The World of Normal Boys Page 16

  “Could I go to the water fountain? My throat is really dry.”

  “I’ll get you a cup from the cooler.” Mr. Cortez slides off his desk; Robin’s eyes catch his crotch bunching up with fabric and the shifting curves beneath. When he stands, the excess smoothes away. He watches the tension of Mr. Cortez’s ass and the back of his thighs as he walks out the door; Mr. Cortez’s legs are probably covered in tinier versions of the hairs on his head. He flushes with the guilt of staring, but Mr. Cortez’s trousers are snug against his skin—he must know, Robin reasons, that people will look at him this way, imagining his body beneath the clothes. Does Mr. Cortez imagine that Robin would be looking, or does he only expect girls to look?

  You are thinking about guys too much, he tells himself, with a mounting sense of terror. You are turning into a major queer.

  “The question I have for you is,” Mr. Cortez says, suddenly there again, handing a waxy paper drinking cup to Robin, “if you think of yourself as seeing the world differently from everyone else, do you think you can participate in the required activities of this school?” He shakes his head. “That probably sounds like I’m criticizing—tet me try again. Is there any way to redeem your experiences here at Greenlawn High?” He frowns, then exclaims, “Is it all just a bum trip for you?”

  Robin downs the water in one gulp, savoring the cool path of the liquid traveling to his stomach like in an X-ray film from health class. “I don’t have much of a choice, right?”

  Mr. Cortez reaches for a weighty book on his shelf. Robin can’t make out the title. “There are other options,” Mr. Cortez says, opening the cover and scanning the contents page with his finger. “There are private schools, schools with gifted programs that surpass what we can offer you here even in honors classes.”

  “Gifted? That sounds like retarded to me.”

  “No, no, it’s the opposite.” He pulls a pencil from under a stack of papers and writes something quickly on a yellow pad. “You’re bright, Robin. No question about that. You were put up a grade when you were younger, if I’m not mistaken.” He scans a form on his desk.

  “They moved me up from third to fourth,” Robin says, returning to last night’s flash of heavy memory: the struggle of making all new friends after being singled out. Jimmy Woods saying, We don’t need no faggots in fourth grade.

  “Your grades have slipped since last year—especially in science and math—but you’re bright.”

  “So I’m supposed to go to another school?” It’s a thought both attractive and terrifying: no Long Dong Danniman, but no Scott either.

  “We’d have to do some research,” Mr. Cortez says, flipping pages. “I have a couple of ideas, schools that don’t cost much but focus more on the humanities, a kind of precollege curriculum.”

  Robin never thinks about college. College is just something his father brings up when he’s trying to impress other grown-ups about his children. “I don’t know,” he says.

  “Let’s give it some thought. I’ll call your parents in for a conference.”

  “No!” Robin nearly shouts. “They’ve got other things on their minds right now. Don’t bother them about me.”

  “We’ll just have a little rap session, maybe all of us together.”

  “Oh, brother,” Robin says under his breath.

  “Hey, buddy,” Mr. Cortez says, walking behind Robin and laying his hand on his shoulder. Robin inhales at the touch, shuts his eyes, sees a big canyon laid out in front of him for no reason he can understand: a yellow sky pressing down upon purple-brown rock formations, fading away to a cluttered, threatening horizon. A beautiful, eerie landscape. “Don’t sweat it. This might be a good dialogue to have. Keep the options open.” He squeezes Robin’s shoulder and walks back around to where Robin can see the resolution on his face.

  “OK,” he says. “But tell them it was your idea, not mine.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Promise? I’m already in enough trouble.”

  “I wouldn’t lie to you, Robin. It’s bad karma.” He smiles and extends his hand. It takes Robin a beat to realize he’s supposed to shake it. He reaches out. The grip is strong, the shake very man-to-man. Robin lets go first.

  In the cafeteria, he takes a green plastic tray and slides it along the silver railing toward the steam trays, the cafeteria ladies with plastic caps and gloves, the shiny, wobbly puddings and fruit cups. The conversation with Cortez has left him dazed: somehow he escaped what felt like a very close call—a near revelation of what really happened with Scott yesterday—only to skid without warning into unknown territory. He feels tricked, conspired against. Did he really agree to consider private school? What kind of place would it be—a boarding school in New England filled with preppies who spoke through clenched jaws? Catholic school, classes taught by priests? Military academy? As much as he hates Greenlawn, every alternative seems awful. He understands what Nana means when she says, The evil you know is better than the evil you don’t know.

