During the afternoon, the rumblings of thunder increased, and the bright sunshine that is a constant for us disappeared. This was more than unusual for us, it was really rare. We can go years without rain in September. Almost all our rainfall comes between December and April, with January and February usually getting the brunt of it. But even then there wasn’t that much. I thought maybe we were having early Santa Ana winds, except the air smelled like rain, the thunder was rolling in the distance, and neither of those happened when we were having our Santa Anas. They weren’t due till next month anyway.
Thinking the weather was as strange as my discussions with Becky today and just as inappropriate, I ignored it. The final bell had just rung. I had to get home to get a jump on my homework because of band practice later. I was walking as usual. Man oh man, I couldn’t wait till I got my license. A lot of the seniors drove. Next year, I’d be able to do that, too. Talk about living large!
I’d only gone a few blocks when the rain began to fall. Shit! It had been a typical day, temperature wise, in the high 80’s, and it didn’t drop more than a couple degrees when the rain began. The rain itself was warm, but it was also wet, it was one of those showers that have really large drops, and I decided to duck into one of the stores lining the street near the school to wait it out. Just as it never rained here this time of year, it never rained long when it did rain. I know, there’s a sort of oxymoron there, but it was true and you get what I mean.
There was a convenience store just ahead of me. I knew they had a video game machine in there because I’d been in there and played it once or twice. Once even when I was escaping the rain. In February. When it was supposed to rain.
I saw a few other kids headed for the same store, wanting to get out of the rain too. When I got inside, I saw the game was already being used, and another kid was watching. So I bought myself a can of Dr Pepper and wandered over to the magazine rack. I kept glancing outside through the window, watching the rain. We don’t see that much of it here, okay? I liked looking at it. I even liked the smell of it.
It was while I was doing that that I saw Kevin. He had stopped outside, underneath the awning that shaded the store’s window. He stood there, keeping dry and also watching the rain.
He should have left for home a half hour before I did, but maybe he’d been kept after for some reason. Whatever the reason, he was here now.
I wondered if I should join him. Would he talk to me? Or would he just be pissed some more? And accuse me of following him, even though I’d been here first? I was trying to decide when I saw him look at his watch, then back at the rain, then at his watch again.
After that, he sort of unconsciously shrugged and stepped out into the rain and began jogging.
I was immediately out of the store, running after him. “Kevin!” I yelled. He didn’t hear me, or did but was ignoring me, because he just kept jogging.
He was jogging and I was running, so I caught him before he’d gone a block. When I caught up to him, I slowed to match his jog. “Why are you out here in the rain?” That was clever, but I had suddenly become aware that I’d chased after him by instinct, not with any real purpose in mind, and I didn’t have anything else to say as a reason for why I was here. Not that this was a reason. But it was at least something to say.
He glanced at me briefly, but kept jogging. I didn’t think he was going to answer, but then he did. “What’s it to you?”
Think, Matt. Think. I did, and surprised myself. I thought of something. “Kevin, you’re getting your cast wet. You’re not supposed to do that!”
This time there was no pause. He simply answered. He didn’t sound weird, or mad, either. He just sounded like a young kid. “I know. But I have to get home. I have a doctor’s appointment.”
“But your cast!”
“I can’t help it.”
I realized this was the most normal conversation I’d ever had with the kid. I was kinda excited about that. He didn’t sound mad at me.
And then I realized something else. I couldn’t believe it, but here it was! The perfect excuse for Plan A! Well, Plan A, as modified.
I kept jogging, but used both hands to quickly strip my tee shirt off. “Here,” I said, pushing it toward him. He saw what was in my hand and stopped jogging and just looked at it, and then at me. In only the few seconds I’d had my shirt off, I now had water on me, and it was starting to run down my torso.
As he didn’t reach to take the shirt, I stepped closer to him, reached out, and began wrapping the shirt around his cast. It only took a few seconds and I had it swaddled, with the end tucked inside to hold it in place.
“Okay, you’d better get going. It’ll only keep it dry for a few minutes, but we’re fairly close to your house by now, so you should make it. Why are you so late? You should have been home already.”
