Liquid Duano
Without so much as a knock, Duane's father entered his bedroom and took a seat in the unused desk chair. Dirty clothes, mostly T-shirts and socks, lay strewn across the carpet. Duane was lying down on his bed, browsing through a magazine, Skateboard Action. He figured he must be in trouble if his father was stopping to see him at his mother's house.
"Your head looks like the sun."
"I thought you'd say a tennis ball."
"God, I bet your mother loves it," his father said jocosely. He crossed his leg over his knee, the way girls do. He was wearing a gray suit over a black silk shirt, its top button fastened. Duane smelled a strong blast of cologne or after-shave. Musky.
"She freaked out. She said I needed to consider my hair future." Last night, Duane and his girlfriend Lydia had dyed his sandy hair bright yellow, and then she'd taught him how to use hair spray to make it stand on end, giving it a spiked effect. When Duane's mother noticed it, she said that yellow junk would ravage his hair. It could be colored, shaved, or mohawked, or it could be sheared and fabricated into a wig, and then sold to a sick woman in Denver. So what, he thought, hair was hair.
"Now I concur," his father said, remaining sarcastic, "the future of your hair is nearly as important as, say, the future of your feet." They both looked at Duane's bare feet, as if checking for blemishes and imperfections. A bubble blister. A flap of dead skin. Dirt caked underneath nails. "No, it looks like your feet are going places. Hah, hah, hah," he said, his voice deadpan. This was cool-dad, full of wit, always cranking up the irony machine. He would encourage people at the dinner table to chew with their mouths wide-open. Duane and his friends called this version of his dad, Ray—that was his first name. Duane liked Ray. Yet right now they were at Duane's mother's house, which meant that his father had likely been called over to talk some sense into Duane. This was discipline-dad, or what-a-drag dad, or mister-I'm-serious-here-no-homework-no-skating dad. But what had Duane done? Or better stated, what had Duane been caught doing? Hiding pot in his sock drawer? Copying his friend's homework? Stealing cash from his mother's dresser to buy skateboard magazines at Cody's or CDs at Amoeba?
Duane said to his father, "Mom didn't call you over here because of my hair?"
"No."
"Let me guess, the grades, you came to talk about my grade in Ruska's class?"
"No," Duane noticed his father peering with raised eye brows at the fliers from his favorite shows plastered on the walls: Fugazi, Jets To Brazil, Imperial Teen, the Dismemberment Plan, Sleater-Kinney, Bratmobile.
"My future," Duane said, "You're concerned about where—"
His father interrupted: "—It has nothing to do with that. Your mom didn't call me over here. I wanted to talk to you before I went—"
Duane interrupted: "—About what?" He could hear a branch from the plum tree tapping against the glass of his bedroom window.
His father said he had a boyfriend. Duane felt something like grease turning his stomach. He closed his skateboarding magazine. On the front cover was a photo of Duane's hero, Tony Hawk, pulling his famous 720 at the X-games two summers past. In an interview inside, Hawk talked about skating blindfolded: When you feel yourself—not see, but feel yourself—rising off the lip of a half-pipe, suspended mid-air, you are in control of the board. The blind, Hawk said, can really fly. This was the fierce courage of Gods, and Duane subscribed to this kind of risk-taking. Suck it up, dad, take the jump.
"What am I supposed to do with this information?" Duane asked.
"This isn't exactly easy for me." His father slouched further into the chair, as if shrinking away from the brightness of Duane's hair. "We need to begin accepting this as a part of our relationship."
"What's wrong, Ray? Are you ashamed that you're gay?"
His father leaned up in the chair. "You're the one who hasn't mentioned it once since I came out. I asked your mom. She said you never talk about it. Did you tell your friends? Does Lydia know?"
"They all know, " Duane said, "No problems on my end."
"So you're comfortable enough to hear me talk about him," his father said, "Or maybe he decides to stay over. Will you spend the night? Or will you live at the police station for the rest of your life?" Duane's mother was a police officer for the city of Berkeley. She was a cop on a mountain bike. Her job carried over into her parenting—she had a zealot-like proclivity for patrolling behavior, e.g., searching his bedroom behind his back, listening in on his phone calls, phoning his teachers every week. She was probably standing right outside the window, eavesdropping—one of her favorite pastimes—on him and his father, on their gay chat.
Duane stepped to the window. Sure enough, underneath the right shutter and amidst the plum tree's lower branches, he spotted his mother's matted brown hair shaped like a helmet. If his father were to catch her, he wouldn't let her forget, would even call her a few choice words. Gay words. Disingenuous, irreverent. Duane let her slyly retreat from her position. "Duane," his father said, "Answer the question. Here or there?" He stood up to leave.
Duane could hear his mother enter the house through the back door and hang her Trek in the utility room. "I'll call before I come over," Duane said.
"You're going to be leaving us soon."
Duane was turning 18 next month. He had made no specific plans for the future, other than committing himself to Lydia and to skating. He couldn't imagine himself sitting in a classroom for another four years. It would be like witnessing a bone-splintering wreck in slow motion. Lydia's pet name for Duane was Liquid Duano. It originated from his inexorable approach to skating. Lydia had said, You ride like a juggernaut, like plumber's liquid being poured down a drain, eating up anything in its path. Including the pipes.
"I'm already gone," Duane said.
