“We’re going to go to my house and get my clothes. I’m going to tell my parents I’m going to Gloria’s. They won’t see your truck cause you’ll be on the corner. And then we’re going to go back out your place and do whatever we want to. We’re going to make the walls blush, and then tomorrow you’ll drop me off at school in my uniform. That’s what we’re going to do. All right?”
Seth’s face was hot. He’d never felt like this in his life. He couldn’t even move he was so hot.
And then a car honked behind him reminding him the light was green, and his car shot out across Bancroft Street.
“That’s a yes?” she said.
Seth only nodded as his truck sped toward her house.
“This,” Mr. Dimler declared, “is Nineteenth Century. I,” he said unnecessarily, as he wrote his name out on the board, “am Mr. Dimler.”
There was sniggering, but Mason didn’t join in. No one needed to be told he was Mr. Dimler. He was the German teacher as well as the teacher for half the advanced history classes and had such an upright and mildly uptight bearing, such a precise manner of speaking that they referred to him as Herr Dimler when discussing him behind his back and after he passed they saluted him, standing at rigid attention before bursting into giggles.
The Them that did it was not the them that Mason was friends with. This was the rarefied world of the Advanced Class Kids. This was as white as it got. So white, Mason noticed looking around, that he was the only Black face to be seen.
But then he’d already expected that.
He also knew that they all knew each other. They were all on paper and yearbook, all gabbling to each other when he walked in.
Mason realized something.
He had never—ever—in seventeen years felt like he didn’t belong. But right now he felt acutely conscious of not belonging and he wasn’t sure if it was because he was Black or because this just wasn’t his group. None of his old friends were here. Balliol was in three A.P. classes, just like Mason, but he wasn’t here. Tommy, and Addison had never been AP material and the only AP class Sully was in was AP English, which was somewhere around the end of the day.
It had seemed like such a good idea, and now Herr Dimler was talking. There were boys from his homeroom last year and from his Latin class, boys he’d never been friends with. He paid a great deal of attention to Herr Dimler and to the map of Europe
“A great deal of this semester is going to be spent looking at Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. We’ll also be taking a look at England. We won’t stay there, but it’s important. In fact if you take history of the modern world you’ll see just how important it is. But can anyone tell me why England’s important now? In this part of the class?”
“Yes, Mark?”
“Because that’s where America comes from?”
No one sniggered. No one thought it was a stupid answer except Mason. He looked around guardedly. This wasn’t his turf. These were new people. But... they were stupider than he thought they’d be.
“Well, yes. That is true,” hedged Herr Dimler. “But that isn’t the major importance of England in this class, where we deal more with—”
“At this time the House of Hapsburg is ruling England—” Mason’s blurted out and then clapped a hand over his mouth.
Herr Dimler’s eyes fastened on Mason like a hawk.
“Continue,” he said.
With the other hand, Mason Darrow pulled the first hand from over his mouth.
“Well,” Mason said. “Because of the laws that Catholics couldn’t rule over England, the English had gone to the nearest Protestant relations of the royal family who turned out to be the Hapsburgs. During this time Victoria was Queen and she had married to... Prince Albert, I think, of... I can’t remember. Yes I can! Saxe-Coburg, I think. Also Victoria had a lot of kids and some of them would have been German royalty, I think. But I know some of them married into the Russian royal house.”
Dimler gave Mason a strange smile and said
“And you are?”
“Darrow,” Mason croaked. “Mason Darrow.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of you.”
That was news, and Mason wasn’t about to ask how he’d been heard of.
“How did you learn so much already?” Herr Dimler continued. “You read history?”
“I watch Jeopardy,” Mason said. The whole class erupted into laughter and Mason added, “You just have to pay attention and you pick things up.” He shrugged and sank down in his seat.
“Yes,” Dimler said with a nod, “I heard that about you too. That you... pick things up.”
Before Mason could wonder who the hell had told him these things about him, Dimler’s eyes with their delighted—and frightening—smile passed from him to Jack Rapp.