He began jogging again, and I jogged along beside him.
“I had detention. They let me out just before it started raining.”
“Mouth off at some teacher?” I asked him, and grinned to show that if I was being a smart ass, at least I wasn’t being an unfriendly smart ass.
He looked over at me and started to answer, and then I saw his eyes sort of focus away from mine and very briefly onto my chest. Which by now was entirely wet. Like I’d just climbed out of a swimming pool. My hair and pants were wet, too. He didn’t answer for a moment, but eventually brought his eyes back to mine and said, “Thanks for the shirt. That was nice of you. But you’re getting all wet.”
I was startled, but tried to keep the conversation going. Whatever had changed him, I was delighted. I wondered if now that I had his attention, I should apologize again, that maybe he’d hear it this time. Then I thought that he’d certainly heard it before, and bringing it up again might change his mood. I so didn’t want to do that. Instead of apologizing, I said, “What, you don’t ever go running in the rain without your shirt? I do it all the time. Every time we get rain in September.”
“Yeah, all the time then,” he snorted derisively, and we both laughed.
I could see his house ahead. He stepped off the curb and started crossing the street at an angle, heading toward it, and I followed. He reached for the shirt to unwrap it, and I put my hand on his arm to stop him. “Keep it till you’re inside. I’m just going home like this. I can’t get any wetter, and it actually feels pretty good. Hope the appointment goes well.”
And I jogged away from him. When I’d been running a couple dozen steps, I casually glanced back at him. He was on his front stoop, under the overhang and out of the rain, and he was standing there, watching me. I sort of waved, then quickly turned around so I couldn’t see if he waved back. I didn’t want to ruin the moment in case he didn’t.
I’d been too far away then to really see him well when I’d waved, but when I’d been with him I hadn’t had that problem at all. I’d been close, and I’d looked into his eyes a couple times, and I didn’t see any hatred there.
I smiled, and dripped, all the rest of the way home.
◊ ◊
I was on the phone again with Becky. Lying on my bed. She was provoked.
“What do you mean, it wasn’t any good? It was a great plan. Maybe you didn’t do it right.”
“Sure I did. I took off my shirt. I stood right next to him, wrapping it around his cast. I had to watch what I was doing, so I wasn’t looking at his face then, only at his arm, but I was right next to him, bare-chested, with water running over me, sort of like we were in the shower together.”
“But you didn’t see the expression on his face! That was the whole point of doing that. You were supposed to be watching his face!”
“Well, actually, I saw him glance at it, but we were standing in the rain, Becky. It was wet, we were in a hurry to get moving again, and there really wasn’t time for a stirring rendition of Hearts and Flowers. He glanced, then said something to me, and went home. That was it.”
“So his face didn’t show anything. Really? But we had it all set up. It was perfect!” She was sounding upset, but I was, too, so I took advantage of her being upset. I’d never had the opportunity before to hand her back any of the grief she gave me.
“Well then, maybe the plan was defective. Think about it. Think about me being in the locker room with just a towel around my waist, standing in front of him. I drop the towel. Now I have to pick it up. It would look like I wanted to be naked in front of him otherwise. So I drop it, accidentally, and then immediately have to grab it. I have to pick it up right then. To do that, I have to look down at the towel, not up at his face. If I’m groping for the towel while studying his face, it’d look really odd. You can visualize that, can’t you?”
“Wait a minute, I’m still visualizing you standing there naked with your towel on the floor. I can’t seem to move past that point.”
“Becky! What’s with you. You seem to be thinking about dicks all the time!”
“Not everyone’s, just yours.”
“Becky! Why do you talk like this?!”
“Because I get such a rise out of you when I do. It’s fun. You must enjoy it too, don’t you? Boys are supposed to enjoy getting a rise.”
“I can’t even talk to you! I’m going to hang up.”
“Don’t you dare! Are you sure you didn’t notice anything about him when he was looking at you without your shirt with water running down your body?”
