"I'm more interested in gay things than Dutch ones, though," he says. "Today, anyway. No offense."
"None taken. And marriage is a major thing they talk about, obviously," I say. That's my dad's big cause, or one of them, anyway. He's always on tv talking about it, because not only is he an impressive and persuasive guy, he's articulate and handsome, too, all the things I'm not. When marriage equality passed in New York Governor Cuomo specifically thanked my dad for all his work. The next day, people left flowers for him at the restaurant. One guy knitted him a scarf.
I think of one more thing. "And there's something called Merman."
"Merman? What is that?"
I'm not really sure, but I don't let on, as I like Theo thinking I might know things he doesn't.
"That's more a subject of George's than it is my dad's," I say. "He gets into that a lot with Lenny." Lenny is George's oldest friend. They met at theater camp, when they were eleven. He runs the restaurant with George.
" Lenny the gay guy, you mean," says Theo.
"Well, they're all gay guys," I tell him. "But to varying degrees, which you'll find out about. Same with Merman."
He looks a little worried. "It's probably a sex thing, right?"
"Gross," I say.
"What is?"
"Gay sex. Obviously."
"Like you know so much about it," he says.
"How much do
you
know?" I ask. "Have you even
had
sex? Like where you actually hook up with a real person and
have
it?"
"I really think that's my personal business." He chuckles, with a tinge of sadness that is obviously meant for me.
"So you haven't, then."
"Well," he says, "I did meet this one guy online. We chatted and stuff. He goes to NYU, to Tisch. He wanted to trade pictures? So he sent me one of him, sort of nude, but not showing his junk."
I didn't know any of this, but I try not to seem surprised. "Did you send one? Do you
have
pictures of your junk?"
"Well," he says, "no. I sent a picture of me as Tevye." Last year, at our school, Theo played Tevye in F
iddler on the Roof.
He was excellent. "I didn't hear back from him."
"But he was the only one?"
He chuckles again, in that sad-for-me style. "Oh, no."
"Anyone from our school?" I try to picture who it might be.
"I must say, Wesley," Theo says, sounding just a little bit English, "that I do think that's private."
"So you've never had sex, then."
"I didn't say that."
"You've done things? Like let guys fuck you in the ass and stuff ?"
He looks worried again for a moment, looks down and lowers his voice. "The thing is?" he says. "I'm sort of a top." He sneezes. "I think. I could be wrong, though. I've never actually hooked up. Maybe I never will! I don't know. Who has time? Why would I want to hook up when I could be learning new SAT words or giving back to the community?" Our school is famous for the concept of giving back, which they start beating into our heads in third grade. "We're here," he says.
We are, at Eighty-sixth and Second, right outside tae kwon do. I'm just coming back to it, as I had to take a few weeks off. I broke a toe at 2:00 A.M. at Dad and George's, from a stubbing I endured when I woke up hungry and went in the dark to the kitchen, where there are always eleven cheeses and foreign crackers and cookies made of ground-up nuts. I said, "Fuck!" very quietly, but George heard me and got up. He didn't even say anything; he just made an ice pack and grilled half a sandwich for me in his
panini
press. Then we talked for a while, also very quietly. We didn't want to wake my dad.
I'm fine now, though. "We should get in there," I say to Theo. I see a muffin on the steps, with no owner in sight, sitting there like it's just enjoying the day.
"Wait," he says. "Everything you say seems to be about George, pretty much. What about your dad?"
"What about him?"
"He's an old gay guy, right? So what's
he
like?"
"My dad." I look at the muffin again, and realize I'm starved. "Well, he's got green eyes, like mine, and a similar chin." I touch mine. We have clefts, my dad and I; Ben, my stepdad, says we could both keep change there. "And he's a fine person, of course."
"That I know."
"Like who doesn't." Sometimes I think I could mention my dad to a cop on a horse, or the horse itself, and they'd say,
Oh, yes, I ad
mire him immensely
. "And there's squash," I say. "The game, not the vegetable. He plays at the Yale Club. He might teach me, even, when he's got time."
