Fever Dream Palace: Chapter Two

As far as pep rallies go, this one was particularly divisive from my perspective as a nobody. What used to be a pristine noble effort of a painted “Welcome Class of 1982!” banner had been ripped from the entryway and now rested in pieces near a trashcan. 

And the winner of the spirit award goes to…

Students flustered past me, giggling in clouds of Aqua Net-sprayed hair. Others lazed into the auditorium reeking of dope. Most, like myself, were simply anxious to find a seat near the back and therefore caused a stampede of hormones struggling through the double-doors. Near the stage, a side door on the left had opened from a separate room, releasing a rowdy gang of football players as well as uproarious cheering from all around me. They rallied into aisles of seats in the front, followed by glittering cheerleaders waving pom-poms. 

He was in there, huddled into a finite area with the other jocks and I became acutely aware of my need to be closer. For what, I was not yet certain. But I wanted to be near him and didn’t expect it to happen so easily, having mentally prepared to find him like a needle in a haystack. Fishtailing my way through the nameless, I worked my way down the sloping incline for an empty seat that wasn’t too obvious. Faces ebbed in rotation, pumping life into a day’s-end frenzy of socialization. Layered filters of brass instruments, jutting fists, and metallic ribbons tangled between the glow of overhead spotlights, and the enthusiasm had my confused heart racing. Finally, he appeared to me through the atmosphere of graffiti snowing on our heads. Stopping abruptly in a rare moment of consistent flow, the line behind me rumbled in annoyance, shoving past my stance as a human speed bump. 

Adrenaline crashed all my senses, switching all the energy my body could muster to my brain. I watched him slug his buddies in the shoulder, howl to the crowd before him, laugh so loud his eyes closed at an inaudible comment shouted into his ear. It was as if, in a moment of absolute beauty, God allowed me to slow down time. Ions smashed in my head creating a supernatural force that concentrated my spinal fluid into reverse flow, manifesting my desperate and telepathic plea for him to see me transmit into his own thoughts. God, or magic, or something like that became reality. Because for one split second, it was as though he’d heard me from across the room. Leon turned his head a few degrees in my direction with a beaming smile, raised his eyebrows as if to say hello, and winked at me. 

The bulb of a nearby yearbook photographer’s camera flashed, miraculously gifting me with an indelible black and white portrait of him in that moment. It’s a picture I’d look at every day, even in the aftermath of future events he and I would become partner to over the course of just a couple years from this day. I don’t look at him much anymore, decided it was probably safer, less heartbreaking, to file him away into a cluttered closet within a random box. Admitting my addiction to the way he was in the beginning was the first and primarily consistent step I needed to take in recovery. In spite of myself, I craved to dig him out from under the gathering dust like pulling marrow from the ground. Guilt scraped my heart at the thought of keeping him buried like that, my own lovely version of hiding a dead body in the walls. The picture, and what was left of the way I choose to remember him, haunts me. I must let him. Even though his body isn’t dead yet, his soul is. That ghost is my burden to carry.  

I told them everything they wanted to hear—the reporters, officers and investigators. They got every detail of my perspective in the case. These days people don’t ask me about it much. On occasion someone will call, requesting to sit down with me again on the record. I’ll either oblige or decline depending on my mood, rehashing all the gore of my adolescence for a few bucks. My story never changed, and I never offered anything new. Just what I believed to be the truth. But they never got that moment in the auditorium the first day we met. I never told them it was me he was looking at in the picture. That one thing needed to be mine, just one memory to remain pure, untainted by the trash fire set ablaze by a beautiful boy’s pretty blue eyes. 

During the bus ride home, Charlotte prodded anxiously for a reaction to the new school as if seeking permission to enjoy herself. She only had a small percentage of my attention, all I wanted to do was continue watching sun-bleached houses blur past us. It was warm sitting next to the window, resting a cheek on my fist to bob sleepily as the hum of giant wheels toured among the hills dropping kids off at their homes. A boom box was blaring AC/DC. Crumpled balls of paper shot through the air, loose pencils rolled across the dirty floor. So much noise would ordinarily put me on edge, but not this afternoon. Consistent vibration had produced a narcotic effect, and for once I welcomed the static. I let it stir me into a dark cloud, blissed and contented in the incomparable joy of attraction. Possibility personified, kissing me in the rain. 

“Hey! Space cadet!” Charlotte was snapping her fingers in front of my face. “Have you even heard a word I’ve been saying?”

I responded by clearing my throat, “What? Mmhm. Yeah, what’s up?”

“Are you high?” 

“What do you mean.”

“I mean, I just told you I got fingered by the P.E. coach. And you just said, ‘Groovy,” like Bob Marley just invited you to Burning Man.”

I rubbed my eyes and laughed, pulling myself back into the present. Charlotte hit my shoulder with an open palm. 

“SAM,’ she declared, “how was your fucking day?”

Nothing brought me more joy than when Charlotte swore. She was whip smart, and knew how to play her audience. She floated through home life like a dove, and it worked for her any time she needed to get her way. Anywhere else, she was always caring and sweet, but my sister knew how to take care of herself when necessary. 

“It was great,” I said, instantly backtracking. I wasn’t ready to share the pearl of joy in my hands. “I mean, it was fine. Nothing to write home about. Same shit in a different place. But my economics teacher is a real hag, though. Did you make any friends?” 

“I don’t understand why girls have to be such catty bitches.”

“Okay.”

“As if just because I’m the new girl, I won’t be able to get a date to homecoming?”

“Isn’t it always the new girl who gets asked first?” I asked.

“Exactly.”

“You’re right, Charlotte. Girls can be some catty bitches.”

            “It’s like feminism never even happened, you know?”

            “Careful, Char, or you’re gonna wind up burning your bra in front of the White House with Aunt Shelley.”

            “Well, I’m sure if you were forced to wear a bra every day you’d also come to understand the pain of being stabbed incessantly by a rouge underwire in a public setting and not being able to do anything about it. It’s exhausting pretending to have the grace and poise of a dove all day long. And don’t even get me started on tampons!”

            “Ok! I forfeit! You win this round.” 

            “Anyway, I was only being facetious.”

            “What?”

            “About homecoming. The feminism thing.”

