The Next Queen of Heaven-SA (29 page)

“Oh, hi,” said Jeremy, “um, Kirk.”

“Hi.
Whatcha doing here?”

“Well, um, realizing I don’t have enough money for a stuffed cactus,” said Jeremy, glancing at the saleswoman, who had arbitrarily picked one up and was poised to wrap it in a sheet of newspaper.

“He doesn’t have a wife,” explained the saleswoman.

“Oh, you don’t?” said Kirk. “That’s too bad.” He looked thrilled.

Polly pushed from behind. Jeremy was trapped and uneasy. The kid stood inches from him, their belt buckles were almost touching, and though he was cute in that sort of coltish way Jeremy didn’t want either Kirk’s attention or his warm breath so near. Jeremy’s glasses were fogging up. “It’s nice to have some Catholics here,” said Kirk. “You should come more often.” Jeremy glanced around for an escape route. “How’s your mom?”

The boy’s face clouded over. Jeremy relented. “I hope she’s feeling okay. I liked meeting your family.”

“We liked you, all of us did. You should come back. I could show you the song for the high school Shakespeare and maybe you could tutor me. I need help at the singing part. I’m being the Fool. I have to wear diagonal colors, and jingles on my feet. I have to prance.”

“Jeremy could tutor you at that,” said Peggy, “or I’m available. We’re all fools here. I’ve had a lot of practice.”

Kirk turned pink and put both his hands on Jeremy’s chest, like a dog about to lick his master’s nose. “Would you, do you think? I need a teacher.”

Jeremy backed up into Peggy Mueller’s bosom.

“Steady,” said Peggy.

“Please,” said Jeremy, “can we put it off? The Christmas season is so busy, and there’s so much going on—”

But this was the kid with the crazy mother, and there was no subtlety of expectation in his eyes; it was all or nothing, and
nothing
was beginning to show on his face. “I’ll see,” said Jeremy, panicking, “maybe. I’m sure you’re better than you think. Isn’t there a music coach in the high school?”

“Oh well, if you call that music.” Kirk backed off, and looked hurt, and managed, being a slender kid and a Radical Radiant, to slip off through the crowd. He paused halfway up some steps to the stage area and looked back over his shoulder balefully at Jeremy. His jeans were so tight his bum looked inflated, as if it would squeak like a bathtub toy if you pinched it.

“All things to all people,” singsonged Polly Osterhaus. “That’s our Jeremy.”

“I can’t take this, I’m not giving any Christmas presents this year,” said Jeremy, “so help me God, it isn’t worth it. All that unfettered—enthusiasm—”

“There you are,” said Sister Alice Coyne. “Mercy, this is a mob scene. What, you’re not buying? That’s not very ecumenical of you.”

“You think the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mysteries want a Bathroom Barbie for Christmas?”

“Probably not. Jeremy, I’ve a phone message for you, it just came in at the parish house, and I thought I might find you here.” Sister Alice consulted a scrap of paper in her hand. “It was from Martin Rothbard. He said to tell you something about Sean; he’s got an infection or something.”

Jeremy was halfway across the parking lot to the rectory when Kirk Scales showed up at his side. “I thought you were maybe looking for me,” he said.

“I wasn’t,” said Jeremy.

“You can call me. I am free on Tuesdays. I need help.”

“Yes,” said Jeremy. You sure do. He sprinted to the parish house steps.

At the office Jeremy called the Riley house, but Sean’s mother sounded calm and undistressed. “Oh, Sean,” she said, “himself spent the night out with one of his boyfriends, don’t you know. Probably drunk and disorderly. That’s lads for ye.” She had that old Irish way of stressing the gender to indicate, not so subtly, that he wasn’t sleeping around. “Who’s this?”

“Jeremy Carr.”

“Oh, yes, the music fellow. Sure and I don’t know what to tell you, Jeremy, but I’ll let him know you rang.”

Jeremy hung up. Sean must be at Marty’s if he didn’t spend the night at home. With some difficulty Jeremy extracted his car from the parking lot, eager not to encounter anyone else.

Marty Rothbard lived a quarter mile from the I-81 exit ramp about three miles south of Thebes. His apartment had been something of an afterthought, and done with economy or tightfisted stupidity. It was basically a one room tent-shaped space built over a garage that the county used for storing highway lawnmowers; you could only stand up straight in the center of the room, a square of about ten feet in each direction. Beyond that the roof slanted to meet the floor, and you had to stoop, or crouch, or slide yourself on your belly. The difficult part was the toilet. It was tucked under the eaves; you had to use it with your chest pressed up against the tops of your thighs. Given that there was only a cardboard screen around the toilet, made of refrigerator packaging, the indignity was immense, and Marty didn’t entertain often.

