the parking lot and he can breathe the outdoor air that he realizes his body has been trembling from the contact. He’s never said, “Fuck you,” to a bully before, and he’s wondering if Scott’s presence emboldened him, even before Scott stepped to his defense. Is this what it means to have a guy like Scott as a friend, that he might be able to avoid the traps set by guys like Danniman?

  As he runs to catch up with Scott, away from school, away from the proscribed schedule of his life, he gets the sense that he is actually running toward something—toward something new, something risky.

  “Don’t you worry about some maniac picking you up?” Robin asks. Scott is walking backward, sticking his thumb out as cars approach.

  “What could happen?” They are at the side of Hooper Avenue, beyond the point where the sidewalk ends in a trail of dirt and dead leaves, where the houses and lawns give way to oak and pine trees and the air is quiet and the sky is stretched wide through the branches ahead of them.

  “What about murderers and those kind of people?”

  Scott laughs. “I think you’re paranoid, man.”

  “I read in Time magazine a story about serial killers.” He snaps twigs beneath his shoes. “They always show up in small towns. You never hear about it in big cities. The more people around, the safer.”

  Scott shoots Robin a look of disbelief. “What about Son of Sam?”

  “He’s an exception.”

  “The Boston Strangler. Charles Manson?”

  “What’s your point, Scott?”

  “All you ever hear about in cities is fucking crime. Especially New York. My father got mugged in New York last year. A couple of black guys with a fucking tool.” He makes his thumb and forefinger into a gun and points it into Robin’s chest.

  “People in New Jersey always think New York is full of crime,” Robin says knowingly. He folds Scott’s index finger back toward him, surprising himself with the touch. “You just have to act like you belong. If you look like some stooge from New Jersey of course they’re going to pick you out. New Yorkers are cool—really cool, not like New Jersey cool. Do you think Danniman would last ten minutes in New York without everyone knowing he wasn’t some bridge-and-tunnel loser?”

  Scott shrugs. “What makes you such an expert? You’re a bridge-and-tunnel loser, too.”

  “For your information, I was born in New York, and I’m going to live there again someday. Plus, I go there all the time with my mother. She takes me to the theater and to museums and—” He pauses; Scott looks dubious.

  “She ever take you to CBGB?” he challenges.

  Robin frowns. “Oh, right. Like my mother’s going to bring me to a rock music place on the Bowery.”

  Scott shrugs. “At least you know what it is. That’s where I’d want to go, not to some stupid museum with my mother.” He searches the road for cars, spits when he doesn’t see anything. “ ’Course, my mother doesn’t get out much.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing,” he says quickly.

  “She doesn’t have a job?”

  “She’s just ... she’s kind of sick, so she’s in a hospital.”

  “What kind of sick?” Robin asks.

  S
cott loops his finger next to his head, indicating craziness. Robin stops in his tracks, unsure if Scott is being truthful. Scott sees his quizzical look and turns away. “Never mind—forget I mentioned it.”

  A maroon Galaxie 500 convertible approaches and Scott sticks his thumb back out. The driver is a girl with a head of frizzy, mousy blond hair bouncing in the wind. She catches sight of them and hits the brakes. She is wearing sunglasses even though the sky is gray. “Don’t you boys know that hitchhiking is against the law?”

  Robin shrinks back but Scott stands firm, planting his hitchhiking hand in his front pocket. “What are you, a cop?” he challenges.

  The girl laughs. She’s maybe 21 or 22, and Robin thinks he has seen her before. Her lipstick is deep purple against frosty-white skin, and her fingers, curled around the steering wheel, taper to matching dabs of color at the nails. “A cop? Please. If you insult me like that there’s no way you’re getting a ride,” she says. Her scoop-neck pink T-shirt reads Foxy Lady across the chest.

  Scott turns away, as if he can’t be bothered with negotiations, but Robin steps forward. “Can you take us into town?” he asks.

  “Get in, boys.”

  The air is cold against their faces, and the car speakers roar with the kind of funky music he hears coming from the black kids’ radios in the cafeteria. Robin taps his fingers on his knees. “What’s the name of this group?” he asks her, as one song fades out.

  “It’s Parliament,” she says, as if everyone should know this.

  He remembers where he has seen her before—the music store in town. “You work at New Sounds, don’t you?”

  She pulls her glasses down and peers at him studiously. “Are you the kid always buying the Broadway records?”

  “Yeah! That’s me. I bought The King and I, West Side Story and Cabaret. But I haven’t been in there for a while.”

  She breaks out into a big smile.

  “We had a nickname for you. Broadway Baby.”

  Scott busts out laughing from the backseat. “Broadway Baby. That’s a pisser!”