Blue Boy Read online

  I open my mouth once the music begins and start singing Whitney’s words. Regardless of what the kids in this gymnacafetorium think of my personality, they know that I have a good singing voice, and they all have impressed expressions on their faces when I begin. Soon enough, though, they remember that they are supposed to be finding fault with me and start commenting on how only a sissy would sing this song. Once my singing finally ends, they are talking out loud about how weird I am, and although Mrs. Nevins tries to shush them several times, I can hear the complete lack of earnestness in her voice and know that she would just as soon smash my cassette tape with a hammer than support my presence on this stage.

  I shrug all this off and finish the dress rehearsal as coolly as I can. As a group, all of the cast members are supposed to sing a unison version of “That’s What Friends Are For,” and we oblige as best as we can from the lyrics that Mrs. Nevins hands out to us. Most of the people on stage giggle madly while we sing it, not taking the dress rehearsal seriously and yelling throughout. This show is supposed to be fun—it’s supposed to be fun to do it together—and a lot of people are taking the time to enjoy the preparation and kick back. I, meanwhile, cannot fall into so easy a trap. This year, the show is not about joking around and simply enjoying myself. It’s about joining my talent and my spirituality.

  But then another member of the Rhythm Nation starts crying and practically tears her costume off in frustration. It’s then that I remind myself to have some fun.

  At night, which I have come to see as my witching hour, I hold a tiny séance to prepare myself for the show.

  Part of me is extremely sad that my parents don’t know I’m performing tomorrow night, especially since they’ve come every past year, but in the midst of all their frustration with me, they seem to have forgotten that it is now almost Thanksgiving, when the show usually occurs, and that Dad should be packing up the camcorder while Mom takes the still camera. Instead, they retired early tonight after watching Primetime Live, my mother, then my father, paying me hardly any attention as I pretended to do math homework at the kitchen table. I listened to my father’s feet thud up the staircase in the foyer, reminded as I often am of the difference between the way he ascends heavily and the way my tiny feet whisper up the stairs. I waited a reasonable amount of time before I ascended, too—just after taking a couple of sticks of butter out of the refrigerator, of course.

  I turn on my beside lamp, sit on the floor of my room, and lay the instruments of my séance before me: the sticks of butter, already softened in their wax paper; the recorder, which I have wrapped in Reynolds Wrap to make it look silver; my costume, folded into a glistening pile of magenta and gold, along with a peacock feather I’ve plucked from our living room decorations; a page from Penthouse that shows a man from the waist up, his bare torso and strong shoulders and chiseled face; and a picture of Krishna that I tore out of a library book. It shows Krishna broad-shouldered and blue, holding a flute in one hand and a bow and arrow in the other. It shows Him as strong and handsome as I want Him and me to be, and I place it in the middle of all of the objects to stress its importance.

  I light a little Strawberry Shortcake candle that I won at a school fair a few years ago. I never planned on lighting it and wanted to keep it in pristine condition forever, but I figure that this séance is an important enough occasion to open its candy-striped box and pull the mini replica of SS’s head out, a cowlick wick sprouting from its top. Once it is lit, I turn the lamp off, relishing the way the candle bumps warm light all over my room.

  While looking at that flame, I remember the time that Mrs. Nolan had us make hot chocolate during our fourth grade holiday party. She brought in a little burner that fit between the blackboard and a filing cabinet at the front of the room. She put a pan on top of the burner and mixed a delicious brew of Swiss Miss, milk, water, and miniature marshmallows. While we sat at our desks and ate the red-and green-sprinkled sugar cookies that Hannah Skinner’s mom made for us, Mrs. Nolan stirred the hot chocolate and tried to turn it into a science lesson.

  “Class,” she said, pointing toward the flame under the pan, “see the flame underneath this pan?”

  We nodded dismissively, focusing most of our attention on the chewy delectability of the cookies.

  “Most people think that the hottest part of a fire is the orange part of it,” she continued. “But that’s not true, class. The hottest part of a flame is actually this blue part right here.” She pointed lower, the tip of her finger almost touching the fire. In her demure black sweater and red skirt, she seemed like an unlikely pyromaniac. “The hottest part of the fire happens here. See—you learn something new every day.”

