For Today I Am a Boy by Kim Fu Page A

what he’d done or what had been done to him, though everyone knew. The buzz was fading. We were coming up on the anniversary of a car accident that killed four students the year before, and the retelling of that story had taken over. Ollie acted like we had always been friends. “You work out?” he asked.
    I almost laughed.
    â€œI need a new gym buddy,” he said.
Because you knifed your last one,
I thought. He held the foil-wrapped bottom of the steak and ate it out of his hand, like it was a banana. “I can sneak you in for free. Nobody mans the desk at night.”
    â€œI work nights,” I said.
    â€œGet out. Where?”
    â€œThe new restaurant.”
    â€œEvery night?”
    â€œThree nights a week.”
    He drank a carton of milk with his steak. “Tell your parents it’s five nights. We’ll go lift weights, have some beers, and you can just say you were at work.”
    It was a good trick. In spite of everything, I wasn’t afraid of Ollie. I felt pleased that he had thought of me. “Yeah, okay.”
    His head jerked backward as he ripped the meat off the bone with his teeth. “I’m going to get huge. Then small-dicked assholes like the coach won’t be able to pick on me. He calls me a fag just ’cause I’m skinny.” Ollie watched me peel the crust from my white-bread-and-strawberry-jam sandwich. “You aren’t a fag, are you?”
    I was supposed to shake my head, deny it up and down. He looked so cheery and simple, his cheeks stuffed with beef. I said, “I don’t know.”
    Ollie took a hard-boiled egg from his bag. It gave off a strong, sulfurous smell when he rolled it on the floor and cracked the shell. I watched him pick the shell off and drop the shards back into the paper bag. “Well, do you want guys to suck your dick?”
    I felt a revulsion so strong it was closer to hatred. “
No.
”
    He ate half of the egg in one bite. “Do you want girls to suck your dick?”
    The revulsion didn’t change. “No.”
    Ollie shrugged and swallowed the rest of the egg. “Then I don’t know what you are.” Perhaps from the way I sat there staring at the floor, he added quickly, “I’m not queer. I’ve got a girl up in Innisfil.” I kept staring at the floor. “Hey, you okay?”
    â€œI just don’t like thinking about it.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œSex.”
    â€œJeez.” He chewed thoughtfully. “What’s that like? I can’t stop thinking about it.”
    Â 
    It wasn’t true. I loved the way the cooks at the restaurant talked about sex. Mapping out women’s bodies for one another like explorers who’ve returned home. Their jokes with animals, old women, and babies as the punch lines. It was over-the-top enough, absurd enough, that it didn’t feel real.
    The sauté cook had graduated from Brock Road the year before. His name was Simon Hughman, and I remembered him only because he had a notoriously squeaky voice, as immortalized on the boys’-room wall:
    Â 
Simon Hymen
forever a virgin
voice so high
the girls won’t screw him.
    Â 
    On our third night, Simon’s board had filled up with orders while everyone else was still going at an easy pace. Chef came up behind him and surveyed the chits. Simon tossed one pan and then another like he was juggling clubs. I had already noticed that the people who moved the fastest seemed to get the least done. “What’s the problem here?” Chef asked.
    â€œJust got really busy.” His voice cracked on
busy.
He tried to elbow Chef out of his way, but Chef stood his ground.
    â€œYou jerking off on my time, Simon?” Chef mimed it with an empty fist. He grabbed Lyle, the garde-manger at the next station, from behind and started thrusting. “Having a good time with Lyle over here?”
    The other men, including Lyle, laughed. Simon continued to flip