“Just existing. In your underwear, of course. Just so that I have you—a version of you—in case you ever slip through my fingers.”
I followed his lead, enticed by how far this could go. I dropped my robe on the way to the cushy red velvet sofa in his bedroom. It had to be a two-hundred-pound piece of furniture that formed caverns of light and shadow in its cushion pattern.
I lay down and stretched my wings like a pterodactyl under the floor lamp.
I could see his work as he drew. Jay sketched my face with no mouth, eyes, or nose, but made my nipples so very pointy. He had the vein in my shoulder streaking like watermelon skin, and he put a wrinkle in the underwear. But he left out the bruises and scars.
All I could do as I posed was think of how I wanted to live with him in a secluded home with a field that went on forever, its beauty folding over the earth, us folding with it.
I couldn’t go back to Harlem that night. So, after the drawing was done, we lay down in his bed together.
I was worried I’d do something wrong because every moment felt so right—too right. “How sad would you be if I died?” I asked in the end.
“Please, Nick.”
“Answer?”
“Very, very sad. And this is morbid.” He wrapped his arms around me.
I tucked my hands under the pillow as he grabbed my body and pulled me into him. “I’m glad you stopped hiding yourself,” he whispered into my neck.
I didn’t have eloquent compliments to give him in return. Only desperate, unreasonable requests, likeHold me forever.
It was only dreaming. This would only be real for a fleeting time, as Jay still pulled away from his truth. Jay thought the wordhomosexualwas too sexual. I didn’t think it was. It was simply a label, like saying someone was human—there could be dignity in it, if you gave it dignity.
I am a homosexual.That says nothing, by itself. The meaning of words was up to us; how we felt about them was also up to us.
“Thank you,” Jay muttered, into my neck.
I didn’t know what for, but he fell asleep waiting for a response. I stayed up for hours in turn, pondering my past and wishing I could make it leave me alone.
21.
Isaiah was my first love, but he didn’t love me back. I was just his corny friend. His shadow.
He was athletic, with a sinewy, strong build. At pull-ups, he was perfect. When we ran track, he was perfect. I always fell behind as soon as the guns fired and we started to run. Many people were spurred on by the bystanders who were cheering from the stadium, but my father was never there, so what was the point?
Everyone else was bigger than me, backs more bricked up, legs longer. My competitors charged over the hurdles, brows clenched, mouths relaxed, red clouds kicking up when they landed. They took this very seriously.
But one day Isaiah tripped, and he and his hurdle skidded across the track. I was already behind, so I stopped for him as the rest of the runners ran.
“You losing the race,” he said as I knelt by his side.
But I wasn’t losing anything. I was helping my friend.
“Nick, this is stupid of you,” he said. “I’m fine. Go.”
If I could, I would stop all over again. The race could not ride bikes with me and shoot bottle rockets over the drugstore and lie in the meadow and talk about dreams—only Isaiah could. But once he realized I had that losing sprit, he tried to toughen me up.
The day after the race, he took me to the gym to do push-ups and then we went out behind the gym to cool off. Girls sat on benches, skirts riding above their knees for the summer, their brown legs gleaming under white sun, sun hats shielding their eyes, so that lips were all that showed.
They looked up when Isaiah walked by. He waved, and they giggled, turning away. He had his eyes on Pam Harris, who sat with her legs crossed, elbows back on the table as he passed. Those two understood the confidence thing before the rest of us.
Isaiah took a fighting stance across from me. “Throw a punch,” he said, glancing over to Pam.
And I refused. We both knew he could make origami of my bones—no point in pretending I stood a chance. But when he swung at me, I was quick enough to duck and stumble like a deer from the encounter. He gripped my neck as I tried to escape and swiped my leg from under me.
He caught my shirt, before I fell, holding me dangling off the ground, like I was a puppet. He laughed at my resignation. “You not gonna fight me back at all?”
