allowed such a topic to arise. I knew that Judy wanted to become a Broadway dancer—a gypsy, she called it. Or a pediatrician. She wavered day to day. I told her my own troubles with my family that summer, how I'd come to hate everything about my life, and had so managed to annoy and depress them all that finally I'd been shipped off to here, this paradise, to cheer me up and, they hoped, to change my attitude. I didn't think I'd yet managed to change my mind about the complete hopelessness of my condition come next fall, when I was slated to go to a state college to study who knew what for Lord knew what kind of eventual career—all of them stank so far as I was concerned.
No, Alistair never spoke of his future, of his mother, or of Alfred. He never mentioned his father either. They seemed to see each other less and less as Alistair got older. And the one time I brought up how great I thought his business project was, Alistair said, "Who wants to work all one's life? This development ought to net me a half million. I'll invest that, and when I get my trust fund at twenty-one, I should be able to do whatever I want." Although what this latter consisted of, he wouldn't even deign to hint to me.
At first I'd assumed that he and Judy were going steady. Wasn't that why he'd been about to warn me on that first day? But as the days passed, I became increasingly uncertain about their relationship. Although Alistair and Judy were together every day, they never held hands, or smooched, or vanished suddenly, to make out the way all the "steadies" I'd ever known did. Once we would arrive at a place, Alistair seemed to leave Judy pretty much on her own. She'd pull out a paperback book or a fashion magazine and read, or talk to Jewel or Marie-Claude or me. From the instant we'd met, I'd thought Judy both incredibly pretty and ultrasophisticated. The more time I spent with her, the more I realized how much of that was merely on the surface. Underneath, Judy was very like the girls I'd known in high school: a little anxious, a little confused, eager to be liked, maybe even loved. When I asked if she minded Alistair ignoring her so much, she said, with a bit of irritation, "He's not my keeper, you know!"
Another time, while slathering suntan lotion upon the creamiest skin of her upper back, I said, "When you and my cousin are married..."
She sat up. "Married? You're kidding?"
"I thought..."
"If I marry anyone, it'll be Tab Hunter. Or Troy Donahue." She laughed suddenly. "Well, one of us will marry Tab Hunter or Troy Donahue."
"One of you?"
"Stairs or me," she said, as though I should already have known that. "My upper thighs, Stodge, please," she added, using the name she and Alistair had invented for me and which constituted my acceptance.
I could have, I should have, asked right then what exactly Judy meant. I thought I knew, but I was both confused and fearful of the explanation. Partly because the signals around me were so confounding.
Back home, in school, among my friends, boys that were effeminate or wimpy or sometimes just ugly, poorly dressed, and pimple-faced were often called faggots and fairies: everyone agreed; no explanations were necessary. In junior high, we'd been more open, more free. We'd played a game in class and through the halls where we'd do something, anything, to draw attention to our crotch in some way, and when someone fell for it and looked, we'd shout with joy, "Gotcha!" And it had been commonplace to push someone and yell out, "Eat it raw! Through a flavor straw."
At first, it seemed the same among the Jewel's Box gang of youths. They were always calling each other "homos," and should one of them become too tender or solicitous, another would quickly bare his bottom and say, "Kiss this, queer!" Jewel and Alistair and Judy were constantly referring to various people—among them my cousin—as "pervs and perverts." Walking with Crash and Sandy along the boardwalk at Venice one afternoon, I'd been
No, Alistair never spoke of his future, of his mother, or of Alfred. He never mentioned his father either. They seemed to see each other less and less as Alistair got older. And the one time I brought up how great I thought his business project was, Alistair said, "Who wants to work all one's life? This development ought to net me a half million. I'll invest that, and when I get my trust fund at twenty-one, I should be able to do whatever I want." Although what this latter consisted of, he wouldn't even deign to hint to me.
At first I'd assumed that he and Judy were going steady. Wasn't that why he'd been about to warn me on that first day? But as the days passed, I became increasingly uncertain about their relationship. Although Alistair and Judy were together every day, they never held hands, or smooched, or vanished suddenly, to make out the way all the "steadies" I'd ever known did. Once we would arrive at a place, Alistair seemed to leave Judy pretty much on her own. She'd pull out a paperback book or a fashion magazine and read, or talk to Jewel or Marie-Claude or me. From the instant we'd met, I'd thought Judy both incredibly pretty and ultrasophisticated. The more time I spent with her, the more I realized how much of that was merely on the surface. Underneath, Judy was very like the girls I'd known in high school: a little anxious, a little confused, eager to be liked, maybe even loved. When I asked if she minded Alistair ignoring her so much, she said, with a bit of irritation, "He's not my keeper, you know!"
Another time, while slathering suntan lotion upon the creamiest skin of her upper back, I said, "When you and my cousin are married..."
She sat up. "Married? You're kidding?"
"I thought..."
"If I marry anyone, it'll be Tab Hunter. Or Troy Donahue." She laughed suddenly. "Well, one of us will marry Tab Hunter or Troy Donahue."
"One of you?"
"Stairs or me," she said, as though I should already have known that. "My upper thighs, Stodge, please," she added, using the name she and Alistair had invented for me and which constituted my acceptance.
I could have, I should have, asked right then what exactly Judy meant. I thought I knew, but I was both confused and fearful of the explanation. Partly because the signals around me were so confounding.
Back home, in school, among my friends, boys that were effeminate or wimpy or sometimes just ugly, poorly dressed, and pimple-faced were often called faggots and fairies: everyone agreed; no explanations were necessary. In junior high, we'd been more open, more free. We'd played a game in class and through the halls where we'd do something, anything, to draw attention to our crotch in some way, and when someone fell for it and looked, we'd shout with joy, "Gotcha!" And it had been commonplace to push someone and yell out, "Eat it raw! Through a flavor straw."
At first, it seemed the same among the Jewel's Box gang of youths. They were always calling each other "homos," and should one of them become too tender or solicitous, another would quickly bare his bottom and say, "Kiss this, queer!" Jewel and Alistair and Judy were constantly referring to various people—among them my cousin—as "pervs and perverts." Walking with Crash and Sandy along the boardwalk at Venice one afternoon, I'd been
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