With or Without You Page 4

  Sable steps down and turns slowly, making eye contact with each of us as he speaks. “The best way to understand what it is to be a Chaser is to wrap your head around gay history. It all started with Stonewall: June 27, 1969. That was the night—”

  “Hang on,” Mark interrupts, adjusting his baseball cap. “1969? So, what, nothing important happened before then?”

  “Sure, stuff happened.” Sable dismisses the question with a wave of his hand. “A lot of shitty stuff. But Stonewall is what turned all that around. So that’s where we start.”

  “But …,” Danny, the Asian kid, speaks up, looking very confused. “History is all about context, right? I mean, don’t we need to understand what went on before Stonewall to appreciate why it was important? I mean, c’mon, there were nightclub raids and blacklists and—”

  Sable lumps his fists on his hips, his face strikingly neutral. He takes a step toward Danny, who looks up at him. “You know a little something about history, Danny?”

  Danny manages a small grin and shoots a look to the group before returning Sable’s gaze. “Well, yeah. It’s sort of what I’m going to major in next fall.”

  Sable leans in. “So … when I asked if anyone knew about Stonewall, why didn’t you speak up?”

  Danny laughs nervously. “Habit, I guess. Showing off at school attracts attention, y’know? I mean, you’re totally right that it’s really the start of the gay rights movement. I just think it loses its significance if we don’t understand everything that led up to it. You know what I mean?”

  Sable nods with an eerily familiar expression. Something that reminds me of Pete. Bloodlust? “Yeah, Danny, I know what you mean.” Sable doesn’t break eye contact but asks, “Okay. Everybody wanna know what life was like before Stonewall?”

  No one moves. Sable continues to glower at Danny and I feel the need to break the tension, so I nod. Then Davis shrugs and says, “Sure.” Halfhearted agreements all around.

  I never see it. There’s a twist, a blur, and a gasp from Danny. Sable, his mammoth hand clamped around Danny’s neck, lifts the kid up, spins him around, and throws him to the bed. Danny’s right arm is pinned under his own body. Sable’s free hand fastens Danny’s other wrist to the mattress. Sable plants his knee just below Danny’s chin, the length of his shin pressing down on Danny’s ample torso. Sable’s dark hair falls forward, shrouding his face like a murder of crows in flight.

  “Here you go, Danny,” Sable spits, his ferocity thick as blood. “This was gay life before Stonewall.”

  lesson

  In a second, we’re all on our feet, shouting.

  “Hey, wait—”

  “Dude, that’s not cool—”

  “Sable, c’mon—”

  Our protests overlap, saying something and nothing. Danny’s pleas are limited to raspy gurgles. His nostrils flare and his eyes bulge. He’s afraid for his life.

  Sable’s grip closes tighter. “Did your books tell you all about this, Danny? Huh?”

  The rest of us look from Sable to one another, not sure what to do. Even Mark is alarmed, pulling his baseball cap off, looking at the door like he wants to bolt. Ross, the mousey one, takes a surprising step forward.

  “Sable, let him go.”

  Danny sinks deeper into the mattress as Sable applies more weight. A sickening mix of air and spit shoots from Danny’s mouth. Sable swoops in so he’s face to face with his victim. “Why bother reading about oppression when you can live it? Better than the History Channel, eh, Danny?”

  I look around, ashamed of the recognition I see. Each of us has been through this before; our eyes say that much. Everybody here has had a Pete or Kenny to contend with, and now we just let it happen, like we’ve always done. I look at Davis who, finally, looks uneasy about all this. Like when I drew the trogs away from Davis, I decide to make a difference. I charge at Sable, trying to pry his fingers from Danny’s throat.

  “Let him up!” I grunt, but Sable’s fingers aren’t going anywhere. I swear I hear him chuckle.

  Then Mark is working on Sable’s other hand, trying to free Danny’s wrist. We shout more. Davis and Micah, the smallest of us, throw their arms around Sable’s waist and pull him backward with all their meager girth. When it looks like Sable might be losing balance, Ross and the sour-looking Del join the fray, yanking until Sable tumbles back, banging his head on a folding chair. Bean-pole Will pulls Danny from the bed and into a corner where Danny falls to all fours, wheezing for air. Thick red welts zebra his wrist and neck.

