Blackbird (17 page)

“I can’t believe it,” she said, her voice a more intense version of her usual whisper.

“I know.”

Efrem and I smiled our hellos over Cherie’s head. I put my arm around her, and we walked into the room. Inside, there was almost no music playing. Nearly everyone was talking in hushed tones about Leslie and Todd. Even the Foleys were just sitting with their guitars and absently strumming. Cherie and Efrem and I took our usual perch, but there seemed to be nothing to say. Cherie clutched my arm in silence; every now and then I could hear her whisper, “I just can’t believe it.”

The whole day was practically a total loss. Not even the teachers could seem to concentrate on anything. All anybody seemed to want to talk about was Leslie’s death and Todd’s disappearance. I could feel one serious depression coming on, and there was nobody to talk to about it, really, because
everybody
was depressed. Mr. Elmgreen went ahead and held interlude auditions. I did “Blackbird” with Johnnie Foley on guitar, with the understanding that after Todd returned, he’d play for me at the concert. I felt a little better when the whole choir applauded after my song.

“Not bad,” Mr. Elmgreen said. “A little low-key, but I think we can make time for it.” I smiled. He and I both knew that if he didn’t make time, he’d have a riot on his hands.

All in all, I only managed to keep from being totally morose by thinking about Marshall. About seeing him again. Having late supper with him. Being held in his arms, and kissing his lips. It got me through the day.

I didn’t eat much dinner, both because I was so excited about the evening, and because I knew I’d be eating again after rehearsal.

“What’s the matter, baby?” Mom asked. “Don’t you feel well?” I’m usually a pretty big eater (though you couldn’t tell it from looking at me).

“Just not very hungry, Ma.” I took a big bite of pot roast, just to make her feel a little better. “I’ll be out a little late tonight,” I said, trying to sound cool, as if this were something I do all the time, when actually, I don’t go out very much at all. I’m generally much more the stay-home-and-watch-old-movies-on-TV type.

“Oh?” Mom’s eyes widened. “And just how late is that?”

“I don’t know, Ma. Not very. I’m just gonna hang out with the cast for a while, that’s all. It’s Friday night.”

“Well, Friday or not, I don’t want you out until all hours with a bunch of people I don’t even know. College people. Probably drinking and heaven knows what else.”

“Mother – ” I really didn’t want to get into a big hassle about this.

“And don’t ‘Mother’ me, Little Mister.”

“Clara.” Dad, who’d been concentrating on doing away with a heaping plate of food, finally spoke up. “Don’t give the boy a hard time. He hardly goes out at all as it is. Son” – he emptied a forkful of potatoes into his mouth, and spoke to me through it – “it’s Friday night. Go out with your friends and have a good time. Your mother and I trust you to behave yourself as a Christian young man should, and to get home at a decent hour. Don’t we, Clara?”

“Lance – ”

“That’s right” – Dad cut Mom off before she could finish protesting – “we certainly do. Need money, son?”

“No thanks, Dad.” Dad gave me a man-to-man wink, and dove back into the mashed potatoes. Dad’s all right sometimes.

Anyway, so I parked on the living-room sofa, and pretended to read the movie section of the paper, and waited for Marshall. I recognized the sound of his car before he’d even stopped at our house, and I jumped up from the sofa like it was on fire, before Marshall even beeped the horn.

“That’s my ride! Bye, Mom. Bye, Dad. Don’t wait up.” And I was out of there.

I ran full tilt out to Marshall’s car, yanked the door open, and stopped dead in my tracks. The guy at the wheel was barely recognizable as the Marshall MacNeill I’d seen the night before. He’d had his shoulder-length hair cut short, practically a butch. It made his neck suddenly seem much longer, and his ears look like the handles on a bowling trophy. If possible, I thought he was even cuter than before.

Marshall smiled. “Surprise.”

“Surprise, indeed.”

“I’ve had my hair long since junior high. It was time for a change.

Like it?”

“Yes,” I said, climbing into the car.

“You don’t have to say you like it if you don’t.” The old Saab lurched into gear and took off. “Won’t hurt my feelings.”

“I like it a lot.” I grabbed the back of Marshall’s newly bared neck, surprising myself at my own boldness. I looked at my watch: only six-forty. I hoped we’d get to Marshall’s before anyone else. I wanted to be alone with him for a few minutes before Libby and the others arrived. I wondered if Marshall had any similar thoughts.