*
Eleven months ago, the day after Duane's 17th birthday, his father had showed up in his bedroom at his mother's house, as he did today, had sat in the very same chair. Ray. Duane and his father were good banterers, they mocked, they laughed, they cursed. And then his father confessed he was gay. Duane's initial thought was defend yourself, as if he'd been hit in the face. He imagined a public rest room stall, one man riding into another, their faces teeming with sweat beads, grunting like weight lifters, one man spotting the other. Still neither man in this fantasy was his father. Where was he? Outside waiting in line? In the next stall masturbating? In the bedroom his father's hands had trembled like an old person's. How long have you known? Duane asked. It had been before he and his mom were married, his dad said. Duane wondered if both his parents had been leading secret lives. When he stayed with his mother, was his father gadding about the Bay Area searching for men? Did his mother BART to the Mission district to sell the drugs she'd confiscated on her beat? Even though his parents had been divorced for eleven years, they lived three blocks from each other on Cedar street in North Berkeley, and neither, to Duane's knowledge, had dated anyone. Why did you wait so long to tell me? Duane asked. His father didn't think Duane was ready, to which Duane responded, You're right, maybe I'm not ready, I don't want to know any of your boyfriends. Had Duane really meant that? Not really. Maybe. Yes and no. Wouldn't it be a relief if his mother and father were to fall in love, to be loved by somebody other than their only son?
Presently, eleven months later, Duane wondered if his father had forgotten those words—I don't want to know any of your boyfriends—erased them from his mind, or maybe he'd misunderstood, taking them to mean Duane would never warm up to a boyfriend. Conversely, there was a part of Duane who felt ready to meet this boyfriend, who wanted to see for himself what kind of gay man his father really was.
*
Duane snuck into the kitchen to get something to eat before heading to Lydia's house. He heard the TV in the next room, the anchor woman saying, several outages have been reported near Hercules. He was avoiding his mother. She would ask him how he felt about his father's news, about which she had undoubtedly known. Duane had the kind of divorced parents who were friends—they lunched together—and who, only now and again, flashed a semblance of anger or desire or envy for each other in front of Duane.
An odor of rotten milk wafted through the air. Duane waited while his Pop Tarts cooked in the bagel oven.
It was Duane's being an only child that gave rise to his mother's overbearing behavior. Duane was the last....dying....hope. That's the way he imagined his mother seeing it—any fucking-up on his part reflected poorly on her parenting skills. Thus came her litany of worries. Was Duane happy? Mentally stable? What made Duane so recalcitrant? As long as Duane scored above 26 on the ACTs. But was he taking the proper prerequisites to gain admission into a decent college? Was skateboarding a safe and appropriate hobby for a boy Duane's age? Shouldn't he learn to drive a car? Wouldn't punk music damage his hearing? Here, she said, take these earplugs, and Duane took them and tossed them in the garbage. Parenting was about damage control and her primary method was overreaction. This past fall, right after Duane had begun dating Lydia, his mom had barged into his bedroom while he and Lydia were having sex. Later that night, she called Lydia's parents, told them everything.
Ray, his only confidante, had agreed that his mother had "a propensity for histrionics." And yet Duane had to give his mother some credit. She never made him do anything he didn't want to do. She never grounded him or forbade him from leaving the house. In this way, she was quintessential Berkeley, a parent bent on reasoning with her child. All his life, she'd given him choices and he'd picked options that best suited his wishes, e.g., 90210 over The Boxcar Children, grilled cheese over tempeh. Nonetheless, his mother had rules (attend a private school, be home by curfew, no drugs, no girls in his bedroom), and not following them meant lengthy—sometimes all night—talks, reciprocal dialogues, she called them. At his father's house, Duane's fancies were indulged on a much grander scale, a Herculean scale. One might even say spoiled. A few years earlier, they'd built a half-pipe in the backyard, so Duane and his friends could practice all hours, day or night, without being nagged by overzealous parents or cops about wearing pads or helmets. Ray set flexible curfew hours on the weekends. And he didn't mind when Duane had girls in his bedroom. Door closed and locked.
Duane heard his mother shifting in her recliner, the switching of channels, and the laugh track of a sitcom. The bell to the bagel oven dinged. Duane smelled smoke. His Pop Tarts were burnt.
But why not meet his dad's boyfriend? Duane wasn't homophobic, he wasn't one of those close-minded dolts, those fag-haters. Duane, like his father, was part of a group out on the periphery, a group whose behavior—skating in public places—disturbed, intimidated, irritated many people, a group who thrived on the destruction of private and public property, the crumbling of cement edges, the scraping of paint off hand rails. Who fucking cares? He should accept his father's situation with ease. And yet Duane didn't want to see Ray in the morning, pouring coffee for three.
*
One matter Duane was certain of—possibly the only thing in his entire life other than wanting to skate—was his own sexual preference. Lydia was his groovy girl. When he told her so, her body seemed to collapse. She'd nestle into his arms, plant kisses on his neck and chin.
They had been seeing each other since the fall of their senior year. The planet was losing its soul, its will to act, its will to move the body—but not Lydia. At a time when most kids were convincing their parents to buy them new SUVs, Lydia had purchased a Tony Hawk deck, complete with Thunder trucks and Powell Fireball wheels. She wanted to learn, but no skaters took her seriously. She couldn't drop into the half-pipe without falling, and her tricks were limited to haphazard front and backsides, or tiny flips. When she fell to the concrete, others stood by and stared without helping her. His two best friends, Alaska and Gi'an, never paid her much attention because she was a girl, good for some cute friends. Duane, however, offered her his hand, and she took it.