  I didn’t think much of her observation then, but as I look at the SS candle in my room, I focus on the blue of its flame and make a connection to my own life: I am like that flame. I may not be as normal or confident as the other kids I know, but I feel things much more intensely than they do. I burn more intensely than they do. Haven’t John Griffin and his goons called me a “flamer” before? I know what they mean by that—a boy who is so sissy that he is “flaming gay.” Perhaps I am, just not in the way that they think. They have no idea what sort of emotional flood rages in me every day, how alternately high and subtle my sexuality can be. Like a fire that works and rages to provide a glow but whose efforts are invisible to us, I struggle secretly but powerfully.

  For the first time in my life, I wonder if there might be people just like me in my school, other “flamers” who have the same sexual desires I do, just not overtly. I am the figurehead of a secret, sacred brotherhood of blue flame souls—the first blue boy. Accompanied by the instruments of my return to this blue Earth, I close my eyes and hum “Om” to myself while feeling genuinely happy for the first time in a very long time. All of my worries about the show and my parents and my (lack of) friends melt away like this mock-SS’s wax head. It is only when a thick stream of pink wax curls up on the carpet, oozes against my foot, and stings me back into reality that I pack up my gypsy sideshow and go to bed. The sky will soon lighten as it always does, and there is no more hopeful moment than that: when time is tomorrow but still carries a strain of today, when we’re wiser and reborn all at once.

  Another Op’nin’, Another Showdown

  The night of the show.

  This morning, I told my mother that I had another impromptu rehearsal after school. To further solidify the lie, I told her that we’re working on a holiday ballet for my dance class and that I’m playing the Little Drummer Boy. My mother’s eyebrows rose excitedly, and I think somewhere deep inside of her she interpreted that as meaning I was undertaking tabla lessons at last! But then she recognized the words as a holiday song and nodded once. Had my story not been so interesting, she might have told me the ballet was as forbidden as the talent show. But I’ve gotten too good at lying.

  I stuffed my costume in my bag again, not taking any books with me this time. Yesterday, I had to skip my study session with Mrs. Goldberg in order to go to the dress rehearsal, and I feel as detached from my schoolwork as I’ve ever been. Normally, I would find this upsetting, but I find it liberating today. Everything is in service of this performance, and if my schoolwork has to suffer, so be it.

  How did I get here? I ask myself again. How did everything come down to this one measly performance in a measly little wannabe-gym in a measly little brick edifice in a measly little Ohio town? How, of all places, did Krishna decide to set his circus down here? I guess for the same reason that my parents decided to set their circus down in Ohio. Some migrations have no logical explanation.

  Mrs. Nevins and her crew have transformed the gymnacafetorium into a veritable auditorium. The special red velvet curtain that they save for special occasions like this has been installed. The lights in the room, normally gold with fluorescence, have been turned off entirely, and instead, there are two full moons of spotlight projected onto the red curtain, as if we’re at a movie premiere. Instead of the usua
l cafeteria tables that fill the space, there are several rows of black folding chairs arranged so neatly that they resemble metal ears of corn.

  This year, there’s a disco ball hanging from the ceiling. Mrs. Nevins is a lunatic.

  When I get to the theater—rather early, considering that I did not go home between the end of school and the 7 p.m. cast call time—Mrs. Nevins is already in a turquoise sequined dress, her hair very big and unmoving due to hairspray. (Now I know why she didn’t attempt the earphones; they would never have fit over her hair volcano.) She is wearing a ton of makeup, and her nails look like shiny red beetles eating her fingers. She is visibly nervous. Part of me warms to her, thinking how noble it is of her to give up so much of her time for one night of talent. She gets no incentive for doing this show aside from seeing us students have our fifteen minutes—or, rather, five minutes—of fame, and she is so excited for us that she has dressed herself up nicely. She even tries to be polite when she sees me saunter in. She looks up at me and smiles briefly before bending back down over her sound-board and making sure everything is in place.

