Bad Kid Page 5

  At first, I asked God for his help nicely.

  Dear God, please help me get rid of the ideas in my head about boys. Let me meet a nice girl who will marry me one day and have my kids. Thanks and amen.

  But as the weeks passed and I sensed no improvement in my condition, I began to daydream about suicide. I imagined an elaborate, cinematic death scored by Sinéad O’Connor’s “Nothing Compares 2 U.” In my fantasy, a camera descended from an overhead crane as my father found me bled-out in a pink-hued bathtub surrounded by white candles. Trembling, he’d read the epic twelve-page good-bye poem I’d left for him beneath a razor blade. He’d lift my limp body from the tub and gently lay me across his lap before raising his fists to the sky, creating a tableau that was part Pietà, part Platoon. As thunder rumbled and a torrent of rain was somehow unleashed inside the bathroom, Leonard would scream skyward, “NOOO!!! If only I’d accepted you for YOU! But it’s too LATE! TOO LAAAATE!!!”

  Suicide wasn’t a way out but a high-drama bartering tool for fair treatment. My dad would finally understand me, I thought, glossing over the fact that my being six feet under might get in the way of feeling accepted.

  Look, God, I eventually demanded, I didn’t do anything to hurt you or anyone else. I love my parents and I don’t steal or cheat. The only sin I commit is lying, which I have to do because of you. And it’s all your fault! You are making me a sinner by letting me be this way. So stop being a jerk and make me better already. Amen!

  I talked to God less like he was a deity and more like he was a negligent customer-service operator at Verizon.

  I took the whole day off work and it’s already 5:30! Where’s the damn cable guy?

  As nothing changed, I became more fearful. The threat of familial rejection and social isolation of being gay was scary enough. But now there was something else. Something worse—AIDS.

  In 1990 you couldn’t watch MTV for more than ten minutes without hearing about AIDS.

  Stay tuned for Madonna’s new PSA about . . . AIDS!

  Next on The Real World: in which someone struggles with . . . AIDS!

  Here’s TLC in costumes made of condoms, rapping about . . . AIDS!

  At first I thought I could contract it through the air, as if HIV particles floated around, waiting to slip into my pores as soon as I thought about something remotely gay. I became my own thought police during high-risk scenarios involving underwear catalogues or Johnny Depp scenes in 21 Jump Street. I even trained myself to avoid looking at Greg, whose dapper spring wardrobe and slightly blonder hair were proving hard to ignore.

  Something else was also hard to ignore—Greg’s new girlfriend, Jill.

  Jill had a freckled face, pale pink lips, and a head full of long, bouncing blond curls. I first noticed them together in the parking lot after school, leaning on the hood of a car and holding hands. Then I saw them in the cafeteria, sharing headphones and Mexican food on Taco Tuesday. Although we shared second-period history class, I didn’t count Jill among the small group of less-popular girls I called my “acquaintances.”

  One day, as we waited to be excused, I watched Jill reading a note from Greg out loud to her friends as they giggled and shrieked.

  “Oh my God, Jill!” Paula Simms squealed. “He is SO crazy about you!”

  “I know, right?” cooed Jill, clutching the note to her chest and rolling her eyes skyward. “I think I love him!”

  As the group of girls tee-heed and swooned, I fantasized that a bolt of lightning would suddenly tear through the roof of the classroom and rip Jill’s head clean off her shoulders.

  “Are you sick, David?” someone asked me. I turned to see my desk neighbor, Patty Marks, a mousy brunette with pale, meaty cheeks and hazel, almost yellow eyes. Patty was smart, quiet-natured, and generally regarded as a bit of a Jesus freak.

  “Oh, yeah, Patty,” I answered, realizing that my face had been stuck in a contorted sneer as I watched Jill. “It’s just my, uh, stomach.”

  “Here, drink this,” she said, reaching into her brown paper lunch bag. Patty passed me a can of ginger ale and flashed a bashful smile.

  “But, Patty, it’s your drink and I . . .”

  “No, it’s okay. I can drink water,” she said, nervously fondling her crucifix necklace. “Oh! And this is for you,” she added, sliding over a tiny red envelope.

