chapter eleven: SEX part two
They had been going to the optional school mass for about a week. Every few weeks there was a school mass that all the kids had to attend, but there were also optional masses in the chapel, around lunchtimes, twice a week. Father Sanders was the priest there. Chris had never gone, though he’d been thinking about it. He knew his dad went to Mass during the week sometimes at Saint Patrick’s with Seth McKenna’s father.
“You know, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to,” Matt told him. “I like coming. I don’t know, it makes me feel good. But I don’t think it’s for everybody.”
“No,” Chris said. “It makes me feel… good too. It’s nice. I really do like it. I always thought about it, going sometimes, but I never did.”
They were on their way to lunch now.
Chris admitted: “I guess that I thought that we wouldn’t really be accepted if we went. We’re not like Jason and all of them.”
“Campus Ministry kids?” Matt said. “Actually, I thought it was all kind of silly, but I don’t know. I don’t think so now. You know we never did get taught much about the Bible or anything. But now, listening to it and thinking...”
“What was that passage we read today?”
“The Gospel or the one before?”
“The one before.”
“I read it,” Matt said.
“I know,” said Chris.
“I mean, I have it. It was xeroxed,” he handed it to Chris.
“Um,” Chris murmured, and took it from him.
“What? Did it say something to you?”
They walked into the cafeteria and Sully was coming out with Balliol.
“Did we miss a beautiful mass?” Balliol said.
Matt raised an eyebrow and said, “I can never tell if you’re serious or not.”
“Oh, I think you can,” Balliol said with a smirk, and Sully said, “Are you going to be free this evening?”
“What’s that?” Chris said, looking up from the little piece of paper. “Oh.. I... I think there’s track tonight. I don’t think I’ll be up for anything.”
“You haven’t been up for anything for over a week,” Sully said.
“Yeah, well.” And then Chris said, irked, “You know that spring is a busy time for me.”
“That’s what the yearbook said,” Balliol told him with a smile, and before he could make a retort, Balliol said, “I’ll be at my locker,” and was gone.
Matt turned to Sully and asked him, “Why don’t you come to Mass sometimes?”
“Sully doesn’t believe in God,” Chris said more tartly than he’d intended.
“I never said that.”
Sully said, “I’m going to go. I’ll be late for class.”
“Bye, Sully,” Matt squeezed his shoulder as he was leaving.
“Can I say something?” Matt said.
“Say it.”
“It’s sort of like you’re blowing Sully off,” Matt told him as they got in line.
“No I’m not,” Chris said. But now he was blowing Matt off, reading the little xeroxed piece of paper.
Did the good, then, become death for me? Of course not! Sin, in order that it might be shown to be sin, worked death in me through the good, so that sin might become sinful beyond measure through the commandment.
We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin.
What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate.
Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good.
So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not.
For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.
Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.
So, then, I discover the principle that when I want to do right, evil is at hand.
For I take delight in the law of God, in my inner self,
but I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Therefore, I myself, with my mind, serve the law of God but, with my flesh, the law of sin.
There was a tap on Dean Howard’s office door and he said, “Come on in. Oh, Chris! Good to see you! What’s going on?”
“We had a study hall this hour, and.…” Chris shrugged.
“I have questions,” he said. “But... I don’t want to ask a priest. I don’t really know Father Sanders that well.”
“Are they...?” Rick frowned over this, “moral questions?”
“Sort of,” Chris said. “Can I close the door?”
“Yes,” Rick said in a hushed voice, and Chris got up and closed it, and then sat down again.
“What do you think about sex?” Chris said.
Rick’s eyes went out for a second, and then he put on a smile and told Chris, “Sex is a gift from God.”
“Yes?” Chris said. He needed a little more.
“Uh… it’s a gift from God that shouldn’t be wasted. Look, Chris, are you thinking of... Maybe you should talk to a priest.”
“No!” Chris’s voice was a little more shrill than he meant it to be. “I want to know... There are people here... at Saint Vitus... Uh... Is it wrong... if someone is gay?”
Rick looked like he’d been slapped in the face. Chris’s mouth was wide open, waiting for something to happen next. He actually felt as if he had been slapped in the face.
“Do you,” Rick began, stumbling over his words. “Do you mean... someone who thinks they like... boys?”
“People who have boyfriends,” Chris elaborated.
“Boyfriends?”
God, how stupid was this man?