            “No, I know. I was just wondering how long you’ve been waiting to use a word like ‘facetious.’”

            “Since I heard it during fourth period!” she laughed, nudging my shoulder and inciting a brief playful game of who could push who out of their seat. A road bump did the job for us, sending everyone in the back of the bus at least three inches into the air with a jolt. 

            “Jesus Christ!”

            “Ooh, I love when it does that,” Charlotte said, bracing herself with both hands on the seat before us. Settling back, she grew quiet, picking at the glitter nail polish applied yesterday evening for the occasion. “Um, so anyway. What about you, did you meet anyone today? Make friends, I mean. Homecoming is just a couple weeks away.”

            She was getting at something I wasn’t ready to discuss yet and I bit my lip. 

            “I don’t get you.”

            “Like, you know… A date. To the dance.”

            Opportunities to come out to my sister presented themselves on a few occasions, a delicate prompt telling me to come clean, to say the words out loud. Charlotte, I knew, would love me either way, and probably more. There was only this one disconnect between us that repelled me, but I couldn’t pin down why it bothered me so. To be gay was one thing, but to be gay in public came with so many other contexts. I felt ashamed and willful at the same time. Beyond that wall, hid a dormant emotion capable of blowing my cover into smithereens: I was lonely.

            Turning to my sister, awash with sunlight on her face, I didn’t have the heart to share how terrified I was of being gay. Headlines blared violently from newspaper stands confirming my damnation to an illness so insidious and cruel that it had no cure, just a cause: homosexuality. The cancer plaguing communities of gay men in New York and San Francisco, trickling down like venom into Southern California. It was coming, and everyone knew it. Especially me, right here next to my sister on a beautiful Wednesday afternoon. The words tickled restively on my tongue, but I choked. 

            “I probably just won’t go,” was my flat and final reply. 

            It was an easy enough answer, I thought, well-played and hopefully rounded enough to punctuate the conversation. If I didn’t go, that meant I didn’t have to worry about a date. Avoiding the dance altogether omitted any lies or disappointment that were surely in store for me. Keeping silent was keeping me protected. For all I knew, speaking the words into existence may have been cause enough to manifest the cancer inside me. Maybe it wasn’t cancer at all. Maybe it was a plague, God’s way of terminating an entire generation of sinners in one agonizing fell swoop. I pictured a deep red ink blossoming into water, the blood of a family reeling tidally into shark infested shallows. 

            Leaning her head on my shoulder, Charlotte told me we would get through this together. When she said things like that I couldn’t help but feel as though there had been some flaw in our birthrights. In so many ways she was my big sister. Her superpower was also her vulnerability, amalgam splintered into tiny specs and sprinkled into a triangle between the temporal, frontal and parietal lobes. For it was in that tangle of neurons her own divinity tumbled with chaotic grace through girlhood. She cultivated every laugh, every fear and every shape her body would ache into existence as a womb. Resting my chin on her own long blonde hair, I was reminded that she too absorbed the violence and beauty of the world into her skin like melanin. She just processed the vitamins differently, and I understood right then that she was destined by circumstance to become the better person, so much better than I could ever be. This young woman cradled under my arm was born to keep the world warm. Though I instinctively wanted to protect her from every scrape of anger indigenous to humanity, a war for my own soul malingered in stubborn nexus. Maybe it was okay, if just for right now, to feel safe inside the arms of a divine right of siblinghood, binding us together in spirit and DNA, conditioned by the death of one of our own. 

            There would be no way of telling, I knew, just how all of this was going to go. Our lives might see us all the way to the end, content with brittle bones and plastic tubes. Or maybe with the sky crashing down on our skulls before the bus even arrived with a jolt outside our home. None of that mattered right now, I thought. Let’s just hope for the best and enjoy the ride. 

       

            Anticipation brought a sense of urgency to my daily routine. The pull of wondering how many hours, minutes, seconds it would be until I could see Leon again distracted me, even from getting tired. Sleep was scarce in the hours before, when I dozed ardently in my bed twisting the sheets into a haphazard cocoon. For the first time in weeks I felt compelled to wake up with a smile, embracing the cool breeze of morning like a totem for positive vibes. Daybreak sensations gently welcomed me into a temporary fa?ade of normalcy. Family verbiage greeted the new day, speaking amicable moods into every room. A hair dryer’s muffled whirring from behind a closed bathroom door told me Charlotte was in the midst of a blow-out. Pans and plates clinked from the kitchen where cinnamon and eggs were soaking into bread for French toast. The screen door slammed, and I could already picture Dad stepping out onto the lawn, coffee in hand, to fetch the newspaper.

            I made my bed before racing downstairs in my underwear. The table was set with mild extravagance: juice, French press of fresh coffee, a bowl of fruit. Resting against the counter, Mom stood with her own steaming mug, tapping her finger with furrowed brow as if deep in thought. She was mostly dressed, save for the curlers in her hair. 

            “Morning, honey. I made your favorite,” she said, pulling herself out of a deep internal discussion as I rounded into the breakfast nook. 

            “I know, I could smell it all the way upstairs. It woke me up before my alarm event went off.”

            “Hey, listen, I thought we’d do something different today and I’d drive you and your sister to school.” 

            Her demeanor was fresh, almost chipper. She didn’t have the tired stare of a beleaguered wife and mother today. She always wore makeup, but today was the special kind. It was the stuff she’d only wear on holidays or at weddings. Drizzling syrup over my breakfast, I realized she was wearing her white cashmere sweater and the long skirt I liked with the shimmery gold threading. The way she busied back and forth, tousling her hair, was making me nervous. But I loved the sound of those little heels clacking on the tile, giving me goosebumps. The sound of a woman moving with purpose.  

            “Yeah, sounds great. I hate taking the bus anyway,” I mumbled, simultaneously devouring my food. “So, um. What’s the occasion?” 

            She called from the hall closet, rustling through nonsense, presumably to retrieve something, “What’s that?”

            “Ma!,” I bleated, “What’sthe occasion?” 

            My curiosity was getting the better of me and I was almost beginning to worry. Charlotte rounded the corner in a cloud of bubblegum scented fairy dust. I thought back to our conversation yesterday regarding the dance, and I had a feeling she was also trying to catch a boy’s attention. 