“Jonathan,” he said, “you’re musically erudite. Why don’t you tell the class about a few of the composers who were alive at the time.”
Jack smiled, sat up and began ticking off names, going into elaborate detail.
Mason breathed a sigh of relief. The spotlight was removed from him.
AP English was the last class of that first day, and when he walked in Sully who was sitting in front, motioned excitedly for him to sit in the empty chair beside him. All the seats around Sully were empty though the classroom was gradually filling. He looked three times excited to see Mason. He looked, in fact, as he waved his hands about, completely gay.
“I don’t know any of these people,” Sully hissed, his eyes almost bugging out like a cartoon’s. “It’s been like this all day, Mason. This is supposed to be the best year of our high school lives.”
“And what’s more,” Mason added. “Have you noticed that even though we don’t know these people they all know each other?”
Before Sully could answer him Mason said, “Damn,” and looked around.
“It’s these same people. All day. They were in my AP history class.”
“Which one?”
“That’s right. I’m taking two. Well, the answer is half of them are in one half and the other half is in… well, the other half. Those two bastards are in both!”
“I feel out of my league.”
“I don’t feel out of my league,” Mason said, honestly. “But I do feel as we’re going to spend this semester, if not this entire year, being very unpopular.”
Their teacher for this class was Mrs. Davis and she immediately began to talk about the beauty of the English language and its penultimate author, Shakespeare.
One of the kids said, “Shakespeare’s boring because he uses all that funny language,” and Mason was again reminded that these kids weren’t quite as smart as everyone said they were. What the hell was education all about?
“But that language is what makes it Shakespeare. You can’t dumb down the language just because seventeen years old don’t understand it.”
“I understand it,” Sully said out loud and, as Mrs. Davis turned to him, her large eyed blinking through large glasses, Mason had a flashback to this morning with Herr Dimler.
“I understand it,” Sully said again, this time more quietly. “But isn’t it valid to question if making the language more modern would make it more accessible?”
Sully turned to Mason for help, twisting in his seat.
“Like the King James Bible,” Mason said. When the woman looked at him he smiled pleasantly and said, “Darrow. Mason Darrow. There are newer translations of the king James that don’t compromise the style of the seventeenth century.”
“But the Bible existed before the King James,” Mrs. Davis said.
“That isn’t the soul translation. Shakespeare belongs to Elizabethan English.”
“Greek tragedy belongs to ancient Greece,” Sully said. “But we don’t leave it there.
“Look,” Sully said, sitting up, not caring any more. “I’m not saying that we should retranslate Shakespeare. In fact, I’m with you. I think that would be...”
“Stupid,” Mason supplied.
“Yes,” Sully said. “One of our problems now in America is that we want everything dumbed down for us and aren’t willing to work to understand things. But what I am saying is that one day we may have to retranslate Shakespeare. It’s been translated out of English into all sorts of languages all over the world. I’m not sure if it’s asking too much to translate it back into English again.”
Mason opened his mouth, but Mrs. Davis put up a hand, looking from one to the other.
“You two know each other?”
“We’re friends,” Mason said.
“Well... Mason Darrow. And.…”
“Sullivan Reardon,” Sully answered.
She looked around her class and then at the two boys again.
“Where have you been for the last three years?”
Sully and Mason answered together, “Remedial.”
As they were heading out of class with the last bell, they heard someone say, “Wait! Wait!”
Mason turned around first and it was Jack Rapp. Jonathan, as Herr Dimler had called him. He didn’t look like his usual self. He looked, in fact, a mess, books spilling out of his hands.
“Mason and Sully,” he said.
“Yes,” Mason said. Sully said nothing.
“I’m Jack Rapp.”
Well, of course he was. Editor of newspaper and yearbook, head of the swim team, probable valedictorian.
Mason nodded waiting for him to continue while the passing students pummeled them.
“You guys were really smart in there. And you’re in my history class. You’re like, really smart,” he told Mason.
