Child of My Right Hand (25 page)

Suppose that one half of the twin pairs got the genetic gay
it
, whatever
it
was, and on whatever gene it was located, from both sides, and that for them, homosexuality was volition-less. That meant that one-third of the remaining twins, who'd gotten their gay
it
from only one parent, had to choose to be gay, which would explain the less than 100 percent concordance between identical twins.

Come to think of it, that would also lend credence to the claim of conservative psychologists that they could train some individuals not be homosexuals, or at least not to perform homosexual acts. If homosexuality were indeed sometimes genetic destiny and sometimes nurture, then the worst homophobic assertions—that a more gay-friendly society would encourage more people to choose to be homosexuals—might actually be true. Not a politically correct assertion to make, but what if it were so?

Jack wished he could tell Genna about this. He wished he had told Rajiv, but that would have meant fingering those socks, and explaining right there and then that homosexuality was a choice he'd decided against. He hadn't been prepared to do that. Too insulting for Rajiv, and anyway, he hadn't thought it through yet.

But Jack could no longer feel sure he wasn't the source of some of what made Simon who he was sexually. Consider the implications: what if volition-less homosexuality was essentially a recessive trait requiring genetic input from both sides? In the genetic testing study he wanted to conduct, Jack now saw the need to subdivide questions about homosexual experience into homosexual acts and homosexual desires as a motivator for genetic testing. Jack felt an urgent almost painful need to tell someone about all of this, someone he could talk to about hidden things. He paused barely a moment, then called Marla.

Thursday morning—seven days to opening night!—Simon was hauled out of second bell and informed by a rat-faced senior named Rebecca Boose to report to Badger's office. Boose had the nastiest hair in the school; it looked and smelled as if she styled it with oil from the BK fryer. Either she didn't know what Badger wanted or wouldn't say. Simon tried to weasel it out of her, then gave up, and they drifted down the empty hallway. Near the Media Center, they passed a couple, lips locked, crazy. Further on, outside the office, Boose handed him the pass and snickered. Inside, Mrs. Lindstrom and Dr. Burroughs waited with the two police officers. What were their names? The younger one was superhuman, everything one and a half times normal.

“Good to see you, Simon.” Old Cop stuck out his hand. “Sergeant Heinsohn.”

“Officer Trent,” said the young one. He looked oddly familiar last time, too. Then Simon had it. He-Man with dark hair. “We have good news.”

“There's been an arrest. Rich— ”

Simon glanced at Mrs. Lindstrom. Rich?

“— O'Brien. Seems this Rich and his father— ”

“Maybe the grandmother,” added Trent.

“—did the terrible deed. Idea why?”

Simon said nothing.

“The boy was attempting to come forward,” Heinsohn continued. “He some kinda friend of yours?”

He wouldn't meet the cop's eyes.

“The dad beat him up pretty bad.”

Oh, Rich.

“Two days ago, this Rich ran off to his mother's in Indiana, who convinced him to come forward. We've got the dad in custody. Child abuse and, of course, the cross burning.”

The letters! “What about Rich?”

Officer Trent said, “Staying with his mom.”

Mrs. Lindstrom said, kindly, “Because he's testifying against his father.”

Simon didn't think you could do that, some sort of law.

Sergeant Heinsohn said, “Because we feel he was coerced, Rich isn't being charged. We haven't decided about the grandmother.”

“So you see,” Mrs. Lindstrom said, bright blue-eyed. “Rich is the hero in all this.”

“I'd like to ask again.” Heinsohn creased his bald head with his meaty palm. “Any reason Rich or his father would do this to your family?”

Simon glanced at Mrs. Lindstrom, who shook her head so only he could see. He really loved her! “Not really.”

Burroughs the Badger cleared his throat. “If you know, it's wrong not to tell us. We're all friends here.”

Hell-oooo! Simon said, “May I go back to class now? I need to keep up, you know, for the play.”

Dr. Burroughs's eyes narrowed. Heinsohn said, “Tell your parents we'll be calling.”

“Thank you,” Simon said. “I will.”

Mrs. Lindstrom patted his arm. Simon stepped out of Badger's office, full of fear, and headed towards his class. Outside the Media Center, the same couple was making out. Nobody bothered the straight kids. Imagine if that were me and Rich. Then he realized Rich was never coming back. Simon began to cry, quietly, then great sloppy sobs broke from his chest, and he ducked into the bathroom to wash his face. Who was that? Blond spikes, red, swollen eyes? Oh yeah, that's me.

