Another Life Altogether (29 page)

Greg, whose laugh was by far the loudest, slapped Stan on the back. “Good one, Stan. Hah, that’s a bloody good one,” he brayed, hooking his arm over Stan’s shoulder and leaning into him so closely that he was almost hanging off Stan.

“Yeah, Stan, that was a good one,” Tracey echoed, gazing hopefully at Greg.

Grabbing the whiskey from Greg and shrugging him off, Stan took another long drink, removing at least an inch of the copper liquid from the bottle. As soon as he finished, he let out a theatrically loud belch and grinned proudly at the crowd assembled around him. Then he handed the bottle back to Greg, folded his arms, and regarded Ken with an arcing grin. “What’s up? Getting poked in the arse like that, did it bother you, Kenny boy?” The joking tone was gone from his voice, and his words came out in a slow and lazy snarl. I saw the muscles in Ken’s face tighten. He glanced at Stan’s face and then toward the door. I noticed how the air in the room felt stale with cigarette smoke and the heat of all those jostling boys’ bodies. Like Ken, I wanted to get out.

“More like nancy boy,” Greg Loomis crowed.

“Yeah, he’s definitely a nancy boy,” Tracey agreed, barking out an awkward, overloud laugh. “A fat little nancy boy.” Her eyes darted over to Greg, and for a moment her features seemed stung with intense neediness.

“Yeah, he’s got to be a fucking poofter,” Stan said. “Doesn’t like me messing with him ’cause he’d prefer it up the arse from the vicar, wouldn’t you, nancy boy?”

“That’s not true,” Ken said, his voice flimsy and suddenly higher, precipitating an immediate chorus of vociferous laughter—the boys, mouths wide, lips curled, showing teeth and tongues and gums, and Tracey, clapping her hands together as she tossed her head back. I took a step back from the heaving circle, aware of how the stillness of my own face and my secrets set me apart.

“That’s not true,” Stan mimicked, making his own voice high-pitched and jiggling his head from side to side.

“But it’s not.” Ken seemed to find some anger within himself, raising his fists so that I thought he actually might try to hit Stan. I felt myself willing him to do it, even though I knew it would be a hopeless
endeavor. At least then there’d be someone willing to defy Stan, to go down fighting. But Ken kept his fists clenched close to his chest, and under Stan’s sneering gaze he soon dropped them to his sides. “Just don’t do that again,” he said weakly, pressing his lips into a pout. “You shouldn’t do things like that. It’s not right.” Then he turned and scuttled toward the door.

I had already decided to follow Ken out. The little room felt as if it was getting smaller—I was dizzy with the bellowing laughter, with the smoke and sweat and alcohol smell. But just as Ken, head down, shoulders hunched, was pushing past one of the grinning boys, Tracey piped up.

“You hear that, Stan?” she said, her voice stark and bitingly shrill. “He went and threatened you. You’re not going to let him get away with that, are you?” Her features were fiery, animated. The desperate look I’d seen only seconds earlier was replaced by a glistening appetite in her eyes. “Go on, get him, Stan, teach him a lesson. Shouldn’t let a fat little fairy like him show you up.”

“She’s right, Stan,” Greg said, looking directly at Tracey. “We should teach the little dickhead not to talk to you like that.”

As Ken reached for the door handle, one of the boys closest to him grabbed his hand and jerked it away. Then, in a single movement, he twisted Ken’s arm around his back. Ken gasped, grimaced, and cried out. The blood drained from his features like liquid poured away.

“Not so bloody fast, you chubby little poof,” Greg said, striding toward Ken. As he moved past Tracey, he handed the whiskey bottle to her.

“Show him, Greg,” Tracey said, almost breathless. She looked utterly focused, gleeful in her rage. “Show him that he needs to watch what comes out of his big fat gob.” She gestured toward Ken with the bottle.

Greg took over the hold on Ken’s arm from the other boy and marched him toward Stan. Across the room, Stan took out another cigarette,
lit it with a flourish, and tossed the burning match to the floor. He took a long, languorous drag, the calm in his movements belied by the greedy anticipation in his eyes.

“Stop it, stop it,” Ken wailed, squirming loosely against Greg’s grip. “I haven’t done anything to you.” His body contorted, with his arm still twisted high up behind his back, he looked awkwardly at the gawping crowd. All the boys, leaning into one another, were a single shuddering wall of laughter, angled limbs, blotchy skin, and oversized hands. When I caught the eye of one of the older boys—long-faced, with a strand of greasy hair falling over his forehead—I felt the cold heat of his stare press into me and I looked away, knowing that he could see my fear.

