Play the Part

Blanchard, Louisiana

2005

We wait until the locker room clears out.

The showers are off, only drops leaking from too-old showerheads and dripping into puddles of muddy water on the ruddy tiles. There aren’t any lockers being slammed, and the towels in the hampers are marinating in teenage hormones and sweat. The whole place smells like a gardener’s hothouse; there’s not a far jump between teenage boy-stink and manure, really. And the vents in this room like to pretend they don’t work this close to the summer. When the school’s heating is only just being turned off, but it takes three weeks for it to stop completely because it’s barely used and why did Louisiana have such a chilly winter anyway? So the entire school turns into a too-ripe cesspool of adolescent awfulness. But the locker rooms are the worst. I like to imagine the girl’s locker room smells like hairspray and cheap teenage perfume. No one wants to think a lady sweats, after all, even in this muggy heat.

He pushes me into the lockers and we knock down Brian’s favorite bat that he always likes to leave outside of his locker—in case of emergencies. What sort of emergency that might be... well, no one really knows. But no one dared touch it or else he’d use it on them. We’d have to replace it exactly as it was or he’d hunt down anyone with information. Everyone knew we were the last to leave the locker rooms. Everyone knew what we were up to. That’s why he’s sporting a black eye and when he reaches up my jersey he’s careful to skirt around the purpling bruise I have all down my right side. It should stop us, really. But we won’t let it.

His lips are chapped and peeling as they cover mine, his tongue pink and wet as he swipes it tentatively over my bottom lip before pushing it into my mouth. We’d only just started kissing heavy like this a few weeks ago and I’m still pretty sure we’re doing it wrong. It’s really sloppy and tastes funny and it’s

nothing like in the movies. But still we do it because I really, really like him. Because he tastes good and if he keeps doing it I suppose I must taste good too. I can kind of understand why the girl pulls away with flushed cheeks when I watch a movie, now. Because he takes the air from my lungs in the best way possible. Not like I just got punched in the throat, or like when Stanley throws curve ball that hits me straight in the chest because he knows it’ll knock me over. Like someone’s just hugged me from behind and my lungs can’t hold any more air because they’re just filled with him.

We have to be quiet. Even though there’s no one here and since Gym is done for the day no one will be, we still have to be quiet. We’ll always have to be quiet. We’re breaking like 3 different awful taboos all at one. Well... he’s breaking two. He just doesn’t know about the third one. I still don’t know how I’m gonna tell him, because even the thought of admitting it to myself makes me feel a little queasy. He’s a black gay kid in the South. If that wasn’t bad enough, he was making out with white trash like me every other day when we had baseball instead of indoor sports. Oh yeah, our lives are fucked up.

I reach down to his jeans and cup over his zipper, causing him to lurch his hips forward. Only recently did we start doing this, too. And he really likes it. I mean, I guess all teenage boys like getting tugged once or twice a day. But he really, really likes it. And I really, really like him. So it’s only natural I’d want to keep him around in any way possible, right? I hear Sarah and her friends talk by my locker when I’m grabbing my books for Social Studies; the best way to keep a boyfriend is to do what he likes, even if you aren’t entirely into it. And I’m kinda sorta into it, which makes it better than not at all. I think.

When we finally stop sucking tongue long enough to breathe he moves his attentions to my neck.
Now that is something we’ve never tried before. And as he moves down, pressing kisses the whole way there, my head thumps against the lockers and I let out a too-deep groan of pleasure. My hand tightens around the bulge in his pants and I feel the vibrations of his noise against my neck. He’d better not leave a hickey, or we’ll both be in serious shit.

Everything’s going just fine. I don’t mind teasing, and he doesn’t appear to mind kissing all over my neck. It’s only when his hand shifts down my stomach to the waistband of my jeans that things start to go downhill. I try to move my hips away but he’s got me pressed into the locker. There’s nowhere to run. I suppose this had to happen eventually. With as many times as I’ve given this to him, he’d want to reciprocate. He’s a nice gentleman like that.

I close my eyes and press my head into the warm metal of the locker. The vents feel like they’re digging into my skull, into my brain. I squeeze them tight and wonder if I pretend it’s not happening, it won’t. It feels wrong, it feels so wrong. He wants it, that’s the point. But I don’t want him touching that thing. I don’t want him touching the part of me that reminds me why he likes me in the first place. And it’s one of the many parts of me that are a forced-upon lie.

