At one point, Gene Simmons came over to me and joked, "Hey, little boy. Wanna see me without my clothes?"
I wanted to tell him, "Yes."
He laughed and stripped off his jeans so he could put on his stage clothes.
I kept watching until he gave me a funny look and stepped behind an amp.
Sometimes my brother would drive by Sixty-seven and pick me up in his brand new Oldsmobile Toronado. I would slide onto the brown velvet corduroy seat and he would say, "This vehicle has quadraphonic sound. Do you know what that means?" When I would shake my head no, he would launch into a lengthy and highly technical explanation of the science behind quadraphonic sound and what, exactly, it meant from an audio engineering point of view. Then he would say, "Now do you understand?" When I again shook my head no, he would shrug and say, "Well, maybe you"re r.e.t.a.r.ded." an audio engineering point of view. Then he would say, "Now do you understand?" When I again shook my head no, he would shrug and say, "Well, maybe you"re r.e.t.a.r.ded."
He wasn"t being mean. That"s the thing that"s important to understand. To him, I would have to be at least borderline r.e.t.a.r.ded not to understand something so easily comprehensible to him.
Dr. Finch tried repeatedly to engage my brother in therapy, all to no avail. My brother would sit politely in the doctor"s inner office, his gigantic arms slung over the back of the sofa, and he would grunt, "Huh. I still don"t understand why I need to be here. I"m not the one who"s eating sand." When Dr. Finch pointed out to my brother that conflict affects everyone in the family, my brother would grunt, "Huh. I feel okay."
It was a.s.sumed, then, that my brother was so deeply mentally ill as to be untreatable. Possibly, he had a profound character flaw.
I knew the reality was far worse. My brother was born without taste or the desire to be professionally lit. "You can"t go out in public like that," I would say when I saw him in his beige wool slacks riding up nearly to his nipples, his kelly-green polo shirt three sizes too small.
"Huh. What"s the matter with what I have on? These are perfectly good clothes."
My brother was hopelessly without style or any sense of what was going on in the world, culturally. Ask him who Debra Winger was and he"d say, "Is she another one of those freakish Finches?" But ask him to explain how a particle accelerator worked and he could talk uninterrupted for hours. He could even draw you a diagram with his mechanical pencil.
It pained me.
"But highlights would bring out your eyes," I would say. "Especially if you"d get rid of those three-inch-thick lenses on your gla.s.ses."
"Huh. I like these gla.s.ses. I can see through them."
My brother had very specific likes and dislikes. Basically, he liked anything until it harmed him and then he was wary. All creatures in life had an equal chance with my brother, from terrier to psychotherapist. Those that impressed him with an especially keen mental ability, an amusing trick or had a large portion of food to offer would gain his favor. If my brother could find nothing of value to the person, he would dismiss them entirely. As he did with the Finches and our parents.
I envied his lack of emotional ties. I felt pulled by everyone in every direction, while my brother seemed free of annoying human enc.u.mbrances.
One thing he was quite fond of was trains. He would follow a train in his car for hours, riding parallel to the tracks, whether or not there was a road. "Hold on tight," he would shout over the rumble of the tires on the gravel, "there"s a good chance we"ll roll."
He also liked cars. He liked to take them apart and then put them back together. Which would have been perfectly fine, except when we were younger, he liked to do this on the living room rug.
"Jesus, Troy. What do you think you"re doing? You can"t take that carburetor apart on the living room rug."
"Huh," he would grunt. "Why not?"
To him, a rug was nothing more than a surface area. And it had the distinct advantage of being white, so the dark greasy engine parts were easier to spot. it had the distinct advantage of being white, so the dark greasy engine parts were easier to spot.
I missed my brother and wanted to see him constantly. I often wished he would pick me up and carry me away with him. But when he did pick me up and carry me away, I soon grew tired staring at the red light on the caboose, my stomach growling and my brother having nothing more to say than, "Look, the caboose."
"I just want a big life, you know?" I would say, examining my hair in the illuminated visor mirror.
"What do you mean?"
"You know, I want to get noticed. I don"t just want to be a nothing."
"Huh," he would grunt. "Then be a plumber. People notice plumbers all the time."
And while he didn"t crave the company of either parent, my brother didn"t seem to be tortured by their very existence like I was. "I can pretty much take them or leave them," he would often say.