Follow the pavement—this was their path.
On the half-pipe at his dad's house, Duane taught Lydia how to deal with her fear of falling ("Imagine that when you fall, you're landing on a mattress. The worst kind of pain is not having mastered the next trick..."). Before she could gain any confidence and begin taking risks, she needed some basic skills. She was on one side of the board, her goofy foot causing her a lot of problems. Duane showed her how to mongo foot—that is, push off with her front foot instead of her back. This gave her some extra speed and ease on the board. Duane liked her boldness, her long hair and sweet face, her slow walk. Before him, she had dated college guys, and she was rumored to have screwed around with their former English teacher, Mr. Lavain, who coincidentally didn't teach at St. Luke's anymore.
Who knew if such rumors were true?
Most of the school wrote her off as a slut, and unfairly so. He viewed her promiscuity as experience, as wisdom gained from hours of practice, akin to a skater who must fall and fall to perfect a trick nobody else dares to try. Yet it drove him crazy to think other boys (let alone some teacher) had had their hands all over Lydia's body. Her beauty sickened him; he wanted to lick every part of her, to ride each curve and reach every nook and cranny, but those moments felt explosive, dangerous, like he could just as easily throw himself in front of a bus. Their sex was akin to practicing a difficult move, one that ended in biting pavement and spilling blood. She'd scream, pitch her body upwards, nearly buck him off, or she'd direct his finger to the correct spot, or she'd say, slow down, or speed up, or I'm not wet enough. Her words, her actions, for Duane, conjured up all the bodies of other boys and men who'd penetrated her, who'd made her feel AAAHHHH! These desperate moments seemed mutually exclusive to other more tranquil moments, like sitting in bed with her after sex, Lydia burrowing her sweaty head into the crook of his arm. This was pure beauty, a place where he could reconcile her promiscuous past, maybe even an affair with a teacher.
Alaska and Gi'an had thought he was crazy and argued that Duane wasn't ready for Lydia, that she'd grow bored with him and search out a man.
"She's a woman. I don't know if you can handle that!" Gi'an said.
"G-man's right," Alaska said, "Her flesh has been touched by a man. With you, she's sexually slumming."
"You're better off with a freshman or sophomore biddy," Gi'an said, gyrating his pelvis while making masturbatory motions with his hand. "They worship you."
"Vulgar, but wise," Alaska said, "These younger girls are like clear sheets of paper, no other voices in their heads—"
Gi'an interrupted, "—Besides, when we go to college, she's gonna dump your ass. Then where will you be?"
"With you pussies," Duane had said sarcastically, really to veil the somberness he had felt about such a possibility, i.e., that everything—his family, girlfriend, school, and city—could suddenly fall away from him like a skateboard sliding out from underneath his feet and rolling down into the half-pipe's empty bowl.
*
In her basement bedroom, Lydia stood in front her easel, using her brush to dot the canvas with yellow capsule-shaped smudges. The painting offered an overhead view of a coffee table littered with trash, full ashtrays, fast food bags, empty beer bottles, and pills. It was something you'd see in a frat house, and Duane was afraid to ask what image—which coffee table—had inspired it, afraid to confront the truth that he was such a minuscule part of her life. Her hair was piled on her head, revealing her neck and shoulders. She wore a tattered smock over a cotton tank top, a silky, pink-laced bra underneath. He began kissing her neck, undoing her smock, slipping down her jeans, lifting her shirt, when she said, "Don't you want to talk about your dad? I mean, aren't you disappointed?" and to this, Duane said nothing, just kept tugging her jeans down over her knees.
"You must be relieved, your dad has somebody." Lydia stepped back.
"I don't want to talk about my dad." Duane fingered the waistband of her panties.
She batted his hand away and pulled her jeans back on. "Wait a minute, Speedy Gonzalez," she said. "Let's slow it down."
"How about I decide what we do," Duane touched the shell of her bra. He wondered if Mr. L had taught her how to slow it down? Had he gently taken off one article of clothing at a time, beginning with her socks? "I want you. Let's start the rock show."
She took his yellow head in her hands, as if she wanted to squeeze it. "You didn't even say anything about the progress I made on this painting. It's due tomorrow," she said, gesturing towards it. Between the empty bottle and the ash tray sat a pile of manila folders. Duane said he liked it. A lie. "My Liquid Duano," she whispered, moving into his agitated hands, "I still have a few things to teach you." While doing it, Duane became overwhelmed by the warmth of her body, the firm grip with which she held him. Other boys also had known this great heat, had, in fact, brought her body to a boil, had, in turn, been coated with its excretions, its residue—this only incited Duane's anger, making him pitch himself into her. He imagined his father behind his boyfriend. "Not so hard, not so hard, not so hard Duano," Lydia said, a deep, sex-glazed babble, but Duano kept on. Afterwards, the two of them were lying on the couch, an old flannel sleeping bag soaking up the sweat from their bodies, the air thick with the smell of sex.
Lydia's voice was meek, as if thrown from across the room. "Are you upset with me? That kind of hurt, Duano."
*
The next night, at the dinner table, his mother questioned Duane about his father's boyfriend. "Doesn't it creep you out, just a little?" She spooned mashed potatoes onto his plate.