***

Saturday, Simon slept in. Every other week he had to drive to Cincinnati for Yevgeny, but there was rehearsal all afternoon today and tomorrow, complete run-throughs, no scripts, so Mom and Dad agreed he needed sleep more than a lesson. But Simon could never sleep in, not like Lizzie, who would burrow into her blankets until just the top of her brown head peeked out, and stay there until the afternoon if Mom let her. Simon was awake by nine—five days to opening night—and though he wrestled his comforter as if it were a python, he couldn't fall back to sleep. At ten, he heard noise from Mom and Dad's room, not the dreaded thumping, which was nasty, but distressed voices, maybe Mom crying. When he'd arrived home Thursday, the cops were already there. He didn't know who had said what, but Dad's twitching neck showed how pissed off he was. Simon? The cops looked at him funny. Oh, you, their eyes said. You piece of dirt. But no questions, they had to get going. The whole time there was this thing, like a gob of food caught in everyone's throat. When the cops left, Dad turned on Mom. “How could you not tell me?”

Mom looked at Simon, then back at Dad, forlorn. What hadn't Mom told? Omigod. Simon assumed what he had told Mom, Dad knew, too.

“You think he's not going to show those letters?” Dad shouted. “Of course, he is. Why wouldn't you tell me before you told the cops?”

“Not now, Jack.” She glanced at Simon as if they shouldn't be discussing this in front of him, when he knew all about it, when he was the cause.

Now they were shouting again. Simon pillowed his head and thrashed, not hearing. Later, with Lizzie still sleeping, of course, and Mom and Dad's door shut tight (when he was learning to read Dad would tape up block-printed signs: Simon, please don't wake us until eight o'clock, Love, Dad), Simon sat in the kitchen, reading yesterday's comics. Then Dad swept down the hall in running shorts, carrying his workout bag.

“How you doing, Kiddo?”

Simon hated Kiddo. That was a problem with Simon, no nickname, and Dad liked nicknames. Jack or Jackie, though his real name was Jacob. Uncle Russ, or Rusty, short for Russell. Even Lizzie or Liz, not Elizabeth.

“I'm going to the gym. Don't suppose you want to come?”

“Rehearsal.”

“You guys ready for opening night?”

Simon nodded.

“I'm really looking forward to it.” Dad set his bag down and walked to the dish cupboard. “Any Cheerios left?”

Simon shook the box, which rattled robustly. At least Dad couldn't say he'd finished it.

“Okay if I join you?”

Uh-oh, Simon thought, man-to-man alert.

Dad poured coffee, fished raisins from the fridge, fixed himself a bowl every bit as big as Simon's. Through his first mouthful, “I remember you have a love scene—”

“Not really.”

“—kiss a girl?” A milky drop oozed from Dad's lips. “How's it going?”

Weird. Wednesday, he and Tina rehearsed at her house. First the song and blocking, then kissing just like at school, one hand caressing her cheek, the other on her shoulder. She kissed him longer than seemed right, even moved her tongue on his lips. Her eyes shone, and her pale skin? The slightest hint of blood and she was flushed. Oh, hon, he wanted to say, Don't get the wrong idea. I'm not straight!

“Fine, Dad.”

“Need any pointers?”

What a doofus, Simon thought, as Dad took another huge swallow.

“I need to ask something, and I expect the truth. That night Rich slept over, anything happen?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.”

He'd given Rich a blow job. Afterwards, Rich unzipped his pants the one and only time, to jerk him off. But there was no way he'd tell Dad.

“Sergeant Heinsohn called yesterday. I'm pretty sure Rich's grandmother showed him those letters.”

“It's my word against his.”

“So something did happen?”

Simon wouldn't answer, he couldn't answer. Outside, birds sang and sunlight blasted the new leaves overhanging the deck. Simon nodded. After a moment, Dad said, “I'm glad you told me.”

Simon wished there was something decent to eat, not just crappy cereal. He bit his lip till it hurt. “Will they put me in jail?”

Dad reached across to pat his shoulder, and Simon couldn't help it, he drew back. “I don't think so.” A moment later, Dad asked, “Is Rich sixteen yet?”

Simon shook his head. Dad looked worried, or sad; oh, who knew what he looked.

“I still don't think so. So don't worry.”

Then Dad finished his Cheerios, and left without saying goodbye to Mom.

***

When Jack finished working out, he drove towards Marla's. He'd been twice since calling last Sunday in the wake of his excitement after theorizing about the gay gene. But when he arrived, and she handed him a cappuccino stiff with froth, it was all he could do to tell her, and he only managed because he'd promised himself he would; it came out sounding as if he were more worried about Rajiv than excited about his insight. They'd sat in her sky-lit living room on a designer leather and tubular steel couch. She stroked his cheek, entered his troubled eyes with her merry blue ones.

