Jumpstart the World (5 page)

Then I decided to shut up fast, before he asked me how I
knew. Why I was suddenly so sure. Because there was no good way to answer that question in front of Frank. I was steering us into dangerous territory.

I guess it was too late not to admit it. If I were gay, I couldn’t possibly like being around Frank as much as I did.

Sometimes you want not to know something but it’s so right in your face. It would just be pathetic to keep pretending.

Just then Molly came back into the room. And that shifted the conversation into more of a small-talky kind of territory. Because I didn’t know Molly as well. I didn’t even want to.

“You see how he’s kicking my butt here?” I asked Molly.

“Frank is good with words.”

“Words are important,” Frank said. “Words are the tools we use for making peace with the world.”

I lost that game by almost two hundred points.

Then again, I can’t say I wasn’t warned.

On my birthday, I got home from school to find a bag sitting in front of my door. One of those big paper shopping bags with the cord handles. Inside was a box wrapped in gift paper, and a clear-plastic restaurant take-out container with an enormous slice of chocolate cake. Maybe it was two slices of cake, with no slice in between. It had dark chocolate frosting and curls of shaved chocolate on top, and beside it were a bunch of candles and a cardboard book of matches.

I brought the bag inside.

I figured my mother had someone courier it over, so she could feel good about herself while sunning on the main deck in the Caribbean.

I opened the card.

“Elle,” it said. “You can come over if you want us to sing ‘Happy Birthday,’ but we’re lousy singers. Be forewarned. Your neighbors, Molly and Frank.”

Then I didn’t know what to feel about that. I wanted to feel like it was precious and important because it was from Frank. But it wasn’t, really. It was from Molly and Frank. Which made it sort of a whole different thing.

I opened the cake box and counted the candles. Sixteen. I stuck them in the cake one by one.

Then I opened the present.

It was a stuffed cat. It was creamy white, with longish fur, and satin on the inside of its ears. It was kind of dumb, but sweet. I thought, That’s a nice idea, anyway. A cat I can hug. But it’s just a bunch of stuffing. I’m not really going to hug a stuffed animal. I’m really just going to say thanks and throw it in the corner.

Then I pulled it in close and hugged it. And I started to cry. Not just get teary. Really cry. It was like the dam broke. I cried all over my stuffed cat.

I didn’t even know if I had Kleenex, so I had to blow my nose on toilet paper.

I lit the candles and blew them out. But I didn’t know what to wish for. I had no idea what I wanted. I just knew this wasn’t it.

I went to bed early, hugging my stuffed cat.

Happy birthday to me.

FOUR
I Don’t Even Know What a Trans Man Is

I
woke up in the middle of the night that night, and Toto was rubbing all over me. Rubbing up against my back, and then my shoulder, and then my face. First with his head, and then all the way down the side of his body, like he was just desperate to get through to somebody.

Anybody.

I held really still, because I knew the first time I moved any muscle at all, he’d be gone.

Poor Toto, I thought. You really want to be friends. I know you do. You’re just too scared to do anything about it. You just can’t admit, in the hard light of day, how much you need somebody.

“Poor Toto,” I said out loud. I hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

He skittered off the bed. I heard him hit the bedroom floor, and I lay there listening to his little kitty footsteps galloping away.

*    *    *

When I got to school that day, The Bobs were waiting for me at my locker. Smiling too widely. For some weird reason, I got this immediate hit that they were going to ask me a favor. Not that I’m psychic or anything. I’m totally not. But you could just sort of smell the setup.

“Hey,” Bob said.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” Bobby said.

“Hey yet again.” An awkward silence. After which I said, “Well, now, why not just spit it out? Whatever it is. Just get it off your chest.”

I was being slightly sarcastic. But not in a mean way. I liked The Bobs. And I think they knew it. I got the sense that they looked right through my crusty exterior to the part of me that enjoyed their company. It made me uneasy, but oh well.

