Chris shrugged and then Sully said, “Well, do I get to ask you the same question. Not that I’m sure I want to know the answer.”
Chris looked at Sully.
“I see Sully Reardon,” he said.
“And?”
“And that’s it,” Chris said. “I don’t know about you. I just know you write and I know your name. And from what I know you’re one of the good guys. I mean it’s lot of assholes at SV’s. But I don’t know you yet.” And then Chris added, “And you don’t know me. Remember that, Sully.”
Chris’s look was hard, like it had been at the Homecoming game last year right before he’d rammed his fist into a board. With those eyes he looked like a wolf. But the look passed. He was still serious, but not angry. “What you think is me and what really is...”
“I know, Chris,” Sully told him.
Chris didn’t know what else to say, so he just nodded.
“Dr.Powers!” Dean Howard said brightly rising from his desk to shake Mark Powers’ hand.
“Good afternoon. Good to see you. What can I do for you?”
Mark stood in front of Rick Howard looking only a little stupider than he actually felt. His hands were pressed together and Rick Howard regarded him hopefully, nearly joyfully. When Mark didn’t speak, because he couldn’t speak, the Dean added, “I hear that Chris and Sullivan are making excellent progress.”
“I have something very foolish to say,” Mark blurted out. “And you will have to forgive me for this. It’s not my foolishness. It’s really my friend’s, you see. I have actually been sitting in my car for the last half hour trying to phrase this and I can’t phrase it so I’m just going to say it. I’m going to say it.”
Rick Howard laughed now and his face crinkled up like a hound.
“I remember you now, Mark Powers,” he said. “You were on debate team my senior year. I remember you almost killed the first debate because you were...”
“Babbling.”
Rick looked for a better word, but then said, “I think that’s the word. Well, it doesn’t matter,” he shrugged pleasantly. “As I remember you ended up doing quite well by the end of the year, and apparently you’re doing well now.” He added, “Dr. Powers.”
“Yeah,” Mark shrugged, forgetting himself, and he never forgot himself. When he remembered himself he said, “I just wanted to say I’m not gay is all.”
Rick Howard raised his eyebrows.
Because Rick Howard didn’t know what else to say he said, “Yes.”
Now Mark wished he hadn’t come here at all. He wished the floor would open up and suck him in. Rick Howard with his sleeves rolled up over his hairy arms at his desk and the football trophy behind him, Rick Howard of the perpetual tan and the weathered skin could not have even... Sidney was so wrong.
“It’s just that we—I think—made a sort of connection the other day, and...”
Rick was cocking his head, looking at Mark more and more like.... like he was the football varsity senior and Mark was the stupid freshman.
“And, you see, I had a red necktie on. And you had a red necktie on and...”
Innocently, Rick Howard said, “I have a navy blue one on today.”
“A red necktie means you’re gay,” Mark blurted out.
“Really?”
“Says a friend of mine who is an idiot and I should not have listened to him and if two men have red neckties then it’s supposed to... I think I’ll leave now before I do any more damage and my face gets any redder.”
“Well, now Mark, I don’t think it’s possible for your face to get any redder. But you are hitting a new shade of purple.”
“I feel so stupid!” The words tumbled out of Mark’s mouth. He felt so... fourteen.
“Look,” Rick said, standing up on the other side of the desk and stretching. He did that stretch and rumpled his hair just like the confident athlete he had always been, just like the head of the class. Only now he was the head of the school, “Your friend, your silly friend, gave you a misunder-standing. Innocent. You checked it out. There’s nothing wrong with that. All right, Mark? Which, you haven’t given me permission to call you. Mark. I should call you Dr. Powers.”
“That’s silly. Mark’s fine.”
“Well, Rick’s fine for me. I mean,” Rick continued, “I think we did make a sort of connection. But not like that. So, whaddo you say we start over again?”
Rick thrust out his hand. The hand and the confident smile, the rumpled hair and winning look of the Dean of Saint Vitus, who he had called a homosexual. Holy God.
Mark felt ashamed as he reassembled his dignity and returned Rick Howard a hearty handshake.
“I mean, really, Sid!”
“No one told you to go over there, like a moron, and try to out the man!” Sidney was shouting over the phone. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s the doorbell. You know what a doorbell is?”
“Well, gee Mark, since you never bother to ring it whenever you come over, I’m starting to forget.”
“Ha ha you’re so funny.”
“I’d like to think so.”
Mark stuck the phone under his arm and went to answer the door.
“Sullivan,” he said.
“Hello, Dr. Powers. Is Chris home?”
“I thought your study day was tomorrow.”
“No, I just wanted to show Chris something. Sir, your armpit’s talking.”
Mark lifted a finger, picked up the phone and said, “I’ll call you back, Sid.”
Mark shrugged. “Friends.”
“Mom says they’re a blessing.”