He pops my fly and his fingers touch the soft hairs that are growing in. The hairs that show I’m a young man going through puberty. And I’m terrified about who will come out at the other side of it. I can’t do this, I can’t do this.

I push him away frantically, holding my hands out in front of me to keep him at bay. His eyes, dark and honest, open and too kind for a person like me, look back in confusion and worry; he thinks he’s hurt me. Oh god, what a sweetheart.

“Luke? You okay?”

I swallow down the name like its Momma’s liver and onions. I have to pretend to smile because, like always, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings with my awkward weirdness. Like always, I have to sacrifice what makes me happy for the good of others. Because I’m a freak. I always have been, and I always will be.

“I’m... I’m okay. Really.”

I raise my voice a little. Not in volume, but in tone. How I always sound. It makes my voice crack more often, and it makes them all make fun of me. But I do it because it’s the one thing I can change about myself that doesn’t make Momma kick me out of the house or make people write FAG on my locker where everyone can see.

He reaches out, but before he can reach me the bell rings. Cue for us to leave the “safety” of the locker room and head back out into the real world. I snatch my backpack from the bench and quickly grab Brian’s bat, replacing it in a relatively similar position, and beeline towards the door.

“Lucas!”

He calls my name, and it only makes me want to cry. I yank open the door and head out into the slowly crowding hallways. It’s impossible to lose me in a crowd; I’m already at six feet and tower above the other kids in our grade. In our school, really. But he knows we don’t interact in these halls. The locker room was our safe place. Outside we hang out... all the time. But there’s something about being seen together here that can cause serious problems for the both of us. He already has people spray-painting the N-word on his garage door. Those hardcore Southern racists who seem to forget that desegregation actually happened. He doesn’t need them adding “Faggot” to the mix. His parents don’t need that.

I nab my books at my locker and practically sprint to Study Hall.

I just don’t have time to worry about everyone else, but I do. Especially about him. Usually about him.

The rest of the day is just Study Hall and English. I already finished the book way back, so when we go over a couple chapters in class I prop my head on my fist and stare out the window.

The rain from yesterday lingers over our heads in a humid cloud, obscuring the sun. There isn’t any wind and the trees and flowers planted in the school’s front yard stand still as though they’re suspended in time. I wish I could be like them. Like I wouldn’t change at all. I started to grow into my lanky limbs once

I hit high school and it made me want to cry. I wanted to stop it somehow; anyhow. Girls weren’t this tall. Not even normal boys were this tall. I guess I get it from my gone Pop’s side of the family, since Momma’s pretty short herself. I can’t tell if my height reminds her of him, but I know she’s caught looking at me sometimes like I don’t quite fit. Even when I’m wearing my raggedy jeans and stupid sneakers and baggy tees. Even when I look exactly like her son she still isn’t happy with me.

She makes me get my hair cut once a month now. It barely has any time to grow back before she’s shoving the money in my hand and locking the front door. I can’t come home until it’s shorter than it was the last time she saw me. One summer I waited. I slept in a few alleys in town and came home a few days later. Still she wouldn’t let me in, and I ended up having to have the haircut. No bangs, nothing but the short crew-cut she allows me to have.

“Luke?”

I look around as though I’ve just woken up, surprised when I hear my name. My teacher, Missus Clarke, is looking at me expectantly, her book open in her hand. The rest of the class is snickering at me.

“Y-Yes Ma’am?”

“Are you reading along?”

I look down at the closed book on my desk and, well, I can’t even play along that I was, now can I?

“I uh... I finished it already.”

She sighs and brushes her hair from her face. I document the motion; keep it in my memory for... for what? For some later date when I’ll have hair like that? I’d never be able to delicately move my curls from my eyes with a swipe of the back of my hand, red nails catching on the fluorescent lights above me. It just wasn’t meant to be. Even though every fiber of my being screamed for it, ached for it, cried for it... it just wasn’t meant to be.

“Well that’s very nice, Luke. But you still need to read along with the class. Page 94, please.”

