A Question of Manhood (6 page)

Marty drove out to a dirt road and followed it to the edge of this field where there was a tree he was headed for. We tied each of Anthony's hands separately around the tree, and did the same with his feet. It made the rest of his body stand out, vulnerable, helpless.

Anthony was crying by this time. At first he tried pleading with us. “Please, don't. Don't do this. I never did anything to you. Please.” Every so often he'd snuffle or sob. Marty and I just ignored him, and finally he gave up begging.

When we had him sufficiently trussed, we sat on the ground. Trying to look casual, I reached for a grass stalk and sucked on it. Marty looked at me and laughed. “Fuck that shit!” he said, and pulled a pack of Camels out of his shirt pocket; didn't offer me one, which was good 'cause I wouldn't have known what to do. He lit up, took a few puffs, then got up and went close enough to blow a lungful of smoke into Anthony's face. I was getting a little worried that I wouldn't be able to control Marty if he decided he wanted to do something really awful, so I tried to get him back to our program. I picked up my copy of our math book for that year.

“Hey Marty, you wanna start?”

Marty stood where he was, his nose inches from Anthony's wet face, for another few seconds. “Yeah. Sure. Gimme the book.”

He plopped down on the ground to my left and flipped the book open at random. “Okay,
Tony,
now here's the rules. I'm gonna ask you a question, and you answer. Only you won't know whether I want the right answer or a wrong answer. Paul here is gonna facilitate. Keep score. However you wanna look at it. See, before I ask you the question, I'm gonna write on this piece of paper here”—and he snapped his fingers at me so I'd give him the pen and the pad we'd brought—“either R or W. Then, if I wrote R and you give me the right answer, Paul's gonna cut through a little bit of rope with this.” He leaned forward and lifted his pants leg, and strapped to his ankle was a leather sheath. He'd told me we'd have a knife, but I hadn't quite expected this lethal-looking thing. It was a dagger. As Marty lifted it out carelessly, using the same hand holding his cigarette, the late afternoon sun caught the metal and it sent this ray of light shooting toward me.

Marty went on. “If I wrote W and you give the right answer”—here he stood up and moved back over to Anthony—“I'm gonna cut away some part of your clothes.” He put the cig between his lips and tossed the dagger into the air. Anthony's eyes followed it. Marty caught it and then plucked the cig out of his mouth. “In case you haven't got the full picture,” he said, “if I wrote R and you give me the wrong answer, it's your clothes, not the rope. Got it?”

Anthony's eyes were locked on to Marty's. He nodded shakily, but he nodded.

Back on the ground next to me, Marty picked up the book. And he took his time browsing for just the right question. Cig back in his mouth, he ran the forefinger of his right hand down page after page, all the while toying with the dagger in his left hand. Finally he slammed the book shut and stabbed the dagger into dirt. “We don't need this,” he mumbled. He picked up the pen, leaned over the pad where it rested between us on the ground, wrote “R,” and asked Anthony, “What's one plus one?” He tossed the book aside.

Marty was right; we didn't need the book. The joke was going to be that Anthony had to guess whether Marty wanted the right answer or a wrong one. And, even more, it was a test to see if Anthony could bring himself to give a wrong answer to a math question.

Anthony was making a kind of squealing whining noise, like he couldn't stand the strain. Marty grabbed the dagger and stood in front of him again. “Is that calculation too tough for you, whiz kid? Y'know, my grandparents were German. There's a German word for kids like you. Wunderkind.”

Anthony stopped whining. He took a couple of rasping breaths and said, “Wunderkind.” He was correcting Marty's pronunciation, so the W sounded like a V, and the d on the end sounded like a t. “It's Wunderkind.”

Did this kid have a death wish? Marty balanced the lit cigarette between his lips and tossed the dagger from one hand to the other a few times, dangerously close to Anthony's nose. Then, around the cigarette, he said, “That wasn't the question, asshole. Just for that, you lose a sleeve.”

With his left hand he pinched up a layer of cloth at Anthony's left shoulder, sliced through it, and then started to carve through the cloth. He pulled Anthony forward so he could cut behind him, the ropes cutting into skin from the pressure. Then Marty sliced slowly down the sleeve, inch by inch, toward the hem. Thank God it was a short sleeve, or I'm not sure Anthony could have taken it. He kept squinting his eyes tight shut, and then opening them wide to watch Marty's progress, then squinting them shut again, all the while trying not to cough from Marty's smoke—probably terrified that a cough would cause Marty to cut skin.

