Foolish Fire (11 page)

When I was a boy there was a children’s edition of
Robinson Crusoe
which I loved to flip through. In it was an illustration which had always haunted me. The hero—after years of living alone on an uninhabited island, dressed in rough, tattered garments—is bending down to examine another human’s footprint on the sand with a look of open-mouthed bafflement on his face. Now it struck me why I’d always identified so strongly with Crusoe…only my little island was the whole world, making the discovery of a strange footprint in the sand that much more astounding.

It was what I’d always dreamed of, hoped against hope for: finding another boy just like me. But all I felt was a stunned disbelief. Was it possible that Bobby also felt a strange attraction toward other boys? I felt as if I’d discovered my long-lost brother, the soul mate I’d always longed for—a boy to whom I could tell all my secret thoughts, all my guilty deeds.

I wondered if Bobby realized he’d just landed on my private island.

The thing to do now was to find out for sure if he could truly understand my feelings, to get him to admit that he, too, was just like me. What a sense of freedom I would feel, what things we could tell each other…. Both of us could open up completely about everything, compare notes….

Somehow, fate had vouchsafed me this last chance to make contact with a real human being, a fellow castaway, on our very last summer vacation together.

I dressed and went down to breakfast.

We spent the morning as if nothing were different. We went to the game arcade at Sunnyside Mall, had hamburgers for lunch, then came back home to watch a baseball game on TV. When it was over, I suggested we go out to the Fort.

There, we idly flipped through comic books and talked of inconsequential things. But all the while I was thinking about what Bobby had done last night, and trying to work up the courage to mention it.

The drone of a single-engine airplane could be heard somewhere high above us, like a persistent mosquito.

“You ever notice,” I began, “how jokes which don’t come off leave you feeling foolish?”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“You know, things like practical jokes. Things you pull on your friends.”

“You like to pull practical jokes, Guy?”

“Not like the kind you pull. I don’t have the guts.”

“I don’t get it.” He flipped rapidly through the comic book in his hand.

I looked closely at him but he didn’t seem to be made uncomfortable by my line of questioning. He didn’t seem aware that I was referring to what he’d done last night—if, indeed, he had done anything. I was beginning to doubt it again. Perhaps it had been a dream after all. But I didn’t want it to end as a dream.

“Listen, Bobby, can we talk?”

He glanced up, puzzled by the sudden change of tone in my voice. “Sure.”

“I mean, seriously talk.”

He looked hard at me with just the barest trace of apprehension. Did he guess what I was leading up to?

“Sure,” he repeated.

“I was thinking,” I said, “that if there were two friends who were close to each other, I mean
very
close, they could say anything they wanted to each other…even their deepest secrets. And after that, it would be like nothing stood between them. That’s the best kind of friendship, I think. Them against the world….”

“What do you mean?” He seemed unconcerned, completely unaware of what my confession was costing me. But I knew that now was the time to make it—there would never be a better opportunity than this.

“Well, sometimes I’ll see someone and sort of wonder what he’s like—what kinds of things he thinks about and stuff. And I’ll really want to become his friend, his best friend. Do you know what I mean?”

He looked puzzled.

I stared down at my own feet, not having the courage to look up. A flush spread over my face and burned my ears.

“You’re going to have to promise me that what you’re about to hear is just between you and me. Because if you don’t, I’m not going to say a thing.”

“Why all this seriousness?”

“Because what I’m going to say is something I’ve never told anyone else.”

“Go on.”

“Can you understand—” I looked away quickly before continuing. “I don’t mean to sound weird or anything, but can you understand how it might be possible for a boy to have certain feelings about another boy?”

“Certain feelings?”

“Yeah.” I turned toward him but now it was he who couldn’t face me. My throat felt pinched and raw. I swallowed. My bowels were heavy and my palms were wet. Didn’t he get my hints? Why didn’t he respond? Suddenly I wished I didn’t have to be there. But I pressed on:

“I guess from everything I’ve said so far, you must have figured out— Well, let me put it this way. All the time I was growing up, I felt weird, like I was a freak or something, because I started to realize after a while that I was different. When the other boys started getting interested in girls I didn’t feel anything. I never did react to girls the way they did, even when I was a little kid. I thought something was wrong, but I didn’t want anyone to find out, so I faked it. I pretended to be just like them, ’cause I thought in the back of my mind that I would change when I got older…that I would turn normal…wake up one day and be just like them. In a way I guess I still think so.”

His face was beginning to flush.