“Thanks,” Mason said, not knowing what else to answer.
“Well, like, where have you been? I mean, I’ve seen you all around. I knew who you guys are. You... write,” he told Sully. “And you... you stopped Dave Riley last year when he had that gun. I remember all of that.”
This was shock to both of them, who didn’t think there was any reason Jack Rapp should know them at all.
“Well,” he went on. “I think this is going to be a pretty awesome year. I should let you guys go. I’ll see you tomorrow.
Mason felt rude for turning around and leaving because Jack was still looking at them with that goofy smile. But the meeting clearly seemed over for now as they headed down the main hall.
“I used to have the biggest crush on him,” Sully said. “Only I didn’t know what it was.” He smiled a little smile. “I’m just glad he knew me.”
Mason shrugged, swinging his bag over his shoulder.
“I’m just glad he didn’t ask us to join yearbook staff.”
“What I didn’t understand,” Mason said, loosening his tie as he threw himself onto Balliol’s bed, “is what Dimler meant by, he’d heard of me? It was like he was in the CIA or something.”
“Oh, come on,” Balliol said. Hidden in his easy chair while Swain walked past him and took up the remote control. “Saint Vitus has a Black population of about... I don’t know, two percent, and beside me and you and a few other people, most of them are destined to spend the rest of their lives in a ghetto siring children on six different women if they haven’t started already. Add to that the fact that the Darrows own half the shit in this county.... Of course he knows who you are. They’re a school with a name. their job is to turn out good students. You’ve got a Black face and a clever mind and you think they don’t know you?”
“Well,” Mason sat up. “I thought they’d know you—”
“Of course they do. The same way, for that matter, they know Sully.”
Sully looked up surprised.
“I don’t have a Black face and my mind is—”
“Incredibly clever,” Balliol told him. “Lots of dumb asses fall through the cracks at Saint Vitus every year, but when you screwed up in math Dean Howard got you a tutor because you were bright and someone probably told him to. You think he sits around checking the individual GPAs of every student?”
“They were impressed today,” Sully said. “No one’s ever been impressed by me,” he looked at Mason. “And it was like.... I felt smarter than those kids.”
“By accident of being in remedial math and science freshman year we’ve never seen those people,” Mason said. And it seems that for the last three years the school’s been waiting for us to join them.”
“Well, how does it feel to ascend?” Swain said.
“It’s not bad,” Sully told her while Mason shrugged.
“How does it feel to descend?” he asked her. “From the dizzying heights of Anglican boarding school to Saint Genevieve’s?”
“Well, I don’t have to stay overnight at Saint Genevieve. That’s good. And I didn’t have any friends at Trinity, so I don’t miss them. I’m still prettier than most girls so that makes it better. All in all I think it’ll be a good year.”
“I wonder how Chris is at his dorm?” said Sully.
“Are you going to call him?”
“I don’t have his number,” he shrugged. He didn’t have it yet. He said he’d call me once he was set up.”
“Well, the good thing is,” Swain said. “With you all being gay and Chris at a big old Catholic place like McCleiss, he’s not likely to pick up a girlfriend and surprise you with her at Thanksgiving.”
They looked at her.
“They talk about it all the time. It’s this phenomenon where boys or girls go off to school and they meet someone new and then, on Thanksgiving holiday, come back to the girlfriend, or boyfriend they left behind and break up with them.”
“I didn’t even know Chris and Sully were...” Balliol looked for the word.
“Together?” Mason supplied.
“That’s the word.”
“I don’t know what we are,” Sully said. “We’re not not together.”
“But you all are friends again.”
“Well, yes,” Sully said.
He turned to Swain. “And he could get a girlfriend. He might not be exclusively gay. Or he might find someone else. You never know.”
“Look, Sully,” Swain said. “I’ve seen Chris. He’s nearly as pretty as me. He could have had a girlfriend a long time ago, and he picked you. And while I’m sure there are lots of undercover homos running around at Catholic colleges I don’t think they’d be Chris’s type. You’re his type. And there isn’t anyone else like you.”