"That dad likes man-ass?" Duane asked, a mouthful of green beans, "No, that doesn't bother me one bit. Does man-ass bother you?" Duane couldn't help himself. His mother was terribly jealous.
"No, I like man-ass. My problem is your third-grade irony. I think it's a shame you can't say something intelligent, or even express some feelings about this."
"What am I supposed to say?"
"That you feel uncomfortable, or confused, or that the idea of your father seeing Hayden repulses you."
"You know this guy's name? Did I miss the coming-out festivities?" Putting a name—Hayden—to this man gave shape to something vague; Duane imagined a chubby man with reddish hair, freckles, a man who wore khaki pants and dress shirts and brown loafers, a man who ate fast food and watched bad '80s movies on TBS. Hayden played chess in a club. "Did you meet him?"
"Your father talks about him with me."
"This is too much," Duane said, laughing. "Doesn't this trouble you at all? You're the one who was married to him."
"And now divorced."
"Which is why you were eavesdropping on our conversation?" A look of muted anger seized her face, her closed mouth, her jutting chin. She held her fork—two flimsy, vinegar-soaked green beans speared on the tines—between her index and middle fingers as if she planned on smoking it.
"I'm pushing the change-subject button on the remote." She held out her hand as if clutching a remote control, pointed it at him, and depressed the imaginary buttons. "I have a more appropriate topic—your plans after graduation."
"That's my favorite topic," Duane said.
*
The next week, Duane called his father before going over, and he didn't ask if anyone was there or if it was OK to stay the night. He only stated his intentions: "I'm coming over to work on my fakies," or "I'm hanging out there this weekend," or "I'll see you in ten minutes." And sometimes Duane didn't bother calling before he went. He wanted to surprise his father, to be surprised, to walk in on something he wasn't supposed to see. Ball tickling, dick sucking, a rim job, the golden shower—all the lascivious acts gay men stereotypically engaged in. But nothing happened. He could find no evidence of Hayden. When his father wasn't home and Duane had the run of the place, instead of skating the half-pipe, Duane would search for gay porn, checking the magazine rack or rifling though his video collection. He checked his father's best hiding places—the sock drawer, the top shelf of his closet, underneath his bed—and found nothing but two joints and a ticket stub to an Elton John concert dating back two years. Why did gay men like Elton John? Was the music gay? What did it mean to be gay? Was a gay person ever attracted to a person of the opposite sex? Maybe being gay was a mind-set, or an odd, permanent form of self-absorption where you only wanted to be with somebody who was, well, yourself. Were these very thoughts gay? Duane pocketed the joints.
And his father never mentioned Hayden. At the dinner table, their conversation concerned Duane's lackluster grades and the Chico State waiting list, neither of which Duane cared to discuss. He would talk about the possibility of moving to Seattle with Lydia and getting a job making pizzas. Or Duane would ask what his father's plans were for the evening or weekend, trying to get him to simply say his boyfriend's name, Hayden, but his father's replies were elusive: I'm heading out for a few hours, or I have some errands to run. Nothing specific or too revealing until one day, right next to the kitchen phone, Duane found a small note his father had scribbled to himself: Meet Hay 3:30 Espressa Roma. This to-do list—the needling words which comprised it, the nicely-slanted script—mocked Duane. Meet Hay, meet Hay, meet Hay. Had his father really needed to write it down? How could he possibly forget he was supposed to meet up with his lover, Hay?
Before finding Gi'an and Alaska, Duane skated south through campus, towards the coffee house on Telegraph, the very street where everybody went for their daily dose of taboo—teachers meeting students, 14-year-olds buying meth and heroin and special k, underage punks sneaking into Buddy's Bar to play video poker—but this was Duane's father, an accountant who enjoyed rollerblading and tennis. And Elton John.
Once there he gazed through his own reflection at the cafe's innards. Several couples and groups of people crowded around dinky tables, steam rising off their coffee drinks. His father and Hay were sitting in the back corner near the bathrooms. The beau: a thin, closely-shaved face underneath straight blond hair; an expensive, electric blue suit—probably some Italian designer, Duane thought—with all the proper accouterments, a gold watch and cuff links, leather loafers (everything purchased from frou-frou boutiques in San Francisco, neighborhoods like Knobbler Hill or Specific Whites). Their faces were so loose and jocular. They were confiding. Ray and Hayden were impervious to everything and everyone outside of their love bubble. Duane envied their fearlessness, even felt proud to be his father's son, that was until he noticed they were holding hands, until they kissed. The sight made him feel insular, lonely, like how, Duane imagined, a Bay Bridge tollbooth attendant felt every day. Trapped in a box. Duane imagined them masturbating in front of each other, grunting hard and loud—weight lifters in a tollbooth. Later that night at Lydia's house, as she went down on him, Duane started grunting. She stopped, asked if she was hurting him; he said, don't stop and guided her head back towards his dick. She broke the grip of his hands, said, game over. Said, you never push a girl's head down to your dick.
*
The third time Duane spied, he decided to go into the cafe. He had longed to swim inside the bowl full of gay fish, to feel the warm, treated water.
Duane ordered a Mountain Dew and found a seat outside his father's field of vision, yet Duane was tempted to make some awful racket, to turn over a table, to begin loudly humming, "Rocket Man." They seemed to be having a meaningful conversation. Discussing the weighty matters—nothing wrong with that. Hayden cupped his hand underneath his chin, like The Thinker, while his father had both elbows propped on the table, his hands clenched, as in prayer, please God, let Hayden love me. Duane imagined Lydia sitting across from him, sipping a mug of coffee. He imagined them slipping into the unisex rest room and taking her. He imagined himself wholly inside of her, flowing with her blood.