“About tonight – ” My heart stopped. He was going to cancel on me.

“What?”

“I hope you like lamb chops.”

“I love ’em.” Actually, I’d never been within arm’s length of a lamb chop in my life. Dad hates them, so Mom never cooks them.

Marshall lived within walking distance of Libby, in a building much like hers. As we approached Marshall’s house, I could see Libby, a vision in a bright orange caftan, sitting on Marshall’s front steps.

And I thought, “Oh, well. We’ve got the whole evening.”

Chapter Fifteen

Marshall’s place had even less furniture in it than Libby’s. The living-room furniture consisted of a huge madras beanbag chair. Period. There was an old compact stereo set against one wall, keeping company with what looked like a couple hundred records, bookended with big bricks. A poster of James Dean was tacked up above the stereo, and a sloppy-looking mobile made of seashells, driftwood, wire, and an old horseshoe clicked and clacked from the ceiling. About a lifetime’s worth of books, magazines, and newspapers lay around the hardwood floor. But no television, or dining table – not even a coffee table. Not so much as an old Salvation Army sofa.

Rehearsal ran much more smoothly than the night before. Arnold and Raoul were on much better behavior, and the extra floor space made blocking much easier. I thought it would never end.

When it finally did end, and Marshall’s front door closed behind Libby, I was nearly spastic with excitement. As Marshall turned from the door, I fully expected to be swept up into his arms in a passionate Garbo and Gilbert embrace. I rose slightly on tip-toe in preparation for it. Instead, Marshall leaned down, kissed my lips so softly and so quickly I nearly missed it, and said, “I’m glad you’re here.” Then turned and headed for the kitchen. “Let’s start cookin’ – I’m starved.” I followed reluctantly. I was pretty hungry too. But not for lamb chops.

But lamb chops it was. Marshall really rattled them pots and pans, bopping around his miniscule kitchen, humming along to “How Can I Miss You If You Won’t Go Away,” by Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, or Patsy Cline, or Ella Fitzgerald, pausing to wipe his hands on a dish towel and change albums whenever the spirit moved him. I chopped onions and grated cheese, and watched Marshall’s behind wiggle while he mashed potatoes and sang “ev’ry picture tells a story, don’t it?” He occasionally tossed me a smile or a wink, or a quick pat on the behind, and made me less hungry for lamb chops and more hungry for him with each passing minute.

I ate my first lamb chops sitting cross-legged on Marshall’s floor, across an upturned orange crate from him, listening to Charlie Parker and wanting Marshall so bad I could hardly swallow. Afterward, we stacked the dishes in the sink (Marshall said he’d do them in the morning), and I went to the bathroom. I gave my mouth a good rinsing out – I figured it was about time for some serious kissing to start – and when I returned to the living room, there was a Randy Newman album on the turntable, and Marshall was sprawled out in the madras beanbag chair. He looked up at me, and I down at him. And seeing Marshall sitting there, looking so darn good, and in the one and only chair – well, my duty was clear. I took a deep breath, strode across the room to where Marshall sat, and plopped down into the chair between Marshall’s outspread legs.

I experienced a moment of tension, wondering if perhaps I hadn’t done the right thing. Then Marshall slipped his arms around my waist, and I settled back against him.

“Hi, there,” he said, palming my chest.

“Hi.” My voice came out soft and breathy; I could hardly believe where I was, what I was doing.

Randy Newman mumbled “you can leeeeve yo hat on” from the old stereo against the wall as Marshall and I half sat, half reclined in that big old beanbag chair. The beanbag molded around the long curves of Marshall’s back, and I made a deep, warm armchair of the space between Marshall’s legs. Between the insinuating rasp of Newman’s voice, and the feeling of Marshall’s big hands tracing great, swirling paths up and down my chest, I was feeling about as glad to be alive as I could remember.

Marshall nuzzled the top of my head; I could feel his breath on my scalp, warm as he exhaled, cool as he sucked in the smell of my hair. He mumbled something that might have been “You smell good.”

“What?”

“I’m really glad you could stay.”

I snuggled back into Marshall’s body; a little giggle of contentment effervesced up from my belly like the bubbles in a 7-Up.

“Me, too.”

