Blue Boy (19 page)

I know what is about to happen but cannot quite believe that I am here to witness it. The blond boy and the girl sprawl themselves out on one of the large rocks and pull each other’s pants down. Their private parts look so different from the ones I’ve seen in my magazine. Whereas in the magazine, private parts are groomed and compact, statuesque to some degree, the parts I see now are a blur of pink and hair. The girl leans over and gives the boy a blow job. He holds her head like it’s a cleaning machine buffing his penis. Meanwhile, the spiky-haired boy has thrown the cigarette into the water and taken himself out. He plays with himself and watches with a stare that is so intense it seems murderous. Then, he proceeds to walk to the girl and enters her.

The boys take turns with her, and she acquiesces to whatever their bodies suggest. Sometimes the boys direct each other in such a utilitarian manner that it’s as if they are working on some project together. I notice more than anything how these guys are careful not to touch each other. Their eyes never meet, nor do they ever meet the girl’s gaze. She seems to expect this, and her eyes are either closed or downcast for the goings-on. She is eerily silent most of the time, but there is the occasional squeal from her, and then, gradually, a pant tinged with laughter. The boys, meanwhile, grunt toughly and continually. They are now completely naked, as is the girl, the tips of her hair partially wet and darkened brown with water. The blond boy’s body is strong and toned, and I am fascinated by how he is muscled like the men I’ve seen in movies and in
Penthouse
but also real, normal. The leaner boy’s body is crude but intriguing at the same time; although he does not possess the physical sculpture of the other boy, his sexual urge is even greater, and he savors the entire process, handling the girl’s body as if it’s a pet. The girl’s body acts as a vessel for its lovers; her breasts, though large, seems superfluous, despite how many cursory caresses the boys may give them.

They finish with the blond boy on top of her, the spiky-haired boy in her mouth. When the boys come, they do it all over her, and my stomach does not know what to with itself. It turns and swells at the same time; it is as if the butterflies from before are engaging in a furious wrestle. I do not know if I am disgusted or impressed. What I do know is that what I have just witnessed has rendered
Penthouse
entirely futile. Seeing this up close, seeing the actual performance of these acts, has become such an entirely different sexual activity that I feel my obsession augmented from a visual experience to a pressing need to
feel
these bodies, to know what those hands and parts would feel like on me.

Before I can have another thought, I feel a hand on my back. I jump and turn, almost falling off the lip of the embankment, and the recorder slips from my hands and falls with a clunk on the pebbles below. There in front of me stands a park ranger, his eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses so black that I can’t tell if he’s looking at me or at the kids, whose excited squeals die as they scramble away.

The ranger, who, according to his gold name tag is named Rodney, takes me to the jeep he has parked at the trail’s entrance. He makes me walk in front of him, and I feel his eyes all over me. I still haven’t seen those eyes, but from his heavy steps on the ground, crushing the leaves, I can tell that he is both angry and confused about what to make of me. I can’t believe that he has just let those kids go and has targeted me, but I guess a tiny and stunned kid is a much easier target than three sexual deviants.

His car is a white Cherokee with
CRESTVIEW PARKS AND RECREATION
decal’d on the side. He doesn’t open the door for me but stands beside the car, arms akimbo, until I reluctantly pull the handle and get inside. There is a plush squirrel hanging from the rearview mirror, and a bit of tension drains out of me at the sight of it. Rodney walks to his side of the car, cracks open his door, and plops himself onto the front seat. He is wearing a white dress shirt, black slacks, a black tie, and Timberland boots. He is just a little overweight and is flushed from our trip. He breathes heavily onto the dashboard, and it ricochets back into my face. His breath is pleasant, minty. I see the reason why when I look below the stereo and see a bunch of red and white peppermint candies, the kind you get at restaurants, stuffed into the open glove compartment. At my feet, five or six discarded wrappers lie on the black floor mat.

He starts the engine and pulls away. A wedding ring so big that it looks like the spoils of some jousting tournament lights up his left hand. The ring immediately conjures up a family life, and I imagine that he has two or three children, maybe classmates of mine, and a warm, pretty wife who takes care of them. Maybe she’s at home watching Stefano plot the deaths of several swanlike prima donnas.