I gazed at him, silently begging him to be more open with me. He lowered his eyes as he muttered, “But why are you telling me all this?”

“I’m telling you all this ’cause you’re my best friend, and I wanted to tell someone who would understand, and I thought you would.”

He suddenly raised his face and there was a look of terror on it.

“You’re…you’re not a homo, are you, Guy? Is that what you’re telling me?”

I felt a pink explosion behind my eyeballs. My breath was suddenly sucked away, leaving me gasping. I had gotten to my feet somehow and my head swam from the drain of blood.

“Tell me it ain’t true, Guy.”

What he’d done last night—what had it been? Just some silly playing around? Or had I imagined it, dreamed it? Slightly nauseous, I started to move away but felt myself restrained by a strong clasp around my wrist.

“Are you all right, Guy?”

The buzzing in my ears wouldn’t go away. From far, far away I could hear the tinkly chimes of the Good Humor Man’s ice cream truck, and the children running out to greet him, as if the world hadn’t come to a standstill, as if the world hadn’t come to an end.

And then I started laughing. I laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop.

“What’s the matter, Guy?”

“I got you,” I said.

“Got me? I don’t get it.”

“You really believed me, didn’t you? Admit it. I really had you going, didn’t I?”

A strange look lit up his face.

“You mean—?”

“I was joking. It was all a joke.”

Something in his eyes faded and went out, and then I couldn’t read the expression on his face anymore. He looked as if he wanted to laugh, but was unsure whether to be horrified or embarrassed. And I had no idea how I looked to him. Only, I felt as if I’d been dropped from a very great height and was just getting up from my fall, gingerly feeling my bones for any breakage, dusting myself off, and then—to the horrified wonder of the crowd which had gathered around me—walking jauntily away, whistling a merry tune.

*

SIDE TWO

Girls, Girls, Girls

One day, as I was walking in front of a downtown theater where some girls were sitting around, I overheard one of them exclaim softly to her companion (either in admiration or to needle me), “Ooh, sexy butt.” When I turned around and caught them gazing at me, they burst into nervous giggles, and one of them prodded her friend. “Don’t,” she said, “he’s cute.”

I thought I recognized some girls from my school but I ignored them and continued walking. Still, their tribute had flattered me.

Like many boys, I liked to show off my butt by choosing tight, form-fitting jeans which hugged my body like a second skin. In school, I myself often admired the way certain boys walked, making the seat of their pants dance in a provocative (but thoroughly masculine) manner.

At home I would stand in front of the full-length mirror and admire my own butt, gazing at its smooth, rounded contours, the firm elasticity of its muscles, the enticing vertical cleft between the cheeks, the short transverse fold under each tight buttock.

“Hey, wait up,” someone—a girl—called.

I turned around. It was Judy Saunders, a girl I knew slightly. “Me?”

“No, the guy behind you.”

I looked around but saw no one.

She laughed. “Yes, you, dum-dum. Mind if I walk home with you?”

“No problem.”

She matched her steps to mine and we walked for a while in silence.

“Stuck up,” she said playfully. “How come you never talk to me in class?”

I had no answer to this. She was in my U.S. History class at Freedom High, but we’d never gone beyond a casual greeting. It wasn’t that I never flirted with girls. I did. But Judy really wasn’t my type, and besides, there always seemed to be about two or three boys around her at any given time.

“How come you’re so quiet?” she said. “You never say anything in class, either.”

“I don’t have anything to say.”

She giggled. “I know. I hate those people who think they know everything, and hog up the class discussions.”

She had both hands thrust into the pockets of her windbreaker. Now she pulled one hand out, and from the pack she was clasping, gingerly extracted a cigarette, halted with her head bent out of the wind to light it with her lighter. Then she re-matched her steps to mine, softly exhaling gray smoke.

“You smoke?” I said, more as a statement than a question.

She looked surprised for a moment, then nodded her head as if she’d just noticed herself in the act. “Yeah. But you don’t, do you?”

“No,” I answered absent-mindedly. I thought with distaste of the designated smoking area behind the school and the smoking lounge where a lot of my friends gathered during lunch hour.

She touched my elbow lightly. “But don’t tell anyone I smoke, okay? My mom would kill me if she found out.”

“Sure.”

“Look at her shoes.”

She pointed to a woman walking her dog in the vacant field adjoining a baseball field. The dog was straining at its leash, squealing to be let loose. I saw nothing remarkable in the woman’s shoes.

“Stupid shoes, huh?” Judy said.

“Yeah.”