Duane looked out the window, as if Lydia might be there. What he noticed made him jump, his arm nearly knocking over his Dew: his own mother, uniform clad, atop her official Berkeley Police Trek 550 Gazer, her hands visored over her eyes, struggling to see through her own reflection. Everybody in the café could see her, clear as day. She probably saw the situation as sad, Duane thought, as the lonely son craving his father's attention. Duane looked over at his father and Hayden safely ensconced in each other's words.
Duane hustled out of there. He approached his mother. "Shouldn't you be out writing some parking tickets?" Her face looked wind-blistered from biking.
"It's strange to see him holding hands....with a man," she said, peering through the window.
"So what, so let him hold hands," Duane said.
"You can't deny the discomfort. Look. He's kissing another man in the middle of the cafe." His father's lips brushed Hayden's shaven cheek. Duane felt the urge to unleash some of his own desire, to skate through flames, to light the health-and-wellness vendors of Telegraph Avenue on fire, to peel off every article of clothing, one by one, from Lydia's milky body. "When we were married I recall your father detesting public displays of affection."
"Ancient history. Not worth cracking that book."
His mom removed her out-of-fashion Oakley Blades. The skin around her eyes was pale, raw. "You really are uncomfortable with this. It's OK, I struggle with it—"
Duane interrupted: "—I'm fine with him. I'm fine with me. At least we're getting some," he said, gesturing to his father and back to himself. His mother's face tightened up, a knot impossible to undo. Immediately, he regretted saying this. To any stranger walking by, it might look like a cop was about to arrest some punk skater with bright yellow hair. This vagrant, this rail slider, this damager of property, this father hater.
The café door swung open. Out came his father and Hayden, the man in electric blue, both of whom glanced their way and then marched off in the other direction as if Duane and his mother were complete strangers. At the intersection, the happy couple walked through the crosswalk and turned towards campus.
"What a two-faced jerk," his mom said. "I should cite his ass for j-walking."
"He'd never pay it."
"I should cite you for being an ass."
For Duane it was time to skate.
"Over and out, sir." He saluted her. He stepped on his board and mongo-footed off toward campus. Near the entrance on University, Duane rolled right past his father and Hayden, who were keying into a beige Range Rover. Neither man acknowledged Duane. It was as if, in comic book fashion, he had turned invisible, silent. Then his father could not see Duane flip him the bird, nor could he hear Duane say, "SUV pussies," the words coming out louder than he planned.
*
Hanging out on Cal's leafy-green campus, they could work on smaller tricks—front and backslides, heelflips, hardflips, kickflips, railslides. The cement, the smooth declensions, the ledges and rims, the stairway rails—it was a skater's classroom.
On a small bowl, south of Wheeler Hall, Duane, showing off, pulled a lipslide, a trick Gi'an and Alaska wished for in their dreams. You must be relentless, unafraid to smack concrete, to crack a bone or two. Duane pulled a 180-shove-it-frontside revert. Alaska stood, his deck resting against his thigh, stunned. Gi'an attempted a railslide. His trucks got tangled on the back railing, catapulting him onto the cement, his skateboard rolling off into the grass. Unafraid to crush a toe, bend back a hand, snap a wrist. Gi'an wiped himself off, his face flushed red. "Where have you been, derelict?" he asked Duane.
"Spying on my dad," Duane said.
"You see anything?" Alaska asked. His head was a brillo-pad-like afro, the size of a child's basketball, over light chocolate skin and brown eyes and a flat nose. He had the body of an NFL linebacker, the IQ of genius. He was the proud owner of the highest GPA at St. Luke's, 4.5. In his backpack, he toted around The Cornel West Reader.
"They were making out, right at the table," Duane said.
"It's bad enough I have to hear my parents going at it," Gi'an said, "but your old man licking balls gives an entire new meaning to the phrase, 'parental consent'." Gi'an looked like somebody who'd deliver you a pizza half-eaten—curly black hair, blue eyes, some wicked tats up and down his arms. Like Duane, Gi'an was smart, but he cared very little about school and tried his hardest to show it.
"Stop being so crass," said Alaska. "The man's father is gay, and we need to offer him support," he said to Gi'an, his tone preacher-like. Alaska's parents were both professors of behavioral psychology at Cal—he knew the language.
"What is this, a men's club?" Gi'an asked. "Ray's gay, not Duane."
"You simplify everything to death," Alaska said to Gi'an. "We must consider this radical shift in Duane's sexual paradigm, this upsetting of his expectations, of our expectations. Let's face it. We looked up to Ray Nichols. He was the example. A free man, a man not afraid to build a half-pipe in his own backyard, a man not afraid to live by himself. He embodied the sexual hunter. Then BAM! The truth once again collapses our fantasies, forces us back inside of ourselves to reevaluate," Alaska said. "This shift isn't quotidian."
"This is not a shift," Gi'an said. "So Ray fucks men. It's passion. Go to Black Oak or Moe's and check out the gay lit section, these guys ooze with passion. They hunt one another. And that's more biddies for us." Gi'an turned to Duane, asked, "Really, what's Ray's fagness have to do with you anyway? It's not like he's trying to suck your dick."
