Freakboy Read online

  to this topic,

  this opinion

  before.

  A year ago, Simon Adderly,

  spiffy new first violinist,

  turned out to be a

  “special friend” of Viktor Jensen,

  the orchestra’s executive director.

  And now whenever Simon

  has questions about anything—

  say the tempo

  for some piece of music,

  the Interloper comes home and

  explodes into tirades

  about this “light in the loafers” guy.

  (And people in the arts

  are supposed to be more enlightened?

  Another stereotype bites the dust.)

  “There’s no way he’d be

  bringing it up at all

  if he wasn’t

  Viktor’s little boyfriend!”

  The real problem

  isn’t that a lowly musician

  expresses his thoughts about music to

  the “great maestro.”

  It’s that he’s gay

  when he does it.

  Claude the Interloper, great

  conductor of the philharmonic,

  stabs his food with energy

  that would make

  a serial killer’s mom proud.

  “Who the hell

  does that little fag

  think he is?”

  The f word is going too far.

  Mom touches his hand,

  nods toward Court.

  “Sweetie, that’s enough,”

  she says.

  Tamed

  (by her new breasts?)

  he shuts up.

  It dawns on me that

  if he knew about Willows

  my mother’s husband

  might actually, secretly

  approve of my vandalism.

  I eat my salmon

  and try not

  to think about it.

  Saturday’s Tournament

  My lucky day.

  In the second match

  I pinned the champ,

  Bechert from Hanover Academy.

  A way better wrestler

  (great defense, killer offense—

  seriously painful)

  who made a dumb mistake.

  I went on to finals

  while he languished

  in the consolation rounds.

  I won second,

  he took fourth,

  and his eyes were daggers

  when I got the medal.

  Riding the yellow bus

  back to school,

  Vanessa curled against me,

  feels like another lucky win

  (maybe undeserved?).

  Teammates drowse away

  various injuries.

  Singlets stiff

  dried sweat

  BO, stringy hair.

  Vanessa touches

  her second-place

  medal for 103

  to my second-place

  medal for 152.

  “Twins.” She smiles.

  There’s a red lumpy mouse

  of a bruise over my eye

  which by tomorrow will be

  swollen shut,

  a monster face.

  “You’d better hope not,

  this thing’s gonna be ugly,”

  I say.

  She laughs, low,

  kisses me.

  Even as I kiss her back,

  a little tongue,

  I wonder for a second

  what it would be like

  to have

  that smooth cheek,

  long hair.

  But it doesn’t mean anything.

  Now that we’re doing it

  I’m better.

  That word is quiet.

  Flannigan, the thirty-five pounder,

  pops his head over the seat.

  “Get a room, Casanova.”

  Vanessa flips him off

  but she’s laughing.

  “Drive you home?”

  she asks me.

  “You know it,” I say.

  It takes a long time

  to get to my house

  from a meet

  with a detour down to

  Mono Cove—

  its nickname earned

  through the years,

  a place to catch

  the kissing disease.

  Bluff hidden

  private

  tucked away

  tiny beach

  salt-air smell

  in our noses

  surf pounding

  in our ears

  aching bodies

  come to comfort.

  Questions slide back

  the waves

  at low tide.

  I love the feeling

  just afterward, too.

  Nuzzling love

  soft whispers

  quiet jokes.

  I wish more

  than anything (almost)

  we could go to sleep

  and wake up

  the next day

  together.

  Because Going Home Is Such a Ride

  Rain-painted headlights

  sweep past in the mist,

  I stare at them

  to avoid looking

  at Willows

  when we

  go by.

  I’m better

  in my body

  but guilty

  in my brain

  of taking

  my freak

  out on them.

  And I know

  I need to

  do something

  to soothe my mind,

  my conscience.

  Sunday Night at Andy’s House

  “You guys doin’ it?”

  His question out of nowhere.

  My thumbs stab the controller.

  “None of your business.”

  “Oh, Dude! That means

  you’re not,” he says. Laughs.

  The weird thing is that evasion

  might have been the case. Before.

  I might’ve even implied

  doing the deed. Before.

  It’s different now.

  This connection,

  more than physical,

  makes me careful.

  I’m protecting her,

  protecting us

  protecting We.

  I raise my eyebrows,

  shrug, as if to say,

  “What can I do, she won’t put out?”

