The Realm of Possibility Read online

  For Billy

  (for the poetry of his friendship)

  Acknowledgments

  I have been graced with so many possibilities, it is impossible for me to thank everyone who's helped shine the way to this book. Once again, it started as a valentine to my friends. And once again, it belongs to them and my wonderful family, particularly my amazing parents.

  Many people helped me as I made my way through these pages. Billy Merrell, Eireann Corrigan, Jinny Wolff, and Dar Williams continue to inspire me with their words and music. Dan Poblocki, Ed Spade, Laura Heston, Michael Renehan, Nico Medina, Brian Selznick, David Serlin, Joe Monti, Cary Retlin, Jennifer Bodner, David Leventhal, Mike Rothman, and Patrick Flanery were all instrumental during the drafting of these lines. Everyone at Knopf has been a dream to work with, especially Amy Ehrenreich, Melody Meyer, and Melissa Nelson. And my colleagues and writers at Scholastic still teach me how to do it, every day.

  Without Nancy Mercado, this book would have never begun. Thank you for lighting the first match.

  Nancy Hinkel makes me the luckiest guy on the Lower East Side. Or anywhere else, for that matter.

  The word “unlonely” comes to me from Eddie de Oliveira's fantastic novel Lucky. “Possibility” was finished just hours after the commitment ceremony of my friends Jen Corn and Roo Cline. I hope it contains at least some of the glory of that day.

  one

  Daniel

  Mary

  Diana

  Megan

  smoking

  i've never smoked a cigarette with anyone but jed.

  senior year, driver's licenses,

  our town is so many miles

  with nowhere to go.

  nowhere but the woods,

  where leaves block out the haze of the city

  blocking out the stars.

  we pass the cigarette hand to hand, and

  somehow i can see the trail of smoke in the

  darkness. the way i can see jed's eyes

  even when there isn't any light.

  it would never have occurred to me to smoke.

  but one day we're at the 7-11 and jed says buy a pack.

  we have been in the 7-11 for twenty minutes

  reading newsprint about bat boy and the

  shocking! gay! love! affair! of someone

  in hollywood, and jed jokes that if our local

  paper was like that, we'd certainly be

  headline news.

  i have never wanted to be a cowboy

  but i ask for marlboros anyway.

  i have to prove myself

  with the photo that doesn't really look like me,

  only a department of motor vehicles version.

  i don't know whether to smile

  and it shows. i thank the shopguy like

  he's delivered the cigarettes to my door.

  it's only when we're back in the car that

  jed asks me if i got matches.

  I am so new at this.

  jed is not a smoker

  but he's smoked.

  i am not a smoker

  and i have never smoked.

  i light matches for candles

  for sitting in my room and wanting

  a flicker of life, a flicker of mood.

  the smoke i've known is

  vanilla scented.

  i think he will laugh but instead

  he tells me he loves the way i am.

  hearing those words is like

  being handed flowers. we walk

  to the woods and find the one bench,

  our hidden observation post.

  as we sit on the carved names of other discoverers

  he takes the cellophane from the pack,

  smoothes it between his fingers,

  and folds it into a ring.

  i open the cardboard,

  pull out a cigarette, slightly amazed

  at how light it is. like a piece of chalk

  made of paper.

  jed and i don't have much in common.

  he is much stronger than i think i am. he is

  mischievous, outgoing, ready to soar

  through clouds while i often feel

  like the cloud itself. we are a strange pair

  and we love that. we've been going

  to school together since sixth grade

  but we didn't really meet until last year's art class.

  we had both drawn escher patterns on our jeans.

  do you like magritte? he asked

  and at first i didn't really know jed was

  although i was sure he knew that i was

  but gradually we both knew

  and we knew.

  i hold the cigarette like i'm in a black-and-white movie.

  but when jed lights the match, it spreads to color,

  his skin in the campfire light, the spark of his eyes

  as he leans in to me. when the match touches,

  he says, breathe it in. i wait for the glow,

  the yellow smoldering to orange. i wait

  and then i inhale. one long drag as jed shakes off

  the match. i can taste the dark spice of the smoke.