Sully gave a little smile.
“No,” Balliol said tonelessly, “I’d have to agree with Swain. There really is no one else like you.”
“Hello?”
“Sully?”
“Chris.”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
“Your new phone’s in. You’re all up and everything.”
“Up and everything.”
“What’s it like? College. I didn’t expect to hear from you right away. I mean, I told myself not to expect it right away. I know you’ve got stuff to do and everything.”
“Well, seems to me,” said Chris, once Sully had stopped his stream of chatter. “That the most important stuff to do was call you as soon as possible. I haven’t even called Dad yet.”
“Well, you’ve got to. Mr. Powers must be crazy right now wondering how you are.”
“I thought he would too. You know, when Dad dropped me off he was a bit like a cat. I sort of had to take his claws from the bedpost and send him home. He just kept asking if I’d be all right by myself. He was sort of cute.”
Yes, Sully reflected. Mr. Powers was sort of cute. No, he wasn’t exactly sure how he meant that.
“I’ve got a roommate,” Chris said.
“Well, yeah, I guess you would. How do you like that?”
Chris made a face Sully could nearly see over the phone. “I don’t. He’s all right and everything but still, it’s this person—he’s not here right now—who can walk into your room at any time, bring his friends in at any time. Who, when you go to sleep, you know he’s sleeping a few feet away. It really sucks. If it were an apartment that would be one thing. But the idea that someone is supposed to share your most personal space... Man it’s like you’re never alone. And then the whole freshmen orientation thing. That’s bullshit. I was king of the schoolyard a couple of months ago and now I feel like I’m in kindergarten all over again.”
“You sound real... Do you want me to come up there?”
“How can you come up here? You don’t have a car.”
“My friends have cars.”
“You’re in senior year. You should be living it up, not feeling sorry for me. And I make it sound bad. I mean, I’m leaving out all the good stuff. If I call you next week you won’t believe how great it is.”
Chris paused and said, “No. Don’t you come. I’ll come back the week after next. You come back and we’ll only have my room and my roommate. If I come to yours we’ll have your house, my house. A whole town.”
“I miss you. I miss Matt too. I miss you guys. We’re the new seniors. I’m think I’m going to be popular or something this year. Mason’s in my English class. Everyone was all amazed by us, like we were these brilliant whiz kids.”
“You are a whiz kid, Sully. You’re like the real deal, not just someone who grinds out A’s. That was me.”
“No it isn’t.”
“That’s everyone here around me. This week is so odd. I’m used to being the smart one and now everybody around me is the smart one. I can’t wait till I come back for a visit.”
“You’re just saying that now. I think what you said before is true. In a week or so you’ll wonder how you couldn’t have loved McCleiss.”
“I hope you’re right,” said Chris.
“Sully?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m glad we’re friends again and everything.”
“Me too.” And then he laughed.
“What?”
“That just sounds stupid. Like I should be saying more. I can’t tell you how good it is... to be us again.”
“I miss sleeping with you,” Chris whispered suddenly.
It sent a jolt through Sully.
“I miss... I miss that too,” he said.
“Why didn’t we... Before we left? I mean, neither one of us brought it up. But I thought about it. I mean I’m not in a hurry for it again, but... neither one of us brought it up. Are you past that? I mean, are we just friends now? Should I not have said what I just said?”
“No, Chris,” Sully said after a moment. “I feel the same way I always did. Only... It’s all new again, you know? So, I want us to start all over again. Not just...
“Being with you is claustrophobic,” Sully told him. “It’s really, really naked. You know. I want it but it scares me all at the same time. I want us to go into things really lightly. Is that okay?”
“That’s more than okay,” Chris said quickly. “I just didn’t know... My roommates got a girlfriend and I just didn’t know if I had someone or not who is… whatever we are.”
“Well,” Sully said, “tell him you’ve got a boyfriend.”
“Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll tell the whole school. That’d be a whole new me. From quarterback Chris Powers to Gay Chris Powers.”