So Jeremy wasn’t used to seeing Sean there, stretched out on Marty’s futon. Sean was fully clothed, and had a scarf wrapped around his neck beside, and several greasy looking blankets were half kicked away. “Got your message,” said Jeremy to Marty, who looked grim and tired like a vet of some secret war. “What is all this?”

“Oh, the saints come marching in,” said Sean from the bed. “How was church? See my folks there?—” He interrupted himself with a low, rumbling cough.

“We ate last night over at Bozo Joe’s,” said Marty. “Sean had a milkshake and it was too thick or something, he started coughing and couldn’t stop. It was disgusting. I took him back here because he didn’t want to go home.”

“Why didn’t you take him to the hospital?”

“This isn’t hospital-worthy gunk I’m expectorating,” said Sean. “It’s your standard issue thoracic snot—” He demonstrated, filthily; then he grabbed for a bath towel.

“So Marty—we’re going to take him bodily to the hospital whether he wants to go or not? I’m ready.”

“I wanted you to come over and make sure he didn’t choke on his own fluids while I go out and grab some coffee,” Marty replied. “I wasn’t exactly expecting company so I didn’t get things in.”

“How bad
is
this?” said Jeremy. He sat down on a footstool and didn’t judge correctly, and bumped his head against the ceiling. But when he turned and glared, he saw that there were smudge marks from Marty’s oily scalp as a sort of high-water mark all around the room. “Sean, are you being stupid or are you just being idiotic?”

“Glad to know you’ve just come from church, it makes you that much more sympathetic.

Just for that, I’m going to let you help me get to the crapper. Can you pull me up?”

“I’m outa here. Three coffees?” said Marty, and split.

“Marty’s such a good friend to you, Sean. Now please don’t tell me you’re feeling liquid at the other end, too.”

“Feel me yourself and let me know,” said Sean. “You fucktard. This isn’t exactly fun for me, you know.”

Jeremy got him to the toilet and then stood as far away as he could and called, “You’re okay, right?” and there was an answering blat.

“Name that tune,” called Sean.

Jeremy began to sing one of his songs, the one that still required a little work on the bridge. “You don’t need help?” he called hopefully.

“The kind of help I need you can’t give.”

“Did you tell your folks you were feeling under the weather?” said Jeremy, knowing the answer.

“What business is it of theirs?”

“I think it’s some business of theirs. You might need a doctor.”

“I’m not a kid, Germy.” The toilet flushed. “Would you mind opening a window? I have some pride, you know.”

“It’s freezing out. That’s the worst thing for you, that air.”

“Do as I say.”

Jeremy obeyed, but he closed the window after only a minute. “You’re going to wait until the absolute last possible minute to tell anyone? Don’t you think you should get some advice about this, Sean? They are your family. You’ve got to prepare them.”

“There’s no fairness in any of this, why should I try to introduce any? Don’t make me mad, I’ll cough my lungs out. You know my folks. You see them at church. Come on. Mr. and Mrs. Sanctum Sanctorum. They’re Catholic Nazis and homophobic Irish mafia and the Judgment of Santa Claus all rolled up in one. If they can keep themselves in the dark about me despite all evidence to the contrary, why should I disabuse them of it? Why should I help them out one fucking bit?”

“Well, for one reason, you live with them.” It was a relief to try sounding abrasive. “They could be Genghis Khan and the Queen of the Night, but they’re still your kin, and even the wicked are capable of suffering.”

“I consider it a spectator sport to watch them slip around any difficult subject. They’d rephrase the truth to make me—inert—irresponsible—a victim. They’d rather suspect my dentist of infecting me with a contaminated toothpick than accept the fact that I’m gay. Why are you making me talk this all out again?”

“So you’re going to stay here until exactly when?”

“You heard about the Hawaii Supreme Court ruling this week? Upholding some legalized oppression that the legislators added to the state constitution to forbid gay marriage? Who do you think was out there leading the rally?”

“You’re joking.”

“They would’ve been if they weren’t so cheap, I bet. Anyway, I’m sure they sent their prayers winging to support the bigots.”

“Must be fun to have dinner at your house.”

“You’re welcome to stay here, of course,” said Marty halfheartedly, coming in with three coffee cups steadied in a takeout tray.

“I’m going to stay until I’m ready to go. A day, or two,” said Sean.

“What if I stop by your house and chat with your folks,” said Jeremy. “Listen. I could just tell them you’re not feeling great and that’s all. At least it’ll be the beginning of telling them, Sean. Come on.”

