Make Something Up (27 page)

He snapped his fingers and whistled until everyone was looking. Once he had them all watching, he said, “Just so you know…” His biceps flexed. They made the short sleeves of his black T-shirt bunch up to his armpits, exposing dense armpit hair. A dark-blue tattoo banded one side of his neck. In thorny letters it spelled out “Suede.” He was a brute.

Troublemaker leveled his gaze on Kevin, his eyes twitching between Kevin's bed and his own bed not an arm's reach apart. Troublemaker waited until Kevin was turned all the way, listening with his eyes and ears. Talking slow, like a list of words instead of a sentence, Troublemaker said,
“I—Am—Not—A—Homosexual.”
He raised his forehead in expectation and waited for his words to sink in.

Otherwise the floor had gone silent. Everyone looked frozen, posed like a photograph of kids unpacking.

Troublemaker made one hand into a gun and poked the muzzle into the middle of his own chest. Like a Tarzan, he said, “Me: Heterosexual.” To the room in general, he said, “I'm only here to blackmail my folks into giving me a Yamaha Roadliner S.” Troublemaker said, “Capisce?”

Kevin stared at him in amazement.

It only took one person to fess up before there was an epidemic of truth. Whale Jr. said he'd hoodwinked his entire church. Someplace in Montana there was a small town where the ladies were holding bake sales. The teenagers were holding car-wash-a-thons. Even the little kids were chipping in their Tooth Fairy pennies. Whale Jr. bragged that when he went home he'd be a local hero. The Rotary Club and the Kiwanis would ride him down Main Street in a big Welcome Home parade. He'd get to wave at everybody, riding up high on the boot of a Cadillac convertible.

Whale Jr.'s eyes misted over with the vision. He'd be living proof to everyone he knew that they could heal the corruption of this sick world. With the cakes and pies they baked…the turkeys they raffled off…they were saving a soul. Despite what godless liberal progressives preached, the good people of this nation could make a difference. Every cent they earned was going to help make Whale Jr. a raving pussy hound.

Of course, that was already the case. He'd never been a football star. He'd never taken home straight A's on a report card. But just by liking girls, Whale Jr. would soon be adored by everyone he knew. Everyone in his small town would be invested in keeping him a happy skirt chaser. Boasting about his scheme, Whale Jr. smirked. He polished his fingernails against the front of his starched, white shirt. To underscore his genius, he ducked his eyes with false aw-shucks modesty.

In response, Jasper said a parade was strictly small potatoes. Same with being a church hero. When Jasper graduated from the Farm, his grandparents had promised to pay for his college education.

Beaming, Pig the Pirate said he was getting flying lessons as his reward. Tomas had negotiated a season ticket to the Bruins.

Listening to them, Kevin hoped God graded on a curve. Someday, what kept him out of Hell wouldn't be his own goodness as much as it would be other people committing worse sins. Kevin had forced his parents' hand. He'd made them demonstrate how much they loved him. But other guys had whole towns praying for them. They'd go home as fake saints. As living proof of God's miracles on earth.

According to the bargain he'd struck with his folks, when he came home a recovered pervert, Kevin Clayton would get no less than twenty thousand dollars cash. It wasn't a Porsche, but that's what his parents were willing to pay.

That evening the boys of the sixth floor bowed their heads together over beef Stroganoff. Before the butter had melted on their green beans, they'd all confessed to running more or less the same scam. They were, each and every boy, fake inverts. As such, they all committed to toeing the line, here. Bowing and scraping, if need be. It felt good. To be around other kids, clever kids, felt like being pickpockets together in some book by Charles Dickens. It was better than organized crime, because their scheme made everyone happy. There wasn't a bona fide homo among them.

They were still joshing and slapping one another on the back, congratulating each other on their mutual brilliance, when the Commander entered through the back of the chow hall. He moved like a coffin through the center of the room, toward a lectern at the far end. The room was heavy with steam and sour milk smells. By the time he took his place, the boys had gone quiet. He shuffled a few pages. Without looking up, he began to read. “Gentlemen.” He cleared his throat. “Gentlemen, welcome to the Healing Center. Please be assured that this institution has never failed in its mission. These doors have never, once, released a soul with troubled inclinations back into the world…”

He went on to describe how guests would be retained until the custodians declared them fully reoriented. To avoid temptations of the flesh they would shower separately. Dress in isolation. They'd never see each other unclothed. Once deemed ready, they would be integrated into the general population housed on the lower floors. The papers they and their parents had signed during the admitting process amounted to nothing less than a voluntary legal commitment to a residential treatment and recovery program.