We drive in silence through the park. It is still empty. I spot the birch tree where I did my ballet exercises and think about how distant that moment seems now. The sideways branch makes me think of something else, too, and I shake my head to get rid of the memory of those two boys’ bodies. Rodney notices my twitch and looks over at me. I look down at my feet, afraid to meet his gaze.

“What were ya doin’ out there, boy?” he says. His voice is very deep.

I don’t know what to say, so I don’t say anything at all. I just keep staring at my feet.

“I guess that’s a pretty stupid question,” he says. “Look, boy, I don’t know whatcha were doin’ out here and don’ really care. Thing is, I know, well, um, whatcha might have seen might make ya wonder about some stuff, but—”

He stops himself. It dawns on me that he finds this situation as difficult to process as I do. He grips the steering wheel tightly, and I can see his palms sliding as he does so, a thin film of sweat coating the leather. Suddenly, his right arm reaches out, and I wince, thinking he’s going to hit me. Instead, he reaches into the glove compartment and extracts a mint, which he pops out of its wrapper with just his right hand. He puts it into his mouth and crunches on it, crinkles the wrapper nervously in his hand, then tosses the wrapper lightly at my feet.

“Where am I takin’ ya, boy?” he says. I look over and see tiny shards of candy stuck to his bottom lip.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“You don’t know?”

“Well, I don’t know where I should go. I was at school.”

“Which school—Van Buren?”

“Yes.”

“Well,” he says, flicking his left wrist and revealing a thick black watch with about twenty buttons on it. The time is displayed in bright green numbers: 1:47. “It’s ten till, now. You’ve still got another two or so hours of school left, boy.”

He drives me back to the school, which looks exactly the way I left it. Rodney parks the car in the lot—a couple of rows of teachers’ cars, mainly tiny compact ones with Jesus fish attached to their rear bumpers. Then says, “Alrighty, let’s go.”

We get out of the car, and again, he waits for me to walk ahead. I feel naked, as I normally walk into this entrance with a backpack strapped on. Rodney escorts me into the main lobby, which is as empty as the park.

“Well, boy, here ya go,” he says. He is still red, still nervous. He looks like a frightened child compared to the sex-crazed boys—no,
men
—from earlier. But there is something endearing about Rodney. Somewhere deep down, he understands the awkwardness of my situation and doesn’t seem to pass all that much judgment on me. It’s maybe the nicest a stranger has ever been to me. Then he is gone.

I walk down the hallway toward Mrs. Nevins’s room. I pass the art display where Mrs. Goldberg wanted to hang my drawings. A collection of jungles made from multicolored construction paper are in the center spot right now. One child has made palm trees out of blue and orange construction paper. Although I guess I take the same freewheeling approach to color in my drawings, I still recognize a higher level of inspiration and execution in my work. The choice of color here seems arbitrary, as if the so-called “artist” merely ran out of the “right” colors of green and brown.

Our school is so unpatrolled. I’ve heard of hall monitors before, but it’s not until now that I realize our school doesn’t have them. Therefore, I reach Mrs. Nevins’s door without being spotted by anyone important, save the students who are gazing, dreamlike, out the doors of their classrooms. I can hear Mrs. Nevins talking to the class about the latest reading comprehension section we were assigned—an abridged version of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
. Right now she is at the blackboard, which faces the door, and she will see me enter. But if I wait until she finishes speaking and goes to her desk, which is on the opposite side of the room, she may not see me but will probably hear me enter anyway. I decide that I have a better chance with the second option; at least in that case, there is a possibility she won’t hear, or see, me. I wait until I hear her high heels click over to her desk. Then I take a deep breath and enter.

She doesn’t notice me at first, and I am almost to my desk when Sarah says, “Mrs. Nevins, why is Key-ran out of his seat?”

Mrs. Nevins looks up and says. “What? Key-ran, why are you out of your seat?” She gives me the same disappointed look she gave me at the mall, except now, in light of that unfortunate run-in, it seems more intense.

“I was in the restroom,” I lie quickly. It just pours straight out of me. I think of the dirty yellow tile of our school bathroom, then see it replaced by the sylvan calm of the park. The park seems like another planet to me now.