“Oh, Jack. I can't believe you're worried.”

She brought him to her bedroom and stepped out of her dress, her body almost pubescent in its slimness. Breast buds, a thatch of blond hair. She proceeded to fuck his ears off. He wanted to say he wasn't worried; it was more the professional insight he wanted to share. But when they lay spent on her queen-size, staring up at the peaked white ceiling of her A-frame, she murmured, “You want more proof?”

“I think you're missing the point.”

“Any time.” She rolled onto him, half his weight or less, and lay above him looking down. “You want more of whatever.” She nibbled his lower lip. “Just stop by.”

He'd stopped Tuesday after class, and they'd planned on Thursday until Marla phoned from her office with news of the arrests and said how surprised she was. She'd been certain it was kids, which was why she'd called in Nick Fleming and some of the other known troublemakers. Jack said nothing. He'd suspected all along it was Rich's father.

Now, on this warm afternoon, Jack was on her road again, which was lined with maples and oaks bursting with life. Everything was whirring out of control. He was here to tell Marla he couldn't see her again. He and Genna hadn't uttered a civil word, they hadn't uttered very many words at all, since the cross burning, how long ago was that? He was sleeping so regularly on the couch the cushions bore the imprint of his body. Yet if he didn't stop this, whatever this was, life as he knew it would be over. It might already be over. Carrying on with Marla was making him less tolerant of Genna's craziness, whatever that was. How could she not tell him before she told the cops? And there was something else she was holding back, he was sure of it; she wasn't skilled at deception. Not like you, bub.

Jack looked across an open field, greening with what he thought was winter wheat. Earlier, running then lifting, he had the unsettling thought that he was buffing up for Marla, as if he needed to lose some gut to be naked in front of her. He thought about Simon and how, if Lamarck had been right, which of course he wasn't, about the inheritability of acquired traits, then Jack's high school regimen of sit-ups, push-ups, and weight training should have made Simon's high school years less pudgy.

Jogging around the elevated track, an odd thought had come to him. While Lamarck was clearly wrong about the inheritability of physical traits (the Lysenko-led demise in Russian agriculture had proved what didn't need proving), in something as complex as the genetics of homosexuality it might be fair to represent societal or familial attitudes as acquired traits, and theorize that acquired traits were passed from generation to generation. Seen this way, the phenotypical expression of homosexuality was, in the instance of chosen homosexuality, determined not only by a genetic predisposition, but by the “acquired traits” or attitudes of the society or family the child had been born into. Which might mean that homosexuality not only “ran” in families because of genetics in the instance of what he'd been calling volition-less homosexuality, but because of familial gay-accepting attitudes.

The Town and Country crested the rise before Marla's driveway. Jack braked and turned in. Sunlight sparked on the trunk of her silver Beetle. Jack parked, then Marla appeared on her porch, looking like a blond flower. When they were inside she said, “Let's have a shower.”

“I showered at the gym.”

She shot him a look.

Marla's bathroom occupied the rear corner of the house and eyed the woods through two round windows. The shower had clear walls. Jack joined her under the spray.

“That feels great.”

Marla was soaping his balls and cock. “I can tell.”

Water ran down her hair, face and chest. She looked half drowned.

“Marla.” The moment didn't feel apt to say he couldn't see her again. “How'd you afford this fabulous house?”

“What a funny question.” She rubbed the bar soap between her hands and lathered his stiffening cock. “To ask now.”

“I've been meaning to ask.”

Water coursed through Marla's bangs. “Want to wash my mouth out with soap?” She knelt and took him into her mouth, then looked up with her clear blue eyes. “Soapy,” she murmured and opened her mouth to the spray.

“What did you expect?”

“This.”

Water rivered the top of her hair and the bend of her neck. Then Jack raised her and because he was big and she was small, he impaled her and held her above the shower floor. Legs cinching his waist, she rode him, spray rushing down his back, her face, Jack's hands braced against the glass walls until he thought his legs would give or the shower would explode.

When he was sipping cappuccino stiff with foam—that seemed to be their thing—she said, “My uncle died and left me money. A lot of money.”

“He didn't have kids?”

“Forrest never married.”

“Enough to move away?”

“Where would I move to?”

“There's lots of places better than here.” He thought of San Francisco, Hawaii. “Almost anywhere.”

“Trying to get rid of me, Jack?”

This was the opening to tell her. “Does it feel like I am?”

“Or do you want to come with?”

He couldn't tell if she were joking.

“Don't look so worried. I had one husband, who cured me of ever wanting another.”

Jack felt totally confused, and stalled, sipping hot espresso through cool froth. “If I didn't have to stay in Tipton for a job, I'd leave.”