“Well, it did seem like he was looking at my chest once instead of speaking for just a moment. But then he kept talking, and his voice was the same as always. His eyes weren’t real large, looking like he’d seen anything special.”
“Maybe your chest isn’t special. Do you have hair on it? Great pecs? Maybe great abs?”
“Becky, I weigh 140. I’m sort of skinny. I’m just me. You’re the one who wanted me to get naked in front of him. What, you forgot that when I did that, it would be me I’d be showing off, not Arnold Schwarzenegger?”
“No, I didn’t forget. I was just hoping, is all. See, I told you my original Plan A would be better.”
“Yeah, but I was on a public street in the middle of the afternoon and I just didn’t see how I could work that in,” I said, trying to make my voice as scornful as I could.
“Well, that sucks. But this wasn’t all bad. He’s got your shirt, and he’s got to return it to you. Also, you talked to him and he didn’t yell at you. Maybe he’s getting over his anger. He shouldn’t be angry when he gives the shirt back, so you’ll have a chance to talk to him again. And if that doesn’t work for some reason, I’ll be thinking about Plan B.”
“Oh. Great. What will I have to take off this time?”
She laughed, hard, and said, “I’m thinking about that.” Hearing that, and her laughing, I began to laugh too. It was one of those times when our laughter fed off each other’s, and it went on for awhile. We kept talking after we’d settled down, and then we both had to get ready for band practice.
◊ ◊
Mr. Tollini had outdone himself tonight. I looked to see what new words he’d put on the board when I went into the band room and saw he’d given them an added touch. I smiled when I read them.
TONIC (not a health rejuvenator)
PARALLEL MINOR (not a fellow teenager)
HEMIOLA (not breast tissue)
Our halftime show this week was going to celebrate the five largest American cities, “largest” meaning largest cities including their metropolitan areas. We’d play an appropriate song for each and form something on the field representative of each city.
For New York, we were playing Leonard Bernstein’s New York, New York and forming the Statue of Liberty. I’d be at the tip of the flagpole on top. For Los Angeles we’d be playing Irving Berlin’s There’s No Business Like Show Business and forming the Hollywood sign. Mr. Tollini had chosen the Cahn/van Heusen standard My Kind of Town for Chicago and on the field we’d depict the tallest building in the country, the Sears Tower; I was at the tip of one of the twin antennas in that formation, too; Ross and his bass drum topped the other. For Dallas/Ft. Worth we were playing Big D by Frank Loesser and forming the outline of the State of Texas with a bunch of percussionists in the middle where Dallas is; I’d be one of the percussionists. The last city would be Philadelphia; we’d do the Liberty Bell and play Philadelphia Freedom by Elton John.
Becky grabbed me by the arm while I was still looking at Mr. Tollini’s words of the day and grinning. “Come on, we’ve got to talk.”
“I have to get my music in order.”
“Stop whining. You can do that while you’re supposed to be playing, like I do.” Becky was a percussionist, too, but was only in the marching band, not the concert band. In marching band, she played cymbals. She didn’t seem like a very serious musician to me, and when I’d learned she was Mr. Tollini’s niece, I’d realized that was probably why she was in the marching band. He needed warm bodies, and she was family.
“You know, if I keep hanging with you, I’ll become a juvenile delinquent. I can feel it happening even as we speak.”
“Good. Maybe you’ll have some fun then.”
“I have fun!”
“Of course you do, Matt. Of course you do. Anyway, we need to talk. I figured out Plan B.”
As curious as that made me, there wasn’t time now. Mr. Tollini had come out of his office and was approaching his podium. He saw the two of us and smiled. “Hey, Becky, Matt. You two getting along all right? You’re not corrupting her are you, Matt?”
I shook my head no at him, not sure that if I opened my mouth I wouldn’t either start laughing or tell him it was the other way around. He looked at me, at my shocked expression, then started laughing himself, while Becky frowned at him. He evidently knew Becky better than I thought he did.
◊ ◊
Plan B. Risky, but what the hell. I was ready to go for it. At least it didn’t involve me taking off any clothing.