  Oh no, I thought. Jill’s love note suddenly made sense. It was Valentine’s Day.

  Seconds later, the bell saved me from having to read Patty’s note in front of her. “Thanks,” I blurted before running into the hallway to look at the card, which pictured ALF holding an armful of red roses under the phrase “Be mine!”

  The rest of the day was excruciating. Girls skipped elatedly down the hallways holding heart-shaped boxes of chocolate. Boys walked bashfully, holding cheap red gas-station roses for their girlfriends. Juniors and seniors sucked face against lockers uninterrupted, knowing that administrators would let their public displays of affection slide. It was all so loud, so cringeworthy, so desperate. I told myself that I was merely offended, but in truth, I wanted to be part of the ritual too.

  Looking down at ALF’s big, pleading eyes on Patty’s card, I thought that maybe it was time to give it a go. After all, I’d been asking God for a girlfriend for two months. Maybe Patty could make me realize that I loved her above Ricky Schroder, Mackenzie Astin, Patrick Swayze, the Tom Selleck look-alike my mom used to date, half of New Kids on the Block, and the entire model cast of the International Male catalog.

  The next day I slid Patty a card that asked, “Want to go steady?” She passed it back with the “Yes” box checked, and smiled at me. It was easy as pie. I had a girlfriend.

  I was surprised at how much I enjoyed Patty’s company that first week. She was a demure girl from a devout Christian family and didn’t really have much to say. I could ramble to Patty for hours and she’d barely make a peep. I’d forgotten how pleasant it was to simply talk to someone. It was also satisfying to show the world some living, breathing evidence of my “normality.” In the mornings I’d meet Patty near the drop-off circle, where my mom would be able to see us hug as she drove away. In the parking lot I’d make sure Greg noticed me and Patty holding hands near the blue car where he met Jill after school. In the cafeteria I’d get us a table near the lunch line to ensure that most of the student body would see me sharing French fries with Patty Marks, my girlfriend.

  One day at lunch, a couple weeks into our relationship, Patty handed me a brush.

  “Would you mind?” she asked, turning around to chat with a friend about Bible study.

  Running the brush through her hair felt familiar and calming, like a meditation. It took me back to better days with Amber, before the “incident.” But Patty was no Amber. Neither was her hair. The brush kept catching and pulling as I tried to work it through her wiry, dull mane, which, upon closer inspection, was flaked with dandruff. As I combed, Patty scooted herself between my legs, which were straddling the lunch-table bench.

  “You’re sweet,” she whispered, looking over her shoulder as her butt made contact with my crotch. “I wanna kiss you soon.”

  My guts suddenly felt like they were full of turned milk. Bells and whistles began to ring in my head. A blaring internal alarm was bleating, Danger! Danger! Danger!

  Over the next week, Patty Marks became my least favorite chore. She followed me everywhere. Between classes, during lunch, before school, and after: Patty Marks was there. But something in her eyes had changed. The way she looked at me was different, more intense, charged. By the time the weekend came I couldn’t wait to be free of her, in spite of our plans to see a movie at the mall.

  On Saturday morning I let the answering machine take Patty’s call.

  “No, Mom!” I yelled as she reached for the phone. “Don’t answer it!”

  “What is it, honey? Aren’t you seeing a movie with Patty today?”

  “No,” I stammered. “I’m going with some guy friends.”

&
nbsp; “Oh, that’s sweet,” my mom beamed, patting my cheek. “A boys’ day out.”

  In the mall I walked toward the theater, two hours earlier than I’d made plans with Patty. I was excited to see Arachnophobia on my own, without Patty grabbing me and fawning all over me. But there she was, smiling in high-water pink denim jeans, with her dull-as-dishwater hair up in a crooked ponytail.

  “You didn’t answer the phone this morning,” she chirped. “So when I realized I missed you, I decided to come here early.”

  “Hey,” I said, trying to act happy to see her. “When did you get here?”

  “When the mall opened, silly!” she peeped, grabbing my hand.

  “Oh,” I said quietly, spooked by the realization that Patty had been standing alone in front of the Odeon 14 Cineplex for three whole hours.