She strides off to, I assume, pick someone else to read the next passage. Her heels clack against the tile on the floor as she turns and calls on someone else, who groans before he begins reading. I grab my book and turn it to the right page, easily finding where they are reading. But my eyes are glossing over the pages and all I can focus on is the movement of her hand against her hair. Casually I look up, making sure everyone’s eyes are trained on their books. When I’m sure I won’t be noticed I shift my hands and brush the back of my first two fingers over my temple, as though I’m brushing away long locks of hair. I don’t do it a lot. Just a few times before the day is over. But when the bell rings and everyone grabs their bags from their chairs, I feel like I have it down.

The path back to the Park is muddy. The best part about coming come on a Wednesday meant that Momma would be working her second job; and not home until very late. I don’t mind her being gone. She likes to pretend—usually with the help of the same bottles of beer that drove Pop away—that we’re close. That we don’t fight every time we see one another and the only time we can ever get along is when we’re both asleep or away from the other. I think I hate the pretending more than the reality of it. It’s all a lie, in the end. And it will always be a lie so long as she calls me her son. It’s just how it is.

I scrape the bottoms of my sneakers on the wooden steps as I twist my key into the lock. Off to my left I see our neighbor lounging in his chair, ugly mutt staring at me dumbly. He’s a nosy guy; our neighbor. Whenever Momma and I fight he’s the first person to turn on his lights and peek through his ugly off- white blinds to see what the ruckus is. I must get my love of performing from my Maternal side, because she loves to put on a show when she knows someone is watching.

I pull open the screen door and unlock the second door, pushing it open and letting the screen clatter shut behind me. There’s a load of laundry on top of the washer for me to put in, and knowing Momma

there’s a pile of dishes ready for me, too. For a woman who doesn’t want me doing “girly” things, I do the housework a lot.

My bag goes flying onto my bed as I flick the switch, staring at the impeccable neatness of my room. Compared to hers, clothes strewn in a trail down the hall from the kitchen to her doorway like a neon sign, I’m spotless. I hate messes, anyway.

I kick the thin wood of my door shut for privacy, though there’s no one around to look at me. This is private; something I keep to myself. If there’s a God then he knows, and he’ll send me to Hell for it. I couldn’t give less of a fuck if there is or is not someone holy up above watching me do that things I do to myself, anyway. It’s nicer to pretend that there’s no one there at all. Here, at least for a little while, I can pretend to be who I want to be without anyone interrupting the fantasy. I don’t have a name, just yet. But I know my name isn’t Lucas, here. It can’t be Lucas.

I sit on my bed and take several steadying breaths before I undo my jeans button and zipper and begin to tug them down my legs. The humidity made the fabric stick to my skin on the walk home, so it’s a bit of an effort before I can let them pool at my ankles. I stare down at my too-long legs and try not to cringe. Even the sight of the leg hair is too much, it makes me want to gag. I tried shaving once, but Momma found out and... well. It wasn’t pretty. And the bruises were so bad I couldn’t wear shorts for two weeks. I shouldn’t look like this. I should never have looked like this. When she’s got her hair done up real pretty and doesn’t look like she’s coming off a three day drunken binge, Momma looks really nice. She used to be a beauty queen, I think. From her home in Alabama. She used to tell me stories when I was younger, but she stopped forever ago. Probably thinks those stories confused me and made me want to... but she’s wrong. I’ve always been like this. If I had been born her daughter, maybe she would have kept talking.

I dig my nails into the tanned skin of my legs until it hurts, and then I continue. My teeth grit and I have to force back the tears. I bend down and procure a little baggy from my jeans pocket. I couldn’t keep these at home, no way. Not with as many times as she digs through my things trying to find anything a boy shouldn’t have. I have to carry this bag with me everywhere I go. Folded into my boxers when I go to take a shower, in my pockets whenever I leave my bedroom or the house. And if they did checks at my school... oh man was I dead. A strange sense of calm comes over me when I pull one of the small razor blades out and hold it up to the light. I keep them as clean as my room. Getting infected meant revealing my secret, and I couldn’t take that risk. I have a small bottle of rubbing alcohol I keep under the sink— near cleaning implements, she would never look there, not in a million years—that I have exactly for keeping these things nice and shiny. Five in total, I never use more than one. But backups are necessary sometimes.