“Key-ran, you are supposed to ask to use the restroom.” She walks to the blackboard, where she writes my name in neat cursive. She has never so gracefully or properly spoken my name the way she spells it on the board now.

Normally, having my name on the blackboard would break my heart, but here, narrowly saved from my big disappearance, I see it as a blessing.

“But Mrs. Nevins—” Sarah tries to add. Mrs. Nevins gives her a firm “Shh, Sarah, let’s finish our exercise.” I take this rare moment to turn around and smirk at Sarah, who makes a sourpuss face and returns to her work.

I can’t believe my luck. They didn’t even notice I was gone! What luck!

It doesn’t hit me until ten minutes later that this is not a good thing. No one here even noticed I was missing. The moment from earlier, when I lay on The Clearing with the recorder as my sole companion, comes flooding back to me, and my eyes well up as I picture the way the flute looked when dropped on those pebbles. I may have lost Blueberry Muffin in a tumble, but I will get that flute back the next chance I get. Part of me hopes that those high schoolers won’t be there, but a bigger, fiercer part of me hopes that they are.

Trying to forget what I have seen in the park, I try to shift all of my focus to the talent show act. I have decided against including anyone else in the act; after the disaster of using Lindsay and Eric as Ariel and Eric, I know that keeping things to myself is the way to go. I have devised a collage of various performative elements: I will sing, dance, play the flute, and act. The song I have chosen, quite logically, is “How Will I Know?” It’s one of the few songs I have on cassette, and the tune has begun to represent the particular nature of my situation: I live in a world of so many emotions, many of them whimsical and happy but many of them uncertain and frightening, and Whitney’s music captures all of them in one glossy nugget of a song. It conjures up a feeling of bright colors and bright feelings, tinged with the darkness of not knowing how things will turn out. Most of all, it longs for a love who will understand my confusion. Whether I am a god or a mortal, I need that listening ear. Krishna pined for Radha. I long for the same sort of consort, and I proceed in merry bewilderment.

The piece will begin with me upstage right, kneeling down, head bowed. I will then freestyle dance to the song and act out certain Krishna-related activities: I’ll mime a butter pot that I will dip one hand into and then pretend to slurp imaginary butter off my fingers; I will pick up my recorder and play the chorus of the song into the microphone, which will be on a stand at the center of the stage. I will sing along when not playing the flute. Throughout the song, I will pretend that there is an imaginary lover of mine onstage, and I will sing to her. At certain intervals I will dance with her, one arm held up as if around her waist, the other outstretched the way ballroom dancers do. The key is to move like a ballroom dancer but to have my feet evoke
khatak
dancing, so that, again, there is an homage to my Indian self while still paying tribute to my current existence. I simply want the piece to evoke a certain romance mixed with the grandeur of Krishna’s spirit, all the while showing the audience why I deserve both.

I’ve had a secret dream to make my Indian and American worlds collide. Even though it’s nice that the Indian kids I know don’t go to my school (and therefore they are not there to double my usual ridicule), sometimes I think that the other kids in my school would respect me more if they knew I had another life. Sort of the way that Sarah and Melissa interacted one time recently when talking about their weekend plans.

“Mel-belle, wanna come over tomorrow afternoon?” Sarah said, putting her reading textbook into her backpack at the end of a Friday.

Melissa said, “I don’t know. I have to check with my mom.” She, too, was packing up her things, putting her number two pencils into a shiny plastic pencil case with hearts printed on it.

Sarah shook her head slightly and shrugged. “Okay, don’t worry about it. I think Amber Johnson might come over, too, so if you can’t make it, don’t worry.” She pulled her backpack on and stood up, waiting for the bell to ring.

Melissa’s face immediately fell. Jealousy and surprise occupied it in equal parts. It was startling to me that someone whose emotions I tracked so closely should be so poor at concealing them. As the wheels of her jealous and bruised mind turned, her face contorted back into a bright smile. “I’ll be there,” she replied eventually. “And I’ll bring Girl Talk,” this board game in which girls use a fake phone to feign gossip.

(“Hey, Key-ran, wanna come play, too?” Melissa added, conscious that I had been listening to their conversation so intently. I ignored her and resumed sketching a picture of SS on a piece of looseleaf.)