  The other acts gradually come in. Some of them move with cool anticipation, some of them are crazed. The Rhythm Nation still hasn’t quelled its civil unrest, and the girls are still trying to figure out how to fill up their routine with cheerleading-style moves. Without pom-poms in their hands, however, their “rah rahs” are basically Hitler salutes. The Smurfs are all here, too, even scarier now that all of them are in full costume.

  Then I see Mrs. Buchanan make her way into the dimness of the room.

  She is so obviously saddened by what has happened to her room that it freezes me in my tracks. She is dressed in even more layers than usual, wearing a puffy winter coat that looks like someone donated it to her via Goodwill. She is wearing galoshes that track in dirty trails of water, and even in this relative darkness, the pallor of her face is even lighter than usual. The art room wasn’t just a classroom but her place of work for over two decades, a place where she had supervised the beloved, if often demented, art projects of countless little children. Perhaps before she became such a smarmy schoolmarm she was a buoyant and loveable figure.

  Then I hear her growl hello to Mrs. Nevins and my feelings of pity instantly disappear. She’s Gargamel to these rambunctious Smurf-demons.

  I am very nervous, but not in the way that I have been in the past. Right before my other talent show performances, regardless of whatever humiliation the previous year’s act might have brought, I have normally felt a productive anxiety that turns my jitters into magic. This year, I feel no such heartening force.

  As Mrs. Nevins herds us into the nearby classroom that acts as our dressing room, I can see tons of students and their parents arriving and seating themselves in the black folding chairs. Unbelievably enough, Sarah and Melissa both show up with their parents—the Turners and Jenkinses, respectively—and I see that their parents are just as ostentatious as they are. Their mothers look like the grande dames from Designing Women, and their fathers—with their long, brushed hair and sport coats—look like a cross between the cops on Miami Vice and suave car salesmen. Maybe that’s because they are car salesmen, although Mr. Turner sells new Pontiacs and Mr. Jenkins sells used Hondas. Sarah and Melissa look downtrodden in the same way that Mrs. Buchanan does, and when I notice my fellow performers pointing at them and making fun of their punishment, I instantly feel a little better.

  I also see Cody and Donny show up, although neither of them is with his parents. It would take Cody breaking the world cigarette-smoking record to pull Beverly away from her TV set, I’d wager. They steer clear of Sarah and Melissa, which is a shame because I’m sure Sarah’s and Melissa’s fathers would love to toss them in a used car’s trunk before pushing it into the Ohio River.

  Next I see Mrs. Goldberg. She appears with a man at her side, and for the first few seconds, I don’t register who he is. It’s her husband. He is very large, the type of man who must shop at “big and tall” stores, and his hair is dark and curly. He is wearing a teal sweater with a white shirt underneath, and his feet are so big that I can’t tell if he’s wearing boots or just large black shoes. When they seat themselves—in the front row near the middle—he puts his hand around her waist protectively. Somewhat surprisingly to me, she follows his hand’s lead, moving down into the chair as if guided by it.

  What will Mrs. Goldberg think when she sees me in my costume, a real-life depiction of the drawings she so thoroughly enjoyed? What will she—and Mrs. Buchanan—think when they see me defying them and putting that art on stage instead of tacked up on a bulletin board? I am manipulating Mrs. Goldberg in my head the way I would any other expectation or idea. I focus on the act of her watching me. I wonder what it would be like to shock her with my act, to make her thrilled with fright. It might feel so amazing to scare her into seeing why I am even more brilliant than she thinks. Regardless of the pivotal and pleasant role she has played in my life until this point, Mrs. Goldberg’s function this evening is to bear witness to my bizarre uniqueness just like everyone else. Tonight, the people out there are not so much an audience—something that hears—than they are an experience—something that senses and feels.

  I’m still not in my real costume. I can’t put it on yet because if Mrs. Nevins sees me in it, she will immediately recognize it as too religious—or as too Indian, which amounts to the same thing—and will become suspicious of my act. So I am still dressed in my bright “street clothes.” The kids around me are starting to become suspicious of my getup, especially because they know I’ve dressed in a blazer and clip-on tie in past years (with the exception of Sebastian, of course). They all look at me as I look at the audience, and I cannot help but wonder why they should pay any attention to me when they have their own acts to tend to. I guess it’s because they know that usually I sit in a corner and concentrate on what I’m going to be performing instead of walking around all antsy. Nothing gets past them when it could possibly lead to my degradation.