I grip the handle edge with three fingers as I spread my legs a little wider. I need access to the weaker part of the skin of my thighs, where it will hurt the most. The first time I did this I considered chopping off my dick entirely. I was ten years old and I hated that thing between my legs more than I hated the God I then believed in for giving it to me. “God doesn’t make mistakes,” they told me. Then God must’ve turned his back on me, because he gave me the wrong body in the first place. Cast me aside like he did Lucifer. Well whatever. He could go fuck himself.

My thumb draws over the soft flesh as I stare between my legs. It hurts. It hurts every time. There are little scars where I sometimes liked the pain a bit too much. I can’t leave many; living in close quarters with a paranoid woman means I get looked at. A lot. These were barely noticeable; not at all if I was wearing boxers. And being older now she was all the more willing to let me buy them.

With a deep breath I lower the razor to my leg and slowly push in, dragging the steel through my skin as blood wells up around it. It runs down in a small stream that I quickly catch with my other hand,

smearing it on my hand and the skin of my inner thigh. It stings, just like it does every time. And I drag it a bit deeper than usual, a bit longer. Punishing myself for what I am, for how I can’t cope and pretend like everyone else can. Am I ignorant to the suffering of others? Do I know that every single kid at my school is dealing with their own things? That the bullies probably get beat at home and the pretty airheaded girls who snicker at me behind their purses are probably neglected by their folks? Not at all. But sometimes, in times like these, their problems seem so meaningless and petty compared to mine. At least they feel comfortable in their own skin. At least they can look at themselves in the mirror and not want to break the glass. At least they have friends who can understand their problems, or people they can share their woes with. I’m all alone in everything. No caring parent, no loyal friends. I could tell Connor but he would probably scream and push me away like everyone else did. I mean after all... he was gay. And I was helping him make out with a girl. He just didn’t know it.

That third taboo.

I carefully tug the razor from my leg and wince at the pain. I have to stand and wash this off in the shower before I drip blood everywhere; Momma’d notice. I stand and kick off my shoes and jeans, leaving me half-naked as I stumble past my door and through the home to the bathroom. The shower water is cold at first, but it wakes me up from the stupor that cutting puts me into. Like I’m drunk— though slightly better, because I’ve known what being drunk feels like since I was fourteen—and I just don’t have to worry about any of it. It’s far from pretending. I still have to look down at a boy’s leg and at the bulge in my boy’s boxers. But it takes the pain away from everything else and focuses it on somewhere... for just a moment.

My shirt is sopping wet when I tug it over my head. So are my briefs when I tug them past the cut, bringing on a new wave of pain. I lay there, naked as the day I was born, with lukewarm water pouring on me from a rusty showerhead, blood washing away from my thigh down the drain, and I definitely feel

high on the pain. It feels good... God it feels so good. I could close my eyes and just fall asleep here. Instead I start sobbing. Another day of forcing myself to play the part. Another day of having my real self hidden, of having to pretend and ignore all the times I watch to scream in people’s faces. I knock my head back against the shower tiles and sob until my throat is hoarse and my eyes can’t cry any more tears.

Eventually the water runs cold again and I stand on shaking legs, wiping away tears and water as I turn off the shower and stumble over the tub to grab a towel. The walk back to my bedroom feels like a walk of shame. I grab the blade and put it in the rubbing alcohol under the sink and stuff the rest into my jeans as I dress and put them back on again. It feels like putting on battle armor. So much armor that no one can see who I am underneath, and so they just keep making up story after story of the person with a face no one can recognize because they’re too ignorant to look under the helmet. With a new shirt and flannel with rolled up sleeves over it, the armor is complete. And I can’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore.

Three hours later and I have our clothes in the washer, the dishes done, and a pot of spaghetti made and ready for the sauce to be heated up. I’ll go to bed long before she comes home but she bitches and whines if dinner isn’t made. My homework is done and tossed aside on the kitchen table as I relax on our tiny couch with a beer, flipping through the television channels. MTV will have to do, I guess. I’ve just settled in for the night when I hear a knock on the creaky screen door, and then footsteps on the wooden steps. I rush up, hoping to catch the kids who love to play stupid games like this. They’ve been ding-dong-ditching every house on the street for over a month now, and the little brats were too quick and slippery to be caught. This time I’ll kick their asses myself.

But when I open the door its Connor’s back I’m staring at, not the shadows of kids running away. I open the screen door and look at Nosey Neighbor, scowling at his beady little face peeking out through the blinds of his own trailer. Connor turns on the heel of his boot and manages a smile, folder under his arm.