Marshall’s crotch pressed up against my butt. He was hard. I dug the feel of that college-boy boner. I could feel the heat of it even through Marshall’s pants and my own. Needless to say, I was hard, too – so hard it hurt. I considered moving one of Marshall’s hands from my chest down to the bulge in my pants, then thought better of it. Instead, I lifted Marshall’s right hand from my chest, and, humming along with Randy Newman, feigning a nonchalance I did not quite feel, I tugged the hem of my t-shirt out from my jeans, and slipped Marshall’s hand underneath my shirt.

Marshall’s hand was soft and warm against my belly. He moved it slowly upward and stroked my left pectoral, which, thanks to some serious bench-pressing, had only recently become discernible. He cupped his hand over my heart for a moment, as if checking my heartbeat (which was racing), before taking my nipple between his thumb and forefinger and giving it a gentle little squeeze, causing it to pucker and harden as if I’d gotten a chill, and zapping crazy little yahoo arrows through my entire body. I’d never even considered my nipples before, but I made a quick mental note to consider them later.

My back arched, catlike, and my behind pressed more firmly against Marshall’s crotch. A little grunt of pleasure escaped from Marshall’s throat.

“I like your body,” Marshall said. By now, both his hands were underneath my shirt, stretching the daylights out of it, stroking my chest. “It’s so solid. Do you play any sports?”

“Not if I can possibly avoid it.”

“How come?”

I sighed a long, cold winter. I really didn’t want to go into it.

I didn’t want to explain my seemingly inbred abhorrence for team athletics. Explain the residual bitterness of what seemed like several lifetimes’ worth of the special brand of humiliation America seems to reserve for the nonathletic boy. The excruciation of choosing up teams. The taunts and the namecalling. The sweaty, contorted faces I could still see so plainly in my mind’s eye, faces full of shock and outrage that anyone could be so clumsy, so awkward, such a goddamn little sissy. The hours spent in far right field, living in abject terror of the occasional left-handed batter, praying fervently to whatever might be up there that nobody would clout one my way, because even should the Patron Saint of Sissies render me a miracle and allow me to catch the ball, I knew as well as I knew my own name that even with my most vigorous, grunting, everything-behind-it throw, I would only manage to deliver the ball roughly halfway to first base.

I didn’t want to go into the time Janice McIntire, the fat, blowsy slob of a Baptist wife and mother, who, at a church picnic I hadn’t even wanted to attend, took it upon herself to point out to my dad (loud enough for the entire assembly – indeed for the entire county – to hear) that his only son threw a baseball “just like a girl.”

I didn’t want to explain.

I didn’t want to talk.

I wanted to be kissed.

“I just never got into it,” I finally said. “That’s all.”

“Never?”

“Nope.” Could we change the subject please? Could we talk about something pleasant, like war and famine?

“Damn. With a bod like this, I’da thought you were an athlete of some kind.”

“Well, I’m not. Is that quite all right?” I said, just a bit too slowly, just a bit too loud.

Marshall slipped his hands from under my shirt like he’d found tarantulas nesting in my navel.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he said, obviously unsure of what he was apologizing for. “I didn’t mean anything.”

There was an uncomfortable beat of silence.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just that – oh, God Bless, this is soooo stupid.”

“You just look like an athlete, that’s all.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s just that.… See, I’ve started working out this year because, well, because of Coach Newcomb sort of, but really because of – well, not to actually be athletic, of course, because I’m just not. What I really want to be is – well …” I very nearly didn’t say it. Couldn’t say it. I had never admitted it aloud before, and now that I was about to, it sat on the end of my tongue, tasting vain and more than a little silly. I spit it out. “Beautiful. I want to be beautiful, okay?”

“What?”

“You know: beautiful. Like a hunk. Like a jock. I mean, all my life I’ve watched these guys. Stared at them.”

“Who?”

“Jocks.” Was the man not listening? “You know: football players and baseball players and whateverball players.” I leaned forward, propped up against my knees, talking as much to myself as to Marshall. “God, the energy I have expended envying those guys, wishing I was like them. With their broad shoulders and their muscles and everything. So sure of themselves. Hating them. But wanting them, too. Desiring them, y’know? I mean, I whack myself raw just thinking about those guys. And I know I’m not like them, I’ll never in my life be like them, but I can try to at least look like them. Beautiful.”

I leaned back into Marshall’s arms, feeling rather as if I had exposed myself in public.