  My mind-set is not so uneasy, though. I don’t even care anymore if this act is graceful. I want it to be fierce in its message. I want it to be as warlike and in-your-face as Krishna’s daredevil stunts. I want it to show these closed-minded people what true Indian panache is. Perhaps Hanuman the Guinness Book Wonder was onto something: perhaps we do have to dance the hell out of time and space to make a mark on the world. Perhaps true beauty is not prim and reverent but messy and a little bit ugly. Look at all these addled amateurs around me—the Rhythm Nation, the Smurfs, the cheerleaders and lip synchers and dear God, is that a hopscotch act? Let them have their innocent wandering. I, meanwhile, will get tangled in my sari-suit and do something that has never been done before. Or that hasn’t been done in thousands of years.

  Mrs. Nevins eventually rushes into the classroom and commands us to line up in order of stage appearance. I am stuck between Tiffany Myers—the girl, as you might recall, whose father works in “produce” at the local grocery store—and Stevie Olson, a tow-headed box of a boy who smells like a mixture of onions and cologne. Tiffany is dressed in a purple leotard and is holding a purple hula hoop that she plans to swing around herself while bopping to “Jimmy Jimmy” by Madonna (for a change). Stevie is dressed like a cowboy and holds a cardboard guitar for his Garth Brooks lip-synch number. Mrs. Nevins is a veritable shepherd as she waves us into the gymnacafetorium. We line up along the wall as we practiced during the dress rehearsal, each of us trying to act oblivious to the crowd but not able to help ourselves as the people in the audience point at or whisper about us. I walk delicately, nervously, thinking not about the people as much as I do about my act.

  All of my frantic preparation has come down to this. Somewhere above me, through the concrete ceiling of this room, through the thin smog that hangs over this suburb, through the deep blue darkness of the sky and perhaps through the watery sheet of a firmament, Krishna is looking down and grinning.

  The show starts with the usual speech
by Principal Taylor, who is wearing the same sort of power suit she would wear during the school day. She seems to be playing a version of herself, and her speech is as stiff as her collar. The audience claps timidly after her curt welcome, unsure whether it deserves applause while restless to see us children strut our stuff. Mrs. Nevins gets behind her table, and the sound of her pressing “Play” on the tape deck for the first song makes a loud click. It is the gunshot at the beginning of the race.

  The temporary curtain pulls back—the result of heavy pulling by Wilford, a hefty guy with a black baseball cap and ponytail who helps us out every year but never utters a single word. Onstage is last year’s toast of the town, Kevin Bartlett, with the same cardboard guitar he used then strapped to his hip. The music gears up, and it’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard. The audience loses its mind. Half of them are on their feet before ten seconds are up. The kids in line with me, along with the audience, start clapping in time to the music—something they do with almost every act regardless of its tempo. An appearance by “Eternal Flame” a couple of years ago was so laced with clapping that it sounded like the Bangles were being spanked into oblivion. The crowd, kids and adults alike, is never able to maintain the same level of enthusiasm throughout an act—especially when it’s a boring lip-synch deal like Kevin’s—so the clapping tapers off midway, leaving the performer in a worried state. The sonic fireworks of Def Leppard’s screeching sound almost cruel as he strums silently and finishes with a half smile.

  The shitstorms keep on coming, one right after the other. The Rhythm Nation finally takes the stage, with two of the girls colliding at one point and the other trying to tend to them. One of the girls—I can’t even tell them apart at this point—ends up breaking down in tears again and gives the audience a fierce grimace. They are followed by Tommy Wilkins doing a few “magic” tricks in a cape and top hat. From what I can tell, he basically plays a game of solitaire with himself and takes a bow. He does this to a soundtrack of “The Entertainer” by Scott Joplin; the audience claps, of course, and somewhere Scott Joplin turns in his grave and wishes he were capable of dying again. When Frank Martin follows up this act by playing the very same song on the out-of-tune upright piano by the stage, I start to wonder if Mrs. Nevins has an actual brain, let alone any idea how to plan an artistic event.