            “What’s Mom doing?” she asked absentmindedly. Sliding into a seat at the table, it was clear she reeked of Opium from Mom’s shelf in the bathroom, and I got the feeling she was trying to impress somebody.

            “I— Well, that’s what I’m trying to figure out. Ma! What the hell is going on?” I choked through an involuntary laugh at how ridiculous the scene was. Mom appeared again holding a leather briefcase, which she placed decidedly on the kitchen island. She looked flustered, but not in a bad way. It was more like she had the vibrating glow of someone strapping in to a rollercoaster ride. 

            “Okay,” she sighed. “I wasn’t going to say anything until I got a final answer. But, I’ve got a job interview today. I’m going back to work.”

            Charlotte threw her arms around our mother, practically leaping from her chair.

            “That’s great news, Mom! Sam, isn’t that great?” My sister turned to me, beaming. “Do you know what grade you’re going to be teaching?”

            “Let’s…not…get ahead of ourselves, now,” she said putting her hands up, hesitant to jinx herself. Charlotte’s shoulders slouched until Mom countered with the optimism required of maintaining the mood. “But! I’m hoping for fourth grade again!” 

            My sister cheered as though our mother were letting us in on a dirty secret. The idea of Mom going back to work brought me to my feet slowly, Mom following me with her eyes until I towered over her. Stiffening at my own embrace, she patted me on the back. 

            “I’m happy for you, Mom.”

            She pulled away at this, disguising her haste with trivial breakfast cleanup. Wiping counter surfaces.

            “Thank you so much, honey.” 

            Diddling with sweet-sticky plates, she hurried to the sink as if cueing us to get a move on. So that’s what I told her. 

            “I’m glad you’ve finally moved on.”

            The dishes dropped into the sink sending a splash of water into the air, and with her head bowed I could see her fist shaking. A hot pang of shame rushed over me, but her shrouded attempts at escaping me caused an emotional flare up. At some point I’d mastered the art of subtle pettiness. Of course I’d regret it later. I always did. In recent years, a doctor in my ward had thrown around the term “borderline personality,” which never really made sense to me and still doesn’t, really. I did manage to grasp that sometimes I was mean. Even cruel at times. And there was a reason. Medically verified and somewhat controlled with moderate medication that didn’t always work. Pharmaceuticals are too young to compete against the human condition and its rise into modern angst through the years and years. Especially when one doesn’t administer the pills properly, like me. I was dread; I was anguish. I could snap at any moment to become one person from the next and back again with tongue sharp enough to make grown men cry. But her return to the workforce meant the distance between us would continue to grow and eventually fill with all the things we could have said. Charlotte interjected with a clap. 

            “Ok, then. Honestly, Mom, that’s rad! Let’s just keep our fingers crossed and have a good day. Yeah?”

            She drew her lipstick smile into blushing-pink perfection, but I could tell a fire was kindling behind her eyes. I shrugged, silently promising to not make a fuss. Neither of us expected Mom to bury the hatchet where she did. I’d feel it splitting my head open for most of the day. She rummaged through her purse before holding out a set of keys. 

            “You know, it’s such a nice day, why don’t you drive, Sam?” 

            Charlotte’s mouth dropped along with her fantasy of a pleasant interaction. She looked at the keys, too. They jangled into focus and the sting of maternal betrayal paralyzed my face in despair. My mother batted her lashes in feigned confusion. 

            “What, I thought you loved driving? Oh. That’s right.” She tsk-ed, bringing the keys to her chest in a fist. She looked elsewhere, taking a moment for effect. “I’m sorry, I forgot. Well, what’s everybody standing around for? Let’s go! Gosh, you know, I wasn’t sure I’d like it here but the plants are just gorgeous. We’ll have roses all year-round.” 

            Charlotte shook her head and grazed my back. There was new paint on her nails. 

            “Come on,” she tried, walking for the open door.

            But I couldn’t move, my heart pulling my feet through the floor. Closing my eyes, I inhaled the ashes of splintered memories after the car accident—the Polaroids dropping in my lap at the hospital, taken in darkness at the hands of a rookie cop. Red and blue lights augmented what the camera’s flash captured as physical proof: Someone in that vehicle was dead. 

            “Sam?” Charlotte asked from the door. “Please.”

            “I’m taking the bus. See you at school.”

             After the door closed I was free to sob in silence that echoed through empty rooms where I transcended space and time to the interior of an overturned vehicle wrapped around a tree. I can still hear the rain, see one headlight shining deep into the branches and leaves. Chrome and glass shattered over everything. It sparkled in the tall grass surrounding us in the humid summer, reflecting like a disco ball. My face hurt terribly, and through my one surviving eye, I saw my brother in the passenger seat, crushed beyond repair. His face had separated violently from his body between a window and the sharp metal remains of a folded car hood. Blood oozed in long black globules from my mouth when I tried to scream, but all my pummeled body could muster where the guttural retching’s of involuntary vomit splattering the roof below me. 

            The zombie of my former self was guided by unsuppressed memory to the edge of the pool. Staring into the water, watching ripples of light make shadows on the deep end. I listened for the blaring horn of a school bus to alert me of its unmistakable arrival. The driver honked and honked, hollering from the open mechanical door. As he and the rest of its passengers bustled away, I felt my equilibrium let go. Falling headfirst into the water, I screamed through the shock of cold for someone to save me from myself. But no one was listening.

       

            Second period was well into effect by the time I got to school. I walked until the heat dried out my clothes, hailed a cab when sweat soaked me through again. I tried the door, assuming it would be locked, but it swung open with a bang when I pulled to hard. A silent hush fell over the room like a series of candles being blown out. The teacher, whose name I couldn’t yet remember, put on his glasses to read the roster. He didn’t remember my name either. 

            That’s ok. I don’t know who I am either. 

            “Good of you to join us Mr…” He drew out the attribution so I could answer, which I did not. 

            “Kessler,” he finished, clearing his throat, “Showered with our clothes on this morning, did we?”

            I shuffled my way in and found my desk. 

            “Sorry. Had a date with a swimming pool.”

            “I’m sure whatever that means is very funny. Have a seat.” 

            He took a piece of chalk and rotated to the green board to scribble some nearly illegible details about a book we’d be reading. 