Marty held the cut sleeve remnant in front of Anthony's face, then put it over his nose, and said, “Blow.” There was panic on the poor kid's face by now, like he was afraid Marty was gonna suffocate him, and he just stared wildly.

“Blow your fucking nose, crybaby!”

Anthony did what he could, but he was having trouble getting his breath. When Marty was satisfied, he pulled the cloth away, laid it on top of Anthony's head, and rubbed the snot into his hair. Marty left the cloth there, a corner covering one of Anthony's eyes.

Back on the ground again, dagger stabbed into dirt and cigarette in his left hand, Marty resumed his role as inquisitor. “Now, Wunderkind,” he said, pronouncing it the same way he had the first time, “what's the answer?”

Anthony whimpered, sobbed once or twice, and finally whispered, “Two.”

“Eh? Speak up, Tony. I can't hear you. What was that you said?”

Anthony tried to take a deep breath and obviously failed, but he managed to say, “Two,” a little louder.

Marty sat back, took another puff of the cig, observed Anthony for several seconds, and then slowly reached for the dagger. After he'd dragged out the suspense as long as he could, he handed the dagger to me. “You know what you have to do.”

Now, Marty had written “R” before he asked this, so I knew I was to cut some rope. I also knew that Marty was trying to make Anthony think he'd made the wrong choice and that Marty had decided to give me the honor of cutting more clothing. But I wasn't in the mood for delaying agony, so I was going to cut Anthony's right hand loose.

Before I got close to the rope, though, Marty called to me, “Not all of it, Paul. Just cut maybe an eighth of the way through. After all,” and his voice was silky, “we seem to have more clothing than we have ropes. We want to be fair, don't we?”

Marty had written “R” again before I sat down, and he called out, “What's one plus two?”

Anthony gritted his teeth, probably feeling a little encouraged that Marty had kept his word on that last one and had cut rope. But the secret wasn't in the right answer. It was in the right choice. “Five.”

I looked at Marty, whose face was pursed into fake disappointment. “Oh, Tony. Too bad, kid.” Marty stubbed his cig out in the dirt, reclaimed the dagger from me, and moved slowly over to the tree. Anthony looked anxious but not terrified, which was probably too bad for him. Marty stared at his face, then squatted down in front of him.

“No!” Anthony found his voice. His head jerked, and the snotty sleeve fell to the ground.

“Ha!” Marty shouted. “Wrong answer again!” He grabbed a handful of cloth right over Anthony's groin, and the gasp I heard told me that Marty had also grabbed a handful of flesh. Very, um, sensitive flesh. He pinched his fingers together hard, working the cloth slowly away from what was undoubtedly Anthony's dick, and then he lifted the dagger.

Anthony wasn't whimpering any longer. He was crying, now, crying out, sobbing and begging. “Please! Please don't! Stop it! What do you want?”

And to my surprise, Marty stopped. He let go of Anthony, lowered the arm with the dagger, and stood up. “You're hard as metal in there, Tony. Do you know that? Your puny little dick is all excited. I think it's enjoying this.”

Anthony's eyes widened and his mouth hung open. “No!” was all he could say. “No!”

“Oh, but I think it is. Just look.” Marty stepped back and to one side. “Paul, do you see that?”

And Marty was right. Anthony had a boner. There was no denying it. Marty leaned toward him. “Tony? Is there something you haven't told us?” Anthony just shook his head, desperate to understand, probably willing to do anything Marty said if it would get him out of this. “Oh, I think there is.” Marty reached forward and with the flat side of the dagger he slapped a few times at Anthony's boner. Anthony flinched with every touch. Then Marty worked the blade up and down, sliding over the bulge and along the fly, then picked at the edge of the cloth with the metal point.

I can only imagine what Anthony was going through. But I'd had enough. “Look, Marty, I think we've got what we wanted.” Marty turned to look at me, and I got a hint of what he'd been boring into Anthony. It scared the shit out of me. But I couldn't let this go on. “Just shove the snot rag down his back and we'll cut him loose. We can dump him someplace he can walk home from.” I was having trouble breathing, praying it didn't show. Praying Marty wouldn't realize how scared I was.