Just like Melissa was dumbstruck by Sarah’s sudden loyalty to another party, so I imagine my American cohorts would be if they understood the nuances of my Indian life. What these American kids don’t know is that we Indians have an annual talent show, too, even if it’s not called such. In our Indian world, we have an evening of song and dance to celebrate Holi, the holiday that marks the beginning of spring. Every year, countless girls dance mindlessly to Indian songs much in the way that American kids lip-synch. The girls dress in saris, baring their midriffs, and although these girls’ fathers would never let them show the equivalent amount of skin in American dress, it seems A-OK to let it happen when petticoats and wraps are involved. Some girls lip-synch to the music, showing that they have both a command of what the lyrics are saying and Hindi itself; other girls do not move their mouths but look altogether terrified to be performing in public. Whether they like it or not, it is expected of good Indian girls to do so.

Two years ago, the Indian mothers in our clan insisted on organizing a group dance among all of us kids. It was a type of dance called
fogana
in which you hold a painted wooden stick in each hand and click your sticks against everyone else’s in a certain pattern. Oftentimes, there will two concentric circles of children rotating in opposite directions, the kids in the inner circle clicking sticks with the kids in the outer circle. Then the group will split into pairs that continue to click their sticks together.

Most of the girls were particularly good at
fogana
, having danced to Indian music their whole lives. Even Neelam, whose sari looked quite unflattering, knew all the right steps and looked positively radiant. The boys, on the other hand, were not very good—aside from me, who, from my scant lessons with the carnation-ponytailed Hema and my ballet training, could remember the routine quite well. I refrained from instructing the other boys in how to dance; I knew that they didn’t want to hear it from me, and there was more than one occasion in which they voiced their resentment and said my dedication to dancing solidified my status as a pansy. Still, they had to look like pansies whether they wanted to or not: the day of the performance, Nisha Auntie went around and put eyeliner on the boys and girls alike, along with a thin coat of pink lipstick on our mouths to make them pop from the audience. (Ashok in particular looked pretty with makeup on. Ajay, on the other hand, looked like a clown.) It felt so strange to me to have someone else apply my makeup; I worried that Nisha Auntie would see the fear on my face as she applied mine and realize that I was already an experienced professional in such matters. But when she put the makeup on me, she did it in as perfunctory a manner as when she did it to Neha, who looked resplendent in a red sari with gold trim and ten gold bangles on each wrist. Little did Nisha Auntie know that only two years later, I’d be putting
her
lipstick on my face.

As we stood in the wings of the high school auditorium used for the event, I wondered what the students of this school would do if they came in on this Sunday afternoon and saw us. Where cheerleaders may have stood with their pom-poms fluttering; where choir members may have sung in a concert; where basketball players may have high-fived each other before taking the stage for a rousing pep rally in their honor, we Indian kids stood dressed in
kurtha pajama
and saris, holding wooden sticks and wiping sweat off our made-up, brown faces. Each of us boys had a magenta sash tied around our head, the knot on the side in the style some sort of fortune-telling gypsy might wear. This was so removed from the Midwestern machismo of the residents of this city, and somewhere deep down, I wanted those people to see this lifestyle because it carried with it an exoticism that they didn’t know.

Even now, I envision what it would be like for people like Sarah and Melissa and John Griffin and Cody to see me dancing
fogana
. I wonder what it would be like for them to see me in an entirely different element, among people of a different heritage,
my
heritage, joyous instead of ridiculed. I wonder what I would be to them, dressed in a gleaming white
kurtha
and vibrant red sash. If transformed into a resplendent
fogana
aficionado, perhaps I might just win the respect of my very American, very un-Indian classmates.

I know the reason why I didn’t get as excited about that Indian talent show as I did about my school’s talent show was because, in the end, there was no American audience in that venue. Now that I am bringing that Indian spirit to these Americans, however, the real anticipation begins. I have an occasion to show them the romanticized Indian spirit I have always wanted to have.

