“Thanks, but if I don’t wear this, my father will spend an entire evening lecturing me on the perils of dressing like common riffraff.”
“Sounds brutal. A whole lecture.” Dave laughs. “I thought you were ‘Austin Glass’, kisser of Mitzis and spiker of headmaster drinks?”
“I was trying something new,” I mutter. Now that I’m home, I’m attempting to get on my dad’s good side. Not that it has gotten me far. My father still doesn’t speak more than five words to me. Less ‘I’m disappointed, Austin.’ And more ‘Well done, boy.’ I’m not sure why I’m trying at all. “You know what? Fuck it. Let’s go.”
“I’ll drive,” Dave announces, dangling a set of keys with a Mustang key ring. “You can tell me about biology class on the way.”
Dave takes me to Target for the first time in my life. We throw some clothes in the cart, and, later, I change in the front seat of his car. We talk about his dad, the cop, and my dad, the lawyer. His dad takes him to baseball games and let him sip his beer once. My dad, I tell him, has seen me six times in the last twelve years, four of those were to pick me up from schools when I got expelled. At least one of those times was for doing more than ‘sipping’ beer.
“That sucks, man.”
“I guess. Thanks for the save, Dave.” I laugh and tuck my other new purchases in the locker once we arrive at school. No one is tittering at my clothes this time.
“I gotta get to class, but we can meet after school. I’ll introduce you to some people.”
“Cool,” I say and jerk a nod goodbye.
~*~
Jesse Chambroy makes my stomach lurch. I’m not sure if I want to throw up or smile back at him. He doesn’t look at me often, just stares at Dave a lot. I’m glad because it means I can count his freckles, and also because I don’t want to think about why he makes me feel that way when he smiles at me.
Jesse is a senior now, Dave a junior, and I’m just finishing my sophomore year. It’s a weird friendship combination, but it works. Somehow. Maybe because Jesse comes from money, too. So he and I understand things about each other, even though I’m not even sixteen yet and he’s nearly eighteen.
I don’t get what’s going on with him and Dave though. Maybe it’s just that they’re both jocks? Dave on the baseball team, Jesse a football player. Or maybe it’s that they’ve known each other since they were ten. For that matter, I don’t really get the three of us—Jesse, me and Dave. The only thing we all have in common is that we like fart jokes and Kung Fu movies. But for all our differences, we’ve been inseparable for more than a year, talking about baseball, lighting farts and making Jesse watch Seven Samurai over and over until he gives in and says that it’s the best movie ever made.
My father disapproves of Dave, but not of Jesse. Jesse’s family is wealthy and socially connected. So Jesse comes over often, hangs out in my room and makes my stomach feel like I’m riding a roller coaster. I try not to sniff him as we sit on my bed, flipping through his book of sketches.
“That’s a lot of blood,” I point out, wincing at the picture of dark shapes nestled in pools of blood. The bodies are of men, muscled, with stretched lips screaming in pain. I wiggle uncomfortably on the mattress.
“It’s my interpretation of Stonewall,” says Jesse, examining my face closely.
“Okay. What’s that?” I don’t get why he’s observing me with such force, but I feel weird. Hard, too.
“A riot that started the gay rights movement. So they didn’t have to worry about getting hassled or arrested for being gay.”
“I don’t get it. Why didn’t they just stop being gay?”
“Could you?”
“Me? I’m not a homo. You’re a homo, asshole.” I punch his arm and climb off the bed, flashing him an angry glare. I’m not angry, though. I know what angry feels like. This feels like fear. I’m afraid. I should be angry, but I’m afraid.
“Austin,” Jesse goes back to his drawing pad, lifting a page up and smiling softly at it. “I am a homo.”
Oh. What do I do with that? “Okay. I guess. I mean, you’re not trying to make out with me or something, right?”
“No.” He laughs, making my stomach do things it shouldn’t. “Are we still friends?”
“Best friends, dude. Best friends.” I force a smile. “You told Dave?”
He nods, laughing a little more. “Him I tried to make out with.”
“No shit? Your nose isn’t broken, dude.”