  Once Sable’s off, we all take a step backward, not sure what’s going to happen next. Sable starts laughing. He leaps onto the bed and starts jumping up and down gleefully.

  “You did it!” he bellows. “I never thought you guys would do it. But you did!”

  He hops down off the bed. Bewildered, we all clear a path as he bounds toward Danny. Will feebly puts his arm around Danny’s shoulder to protect him and Danny cowers, but Sable merely ruffles Danny’s hair.

  “You did good, Danny, real good. Hope I didn’t scare you too bad. But you understand now, right? You get gay life before Stonewall.”

  He turns now and addresses everyone. “Gays were beaten. Ridiculed. Told who we could have sex with, who we couldn’t. We lived in constant fear, under the knee of society. I thought it was going to take you guys forever to figure out Stonewall and what it made us into, what it forced us to do as a community. But you got it on the first try.”

  Nobody moves, all eyes on Sable. The crooked smile I’ve come to fear in just fifteen minutes is having the reverse effect on everyone else: They’re beguiled. One by one, the guys return to their seats. Even Danny, still rubbing his claret-colored throat, takes his chair, although he no longer meets Sable’s gaze. Ross and I exchange glances, and I’m glad I’m not the only one still wary.

  Sable goes on to explain a bit about Stonewall. I catch bits and pieces of the discussion—random raids at gay bars in New York, finally the patrons of the Stonewall Inn in New York fought back against the police and turned the tide—but I’m watching Danny, who looks like he’s reliving his worst nightmare. And I’m watching Sable, who is now gentle and nurturing. And I’m watching Davis, who is listening with fascination, obedience, and awe. It’s only in Ross’s crestfallen face that I find shared fear.

  “Now,” Sable says, cradling the back of his head in his folded hands, “Stonewall wasn’t like a light switch. It wasn’t a couple days of rioting and suddenly gays were respected and admired. But it was a turning point. It was a statement. It was a community, banding together and saying, ‘Enough of this shit. Let’s throw down.’”

  “Like now.” The words croak from Danny’s lips.

  We all turn. Danny should be angry, but it’s like he’s hit upon some brilliant idea. “It took everyone here to stop you. To get together and stand up to you.”

  Sable makes a gun with his thumb and forefinger and shoots Danny. He then points with both index fingers and sweeps the room like spotlights crisscrossing. “You guys …,” he says proudly, “when you stand together, when you say you’re not gonna take any more bullshit . . . You are Stonewall.”

  Dawn sparks like twinkling lights and cascades, first into Davis’s eyes, then Mark’s, and Del’s, Micah’s, and Will’s. Some even smile. They get it now. Ross and I, still the lone skeptics, look only at each other—better this than betray our doubt and become part of Sable’s next lesson.

  “Okay, I’m in.”

  I almost don’t recognize Davis’s voice. It’s confident and strong. He nods at Sable and continues. “I want to be a Chaser.”

  Ross says what I’m thinking. “You don’t even know what that means.”

  Sable sits on the edge of the mattress again. “It means . . . connecting. Learning about the past. Seizing the future. It doesn’t happen overnight. You’ve all got a lot to learn. But when you finally get there … When you finally can call yourself a Chaser, the possibilities are endless.”

  He slides his
left sleeve back, exposing the underside of his wrist. Tattooed on his forearm is a bug with an obsidian body and saffron wings. Ross grimaces. But Mark looks at it and grins.

  “Awesome,” he whispers.

  “Back home in New York,” Sable says, “the Chasers call me Cicada. Everyone who progresses gets a new name for their new identity.”

  For a few minutes now, I’ve noticed that Will is breathing heavily, and I’m unsure if it’s excitement or an anxiety attack. Probably a little of both. “How do we do that?” he asks.

  Sable slides his sleeve back into place. “Show me what you’re made of. We’ll meet regularly and I’ll teach you. Show me that you’re listening. Show me that you understand what it means to be gay. You’ll progress. You’ll be a Chaser.”