  The lady at the register frowns at him. “I said one-fifty.”

  “Give me a cookie,” Robin says. He walks out of the line, staring at the unidentifiable brown stew sloshing on his plate against a soft pile of mashed potatoes.

  “Hey, man, what’s up?”

  Scott is bouncing on his toes, staring intently at him.

  “Hey, Scott.” His mouth is suddenly as dry as toast.

  “So let me guess,” Scott says knowingly. “You got busted by Pintack.”

  “Umm, no, I never even saw Pintack,” he says. “Mr. Cortez pulled me out of gym class. He told me I have detention for a week.”

  “Me, too, but no fucking way I’m going.” He rips open a bag of M&Ms and empties half of it into his mouth. Robin is sure that they are being stared at; anyone could tell that they’re an odd pair—Robin in his orange-and-yellow-striped knit shirt, his school lunch piled neatly in front of him; Scott in the same dingy sweatjacket he wore the day before, the hood bunched up around his neck, looking like he’s ready to ditch again. “You should just sign in and leave and then come back after an hour. That’s what I always do.”

  “Who taught you that trick?” Robin asks, remembering what Victoria told him about Scott’s friendship with Todd.

  “I got a million of ’em.” Scott picks the chocolate chip cookie off Robin’s plate and takes a bite from it. “I’ll see you later, man. If you want to cut, meet me outside the cafeteria before it starts.”

  “OK,” he says eagerly, then is gripped by the image of his mother’s angry face. “But wait. I can’t. I mean ... I just can’t.”

  “It’s easy. After you sign in, and before they make the seating chart, you go to the bathroom. They’ll try to hassle you but they can’t make you hold it in.”

  Scott grabs Robin’s cookie again and breaks off a piece. He tosses it in the air; Robin watches his neck arch back and his mouth open up for the catch, remembers Scott’s neck crushed against his shoulder, his mouth pressed wet against him. His dick starts getting hard; he lowers his tray to cover up.

  Scott’s eyes catch sight of something; his face pales a shade. Robin turns to check over his shoulder. Todd Spicer walks toward them, his arm draped over a girl. Robin has the sudden urge to flee. His conversation with Victoria last night speeds through his mind like an express train’s whistle while everything that happens next plays out in terrible slow-motion. Todd notices Robin, and his face softens until he catches sight of Scott—then his expression turns steely, almost defensive. Robin understands that he is in the middle of something, but he doesn’t understand what. Todd squeezes his girl tighter, holds Robin’s gaze, and says, “Hey, Robin, how’ve you been?” in a tone that is downright chummy.

  “I’ve been cool,” Robin hears himself say as Todd ignores Scott and walks on by.

  Robin can’t make himself look at Scott; Todd’s attention has stricken him with guilt, as though the two of them have ganged up against Scott.

  Scott mutters, “Later,” and sl
ips between a row of crowded tables. Robin feebly calls his name, but Scott disappears out the door. Robin stares down at the unappetizing food on his tray, scoops the broken cookie off his plate, and dumps the rest of it in the garbage.

  When the last bell rings Robin makes his way to his locker. He puts away his science book and takes out East of Eden and his social studies book and tries to remember what other homework he’s supposed to be doing tonight. He stares at the darkness inside his locker, while the end-of-the-day buzz goes on around him. Detention looms, the cold, steely slam of lockers punctuating his dread. Just the sound of it is ominous: central detention. He’s a freshman who hasn’t been in trouble so far; he doesn’t know what to expect. He imagines walking in to find that everyone is looking at him, glad that he’s there, glad to see him brought down a notch. He’s also not sure he’s got enough nerve to cut out with Scott. Yesterday was more than enough trouble for a while, and he is supposed to go to the hospital after detention—if something went wrong and he wasn’t waiting for his mother at four o’clock when she showed up ... He shudders with the possibility that she’d slap him again.