  As Arachnophobia played in the darkened theater she squirmed against me like a fitful baby. “No!” she yelped, grinding against me so hard she was practically in my lap. Her wandering fingertips felt like the spiders in the film, crawling all over me in the dark as she cringed and screamed. As the credits rolled, she swiftly leaned her face toward mine. I turned my head quickly, barely avoiding my first mouth-on-mouth kiss.

  “Okay,” I said, jumping up from the seat. “I gotta get home.”

  “Um, okay,” she called after me as I wiped spit off my cheek. “See you Monday!”

  Throughout the next week, Patty’s companionship was an increasingly grueling burden. I disliked everything about her: her weird copper-colored eyes, her dry, brittle hair, and her meaty, clammy paws, which were shoved into mine all the time. It was like holding room-temperature hamburger meat. My mother told me she was sweating because I made her nervous.

  But I don’t want to make anyone nervous, I thought. Couldn’t we both be adults? Can’t I just have a nice, unthreatening girlfriend to watch Blossom with every Tuesday?

  I decided to change up my prayer routine. If God had brought me Patty, couldn’t he take her away?

  Dear Lord, please make Patty Marks dump me. I don’t care if she hates me forever. But please help. Amen.

  The problem with dumping Patty myself was that I couldn’t take the risk that it might make me look gay. I’d have to find a way to make her break up with me. I started by feigning interest in other girls at school.

  “Patty! Look at Jill’s blouse. Isn’t it pretty? She’s wearing her hair in a braid today!”

  You know. The way boys noticed girls.

  But Patty proved hard to shake. Everywhere I looked, there was her face—a face that was, increasingly often, diving in toward mine with parted lips and a whipping, pink tongue, like the giant plant in Little Shop of Horrors. I didn’t understand why the prospect of kissing her scared me so deeply. I’d seen lots of people kiss on TV, in films, and in real life. People were kissing all the time at school. But no one made it look the way Greg Brooks did. In the parking lot I’d seen him kissing Jill, their lips mashing against each other’s as their soft, pink tongues darted in and out. I would watch them and try to imagine kissing Patty with that kind of dexterity. But before I knew it, I was imagining that I was Jill being kissed by Greg.

  Shortly before spring break I was sitting in the cafeteria beside Patty with a few other friends when I felt something on my crotch. I looked down to see Patty’s pasty meat-paw between my legs.

  “Patty,” I whispered, trying not to make a scene.

  “It’s okay, David,” she whispered, petting her crucifix with her free hand. “I’ve been praying about this. And God thinks it’s okay.”

  I’d reached my breaking point. It was time to step things up. That night, I came up with the perfect plan.

  A few days later at lunch, I sat next to Patty as she brushed her hair. Once finished, she laid the chunky purple brush down on the table. I picked it up and began gathering a clump of hair from the bristles.

  “David, what are you doing with my hair?” she asked with a confused half smile.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said, feigning surprise at being caught. “I just want a little piece of you with me all the time.” I flashed her a creepy smile and stared too hard into her eyes.

  “Oh,” she stammered. “That’s . . . nice.”

  “I have to go the bathroom,” I said, knocking a large book out of my backpack and onto the ground as I walked away.

  “You dropped something,” I heard Patty say as I left, but I pretended I didn’t.

  The book Patty picked up was The Complete Book of Spells, Ceremonies and Magic, a thick purple tome full of tarot advice, astrological charts, and exorcism how-tos. I’d taken it from my mother’s bookshelf, where it lived between Stephen King’s Cujo and a forensics hardcover called Explorations in Criminal Psychopathology. The book was fairly harmless, but I hoped that once Patty found what was hidden in the front cover, she’d be running for her life, clutching her little necklace all the way.

  A few minutes later I returned to find the table vacated, save for my witchcraft book, which was full of voodoo-doll sketches and a week’s worth of Patty’s stray hairs.

  That afternoon, Patty’s very timid mother called me at home when my mom was at work.

  “I’m sorry to say that, um,” she gulped, her voice withering at the other end of the line, “and I’m sorry if this is upsetting, but Patty can’t . . . Well . . .”