“Okay,” Bobby said. “It’s like this.” I was gathering that Bobby—Little Bob—was pretty much the spokesman. The guy who considered himself longer on people skills. “We totally understand why that party idea sort of scared you. Probably you were picturing, like, two hundred rowdy teenagers trashing your place. But we don’t even know two hundred kids. We know, like … us. You know. Shane and Wilbur and Annabel and us and now you. So, that’s all it would be. Just us. Just sort of putting on a little music and maybe drinking a beer and hanging out. Very mellow.”

They had these looks on their faces. Like they were watching a teacher grade an important test that they knew they might’ve flunked.

“Of course,” I said. “Of course you guys can come over.
Anytime. I’m really sorry if that came off wrong. That ‘I need to think about it’ thing. I have no idea why I always do that. I act like I don’t really want friends. Or need them. And I have no idea why.” And suddenly I found myself noticing more than ever that these guys were good candidates in that department. Something almost suspiciously like gratitude. For The Bobs. Don’t tell anybody.

They looked at each other briefly, their faces changing. Like a dam breaking and spilling out pure joy. Big Bob spoke up for a change. “That is so cool. Thank you. We just don’t have that many places we can go. You know?”

Bobby said, “Bob’s parents are total, insane homophobes, and my mother is so weird she just hovers the whole time anybody is over, or actually even when I’m home alone, really. There’s just no privacy. We just never get any privacy.”

Wow. The Bobs totally cared for each other. Young love.

Just for a moment, I was hit with a deep pang of envy.

I said, “I’m sorry if I ever acted like it wasn’t a good idea. I’m just not long on people skills, you know? And I don’t usually have tons of company over. But, anyway, a party is a good thing.”

I wrote down my address.

Shane caught up with me in the hall about two minutes later. Before I could even navigate between the big-talk-about-the-small-party and my first class.

She caught up with me from behind and said, “Well, the world is certainly filled with smiling Bobs this morning, isn’t it?”

“Word travels,” I said.

“That was very nice of you,” she said.

“Occasionally I can be nice. Usually when caught off guard.”

She let that one go by. “Nice to know you’re not phobic when it comes to the homo of others,” she said.

“I’m not homophobic at all. About anybody.”

“Okay. Fine.”

“I’m really not.”

“Okay. If you say so, I believe you.”

“I was just a little thrown by that locker thing, because I had this tiny little seed of a doubt myself. But it turned out to be nothing. Just this normal little thing that happens to practically everybody. Besides, there’s this guy …” But I didn’t even know how to finish the sentence.

“Ah. Are we in love?”

“No. It’s not that big a deal.”

“In lust?”

“It’s not quite like that.”

“A crush?”

“I don’t really like that word.”

“Deep admiration with some attraction thrown in?”

“Yeah. Okay. Somewhere right around in there.”

By now we were standing in front of my first class. Which was not Shane’s first class. I just hung there for a moment, wondering when she would move on. The conversation was making me a little uncomfortable. I was wishing the bell would ring.

“So,” she said. “Anybody I know? Anybody you’ll be inviting to this small get-together?”

“No. No and no. It’s not like a thing that … It’s not somebody I’m going to be with or anything. It’s not like that. It’s”—what was the word I was searching for?—“impossible. I only even brought it up because I just wanted you to know I’m feeling less sensitive. You know.”

Then we stood there for a moment, waiting for the bell to ring. And it struck me that I was so obviously saying I was relieved to know I wasn’t gay. Like that would be so awful. But I couldn’t quite think how to talk my way out of it again. Honestly. Because I
was
relieved. That was just the truth.

“So, when’s the party?” she asked.

And, just on that note, the bell rang.

“From the looks on The Bobs’ faces, I would say very soon.”

The party was set for Saturday night at eight o’clock. But The Bobs showed up at a few minutes to seven. Somehow that didn’t entirely surprise me.

They brought two six-packs of beer, which they loaded into my fridge as though they had been rattling around my kitchen every day of their lives.

Then Big Bob pulled me aside, into the hall, and gave me three ten-dollar bills.

“We weren’t sure what you wanted in the way of munchies,” he said. “So the best thing seemed to be if we just had you run out and buy whatever you want.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.” But it seemed weird to just think of walking out of your own place when you had company. New company, particularly. “Or I could just write down a few things.”