  I’m very manly.

  Online Before Bed

  I feel even manlier

  when I

  figure out

  a way to

  make it up

  to Willows.

  To that girl.

  I discover

  the cost

  of replacing a window

  that size

  equals

  half my allowance

  for the next

  five months.

  I’ll send money

  every week

  till then.

  And the final payment

  will wipe

  my conscience clean.

  (Angel)

  The Second-to-Last Present I Got

  from the Sperm Donor

  was a pair of boxing gloves

  the bite

  five years ago, handed over

  with a sarcasm attitude, I thought,

  of the belt

  on Christmas Day

  in the morning

  stings but

  That night he caught me again

  this time in heels and eye shadow,

  doesn’t cut

  Wilderness camp didn’t work. So he

  beat me one last time. “No kid of mine”

  like words—

  and “Don’t come back,”

  the last present I got from anyone

  Freedom.

&nb
sp; I Showed Up at Tía Rosa’s

  one-bedroom apartment

  on Christmas night.

  “Lo siento,” Mama’s sister

  crooned over and over—

  warm washcloth

  on my cuts. We

  sat on the edge of

  the tub.

  My three little cousins

  crowded into

  the steamy bathroom

  around us.

  “Lo siento, Angel.”

  Eyes huge at me,

  my bruises.

  She wanted to call the cops—

  I didn’t let her.

  Lord knows I hate

  the Sperm Donor

  but I love Frankie more.

  And no one needs to see

  their father taken away

  in cuffs.

  I begged my aunt to just

  let me stay with her.

  She worked a lot.

  Hotel maid in the morning,

  cleaning other people’s houses

  later in the day.

  I watched my cousins

  so she could quit paying

  the crabby lady across the hall

  to look in on ’em

  and it was all good

  till Rosa’s fiancé moved in.

  Gonna Ignore Those Bad Manners

  ’Cause Baby Jesus’s birthday

  is still the Most Wonderful

  Time of the Year.

  After I buy Frankie’s present

  (funkadelic PacSun sweatshirt)

  I do a little holiday shopping

  for the kids at the center.

  Yeah—I’m in school—

  part-time job,

  counting my pennies.

  But, Girl, I know how

  it feels to not get

  one single present

  at Christmas.

  Like the world forgot

  you because you

  weren’t what it

  was expecting.

  And I know

  one lip gloss tube

  if what you

  isn’t gonna erase

  really wanted

  years of getting a

  was just a

  toy fire engine

  baby doll

  action figure

  Barbie

  football

  tutu

  plastic gun

  manicure set.

  I’m all for what they call

  gender-neutral toys.

  Girls can like football

  boys can play with dollhouses

  and it doesn’t mean a thing.

  But when you know you’re a girl and

  you ONLY get boy toys

  (and not the yummy boy toys you can

  play with when you’re older)

  then Christmas is

  the Most Suckiest Time of the Year.

  So I fill

  my dollar-store bag

  with little presents:

  shiny bangles

  nail polish

  scented body lotion

  trial-sized Christmas cheer.

  For myself, three dollars’ worth

  of symphony carols

  plus a pair of red-sparkle tights.

  Just call me Miss Santa!

  Back at the Center

  everyone’s checking out

  the artist-type hottie

  standing on a ladder

  painting letters on the

  window we replaced weeks ago.

  Willows has to pay for that—

  insurance only covered the glass itself.

  I pray again the asshole’ll get caught—

  a regular prayer on my list now.

  I start to feel like that Grinch

  and I hate it,

  so I snap myself out by asking a regular,

  Daniella, to help me wrap presents.

  I’ll leave some without cards

  for extra just in case

  but there’s a set of hair clips

  I know have to go to Liberty.

  They have hummingbirds,

  her totem I guess you’d say.

  Daniella cops an attitude.

  “Why you give anything to

  THAT skank? She pumps!”

  Some girls do.

  Not safe

  but hard sometimes

  to wait for hormones

  to kick in

  and even with their help,

  you usually wind up a cup size

  smaller than your mama—

  so if your mama

  had no tits to speak of,

  you won’t either.

  Not without surgery

  or pumping.

  Some girls

  think pumping

  is trashy—

  judge those who go

  to pumping parties,

  strip down in apartments

  or hotel rooms,

  let someone with

  no medical connection

  inject that silicone

  right into their

  chests, hips, lips.

