I have an ordinary name, nothing cool like Stick. Just Matt, short for Mateo, but I hate it when anyone calls me that and they accentuate the accent like I’m from a foreign country, not some boring suburb in Central Jersey. I used to be Matty when I was younger, but I switched to Matt when we moved to Woodbridge, which sounds older and cooler maybe, to Stick. I want to be cooler to him.
You outside yet?
I thought it was Stick so I jumped out quick, wet and dripping on the bathmat. It’s just Sammy.
No, I text back.
I need to get my brother’s games back, he wants them tonight.
Sammy, who’s not really Sammy—it’s Sameer but we always call him Sammy—he lives in our neighborhood with his parents and his grandparents who kind of hate us—all the Latino boys on this side of the neighborhood. Sammy says the older generation thinks American kids are a bad influence on him, but I don’t know, he smokes more pot than Stick and me combined and he’s always talking about getting laid, which okay, they may have a point about America.
Give me an hour, I gotta help my dad with the tent.The World Is continues to ring out from the speaker and I’ve been testing the limits of its volume controls, every morning in the shower since I got it for my birthday, drowning in the sound of the band’s first album. Stick introduced me to them last winter—I still remember what he said, “Wait, you need to hear this”—like stop, drop everything, this is more important than air or water or Fire Style Jutsu—the art of the Magnificent Dragon Flame—and I think I fell in love with him then, downstairs on the scratchy carpet of our basement, The World Is booming out of this speaker, engulfing us like a giant flame. I even stole my mantra from one of their songs and I need it now, freaking out that Stick isn’t texting back, drying off on the rumpled bathmat, thinking of our kiss.
I will be okay. Everything.
“Get some goddamn clothes on and come outside,” Dad says when I open the door. “Now.”
My neighborhood is segregated, that’s the only way to explain it—to the right is the Latino side and to the left is the Indian section, and near the back around the corner are the rich white families with rear decks and pools instead of cracked patios but they don’t really interact with us much, Trevor and Gavin did during the school year but not really this summer. The Latino families are all outside on their lawns, putting up their tents and their tables and red-white-and-blue decorations, salsa music cranked to unnecessary levels from a sound system parked in between us and the Indian side. One of my neighbors has a nephew who’s a DJ, this big Dominican dude setting up the equipment—speakers and amps and mixing board and mics—struggling to lift the heavy gear into place.
“Help me with this pole,” Dad says.
Some guests have arrived already, parked out on the street leading into the development, past the open field where Stick and I watched the fireworks last night. He still hasn’t texted so I know he’s upset, and the only thing I can think is to fake it, pretend I was so wasted I don’t even remember the kiss. I’ve thought before that Stick might be gay, the way he doesn’t talk about girls too much and the way he lets me touch him, but I couldn’t ever ask him, I couldn’t risk it.
“Sammy’s coming over soon.”
“Good. He can help with the tent.”
Dad’s always pissed when Mom’s family comes over. He likes to spread that anger around.
“Come on come on come on, get the connector.”
He points to the intermixed pile of metal posts on the lawn, motioning with animation at some specific location but I’m searching as he’s straining and he’s getting upset that I can’t read his mind.
“Oh, for Christ sake,” he says and drops the pole to grab the connector. “I need a beer.”
I’m not out to my parents yet. I don’t even think they suspect. But then I didn’t think anyone suspected, and Trevor and Gavin are going around talking about Stick and me maybe, which is annoying. I mean, I’m okay with being gay, but I’m not about joining the Gay-Straight Alliance at Woodbridge High, and I’d rather come out at my own pace, after I’ve left my father’s house. Not that he’s homophobic, not outwardly, I’m just not sure how he’d react, and I want to keep it a secret between Stick and me. Just us.
“Let’s get this done.” Dad returns from inside and sets an open bottle on a folding chair near the sidewalk. “Your mother’s parents are already on their way.”
We live in Avenel Green, which isn’t very green but it is in Avenel, part of the sprawling suburb that is Woodbridge Township, a group of townhouses carved out of the woods between the highway and the train tracks. Nothing much happens here, or nothing all that interesting, not since that woman died in a car crash that split her in half, her top through the windshield splatted onto the pavement, with the bottom still inside, underneath the seat belt. They say she must have worn the restraint hanging off, like some people do, to avoid messing up their shirts or their skirts or their pretty summer tan lines, but I say it must have been some kind of crash to split her in half.
Dad and me aren’t really talking, we’re just working, setting up the posts and the connectors and slamming the anchors into the grass, wet from the rain and the morning humidity, too loose to hold the posts in place. The Dominican DJ’s beats get louder as Dad’s beer gets emptier and he finds some concrete blocks from the shed to steady the structure. We pull on the tarp just in time for Mom to come outside.
“You put it here?” she says.
“Yeah. Where the hell were we supposed to put it?”
“I thought on the side,” she says, pointing to the edge of the house. “Toward the back.”
“It’s sloped over there. All the tables would be slanted.”
Mom looks over at the grass then back at the tent, the one we’re standing underneath, sweaty and frustrated. She sighs.
“Now everyone has to come through the tent to come inside.”
“So?”
“That’s stupid,” she says. “Can you move it?”
“Nope.”
Dad’s already doing the folding chairs, opening one and motioning for me to assist.
“Matty, you want to help me move it,” Mom says, sickly sweet and desperate. She knows he’s not going to change his mind and she can’t do it herself.
“Matt is busy,” Dad says, pulling another beer out of the cooler, but I’m just standing here. In the middle.
Mom waits for a minute, in the silence of the blaring salsa, then she gives up and goes inside “to cook for you like I’ve been doing all day.” Dad doesn’t care, he’s taking a slug of his beer and setting up the chairs so I step over to help him.
“How’s your ankle?” he says.
“It’s okay.” My ankle’s been a mess ever since a nasty slide this spring that caused my shin to buckle and ripped the bones into shattered shards that sliced through every muscle and tendon from my foot to my knee, although the doctor said it was just a sprain. “A little sore but it’s okay.”
“Are you wearing your compression socks?” He looks across at my bare legs as we unfold the last table.