  The idea that he and Scott could get away together, maybe hang out for the hour before he has to rush back to get picked up by his mother in front of the school—when he thinks of that, he feels almost hungry. He’s aware of his own brain working in ways it never used to: a switch has been flicked and he is now a stranger to himself—a stranger he has not yet decided he wants to be. He looks at one of the pictures taped to the inside of his locker: Natalie Wood as Maria in West Side Story. She’s got a dreamy look on her face, thinking of the new guy in her life, the wrong guy, and more than ever he understands her. Right before the dance at the gym, right before she meets Tony, she complains because the dress she has to wear is white, too pure for such a big occasion. She pleads for a chance to taste what life has to offer; she wants to take risks. And then what she wants comes to her. He’s been waiting for the future, too, for that first thrilling taste: the music slowing down, the kiss in delicious slow-motion, the colored lights a misty halo. Yesterday, with Scott at The Bird, he got a taste—but it was the taste of smoke and spit, the smell of musty concrete and birdshit. There was the seismic thrill of kissing but also the dismal silence that followed, the aloneness.

  He checks a clock on the wall. It’s one minute past three. He’s supposed to be at the cafeteria for detention by 3:05, and has no desire to get there even a minute early. He ducks into a bathroom, empty inside except for a pair of legs in one toilet stall. He hears the paper unraveling, the weak little rip and the crinkling of someone wiping his butt—he feels perverted for listening. At the urinal he pretends to pee even though he doesn’t have to. He flushes so that the other guy won’t know that he’s not peeing, though he feels doubly perverted for thinking that the other guy might be listening to him, too. Being in this silent bathroom with a strange guy isn’t like being at home, peeing with Jackson at the same time.

  The door opens and Scott enters, telegraphing his agitation. “What are you doing? We go to central to sign in first; then we go to the bathroom. And then ditch—that’s the plan.” He’s bouncing on his toes impatiently. “Cortez isn’t gonna cut us a lot of slack.”

  “Mr. Cortez is at detention?” Robin asks.

  “Yeah, he’s the monitor.”

  “Oh, great,” Robin says, dropping his shoulders, defeated. “I can’t cut if Cortez is the monitor. He knows me.”

  “That’s bullshit, man. I knew you would cop out.”

  “I can’t, Scott. I’ll get in even more trouble.” He hates this conflict. Strike one: Todd Spicer smiling at him and blowing right past Scott without a word. Strike two: he comes in the bathroom too early. Strike three: he refuses to cut detention.

  The toilet flushes. The thick-necked jock who emerges from the stall is someone Robin recognizes from gym class, Greg something. He looks at the two of them like they are a joke.

  Robin is intimidated by the sneer, but Scott snaps. “What are you looking at?”

  “Couple-a losers,” Greg says cockily, passing by the sinks without washing his hands. He stares them down as he leaves.

  “Eat me,” Scott barks. Robin waits for Greg to charge back in, but it doesn’t happen. Scott makes it seem so easy, like these guys aren’t bullies, just bothersome. “Look, man, you can play teacher’s pet but no way am I staying there.”

  Robin squeezes his eyes tight for a moment, trying to think. “I can’t.” He hopes the plea in his voice will make Scott understand that it’s out of his hands.

  “I thought you were going to be cooler,” Scott says flatly.

  Robin tries one final call. “So do you want to hang out again sometime, maybe this weekend?” But Scott is gone. The pinewood door, gouged and scrawled upon, swings shut. Robin clenches his jaw to keep from shrieking, spins around, and sends the two books in his hands flying into the opposite wall. One ka-booms against the towel dispenser and falls to the floor, leaving behind a dent. In the mirror, he sees an unfamiliar mania in his eyes. His face looks like someone in the middle of a fight—only he’s alone. He’s angry with himself. He can’t even be mad at Scott—why should Scott want to hang out with a mama’s boy like him? Scott knows something he doesn’t—how to pass through the world swiftly, how to get past every guy who calls you a loser and every teacher or guidance counselor who wants you to sign your name to your own punishment. What does he have to offer Scott?

  He picks up his books and tucks them under his arm and heads for the cafeteria. He doesn’t know what else to do. Scott is gone, and his mother is coming in an hour and she expects him to be here. She’s going to take him to the hospital. He tries to clear out all thoughts of Scott and remember this one fact: Jackson is really sick, and that should be the only thing on his mind.