I looked up into his face, and it was just pleading. I can’t think of any other word to describe it. He reminded me of a starving dog begging at the table.

“Right,” I said. “Probably better if I pick stuff out myself. This should probably take at least half an hour. Maybe even forty-five minutes.”

He surprised me with a kiss on the cheek. “You’re the best,”
he said. “The absolute best. If you ever need a favor, you know who you can come to.”

“It’s not a big deal,” I said.

But it sort of was. I guess.

I mean, it was my apartment. But I couldn’t really think what it would hurt. It felt a little funny. But there was just no real reason not to cut them a break.

“It is. You know it is. Hey, be careful on your way out. There’s some crazy guy out there yelling at people and trying to chase them off the street. If you don’t run, he doesn’t really do anything. But it seems like just about everybody runs.”

“Oh. That’s just Crazy Harry.”

“You know him?”

“Sure. Everybody in the neighborhood knows him.”

I didn’t know him. Not really. But in some weird way I couldn’t quite understand or explain, it made me feel closer to Frank to say that.

The rest of the gang came all at once at a little after eight. Shane and Wilbur and Annabel.

I took one look at Annabel and missed a breath. More than half of her face was a strawberry birthmark. At least, I think that’s what you call it. Or a wine birthmark. And it struck me as sad, because I think she would have been really pretty without it. But it was just one of those things. You want to focus off it. You want to be one of those people who don’t care. And I
didn’t
care. Really. I mean, what difference would it make to me what Annabel’s face looked like? I didn’t even know her, and I could be friends with her either way. But it was one of those things your
eye just keeps going back to. You try not to look. But then next thing you know, you’re looking again.

Shane said, “Wow. The Bobs sure look happy. What’s the deal with the weird guy who thinks this is his street?”

“Oh. That’s just Crazy Harry. He must be off his meds again.”

“We flashed Wilbur’s pepper spray and he backed right off. We got the distinct impression that Crazy Man knew exactly what it was. No doubt he’s had the pepper-spray experience.”

I showed them into the kitchen, and they helped themselves to beers from the fridge.

“You carry pepper spray?”

Wilbur, who uncharacteristically seemed to be wearing no makeup, characteristically did not answer.

Shane said, “Always. Why do you think nobody ever gives him any shit at school? Hey. How do you feel about people smoking in your place?”

“Not good at all. But I’m fine with people smoking on my fire escape.”

“That’s reasonable, I guess.”

Annabel kept looking up and catching me looking at her. I was relieved when she climbed out onto the fire escape with Shane.

The Bobs pretty much just sat on the couch smiling at each other while Wilbur locked himself in my bathroom. I heard Toto’s claws scrambling over the hardwood floor.

That left me pretty much alone.

But, in another way, not really. I mean, not as alone as I usually was. I got myself some tortilla chips and a beer.

When Wilbur reemerged, he was wearing even more makeup
than usual. He actually looked nice. Not boy pretty or girl pretty. Just pretty.

“Sorry I scared your cat,” he said.

“Everything pretty much does.”

He went straight for the jade sword I had hanging over my bookshelf. Asked my permission to touch it. Take it down. It was from China. My real father gave it to me. Ages ago.

He began fencing with it, like it was a dueling sword or a light saber. Battling some invisible opponent.

Bobby said, “That would take care of your stepfather.”

I think he meant it as an encouraging thing to say. But Wilbur just stopped battling and put the sword back up on its rack.

He sat quietly after that.

Then Shane and Annabel came back in, and we just all talked. I tried not to look at Annabel’s face, but now and then I did. And she always noticed.

It was a weird sort of a party. I guess. I mean, I don’t know. Maybe not. Maybe if a party is too normal, that’s not a good thing. Anyway, it was a party. Better than any I’d ever had at my place before.

I think it was about an hour later when we got a knock on the door. Which was potentially slightly weird. Because we were all six in attendance. Everybody kind of looked at everybody else.

I answered the door and it was Frank.

I was really happy to see him. Because it seemed kind of cool for him to drop in and see me having a party with a bunch of friends. And it was kind of cool for them to see that I had adult friends who dropped by.