"Did George go to Yale?"
"He didn't go to any college. He was just in shows."
"I'll have to learn all this stuff, I guess," says Theo. "Not to mention new gay stuff. Maybe your dad would talk to me."
"So can I go now, with what I want to ask you?" I hear the chant that starts tae kwon do, but I don't care. "You can probably guess what it is."
"Why didn't I tell you I was going to do all that today."
"Why didn't you tell me you were going to do that today?" I ask.
"I totally would have," he says. "Definitely. Unquestionably."
"Stop using adverbs." I've picked this up from Mr. Frechette, who is passionate on the subject of their overuse. "Just answer."
"I would have," Theo says again, and more, too, but at just that moment girls pass, the kind of girls I think of as New York girls, although they can be from anywhere. I stop listening to Theo, or hearing, anyway. They're all texting and talking and smiling at their phones, like they were better than boyfriends. The girl with the fastest fingers stops for a moment. She smiles, not at me, I'm sure, but it's a smile in my direction all the same. And suddenly, standing there, I'm
not
there. I know just where I am, though, where I've gone, which is to a park, in my mind, where I lie on clean, warm grass while the fast-fingered girl texts all over me, my whole body and my cock, too, little secrets everywhere. And then I hear Theo again, and come back.
"And I guess the biggest reason I didn't tell you," he says, "is that I didn't know it was going to happen. It came out on its own, one might say. Like it had been waiting, for the right event."
"So have you been gay all along, do you think?"
"Probably," he says. "I don't think it was sudden, like a hive or a nosebleed. I don't think that happens, but there might be recorded cases. There are always recorded cases of things."
"But not yours."
"Well," he says, "this thing happened once." He puts up his hood, steps into the street, looks both ways as if he's shown up early for a gunfight. "If I told you anything, which I'm not saying I'm going to do, it would have to be really private."
"You came out in an assembly!"
"It involves a person you know."
" Really?" I try not to look too eager, but I can't help running through names in my head, like flash cards. Crispin Pomerantz. Micah Kinzer. Jared Zam. I don't know what makes them seem possibly gay. Maybe it's because I don't like them. But Theo's gay, or he is now, and I like him. I'll bring this up with him, but later. "Who?"
"Noah," he says, in a whisper.
We know one Noah. He can't be gay. I don't know why. But he can't. "Are you serious? Really? Noah Duberman? Really? Noah?"
"You sound like Fartemis." Fartemis is Theo's sister, Artemis. She's nine, and enthusiastic. "So forget about it."
"Sorry. I promise I'll be cool. Really."
He looks at me. He's going to trust me. "And when the specific thing took place? You were there."
"I was?"
"It was a day in gym, in eighth grade. Remember how we'd climb ropes and then drop down and do sit-ups, with a person holding down your feet? So I get Noah. And it was the time when—"
I can't help myself. That happens. "When that bird was trapped—"
"Dude? Is this
your
gay inkling thing? Or mine?" He doesn't wait for my answer. "So there he is."
"So it involved rope, and sit-ups?"
"That's the situation. The thing, itself, involved a ball. A testicle."
"Whose?"
"His."
"What happened to it?"
"Well," he says, "it dropped."
"From?"
"His
shorts."
"Wow." I wish I had a wise or insightful comment, as I usually (ha) do.
"And do you remember in
Citizen Kane
? At the end, when he's holding the snow globe?"
We had a Masters of Cinema class last year; we saw
Citizen
Kane, Wings of Desire, All About My Mother
. "Rosebud. It falls from his hand, in slow motion."
"It was like that." He waits. "Falling gently." He waits a little more. "With some hairs." He shuts his eyes and uses this odd voice, like Dylan Thomas reading
A Child's Christmas in Wales
, which I am forced to listen to each Christmas with my grandma. "And it was
golden
." His eyes stay shut. His nostrils move. I give him four seconds.
