“You’re gonna tell what we did?”
“Hell, no!” Rubin said, “and you better not either or I’ll kick your ass. But I’ll make sure Mr. Bollars makes you spar against older, rougher, larger students. You won’t beat up scrawny
Donnie no more.”
“All because I won’t let you fuck me any more?”
“And the fact that you tricked me.”
“How’d I trick you?”
“I thought you wanted it just like me. But you just did that to get the picture out of me. You used me.”
“Used you? How you figure? We both got something we wanted, only you can’t get yours any longer and you’re mad about it.” I swam to the deep end.
Rubin didn’t say anything, which surprised me. He got back on the diving board while I completed lap after lap. I was a little hurt that Rubin didn’t call me back to him. I wouldn’t let him screw me again, but I wanted to see him beg for me. I was going to enjoy his pleading while knowing he couldn’t have me.
A few hours later, Dad hollered at us that the roast was ready. After toweling off and changing into dry clothes, we ate. Rubin sat in Mom’s chair at the dining table and he and I still didn’t say anything to each other. To fill the silence, Dad talked about tae kwon do and black belts, how Rubin and I would be the youngest black belt tandem in the country and news crews would come to interview us and our faces would be on TV from shore to shore. “Everyone in America who’s paying halfway damn attention will know you boys’ faces.”
I looked at Rubin’s smooth brown skin, not a blemish on it. Mom, one day at the dojo, had even said to him: “You’ve got such pretty skin. You’re not gonna have a problem finding girlfriends.” If Mom only knew he wanted to use her son as his girlfriend. Since Rubin had a prettier face than mine, if we did become famous, he would steal the limelight with his good looks. No news crew would pick the acne-riddled fat boy to be the center attraction. The only advantage I had was youth, and if I could become the youngest black belt in America, that would be even more impressive than a pretty-boy Puerto Rican. Shoot, maybe my weight and acne could get me sympathy from the public.
After we ate, Dad returned to his bedroom, a cold Michelob in hand, to watch TV. I didn’t want Rubin in my bedroom, but I couldn’t tell him to leave or lock him out of my room without coming clean to Dad as to why I didn’t want Rubin near me. I kept my bedroom door open, and knowing that Dad was only a few feet away in his room gave me some safety. I sat on the floor, my back against my bed, playing Space Invaders. Since I had been without it for over a month, it seemed like a whole new game. I relished each alien I shot and each death I suffered was more tragic than the last.
Rubin, following my lead, lay on the floor by the closet door, propped up on one arm, electronic football on the floor in front of him. Every few minutes he gestured toward the closet and I shook my head. Dad would find us for sure and hate me. Dad, on his way to the kitchen for another beer, paused in front of my door and arched his eyebrows at me, his way of asking if things were fine. I nodded and he walked on to the kitchen. The glass clanked when he threw away the bottle, and I heard the hiss as he opened another. Then the door slammed. Dad was outside. This was not good.
“Hey, man” Rubin said, “come over here.”
I walked out of the room and hoped he wouldn’t follow. In the kitchen, Dad walked back in, handed me his beer, and said: “Pal’s jumped the fence again. I’m gonna go look for him.”
“Want me to go with you?”
“You stay here with Rubin. Pal couldn’t have gotten far. I won’t be gone long.”
I placed the beer in the fridge and tried to decide when to return to my room. Dad wanted me to stay with Rubin so he wouldn’t have an opportunity to steal anything. But Rubin was in my room and I didn’t have anything to steal. And he couldn’t take the picture back. That would make him what Dad called an Indian-giver. But Rubin could damage the picture, color on it, tear it up—any number of things. After what he’d said about making my life hell at the dojo, I believed he might do something underhanded to the picture.
The best way to check on the picture and not go in the bedroom was to walk past my door and into the bathroom. This would look natural and be much better than simply standing in the hall and tipping Rubin off that I was checking on him. As I passed my bedroom, I saw that the picture was still in tact but did not see Rubin. A moment later, when I entered the bathroom, I
found him. He’d been hiding behind the bathroom door, which he quickly shut and locked behind me.
“Pull your pants down,” he said.
“No.”
He rubbed his body against mine, grabbing my butt and grinding on me. His hard dick rubbed against me. I was sick. He kissed me; at first on the lips, then he rammed his tongue into my mouth. At the time, I had only kissed a few girls as playground dares, and never like this. His mouth tasted metallic.
With a perfectly executed leg-sweep, he had me on my back on the cold tile floor. Rubin, the sun streaming through the window over him, looked larger than ever before. He pinned my
arms to the floor, painfully gripped my wrists until he held them above my head with one hand, with his free hand he pulled down my shorts, and breathed hard like that first time in the closet.
His breathing stopped when the bathroom doorknob jingled. Dad? And if so what was he doing back so soon? Had Pal really jumped the fence, or was that simply Dad’s excuse to see what Rubin and I would do alone? I was more afraid now, caught on the cold tile between Rubin and Dad.
“Wesley?”
Rubin’s mouth fell open and his eyes pleaded with me not to say anything. But I knew I had to answer.
“I’m in here.”
“Where’s Rubin?”
I didn’t answer.
“Where the hell is he?”
“In here.”
Rubin’s eyes bulged out of his head as he silently let me up, and I pulled up my pants.
“What y’all doing in there?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me, boy.”
“I’m not. I went in to use the bathroom and Rubin had to wash his hands.”
Rubin sat on the toilet with his head in his hands and I opened the door. Dad, surprisingly, didn’t address Rubin. He simply turned and walked outside. I didn’t want to follow him, yet I didn’t want to stay anywhere near Rubin either. Where to go, where to go?
Rubin went back to my room and resumed playing electronic football, while I chose a neutral space: the kitchen. Through the window I saw Dad pacing on the patio, the dogs at his heels, his hands shoved deep into his back pockets. With his head down, Dad abruptly marched back to the house, and I went to the living room, still neutral ground, and I heard Dad dialing the phone. “Come pick Rubin up,” he barked. “Him and Wesley’s finished playing.” Dad didn’t give any explanation; only slammed the phone on the cradle and shouted for Rubin to get his ass in the kitchen.
“Wait out in the yard for your folks,” Dad said.
“Sir?”
“I didn’t stutter, goddammit. Take your ass outside.”
Rubin flinched when Dad raised his voice.
“You stay in the house, Wesley,” Dad said. “And lock the door. I’m gonna wait outside with him.”
I hated Rubin at that moment, but I also feared for his life. He was in the yard by himself with Dad and the dogs. Rubin could break boards at the dojo, but I didn’t think he stood a chance against Pal and Mountie, who ran up to Dad when he walked outside. I watched out of the kitchen window, thankful I was tall enough to see all the way to the front gate, so I could see