            “We were just in the middle of—Oh,” he said with a frown and fumbling for something hidden within his podium. He walked toward me, presenting the book with his long, freckled arm. “We were just in the middle of discussing our first book of the semester. ‘The Exorcist’ by William Peter Blatty.”

            “The school couldn’t afford ‘Catcher in the Rye?’”

            Had I forgotten how to just shut the fuck up? You know, smile and nod? The sound of my own voice was becoming a problem for me.

            Mild snickering framed a possible scapegoat from the detention I was confident Mr. Green-Vest had been considering. 

            “If you had showed up on time and not reeking of—What is that? Bleach?”

            “Chlorine.”

            “Were you really swimming in a pool with your clothes on?”

             I replied with a blank stare. 

            “Uh-huh. Well. Anyway. I fucking hate ‘Catcher in the Rye.’” More laughter this time. Teacher made a swear, and all that. “And as you’ll see, I think you’ll find this novel a bit more stimulating. I think this class is already pretty familiar with spoiled brats. I mean Holden Caulfield.”

            I think I might just like Mr. Green-Vest. 

            “Patricia Mason!” He swung his chalk-arm around theatrically. “Would you be so kind as to continue where we left off?”

            The girl perched in the desk next to me popped the gum between her molars. 

            “Sure, Dad.”

            Flipping the pages to where she had marked by folding in a corner, she began: “Page six, paragraph two.” She paused while I looked at her stupidly. Again, she said “Page six, paragraph two,” which my cue to act like a person and catch up. 

            “Oh, sorry.”

            An exasperated sigh came from her father. 

            “Ready?”

            Why is she smiling at me like that?

            I nodded. And Patricia Mason, appearing pleased, read to me the story of a mother whose child has begins to exhibit bizarre changes in behavior, appearing with near certainty, to be possessed by the Devil himself.

    

            Class was dismissed just as I grew emotionally involved in the book’s content. Already the day had felt so long, so disorienting. I felt like I’d been on a bender and withdrawals were giving me the shakes. The room was almost empty, but I was still digging in my bag for my schedule. Was it econ next? Or maybe math?                            

            “Fuck.”

            A hand caressed my shoulder and I startled as though someone had stabbed me in the back. 

            It was Patricia, jumping back like someone touching a hot stove. ““Shit! Sorry, didn’t mean to, uh…” She trailed off with a flicker of bewilderment at my white knuckles gripping the desk. “Scare you.”

            The girl was prettier up close, and I learned the hard way that pretty people are quick to reject the unfamiliar. Straightening her skirt, she leaned over to examine my crumpled schedule and drew her lips into a concentrated line as she read.

            “I thought so. You have econ. Next. With me.” 

            She stood back as if considering a bizarre painting, probably assessing whether I was or wasn’t actually tweaking. 

            I slumped down in my seat and bit my lip.

            Of course. 

            “Mrs. Drake already hates me,” I said nodding with acceptance of the predicament, mentally preparing for what was sure to be an education on my bullshit attitude. 

            “She hates everybody,” she said pulling her bouncing curls into a red bow. “Now get up, we’re gonna be late.”

            I couldn’t tell if she was being nice to me or not. And it showed, my mouth agape as I stared stupidly at her undeniable confidence. She was checking her reflection in a window and looked down at me when I didn’t respond. Her Dad, peering over a ruffle of papers at his desk, seemed uneasy. “Honey, you kids better get a move on,” he said.

            “Like right now! Jesus!” Whipping around, she grabbed me by the arm and hauled me up the stairs to the third floor. “Leon didn’t mention you were such a spaz,” she huffed. 

            Leon? What did he have to do with this? I suddenly became less distracted by the heaving weight of my book bag jumping on my shoulder in an effort to keep up our pace. 

            “What did he say?”

            “He asked me to look after you. So that’s what I’m doing. But you could’ve just asked him yourself.”

            “What?”

            My question answered itself after the girl practically shoved me into Drake’s lair as the bell rang. Reclining in his letterman’s jacket in a seat next to the window was Leon, hands behind his head and shining a wide smile in my direction. I looked wildly around the room for Patricia, whose short skirt was fluttering into her own desk. 

            The teacher wedged her fat ass into a swivel chair, her salt and pepper hair was impressive wrapped into a beehive atop her head. When she asked if there was a “problem, Mr. Kessler?” I wanted to remark on how she had the personality of a mildewy old book. Instead an incoherent stammer dropped from my lips, but she would have cut me off even if I were articulating a decent point.

            “Then sit down.” 

            Leon chewed at a thumbnail, chuckling silently at my misplaced composure. Stupefied by the whirlwind of unexpected events I seemed to be bounding through, I began to question my own aptitude for common sense. Mrs. Drake had a flare for treating students like employees or a chain-gang guilty of criminally misusing her time. She made us sit in utter silence for the first five minutes while she dutifully shredded a notepad with a red pen, drawing lines and Xs with near hostile accuracy. There was a note etched into the grain of my desk, presumably by a former upperclassman: “Danielle Leerson smells like raunchy…”  From her place next to the wall in the front, Patricia was inserting a fresh stick of gum into her mouth. A face carved by angels situated into the steely, predatory gaze of a campus queen capable of bringing any man to his knees. I had a thought that on occasion, she probably had. Under the fluorescent lights entombing us in walls shellacked by layers of pasty yellow pigment, her appeal was an unfair juxtaposition as the teenage dream. Curiosity tore me back to my priority, Leon. I looked over my shoulder uncertainly. But there he was, looking at me too, mouthing the word “Hi!”, which to me was the equivalent of blowing kiss through the air. I reciprocated with a nervous grin, helpless to the rush of blood swelling at my cheeks. 

            The moment was short lived as Drake slammed her pen down with the elongated sigh of a person who had trouble ascending a flight of stairs. She blew her nose into a tissue. Without bothering to acknowledge the pupils before her, she at last ordered us to put our books away. 

            “We’re going to talk about current events today,” she said without looking up, her beady little eyes again surveying the clutter of notes on her desk. Sniffling, she gathered the papers and moved to the podium. She would have looked bored had I not felt something else were at play, a moral mystery weighing on her mind. I got the feeling she was reveal an underhanded opinion through tactful manipulation. 

            “What can you tell me about gay cancer?” 

