Where's My Wand?: One Boy's Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting (15 page)

I quietly noted with pride that I had never entertained such thoughts about the girls at either church or school and, in fact, found the whole notion somewhat ridiculous. I am, I thought to myself, right with Jesus. I looked around at the other RAs, wondering which of them did not possess my level of personal integrity, and was momentarily overwhelmed with pity for those less Christlike.

 

 

IN THE SPIRIT of joint athleticism, I petitioned Dad to take Billy and me to the FreeFall, a five-story metal slide that had not yet been closed down for safety violations. Shaped like an undulating wave, the slide was one of my favorite recreational activities, since sliding down on a burlap bag required virtually no skill whatsoever and was thus the perfect opportunity for me to show off.

Thrilled to see me developing a friendship with Billy, who was sanctioned as a good Christian boy, Dad was happy to oblige. Mother was just happy to have me out of the house while she sunbathed in a bikini on the patio.

“Take Valerie, too,” she ordered Dad. “You know how much she likes the slide.”

Val had indeed liked the slide when we were younger, but now, at fifteen and a half, her interests ran to interpreting the lyrics of Bachman-Turner Overdrive while driving around the neighborhood with the car radio set on “stun.”

“No, please, she’ll ruin it!” I cried.

“Ruin what?” Mother asked.

I paused, unsure how to answer this or, for that matter, even put what I was feeling into words; but Dad saved the day with an unconsciously prescient remark.

“Oh, I get it—you don’t want some
girl
along.” He winked.

Our Saturday afternoon outing began with chili dogs and fries from the Der Wienerschnitzel restaurant directly across the street from the slide. It was almost difficult for Billy and me to enjoy our nutrition-free feast as we sat gazing with anticipation at the behemoth that would soon hold our lives in its hands.

“How fast do you think they’re going?” Billy asked excitedly, a dab of chili tickling the cleft in his chin, as he watched kids rocketing down the metal monster.

“Well,” I replied, the wisdom of dozens of past rides informing my answer, “I’d say around a hundred miles an hour.” Dad thoughtfully kept his mouth shut, nodding in sage agreement.

Billy whistled. “Wowwww.” He jumped up. “I’ll race ya!”

We flew up the stairs to the top of the slide, where the high winds that threatened to blow riders off the open-air platform helped ease the heat from the sizzling metal. As we breathlessly reached the pinnacle, holding on to the railings to avoid toppling over the edge, the bored, acne-ridden teenager who manned the FreeFall pointed in the vague direction of a stack of burlap potato bags.

Taking the lead, I snatched a bag and tossed it nonchalantly onto the starting line of a lane. Grabbing the metal pole that hung above the lanes, I swung myself onto the top of the bag. As I held on to the pole, Billy mimicked my actions, jumping into the lane next to me.

“Ready, set, go!” I yelled, pushing off as hard as I could, using the pole as leverage, as Billy followed suit. We flew down the slide, screaming with a combination of abandon and fear, since it was possible to (a) break any number of bones by slipping off your bag and tumbling head over heels downhill for a hundred yards, or (b) suffer impressive third-degree burns on any limb that momentarily touched the searing-hot sheet metal.

Having learned—the hard way—the power of aerodynamics from previous rides, I tucked my head down and lifted my heels off the bag to eliminate drag; and as we hit the home stretch, I slid to a stop well ahead of Billy. He grinned disarmingly at me and jumped up, ready for another run.

“Hey, let’s ride together this time. I want you to show me how you went so fast.”

I felt a sudden rush of euphoria at Billy’s compliment.

“We’ll go faster,” I whispered as we climbed onto one bag together, “if you sit really close.”

The teenager manning the slide snorted. “What, you can’t find a chick?”

“Course we can,” I replied defensively. “But this is about technique.”

The teen rolled his eyes.

“Yeah, man,” Billy piped up. “We’re gonna rock this thing!”