"You watch your dad kiss another man," Duane said.
"That's just it. Why watch?" Gi'an asked. "You got nothing to worry about, you're fucking one of the hottest girls in Berkeley."
"Everything's about sex with you," Alaska said, "That's the only thing on your membrane. Our man here," Alaska gripped Duane's shoulder, "loves his girl. He's transcended the salaciousness that inhibits you from discovering any semblance of an emotional or spiritual connection with a girl. The sex and love braid together—"
Gi'an interrupted: "I don't buy that shit for a moment. What draws us to girls? We're horny. We want to lick faces, we want to squeeze boobies and get our hands down panties and make them moan." Gi'an was thrusting his pelvis like a dog in heat. His face looked as if he were about to spooge.
"I worry for the world," Alaska said.
"You should," Duane said. He knew Lydia's body—its pristine naked features—haunted him, and when he imagined others—college men, Mr. L, other boys—touching her, something acidic scraped against his insides. When she got to college in Seattle, she would meet an older guy. Why put off what was inevitable? Duane should just stop seeing her. Yet his was the same attitude that defeated a skater, that hindered his ability to pull a difficult trick. If your desire was large enough, then you stayed with the trick until you landed it.
Duane decided to skate. Late afternoon classes were letting out, clusters of students walking by, the soft presence of girls revitalizing him. His best friends were there. And he imagined Lydia standing next to them. They were all there to watch him. He dropped his board, pushed off, and pulled a few non-ollie kickflips, a move Alaska's heavy weight forbade him from doing, a move Gi'an's impatience kept him from developing. This was showing off. This was Tony Hawk. From the cement ledge, he dropped onto the stairway rail, his trucks smoothly sliding down, down, down till he leapt off, solidly planting the landing like a clap. A few students had gathered around to watch, but Duane skated over to Gi'an and Alaska—his best friends, his people—and kicked his deck into his right hand. The imaginary Lydia applauded.
"You've got some hella tight moves," Gi'an said.
Alaska's brow was furrowed. He said, "This whole thing has fucked you up."
"I don't care if my dad's a fag."
The few students who had stopped to watch now retreated, splintering off in different directions, to class, to the union, back to the dorm, to some place where they belonged. Duane skated.
*
The next day he skipped seventh period, Physics. Rather than spend 90 minutes nodding off to Mr. Davis's blathering, Duane retreated to his mother's house, played Super Nintendo and waited for Lydia to call him. He fell asleep and dreamed he was a skate jumper, launching off the ramp and taking flight over the Bay's enormous body, its blue mass like a beached whale. He skated over air, the feeling akin to skating down a long, steep incline, rolling along speedily, feet planted on the board, knees bent, cutting through the wind. He tried to shuffle his left foot back across the deck. He couldn't move it. The same with his right. As he descended, as it came time for him to land, he realized he didn't know how. He had never practiced landing on water, he had never failed, he didn't know the basics. He rode it out, he sliced...
Upon waking, he checked voice mail. There were three new messages, the first from his father, suggesting Duane not spend the night because Hayden would be staying over. His father, his tone indignant, said Duane needed to knock off the spying-business. Press "3" to delete. The second message was from Lydia saying she'd meet Duane at his father's house for the Thursday night special, i.e., skating and/or sex. He replayed Lydia's message again before saving it, wanting to hear her licorice-like voice. The final one was from Alaska and Gi'an; they'd drop by Ray's for a midnight skate.
In the hallway he stood next to his mother's bedroom door. He thought he heard the TV, but when he put his ear to the door, he heard her talking, her voice hushed. Was she on her cell? He couldn't decipher any words. Her tone sounded spiteful, frustrated. In a mental flicker he imagined some pissed-off skater thrashing his board against the concrete embankment, splitting his deck in two.
Duane walked in without knocking. His mother was sitting on her bed, not talking on the phone, but smoking a cigarette and flipping through a steam-wrinkled Cosmo. There was an ashtray on the bed sheet. This wasn't the first time he'd seen her smoke (the last was when he'd flunked Trig). She was likely upset, sorting out whatever was bothering her. She wore her green terry cloth robe, her mom-robe, and she had wrapped a white bath towel around her wet head. She looked somber with her tiny, hard eyes, her face still moist from being rinsed.
"You're angry at me," Duane said. He knew what he'd said to her —at least we're getting some—was mean and unfair. His mother, for reasons unbeknownst to him, rarely dated, didn't even mention or say she was attracted to anybody, even to movie-star men, like Richard Gere or Tom Cruise. She chose to remain living without a relationship. That was her business. Still the intention behind Duane's insolence had been to get his mom to stop bothering him, so an early apology was out of the question, and even if he wanted to say he was sorry, something inside of him—waywardness combined with dread, a metaphysical nausea—angered him. The least he could do, Duane thought, was acknowledge his assholeness.
"I'm not pissed off, not entirely," she said.
"What are you?"
"I cannot identify what I'm feeling." Her mom exhaled smoke through her nose and mouth—she had once been a pro smoker—and an oval-shaped cloud floated towards the ceiling.
"Let's open a window. Clear the air."
"You're missing it."
"Missing what?"
"Your lack of direction, your father's In-Style boyfriend." She folded her legs underneath her. "I have to begin thinking about myself, about my life." She began rubbing the skin on her fingers, as if scratching at a scab.
"You mean, like dating other men."
"No Duane, I don't mean dating other men, I mean my life, post-Duane."