            Ah, I thought. Of course. Right to the point, then. 

            “It’s killing off the fags!”

            A boy with a shit eating grin destined for a life in corporate finance crossed his arms with pleasure, as though his comment was enough to conclude the discussion. 

            “When you say ‘fag,’ you’re referring to the slang term for ‘gay,’ or ‘homosexual agenda.’ Correct? Let’s expand on that.” 

            Drake shuffled her clogs over to the blackboard, where she was about to create the platform for a divisive lecture. The letters she drew in all caps: AIDS. 

            “Can anyone tell me what this stands for? No one? This—” she pointed to the board, “is gay cancer. Otherwise known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.” She scribbled the words below the acronym, underlining each as she went. 

            “Today, the CDC chose to bring attention to the illnessand officially used this term. I’m sure you’re all aware of the medical anomaly occurring on the northern regions of each coastline. Some speculate the cause is a direct consequence of homosexuality. And while the theory appears to be accurate, it isn’t actually cancer at all. It is rather, according to these scientists, a disease. Moreover, it’s a disease profiting off the American populous. The economic effects resulting from these homosexual deaths has also incited new political agendas. New healthcare reform agendas. Both scenarios are building momentum with the potential to drastically impact America’s financial security. Do you think this so-called epidemic will result in tax reform? Are you prepared for the healthcare system to borrow money from the budgets of other government programs like homeland security in order to study a preventable mess?

            “I’d like each of you to write a brief summary regarding AIDS and how it can benefit and harm either category. We’ll discuss the results afterwards.”

            “Excuse me?” I didn’t bother raising my hand for a response. “What exactly is the point of all this?”

            “I didn’t ask you to speak,” she replied looking over the glasses perched on the end of her nose.

            “You didn’t have to,” I said. Drake smiled with her eyes, about to get the retaliation she wanted.

            “We will discuss the matter after you’ve completed the assignment. Or you can report to the principal’s office, I really don’t care.”

            “Actually, why don’t we discuss them right now, Mrs. Drake?” Leon, coming to my rescue, was sharpening a pencil to a fine point at his desk. 

            “I beg your pardon?”

            “You heard me.”

            His blue eyes, now hooded, gleamed with a fire stoked by foreboding challenge.

            “That’s enough, Mr. Robbie. I’m not in the mood for any more outbursts. You’ve been given an assignment. I expect you to finish it.”

            “But it isn’t an assignment, Mrs. Drake.” Leon continued sharpening his pencil, a small pile of shredded curls falling like leaves onto his desk. 

            “What is it then?”

            “It’s tactful manipulation,” he intoned. “You’re not trying to educate us at all.”

            “And how’s that?”

            “You’re not trying to educate us.” 

            “Be quiet, Leon.”

            His athletic fingers continued rotating the pencil against razor, a ripping noise tearing the No. 2 apart had a triggering effect. Students began shifting in their seats, the hairs rising up on our arms. 

            “Stop that,” Drake said, licking her lips. “Put that pencil down. I said stop!”

            “—trying to turn us against each other,” he whispered, glancing to the opposite corner of the room. Following the message of his eyes, I rotated in my seat. It was Patricia he was speaking to. A mere flicker of his mascara lashes spoke a secret rhetoric I didn’t yet understand. But Patricia nodded. 

            “Get out! Get out of my class!”

            Patricia flew out her seat, white sneakers padding to the front like two birds taking flight. Mrs. Drake startled backward, one hand on her cross, the other reaching for support behind her that didn’t exist. She tripped over herself, falling to the floor and landing heavily with a shrill howl. Patricia knelt over Drake, folding her arms onto her knee with a grace of a ballerina performing Swan Lake.

            She observed Drake’s embarrassment with the sinister calm of a serial killer. My peers, awestruck as though they’d been caught in a splatter of blood, began to rally. 

            “Gosh, Mrs. Drake, are you ok?” Her tone was syrupy sweet, so condescending it was bad for your teeth. Sorry, I thought I saw a bee. Didn’t want you to get hurt.” 

            Laughter and whistling ensued, but Patricia held her hand out to rival the noise. There was a point she was about to make. 

            “But since I’m up here, I may as well fill you in on a couple things. One, Leon Robbie isn’t going anywhere.”

            Her curls danced as she shook her head.

            “Two, what we’re about to discuss, in reference to your absurdly biased topic, is how bigots like yourself are also the same people who protested racial integration in schools. Right? I’m sure your picture is in a newspaper somewhere, howling in opposition of the negro ‘agenda.’ What about the Jews, Mrs. Drake? People not so different from yourself considered the Jews to be a cancer of the human race. We all know that didn’t end well for anyone. Maybe it could have, but the government you speak so highly of was just too damn late! So the next time you want to consider forcing a group of teenagers to concoct some nonsensical benefitas a result of the death of an entire group of people, I suggest you remember the amount of effort it’s about to take for you to pick your fat ass up off that floor.”

            By this point, the class was in hysterics, myself included. It was hard not to laugh, running my fingers through my hair.

            What the fuck is going on right now?

            “Donald Weaver?” 

            Everyone’s attention turned to Corporate Finance-guy, who instantly lost his cheer.

            “I don’t wanna hear that word out of your mouth ever again. Understand? Or I’ll make sure that small dick of yours doesn’t get any play for the rest of your life. Not that you won’t be jerking it until your 40 anyway. Got anything else to say?” 

            The boy’s hands were shaking, suddenly alone in a room full of strangers clapping. Various insults pierced his ego: “Dude, Patricia Mason just ended you; You eat shit, Weaver; Fucking loser…”

            “That’s what I thought.” 

            She turned her focus back to Drake, who had rolled against her podium to pull herself up. 

            “Oh, and Mrs. Drake? My Daddy’s on the school board. It probably would be better for you if he didn’t find out about how you tried to intimidate a group of children into developing a genocide mentality. One might get the wrong idea of your position at this school.”

            Turning on her heels, she cooed “Class is dismissed,” and shrugged with the sour-sweet glaze of a ripe cherry on her smiling lips. 

------

            Leather and felt wrapped over my right shoulder as I stood, watching as the class actually evacuated the room. Leon had pulled me into an enthusiastic embrace and led me toward Patricia, whom he’d also share an arm with. 