“Who....” Chris tried to clarify. Something put a stopper in Chris’s throat. It was like he’d been jinxed, like he literally could not control his own vocal cords, and then he said, greatly distressed:
“Boys who have sex with boys,” and threw his hand over his mouth, turning red.
Rick let out something like a scream, his eyes still wide.
For a few moments the room seemed to be filled with the rapid thumping of both of their hearts, and then, finally, Rick said, in a reasonable voice: “Well, I’m not a priest. But I’m pretty sure that is wrong... Against God... Not Catholic. Not what good Christians do.” Rick couldn’t come up with enough synonyms for no.
“But do you think it’s wrong?” Chris said.
“Yes!” Rick almost shouted. “It’s definitely wrong, Chris.”
They were both quiet again. And then Chris got up, brushed his pants out and said, “Thank you, sir, I have to go now. I’ll be late for class.”
“I thought you had a study hall.”
“Yes, well,” Chris said, and began leaving anyway.
Rick was in a panic as Chris left. What had brought that on? He couldn’t tell Mark. Mark might make a million things out of it. Best to push it out of his memory. His heart was beating so fast, Rick thought it would come out of his chest.
“What’s that?” he said.
But Chris was already going down the hall back into the rest of the school, so he could not tell the Dean what he had been murmuring.
Miserable one that I am! Who will deliver me from this mortal body?
Mason closed the locker and stood there, between Corey and Charles, between his friends. Finally it was Chuck who said, “What’s with you, Mason?”
“He’s having,” Corey exchanged a grin with Chuck, “a deep moment.”
Mason stood there very quiet for a while and took a breath.
“Well,” Chuck said. Chuck was very thin and very black with round spectacles and a face that could be kind when it wanted to be, but could never help being a little snide too.
“I have to ask Corey a question,” Mason said. “We’ll be along to class in a second.”
Chuck opened his mouth, and then Corey waved him off. He shrugged and went in the direction of English class.
“What?” Corey said, expectantly.
Corey Mathers was taller and older looking than Mason, better built, green eyed and sandy skinned with reddish hair because his father was white. He was like an older brother next to Mason except that Mason was actually older. But Corey was more attractive, Mason acknowledged. He was older looking. He had a moustache. All these things Mason put out of his mind a great deal. But not now.
“I have a question.”
“Well, then say it Mason,” Corey said, not ungently.
“It’s sort of personal. I’m sort of embarrassed. Not about you, about me to ask it. I...”
Corey chuckled indulgently and rapped Mason on the side of the head, “Little niggah, if you don’t say it I’m going to run straight to English class and tell everyone that you just told me you were gay.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would if you don’t tell me.”
Mason took a deep breath and folded his fingers together.
“It is that bad, Mason?”
And then he said, “Are you gay?”
“No!” Mason shouted.
“It doesn’t matter—”
“I said, no already!”
“Okay,” Corey said.
“Are we friends?”
“Yes,” Corey said desperately.
“Well, I know. That’s why I’m talking to you because you won’t make fun of me. I could talk to Addison but...”
Corey was beginning to look put out.
“I hear you and Chuck talking about sex. You always talk and then when I show up you stop. And I think Addison and Seth do the same thing. I...”
Mason blew out his cheeks and said, “Let’s go to class.”
Corey rolled his eyes, closed his locker and walked beside him.
“You think I’m an idiot don’t you?” Mason said. “You all think I’m some kind of... kid. Cause I haven’t had sex.”
“What?” Corey looked put out, a little angry.
“You do,” Mason said. “Everyone does. I see how people get all quiet when I show up. You two do it. I just told you. Like there’s this great mytery I don’t know about. I’m not cool enough for. Well, you don’t have to rub it in my face.”
Corey looked perplexed. “I didn’t know you were trying to have sex.”
“I’m not! But... I’m supposed to be. Trying. I... everyone else is.”
“No, they aren’t.”
“You are?”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“That’s a lie,” Mason said. “You don’t want to talk about it with me,” Mason said. “Well, I’m sick of being the virgin. I’m sick of being the one who gets left out who....” Mason was sulky and silent. “We’re already late for class,” he said heaving a sigh as they came to the door.
“Mason,” Corey said.
Mason looked at him.
Corey tried to smile. He did smile, but he didn’t know what to say to Mason. He wasn’t a deep thinker. He just knew that Mason had it wrong. So that’s what he said.