  As Sable declares an end to the first meeting, the energy in the room practically crackles. Sable sends around a sheet of paper to collect everyone’s contact info, saying we’ll get an e-mail telling us when to expect the next meeting. Davis is last to sign up. He starts writing, then scratches out what he wrote for his home address. He then writes, RYC. Room Three.

  Sable looms over Davis’s shoulder, reading with that lacerated smirk. “Hey, stud, you live across the hall?”

  “As of Tuesday.” Davis exhales, handing the sheet back to Sable. “That’s moving day.”

  Sable looks Davis up and down. He might be checking Davis out, but I can’t shake the feeling he’s sizing up his next prey. “Need some help?”

  I glance at Davis. Outwardly, he’s playing it cool. But I know my best friend. Inside, he just went liquid. He blushes.

  I’m about to say “We got it covered” when Davis pipes in. “Sure. We’re starting at nine. Thanks a lot.”

  “Don’t sweat it. You’re part of a family now. We watch out for each other.” Sable pokes the address Davis scratched out on the paper and nods. “I’ll be there.”

  By the time Davis and I spill out onto State Street, you could power all of Madison with his enthusiasm.

  “What?” Davis asks, noting my reserve.

  “Wasn’t that … a little extreme?” What I’m not saying is, This guy is clearly nuts. I can tell from Davis’s behavior that this would be a bad move.

  “It had to be,” Davis explains, and there’s something slightly condescending there. “Made the lesson memorable. Will you ever forget it?”

  No. I have no problem remembering these kinds of lessons.

  “Besides,” Davis reasons, “if anyone should be mad, it’s that Danny guy. And he said he’d be back for the next meeting.”

  Point to Davis.

  “C’mon, Ev,” he whispers urgently, “don’t blow this.”

  The fire in Davis’s belly is something I can’t deny him. And even if this doesn’t turn out to be like all the other things he’s gotten excited about—then abandoned once they got hard—I reassure myself that it’s only for the summer. In the fall, we’ll be in Chicago and he’ll forget about all this.

  Until then, it’s safest to stick with Davis. How can it hurt to learn a little about gay history?

  TITLE: Midnight Feature

  IMAGE:

  The Orpheum Theater Marquee with

  two lights burned out

  INSPIRATION:

  Van Gogh’s Starry Night

  PALETTE:

  Marquee lights = saffron

  Marquee frame = carmine

  Marquee sign = eggshell

  Lettering on the sign = maroon

  The strokes begin and end in a point. The marquee, the lights, the lettering are all comprised of sharp polygons that curve in upon themselves.

  I have two distinct memories of the marquee lights at the Orpheum Theater. The first involves what I call Boing.

  Boing is this energy that churns and burns inside Davis. When he gets a thought into his head—we should join the drama club, we should run for student council, we should get jobs as lifeguards so we can gawk at hot guys—the Boing engulfs him like a wildfire and I brace myself for the ride ahead. More often than not, I wait it out until it’s time to pick up the pieces.

  When we were thirteen, the Boing told us we should sneak out to see the weekly midnight showing of Rocky Horror at the Orpheum Theater. We had no idea what it was about, only it was something really great to do because it involved sneaking out at midnight. So we met up outside Davis’s bedroom window and made our way to State Street.

  This was right around the time I’d worked out that I was gay. It only took months of staring at pictures of naked girls with zero reaction before reality set in. I liked looking at guys. And I was pretty sure Davis did too. And because I didn’t know any other gay guys, I’d come to the conclusion that Davis and I should be boyfriends.

  It made perfect sense at the time.

  So as we stood there in line for the movie, I waited until I was sure no one was looking and then I kissed Davis. One quick peck on the lips.

  Swallowing a gallon of paint thinner and letting it eat me from the inside out would have been preferable to seeing the look on his face. He wasn’t angry. He wasn’t disgusted. But he was certainly surprised.

  “What the hell did you do that for?”

  I almost ran away. I almost threw up. I almost did a lot of things, including kissing him again, just assuming I’d gotten it wrong the first time. Instead, I said, “I’m gay.”

