Xylophone (12 page)

HE WASN’T very tall, but I think it was his

darkness—clothing, eyes, beard and mustache, hair

pulled into a ponytail—that made him look

imposing. The gold hoop he wore in one ear added

a touch of mystery. I had no clue how old he was.

Thirteen-year-old kids aren’t very good at pegging

the ages of adults. And I couldn’t even judge if he

was handsome or not, because he looked so

different from the guys I was used to crushing on.

Guys who were much younger.

It wasn’t until years later I figured out he was

thirty-six when we met.

As he came forward, his eyes flashed over

me. He spread his hands and smiled. “Well, look

what we have here!” he exclaimed. “A musician!”

As if he felt thrilled and honored that I’d set foot in

his humble store. “Welcome! I play music too. My

name is Howard. What’s yours?”

His voice was deep and resonant, a blast

from a trombone.

All I said was hi and that my name was Dare.

I felt kind of overwhelmed. Adults never greeted

me like that, like I was on their level. As

progressive as my parents were, they seemed to

look right through me most of the time.

Howard offered to let me lay my clarinet on

his desk while I browsed. I didn’t want to let it go,

but the shop was so crammed with stuff, I realized

I might knock something over if I carried the case

with me. So I handed it to him. He took it from me

with exaggerated care before he went to sit at his

desk.

I don’t think I had more than a few dollars in

my pocket, but I wasn’t there to buy anything so

much as to satisfy my curiosity. His voice seemed

to follow me up and down the crooked aisles.

Rather than make me nervous, it put me at ease. He

was surprisingly genial, even asked questions

about me, like he was truly interested in my life.

Most store owners would’ve been disapproving,

suspicious.

Soon he got up and followed me around,

although he didn’t make it
seem
like he was

following me—just hanging close, so we could

talk without raising our voices. His chattiness

seemed friendly to me. Pretty soon I was relaxed

enough to mention the sounds I’d heard when I

walked in.

His face lit up. “Ah, you caught me slacking,”

he said. “When there aren’t any customers in the

store, I often entertain myself by playing the

instruments I have for sale.”

“Where are they?” I asked, peering around.

All I’d seen was the saxophone in the window.

“I keep them in the rear so little kids don’t

fool with them.” He smiled as he curled a hand

over my shoulder. It felt like a bear paw, rough

and heavy and warm. “But you’re not a little kid,

are you? You’re a young man. And a clarinetist.”

His hand slid down my back, slowly, and the way

his fingers moved felt odd to me. I thought of a

blind person reading braille. But I wasn’t alarmed.

I was too excited about gaining admission to that

Top Secret Restricted Area. “Come on,” he said,

“come see something wonderful.” He winked at

me like a coconspirator and cupped my upper arm.

The wooden door at the rear of the shop still

stood open. Beyond it was a smallish room with

shelves along two walls and a single lower-

wattage bulb screwed into a ceiling fixture. There

were no windows, so the air was close and

smelled of age. I saw electric and acoustic guitars

on the shelves, a violin case and maybe a flute

case, some percussion instruments. Other stuff, too.

But I was mostly focused on what sat in the middle

of the room.

“What is it?” I asked. I kind of knew but

couldn’t remember the name.

His hand again came to rest on my back.

“That, my friend, is a xylophone. It has musical

cousins all over the world. I’m afraid I’m not

terribly good at playing it, but I enjoy practicing.”

He motioned with his free hand. “Go ahead,

introduce yourself. I can tell you’re intrigued.”

I walked up to it and said, “Hello, xylophone.

My name is Dare. May I play you?” And I glanced

at Howard.

He laughed as if I’d just said the wittiest thing

imaginable. Then the buzzer sounded—a customer

had come into the store—and I knew my visit was

over.

“Come back soon,” Howard said quietly

before we left the backroom. “I have a lot more to

show you.”

“Same time next week?” I asked hopefully.

He answered me with a smile, such an

inviting smile. “Whenever and as often as you’d

like.”

As soon as I got outside, I memorized the

business hours posted on the upper half of the front

door.

I almost went back sooner than I’d planned,

but I didn’t want to seem like a pest. Only little

kids were pests. The next time I stopped in,

Howard acted even gladder to see me. We cut

right to the chase. He invited me to sit on a stool

that was placed in front of the xylophone. I

climbed up, feeling privileged.

“Want to give it a try?” he asked, bending

toward me. “I’ll teach you a simple tune.”

“Heck yeah,” I blurted out, and he chuckled.

“I’m sure the song is familiar to you,” he said,

“and probably to most kids in America, but it

started as a kind of courtship song, or game. In

faraway Germany.”

The sound of his lowered voice and the feel

of his breath against my ear made me a little

nauseated. The room was stuffy, and I wasn’t used

to any man other than my father and my dentist

being that close to me. I didn’t think
, This is weird,

this is wrong
. I just felt unsettled for a minute.

Pretending to steady me on the stool, he

wrapped an arm around my torso. The move

startled me, made me jerk. Then I got self-

conscious, I thought because I’d been sweating.

My tank top felt damp.

“Comfortable?” he asked.

“I guess so,” I told him. “But you don’t have

to hold me on the stool. I won’t fall off.”

“I’m just keeping you steady,” he assured me.