When I would scream, "My f.u.c.king father won"t even give me money for food. He won"t take my calls. He wants nothing to do with me at all. I want to stab him with a butcher knife," my brother would reply flatly, "Yeah, he is basically worthless."
Throughout my life, my brother had been the one person I could rely on. Even when it seemed we had absolutely nothing in common, I knew that he was as reliable as a mathematical formula.
Many years later, he would be diagnosed with a mild form of autism known as Asperger"s syndrome. It explained his fascination with cars, his peculiar way of speaking and his abrupt nature, as well as his mind-numbing and highly specific intelligence. It also explained his lack of desire to discuss It also explained his lack of desire to discuss Three"s Company Three"s Company at any length. at any length.
Sometimes I wonder if his life would have been easier if my parents had taken him to a doctor instead of just a.s.suming he was cold and emotionally blocked.
But then I remind myself that my parents had very questionable taste when it came to choosing medical professionals.
With this in mind, I like to think that my brother wasn"t so much overlooked as he was inadvertently protected.
THE JOY OF s.e.x ( (PRETEEN EDITION).
I.
"M LYING BACK ON N NEIL"S BED, THE TOP OF MY HEAD KNOCKing against the headboard because his c.o.c.k is inexplicably down my throat. His photographs-the reason I came up to his room in the first place-are sliding off, falling on the floor. I can hear them smack against the floor. Flutter-smack. All I see is a triangle of dark hair coming at me. This, and I feel an unprecedented sensation of fullness in my throat. It"s hard to breathe. The air comes into my nose in gasps that seem controlled by the thrusting of Neil"s hips. He thrusts; I get air. The air comes out my mouth, forced around the shaft of his c.o.c.k.
"Yes, f.u.c.k yes," he spits. "Jesus mother f.u.c.king Christ."
The triangle of hair comes at me, away from me, at me, away from me, at me, away from me, at me, away from me.
My arms are stretched out at my sides, pinned to the mattress by Neil"s hands. I must look like Jesus on the cross. This image actually occurs to me. I also think, I didn"t come here for this. I didn"t come here for this.
It goes on. The thrusting, the lucky sucking of air through my nose, the repulsive sound it makes leaving my mouth, the wet exhale.
"You f.u.c.ker," Bookman says, biting the word out of the air, like he"s taking a chunk of something off with his teeth; a chunk of meat.
He smells funny. It"s almost like a food, like you could eat the smell. Well, I guess I am eating the smell. But it"s not like any food I"ve had before. Kind of a cheese, maybe? But darker, warmer, sweeter.
My head is killing me. It keeps smack, smack, smacking the headboard. And the headboard is. .h.i.tting the wall. We"re making a lot of noise.
My eyes are watery now.
I"ve never had my mouth open so wide. It"s embarra.s.sing. I wonder what I look like with this big mouth and my eyes all teary. I can feel my own drool running down my neck and I want to wipe it off but I can"t move my hands, my arms.
There"s a crack in the ceiling that runs from one corner of the wall, straight across but I can"t see how far it goes. The paint on the ceiling is so thick that it"s peeling. I want to pull on it like sunburn or dried foot skin.
And then the black triangle smashes into my face. I can"t breathe through my nose at all. All I can see is black.
There"s something else in my throat. It"s filling with liquid. My eyes feel swollen, like they are going to pop. My head is going to pop.
And then there is a profound subtraction. It comes with a sucking sound. The c.o.c.k is gone, the triangle is gone, his hands are off my wrists. Blood rushes into my hands.
My head stops. .h.i.tting the headboard.
This is more relief than I have ever known. I could sleep now. In fact, I feel drowsy.
His smile is in my face. We are nose to nose, eyes to eyes. In a small mean voice he says, "There. Still think you"re gay?"
I blink.
He pulls me up so that I"m sitting on the bed.
"You okay?" he says.
I watch the corners of his mustache turn up in a smile.
"You swallowed," he says. "That was incredible. Just incredible. You have a hot mouth."
There is a taste in my mouth that makes me think of alfalfa sprouts.
Neil stands up and steps into his underwear. Briefs. White except for a dark brown streak mark running up the middle of the b.u.t.t.