“You couldn’t do that,” Sully said, seriously.
“Do what?”
“Start being Gay Chris Powers. You’re... I don’t think you’re gay enough. I don’t think you’d like being Gay Chris Powers. Why don’t you just let me show up one weekend and when your roommate sees us in bed together he’ll think.… Oh, something’s different about them.”
Chris burst out laughing.
“They’ll be appreciating my differences all the way to the Dean of Student Housing.”
The next day they were all eating lunch when Addison looked up and said, “Uh?”
Mason turned around and saw two different causes for uh. One was coming from the right in the person of Jack Rapp and the other was coming from the left with a dark goatee and an earring.
“Tommy?” Sully squeaked. But Jack Rapp and, with him, Ian Donaldson with uncut hair, baggy dress pants, and an ill fitting jacket, were looking at Tommy as well.
They all looked at him in his black clothes, black slacks, black jacket, black tie. Only Balliol said, “What the fuck happened to you?”
The goatee had been coming for some time, but the rest was new.
“Dwyer,” Don Pomeroy said, giving him the thumbs up. “Awesome earring.”
“Thanks—”
“No it isn’t!” snapped Balliol before anyone could say anything.
“It’s the new me,” Tommy said. “It’s my new expression.”
Mason, remember Jack and Ian and said, “What’s up?”
“Well,” Jack was saying, “we were talking.” He pointed to the table of people who Mason saw a lot in his AP classes and didn’t have a great deal of interest in. “We were talking and we were thinking.... We wanted to know if you and Sully would write for the school paper?”
“That rag?” Balliol said.
“You’ll have to excuse my friend,” Mason said smoothly. “He’s under stress.”
“The Lance was a rag before my father was dying of throat cancer,” Balliol said.
“Oh, my God!” Jack cried.
Balliol shrugged.
“Maybe you could write about your experiences?” Ian suggested pleasantly.
Balliol gave him such a malicious look he turned away.
“But actually,” Ian was saying dubiously, “We were looking for Tommy Dwyer too.”
“Oh?” Tommy said, scratching his goatee.
“Well, Father Walton had you in religion class last year and he was thinking that maybe you’d be really good in campus ministry. Our first meeting is tomorrow right after school. In his office.”
“Yeah,” said Jack. “I’m in it too. But this is all only if you guys want to come. I mean, think abut it,” Jack said, shrugging. And then waving, he left.
“I feel so left out,” Addison lamented, grinning as he played spider with his steepled fingertips.
Mason turned to Sully “You used to have a thing for him?” he pointed at the disappearing figure of Jack Rapp.
“He used to comb his hair, shave and wear contacts.”
“Well,” Mason sighed. “I suppose we’ve got to come up with a tactful way to say, no.”
“What about just saying no?” Balliol suggested bluntly.
“What about saying yes,” Sully said urgently. “God, maybe you don’t need anything on your list of student activities but I do, and for the last three years I haven’t really done anything. This could be the start of something.”
“A school paper?” Balliol said.
“But it is a paper, Bailey. And you’re right. It is a rag. But that’s because we’re not on it.” He looked at Mason.
Mason shrugged.
“We could write for it sometimes I guess,” he said.
“Tommy?” Addison turned to his friend. “You gonna do that campus ministry shit? It seems a little too tame for your sort of Jesusy-ness.”
But Tommy kept wanting to touch his arm and pulling his hand away.
Balliol exchanged glances with Addison and Addison stood up, lifting Tommy’s bag from his shoulder and taking off his jacket.
“Hey—” Tommy started.
But he was wearing a blue short sleeve and coming from the bottom of it was the end of—”
“A tattoo?” Mason said in a nonplussed voice.
Addison rolled up sleeve.
On Tommy Dwyer’s arm, under the ear that twinkled with a diamond stud was a cross, wrapped in a black dragon.
“Shit,” Balliol muttered.
Mason looked at Tommy and said, “This is going to be a very different year. Isn’t it?”