Outtakes Of A Walking Mistake (7 page)

Can you say awkward?

Then I think, how is it Harley can pick up on the fact that Billy and I are together, but Billy can’t?

“Uh,” I hesitate. “We’re boys who are friends.”

“Duh,” he says. “But are you his boyfriend?”

“We’re uh….” I continue. Harley isn’t about to drop this. He’s hanging onto my every word. “What do you mean by boyfriend?”

“Ok guys! Run!” Billy calls.

“I MEAN, YOU’RE BILLY’S BOYFRIEND! You want to have his babies!” Harley teases, tearing out of the igloo.

“No! Stop!” I yell after him.

“Tyler is your boyfriend!” Harley giggles, running straight into Billy’s arms. I think, so much for the chase. The little monster, I could kill him…for being so smart. How does he know I long for a pregnancy scare? The kid is magic. “Tyler is your boyfriend!” Harley continues. “He told me.”

Billy is beside himself. “He what?”

“He wants to have your babies. Then you guys can have a huge family, and you can adopt me!”

My plan is to make light of this. I’ve done no wrong. Really, I was just playing with the kid.

“What did you tell Harley?” Billy asks. His grave tone says I’m dead to him. The kids frolicking on the playground no longer scream for joy but pain.

“I…I….” I begin.

“Harley, go play,” Billy instructs.

“But,” he whines.

“If you go, we’ll paint later.”

“O…k,” Harley agrees. “Bye Tye.”

“Bye,” I reply, nearly in tears.

Wandering off, Harley reaches the ladder leading up the slide before Billy continues talking. From the corner of my eye, I see Harley give me the thumbs up. I don’t know whether to thank him or slap him. “Why would you tell him that?” Billy asks. His voice is low, low, low.

“I didn’t.”

“Harley wouldn’t lie.”

“He asked me if I was your boyfriend. He caught me off guard. I said we’re boys who are friends. I didn’t say we’re boyfriends. He got confused.”

Billy eyes me with disgust. Still, he doesn’t yell. That I’d welcome. It’s the distance between us that hurts. “You better go,” he says.

“But….”

“Seriously. Go.”

“I’m sorry,” I strain.

“Can you get a ride home?” I nod the saddest yes. “Good, I’m going to catch up with Harley. I’ll see you later.”

The disappointment in his voice, it weighs me down. My heavy, heavy tongue is not able to respond. My shaky feet are not ready to move.

So I stand here watching him, his tan body glowing in the distance, and I wonder will we speak again? Is this the end? It can’t be. Destiny can’t be that cruel. This is just the first foil in the filming of my life. This keeps the kids entertained! This will make me a star! The credits, they’ll only roll when Billy swoops in for a kiss, not a second before. That’s it! We haven’t reached the credits yet. We’re merely actors beginning to work together. Tomorrow we’ll usher in a new day, a new rehearsal, and then maybe I’ll have my lines down. Then maybe I’ll memorize how to remain quiet long enough for Billy to take the lead.

Ok, so even though my life sucks the big one, when dad picks me up, I opt to play down the whole Billy scandal and focus on the positive: my first role. “I’ve got great news,” I say, belting myself in dad’s rusty truck. The interior reeks of cigars. “Guess what?”

“You meet a girl?”

“Ugh.” The mystery macaroni I gobbled down at lunch nearly leaps out my stomach. “Yeah, that’s it. I met a girl, and I’m going to be a daddy. Hooray for me.”

“Can you be serious?”

“Can you?”

Pulling out of the Becker Elementary parking lot, he mumbles something about the love of Jesus under his breath and drops the subject. The sunlight filters through the windows making the oncoming traffic appear pastel. “Go on with your news,” he says.

“Well, I don’t mean to toot my own horn but you’re sitting next to a working actor. I got a part in the school film.”

“The school film?”

“Yeah, I had an audition today.” Coasting along the fast lane of Highway 41, we pass a car accident near a shabby area of town where even the trees look poor. Dad chokes the gas.

“That’s great,” he says, stalling at a red light. “I always said you had talent. That’s what I tell your mom when she calls.” Dad grips my shoulder and squeezes out a painfully masculine congratulations. “I’m proud of you, bud.”

Later, with dad focused on dodging debris from two garbage trucks on the road, I begin thumbing through the script. Viewing the blank cover page, I discover the film has yet to be titled. How indie, I tell myself. This could be my breakout role, but wait, where are my lines? Scanning the script, I don’t see my character Felix anywhere. The two main characters, Corey and Becca, are on every page, spewing contrived declarations of love, but Felix is nowhere to be found.

Finally on page forty-eight I locate a short blurb about Felix, followed by a few lines of dialogue. According to the description in the script, Felix is a feisty homosexual student who refuses to take no for an answer.

Awesome, I think. I can draw from life experience. Ooh, I better make shelf space in my bedroom for that Oscar right away!

“So, what’s your character like?” dad inquires. We’re stuck in the fast lane behind a white Cadillac from Jersey with an ‘I’d Rather Be In My Guava Patch’ bumper sticker, and he’s resorting to small talk to keep his cool.

“Well, he’s a feisty hom...” I begin.

Wait. If dad finds out the truth, he’ll be livid.