He sat down behind me, his legs straddling my sides, careful not to actually touch me—but it didn’t matter. As we flew down the slide, scenery screaming past us, the ride seemed to occur in dreamy slow motion. Every shift in our body weight, every undulation of the steel was a thrilling moment, Billy’s whoops echoing in my good ear like a chorus of angels.

“That was pretty good,” I announced as we sailed to a stop, “but I think we need to try it again.”

 

 

I CONTINUED to handle the temptation of girls with aplomb. Never giving in to “pleasures of the female,” as The Swoop called them, I chose instead to focus on Billy, thinking about him constantly and plotting ways to spend time with him.

At the next RA meeting, as The Swoop set up the film projector for another A/V presentation, I leaned over to Billy. “Hey, I’m gonna have a sleepover at my house Friday night
.
You wanna come? We’ve got a Ping-Pong table
and
a pool table!”

Billy’s face lit up. “Cool! We can watch
The Midnight Special,
and I’ll bring my Jarts!”

The notion of playing with giant lawn darts in the dark seemed ill advised at best, and I knew that we didn’t dare risk tracking dirt inside, but where Billy was concerned, I was up for anything.

“Great!”

The Swoop cleared his throat. “Today, boys, we’re going to talk about something very dangerous and pernicious. Do you know what a mortal sin is?” Several hands shot up. “Have you ever wanted to be physically ‘close’ to another boy?”

“Ewww!” several kids hollered as others tittered. He turned on the projector.

Boys Beware
carefully outlined the sick and perverse nature of the homosexual. A sickness “that is not visible like smallpox, but no less dangerous and contagious—a sickness of the mind.” It dramatized the horrific penalties anyone who consorted with such individuals would pay, and warned us, “One never knows when the homosexual is about. They can appear normal; and it may be too late when you discover they are mentally ill.”

I froze in my seat. Beads of sweat began to form on my brow. Dear God. The feelings I was having for Billy seemed to mirror those of the kid in
Boys Beware
. Had I been lured into the charismatic sphere of a deranged person? Was Billy an unwitting minion of the Devil? I would not even be having these feelings were it not for him, and here he was, attempting to lead me down the path to destruction. He had always seemed so jocular and innocent, but as The Swoop explained after the movie was over, demons, like homosexuals, could walk in the clothes of a normal man. They could be attractive, fun-loving, personable. They could have a bowl haircut and athletic ability and a disarming grin.

In that moment, the knowledge of what I must do struck me like a lightning bolt: in order to save myself and be an Ambassador for Christ, I would have to save Billy.

 

ALTHOUGH I STILL referred to my power as magic, I had recently come to understand that my magical gift emanated from God, and that the kind of magic I had originally envisioned as an eight-year-old was, in reality, a black art. The Swoop had educated me about this during an RA meeting when Darren Pulaski pulled out a book he had found called
The Bhagavad Gita,
which had lots of weird, flowery pictures of guys with halos.

“That book,” The Swoop announced, snatching it from Darren’s hand and depositing it in the wastebasket, “is an abomination.”

“Hey!” Darren yelled, peeved. “I found that in a dumpster!”

“And that’s where it should have stayed,” The Swoop replied. “That’s the owner’s manual of the Hare Krishnas, those weirdos with the shaved heads.”

“Why do they shave their heads?” I asked.

“They’re just saving time,” he replied. “Their hair’s gonna burn off anyway when they land in Hell.” We all nodded seriously, digesting this important information. “Don’t ever mess around with the occult.”

“What’s the occult?” I asked.

“It’s Ouija boards, the sacrifice of babies, stuff like that. You know, witchcraft. But there is a good kind of magic, too, where cripples are healed and water is turned into wine—but that magic is really the miracles that flow from Christ.”

It was an aha moment. What I had long believed was “magic” was actually the power of Christ flowing through me. It wasn’t
my
magical power, it was Jesus’—I was merely the willing conduit.