“I don’t believe you,” Mason said walking into class where Mrs. O’Neill acknowledged the stragglers with a nod and Mason took his seat between Addison and Charles, Corey going to his seat in the back of the class.
Addison and Chuck nudged him at almost the exact same time.
He looked from one to the other, exasperated.
“What’s wrong with you?” Addison whispered.
“Today we will begin with ‘The Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock’. Page one-thirty-four. I need someone to read with feeling. Could that be,” Mrs. O’Neill’s eyes fell on Mason and she smiled, brightly: “Mr. Mason Darrow?”
He smiled crookedly and said in low tones, flipping to page one-thirty-four, “I can try.”
Beatifically Mrs. O’Neill said, “That’s all I ask.”
Mason was lobbed square in the back of his head by a paper wad. He shrugged. It could have been a mistake, and anyway he wasn’t giving into it. For once the lunch Dad had made was just too good.
And then he was lobbed in the head again.
Across from him, Chuck began sniggering and next to him, Balliol shrugged.
He turned around and saw Corey standing at the milk machine grinning, and then Mason got up and Corey ran out of the cafeteria.
“I know he doesn’t expect me to chase him,” Mason said.
But just a second later Corey came back and aimed a paper wad at him again. It just missed a lunch monitor and for one brief second Mason and Corey were mutually horrified until Mr. Damasco walked on, oblivious of his near brush with a paper wad.
And then Mason leapt after Corey out of the cafeteria down the hall with his secret weapon, his book bag. Corey was faster, Corey was taller, but he was also clumsier out of the swimming pool and as they swerved past Chris and Matt Mercurio who had opened his mouth to say something, Mason’s bag swung out and by its handle he caught Corey around the waist and he fell, and then Mason caught him by the arm crying, “Shit, you’re heavy!”
He fell down on his butt by the lockers, laughing, “You weren’t supposed to fall.”
Corey sat down and punched him in shoulder, “You weren’t supposed to lasso me. Do I look like a bull?”
“Sometimes.” Mason held up a finger. “Punch me again.. and you’ll pay. I don’t know how you’ll pay,” he added, “But I’ll think of something.”
“I know you will.”
Seth McKenna came walking past and looked down, “What’s up, guys?”
“You,” Mason told him. “We’re sitting.”
Seth smirked at him and then walked into the cafeteria.
“You should have gone to Wendy’s,” Corey told him. “All the food’s bad in there today.”
“What can you do?” Seth shrugged and disappeared.
“We just told him what he could do,” Mason murmured. “Go to Wendy’s.”
“I love Wendy’s,” Corey said. “But I hate their fries.”
“Their fries are shit, and I still don’t really know what the fuck a Frosty is.”
“It’s a chocolate shake.”
“No it’s not,” Mason said.
“Well what is it?”
“I just told you. I don’t know.” Mason added. “Niggah!”
When they got finished laughing, Corey said, “So, that whole thing yesterday...”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do.”
“Yes, I do,” Mason agreed. “But when I say no I don’t that’s your cue to pretend right along with me that it didn’t happen.”
“But it did happen.”
“When the hell did you get so obsessed about the truth?” Mason demanded.
Corey just looked at him. It was that horrible, horrible green eyed gaze over a grin that made him look like a dragon about to eat him for lunch.
“Well, it’s just,” Mason said at last. Balliol was probably the only other person who made him stumble over his words.
“I don’t know anything about it... Sex. I... this is embarrassing.”
“Well, you already embarrassed me yesterday.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did,” Corey said. “A little.”
“Why?” Mason said. “Why’s it so embarrassing?”
“I don’t want to talk about that.”
“You talk about it with Chuck. I heard the two of you. Chuck going on about... Well, I don’t even want to talk about that. And you, I heard you tell that story about... You and your girlfriend and passing out on top of—”
Corey clamped a hand over Mason’s mouth.
“Nobody heard,” Mason said, removing Corey’s hand. “And I was quieter than you.”
At last Corey said: “It’s different. With Chuck. Talking to him about stuff.”
“Oh, Because I’m a virgin. Everyone thinks—”
“No,” Corey interrupted. “Because you’re you.”
“If being me means that I... don’t get to hear the dirty stuff, or do the dirty stuff, then who cares?”