“What was that?” he asks.

“Uh, he’s a feisty...uh...home...boy.”

“A homeboy?”

“Yeah, you know. He’s a homeboy, like a gangster or whatever.”

The comment registers, and dad takes a moment to carefully word his reply. “That director must think you have a great range, bud.”

Opting to abandon the crowded highway, dad takes a right turn onto a back road toward home and slows down for two yellow speed bumps while passing a public playground. The brakes squeak like we have Minnie Mouse caught in the wheel as I look to a trio of dark-skinned kids rushing toward a spiral-shaped slide. I recall visits there as a child. On the rusty swing set, I caught more air than dad, but mom skimmed the skyline better than us all. “That’s your mom. Always with her head in the clouds,” dad would joke.

That’s why mom left.

Dad and I grounded her too much.

A right turn later, dad says he can’t wait to share my news with James. Dad’s best friend and fellow ESPN-watching fanatic, James is the macho sheriff in our neighboring county of Manatee. He’s also my first crush, but that sordid detail is something I like to keep out of the news.

Turning up the radio, dad rests his head back and hums to the beat of a Van Morrison song. “Here we go,” he says. “You know, Van is my homeboy.”

“Oh whatever.” Favoring the script over the tunes, I quickly fall into the scene on page 48.

INT. RIVERSHORE HIGH—BOY’S BATHROOM—DAY

Perspiring in a dirt-stained white soccer uniform, COREY wets his face at the sink. From behind, FELIX enters carrying a water bottle.

FELIX

Sure is hot out today.

(Beat)

Taking a break?

FELIX slugs from his bottle.

COREY

(Startled)

What are you doing here?

FELIX walks to the urinal. COREY watches him in the mirror.

FELIX

It’s a bathroom. What do you think?

Shaken, COREY looks away, refusing a reply.

FELIX

Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about us.

At this point in the script, I’m so worked up I have to take a breath. This is so awesome. My character is a total slut, and I’ve always dreamed of being a slut. Jenny says it’s so cool.

“Almost home,” dad announces, as Jenny rings in.

“You’re not going to believe it,” she says, on my cell phone. “I got the trendiest pair of white bell-bottoms, and they were only ten bucks! Isn’t that surreal?”

“Didn’t you just buy a pair yesterday?”

“Quit being jealous. I’m going to look like Farrah Fawcett, and that drives you crazy. Well, once an angel, always an angel. You know my theory.” Jenny believes she’s Farrah Fawcett’s secret love child, given up in a private adoption. At least, that’s what she tells her psychiatrist when she wants a higher dose of meds. “And in other news, Greg French gave me the googlies at the Gap. You know Greg, right?”

“Yeah.” How could I not? He’s our student body president. Everyone knows Greg. He’s the total package: six feet of beauty, brawn and brains. Plus, he’s the only guy at school who’s cool enough to pull off that nerdy black-rimmed eyeglass look.

“Well, guess what? He asked me out!” Jenny says.

“And?”

“I said yes.”

“WHAT?” My jaw dislocates and drops to accent my state of shock. “I thought dating was beneath you.”

“I’m turning a new leaf.”

Hold on. Can you put the real Jenny on the phone?

“Hey, I’m coming over,” she adds.

“No, you can’t. I have to study for a psych exam and practice lines.”

Jenny shrieks. “You got a part?”

“Yep.”

“Ooh, I told you my plan would work.”

“I guess.”

“Well, you can’t go on film without getting a facial. Let me come over and make you pretty.”

“Another night.”

“Great, now I have nothing to do,” she whines. “Mom is planning the Monster Mash with the PTA bitches at school. And dad’s...” Jenny pauses. “He’ll be home expecting me to make dinner.”

“The Monster Mash! I totally forgot. We have to figure out what we’re going to wear. My Pee-Wee Herman costume rocked last year. Remember? I was totally ‘80s. Wasn’t I the cutest thing?”

“Not really, Bub. Everyone thought you looked like a pedophile.”

“Quit it. You’re the one who started that.”

Jenny squeals with laughter as dad slows the truck to a light sail and we cross the white-gated entrance into Rivershore Heights. Lucky for Jenny, I get her off the phone just in time to spare her from listening to dad ramble about the construction surrounding Phase Two of the development. “Dammit. Are they ever going to finish?” dad says.

“Who cares?”

“I do.” At a snail’s pace dad takes a left turn onto the recently paved Polk Drive. Inspecting a row of windowless cinderblock homes mounted on tiny dirt lots, he tells me that this block in particular is a feeding ground for crime. “I hate to tell you how many times I’ve been out here on a call.”

“For what?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout that,” dad says, spitting out the window. “Just stay off these lots.” This is dad’s shtick. Rarely will he tell me anything about his job and when he does he teases me with information. It’s totally bogus. I don’t know why he has to be so secretive. It’s not like we live in a crack den. Around here, alligators in alleyways make headlines. “Before I forget, your mom called today,” dad says. Rolling my eyes, I let out a yawn. “She has a surprise for you.”

“What? That she can remember my name?”

“Now Tye.”

“Forget it. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Bud....”

“I said forget it.”

“You can’t keep doing this,” he says.

“I said forget it!”