            “That was fucking incredible!” 

            Instinctively, I placed a hand on Leon’s lower back, the other on the soft of his abdomen. He didn’t flinch or seem to care. Most of the boys back home only semi-embraced me, due in large part to having grown up with each other. Solidarity in riding bikes together on the same street. After a certain, my peers began to sniff out new faults. For me it was the place between where a person likes either boys or girls. People were asking me all the time, and for years I’d say the opposite of the truth. Girls, girls, girls! I repeated it like Mrs. Garret from The Facts of Life. Probably for that same reason, no one was buying it. And eventually, BJ Daniels came along, and I didn’t want to hide it anymore. He was straight, but I couldn’t help dancing in my room thinking about him, picturing his face every night before bed. Loving him made me want to not hide anymore. The thing is, even afterwards, this boy was still kind to me. And I thought, this is what it’s like. This is what it means to be myself, to feel so good about who I am that people will like me or love me or miss me no matter what. Then BJ graduated, went away to university somewhere. The guys I hung out with still climbed trees with me, threw the ball underhand so I didn’t flinch when it came in contact with the bat. Changing rooms were different, staying the night became less frequent. Knowing me as a friend plateaued into mere tolerance. Would it have been easier to not be different? I guess I’ll never know. Now I don’t want to. 

            Leon, different himself, in every way I thought a boy could be, looked down at me. He said, “Promised I’d take care of you.”

            You did?

            “Aren’t we all going to get in some kind of trouble?”

            “How can we get in trouble when we’re such good news?”

            His body was warm. His clothes reminded me of how it felt walking into someone else’s home for the first time, equal parts cigarette smoke, musk, and linen from an oak wardrobe. 

            Patricia chimed in, “There’s no acceptable way to handle how she was conducting that lecture anyway. Isaac says sometimes force is necessary to create change. It’s just about how the eye perceives its intent.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “It’s like what we did was out of love, which is its own force,” Leon added. “By nature.”

            “Right. I didn’t push Mrs. Drake down. She did that herself. All I did was stand up, and she crumbled under the pressure of a challenge. Thatis where love lives. Does that make sense.”

            “Of course it does!” Leon answered for me. “Sam probably knows that better than we do.”

            I would have said I understood, regardless of whether they were making any sense or not. But a tingling echo of blunt force trauma resonated through my guts, and in this moment, it made perfect sense. Leon pulled me in close enough to feel his breath on my skin, the put an arm around Patricia. Our unified entity had separated from the rest of the classroom escapees, undoubtedly dividing like cells into their own individual spaces. We, for instance, seemed to be taking the road less traveled. Having already utilized an unfamiliar stairway at the end of the hall, we embarked past an otherwise invisible door into the dark. Dismantling as a unit, we moved slowly in a single file line headed by Patricia, me at the end with Leon holding my hand. 

            Clutter appeared to us through touch, semiotics of the brain attempting to pull rounded edges, metal prods and mildewy-soft surfaces into familiar shapes. 

            “Where are we going?” I whispered. 

            “You’ll see.”

            I could see the honey blonde notes of Patricia’s voice in the blindness. The link of a sweating palm squeezed its fingers into mine, Leon’s way of telling me I was safe. We stopped, bumping into each other in sequential gasps. A small lightbulb flickered into a weak star, semi-illuminating the room out of pitch darkness. It felt like we were about to tell ghost stories around a campfire. Patricia still had her arm stretched out, displaying her guiding hand on the brick wall before us. The light string she pulled swayed mildly next to her face. 

            “We’re here.”

            Atop a set of metal rungs anchored into the wall with cement, there was a mezzanine platform high within the eaves. It began over the theaters’ storage room that we’d just trespassed through and stretched past the auditorium stage into a hollow access shaft reserved for the theater freaks and band geeks to transport larger props or pianos. It was apparently also used as a risqué nook for the occasional blowjob between classes. 

            The mezzanine itself was structurally sound, built into a loft with a series of naked two-by-fours, support beams and steel legs. Both Patricia and Leon were comfortable to slink through the dangling catwalks and ropes and pullies, but as the lesser experienced of the three, and possibly the most stricken with a fear of heights, I lingered behind, content to explore what treasures lay hidden behind the velvet curtain. 

            Patricia came running back, leaving Leon to sway alone above the stage like a God. 

            “I wonder if last year’s seniors left us anything good,” she said, pushing wooden crates and empty bags of potato chips aside. The trove to treasures was expertly disguised by nonsense. Stained curtains, once drawn apart, revealed the answer to her question. 

The room was makeshift, really just a few palates pushed together and covered in dirty blankets and pillows. Leon appeared, breathless like a kid in a jungle gym. 

            “Well, what’s the verdict? Find anything good?”

            “I’m not sure yet, but I think we’re the first ones up here.”

            Under a cluster of pillows emerged a red toolbox and with it the elated relief of my partners in crime. Leon grabbed the handle and settled onto a blanked, crossing his legs Indian-style. Flipping open the clasps, he first pulled out a folded piece of paper. 

            “What’s it say?” 

            Patricia edged closer to Leon, who began to read aloud:

Welcome Back Class of ‘82

We gave you hell but you made it through

Fight the power with these tools

Don’t get caught and make us fools

Use this space when you’re getting lucky

Just remember don’t get too comfy

Being the best means going slower

Before you know it the year will be over

—Class of ‘81

            “That’s encouraging,” Leon said, “Let’s see if we’ve been had.” 

            With that, he pulled out the top liner and tossed it aside to punch an invisible speed ball in the air. 

            “Bingo! Looks like they didn’t fuck us over, after all,” he declared, and held up a Ziploc bag containing a glass bowl and a few nuggets of dope. A small bottle of cheap schnapps was nestled in the box as well, prompting Patricia to scuttle into a corner near the wall and come back with three Dixie cups. 

            “Still there,” she said, handing one first to Leon and then me. “Well, are you gonna make us wait all day?” 

            We both looked at Leon, whose had thrown his head back in maniacal ecstasy. 

            “What is it?”

            He looked at us as like he’d just discovered Atlantis with both hands and a map. 

            “C’mon, dumb shit!” She slugged him in the thigh. 

            “Got a key on you?” he asked with a laugh. 