Having marched Ken across the room, Greg released his grip and shoved him toward Stan. “Hello there, Kenny boy,” Stan said. “Back so soon?”

“Just … just, let me go, Stan. I’m sorry—really, I am. I … I … didn’t mean to bother you.” Ken’s voice was so shaky he was almost stuttering.

“But, see, there’s your problem right there, Ken,” Stan said, shaking his head and letting out a long sigh. “See, fat little poofs like you—well, they always bother me. I know you can’t help it, Kenny, but the trouble is, no matter what you do you just get on my fucking nerves.”

“Yeah, you get on everybody’s nerves, actually, Ken,” Greg agreed.

“So, Ken,” Stan said, sucking on his cigarette and then waving it in the air over Ken’s head. “What do you think the right kind of punishment for you would be?”

Ken, looking upward at the cigarette, didn’t answer.

I wanted to rescue him. I really did. I wanted, more than anything, the courage to speak out, to release my fury against Stan. But I also knew that speaking out would make me a target. And perhaps then they would somehow see all the things about me that had so far gone unnoticed. After all, if I stood up for Ken, who everyone thought was a fat poof, a hideous little nancy boy, what did that say about me? In my panic, I looked at Tracey. Perhaps this was enough for her, too. Perhaps
she hadn’t thought that things would go so far. Surely, now she saw that Stan might really hurt Ken, she would want it to stop? But when I looked into her face her features were energized, ravenous, like someone watching a late-night suspense film, utterly transported, thrilled. She put the whiskey bottle that Greg had handed to her to her lips, tipped it back, and took a swig. Her face twisted as she drank down the copper liquid, then, as she let the bottle drop to her side, her eyes blazed wider and her cheeks were bathed in a sudden flush.

Stan took another puff on his cigarette and then, this time, as he exhaled a breath of thick gray smoke, he moved the cigarette deliberately, slowly, until its burning end was just a couple of inches from Ken’s cheek. “Feel the heat, Kenny?” he said, easing the cigarette closer still to Ken’s face.

There was a single snort of awkward laughter among the surrounding boys, and then an empty perilous silence against the insistent beat of disco music coming from down the hall. The beat merged with the throb of my pulse in my temples. My mouth felt dry, my whole body frozen and breathless, as I watched Ken’s horrified eyes blinking rapidly, his eyelashes fluttering like tiny, nervous wings.

Stan pulled the cigarette away and everyone sucked in a breath. As he took a drag, I noticed a couple of the boys shuffle awkwardly, eyeing Stan and then the door. “Hey, Stan,” one of them said warily, “maybe you should take it easy. I mean, the vicar’s only just down the hall.”

“Yeah, Stan,” said another. “You don’t want him to chuck us out.”

Ken, apparently sensing a shift in the mood of the room, began to back away.

“Like I give a fuck,” Stan said as he reached out and grabbed Ken by the arm. “Not so fast, Kenny boy.” And then, in a swift and unexpected movement, he plunged his cigarette toward Ken’s face.

I stood motionless, unable to move. Ken let out a sound like a bleat, and, his face crumpling like a piece of balled-up paper, he stumbled backward and began to heave out jagged, thunderous sobs.

“Shit, Stan,” one of the boys said as the room was filled with the acrid scent of burned hair. “Did you burn his face? You’ll get the fucking cops on you if you burned his face.”

For a moment, Stan’s face was a mask of joyous fury, his eyes narrowed and still and filled with delight. Then, as if pulled from a dream, his expression changed. “He’s all right,” he said, eyeing Ken. “You’re all right, aren’t you, Ken?” He put his hand on Ken’s shoulder and pulled him upward. “See, I didn’t touch him,” he said, pointing at Ken’s damp but apparently undamaged cheek. The cigarette must only have burned a wayward strand of hair.

At that moment, the door swung open and everyone turned to see who had come in. Even Stan bore a look of alarm. I had a sudden jolt of hope, desperate for rescue by the vicar or one of the other adults supervising the evening’s activities. My hope plunged as Malcolm and Dizzy walked into the room.

Oblivious at first to the scene they had intruded upon, they were talking in fast and excited tones, their features animated. They were all blazing color, Dizzy in a knee-length red velvet dress that settled over her body like a billowing crimson cloud, Malcolm in a pair of pastel blue trousers and a shocking-pink satin shirt. In that first moment I saw them, I felt a streak of envy as bright as their clothes—for the normality that they still occupied, while I stood there horrified. But I saw their faces plummet as they took in the scene around them, and I felt the dread inside me swell.

