Xylophone (7 page)

distant, but he hadn’t moved.

“Because it takes joy to dance, and I could’ve

sworn that prick had killed all the joy I had in me.”

Chapter Seven

Dare

June, 1999

I SAW it from the bus as I was coming back from

my first clarinet lesson. First
private
lesson, that

is, with a music teacher who wasn’t my band

director. My mother wanted to drive me to and

from Mr. Eger’s studio, but I told her no. I was

thirteen and starting to stretch my wings.

Independence felt good.

Only, that’s what put the rainbow and the

windows in my path. A sparkling rainbow arching

over an otherwise plain storefront, with bluebirds

hovering at each end. And display windows

packed with a jumble of things that didn’t look

new. The sight was captivating. A thirteen-year-

old boy—especially a quirky and somewhat

rebellious boy like me—couldn’t possibly resist

that kind of enticement.

Later I’d think,
If only I’d been sitting on the

other side of the bus, I wouldn’t have seen it.

Over the Rainbow Resale would never have

intruded on my life.

I was deluding myself. Seeing the store was

inevitable. Fate had made it inevitable. I know that

sounds crazy, but I believed it for years. Maybe I

still do.

The following week I got off the bus just a

few doors down from the shop. Since I had a bus

pass, I wouldn’t have to walk the remaining

distance, maybe a mile or so, to my house. This

mattered, because I was carrying my clarinet. Not

that it was heavy, but I was afraid someone might

snatch it from me. I was even more slightly built

than most girls my age. If I’d been mugged—and it

never occurred to me most muggers weren’t after

clarinets—I couldn’t have hung on to my most

treasured possession.

At first I dawdled on the sidewalk, hugging

the case to my chest, and studied the stuff in the

windows. A manikin wearing a polka-dot bikini

and a
Creature from the Black Lagoon
mask. A

barbecue grill heaped with molded plastic food

and a rubber plucked chicken. Painted wood fish

and frogs sitting on the rungs of a swimming pool

ladder. African-looking busts draped in costume

jewelry. An old-fashioned picnic basket stuffed

with garden tools. A red bicycle. An alto sax with

silk flowers erupting from its bell.

Beyond this summery mad mess, the shop

looked dim and dingy inside. But a multicolored

OPEN sign hung crookedly on the door. I set my

clarinet case at my feet, cupped my hands around

my eyes, and peered inside. The ceiling lights

were on. I saw shelving units, packed with

merchandise, set at odd angles to each other, and

more weird stand-alone displays, and even a few

racks of clothing. No one was manning the old

office desk that sat near the wall to the left of the

door. I figured it must’ve been the checkout area,

because a scrolled brass behemoth of a cash

register weighed down a counter behind the desk.

Someone had to be there.

I crept inside… and immediately heard it.

Magical music dancing behind the buzzer sound

that wavered from somewhere in the back of the

shop. Notes like a fusion of dripping water and

muffled bells.

He’d seen me. I didn’t know it then but I

know it now. He’d seen me staring enrapt at the

junk in the windows, a clarinet case clutched to my

heart, and he’d scurried away to set his trap.

Jonah

September, 1999

WE LIVED in Detroit, my mother and I. My sister

Josie was eighteen and had already taken off for

California. She’d always hated Detroit.

After my parents got divorced, my mother

found religion. I think it was one of our neighbors

who turned her on to it, got her to accept Christ as

her personal savior. Not that it amounted to much.

Mom lost interest in going to church after the

second or third time. She never could keep to a

schedule. But she expected me to go, like I was her

stand-in. Vicarious salvation, I guess.

I didn’t really mind. The services were lively

and entertaining, a break from my routine. I was

shy, kept to myself, didn’t have a lot of friends.

The highlight of every year was spending part of

the summer with GG at her lake cottage. Mom

would drive me there, hang out for a few days,

then drive back to Detroit. Or wherever. She’d

pick me up more or less when she felt like it.

Maybe two weeks later, maybe two months later.

But I always got back before school started.

Anyway, the church I went to was one of

those hole-in-the-wall, neighborhood places—

Pentecostal,

I

think—pastored

by

a

tall,

immaculately dressed man named Clayton C.

Wallace. He had a small multiracial congregation.

The services were full of spontaneity, not like the

Catholic Mass my dad’s parents once took me to,

and they either made me smile or held me

spellbound. There was a lot of singing and

clapping and arm-waving, people shouting out or

even falling down during Reverend Clay’s

sermons.

Never a dull moment.

The first time I saw a woman collapse to the

floor, drooling and jerking, it scared the daylights

out of me. But soon I started looking forward to all

the signs and wonders. That’s what they’re called.

People speaking in tongues. Reverend Clay healing

the sick.

His cures were almost violent. They entailed

a lot of gripping and shaking, wailing and

weeping. When he banished demons
in the name

of JEEzus
, I swear it was the most awesome thing

I’d ever witnessed. Of course I never actually saw

one of those demons, but I wished I could, just to

relish the terrified look on its face as the

Reverend’s booming voice banished it to Hell.

Yeah, I sure got hooked. I stopped noticing

the rickety folding chairs and scuffed pulpit and

wilting flowers that smelled of poverty and decay.