"Golden," I say.
His eyes open. "You heard me."
"The whole ball."
"It's a metaphor, you fucking idiot."
"A metaphor for what? And not to be Literal-Minded Guy?" We have a Hall of Guys, stocked from our observation of humanity in New York. Expert Guy, Lacks Irony Guy, Literal-Minded Guy; these are just a few. "But there's no way you could have thought of the Rosebud thing when the ball fell. W
e hadn't seen
Citizen Kane
yet."
"Wow. That's astute. I'd say you're ready for Brown." I'm not really clear on what the Holy Grail is, but whatever it is, it's Brown at my school. Brown, Brown, Brown, forced down our throats like broccoli, starting when we're still hitting each other over the head with blocks.
"Was Noah aware of all this?" I ask.
"Fuck. I hope not."
"So you didn't tell him."
"Well, no," he says. "It's not the kind of thing you point out, exactly. He just kept sitting up. And what would I have said?" I can't think of anything, which makes me sad; in all the time I've known Theo, which is all of both of our lives, I've never even had to think. The words were always just there.
"And that told you you were going to be gay?"
"It seems like it might have. Wouldn't you think?"
"I just thought of something."
"What?"
"I have cookies." George puts something in my backpack every day. I dig around and find the bag. "They're called
ciambelline.
They're Italian. They look like fetuses, but they're good." I give one to Theo, who eats it fast.
"Thanks." He takes another. "I like these."
"They're traditionally served with
vin santo
." I learned this from
George. He's taught me a lot. " Which is a sweet dessert wine. Made from Trebbiano grapes, if you're interested."
"And about the ball?"
"I won't tell anyone. I swear."
"That's not what I mean. I mean, have you ever had something like that?"
"A golden ball situation?"
"With a girl."
The texting girl. Minutes ago. I'm grateful. "Yes."
"Who?"
"You wouldn't know her."
A text. It's for Theo. "Shit."
"What?"
"My family. I texted them about it all? So now they all want to meet. At City Bakery, for fair-trade cocoa. My mom, my dad, Fartemis, my grandma. Someone from the
New Yorker
, probably. Maybe I'm a T
alk
piece. My mom says that a lot. Y
ou know what
that is? That's a
Talk
piece."
"You should probably go," I say.
"Yeah, probably," he says. " Sorry about tae kwon do."
"Whatever."
"I should have told you before."
"You didn't know."
"What other secrets lie in store, right?"
"It is what it is."
He gives me a nickel. We do that when we hear a word or expression that, to quote Mr. Frechette, has led to the "ongoing gang rape of the language of Shakespeare, Milton, and Jennifer Weiner." There's a list, a long one, that we call the Nickel List.
It is what it is
is on it. As are
skill set, farm-to-table, growing the business.
"Say hey to Fartemis," I say.
"Can I ask you a favor?"
"Sure."
"Several small ones, actually. I hope it's not too much."
"Let's hear them."
"One's about the Innocence Project. I thought your dad might have some views on the subject."
This is a school thing. We stage fake trials for real people who were executed and whose guilt is in question. Theo and I are defending the Rosenbergs (Donatella Gould and Morgan Blatt), who did or didn't give secrets to the Russians.
"I'm sure he does," I say. "He has a lot of views."
"The second favor involves your dad and George. It revolves around gayness."
"Like how to have sex and stuff ?"
"No," he says. " About when they knew they were gay. Their golden ball equivalent, one might say."
A new text now, for him. As he checks it I think once more of Texting Girl, her flying fingers, the possible smile at me. Then I think, for some reason, about Blake Lively, when she was young, anyway. And I think about jerking off, just last night, to the jacket photo of one of my mom's authors, a lady who writes short stories about her bittersweet colorful childhood on some island, somewhere, but is also, actually, hot. My mom's this big deal editor. Everyone around me is a big deal something. Except George, of course.