We went through the cafeteria line a little later than usual the next day. When we got outside with our food, we looked around. Our table was empty, as usual. Kids tended to eat at the same table with the same other kids every day. Claim your territory once, you’ve basically got it all year.
We didn’t walk to our table, however. We walked to Kevin’s. Plan B.
I was going to ask him if we could sit down, but Becky was in front of me—I am a gentleman, after all—and when she arrived at his table she didn’t stop, she just plopped her tray down, pulled out a chair and sat. I was right behind her. I sort of looked a little tentatively, a little apologetically, at him, then did the same thing Becky had done: sat down.
Kevin looked at me, then at Becky, and his face became hostile.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, speaking to me.
Becky answered him. “We saw you sitting here all by yourself and thought we’d be nice and give you some company. No one wants to eat by themselves. Not only don’t you have anyone to talk to, it makes you look like a loser. And you’re too cute to be a loser.” She gave him a big grin, letting him know he could take that as a joke. Becky was being friendly and pouring on the charm.
He glared at her. Then he shifted his glare to me. “I told you to leave me alone. Why aren’t you?”
“But . . .” I started to say, but Becky broke in. “Matt told me your name is Kevin. Now Kevin, be nice. We’re just trying to make friends here.”
This time he didn’t even bother looking at her. He remained focused on me. “Well? I asked you a question?”
“Uh, Kevin, I’m sorry, I just thought, after yesterday, maybe we could talk.”
“We can’t. I don’t want to.” He looked at Becky for a moment, then back at me, and said, “This is my table. You’re bothering me. Leave.”
I didn’t know what to say. It’s difficult, trying to be nice when you’re getting hostility back.
Becky tried again. “Kevin, can we just sit here? You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. It’s just more pleasant if you’ve got people with you. How about that? We’ll just talk to each other.”
He paused before answering, and then his face lit up with the same smile he’d given me at his mother’s house, the one that made him look so happy. “Why don’t you do that? That’s great,” he said, smiling. He followed that with, “See ya.” And saying that, he stood up and started to walk away, leaving his half-eaten lunch lying where it was. Then he stopped and turned back to me. “Stay away from me. And that means your girlfriend, too.”
◊ ◊
For once, Becky didn’t make a joke. For once, she was serious. She just watched Kevin stride angrily away, not making any wisecracks.
I felt bad. I’d hoped that, because of the way he’d acted yesterday, maybe he was getting over what had happened. Maybe we’d be okay. After all, I wasn’t looking forward to hanging with him, to being best buddies or anything like that. He was too young for me. I just didn’t want him to hate me, and I wanted him to let me help him if he needed it. That didn’t seem like it was asking for too much.
Trying to lighten the mood, I said to Becky, “Well, so much for Plan B.”
“Don’t joke about it.”
“I know. I don’t feel like joking either. At least you got to see what I’ve been going through with him.”
“You know, Matt, a lot of guys would just say, screw him, and walk away. You’ve done more than can be expected. So he doesn’t like you; you could easily just accept that and move on.” She said that while looking at me. I didn’t respond, just looked back, then down at the table. She continued her thought. “But you’re not doing that. You’re still trying, and I give you a lot of credit for that. What I just saw was an unhappy boy. He’s troubled. And it makes me want to help him, too. The fact he’s alone tells me that no one else is making the effort. Matt, you’re right. He needs someone to help him. Not just do things for him, but really help him.”
“But we need to do it so it doesn’t make him angrier,” I replied. “And I haven’t found out how to do that yet. Uh, Bec?”
She looked up at me.
“You see why I said you were crazy for thinking he had a crush on me? That didn’t look like a crush, did it?”
“No, it didn’t. But that doesn’t mean anything. If he did feel like that, he’d certainly hide it. I don’t think we know anything we didn’t know before. I’ve just come face to face with it now, and understand how you’ve been feeling a little better. We need to talk about this some more, but not now.”
“Why not?”
Just then the bell rang.
“That’s why,” she said, and grinned.