I stopped noticing the grime on the floor and the

stench of ripe sweat and belly gas.

Church went well for a while. Folks were

nice to me, kind of looked after me. They were

decent people. Reverend Clay even singled me

out. He was always smiling in my direction,

putting an arm around my shoulders, tousling my

hair. It made me feel special.

Too special. At least for an adolescent kid

who spent more and more time alone with a

married man and father to a baby girl.

Chapter Eight

THEY asked each other questions, less tentatively

than Dare would have thought. A conduit had

already opened between them. It was fascinating,

they agreed, to find out how other predators

operated, how they drew kids into their webs. But

it was sickening, too, and deeply troubling. So

many scenarios were possible, so many ways for

craftiness to take advantage of gullibility.

For a while Dare and Jonah sat in silent,

separate cocoons, not noticing much of anything, as

they let their reawakened memories slip from

harsh light back into murky shadow. At least that

was how Dare interpreted their stillness. He

hadn’t allowed Over the Rainbow Resale to take

on this much definition and detail since he’d

stopped visiting the shop. Its partial resurrection

had left him tremulous and queasy. Jonah’s

reaction must’ve been similar.

Focusing on the natural beauty around him,

the unspoiled fresh fragrance of it, he drew slow

breaths. Had Jonah suggested this location for just

that reason?

“I should hit the road,” Dare finally said. “I

have to work tonight, and I could use a nap.” He

was reluctant to leave, which surprised him. He

still felt dazed, which didn’t surprise him.

“You okay?” Jonah asked when they got to the

parking lot.

Dare could only manage half a smile. “I think

so. I feel a little gut-shaken, like I just got off some

ride at the state fair, but… yeah, I’m fine. How

about you?”

“Kind of the same. Thanks for coming, by the

way. It was a relief, easing that door open.”

“You’ve never even talked about it with

GG?”

“Not in depth. Not anywhere
near
that. She’s

aware of the situation and refers to it once in a

while, but we’ve never discussed it.” Jonah had

again slipped on his sunglasses, so Dare couldn’t

see his eyes, but he was sure they were narrowed

and that arresting gaze was trained on his face. “Is

this the first time
you’ve
talked about it?”

“No, it isn’t the first time. Except it is. I never

went into any detail before, with my family
or

Battaglia. I guess I wanted to keep the experience

at a distance, keep it blurred.”

Leaning against his car, Jonah lowered his

head and nodded. “I know what you mean. I

should’ve—” He abruptly stopped speaking, as if

he were censoring himself.

“Should’ve what?”

“Done the same. By not mentioning it to my

mother.” Before Dare could ask what he meant,

Jonah stood up. “Well, I don’t want to keep you.”

He pulled a key chain from his pants pocket and

unlocked his car with the remote that hung from it.

“Where do you work, anyway?”

The name
Sugar Bowl
sounded both silly and

vaguely smarmy, so Dare refused to speak it. “Just

a club.”

“Private?”

Dare laughed. “Hardly. It’s right on the

Chicago-to-Milwaukee corridor, so it attracts all

kinds of people from all kinds of places.”

“Big, huh?”

“If you mean spacious, I suppose it
is
pretty

big. There’s a theater for performances, and a bar

area, and a separate dance floor with its own bar.”

The awkwardness of the moment grew. Dare

had essentially outed himself to Jonah, so he was

reluctant to set up another meeting. He didn’t want

his motives misinterpreted. Given how he’d shot

off his mouth earlier, Jonah might start seeing him

as a brazen cock-vulture. Sexually insecure men

got awfully suspicious of queers awfully fast.

“I had a nice time today,” Dare said. “I didn’t

think I would.” There. Surely
that
couldn’t be

misconstrued.

Reassurance came when Jonah smiled. “I

liked it too. Or maybe ‘liked’ isn’t the right word.”

“It’s good enough.”

Once again leaning against his car, arms at his

sides, Jonah tapped his fingernails against the

driver’s door. “But we barely just got started.

There’s so much more.”

“True.” They’d only tiptoed up to the

thresholds of their stories.

“Would you mind getting together again? I’d

hate to stop here.”

Huh. So Jonah didn’t feel threatened. “I

wouldn’t mind at all.”
I just have to stay focused

on why we’re doing this.

TONIGHT he crawled, undulating like an oil-

slicked wave, onto the stage. Lights swept crazily

over the audience, but a single white spot followed

Pepper’s progress. A halter top with cutouts that

framed

his

glistening

pecs

and

nipples

complemented the ultra-mini denim skirt he wore.

Beneath the skirt was nothing more than a denim

G-string. Strategically-placed fringe directed

viewers’ eyes to the parts of Pepper they liked

best.

He made a quick fifty just by letting a middle-

aged junior executive type lick and suck the

cayenne-flavored oil off his right nipple. Another

fifty by letting a thirtyish bear work on the left. The

bear took the liberty of nipping at it—and incurred

a ten-dollar fine for biting.

The crowd loved it. Pepper loved it too. He

was excited now, a bundle of sexual tension.

Not only had this touch accomplished what

Pepper hoped it would—plump him up, because a

full basket led to a steamier performance, which in