I wipe the back of my hand across my mouth, soaking it. I open and close my mouth. My jaw feels tight, stuck. My lips are numb. I touch them with my finger. They seem to feel swollen. Like I"ve been nuzzling wasps. I need a mirror.
There is one light in the room, a bare bulb that hangs by a cord from the ceiling. Now I can see that the crack travels all the way across. I believe I could peel the paint off in one sheet.
Neil bends over and begins collecting his photographs. "Did you see this one?" he says, holding it up. It"s a shot of a black kid on a swing, swinging way up, almost out of the picture. But his eyes are looking right at you.
"Where"d you take that?" I say.
"New York City," he says.
Everything is normal again. We"re talking about his pictures. He"s not angry with me.
I feel confused. He"s Neil again, but who was that? What happened? "What happened?" I say.
He sets the photographs on the bed and looks at me, hands on his hips. He smiles. "That was called s.e.x. You think you"re gay? That"s what gay men do."
His eyes do this little flashing thing. It"s like we"re kids at school both running for the swing at recess and he gets there first, sits on it and looks at me. It"s that kind of look. Beat ya to it! Beat ya to it!
"Get dressed," he says, tossing my jeans at me. "I gotta drive you back."
He goes over to the chest of drawers to get a cigarette. His back is to me. His b.u.mpy spine showing through his skin. If I run, I think, I could dive into him with my hands, aim for that spine, maybe snap it. He would bend in two; snap; break.
I feel like there"s sun on my face.
I hate him so much.
He turns. "Smoke?"
"Okay."
"Here." He tosses me the pack.
I take one out and stick it in my lips. He comes over with his lighter and lights it. It seems sweet of him to do and it makes me not hate him as hard.
I take a drag off the cigarette. The smoke stings my lungs but in a good way. I let the smoke pour through my nostrils like a movie star.
I feel like I"ve walked through some door, into some room, and I"ll never be able to leave. I feel like nothing is the same. Just like that. Nothing will ever be the same again. and I"ll never be able to leave. I feel like nothing is the same. Just like that. Nothing will ever be the same again.
I also feel like I can"t ever tell anybody about this. I can"t tell Natalie, although I really, really want to.
What happened has to be all mine.
I feel crowded by this. Like I need to go home and think about it for a week or maybe the rest of my life. How can I go to school in the morning? It"s already after midnight and I have to be up at seven-thirty to make it there by eight-fifteen.
Neil opens the closet door. Inside a tangle of wire coat hangers crowds the far end of the pole. There"s nothing inside except a camera hanging from its neck strap by a hook on the back of the door. He takes the camera and aims it at me.
My underwear is on backwards but I don"t care.
He shoots me as I b.u.t.ton my shirt. I b.u.t.ton it up almost to the top.
"I want to taste me in you," he says, tossing the camera on the bed. He comes over to me and takes my face in his hands. He kisses me. His tongue running across my teeth, filling up my mouth, looking.
I look past his head at the wall. I want to pull away. It"s time to go. I have to get home.
He presses up against me. Mashing his pelvis into mine. My bladder is full; I"ve got to p.i.s.s.
He pulls away. "Let"s go."
We go.
Downstairs, his roommate is sitting on the sofa chain-smoking and watching TV. I have a hunch that she is his failed attempt at heteros.e.xuality. "Hi, honey," she says to me. "What are you, like seventeen?"
"Thirteen," I tell her.
She is fat. She is fat in a way that suggests she always has been, always will be, fat. When she raises her cigarette to her lips, I see that her fingernails are dirty and chewed. Her hair is a ravage of tangles, shoulder-length and the color of straw. A tiny gold cross hangs from a dainty chain around her neck. She is too large for this cross.
"Beer?"
I tell her no. She strikes me as somebody who has tasted a lot of s.e.m.e.n. I want to ask her if it all tastes like alfalfa sprouts, or if it"s just something funky with him.
Neil says, "I"ll be back in a while. I gotta take him home."
"Pick me up some more smokes," she says. She coughs. She takes another drag and turns her face back to the TV. Mannix. Mannix.
Neil takes his keys off the kitchen table, crumbs sticking to his fingers as he swipes. He gives them a toss into the air and catches them. "Ready?"
Of course I"m ready, I think.
We walk outside. I can see my breath, so I hold it. I want to keep it inside. I feel exposed. Enough of me has escaped into the air for the evening.