◊ ◊
The next day at school, I thought Becky would show up at my locker in the morning as she had taken to doing, but she wasn’t there. I looked for her at lunch, and she wasn’t at our table. Great. Obviously she was absent today.
I could have sat down at our table anyway and eaten by myself. I could have joined the C’s, but I had no intention of doing that any more. I didn’t really want to eat alone, but was running out of options. Then I looked over to where Kevin was sitting.
He was at his table, alone as usual. For once, he wasn’t looking at me.
I don’t know why I did it. It probably wasn’t very smart. But I kept remembering talking to him while we were jogging in the rain. He’d been friendly. So it seemed possible we could get to that point again. Thinking that, which probably wasn’t very reasonable, but hoping, I took my tray and walked to his table.
I set the tray down and sat down, without looking at him. Then, without raising my eyes, I simply began eating. If we were going to talk, if we were going to say anything, he’d have to start it. I always had started out by apologizing to him. I wasn’t going to do that this time. I was just going to ignore him, and wait for him to say something, if he wanted to. Even if it was a rebuke again, even if he got up and walked away, he’d be starting it, not me.
I ate about half my lunch in silence. It was funny. The longer I sat there eating, not looking at him, not saying anything, the more I could feel tension building. It could have been just me; I had no idea what he was feeling because I still hadn’t looked at him. But I could feel tension.
Finally, I couldn’t take it any more and had to look up. I did. He was staring at me, so I thought, what the hell, and stared back at him. We did that for a couple of minutes. Then he looked back down, and resumed eating.
I did the same thing, feeling suddenly excited. He was accepting my presence. Eventually, I finished my lunch. I looked up at him again and he was still looking at his tray. I pushed back from the table, collected my tray and trash, and just walked away. Weird. But I had this strange feeling of success as I left.
After practicing my clarinet that evening and before doing my homework, I called Becky. She’d had a sore throat and had stayed home from school. I told her about eating with Kevin and him not getting up and walking away, and neither of us saying anything. I told her that I’d felt sort of good afterwards, like I’d jumped a hurdle or something.
“Did you at least look at each other at the table? Because if not, it really wasn’t much to celebrate. You weren’t really even together at the table if you didn’t even look at each other.”
“We did. Well, not for a while, but then I looked up finally, and he was looking at me, and we stared at each other before I finished eating.”
“And didn’t say anything? I think you’re both crazy. I’ll never understand boys. But, Matt, when he was looking at you, what did that look like? You’ve been seeing anger and hatred. Did he still have that in his eyes?”
“You know, he didn’t. I think that’s why I felt so good, leaving the table. He looked at me sort of, well, neutral, I guess.”
“He did? Wow, that’s different from yesterday. And did he give you your shirt back?”
“No. I sort of wondered about that. He should have known we’d at least see each other at lunch. He could have brought it.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment, thinking I guessed. Then when she did speak, there was some excitement in her voice. “Matt, I think I can see something here. Look, in the rain, he wasn’t mad, right? He was simply talking to you.”
“Yeah.”
“And then yesterday, he was mad again, and didn’t give you the shirt. Right?”
“Yeah.”
“And today he wasn’t mad. And he didn’t give the shirt back. He didn’t talk, but then neither did you, and you being older, maybe he just expected you to talk first, and when you didn’t, he didn’t. So, maybe he’s not mad any longer.”
“Except he was yesterday.”
“But something was different yesterday. Something that could have made him mad then. And that something fits with our theory.”
“What theory?”
“That he’s got a crush on you.”
“That isn’t our theory, that’s your theory. Anyway, I don’t see what was different.”
“I was. I was with you yesterday. I wasn’t there today. Think about it, Matt. He’s been watching us eat together for a few days now. He thinks I’m your girlfriend! And that makes him mad. Think about it. I think I was right all along. He’s gay and likes you. He is jealous of me, and hates that you’re with me. But he still likes you; he can’t help the crush he has; just because you have a girlfriend it doesn’t go away. He still has the crush. And if you want proof of that, think about this: he’s keeping your shirt.”