“I wonder,” Mark murmured. “Chris is upstairs in his room. Do you have to rush back? We’re having dinner soon.”
Sully didn’t think Chris would really want him to hang around. That would be a little too weird. So he said, “I just stopped for a second. Thanks, though.”
Sully ran up the steps and crashed into Chris coming down them.
“Sully?” He looked surprised, but not unhappy.
Sully remembered why he was here, and said. “Wait. Look.”
He took off his backpack, reached into the mess of it, fidgeted and grunted because he could never find anything when he needed it, and then said, “Here. look at this.”
Chris’s face lit up and he said, “Shit, Sully!”
“I mean it’s only a B, and a low B, but I’ve never seen a B in a math class ever. I owe it all to you.”
“Chances are you owe a little of it to yourself too,” Chris grinned at him.
“But... I wanted to thank you. And... I wanted to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For what I said the other day about... you being a jock and all that and your life being perfect. Even though...” Sully looked around.
“Dad’s a clean freak. I’ m a clean freak. We look like Better Homes and Gardens. Guilty as charged,” Chris smirked. “Come upstairs for a minute, Sully. The stairwell’s no place to have a conversation.”
Sullivan, dragging his backpack behind him, followed Chris up the stairs.
“Look, I was just miffed is all,” Chris said. “You shouldn’t pay any attention to what I was like the other night. I know it’s not easy... being anyone. I just.... I get tired of what people think I am. People think I’m this and that, and that gets in the way of me being able to make real friends and actually get to know people I’d like to know.”
‘Because everyone thinks you… wouldn’t want to know them.”
“Well, I guess,” Chris said. “But, I get sick of the football team and just knowing five other people. I get sick of being expected to be this and that. And I don’t know if you noticed this, but my life isn’t that perfect. I watched my mom die when I was in fourth grade. I watched her die of cancer. I watched my dad have to pull it together and…. I just wish people would stop acting like that didn’t mean anything.”
“I’m sorry, Chris,” Sully said. “Look, I never knew my dad. If that makes you feel any better.”
Chris looked at him, mystified, but more amazed than angry.
“Why would that make me feel better?”
“Because then my life isn’t perfect either. I mean, my mom didn’t die, but she’s kind of a bitch, so that’s my tragedy. And I bet your mom loved you a lot. And your dad. He’s a really great guy. He’s the kind of guy my mom would go for. I’m not saying you have it all, but I don’t think we get to have it all. So you’ve got half of it, I’ll bet. And it’s not a bad half.”
Chris just looked at Sully for a long time.
“Please don’t hit me,” Sully said.
Chrs shook his head and just laughed harder and harder.
“Sully, stay for dinner!”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I do. We’ve got too much food and I hate leftovers. Why don’t you just stay for dinner.”
“I’d be like in the way. It’s family dinner and—”
“My family is me and my dad,” Chris gripped Sully’s shoulders. Chris Powers is holding my shoulders, and he shouted down the stair, “Dad, Sully’s staying for dinner.”
“Good!” Mark shouted up. “Too much food anyway!”
Downstairs Mark smiled to himself and took another plate from the cupboard. He had just heard something he didn’t even understand at first because he hadn’t heard it in a long time.
His son’s laughter.
THOSE ARE HIS FAVORITE TYPES, the ones who don’t look like they should be here, who probably feel like they shouldn’t. He sits there in the bar, sipping that same drink he’s been on for an hour, khaki pants, white shirt, blue tie, sleeves rolled up his arms, the light from the bar shining on the golden brown hair up and down his arms. He looks about thirty-five, but could be older. You can tell he shouldn’t be here. Almost. He looks good and preppy, proper, those are the best time. Sometimes you want a man who looks like a man. Call them johns, call them whatever the fuck you want to. He looks nice with his sandy brown hair, a little rumpled, a little part down the middle.
So you sit down two seats away from him. Just two seats.
He looks at you. And then looks at his drink. He looks nervous, like he has to be encouraged.
So you light the cigarette. You inhale, you blow it out, look a little fun, a little adventurous. Inhale, exhale out of your nose. Look at him. He looks at you again. You gesture.
You get up. You make a slight gesture with your head. He waits a moment and presses his fingers together, frowning. He hasn’t done this in awhile. He gets up and walks through the bar, sweating.
You are waiting for him.
“You got protection?” You say.
“Um hum,” he says.
You brush his hand, take his hand and lead him out the door.
“What do you do?” You ask him.
“Stuff,” he says.
“Stuff like?”
Something gives in his face.
“High school,” he says. “I work in a high school. Catholic.”
“You gotta name?”
He is thinking. He’s the sort that’s always afraid of being caught. He probably thinks he’s given too much away already. God he’s good looking. Looks like a real man.
The real man says, “My name’s Rick. Now let’s get out of here.”
The other man looks back at him, then he takes his hand and they leave the bar.