Very tentatively I open the screen door, staring at him silently.

“Hey, Luke.”

“H—Hey.” Is all I can manage.

For a long moment we just stare at each other silently. It’s all very romantic, if it wasn’t the biggest mistake of his life. And mine, if Nosey decides to tell my mother I had a guest.

“I was wonderin’ if you wanted to grab a drink... maybe talk about...” he looks at the folder in his hand, “Algebra?”

It seems like a surprise to the both of us, but I laugh and lean on the doorway, hands shoved into my jeans pockets. I feel the baggie there, and the invisible tether it creates to the pain in my thigh. Its grounding.

“I... finished Algebra already.” I tell him with a bit of a laugh.

“Yeah but... I didn’t. And you know how much I suck at... uh... fractions.”

It’s true. His fractions are horrible.

“I really shouldn’t let anyone in when my Ma’s not home,” and this isn’t to play along, I’m quite serious, “she doesn’t like it.”

“So... come to the lake with me.”

His eyes are pleading, now. He needs to understand what happened earlier today, I can feel it. He wants to talk it out with me and figure out where he went wrong. As if he did anything wrong, or is as fault here. It’s one of the things I fell in love with; his open heart.

With a sigh I nod and gesture back inside.

“Lemme grab my shoes.”

He waits patiently while I lace up my sneakers and turn off the TV. I lock both doors behind me and follow him to his car parked where Momma’s would usually be. Its deadbeat rusted old truck he got on a deal with a pretty shady guy a few towns over. But though she’s got a little character to her, she’s never failed us, not when we’ve needed to get away or needed to dance in the bed on a drunken dare. The fun times we’ve had in this bucket of bolts definitely outweigh the times we’ve had to walk miles to the nearest gas station after she’s broken down on us.

I hop in on the passenger side and he shifts the truck into drive, heading out to the real roads that don’t lead into our part of the neighborhood.

The lake is more of a pond. It’s definitely not the size of a lake and I think all the fish are long dead. Either way, it’s a nice view, and a good place to be alone. And the best part of it is that Connor can pull his truck right up to the edge and we can relax on our own pretend beach. He does just that and pulls a six back out from behind his seat, tossing the math folder to the side. Who cared about Algebra, anyway?

I nab two pillows and a blanket from behind the passenger seat, joining him around the back and laying it down over the ridges of the bed. It barely provides any comfort, but it’s better than laying on nothing. We toe off our shoes and hop in, pressing a chaste kiss to one another’s lips before we settle in close. Here is where we can touch. Here is where we can be at least a little freer. Better than the locker room,

anyway. He wraps his arm around my shoulder and I rest my head on his chest, staring out onto the glare of the sunlight on the water’s surface.

“So... you wanna tell me what happened?”

His tone is hesitant. He didn’t want to jump straight into it, but I think the words came out without him really meaning to say them. It’s been weighing on his mind since it happened, I bet. It would be if I were him.

“Can we... can we not?” My voice cracks and I wince, taking a gulp of beer for a little liquid courage.

“Luke...”

“Don’t.”

With a silent nod he moves to grip me tighter. Comfort where he can provide, I guess. Since I won’t tell him what’s bugging me, he does what he can.

I wonder if he loves me too. All he sees is Lucas, after all. He sees the guy with the decent abs and the tight ass and the shoulders like a gay man’s wet dream. He likes to run his fingers through my short hair and kiss at my Adam’s apple and when he jokes about sucking me off it’s because he’s gay, and he likes that sort of thing. But to be honest the very thought of anyone touching me there makes me want to throw up and drink and throw up all over again. It’s him talking like that that makes me want to take the razor blades in my pocket and cut the whole package off and throw it into the water where the maybe- fish can eat it. He talks about my natural muscles like they’re something to be proud of but all they do is make me shy away in shame.

I want to be smaller, thinner. Softer. I want breasts and hips and long hair that sticks to the back of my neck in the summer humidity but I don’t care because my curls are natural and beautiful. I want to be

able to look at any man I love and know he loves me too. Not for the things I’m not, but for the things that I am. Maybe not even for the womanly body I want, but for the woman inside of any body I have.

Too bad life doesn’t work that way.