  i take it in too long, too fast. my body says not yet

  and pushes the smoke back out in a cough. i feel

  foolish, but jed smiles and says i'm doing fine,

  better than he did. he takes the cigarette

  from my hand, brings the orange deeper, then

  hands it back to me and says try again.

  my parents are okay with me being gay

  but they would kill me if they saw me with

  a cigarette. which makes sense, in a way.

  my friend pete would also have something

  to say. he says his body is a temple, and i think

  that's the problem with the two of us lately. i don't want

  my body to be a temple. i don't want it to be

  worshiped or congregated. pete is an athlete

  and my next door neighbor and we've known

  each other so long that we can talk about anything

  except jed. or what pete calls

  that whole thing.

  the second breath works. the smoke

  fills my air. it doesn't feel good or bad

  just a buzz of different. we sit down and pass it

  back and forth. it is hard for us to be alone

  between school and our friends and our families

  and his track practice and my literary magazine.

  so this pause is heaven, feeling entirely

  open. we talk and sit close and the only

  time that passes is the ash that falls.

  i have never had anybody talk to me like this.

  this is not a flirty sixth-grade phone call or

  bantering with friends or words passed in a note.

  i feel that if my soul could talk it would

  talk like this.

  i am willing to smoke the cigarette until

  it disappears. jed tells me when it's time to stop.

  i reach into the pack for another but jed

  says one is enough. anyone can do more,

  but it will be our thing to do just one.

  we talk until our voices are tired

  and then we talk about what we're doing

  tomorrow. when i get home, the pack safely hidden

  in the trunk of my car, i am surprised

  to find that my hand still smells like smoke.

  i know i should wash it, hide it too, but

  the scent makes me think of him.

  so i let it linger.

  it becomes one of our rituals. like

  skipping sixth period study hall together
/>   like signing our notes with truth beauty freedom love.

  these things let us know how we fit

  with each other, even if we aren't sure

  how we fit with everybody else.

  i look at guys like pete and sometimes feel

  lost. he works out for two and a half hours a day.

  he has this perfection he wants to be.

  he travels in groups and looks so at ease.

  even though i know him well enough

  to know he gets nervous and tries

  too hard, i still look at him sometimes and

  think that's the way jed and i should be.

  when i am with jed, though, i don't

  care. we head to the soccer field for

  our second cigarette. beyond the goals,

  far from the school. we don't hold hands

  until we're out of view, but that gives it

  more of a charge. we can still hear people's

  voices, but they can't hear ours. we talk

  about growing up, about college. jed

  talks about the foreseeable future and

  how little there is that we can foresee.

  which gives the present more of a charge.

  inhaling deeply, i am aware that something

  touching my lips has just touched

  his. so uncomplicated.

  i can't pretend to know

  how to smoke. i just do it.

  i can't pretend to know

  what love is. it just is.

  because it is senior year i have begun to see things

  as potential absences. the things i love will become

  the things i'll miss. i don't know how to use this

  negative sight. when jed and i are playful i feel very

  young. when jed and i are serious i feel

  older, like how I feel when I'm wearing a suit.

  when i was twelve, smoking a cigarette would have

  made me feel old. when i am forty, maybe smoking

  will make me feel young. but right now all it makes me

  feel is that i am with jed and we are in the same place

  and time. when we kiss we taste the same.

  pete comes over to do homework later that night

  and he tells me my shirt smells like a concert and asks me

  if i went to see a band without him. i tell him

  i barely recognize his body from all the working out and he takes it

  as a compliment. tells me how much he's lifting and how much more

  he'd like it to be. i have known him since we were small enough

  to fit in a kiddie pool. i have heard about the girls

  he's made out with and he's heard about all the girls

  i didn't quite. back before i thought of friendship in terms of love,

  i would've never said we loved each other. and now

  that i think of friendship in terms of love,

  i'm still not sure.

  the first time jed asked me on a date i almost

  cried. this was in the middle of junior year. having

  someone think of me that way was like discovering

  a new window in the room i'd lived in all my life.

  in my english notebook, i had cataloged his graces

  while in his mind he had detailed my kindnesses,

  dreamed about saying things i dreamed of hearing.