  Dangerous, like I said.

  Lopsided tits sometimes

  aren’t the worst of it—

  silicone gets in your lymph nodes

  or lungs and shit.

  I hand the tape to Daniella. I usually try

  not to preach—but sometimes …

  “Girl? Don’t you know

  it’s the season of kindness?

  “Your tolerance would be the

  best present for everyone.

  “Including yourself.”

  She’s huffy, but quiet.

  Thinking, I hope.

  Because Honestly

  is it trashy

  to want something so bad

  you go for it

  even if it might kill you?

  My opinion?

  It’s judging that’s trashy.

  Bad enough the world looks at us

  under a (distorted) microscope.

  Like the good Lord says,

  we don’t need to

  judge each other.

  (BRENDAN)

  O

  Christmas Tree.

  “Wake up! Up! Up! Up!”

  Courtney jumping on my bed.

  I open one eye (the only one I can).

  “Go away, squirt.” “Get up! We’re getting

  a tree!” Every year, even without Dad, Chase

  Family Tradition. Four-hour

  round-trip to kill a tree for Christ.

  We wear flannel shirts, pose for the

  holiday card: “Look! A family of lumberjacks

  living in the wilds of Wisconsin” or

  something. Mom fills a thermos:

  hot chocolate. (It must get down to fifty

  degrees two hours northeast of San Diego,

  got to stave off hypothermia.) She’s mad

  about my eye. “It’ll spoil

  the Christmas card!” Claude claps

  me on the shoulder. “It just shows the

  world he’s the man!” He’s proud. Like he’s

  the one who got injured and still went on to

  pin the kid from Lind High to the mat. Must be

  hard to be a nerdy philharmonic

  orchestra conductor when you have

  the soul of a caveman. Still, I go along.

  Flex my muscles, wield the saw, wipe my

  brow, sniff my pits, smile for the camera, gulp

  hot chocolate, burp without apology.

  I AM THE MAN.

  No Doubt

  About It.

  Home from the Ordeal

  Claude the Interloper uncoils

  white twinkle lights while

  Mom puts cinnamon rolls

  in the oven.

  Court settles in

  at the coffee table,

  an explosion of markers,

  Mom’s stationery and envelopes

  a mess around
her.

  She’s writing Santa a letter.

  “Looky, looky!”

  So proud.

  “Very good,”

  I tell her, though it’s

  just her name over and over—

  the only thing she knows how to spell.

  “Can you help her?”

  Mom calls from the kitchen.

  “Sure—just a minute.”

  I grab a handful

  of blue envelopes

  to take up to my room.

  I’ll send

  them to

  Willows with

  cash inside

  and

  some-

  day

  be

  able

  to

  forget

  about

  that night.

  When I head back down

  to take dictation

  from a five-year-old

  I’m feeling pretty good.

  (Vanessa)

  Early Christmas Present

  from my mom.

  We’re in the kitchen.

  I’m inhaling a plate

  of apple slices,

  she’s keeping me company.

  “Oh, I almost forgot!”

  She grabs something

  from her purse,

  hands me

  tickets to the Nutcracker matinee.

  “I thought you could take Julie

  or Tanya.” She’s smiling.

  Guess she hasn’t noticed

  I don’t really hang out with them

  too much anymore.

  I called Tanya again to apologize

  but she just repeated what Julie said,

  like a parrot:

  “We like you and we like

  Brendan, but we don’t

  like you together.”

  and that’s bullshit.

  I’m sorry if they’re mad

  but there’s nothing I can do about it.

  It’ll blow over eventually. Until then …

  “I’ll take Brendan,” I say.

  As if he wants

  to watch ballet

  (like I want

  to watch ballet?).

  I get that look.

  “What?”

  Mom goes to the sink.

  She rinses her paisley teacup,

  part of a set I made for

  her birthday,

  then comes back

  to sit with me.

  “I’m glad you and Brendan

  enjoy each other”—

  I can tell she’s being careful—

  “but it would be a mistake to

  exclude everyone else.”

  She does that serious-Mom

  look-you-right-

  in-the-eye thing.

  “There’s so much more

  to life than having a boyfriend—

  and you need your friends, too.”

  “Are you saying

  I can’t bring Brendan?”

  “I’m just saying you