Waterways (42 page)

“You look better than I do,” Kory said.

“You look great.”

The ferret popped up between them, stretching to place a paw on each shoulder. “You both look wonderful!” he exclaimed. “A lucky pair of girls you have.”

Kory saw the shadow flit across Samaki’s muzzle, his whiskers curling back as his mouth curved down. The familiar panic that this ferret would find out about them surged in his chest. He nodded and said, before the fox could comment, “Yep.”

Samaki met Kory’s eyes. “I’m not taking a girl to the prom,” he said quietly.

“Oh?” The ferret was scribbling down the information about both suits. “Well, don’t worry. As handsome as you are, you won’t be alone for more than ten minutes.”

The fox opened his mouth to answer, but Kory forestalled him. “No, he won’t,” he said. “So, uh, how long do we get to keep these for?”

“You want them more than one night?” The ferret looked up from his pad. “We have a special, rent for two days, get one free.”

“No,” Kory said, “I mean, do we have them for twenty-four hours, or what?”

The ferret explained the terms of the rental, handed them their slips, and waved them cheerily out of the store with a bright, “See you Saturday!”

Outside and walking back to the car, Samaki was silent. Kory felt the weight of his disappointment or disapproval, but rather than let it sit this time, he decided to say something first. “What was the harm in just going along with him?”

“What do you mean?” Samaki wasn’t looking at him.

“What does it matter what he thinks?”

Samaki paused, then looked up from the car door. “I don’t know. Why does it?”

Kory’s paw rested lightly on the passenger door handle, but Samaki was making no move to unlock the car doors. He looked back at the fox over the roof. “It doesn’t.”

The fox’s violet eyes held his for a moment before he heard the click of the lock. The black head disappeared below the roof as Samaki got in, and reached over to unlock Kory’s door. “So why,” he said as Kory got in, “shouldn’t we tell him the truth?”

Kory pulled his door shut with a prickling feeling in his chest. This argument was not going to end quickly, or well. He thought about just ending it, letting it go, but he wasn’t sure Samaki would agree to let it go. The image of the two of them standing together in their tuxes, fresh in his mind, reminded him of the promise he’d made to talk out their issues. Wasn’t this one of those issues? “What business is it of his?” he said as they pulled out of the parking space and onto the street.

The car remained silent until they stopped at a red light. Samaki tapped the steering wheel with one finger and said, “Why don’t you want him to know?”

“I don’t care if he knows. It’s just easier.”

Samaki didn’t say anything to that word, but Kory saw his eyes narrow, and forged ahead. “It doesn’t always have to be difficult. I want to enjoy being with you, not always thinking about who knows and doesn’t know.”

They turned a corner onto a busy street. “We’re going to the prom next weekend,” Samaki said. “Is that going to be a problem, who knows and doesn’t know?”

“No,” Kory sighed. “I just mean…” He trailed off. He wasn’t sure how to put it any more clearly than he already had. And he wasn’t sure how much Samaki’s insistence that the world acknowledge their relationship was going to continue, nor how much it would bother him if it did.

It was already five by the time they got to Kory’s apartment. Samaki hesitated as Kory got out. “Want me to come in?”

“I don’t want you to be late for dinner.” Kory smiled and kissed his muzzle. Samaki kissed back, but the argument was still there, though restrained. It had been between them for a long time, he thought, as he waved at the retreating car. The apartment was part of it too, he realized as he walked into the lobby. But that had worked out okay. Maybe if he just ignored it, things would be all right.

Malaya asked him what was the matter, when he didn’t respond to her teasing about the tuxedos. He just said, vaguely, “I’ve got homework to do,” and retreated to his room.

The prom started at 6:30. In exactly one week, they would be getting into their tuxes, maybe changing together here in this very room and playing with each other as they got dressed. He adjusted his pants. That image appealed to him, but then they would be going out in their tuxes, into a crowd of other students. They would be dancing together, the only gay couple in a sea of boys and girls, all staring at them. Kory held his head. He wanted badly to do this, for Samaki, but the more he thought about it, the more he wondered whether he would be letting Samaki in for a last month of school like the one Sal was having: fights, taunting, teasing. Not to mention worrying about what might happen at the prom itself.