“Oh, look,” Tracey sneered. “It’s four-eyes and her little fairy friend. What you two doing here? Close the freak show early, did they?”

Greg chuckled. “Hah, freak show—yeah, that’s a good one.”

Tracey beamed. Malcolm and Dizzy exchanged looks.

“You all right, Ken?” Malcolm asked.

“He … he … he tried to burn me. With his cigarette.” Ken gestured shakily toward Stan.

Malcolm looked at Stan, his expression a mixture of confusion and anger. “Jesus Christ!” He began to move toward Ken, past the line of
silent onlookers. “Come on, Ken,” he said, his voice soft and soothing. “Maybe we should get you out of here, eh?”

“Mind your own fucking business, you fucking fairy,” Stan said.

“Ken’s my friend. It
is
my business,” Malcolm said. “And if you tried to burn Ken, that’s the police’s business.”

Stan laughed, but this time he seemed uneasy, taking a hasty drag on his cigarette. “Who the hell do you think you are? Policeman Plod? More like Sergeant Fairy. Look at you—you’re a fucking embarrassment.” He reached over and tugged on one of the flouncy sleeves of Malcolm’s shirt. “Who the hell bought this? Your mummy? Maybe next time she can send you out in a nice frilly little dress.” At this, the other boys sniggered. “But for fuck’s sake don’t take any fashion advice from this ugly slag,” Stan continued, nodding toward Dizzy. “Put a paper bag on her head and even Greg here still wouldn’t shag her. Right, Greg?” He slapped Greg across the shoulder.

“Of course I wouldn’t shag her,” Greg huffed.

“You’re both fucking weirdos,” Stan said.

“Nobody asked for your opinion,” Malcolm responded.

“Nobody asked for your opinion,” Stan imitated, making his voice high and flapping his wrist. He began mincing about the room. “Because I’m a little poof,” he continued in the high, ridiculous voice. “And I’m just here to spoil everybody else’s fun.” He stopped and leaned his face into Malcolm’s. “Just what do you think you’re doing?” he said, resuming his normal snarl.

“I’m taking Ken here into the other room,” Malcolm replied. “And I think it’d be wise to let me. Otherwise, we might have to talk to the police. With your reputation, Stan Heaphy, I doubt they’d show much sympathy for you.”

Stan seemed jarred. As Malcolm edged past him, Stan didn’t even try to stop him. The boys gathered around were nervous again, cowed by the mention of the police.

I was amazed at Malcolm’s daring. A reedy wisp next to Stan’s leather-clad bulk, he was defiant, propelled by something that seemed
to make him impervious to fear. When he reached Ken, he put an arm around his shoulder and began to guide him toward the door.

“Aw, isn’t that sweet, they’re giving each other a girlie hug,” Greg sneered. Tracey giggled.

“God, what is wrong with you?” Malcolm said. His eyes swept the room. “Is this funny to you? Scaring people? Hurting them? Making them cry? Calling them names just because they’re different, because they’re not like you? It’s pathetic!” I looked away, my fear almost completely replaced by shame.

“No,” Stan said, stepping in front of Malcolm again. “You’re pathetic, you scrawny little poof. You and blubber-faced fatty here. And you’ll be even more pathetic once I’ve beat the fucking shit out of you.” He took a final drag on his cigarette and tossed it over his shoulder so that one of the boys behind him had to duck to avoid getting hit in the face by the still burning butt. Then he rolled his right hand into a fist and pressed his left palm over his folded fingers so that his knuckles sounded an aching crack.

I could see now the fear in Malcolm’s features—in the clench of his jaw, the taut skin around his mouth, the bloom of sweat across his forehead. I was amazed that he didn’t flinch or try to get away. Instead, he kept looking steadily into Stan’s face and pulled himself broader, taller, announcing his bright and satiny presence without shame.

“Get him, Greg,” Tracey urged, gesturing toward Malcolm with the whiskey bottle.

Greg puffed up his chest and curled his lip. “You’re in for it now, you little poof.”

Tracey beamed proudly at Greg, and then, as if toasting his bravado, she lifted the bottle to her lips to take a swig. Unfortunately, she tipped back the bottle with a little too much force, taking in a larger mouthful of whiskey than she’d anticipated, so that almost as soon as she tried to swallow she choked, coughed, and sputtered out most of the liquid in Greg and Stan’s direction.

“Fucking hell!” Stan shouted, jumping back as a shower of Tracey’s
whiskey spittle hit him. “Christ almighty, don’t drink that fucking stuff if you can’t take it.”