  Davis rolled his eyes. “Uh, yeah, I guessed that.”

  “Aren’t you gay?”

  Davis put a gun made of his fingers to his head and pretended to blow his brains out. “Duh. Of course.”

  The tightness that had locked my shoulders disappeared and I exhaled gratefully. We could be boyfriends. I leaned in for another kiss but he pulled back.

  “Evan, do you love me?”

  Love hadn’t entered my mind. I wanted to be with someone who was the same as me. When he confronted me with the word, I knew what I felt for Davis wasn’t love. It was deep and strong, but it was brotherly and nothing like romance. It took Davis saying the word, it took almost making another mistake, before I understood not what love was but what it wasn’t. Love wasn’t desperation. Heavy shit when you’re thirteen.

  I muttered something like, “Man, I’m stupid.”

  “Pretty much,” he agreed, elbowing me in the ribs. I laughed and slugged him back. There it was: my first rejection. And I survived it with most of my dignity intact. More or less.

  We made it to the front of the line, where Davis bickered with the stoner in the ticket booth, who was so zoned it didn’t take much to convince him that we were seventeen. Now that’s stoned.

  I thought the movie was kind of funny. Davis hated that everyone in the audience was saying the lines and singing the songs and tossing toilet paper in the air. To him, it was just one more joke he wasn’t in on, one more clique he didn’t belong to. I tried to convince him we should keep coming back until we knew the songs and lines. I even suggested we could get costumes. But by then, the Boing was gone.

  Second memory—my second date with Erik, last summer.

  For our first date, we met at State Street Brats on a Sunday afternoon for brats, fries, and Cokes. We talked about art and Madison and college and a hundred other things that all took backseat to one simple fact: We were talking. After a couple hours, we did that awkward “do we kiss on a first date?” dance, talking about dumb stuff and praying the other guy would make a move. We ended up shaking hands, and we went our separate ways. I assumed I’d never see him again.

  Ring, ring. Hot College Guy, line one. Something about a second date … ?

  Erik had friends in a choir that was singing with the Madison Symphony at Monona Terrace—did I want to go? I almost said no. Things had gone so perfectly the first time around, why give him another chance to run away screaming? But I made it work once. Making it work twice would be a cinch. Maybe.

  My dates with Erik became a doctoral dissertation on building the ultimate relationship. One minute I was the class punching bag,
the next I was strolling along Monona Terrace with a gorgeous guy. It took some getting used to. Every bit of stimuli introduced a new reaction from my body. My breath caught in my lungs when he slipped his hand into mine. My brain found religion. Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

  My heart was the next bit of anatomy to rebel when, later that night, we walked down State Street and ran into some of Erik’s friends from school. They invited us back to somebody’s apartment to watch a movie.

  “Whatcha watching?” Erik asked.

  “Brazil.”

  Then, at the same time, Erik and I said, “Where the nuts come from.”

  We looked at each other. We didn’t giggle. We didn’t say, “Jinx!” We just smiled a knowing smile. And Erik said to his friends, “Maybe some other time.” And then, with his friends right there, under the Orpheum Theater sign, he kissed me.

  Cue heart attack.

  Boing.

  big

  As the King of Evasions, I’ve become adept at the story.

  Inventing plausible mishaps to explain away the physical evidence of a troglodyte encounter. Playing Artful Dodger between the time I figured out I was gay and when I actually told my family. I always had a story ready for any situation, doling out explanations with the guile of a blackjack dealer. I don’t enjoy lying, not to my family or to anyone else. But while I don’t enjoy lying, I happen to be very, very good at it.

  I have, in my mind, very good reasons for not telling anyone about Erik. Bitter as it sounds, I just don’t think my parents deserve to know. I’m pretty sure the only reason they’ve never said much about my sexuality is because they don’t think it’s something I’d actively pursue. If I told them I was dating, if there was even a hint that I might be being gay, I don’t know what they’d do. Kick me out? Send me to therapy? I don’t worry about that. I won’t tell them about Erik because they haven’t earned the right to know that I’m happy.