“You do that,” said Sean, “and I’ll back out of singing with you in New York.” As if, Jeremy thought, looking at the exhausted, yellow-skinned figure letting himself back down on the mattress, as if you’re ever going to be able to make it to Manhattan at this rate.

But that was a fiction of survival, it was something Sean was aiming for, and Jeremy didn’t have the heart to contradict him. He just shook his head—trapped again by people he loved—and fiddled with the lid of the coffee, burning his fingers.

PASTOR J AKOB H UYCK wanted nothing other than to make a nuisance of himself. A good fundamentalist pastor should pester everyone with the fundamentals, he reasoned. You’re not a high school kid. So what are you doing creeping your car along Papermill Road like some sort of criminal casing the joint? Just park and march up to the house and ring the bell. You have as much right as anyone.

Sadly, it was Kirk rather than Tabitha Scales who opened the door.

“Oh, hi,” said Kirk. He was panting slightly and looking a little disheveled. Huyck couldn’t help wondering if the boy had been indulging in self-abuse, but then he saw a couple of bite-size barbells lying on top of the newspapers on the radiator. “I thought you were someone else,” said Kirk. “Do you need to come in? Nobody else is here.” Perhaps Jesus had led Huyck here to do some holy work or other. Or maybe he could find out more about Tabitha. “I’d love to, thanks,” he said, and shouldered his way in.

The boy was ill-clad for the season—a family trait, Huyck was deciding—and when Kirk sprawled in a sort of disconsolate longueur on the sofa, legs akimbo out of those white moiré running shorts, Huyck was given to think of Tabitha in a gratifying if unsettling way. Unsettling because this was a lad, more or less, shaking his crop of ash brown hair like some kind of female film star of the Forties, and though Huyck was modern for his church and judged not lest he be judged, the idea of finding a boy sexy, even for a misbegotten brief moment of mistaken identity, was repugnant not to say disgusting. “Put something on, you’ll catch your death of cold,” said Huyck.
In loco parentis
when needed, and Lord knows the only parentis around here was certifiably loco.

Kirk sneered and put on an oversized sweatshirt that, in its voluminous folds and low hem, made him look even more like an anorexic female posing for one of those ads for bisexual cologne, the point of which escaped Huyck except to drag the young to perdition. What a refreshing concept, perdition.

“Tell me about Mother,” he said. “Might I hope that she’s off someplace being rehabilitated?”

“She’s off someplace, is right.” Kirk’s was a mumbly, sideways voice. “A nun gave my sister Tabitha some advice about Mom needing to connect with the past, with her roots or something—don’t ask me.”

“A nun?” Huyck smelled betrayal. He smelled conversion. He smelled the faint acrid undertone of male sweat emanating from the boy on the couch, and considered telling him to go wash under his armpits, but decided that was beyond the scope of his ministry. Besides, the boy would probably return shirtless. Please. “You must mean Sister Alice Coyne, I presume, of Our Lady’s.”

“Yeah, her. She’s been talking to Tabitha and trying to help.” Huyck wondered if his reticence about not beleaguering the Scales family in general, and Tabitha particularly, was about to backfire in his face. “So where are your mother and Tabitha—I’m assuming they’re together.”

“Tabitha took her out in the car for a drive. Tabitha said she couldn’t get anything done here, there were too many interruptions.”

“She’s left you all alone in your exercises.”

“I didn’t want to go. Besides, I’m expecting company.”

“You hardly look dressed for company.”

“I wasn’t expecting you,” said Kirk pointedly. Huyck wondered if that was a subtle message that he was to move on and leave Kirk alone, but he decided not to abandon the boy yet.

“So what’s this roots business again? Sort of like that television show?”

“Oh, it doesn’t make any sense to me. You know for a while Mom couldn’t say the beginnings of her words. It was kind of funny at first, as if there were other meanings behind everything she was trying to say. As if they’d been there all along, but she’d been too good and churchy to say them. The day we brought her home from the clinic, we passed our neighbor up the street—Ann Bletheroe. She was eating a piece of pizza at the curb while waiting for her ride to work. Mom looked at her and said,
Ann does not live by bread alone.
Well, she’s pleasingly plump, you know, and then Mom said,
Oy, her cup is overflowing.
I mean, it was almost cool at first. The Dark Side of Mom. But she’s seemed to get lost in it. Well, you’ve seen her. Sister Alice says that Mom losing the beginning of her words means that she’s lost the sense of the beginning of her life—where her life has meaning, or where meaning begins, or began, something like that—so Tabitha is taking Mom out for a drive to look at the places she lived when she was a little girl with her own mother, who is dead a long time now.”