  The hour goes by slowly. Robin tries to concentrate on his reading but ! he feels like he’s being watched. There are a dozen other kids in there. Talking is not allowed. He sits at the end of a table, a few seats down from two black girls named Jocelyn and Monica who slide notes back and forth across the table when Mr. Cortez isn’t looking. Jocelyn has a comb sticking out from the back of her trimmed afro. On her notebook, in big magic marker capital letters, she has written, If you’re not part of the solution you’re part of the problem. She catches him glancing over, reading the slogan, and puffs out her lips in a big frown that makes him think he must be part of the problem, whatever it is.

  At the next table, facing him, is Seth Carter from his gym class. On the way in, Seth, who never has anything friendly to say to him, said, “I got busted cheating on my math exam. What did you do?”

  “I ditched all day.”

  “Cool,” Seth said, and for the first time Robin wondered if detention might actually gain him some respect. Robin watched Seth walk to a seat, watched his butt move. As Seth sat down Robin looked at his crotch, studied the movement underneath the denim, the soft curves among the folds.

  Seth doodles on a paper bag book cover, writing the names of bands in fancy album cover designs: Led Zep, Yes, Blue Oyster Cult. The tip of his tongue edges out over his lower lip as he concentrates. Robin looks up at him every few minutes. Their eyes meet once and Robin freezes his face into a smile. Seth looks around, puzzled, as if Robin might be looking at someone else. Robin looks away to hide the flare of his desire and the embarrassment that seems so closely tied to it. He reminds himself that only yesterday Seth’s friends were calling him “girlie” in the locker room.

  At the end of the hour, he looks around for Scott in the hall, wondering why he hasn’t shown up again, getting depressed by the idea that Scott is really mad at him and won’t talk to him again. He makes his way to the front of the building, past the displayed senior class paintings, all of which look like visual tricks to make your eyes go dizzy—circles inside of circles, black-and-white checks that seem to vibrate on the canvas, lines in V formation that curve if you stare at them too intensely. His mother dismi
ssed it all with a wave of her hand once. “I always knew Op Art was an illegitimate movement, and here’s the proof: it can be imitated by any adolescent with a palette and a ruler.”

  Outside, the sky is a shimmery, cold purple. His mother is waiting in her car; she beeps when she sees him. The car stinks of cigarette smoke. Dorothy has her hair in a kerchief. Beneath her rabbit fur coat he can see that she’s wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, as if she had hurried getting dressed.

  “What have you been doing?” Robin asks her.

  “Sleeping.”

  “During the day? Aren’t we going to the hospital?”

  “After dinner. I have a monstrous headache,” she says. “I spent half the day arguing with your father, with my mother, with Stan, and I spent the other half sleeping. I nearly forgot to come get you.”

  As they pull away, Robin imagines the afternoon the way he would have wanted it: he ditches detention with Scott; his mother, meanwhile, oversleeps and so she never finds out that he wasn’t here at four. He could be with Scott right now—maybe back at The Bird, maybe doing what they were doing last time. Then the rigid half of his mind interrupts: even if his mother had overslept, there’s no way he would have known. He sees himself kissing Scott but not enjoying it, too full of worry to let it go far. He brings himself back to reality, to the quiet Greenlawn streets stretched outside the car, women and children raking leaves, a postal truck stopped at a corner mailbox. He sighs, lets his eyes glaze over. What good does it do to fantasize a scenario where you not only get what you want, but it comes risk-free? Life is never as perfect as you can make it in a daydream.

  Nana Rena cooks them a big dinner—pot roast with potatoes and carrots and chunks of onions in a salty brown gravy, bread dumplings, peas with butter melted on top. Robin eats even though he isn’t hungry, just to make Nana happy. He pretends he isn’t listening to Uncle Stan, who is talking about how the country is headed for disaster under Jimmy Carter’s “peanut-brained lack of leadership.” Clark and Dorothy are strangely silent throughout; their eyes never meet. Robin guesses that whatever they were fighting about has yet to be resolved. After dinner, Ruby hugs Nana until she has to be pried off, and breaks into tears as Nana packs her bags and leaves. Then Clark makes them all wash up and get in the car.