“Please,” the Commander read, “for your own safety, do not attempt to leave this building.” He reminded them about the electric fence and the dogs. He explained that their contact with their families would be extremely restricted. “You may write letters, but know that those letters will be read by the staff, who have the option of censoring what they construe to be untrue or manipulative
communications.”

To Kevin, Mr. Peanut sounded tired, as if he'd delivered this speech too many times and his heart was no longer in it. Kevin's stomach was too full, and today had been a long one. As the Commander's voice droned on, Kevin exchanged bored looks with Pig the Pirate. Jasper yawned. Tomas sighed as if mooning over his future seat on the fifty-yard line. Brainerd looked at his wristwatch, smugly. The floor guards had confiscated everyone's phones. Nobody could text. Brainerd knew the time because only he wore an old-school watch.

Listening, Kevin fought off a feeling of cold dread. It wasn't the words the Commander said that spooked him. It was
how
he said them, as if he were reading those words off a stone tablet delivered to him atop Mount Sinai. Resigned and ominous, the Commander sounded like a judge decreeing a death sentence.

Jasper yawned behind his hands. Troublemaker shoved his dinner tray aside and leaned facedown on the table, cradling his head in his crossed arms. He'd barely begun to snore when the Commander looked up from his script. He surveyed the seven of them. He asked, “Any questions?”

No one replied. Kevin wasn't taking any chances. He sat straight with hands clasped primly in front of him. Fast-tracking to his twenty grand.

“Gentlemen,” the Commander coaxed, “have you nothing you'd like to ask?”

Brainerd raised his hand as if they were in school. When called upon, he asked about their general studies. In reply, the Commander explained that they'd be tutored in History, English Literature, Latin, Mathematics, and Geometry. A library of devotional tracts was at their disposal. Under the table, somebody kicked Brainerd for being such a brownnoser.

Troublemaker whispered, “Disposal is right.”

Kidney Bean asked, “What about sports?”

The Commander regarded him. His jaundiced eyes sought out a name tag. “Mr. Bean,” he continued. “Time allowing, you'll be free to make use of the basketball court behind the building as well as the swimming pool located in the basement.” He looked expectantly from boy to boy for another question.

“What about the steroids?” asked Pig the Pirate.

“And the weight lifting?” added Jasper. No one dared to ask about the promise of whores and strippers as part of their
reconditioning.

The Commander cocked his head, confused. Despite whatever rumors they'd heard, there would be no anabolic steroids or bodybuilding. Kevin could tell by the stricken look on Whale Jr.'s face that muscles had been part of his Homecoming dream—to be a pumped-up, 100-percent-certified he-man riding past the adoring throngs. Whale Jr. looked crestfallen.

Kevin heard the sound of musical notes. Four distinct notes. It was someone pressing numbers on the keypad in the hallway. He watched as a floor guard entered from the back of the room. The guard caught the Commander's attention and jerked his thumb toward the exit. The Commander nodded and said, “If there are no more questions, then it's time for you to return—”

A voice interrupted. “One question.” It was Troublemaker. Lifting his face from his arms crossed on the table, he asked, “When do we hook up with Betsey?”

Everyone looked at him with a new appreciation and respect. The name “Betsey” hung in the air. To judge from the Commander's face, the name had hit a chord. Troublemaker obviously had an inside track.

The Commander smiled. Not a happy smile, this was the smile of someone keeping a secret. “Tomorrow, you gentlemen have a treat in store for you.” He lifted his discolored hands into the air. “Tomorrow, you will meet a lovely young woman.” He closed his eyes as if swept away with happiness. “She is thoroughly…” To demonstrate what mere words couldn't convey, his hands molded a curvy, hourglass shape in the air. His palms came together, and he brought them to his chest. He pressed his clasped hands against his heart.