Duane had not imagined his mom alone in the house, had not imagined her shuffling around on cold Saturday mornings, percolating coffee, eating her Corn Flakes, had not imagined her staring out the window at her garden, had not imagined her walking past his bedroom, cleared and empty, not looking into it, not knocking on the door to wake him, not telling him that coffee was brewed, strong, the way he liked it. He recalled his father and Hayden, walking past him on Telegraph, ignoring him. Come fall, he couldn't imagine where he'd be. It wasn't so much the decision he needed to make—where to go, when, whom to live with, etc…—it was the feeling that he was skating on a street that ended, that fell off, not into nothing, but into something he couldn't see or feel, like a dream just out of memory's reach.
*
Duane and Lydia rocked back and forth on the porch swing. The chains made this creaking noise, karee, karee, karee. She picked at his hair. Some nights you could taste the ocean salt in the air, as if the Bay were rising up, threatening to spill onto land.
"Doesn't look like anybody's home," Lydia said. His father's house was dark except for the porch light, which he usually kept on. "He's probably out on a date or at a dance club. Yet I can't imagine your father at a rave...No, he's old-school gay. Barbara Streisand, Boy George, and that one English guy, remember him, Liquid Duano, he was always unshaven, something about not having faith." Duane checked his watch. Not even ten. Karee, karee, karee. "We must take advantage of this empty house," she whispered, "We must have faith..."
Inside Duane listened for any movement upstairs. He padded softly through the house. If his father had been expecting Duane, then at least one light would be turned on. He sent Lydia to the TV room. He could see her silhouette, like a dark shadow, moving away from him. He grabbed two Pyramid Ales and found her running through the channels on his father's big screen. He switched on lamps and shut the blinds.
They drank their beers fast. They stared at each other, working up the proper lather of lust. Any talk before sex was merely chatter—blah-blah-blah—especially when they had the place to themselves. They began kissing and dry-humping. Lydia said, "Maybe we should go to your bedroom. What if your dad comes home?" Her voice was breathy, a warm spray.
"He's not coming home. He's out all night with Hayden," Duane said. The truth was he didn't know when his father was coming home. Maybe they were upstairs. Let them hear, Duane thought.
"I wish my father was gay."
"No you don't." He began to unbutton her jeans, but she stopped him.
"Why not? At least your father is with somebody. My parents have probably gone out on two dates. Every night, the same thing. My mom watches PBS, my dad retreats to his studio. Are they humans?"
"Not any more than my dad and Hayden are," Duane said.
"Wait a minute," Lydia said, her eyes widening, her mouth agape. "You're bothered by this. Your own dad repulses you. Are you afraid he's going to hit on you? It's the way they have sex that grosses you out."
"Don't tell me it doesn't make you cringe."
"It doesn't. It's two men not hiding anymore. God, it's so fucking honest I can taste it."
"Maybe my dad's hiding behind this other man."
"This isn't about him," Lydia said. "This is about you."
Duane unzipped her jeans, saying, "You don't disgust me. You...." Duane couldn't find the words. Make me horny sounded so porn. Turn me on sounded like a line said on a bad TV show. He wanted new words.
"You can't even say it," Lydia said, her voice growing louder. "Do I make you horny? Do you have a hard-on? What do you want to do to me? What are your fantasies?"
"Having sex and stuff," Duane said.
"Stuff! Stuff!" Lydia said, each word a rim shot. "What does stuff mean?" Lydia sat up, crossed her legs. Duane glimpsed the pink silk of her panties, her inny belly button. He felt like growling. "Here's a game. This will help you, Liquid Duano. Before we do anything, we must first say what we plan on doing. Before you take off my pants, you need to say, 'I'm going to take off your pants.' Don't hold back. Blow job, ball tickling, nipple sucking, doggy-style? Nothing to be ashamed of?" Her voice sounded huskier, unfamiliar, as if somebody had adjusted its treble.
"Did Mr. L teach you those words?" Duane asked. He watched her lips slowly deflate into two crooked lines. He realized his comment was wretched and would probably get him slapped. He could see the violence in her face. "You look like you want to hit me." She told him to fuck off and socked him in the gut. Duane doubled over, gasping for air, wheezing.
"I understand the whole school knows about Mr. L, but that was an awful thing to say. It was one night, Duano," Lydia said, shaking her head. "I don't know if I can be with you. You're hurting me."
Duane said, catching his breath, "Does that mean that you and Mr. L, well, you know ...."
"We fucked." Duane felt like covering his ears with his hands and singing la-la-la-la-la-la, but he also wanted to show Lydia he didn't need her lessons, that he had something to offer her, a place to stay inside of him.
"I understand the need to pull dangerous tricks." Duane drew her body into his arms, ran his fingertips over her shoulder blades and down her slight triceps, "Come on, Lyd, be my groovy girl." The frustration in her face didn't vanish as Duane had hoped it would, but she gripped his face in her hands, and her hold felt firm, forgiving.
"If you want me to stay," Lydia said, her tone strained, "Then you have to tell me exactly what you want me to do. Say it aloud."