“People respect you. I respect you. Talking to you... If I’m talking to Chuck then that’s just chit chat. But if I’m talking to you... I feel like you’re listening, and that’s different, telling you things. I feel like I’m actually talking about something.” Corey added: “You’re my friend.”
“So is Chuck.”
“It isn’t the same,” Corey said.
“I always thought it was,” Mason said quietly.
“Do you know if I go over to Magdalene I get on with all the girls really great?” Mason said. “They all really... respect me. Treat me like a friend, or a brother.”
“That’s true,” Corey allowed. “I never saw someone get on so easy with girls. You’re a real magnet.”
“No, I’m not!” Mason exploded. “That’s my fucking point! They all like me so much but no one ever likes me that way. I’ll be a virgin for the rest of my life. I mean, I don’t mind that. I really don’t. It’s not like I have to have sex, not really It’s just...”
“Just what?”
“You’ve been with girls.”
“I’ve been with a girl,” Corey said.
“Yes,” Mason allowed. “But... You’ve been... inside of her. You’ve had sex with someone and... You have to take your clothes off for that.”
Corey frowned at him and then said, “You don’t have to, but you—”
“You have someone that wants you, that thinks you’re desirable, that wants you inside of them, wants to touch you, wants you to touch them. I don’t think anybody will ever think of me that way. I don’t think anyone will ever want me. Or touch me. Ever.”
Corey looked at him, amazed, and said, “You really think that?”
“Yes,” Mason said, “sometimes. Everyone... Addison, you, Seth... Well, who knows who else, has someone. Even if it doesn’t last, or even if it’s like Seth who has lots of someones. I don’t know what it is about me. I think that a lot of times I must really be untouchable.”
“So that’s what this is all about,” Corey said after a long time.
“Don’t tell anyone,” Mason began, and then he said, “I don’t really care who you tell.”
“Mason,” Corey said. “You do know that having sex with someone isn’t the same as loving them.”
“We have an English class to get to,” Mason said. “I gotta go to my locker.”
“I gotta pee.”
“And I know,” Mason said, “that sex is not the same thing as love. I’m not stupid. But it is the same thing as being wanted. Really wanted.”
And then he went to his locker
Corey raised an eyebrow and murmured, “No, it isn’t, Mason.”
CHRIS WAS ACTING ODD, the way he was a lot these days, when he opened the door for Sully.
“Is your dad in?” Sully said, closing the door behind him.
“No.”
Sully moved for Chris and nearly fell over. He came for Chris, and Chris pulled away.
“What?” Sully said. “Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Well, then,” Sully reached for him again, but Chris moved away.
“What the? What are you doing? What’s up? You’ve been weird all week. No,” Sully tilted his head. “You’ve been weird for a while.”
Apropos to absolutely nothing, Chris said, “Do you want to watch TV?”
“No,” Sully said. “I want to make out. I want to be with you.”
“Don’t say that,” Chris said, rapidly.
“Are you nuts?”
“No,” Chris said.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No,” Chris said. Then, “Yes. We both did. It’s all wrong. Don’t you feel how wrong it is?”
“No,” Sully said. “I don’t. I’m gay, and you’re gay—”
“Don’t say that,” Chris was flustered. “It’s... Look, I’m going to college in a few months, and you’re going to be a senior and we have to move on. I’ve been hearing that a lot of people fall into this at this time of life. You have to understand that—”
“You’re nuts.”
‘No, I’m not.”
“I love you.”
“Not really,” Chris tried to explain.
“Yes,” Sully said. “Really. I love you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I love you.”
“Don’t tell me you love me.”
“I love you.”
And then, just like that, Chris punched Sully in the jaw. He did it so hard, Sully’s jaw was numb, and he stood there, his jaw ringing with the numbness while Chris said, “You don’t understand. You don’t believe in God. You don’t care about stuff like that. It’s different for me. I know what’s right and what’s wrong.
He added while Sully rubbed his cheek, “I don’t think... I don’t think we can be friends. I wanted us to be just friends, but ... I don’t think it’s a possibility anymore. I think you should leave.”
Sullivan Reardon just stood there, his jaw still aching.
And then Chris’s hands were on him, in his chest, pushing him toward the door, turning him around telling him, “You gotta go, Sully. You gotta get out. You gotta go.”
And just like that the door was locking behind Sully and he was outside, as if he’d never come in.
He almost wasn’t sure if it had actually happened, but then his jaw still hurt, and his eyes ached, so he knew that it had.