“What do you do on weekends?”

“Not much. What is there to do around here?”

“Oh, hang out, I guess. Go to the mall and stuff.” She was looking at me expectantly. “There’s a dance tonight at school—didn’t you know?”

“Yeah, I know—the Green and White dance.”

“Do you have a date yet?”

“No.”

“Well?” The look of entreaty on her face was so comical that I had to laugh.

“Looks like I’ve just invited you. Right?”

“Right. You have good taste in women, Guy Willard.”

She finished her cigarette, dropped it onto the sidewalk and stubbed it out with her sneaker. “See you at the gym tonight, then.”

“What time? Eight o’clock sound good?”

“Great.” She gave a cute wave with her hand down by her waist, then turned and walked across the street.

I really didn’t know that much about Judy. Back in junior high school she’d been the butt of some silly gossip for a while. She had been a late bloomer, tall and thin, a little on the gawky side, but that hadn’t stopped her from trying out for cheerleader.

Apparently, during the tryouts, as she executed a particularly high jump, the falsies she was wearing had popped right out. It became the talk of the school, and for years afterward, her name was synonymous in my mind with falsies. Since then, though, she’d certainly filled out, and was long past the age when she would need anything to supplement her chest.

At Freedom High, she was still the go-getter: varsity cheerleader, class treasurer, yearbook staff. But she did have a reputation for being a bit pushy. I knew she’d been going steady with a boy named Tyson for a long time. She was one of those girls who never seemed to be without a boyfriend, so obviously she was interested in me as a possible successor to Tyson.

Though she was quite attractive, I didn’t feel very comfortable with her. Already, I was looking for an excuse to give if she pressed me for a steady relationship. I’d been going out a lot with a quiet, soft-spoken girl named Wendy, but though we’d talked about going steady, there was really nothing serious between us. I felt free to date any girl I wished.

Recently I found myself much more interested in girls. Like most boys my age, I played the flirting games, the dating games. But unlike them, my interest wasn’t sexual. My secret hope was that dating girls would wean me from some of my more unhealthy interests. It was like putting myself through a program of cure: the best way to free my mind of my morbid preoccupations was to have a girlfriend.

Girls were showing much more interest in me, too. There was one girl in my English class named Patti Evans who seemed to have a crush on me. Though she never once tried to talk to me, I would catch her staring at me in class. When I looked up to meet her gaze she always took a second or two longer than necessary to lower her eyes. Even though I had no interest in her, I was always pleased by her attention to me. So I checked daily to make sure she was still casting glances my way. I stole peeks out of the corner of my eye while pretending to take notes and felt reassured when I could satisfy myself that she was still looking at me.

Then one day she didn’t look my way once during the entire class period. I felt as if I’d been snubbed; perhaps she’d found some boyfriend outside of class and had lost her interest in—or hope for—me. I was saddened and hurt, almost insulted by her betrayal.

Ever since I was a little boy, I knew I was one of those whom girls considered cute. I’d discovered that they were charmed by my long lashes…so I’d learned how to lower my eyelids in a certain way to make them look even longer.

From junior high school on, girls had been asking me shyly who I was going with. Even the boys asked me who I was taking to the dances. And now in high school, if a boy didn’t have a steady girlfriend, people started wondering about him.

The truth was that I wanted to go steady, but the right girl just hadn’t come along yet. I dated girls almost every weekend, without really knowing what I wanted, or what I was after. I just did it because it was the thing to do. And at the same time I felt that if I dated enough girls, someone, somewhere would click for me.

Dutifully I would take someone out to dinner or to a movie and afterwards park the car someplace and make out with her. For me there was always an element of planning involved; I went about it all so methodically. Even as I was kissing her, I would surreptitiously note how much time had passed, and decided whether or not the time was right to make the first tentative fondle of her breasts.

I tried to guess beforehand how far I would be allowed to go with a particular girl. Would I be allowed to undo her bra and caress her breasts—”get some bare tit,” as the boys put it? Or would deep kissing be the limit? These games never excited me physically, but I did enjoy the sense of challenge involved.

I never knew whether the girls liked what I was doing, or if they only put up with it for my sake. Sometimes a girl protested and pushed my hand away at the first touch of her breast. But if I left her alone after a rebuff like this, she seemed to think I’d given up too easily—that she really wanted me to try again.

I never went out with any one girl for very long. The most times I asked a girl out for dates was about three, possibly four times. That was how long it took for me to realize that nothing was clicking inside me—that she wasn’t the one for me.