At Duane's command Lydia stripped. Her jeans, socks, orange sweater, bra, and panties. Duane stated everything explicitly. "Kiss, rub, blow, lick, ride, neck, ears, nipple, clit, condom, insert." Everything was for him. His future wasn't college or some contrived career. It was Lydia. She breathed heavier, she screamed louder, and he never wanted this fuck-love to end. The second time, he tried to slow himself down, to barely rock her, to postpone coming. Lydia's face—her bulging eyes and her lips coated with drool—looked wild. She grunted like an animal, grabbed Duane's ass for leverage, and began pumping it, faster, faster, and Duane closed his eyes, saw Mr. L ramming into her, and this made Duane throw himself into Lydia, harder, harder, harder, and in a plaintive voice she said, "You're hurting me. Duano, this hurts, Duano, this hurts," and then she was screaming at him, but he kept on till the sliding glass door opened and his father walked in and yanked Duane off of her. His erection nodded in the open air like a bobble head on a dashboard toy. There was screaming. His father held Duane by his arms. Lydia, out of breath, wheezing like a sprinter, leaned forward and folded her arms over her chest. Her skin shone with sweat. Her pubic hair bristled. His father said to Lydia, "Was he forcing himself on you?"
"Can you throw me the blanket?" Lydia pointed with her chin. "That one draped over the couch."
His father handed her the quilt. "Was he forcing himself—?"
"No," Lydia interrupted, covering herself, "No, Ray, everything's fine. It just hurt."
"Is she OK?" Duane could hear Hayden's muffled voice on the other side of the glass door. "Do we need to call her parents or the police?"
Later Lydia dressed. Duane's father had left them in the family room and brought Hayden in through the front door. No introductions were made. She tied back her hair and then began pinching the skin on the back of her hand. She said, "I don't know about us, Duano. I just don't think so. You scare me." Her downcast eyes—she couldn't even look at him—and her harried manner, the way she ripped open the sliding glass door and disappeared into the black dark without looking back—it all made him feel vile like he'd raped her.
*
The kitchen was mostly dark, lit only by the porch light angling through the window onto the toaster.
"You and mom both wear green robes." His was new, faggy. It was slender and ended above the knees.
"Maybe you should go back to your mom's," his father said.
"Don't I get to meet him?" Duane asked, trying to sound composed, to play the understanding son. "I'd like to."
"I don't think he's in the mood. This stunt—Hayden thinks you're trying to sabotage us. What the fuck's your problem?"
"You're the one who ignored me at the café." Duane tilted his Pyramid Ale back, swigging it down like the college boy he would never be, gulp, gulp, gulp.
His father snatched the bottle from his mouth and clutched it in his fist like he was about to smash it against the counter. He said, "I don't want you to meet. Not now." His tone became vehement. "I think your hair looks ridiculous. I think you don't care if you ever meet Hayden, and I hope to God your girlfriend breaks up with you—" His father closed his eyes, breathed deeply. He was calming himself. "I asked you not to come over, or did you forget to check your voice mail?"
Duane pictured his father sliding his arms into the robe's skinny sleeves. It was Hayden's green robe.
"Then I'll go."
"To your mom's?"
"To skate," Duane said.
His father set the bottle on the counter, said, "It's too late."
"Fuck you."
*
It was midnight, and the boys were late. Duane stood on the ledge, the steep fall into the bowl below him. No pads, no helmet. Nothing. Tonight he wanted to skate in complete darkness, wanted to feel his way off the bowl, taking flight into the air. It was pure motion, like Lydia's gait, like her hair falling over her neck. Sitting Indian style, her legs folded underneath her, her toes burrowing into his father's deep pile carpet. Duane dropped into the bowl. Launching off the opposite rim, he pulled a 360, a move he'd been working on for nearly six months. It was Tony-Hawk time. He knew he had it in him, could feel his body flying higher with every launch.
The centrifugal force dragged him into the bowl's bottom, his skateboard tracing the "U" of the pipe, the lines growing thicker and thicker with each pass. And we should save ourselves. He flew higher into the chilly air than ever before, five, maybe six feet above the rim. Running through his mind were the words, And we should save ourselves, their meaning lifting him off the rim, catapulting him into flight. Bending back her leg, her hips buckling like an empty can. Harder, harder. This was his self-hatred relaying fresh images to the screen of his consciousness, except now he heard her voice, Duano, this hurts, stop. God, is he a fuck-up, Duano, this hurts, stop, Duane thought, propelling off the rim into flight. His heel caught the side of his deck, and with his foot then tangled in the trucks, his body slammed into the incline.
*
Duane was a bag of crumpled bones. Streaks of pain pulsed through his leg as if somebody had taken a hammer to his ankle. He felt blood on his temple, on his heel. He was leaking, his insides pouring out. A light came on in his father's bedroom, illuminating part of the half-pipe, the rest of the yard receding into darkness. Duane saw his anklebone. He was cold, sweating. He could smell damp grass and mud. Something, maybe an animal or the wind, shook the bushes. Gi'an's chalky-white face, Alaska's massive afro, his dark, shiny eyes—they appeared before him like ghosts.
"Pussylips took a bad spill. JESUS, it looks awful."
"We need to deposit him to an emergency room. Pronto."
"Go get his dad, the light's on, he must be up."
"You go do it."
"No, you."
"Not it."
"You always pull that 'not-it' shit on me...."
Duane knew everything would be OK because, yes, his best friends were here. They would know what to do, and everything would be OK. Yes his best friends knew everything would be OK. What to do, what to do, what to do—his best friends were here.
Bio Note
Jay Ponteri recently published work in Eye-Rhyme: Journal of New Literature and Cimarron Review. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
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Jay
Ponteri
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