  “Go ahead, Mrs. Marks,” I said calmly, trying not to laugh. As perverse as it sounds, I got a certain thrill in being dumped by a forty-two-year-old woman at the age of fourteen.

  “Well, Patty would not like to see you anymore, David.”

  “Oh, really,” I replied, trying to sound heartbroken.

  “Alright, now. I have to go,” she said as Patty whispered something in the background. “You take care.”

  Mrs. Marks hung up, and the line went dead. As the dial tone hummed in my ear, I took a deep breath, feeling accomplished. I was finally free. And in the silence of my bedroom I was alone. As this new reality struck me, so did the dread of how lonely I’d been before Patty came along. And for just a second, as badly as I’d wanted to be Patty-less a few hours earlier, I wondered if her serpentine tongue lashing at my face was really such a bad thing after all. This wasn’t a new reality—it was a step back into an old one.

  Without a girlfriend, whatever self-delusion of heterosexuality I’d achieved was gone. After a week of solitude all my fears came back, stronger than before: fear of God, fear of my family, fear of my peers, and fear of AIDS. I spent that spring break by myself. As other kids my age went to the beach or movie theater, I sat in my room, masturbating to the underwear section of a Sears catalog. Once, afterward, I thought I’d gotten sperm in a paper cut on my finger. This sent me into a tailspin—I worried that my body wouldn’t realize that it was my sperm. If it mistook the semen as another male’s, my body would know I was gay and instantaneously manifest HIV in my blood, because any gay sex act must surely lead to AIDS.

  These thought circles were exhausting. My ever-present manifesto was starting to feel less like protection and more like a curse, guiding me through every false smile, nervous glance, and fearful retreat. Even my sleep was fraught with tension, each dream plagued by faceless aggressors, drowning deaths, and cartoon snakes that screamed at me with the voice of God, my father, or Chris Wolfe.

  A week before the end of freshman year I woke up in the middle of the night covered in sweat. I’d been dreaming my recurring balloon dream in which I rose into the sky, screaming, knowing that the more I struggled, the higher and faster I’d rise toward the ozone, where I’d burn up. I walked down the hall into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet for an aspirin. I swallowed it with water from the tap and started to read the “caution” label on the bottle. Then I read a different bottle’s label, then another, and another.

  “Honey.” I turned to see my bed-headed mother squinting in her terry cloth robe. “David, you’ve been in here forever. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, Mom,” I said, t
urning off the faucet. “Just a headache.”

  I lay awake the rest of that night, considering my options, projecting myself into the future, imagining the “what-ifs.” Suicide would be forever, but so would being alone. There was no seductive drama to killing myself anymore. It was simply a practical response to my life, the natural antidote to the dull gray thudding in my brain, the only way to undo the realization of what I was becoming.

  I stumbled through school that Monday, the last week before summer break. In the locker room I was too tired to notice or care about any of the wet, sinewy boys’ bodies around me. In spite of being totally exhausted, I ran laps for forty-five minutes. I didn’t think to fake a stomach cramp or the flu. Gym class was what occupied the 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. section of my daily list of activities. And as long as I honored my manifesto and adhered to the guidelines I’d set for myself, things would be fine. They had to be.

  As I stood up from the locker-room bench, my head began to swim. I could feel my heart beating in my temples. Violet dots danced across my field of vision. I braced myself against the wall and carefully walked past the toned torsos of Ethan Gray, Bobby Johnson, and Jason Dermot, trying my best not to puke on their broad, athletic feet. In the bathroom stall at the back of the locker room, I vomited as quietly as I could, not wanting to be the possibly-gay weirdo who was also bulimic.

  In the gymnasium I slogged up the bleachers toward Greg, who reclined casually while listening to his Discman.

  “Hey. David. You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” I said, not entirely sure if I was hallucinating Greg’s voice. “Just feeling a little sick,” I added, looking into my bag to avoid eye contact.

  “You look sick. Why did you even run today?”

  “I had to,” I said, too exhausted to fully absorb that he was talking to me. “I don’t have a doctor’s note.”