            “No. No way!”

            He held up a small baggie twisted into a knot, Patricia squealing in delight. I observed silently from my own palette, soaking under the rays of blossoming friendship. It didn’t feel like the right time to tell them I’d only ever smoked pot once, and had never done coke. If there was a first time for anything, now was my chance. Isn’t that how it always goes? Here and now. 

            “Ok, wait wait wait wait!,” Leon held his palms out, halting the rush. “We should save this for later.”

            He put the baggie into his pocket.

            “We’re not gonna takeit?”

            “Fuck it, I mean we got here first. Right?” He looked at Patricia, then to me. “Right?”

            My gut told me to do the right thing. So I said he was right. 

            Patricia groaned, and fell into a pile to kick her feet. Like Regan in The Exorcist, she flew straight up, again perfectly composed and agreed, saying we could use it tomorrow night, “Just in time for the weekend.”

            Part of me was relieved. There was a far better chance of me managing class a little stoned, but then again I had no context for what coke was like. Maybe it was better. Leon passed the bottle to Patricia while he began breaking up the weed.

            He picked at the sticky plant, saying “Smells ok.”

            Would we even be going back to class at all? 

            I drank my schnapps in one gulp, watching anxiously as Leon packed the bowl and brought it to his lips. I liked the idea of sharing a pipe with him. I’d always liked the idea, like passing around a lingering kiss. The shared trust of a circle made neon behind closed eyelids, where light remained as a hologram. Through a coughing fit, and to no one in particular, Leon confirmed that the product was good. He handed it to me before Patricia. 

            “Hey!” she protested, “Clockwise!”

            “We have a guest. Let him do the honors.”

            My hesitation was palpable. I always felt more seen when my surroundings were high, imagining they could see every surface flaw my body had to offer. 

            “You get high, right?”

            I laughed, busied myself by playing with the cross hanging from my ear. 

            “Just once.”

            “So you’re basically a virgin, who cares? It’s ok. You’re with us.”

            I took the bowl, holding it to my lips and tried to absorb him through osmosis. 

            “Here. I’ll light it for you.” And he crawled over with the lighter. 

            Looking into his eyes, I whispered, I’m scared. The child within me stood on the edge of a towering diving board, looking down into deep end. 

            “It’s ok,” he said, putting a finger over the carb and sparking a flame. “Let’s go swimming.”

            And I inhaled. 

     

            I held the smoke in my lungs, trying to remember how this was supposed to work. Not like the last time, fighting off the red and blue sirens. I felt cold. Then I felt his hand on my chin. I opened my eyes, fixated on Leon leaning into my glowing aura and watched as he put his own soft lips on mine.  

            The scent of his own private glycerin brought me back to life, a feeling I’d want to remember forever. So I kept my eyes open, hoping to make seconds last hours. He had freckles across his eyelids. And I exhaled my high back into his lungs. He pulled away, eyes burning blue. He licked his lips wet, seemed to have a coy conversation with himself as he stared into the floor. Shaking his head with a laugh, he looked up at me and held my hand. 

            I’d remember thinking as the room began to sway and my brain spun airily into a candy floss cloud, how none of this could be happening. People like me didn’t get lucky, like the note in the toolbox said. And I began to laugh and laugh, because there he was. Right in front of me, both of us staring dreamily into the filter of childish games.

            He’s real.

    

            Before we fell asleep, we giggled stupidly at the obvious, losing grasp of spacial awareness. Talking too loud too close to each other’s faces. A chilly halo appeared around my skull, Saturn’s dence rings pulling me deeper into the floor. Leon called the sensation a “headband.” Patricia went down first, and I followed laying down to face her. 

            “I’m so hungry,” I groaned. “And my mouth is super fucking dry.”

            “That happens,” Leon said through his own drawl of sleepiness. Or maybe it was just the swelling undercurrent of his high colliding with mine that made every sound taste like water satiating the scorched earth. This is why people always share, sitting in a circle. 

            One hand was on my shoulder, he was bracing himself into a position behind me. I felt his body crashing into my atmosphere like a lovely storm in the clouds. Was I shaking as much in reality or was it all in my head? Had my body been electrocuted into a humming, infinite “Om?” 

            “I’m so cold,” I muttered, pulling my body into itself. 

            Leon inched closer, replacing his hand onto my arm and moving it gently across my chest. I was falling into nothing, surrounded by pulsing light waves. His body held me in place, and I kept thinking, Don’t let go.

            “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ll keep you warm.”

            Auto projecting in his arms, I watched myself fall deeper and deeper into sleep, realizing at the hinterland of unconsciousness that it wasn’t the sound of the universe expanding after all. It was the ocean. The waves of Manhattan Beach foaming past me to the shore, drowning me in dirty pretty things I could not yet see. 

------

            I startled awake with a heaving gasp, clutching Leon’s arm with both hands. Patricia’s hair created tunnel vision into her own frantic awareness that we may have very well slept into the late afternoon. 

            “Jesus. Leon! Wake up!” She straddled over us, smacking his face gently to bring him to. His breath deepened into a body-wide stretch that pulled be closer into his groin. Looking over my shoulder, I got to witness his eyes blink into consiousness.

            “Oh my god. What fucking time is it?” Patricia was pacing in circles, trying to find purpose replacing boxes and shoving contraband into a corner. Leon groaned and nuzzled into my back in repose. She threw a pillow at him that smelled like mold, which he threw back with a boyish laugh. 

            He squeezed my stomach saying “Girl, can’t you see we’re busy,” his voice partially muted under the jacket I didn’t realize he’d draped over us. 

            “God damn it, Leon! Get up, Sam!”

            I rolled over to face an adorable grin and followed the line of his body to steal a glance at what I may have felt moments ago. A combination of metabolism and testosterone, added with sleep, does involuntary things to a boy’s body. He didn’t care to hide it, either, which made me nervous. Leon started to gripe at Patricia but paused, grabbing my hand and placing it on his hard on. 

            “Keep that there,” he said before sitting up on his elbows. “And you. You need to take a chill pill.”

            He looked at his watch. I didn’t argue, just giggled like a moron. My head was still cloudy as the high continued to filter out of my blood, so I chose to give myself a break and stay put. 

