He went out and stopped Zihan, to put his arm around him to bring him into the room. “Nick, this here is Zihan. He’s studying restaurant work,buthe wants to be a stuntman, like his father.”
Why would Jay decide to pull him into our conversation? Things were embarrassing enough without an audience.
“We know each other,” I finally told him, and Zihan’s and my hands naturally raised for a high five.
“Oh, great!” Jay said, looking back and forth between us. “Zihan, I’ve called you over here because I’ve seen Charlie giving you the business too, over your fashions and heritage. I say we put our heads together and get back at him.”
“I don’t want to get back at him,” I protested.
Jay turned to me. “Wrongdoing should be faced with accountability, Nick. It’s the only way to keep the balance of nature.”
“I read your letters,” Zihan said, looking slightly concerned.“You should carry something like a weapon, just in case people get the wrong idea. My uncle carries a cane for his bad leg, but he’s used it like a bat when he’s needed to.”
“I’m here for an education, not a fight!” I said.
“But you must learn to fight to defend yourself!” Jay countered. He approached me in a fighting stance and started to throw jabs, forcing me to back away from him, my hands held up.
“Okay, what are you doing?” I demanded.
“Teaching you how to fight!”
“All my life I’ve had to fight!” I said, swatting his hand away. “Stop!”
“Boohoo—life is rough!” Jay took off his sweater vest and threw it on the desk, then unbuttoned some of the shirt underneath. “Zihan!” he said, pivoting to face him. “Hit me!”
But instead of a hit, Zihan instantly threw a kick into Jay’s shoulder.
“Ow!” Jay screamed, rubbing his shoulder.
“You asked for it,” Zihan said, with a shrug and a soft laugh.
“I saidhit, but very well.” Jay nodded, impressed. “See!” he said, turning to me. “Zihan can walk around in girls’ clothes because he knows how to dothat.”
“What if I don’t want to know how to do that?” I said. “I’m not fighting anybody, Jay. I don’t need a reason to be thrown out of West Egg.”
“But it does matter,” Jay retorted. “Say my letters get out beyond school, and someone jumps us? Then what?”
“We get jumped, I guess.”
“Ugh!” Jay groaned and rolled his eyes. “Don’t you get tired of being so nonchalant?”
My reaction in this moment mattered to him—he wanted it to be as chaotic as his. And, as neutral as I was to a rumor as silly as this one, I couldn’t call the question inappropriate. Ididget tired of being so nonchalant.
I crouched into a fighting stance, and the sight of it made him smile. I threw a jab at the front of his shoulder. In response, he tackled me into the chalkboard, knocking the wind out of me. In the cloud of chalk dust that burst around us, he grabbed my wrist, rendering me half powerless.
“Nice try,” he whispered, our faces so close I could smell the florals of his shampoo.
Close enough to feel the force of his inner chaos, I decided that some wrestling around was okay.
We didn’t want that day to end! Each of us wanted to spend more time together. All the attention at West Egg was suffocating, but off campus grounds we could breathe again, free from the petty gossip.
After school, we shelled out five cents for a trip to Coney Island. There was a carnival on the beach—the last of the year—that stretched off Southwest Brooklyn, near to where Jay lived but so far from Harlem and school.
The day melted away as we wandered toward the coast and weaved through a wonderland of lights, carousels, and rollercoasters. Zihan got some cotton candy from a man spinning itin a machine. I got a funnel cake and then found Jay sitting on a table with his feet on the adjoining bench. He’d somehow secured a plastic cup full of gin and lemonade. I don’t know how he found it, but he offered me some, and I sipped it awkwardly, careful not to touch my lips to his lip print. He watched me though, to see if my lips would touch the ghost of his.
“I don’t normally do this,” I said. “But I have to admit, thinking of how much worse today will make my life at West Egg makes me want to lose at least half of my mind.”
“There’s a great place we can do just that,” Jay said, still watching my lips. “The juice joint. The queer one, where we met.”
