he finally climbs back into his room, the lights are out, and Jackson is sleeping. Under his blanket, Robin shimmies off his pajama pants and his underwear; then he pulls the pajamas back on. The synthetic material is slippery against his ass and his dick, which makes him feel exposed and daring. Is this why Todd doesn’t wear underwear, for this sensation, this freedom?
Lying awake, replaying the night’s events in his mind, he pushes down the covers and raises up his shirt. His fingertips trail feathery across his belly. The skin along his ribs shudders with pleasure. He liked seeing that strip of hair on Todd’s stomach, but he likes the smoothness on himself. He feels his dick stretch and stiffen. With a glance to Jackson’s bed to make sure he’s really sleeping, Robin reaches under his waistband. His fingers close around his dick as if he’s giving it a handshake. Does Todd do this, touch himself this way? He must—all boys do, according to what he read in the “Ask Beth” advice column in the Record. It occurs to him suddenly that each accidental contact between him and Todd in the car was instigated by Todd; it was Robin who retreated every time. Was this some new game Todd was playing, a more crafty version of calling him names? Why else would Todd have done it? He doesn’t answer his own question; instead he rubs himself more insistently, until the friction burns so sweetly that he has to stop. He wants to keep going, but it feels like trouble.
He is sitting in the Greased Lightnin’, the ’57 Thunderbird that John Travolta soups up and drives to victory in Grease. Travolta is tensed and focused behind the wheel, and Robin sits next to him, sits on his lap—no, he’s behind him, in the backseat, his hands braided into Travolta’s lacquered hair. He keeps shifting, but Travolta stays in place. The speedometer escalates. Where are you taking me? he asks, or he thinks he asks—he’s not sure. A siren blares at his back, a squad car giving chase. Todd speeds up the car. Todd is driving, not John Travolta. Todd’s driving so recklessly Robin’s body rattles.
Gulping in air, hands over his head, fingers scratching at the headboard—he’s awake. Awake and alarmed: I did something wrong. He rolls on his side, and then he feels it—warm goop like rubber cement in his tangled pubic hair.
Morning rays push through the blue corduroy curtains, the light thick and cloudy, like something you should skim, like pool water. Jackson’s bed is empty, thank God. He pulls the covers over his head and sniffs deeply. It’s a pool smell, chlorine, with the weight of some other damp thing: moss, soggy bread, an old washcloth. He touches it, licks his finger. Slimy, sweet, bitter—all of that. He knows what this is. Nocturnal emissions, they called it in health class. Wet dreams. He remembers Travolta, the car, the vibrations of the ride. The sirens. He squeezes his eyes shut as if in defeat.
At least this morning Jackson, with his acute, bratty radar, his relentless teasing, is already up. Robin wipes himself with a T-shirt, pulls on some pants, strips the sheets quickly. It’s two flights down to the washing machine. Arms full, he heads to the stairs.
“I want to talk to you about last night—” His mother, emerging in a blast of humidity from the bathroom, toweling her hair, is addressing him. “It’s one thing for me to have an occasional cigarette, but I don’t want you to get any ideas—what are you doing?”
“Just doing some wash,” he says with a wide, false smile, as if this is normal.
“Robin, I cleaned those two days ago.” She moves forward, peering at the soiled bundle, prepared, he realizes, to take it from his hands.
He clutches the sheets tighter, wanting to trap the smell, keep his secret. His skin is heating up. A split-second image: Travolta’s face—or is it Todd’s?—laughing at his predicament.
“Mom,” he says in the firmest voice he can muster. “They need to be cleaned. Trust me.” Her face is blank for a moment before something registers. Then she blushes, too.
“Oh, well, go ahead, sure. Just throw them in the washer, and I’ll put them in the dryer later. We have to get you ready for school.” She turns away hurriedly, muttering something—scolding herself?—and closing the bedroom door behind her.
A panicky jolt: today’s the first day of high school. He’d been so focused on his dream, he’d forgotten. His first wet dream. He’s been waiting for this, a plunge into the world of puberty, of sex. A couple of years ago, Victoria had been waiting for her first period, and she let him know as soon as it happened. He feels only the pressure to conceal. If he told someone, they’d ask about the dream, and what could he say? There were no girls in it, just him and Travolta and Todd and the police. All his life police have crowded his dreams, and he always wakes sure of his own guilt. It stays with him each minute of the day, a slight burning flame in the back of his mind. Unseen, constant as a pilot light.
He takes to the stairs quickly, dragging his mess to the basement, wanting to be free of it.
Sitting in the backseat of the Camaro, Robin finds Todd’s eyes in the rearview mirror. Todd flashes him a sly smile and says, “This morning is the traditional first-doob-of-the-year party in the courtyard, Robin. You gotta be there.” Todd pretends to smoke a joint and “passes” it to him. When they get to the parking lot, Todd fakes a punch to Robin’s chest and winks at him before he leaves.
None of this escapes Victoria’s attention. “So are you two supposed to be friends now?” she challenges.
“It’s just a new way for him to bother me,” Robin says dismissively—though, in fact, he’s not bothered; he feels triumphant. Not once did Todd call him that name.
Chapter Two
EXPECTATIONS. REALITY.
Mr. Cortez writes each word on the blackboard, then draws a vertical line separating them. “What kind of things have people told you about high school? These are your expectations. What did you find when you got here? That’s reality.” This is group guidance, the last class of Robin’s first day of school, a class provided just for freshmen: “a rap session” was how Cortez, his guidance counselor, had described it when Robin met him last spring for orientation. Cortez is a young Puerto Rican guy with a mustache and curly hair. He wears Frye boots and tells the students, “Expectations and reality don’t always match up. That can be a really bad trip. That’s why we try to keep the lines of communication open and not get hung up.”
Robin’s own gloomy expectations for the day have largely been met. Every class begins the same: nervously waiting for seats to be assigned. He longs to sit in the back, or along the windows—somewhere inconspicuous—but the tyranny of alphabetical order always leaves him smack dab in the middle, an “M” surrounded on all sides, third row across, third row back, like some obnoxious center square on Hollywood Squares—like Paul Lynde, except he wasn’t even as funny as Paul Lynde. (He remembers a question from the show: “Betty Ford said it was her second greatest pleasure in life. What was it?” Paul Lynde: “Sucking on a rum cake.”)
All the guys in his classes have longer hair than they did last year. They look like teenagers now—taller, wider necks, deeper voices. There are three acceptable ways to dress: sports team logos (for the jocks), concert T-shirts (the scums), and plaid shirts with snaps instead of buttons (the brains). Robin’s in a polyester patterned thing, brown and gold and white, and snug fitting, chocolate brown dress pants that he really likes—though after looking around at what everyone else is wearing, he starts to think he might like them too much.
Humiliations great and small greet him every class period. In English, the guy in the seat in front of him, Jay Lunger, announced, “Your name is gonna be Ears.” Jay was bigger than him by a couple of inches and had no problem saying whatever he wanted. When Robin tried to laugh off the insult, Jay said, “It’s not that funny. You’re walking around like you got half a plate on each side-a your head.” For the following forty-five minutes Robin examined every pair of ears in the room: how far they stuck out, how long they were, if the lobes were attached or not. Between periods he checked himself out in the bathroom mirror, turning his head from side to side. His ears weren’t that big, he reasoned, they just curved out at the top, like fins on a classic car. He decided he’d have to grow his hair longer anyway, just in case he