“You have to be steady to move the mallets over

the bars, hit the right notes with the right degree of

force.”

My queasiness morphed into another feeling,

a stranger feeling, as he reached around me and

lifted one of the mallets. Engulfing me, he tinked

out “The Farmer in the Dell.” Introductory verse.

Twenty-four notes.

When he finished, he slid the mallet within

my curled fingers and let his playing hand rest in

the crease of my thigh, right up against my crotch.

His playing hand….

“Go ahead, Dare,” he whispered. “You can

do it.”

He was breathing faster. I felt the heat of his

chest seeping into my back, his short beard

catching on my hair. And I felt something else,

something vertical and solid pressing against the

base of my spine. Not just pressing against it, but

nudging at it.

I knew then what was going on, at least in

part. That kind of excitement wasn’t unfamiliar to

me. I’d felt it myself when I got close to certain

boys at school, or paged through teen magazines,

or saw cute actors in movies or TV shows.

Sometimes, late at night or early in the morning, a

pressure bloomed within me, as strong as some

heaving of the Earth’s crust. It felt like a mountain

was birthing in my pelvis. I’d get stiff and have to

give myself relief. And Christ, it always felt
so

good.

But this guy behind me wasn’t the boy of my

dreams. He hadn’t seduced me with his sweeping

eyelashes or long limbs and tight muscles. He

wasn’t pouty-lipped, floppy-haired Brad Renfro.

Or blue-eyed Nick Carter of the Backstreet Boys.

He was a grown man, this Howard dude, this

unlikely new friend of mine. He was large and in

charge. I felt small and in his thrall.

I leaned forward, trying to put some space

between us, then laid down the mallet. I braced

myself on the xylophone. He didn’t let go of me.

That’s when I knew. I thought of grabbing the

mallet and leaping off the stool and whacking

Howard in the eye with the mallet’s hard-rubber

head.

“This isn’t cool,” I said, unable to lift my

hands from the xylophone’s bars. They’d grown

slick as teeth beneath my palms.

“What isn’t?” he asked innocently.

My tongue felt paralyzed. I wasn’t too

articulate, so I was afraid of saying something

stupid, making a fool of myself and wearing out my

welcome. He was an adult, and he owned a really

rad store, and he’d been nice to me. Pissing him

off or hurting his feelings was out of the question.

Finally, I improvised an answer. “I… don’t

think I can play this thing. It’s nothing like a

clarinet.”

“Oh, come on,” he urged. “Don’t be a quitter.

I know you’ll get a kick out of it.” His hands

moved on me, shrewdly. Over my chest and belly,

over my bare thigh. He damned well knew the

sensations would get to me sooner or later—the

heat, the hardness, the touching. All that

touching…. Shit, I was going through puberty.

He picked up the mallet and played the same

tune, “The Farmer in the Dell.” And played me.

Until he was sure I’d keep coming back. Until he

was sure I’d be willing to sit on that stool again

and again.

“THE cheese stands alone,” Dare coughed out,

unaware he’d started crying, maybe even had been

singing as he cried, and that Jonah had gathered

him into his arms.

“No. You’re not alone. You’re
not
alone. We

didn’t know it at the time, but we went through it

together. And we’ll finish going through it

together.”

Dare clung to him. The rest of what had

happened that June day in 1999 and so many days

thereafter swirled like mud through his mind. Only

the xylophone stood, stark and immovable, in the

center of the blur.

Dare knew his hatred of it was irrational. He

also knew it had a reason. Starting on that very

first day, the instrument stopped being an

instrument and became an excuse: to go to the

resale shop and into the backroom; to sit on that

stool and allow Howard Pankin, his “friend,” to

do things to him and ask for favors in return.

Learning to play the xylophone became a thin but

convenient pretense.

Dare’s ache kept freshening as the mud kept

swirling. Jesus, would it never stop? And now,

within it, he saw other components too. All the

compliments and little gifts Pankin scattered over

their encounters, like candy sprinkles over dung.

Like a rainbow over a dark doorway.

Like a cheerful chiming sound issuing from a

secret space.

All building blocks in an illusion—of

compatibility, of closeness.

“We’re two halves of a whole, you and I.

Beauty and the Beast.”

Gasping, Dare abruptly pulled back when he

heard the voice in his head. He scrubbed both

hands over his drenched face. “Oh God. The w-

worst part of it is—”

“I know what the worst part is.” Tenderly,

Jonah smoothed the fallen curls from Dare’s

temple and forehead.

More tears flooded out as Dare stared at him,

helplessly, gratefully. He was so bleary-eyed, he

could barely make out Jonah’s face. But he knew

Jonah was there, just for him, without any ulterior

motives.

“The worst part,” Jonah said, “is realizing

that in a hidden corner of yourself, you liked it, got

addicted to it. Acceptance rather than rejection.

Desire rather than aversion.”

Dare nodded.
Yes!
his mind shouted. He

might’ve had wonderful parents, but they couldn’t

keep kids at school from whispering about him,

ridiculing him, excluding him. His parents couldn’t

make the boys he wanted want him back. They

couldn’t even keep his own gay brother from

belittling him.

The best parents in the world couldn’t keep a

child from feeling alienated and alone.

“Pankin owned all the antonyms to all the