  he had been seeing someone and i had seen a lot of people

  from afar. we realized the only thing separating us

  was air. we walked through it with simple words.

  we knew that all we had to do was tell two people

  for the whole school to know. so we told two people

  and were a little surprised when nothing happened

  except our surprise. we were okay, i think, because

  we kept to ourselves. which was exactly where

  we wanted to be.

  i drive around and smile when i think of the cigarettes

  in the trunk. one time my mother needs to borrow the car

  and i spend the whole day nervous that she'll crush them

  with her groceries, discover them and turn on me

  with questions. jed teases me all day and then

  when we get the car back he insists there's a cigarette

  missing, that my mother has stolen one from us on the sly.

  i've lost count—are we on seven or eight?—it

  no longer matters. we sit on our bench and listen for owls

  and i feel like i am at home in the world.

  we make it to the last cigarette, proud

  of ourselves for sticking to our plan. it is a sunday night,

  television hour, and we are fugitives

  in the park after sundown. i light the match this time

  as jed inhales. and i, who have never thought

  in terms of a life, think to myself that

  i could make a life out of this.

  not the smoking, but the aura of smoking,

  the togetherness and the nightfall and the words

  that we share. i could make a life out of this.

  i, who have never been prepared.

  we are quiet tonight, but in the same

  silence. we hear the footsteps together,

  too many of them, and loud. i can tell from the way they walk,

  the way that jed and i don't really walk,

  that they're guys from our school. and i am

  scared. in a way that jed is not scared.

  it's not until they're closer, until they're seeing us,

  that i realize one of them is pete.

  one of the guys says, what's this? and pete

  just looks at me. i say hello, ask him

  what's up. and all he can say back to me is

  you're smoking?

  he says this seriously and i

  laugh. he doesn't join me and i feel us

  becoming untied. the guys move on, one or two of them

  making jokes about me and jed, about interrupting.

  pete does not look back. he's walking away and at the same time

  i feel like i'm the one leaving him behind. i realize

  i have already made a life out of this. i am capable

  of making a life. i pass the cigarette to jed after taking

  one last drag. he asks me if i'm okay and i say i'm

  more than that. he agrees, and wipes some ash from my shirt.

  the night continues, and we continue. i fold

  the empty pack of cigarettes in my pocket, to keep.

  once time is lit, it will burn

  whether or not you're breathing it in.

  even after smoke becomes air

  there is the memory of smoke.

  i am seeing, as if by the light of a match,

  a glimpse of my life

  and having it feel right.

  this will linger.

  tinder heart

  i.

  don't touch me

  i said

  because i can't

  handle

  someone being

  good to me.

  he heard me

  and he listened

  and i thought

  my body would cry

  from all it felt

  and all it couldn't.

  he leaned

  on the pillow and i missed him

  so i curled into

  his side and stroked

  his arm. i didn't

  mind touching him.

  he was solid.

  he was there

  as i dissolved.

  why do you

  do this?

  he asked.

  even though

  i wasn't sure

  what he meant

  i said

  i don't know

  because that

  had become

  my answer

  to everything.

  ii.

  there i
s

  negative noticing

  and there is

  positive noticing.

  i walk the hallway with

  my friend elizabeth

  and i can't help

  but hate her

  because she doesn't care

  if they notice

  (negatively)

  or if they notice

  (positively)

  and i hate myself

  because i can't help

  caring, looking to see

  if they notice

  and what they think.

  you can see

  her bra strap

  it's practically

  at her neck

  and because of this

  i'm not listening

  as she asks me

  about last night

  about pete

  and what he means

  to me. she doesn't like

  how big he is or

  how little i am

  even though

  she doesn't care

  what shape she's in

  or whether her

  bra strap is showing

  for all the world to

  ignore.

  three boys pass

  without seeing me.

  i should be glad

  but instead

  i'm the opposite.

  the negative.

  iii.

  he intercepts me

  outside the cafeteria.

  we'd been at his house

  which meant i was

  the one to leave.

  and as i walked home

  i imagined him

  on the couch

  still reaching for me

  still touching air.

  how are you?