On Archimedes Street by Jefferson Parrish Page A

one will find out. Just… please .”
    “Frenchy! You’re fourteen!”
    “I’m seventeen!” Frenchy cried in need.
    “Seventeen?” asked Manny, suddenly thrown off guard.
    “I lost two years and a half to leukemia.”
    Leukemia? What the hell?
    “You’re a kid, Frenchy!”
    “I’m not a kid!” Frenchy protested desperately. “I know all about nausea, I know all about patience, I know all about chemo, I know all about not knowing whether you’ll live or not. I know all about wanting and waiting and hoping. Please !”
    Manny’s heart broke in his chest. “Fourteen or seventeen, it’s still not right, Frenchy,” he said softly. “It’s taking advantage. You’re too young to know what you want, and you’ll blame and hate me for it later.”
    “I know what I want!” screamed Frenchy in frustration. Then he picked up the magazine and thumbed through it. “It’s because I’m skinny and ugly, isn’t it? You want someone like him .” Frenchy thrust the magazine, open to a spread showing a muscle builder, toward Manny.
    “Frenchy….”
    “Shit! How could I have been so stupid ?” He threw the magazine on the floor. Then Frenchy felt the tears welling, and the tears made him furious. He thought he had exposed himself totally, but now the tears taught him what it felt like to be completely naked.
    Manny, in agony, could think only to repeat Frenchy’s name. “Frenchy, Frenchy….”
    They registered the doorbell and turned from each other at the same time. Whoever it was, they were ringing the bell of the shotgun next door, where Manny and Dominic lived. The tension hung between them, and they waited wordlessly for the shop bell to ring. Each welcomed the respite.
    An automaton, Manny answered the bell.
    “Good afternoon,” said the earnest young woman. She wore some funny sandals Manny had never seen before. In her hands was a basket of stuffed toy animals. Polar bears. “My name is Gaia. I’m with ‘Tomorrow Delayed,’” she said, sliding the sandaled foot onto the threshold. “Do you have any idea of what will happen to Southern Louisiana if global warming goes unchecked?” she asked urgently.
    “Erm,” said Manny. Frenchy glowered at them both through tear-rimmed lashes.
    “You don’t burn your trash, do you? You know about particulates, right? And though it’s criminal that Gretna has no recycling center, if you gather your bottles, cans, and paper…,” the earnest woman continued, but Manny and Frenchy heard just one of every ten words. When she finished her spiel, Manny woodenly agreed to buy a stuffed polar bear toy, whose twenty-dollar cost would go toward global warming research. The refrigerator magnets—in the shape of a black foot—were gratis. They reminded Manny to watch his carbon footprint.
    As he closed the door on their visitor, he tentatively offered the polar bear to Frenchy. “Here, Frenchy,” he said. “A bolar pear.”
    Manny always did this. He said things like “drew scriver” and “hack jammer.” Frenchy loved when he did this. But this time, it tore at his guts. Accepting the toy without thinking, he swam for the door. Tears dimmed his view, but he could make out Dutch in his ridiculous baby-blue car tooling down Archimedes Street. He thought he’d hated Dutch, but suddenly the sight of Dutch was familiar and comforting. He ran out into the street.
    “Dutch! Dutch!” Frenchy flagged him down, and Dutch slammed on the brakes. “Dutch! Please take me home!”
    An agitated Manny watched this scene. That handsome Abbott boy lived down the street. That’s where home was, right? Would Frenchy throw himself at Dutch’s pecker like he had at Manny’s? Was the kid that cock crazy? Dutch was so handsome, Frenchy wouldn’t be able to resist. And what did he know about Dutch? Would he take advantage?
    Manny roiled. Poor Frenchy. It all came together in his mind. Leukemia, and years off school. That accounted for Frenchy’s strange mixture of