As if lost in a rapturous dream, he closed his eyes. He sighed. “And she will grant you access to all the erotic mysteries of the female body.”

Breakfast was eggs and French toast. Afterward, the guard ushered them down a new stairway and through a couple security doors. With every step the air was tougher to breathe. More stale. Dense with humidity and heat. For a short stretch, Kevin could smell the chlorine of the swimming pool. That proved they were in the basement, but the guard led them down two, maybe three more flights. He halted the group like a traffic cop, with the palm of one hand. Holding each door open, he waved them through. These corridors were less like hallways than tunnels. Pipes ran along the ceiling, and the floor was scuffed concrete. Moisture condensed and dripped from the pipes. Puddles forced them to watch where they stepped.

They'd been awake most of the night, whispering the name between themselves.
Betsey.

Now they acted like this was a big adventure, but every step felt like they were being buried alive. Jasper whispered, “I hope we get to wear a condom. My sperm could eat through steel.”

Tomas agreed. “That would suck, getting a baby out of this.” In whispers they griped about the prospect of becoming a teen father. They knew, firsthand, what monsters kids could be. Brainerd speculated that Betsey might be one of those expensive, incredibly lifelike, anatomically correct Real Dolls. Troublemaker alone kept silent.

At each new door, the guard punched a number into a keypad on the wall. Each keypad made a different series of musical tones. Each lock, it seemed, had a different four-digit code.

Betsey. The name rang in everyone's mind. All morning they'd repeated it while they ran their combs under steaming water and slicked back their hair. The Commander had said they should dress as if they were attending a formal dance. While they'd tied their neckties and shined their shoes, the girl's name had haunted them.

Now they crowded behind the guard. They tripped on their own feet and careened off the cinder block. Their whispers and giggles reverberated between the walls and floor. It was nerves, plain and simple. They acted like seven smart alecks, but in truth they were scared shitless. Seven teenagers on a blind date. To Kevin it felt like standardized testing in school. Whatever the conditions, he thought that if he could have sex with this stranger he'd be phoning his parents to come get him, tomorrow.

Once more, the dread haunted him. He was about to take part in a basement gang bang, sharing some girl he'd probably never again meet. Life was already too full of people you met only once. He was fairly sure Brainerd and Kidney Bean felt the same way, but he didn't want to say it aloud and risk spoiling everyone's fun.

To justify what was about to happen, Pig the Pirate kept saying the girl, Betsey, must be a whore. Not to be outdone, Whale Jr. insisted she was a nymphomaniac.

It filled Kevin with wonder. Every step took them farther down. Dungeon deep. Torture chamber deep. He was about to earn twenty G's from a single fuck. This had to make him one of the biggest whores in history. To launder the ill-gotten gains, his mind turned it into a wide-screen color television, a laptop computer, diapers.

They arrived at a door with no handle. The guard pressed a button on a call box mounted on the wall. He leaned close to it and said, “Sixth-floor residents.” Static crackled from the box, and a voice said, “Stand clear.” It was the Commander's voice.

The guard waved for them to step back, and the door swung outward. The room beyond it was dim compared to the hallway. The air that wafted out was cold as a vault. They shuffled through. Once the door shut them inside, it took a few blinks for their eyes to adjust. Kevin could hear a gurgle of running water. He could smell perfume mixed with chemicals that made his eyes sting. The only thing to see was the Commander. He stood under the room's one light, surrounded by darkness. Next to him was a long table. Whatever lay on the table, it was covered with a greasy sheet of milky plastic.

“Gentlemen,” the Commander said. He stooped to grip an edge of the plastic. As he lifted it, he asked, “May I introduce you to Betsey?”

The Commander cast the sheet aside. On the tabletop lay a thing. Something. It stretched the full length of the stainless-steel work surface.

The thing's skin looked as white as soap. It wore a flowered dress that left its pallid arms and legs bare. The folds of the skirt draped its slender thighs as far as the knees. Its arms lay straight at its sides. Kevin prayed it was merely a life-sized dummy. He told himself it was just some statue molded out of soap or wax. If it were a person, he prayed she was only asleep.