Provided that conduit was still open. The bus accident had caused me, for the first time, to question my ability to summon this power at will.

But I was an Ambassador for Christ, I reminded myself. And I had been chosen to perform a miracle on his behalf. Surely that power would be mine for the taking.

Because after all, he was calling upon me to save Billy’s soul.

 

 

SINCE I WAS now twelve—almost pubescent, practically an adult—my days of Endora-style posturing were over. The bedspread was the costume of a child, and draping it over my body at this age would be weird and sort of girly. So I now chose a far more sophisticated approach: simply clutching it to me, like Linus from
Peanuts
.

I waited to cast my spell until Monday afternoon when Mother and Dad were at work. Val had recently lied about her age in order to land a part-time job as a maid at the Sands Motel, where she could indulge her growing passion for cleanliness by scrubbing the tile grout with dental instruments.

The bedspread—carefully stashed behind the green mohair recliner in the basement—awaited my beckoning. It fairly glowed with energy as I pulled it out and shook it to remove the dust that had accumulated since my last incantation. The fabric had developed a few wrinkles, so I postponed my conjuring just long enough to give it a proper and well-deserved pressing, taking pains not to scorch any of its supernatural force.

I took a deep breath as I held the warm, wrinkle-free material to my face. In my mind’s eye, the bedspread seemed to drift from my hands, and I watched with fascination as it moved to the center of the room and began to whirl in place. Slowly, it rose up, as though a figure were forming beneath it. The figure grew taller and taller until, with a sudden
whoosh
, the blanket lifted away to reveal Billy, in all his twelve-year-old glory, standing before me wearing a fringed suede jacket, Toughskins and Keds. I gazed up at him with admiration. He could be a Sears catalog model.

Immediately I blessed his tortured soul and began to pray over him, gently waving my arms around his form to cleanse him of this desire to tempt others. He smiled his broad grin, and I felt a rush of love and sympathy for this boy who seemed to be totally unaware of the evil that lurked within him. With God’s help, I will restore his righteousness, I thought to myself, as I placed my arms securely around him to envelop him in magical healing energy.

We stayed in this position for some time, my Christ-force flowing into Billy, his soul being repaired, God’s will being done. As I finally began to pull away from him, breaking the blissful bond, Billy whispered, “Thank you,” and the bedspread floated down upon him. As my vision continued, it once again began to whirl, the atmosphere charged with electricity, and a new figure began to form beneath it. It lifted away to reveal my former bully Tim, whose face lit up at the prospect of my healing energy. He awaited me with outstretched arms. I must minister to all who ask, I thought to myself. With power comes responsibility.

I WAS UNDERSTANDABLY nervous about the prospect of Billy seeing the inner workings of our family during an all-night sleepover, but the cleansing we needed to do together was now vitally important, so I had little choice but to risk it.

As the school week slowly progressed, I spent every afternoon in the rathskeller in dual magical meditations: preparing for the moment when I would cast out the demon from Billy’s soul, and attempting to ensure that this event would not be ruined by an impromptu performance of Mother’s one-woman tour de force,
“Why, God, why are there footprints in this shag?!”

I laid out various outfits, debating which was most appropriate for an exorcism. I selected music for the occasion from the soundtrack to
Jesus Christ Superstar
, searching for the perfect underscore for that critical moment of demonic confrontation, including the show’s big hit, “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” the irony of which was lost on me. I experimented with various hairstyles in an effort to create the most flattering look for someone of my holy stature. I sharpened my skill level at Ping-Pong and pool.

Finally, I was ready.

 

 

I TIMED Billy’s arrival to coincide with Mother’s nightly segue into the bedroom, which typically occurred shortly after her arrival home from work. After a concise examination of the family’s refusal to live up to even the most minimal standards of home hygiene, she would retreat into the bedroom, defeated, finally emerging some time later in her tattered housedress and curlers to force down some Triscuits and a celery stalk at the dinner table.