He puts his headphones on my ears. “This is what’s on,” he whispers to me, his breath hitting my face just above my eyes. Then he presses play, and I hear an aggressive guitar followed by Madonna’s voice telling me that life is a mystery, and that everyone must stand alone, like I didn’t know that already. But soon, the music transports me to some other magical land. Art lets the whole song play. When it ends, he pulls the headphones off me and says, “The second song’s even better.”
“It is, um, really great,” I say, unable to find the right words to describe the transcendent experience of hearing that song.
“Yeah, I know, she’s the queen of the world.” He sits next to me again, speaking faster, his hands moving quickly. His passion for the subject spills out of him. “You know about the Pepsi commercial, right?”
“Um . . .” My stammering must make it obvious that I don’t.
“Sorry, but were you living in Tehran and Toronto, or were you living under a giant rock? Madonna did a Pepsi commercial to that song, and a few days later she released the video to the song, where she dances in front of burning crosses and kisses a black saint. Pepsi told her to pull the video. She said fuck you. So . . . they pulled the commercial, and she kept the five million. That’s what you call a badass bitch move. Do what you want and keep the money.”
I stare at him as he talks, mesmerized by his confidence. “You might be allowed to use the f word,” I say, “but I don’t think you’re allowed to use the b word.”
“What, bitch?” he asks.
I nod and smile. “You are not a woman.”
“Honorary,” he says. “Just like Judy’s an honorary queer. Speaking of, you never answered my question. Do you like Judy?”
I feel trapped. I don’t know what the right thing to say is. If I say no, then she may never spend time with me again, and she is the only friend I have made. And also, I’m scared of Art, of how he makes me feel, of his directness and self-assurance. I wonder how he got to be that way. Maybe his parents support him unconditionally, cheer him on no matter what. I bet they do. That’s what American parents are like.
“She’s, um, very cool,” I say, hoping that will make him stop. “Probably the coolest girl I have ever met.” That’s not a lie. I can’t tell the whole truth, but I also hate telling lies.
“Okay,” he says. “That’ll do for now. She’s a great kisser, you know. We practiced with each other.”
I don’t say anything to that. I’m too busy daydreaming about what it would be like to practice kissing with Art.
He stands up again and clicks open his Discman. He pulls out the CD, then finds the case for it in his bag. He throws it on my bed. “A present,” he says.
“Oh, I can’t accept that,” I say.
“Whatever. I can easily steal another twenty bucks from my parents to replace it. My dad’s so easy to steal from. He just leaves his money in a money clip on the mantel when he showers.” Art throws on a few of the jelly bracelets and dumps all the other items that were in his bag back in, in no apparent order. “See you at school?” he asks.
“Um, okay,” I say. He’s about to leave when I stand up and call his name. When he turns around, I stumble over my words, but finally I ask, “When did you know that you were, um, you know, homosexual?”
He puts his bag down and smiles. “I had a wet dream about Morrissey. He’s a singer. A hot one with an accent. I love accents.”
“Is that a serious answer?” I ask, self-conscious about my accent.
“Seriously,” he says. “But I should’ve known sooner. All my friends were girls. And there was Judy’s uncle Stephen. He was always around. You know me and Judy have been friends forever, right?” I nod, but I say nothing because I don’t want him to stop. “I always felt more connected to him than to my own dad. I guess I should’ve known that whatever Uncle Stephen was . . . is what I was too. It was just so obvious that we belonged to the same tribe or something. But before that wet dream, I didn’t understand, you know? I had no frame of reference. Why?”
“No special reason,” I say.
“So you’re cool with me being gay?” he asks. “Because Judy was afraid you’d be a homophobe.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” I say, as if it’s a matter of politeness.
“Cool,” he says. “Case closed.” Then he waves his hand and leaves. Just like that.
I notice his backpack on the floor. I could run out and return it to him, but I stay put. I lock the door, and I pull out the sweaty tank top he threw in there and a pair of black briefs. I put on the Madonna CD he gave me, and as I listen to the sound of her voice calling me home, I push his scent against my face. It makes me feel wobbly, and I sit on the floor as I catch my breath. Then I keep searching through his bag, feeling the smoothness of his jelly bracelets and leafing through his notebook, like I’m searching for his secrets. But I immediately feel awful about snooping, and I slam his notebook shut. He doesn’t even have any secrets, I remind myself. He is the open book. I’m the one with secrets. I close my eyes. The second Madonna song comes on. She tells me to express myself. I wish I knew how to do that.
Then I pull out a stack of worn, oversize index cards, held together with a rainbow scrunchie. My eyes catch the top of the first card, which reads #1 Adonis. Then #2 Advocate, The. Then #3 AIDS. I stop cold. Just that word on a piece of paper scares me, makes me feel like it could be transmitted to me, and I quickly flip past it. The cards are alphabetical, each with a number on top and a subject, followed by a handwritten scrawl, almost illegible. You can tell they were written quickly and with passion. Some entries are longer than one card, sometimes two or three, stapled together. I scan through the cards. I wonder what secrets they hold. There are one hundred and thirty-one of them in total, and a few leap out at me. #9 Baldwin, James. #18 Brunch. #26 Condoms. #28 Crawford, Joan. #53 Fucking Reagans, The. #54 Garland, Judy. #75 Love. #96 Radical Faeries. #127 White Night Riots. #131 Woolf, Virginia. But one card calls to me above all others. #76 Madonna. I pull it out and start to read.
Art
I catch a glimpse of myself in one of Wall Street’s intimidatingly tall glass buildings, and at first I can barely recognize the image as me. My hair isn’t lavender anymore—it’s dyed back to its natural chestnut brown and cut into a conservatively short haircut. My earring is gone, and the hole that once housed it already seems to have closed up. I’m not wearing a tank top, or a Silence = Death slogan on my clothes, or a concert T-shirt of Cyndi, Boy George, or Madonna. I’m wearing a boring-as-dirt gray suit, a white shirt, and one of my dad’s many crisp red ties, which feels like it chokes me. At least I have my camera around my neck, so I don’t feel like a completely lost soul. Then I see Stephen in the reflection behind me. “Ready?” he asks. He’s wearing a dark-navy suit, light-blue button-down shirt, and striped tie. The concealer he wears is so subtle you wouldn’t even know there’s any makeup on his face.
I turn around to face him. Behind him are seven more men in suits. None of the people frantically rushing in and out of these colossal buildings see anything but a group of traders chatting before their workday begins. Only we know the rage that hides behind these suits and ties and conservative haircuts.