However, sometimes the girl would get serious before I was ready. Whenever I sensed this, I’d break it off, even though there were times when I felt almost ready to go steady with her. I always ended up backing off at the last minute with some excuse…because I always had an excuse ready—for myself. I kept looking for little flaws in her looks or her personality, and when I sought them out, they were so easy to find.

So I’d never gotten serious about any girl, though I was beginning to get quite a reputation as a girl-chaser. To my secret dismay, I realized that, unlike most of my friends, I still felt a sense of blankness where girls were concerned. This worried me a lot.

After all, more and more boys
were
becoming serious about girls. Even if they weren’t romantically involved, they were obsessed with the desire for sexual conquest. The talk in the locker room after football practice was almost always about which girls would put out and which wouldn’t.

I felt left out of all this talk; whenever anyone asked me the dreaded question—”And you, Guy? You getting any pussy lately?”—I learned to bluff a joking answer. At our age virginity was something I wouldn’t have dreamed of admitting to. It was a curse which all boys longed to throw off, the loss of which was the most sacred rite of passage of all, the one which forever ended the despised state of childhood. For me, the boys who’d done it were like heroes who’d crossed into a fabled no man’s land and returned to tell of it.

*

I ate a quick dinner at home, then went upstairs to take a shower. In many ways, this was the most exciting part of the date—the preparation, the anticipation. I felt as if I were preparing my body for combat, donning my armor of masculine beauty.

Now that I was beginning to shave, nothing made me feel manlier than to lather up before the sink with only a bath towel tied around my waist, and to run the razor over my cheeks. Meanwhile, the hot water fogged up the mirror, putting an alluring mist over my reflection. And as I ran my eyes over my shoulders and chest, I could understand why Judy was interested in me.

Since turning sixteen, my body had finally begun to fill out, though it was difficult to tell from day to day. I’d been taking careful weekly note of my height and weight, and knew that I was definitely—and rapidly—gaining in height and weight. I looked forward to stepping on the bathroom scales each night. And the array of tiny pencil slashes creeping up the side of my bedroom door frame was like the measure of my own mounting confidence.

My broadening chest now angled out in a curved line from my tight waist, and my shoulders were filling out. My buttocks were still small and firm, but my genitals felt heavier in heft. I performed isometric exercises shirtless in front of the bathroom mirror to tone up my muscles…and to admire myself as I shifted into various poses.

I found myself comparing how I stacked up with the other boys. I still envied those who were more developed than me, with broader shoulders and more fleshed-out chests.

From the summer of my sophomore year, I’d begun working out with weights. I’d bought a set of barbells and a book called
The Perfect Body
which explained how to exercise with the barbells. I switched to a diet which provided me with as much protein as possible; my mother began complaining about the amount of steaks I consumed. In between meals and after working out, I drank the famous “stamina drink” recommended by a Swedish body builder I worshipped. It was like a thick milkshake, and consisted of milk, eggs, and honey all whipped together with the blender.

My goal was to have a body like those muscle men I admired so much at the beach every summer. This “beach” was actually only the shoreline of Echo Lake in the park, but it got quite crowded with sunbathers when the weather was fine. Last summer I’d gone almost every day.

The dark sunglasses I wore gave me the freedom to devour those dream bodies with my eyes. Lying on my stomach pretending to read a book, I scanned those chesty college boys and health club instructors…well-built men whose bikinis waged ever-losing battles to cover up their charms. For me, these men were incarnations of Greek gods, whose solid burnished bodies gleamed like living bronze…whose chests were like hard, flat shields…whose neck, shoulders, arms, and thighs denoted pure power and strength. I could imagine that a finger put to those sinews would feel the steel-like hardness of solid muscle. Their tanned torsos reminded me of the ideal males I’d dreamed of in boyhood as I gazed longingly at the photographs which illustrated the encyclopedia entries on “Praxelites,” “Michelangelo,” and “Greek Sculpture.”

I stationed myself as close to the water as possible, near a diving board which had been set up temporarily for the summer. Many of the most attractive men liked to go for a swim in the lake, and when they pulled themselves up by the wooden boat dock, the water, as if reluctant to let them go, would tug at them with aqueous fingers, clinging with a last desperate caress. As they stepped up onto land the water streamed off them, leaving their bodies glistening, their hair all wet, their swimsuits clinging so tightly that the outline of their genitals was clearly discernable. Sometimes a bit of pubic hair peeped out from the top of the waistband…and the casual gesture with which the man tugged up his briefs made my heart pound.