“What was it we wanted, Paul? What have we got now?” I hated the tone of his voice.

I shrugged, trying once more to look casual. “Humiliate him. Take him down a peg. Show him that just because he's smart doesn't mean he's invincible. I think we've done that.” I nearly added, “Don't you?” but I wasn't sure enough of the right answer.

Marty paced slowly back and forth in front of Anthony. At least I'd got him to stop pointing that dagger at the kid's groin. “I don't know. I'm not feeling quite—what's the word? I'm sure Tony here would know. What's the word I'm not quite feeling, Tony?”

Anthony closed his eyes and fought for breath.

“Mollified!” Marty shouted, and Anthony's eyes flew open again. “I'm not quite mollified.” He started laughing. “Mollified. Like Molly, get it? Like Moll?” He laughed some more, looked at me like I should be getting the joke. I offered a weak smile, which was all I could muster; I wasn't getting it. “Molly. The gangster's Moll. You know, kid,” and Marty stopped right in front of the tree, hands on hips and dagger dangling from one hand, “I don't think I'll call you Tony ever again. I know you don't like it. So I'm going to mollify you.” He threw his head back and barked out one more guffaw. “From now on, you're Moll. You're my bitch, kid.”

Marty moved forward again, dagger pointing upward now, directly under Anthony's nose. “Tell me that suits you. Go on. But don't nod, or you might lose a nostril.”

Anthony's eyes were crossing so hard they must have hurt, trying to see the point of that dagger. He couldn't move, and he couldn't say anything, was my guess. Marty tilted the blade so that it was pointing toward the tip of Anthony's nose now, but he pulled his hand away about a foot.

“Come on, Moll. Say that suits you.” He started moving the blade forward.

Anthony's squeal started again, and just before the blade point would have met skin he whimpered, “Okay.”

Marty pulled the blade back an inch. “Okay, what? Come on, you little faggot, tell me it suits you. Tell me you liked having a guy's
dagger
so close to yours. Tell me you got hard because you're queer. Say that's why I can call you Moll.”

Anthony was struggling to oblige him, I think, but he couldn't quite decide what words to start with. I got up and moved over to them.

“Anthony, just nod if it's okay for Marty to call you Moll.” Anthony's eyes veered over to mine, and he nodded. “Nod that it's because you're queer.” I couldn't let the kid off too easy, or Marty would keep at him. He nodded again.

Marty said, “Nod because you're my bitch, faggot.”

Anthony squeezed his eyes shut and, once more, nodded.

Slowly Marty lowered his arm and slid the dagger back into its sheath. He punched my arm and said, “C'mon, Paul. Let's get outta here. This kid is pathetic.” He moved toward the car.

“But…he's still tied up. And we have to take him home.”

Marty was standing beside the open driver's door. He pounded a fist on the roof. “Leave him!” he shouted at me.

There was this tense moment when we stared at each other over the car roof, and then he pounded it once more, got in, roared the engine to life, and gunned it, shooting gravel in all directions. I watched until I couldn't see the car anymore, just dust hanging in the air over the dirt road. Then I turned to the tree.

Anthony's head was hanging down, and he was sobbing quietly. He knew the worst was over, but he also knew his life was going to be hell from now on. I didn't know what to say, so I just worked at the knots, cursing Marty for disappearing with the knife. And the car. How the hell were we going to get back? And Anthony's books were in the back of Marty's car. Come to that, so were mine.

When he was free of the ropes Anthony glared at me, still crying, and ran off down the road. I guess I didn't blame him, but I'd been thinking we ought to work together to figure out the best way to get home. On the other hand, I sure as hell didn't know what to say to him.

I picked up the ropes, my math book, the pen, and the pad of paper we'd been using, and walked down the road until I found enough scrub along the side to shove all but my book into a spot where they'd be hard to see. A lot of the plants were the kind with dark, dusky green, flat leaves that smell sort of sweet and sort of sour when you touch them. I think it's called sweet fern, but I've never liked it, and now I stunk of it all up my arms.