He made a stab at his math homework. When he looked up from finishing one problem, the clock read 6:40. One week from now, they would be starting their first dance, maybe. Could he ignore the eyes staring at them from all over the room? Would people give them a wide berth? The image of the two of them dancing in a small open space in the center of the dance floor stuck in his head and refused to leave.

An hour later, when Malaya stuck her head in to ask if he wanted some dinner, he’d only completed one more math problem. He shook his head distractedly. “I’ll just make some ramen or something.”

“That’s all I’m doing,” she said. “Shrimp or veg?”

“Oh. Shrimp, please.”

She squinted at him. “Sure you don’t wanna talk about it?”

He shook his head, and waved a paw at the math book. “No, it’s okay. I need to think this stuff through.”

She gave him a long look, and then said, “Okay.”

The images tormented him through the rest of the evening. He ate only half of his ramen, forgetting the rest until it was cold and gummy. Malaya looked at him from the couch as he threw it out, silently. He thought she was going to say something, but she just bent back to her own books. She’d started to take some books home from the store to read, mostly in gay and lesbian studies. Tonight, she was looking through a biography of R. Carmine, the poet whose lines were inscribed on the plaque in front of Rainbow Center.

How nice it would be, Kory thought, if everyone could “gather without fear or hate,” just by proclaiming it so. If he could rip the plaque from the Rainbow Center and bring it to the prom, and thus make the dance as safe as the Center, he would run down there right now and tear at it ’til his fingers bled.

The next morning, he rolled over and looked at the clock. One week from now, he and Samaki would be waking up together in this bed, preparing to go to church. He’d started going to a downtown church some Sundays to save time, but next week he’d planned to take Samaki back to see Father Joe.

Father Joe. He sat up slowly. There was plenty of time for him to catch the bus and go out to see Father Joe this morning. If nothing else, it would be nice to be back in the familiar embrace of his childhood church. The downtown one smelled strongly of the incense they used to cover up the rot of the ancient beams, and the stench of alcohol from some of the less privileged members of the congregation. Kory viewed his attendance there as a way to strengthen his soul. He had talked to some of those members of the congregation, establishing an acquaintanceship with one or two of them. He kept their misfortunes in mind when cataloging his own troubles, but none of them had to deal with ostracism. None of them, as far as he knew, was gay.

He thought about that on the bus, rumbling through the sleepy Sunday morning past the homeless people, out into the places where they were kept off the street. Down in the city where he lived, Sunday mornings were slow but alive, a city just waking up. He passed a fox curled up near a heat vent and wondered whether what he was going through was really as bad as that fox, stuck without a home and maybe without a family. And then the bus crossed over Kittering Blvd., swooping under the expressway, and stopped at a station with flowers planted out front, whose inside didn’t smell of three different kinds of urine. Kory waited there for his connection, and when it came, he stepped up into clean air-conditioned smell.

Out here, where he’d grown up, Sunday mornings were quiet, indoor times. People woke up with their families and only ventured out for church. Indeed, as he drew nearer to the church, more and more cars appeared on the road, until the small block where the church rose above all the other buildings looked like it was rush hour, with so many cars jockeying for absolution. He got off the bus a block away and walked through the cool late spring morning past white snow-covered houses, prim lawns and small offices to join the throng entering the church. There was no smell of alcohol here, no wood rot. These people weren’t homeless, or poor, yet they still attended dutifully, as much in need of spiritual help as the unluckier downtown residents. He watched them from his now-customary position in the back pew, seeing the congregation with new insight.

A familiar coat flickered in his peripheral vision. He ducked down and watched his mother pace slowly to the front. Behind her trailed Nick, his head fur slicked down, shoulders bulging under his church blazer. Obviously he hadn’t been given a new one yet. Neither of them had noticed Kory.