            “It’s just past 1pm,” he said. “You have two and a half more hours of classes to bear your suffering silently as the girl next door.”

            “I’m going,” she said dropping the words like nails to the floor. 

            “Alright. Alright, we’re coming,” He swung his head back to me, placing his hand on mine and gave my grip a playful shake. “Don’t worry, he’s always making surprise guest appearances. You’ll meet again.”

            Hiding my embarrassment with my face in my palms was merely a preamble for a joyful scream before sitting up to hide my own growing erection. He helped me to my feet and the three of us maneuvered junk back into a deliberate state of deceitful randomness. Patricia was close to descending the ladder when voices provided an unwelcome context to the scene. There were people somewhere amid the silhouette mannequins and aluminum shelves of Rubbermaid bins, and they were moving closer. Leon rushed us over eggshells to hide behind a velvet curtain, which theater students, I was certain, had on various occasions called their cloak of invisibility. Leon faced the wall, holding a finger to his lips as he shielded Patricia and me. I stared at the stubble growing on his jaw, gripping the elastic hem of his varsity jacket. A male voice grew closer, speaking from below and sensed our presence like infrared camera. 

            “Someone’s up there. Do you smell that?”

            Patricia whispered an expletive.

            “Who’s up there!”

            We held fast, silent as statues. Inaudible grumbling preceded a condescending mirth. 

            “We’re not teachers, you dumb fucks! Come out!”

            Knocking his forehead into the black painted brick, Leon rolled his eyes. He called out with amusement, “Danny, is that you?” 

            “It’s fuckin’ Robbie, man. That’s hilarious,” the boy called Danny regarded his own guest, who called back in a girlish tone. 

            “Leon Robbie, are you up there? Get out here, stud!”

            Leon matched his voice to that of our mocking audience

            “Nobody here but us chickens!” he crooned and dashed the curtain aside. Skipping to the mezzanine guardrail, he was greeted with a guttural expulsion of laughter. Patricia, only just relinquishing a long stretch of breath held hostage, cocked her head in my direction. 

            “Morons,” she said, and trundled to the guardrail to meet the two boys joining us. 

            “You scared the shit out of us.”

            “How long have you guys been up here? Man, I thought we’d be the first to check out the honeymoon suite.’

            “Can’t win ‘em all, bud.”

            “So what’s the story? Did they actually leave us anything?’

            “Yeah, there was some weed and a bottle of schnapps. We smoked a couple bowls and knocked ourselves out. Did we miss anything last period?”

            “Who’s the new guy?” The other boy pointed at me, lighting a cigarette. 

            “Oh, shit! Yeah, hey guys, this here’s my friend, Sam. He moved here from Seattle. Sam, this is Danny Patrick and Jamie Wallace.”

            “Nice to meet you.”

            “What’s up, man,” Danny extended a handshake. “Nice to meet you too. Don’t mind this one. He’s got shit for brains.”

            Jamie blew a puff of smoke in Danny’s face.

            “Hey,” Leon snapped his fingers in the air. “I want you guys to make sure nobody fucks with my friend. Got it? He’s a good one.”

            “What is this, ‘The Godfather?’” Jamie said, flicking ash over the rail. 

            “I am Italian,” Leon declared.

            “I know you’re Italian, you never shut the fuck up about it.” Jamie talked with the Lucy Strike on his lips. “No worries, guy. I got you.”

            I said thank you, unsure of what else to say. The idea of a bunch of people “looking after me” suddenly made me uncomfortable. What kind of shit did they expect to happen to me? Danny diverted back to Leon, who he’d confirmed would be at football practice that evening. As we said our goodbyes, I found myself meandering into the maze from which we’d entered, not thinking about much beyond touching Leon and what I would have for dinner after school. I was starving. Apparently I had the munchies.

            Patricia hugged us both and scurried off to whatever class she was late for. Leon walked me lackadaisically to the door of my most current scheduled learning experience. We shuffled our way to the lab, mostly in silence because I lost the cohunes to talk about literally anything. Approaching my stop, I did ask if I’d see him after school, forgetting his obligation to the football team. 

            “Hey, Tomorrow’s Friday, though,” he said. “Why don’t you stay after school and watch me practice. Then I’ll give you a ride home.”

            “Sure, sounds terrific,” I agreed, trying in vain to conceal my excitement. 

            “Cool, cool. Then, um, tomorrow night I’ll pick you up and we can do some of this,” he patted at the baggie in his pocket. “And I’ll show you around a bit. There’s someone I want you to meet.” 

            “Count me in.”

            “It’s a plan, then.” 

            He backed away, giving me two thumbs-up. 

            “Hey,” I called, probably a decibel too loud, “I forgot to ask you. Who’s Isaac?”

            “That’s what I meant,” he gleamed. “We really gotta build up your tolerance, huh, buster? Careful what you do in there.” He pointed to the classroom. “Learning is power, ya know.” 

            He winked again, a trait I almost never wanted to get used to because it felt to pure every time. Leon Robbie slipped his hands in his pockets, spun on his heels and walked away.

      

            After interrupting yet another class with a ham-handed apology about being new and getting lost and yadda-yadda-yadda, I took my seat. A thought occurred to me, briefly, as thoughts typically are in the slideshow presentation of stoned introspection, that in the two days of knowing Leon, I was beginning to feel untouchable. I’d just walked into a classroom not giving a shit about how whether or not I’d get in trouble, and least of all how I may have been perceived. Somewhere between meeting that boy and the stasis of sleeping next to him, anesthetized by a minty haze, a pretense had overcome me. I was being “looked after.” I was someone’s friend. I was becoming known. Most of all, I was being seen. 

            A creative urgency guided my hand, scribbling down personal thoughts onto wide-ruled notebook paper. The page would later show up in stacks of reports, photocopied into black and white evidence. The next time I’d see what I’d written would be on the witness stand of a courtroom, but I wouldn’t remember writing it. And I’d have to tell them why. 

            “Because I wrote it while I was on drugs.”

            “Tell the court what the paper says.”

            So many people in the room were angry at me. The chains around my feet were embarrassing and I begin to cry, sputtering out the words held in my shaking hands.

            "It says, 'I’m going through changes. Shadows reveal more about a person than light ever could. Even in death, I refuse to die.'”