Sometime over the last week, Cody has managed to make a good friend out of Donny Howard, a blue-eyed, freckled ostrich of a boy with thin, long legs and a slumping posture that practically mimics Cody’s own hunch. I notice the two of them hanging out during recess when they play basketball on the blacktop. I’ve never even known Cody to attempt something as physically strenuous as basketball, what with his mild deformity, but he moves with a stealth that is as smooth as it is surprising. Donny is made for basketball due to his height, but Cody gives him a run for his money, engaging in court-long skirmishes again and again.

When I come back from The Clearing after my daily exile there, I see this sweaty duo patting each other on the back. They start exchanging comments and glances in class the way Sarah and Melissa do, and I can’t help but feel snubbed by Cody. Cody may not be a flawless friend, but he is still the closest thing that I have ever had to one, and seeing him move on to Donny makes my stomach feel like Jell-O. Doesn’t he realize that, at the very least, if I had never lent him pencils, he would have flunked out of school by now? Why, without me, he might not even be a student here anymore! The nerve of him!

Friday, when our school has its annual Halloween party, Cody and Donny come dressed as pirates, with long black wigs stuffed under bandanas and plastic swords with large gold handles. I dress in a demure orange sweatshirt and black sweatpants; I learned last year, after wearing an assortment of rainbow-colored clothing and saying that I was Rainbow Brite’s boyfriend, that keeping my Halloween costume conservative is the way to go. So I am extra sad at seeing these two boys dress to their hearts’ desires, and I imagine that they will wear these same costumes this Saturday, the actual day of Halloween, while I will be sitting with my mother on our front porch and helping her pass out candy. (Not surprisingly, my mother is too paranoid to let me go trick-or-treating in this town.)

For the first time today, while all of us kids fill the cafeteria with our costumed selves, the lunch table includes Cody, me, and Donny. I am eating my
roti
like it’s a burrito, having rolled it up and consuming the end of it in tiny bites. Donny does not seem to have much to eat in the way of lunch. He eyes my lunch more keenly than most students, out of both puzzlement and hunger, but when I offer him a bite, he recoils. Instead, he starts in on some Cheetos and a can of Coke. He picks one Cheeto at a time out of the yellow-and-red foil bag, dandruffy crumbs falling on the table with each motion. I don’t know where he finds the energy to play basketball as fervently as he does if that is the sort of diet he follows. Cody, meanwhile, is eating a sweaty hot dog squeezed into a near-burnt bun, and the locks of his wig keep falling into its ketchup and mustard.

“My mom said you guys can stay over tonight if ya want,” Cody says. It comes out of left field; Donny looks at Cody dumbfounded, then looks over at me. I am instantly aware that I am the third wheel here. This has been obvious during the short duration of this slipshod trio anyway, but the prospect of the three of us involved in a sleepover takes this to knew heights—or, depths. Donny’s body language clearly shows that he finds this proposition awkward. Cody, on other hand, continues to eat his hot dog nonchalantly.

“Cool,” I say, stuffing my unfinished
roti
into my lunch bag to make Donny somewhat less uncomfortable. Then I lean over to him and whisper, “We get to look at titties.”

Donny greets this with the initial confusion that you might expect, not seeing the direct link between a sleepover and smut. But as the connection slowly dawns upon him, he straightens up.

“So what? My dad’s got tons of mags I can bring,” Donny says. “He’s got fuckin’
Hustler
.”

“What’s
Fuckin’ Hustler
?” I ask, saying the F-word quietly.

“It’s the best fuckin’ thing ever,” Donny says. “You’ll see.”

When we get back to the classroom after lunch, Cody complains about his wig being too hot and takes it off. He tosses it into the coat closet with his things. I don’t miss a beat, and by the end of the day, Cody is rummaging through the closet and cursing the wig’s disappearance while I sling my newly-fat backpack on with a secretive grin and say, “See you tonight.”

My mother is excited about the sleepover, probably because it’s the first one I’ve ever attended. Well, there was the one time our Indian group partied way too long into the evening at Ratika Aggarwal’s house and we all made makeshift beds out of the many couches and plush carpet floors, each family in a different area. Mine was in the den, my mother insisting on the floor because she said it was better for her back, leaving me and my dad squashed onto a loveseat. But that was not a real sleepover, and nothing was more awkward than seeing various Indian women emerge from sleep looking like morning-after prom dates and pouring themselves tea from the same ravaged pot.