They sat near the front, in a spot he could see while kneeling. The back of his mother’s head bowed as soon as she sat down; he knew from experience that she wouldn’t lift it until Father Joe asked for the congregation to stand. Was there a sheen of silver on the fur between the ears, a small streak, or was that just a reflection of the light streaming through the windows? He couldn’t look away. His mother had been going to church for years. Had it helped her love? Had she really understood what Father Joe meant, the way the people downtown understood that there was something better, something to strive for? Or was it just to make her feel better about herself?

He closed his eyes, pushing the uncharitable thoughts aside as Father Joe welcomed them. The Dall sheep’s familiar voice washed over him, comforting, asking him for the responses he knew by heart. But whenever he opened them, they seemed drawn to his mother’s head, stirring up thoughts that distracted him from the service and ruined his sense of belonging. She didn’t look like she missed him at all, he thought, and then: I wonder if she still hates me.

By the end of the service, he’d missed large chunks of it, lost in ruminations and feeling the anger at his mother swell again. He heard Father Joe say, “Go with God,” but rather than wait while the crowd filed out, he got up and left immediately. There was nothing Father Joe could tell him about what to do; he hadn’t been able to help Kory’s mother understand him, and Kory couldn’t keep running to him with his problems anyway. He knew he had the support of God now, but God would want him to at least try to work his problems out on his own.

He leaned his face against the bus window, brooding all the way back. He couldn’t help feeling angry at his mother; it felt like a wasted trip. Not only hadn’t he talked to Father Joe, but he hadn’t even been able to remember most of the sermon. Why had his mother had to sit like that, reminding him of the night he left, of the last time he’d seen her in the church? He should go to the prom with Samaki. It would serve her right.

Knowing that that was not a good reason didn’t help clarify his thoughts any. He tried to imagine himself, a week from Sunday, having gone to the prom. How would his life be different? What if some other Flora McGuister saw him and thought that, hey, it was all right to be gay, but flaunting it was another matter? Would he be, instead of coming home from church, in a hospital bed as Malaya had been? Would he be visiting Samaki in the hospital? He shivered, pulling his jacket more tightly around him. There were plenty of stories on the Internet about gay teens being harassed, especially at public events.

Stop it, he told himself. Imagine the happy side of it. We go to the prom, we dance, nothing happens to us. We laugh afterwards about how silly all my fears were.

Doesn’t sound too convincing, does it?

He sighed. I have six days to decide, he told himself, even though he knew that he’d already made his decision.

It took him most of those five days to figure out how to tell Samaki. He put it off and put it off, hoping he might change his mind, but on Friday night as they talked online, he realized that he couldn’t let it go any further. Because they would be spending Saturday night together, Samaki was staying home, but would pick up Kory to go to the Rainbow Center, after which they would go get their tuxes and go to the prom.

Looking forward to it. :)
The fox had said that once a night all week. Kory felt his heart clench. He couldn’t do this. He’d just have to suck it up and go to the prom.

YT?
Samaki typed.

Yeah.

You ok?

Kory took a breath.
I’m scared,
he typed. Maybe if he made Samaki understand how badly he felt, the fox would sympathize, would let him off the hook.

Aww. I’ll keep you safe.

He stared at those words for several minutes, then finally typed,
Not worried about that.

His phone rang, making him jump. He knew who it was without even looking at the number.

“Isn’t this costing you?”

The fox’s voice was low, guarded. “What are you worried about?”

He searched for the right words. “It just feels like we’re making a statement, getting in people’s faces. You don’t know how the other kids will react.”

“Who cares? Have you been reading stories off the Internet again?” Kory could hear tension below the forced playfulness. He sighed.

“No,” he said. “But you know how I feel about being out in public.”

“Mm-hram. You didn’t think this was a private prom when you said yes, did you?”

“Of course not.” Why couldn’t Samaki be more understanding?

“So what’s changed?”

“It’s tomorrow, that’s what’s changed,” Kory burst out.

Silence greeted that remark. Kory waited, each second feeling like an hour, and when he couldn’t bear it any more, he said, “I just… I’m nervous. I don’t know.”

“So what would you like to do?” Samaki asked. “What would make you feel better?”