Chapter 4 Ethan
Ethan
Likes:
-Donkey Kong
-Pizza Hut supreme pizza on thin crust
-those smooth round river rocks
-cold rainy days
-woodsmoke
-root beer floats
-Wayne’s World
-sleeping in on Sundays
-Shane Carraway
-when Shane Carraway spends the night
-when Shane Carraway talks to me and sits next to me
Dislikes:
-the creamed corn at school
-high school (so far)
-Vanilla Ice
-vanilla anything
-when Shane Carraway talks to me and sits next to me then ignores me the next day.
November 18, 1992
BIG STUFF HAPPENED WHEN SHANE CAME OVER TO DINNER ON FRIDAY NIGHT!!!
Dad ordered from Pizza Hut, and we were all around the dinner table, laughing and joking. Shane sat next to Ev, but he was across from me, so I was able to look at him.
I just want to say that it’s weird sometimes because it sometimes feels like instead of one older brother, I have two.
And one is nicer than the other. Ev will be a total asshole to me and tell me to get lost, but Shane will defend me.
He’ll say it’s okay, I can stay when they’re playing Nintendo or something.
So, if Shane is really like another older brother then what I think of him is really, really wrong!
And you know what else is weird, is to see gay guys on TV.
Like in movies and shows. I don’t feel like I am the way that they are.
Are they supposed to be my role models? Everything’s so stereotyped.
I’m not really interested in fashion. I’m not interested in clubs or dancing.
I don’t really want to get my ear pierced.
So, what am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to be in teeny tiny Port Leyden? Here and now. Not later, when I’m older. But right now.
The only thing I have in common with those guys is that I want to kiss boys. And when I do, I’d have to kiss them in the dark so no one else will see.
Scratch that. I want to kiss Shane Carraway. I want to kiss him in the dark and in the daylight. I want to kiss him on my bed and everywhere!
Is it really gay just because he happens to be a boy too? Well, duh, I guess it would be!
I wonder before I fall asleep most nights what it would be like.
Sometimes I practice on the back of my hand.
I pretend my knuckles are his lips, although I think his lips would be softer.
I get under the covers before I fall asleep and do it.
I’m afraid someone will open the door and catch me. I’d be mortified if it were Shane.
I wish I knew why Shane never asks Ev over to his house.
Or I wish I knew the real reason, at least. I asked Ev once and Ev said it was none of my business.
Then he said if I really wanted to know, I should just ask Shane myself.
But I can’t ask him that. He might also say it’s none of my business and be annoyed with me.
I heard a rumor that there’s something wrong with Shane’s grandparents.
I heard that they leave the house a mess.
I heard my mom on the phone once telling someone the county went to their house and told them they had to clean it up or it would be condemned.
Would Shane and his grandparents be homeless???!!!
I want to know all these things about him, like that, and stuff like what his bedroom looks like. Is it messy too? I wonder what posters he has hanging on his walls. I wonder what the color of his comforter is. How many pillows does he sleep with?
And where are his mom and dad? Somebody in school said his dad’s in prison b/c he was in the Mafia. I doubt that’s true.
I guess I could ask, even though it seems like a dumb thing to ask someone for no reason.
BUT BACK TO FRIDAY NIGHT!!!!
Shane stayed the night after we had pizza.
He inevitably went with Ev downstairs to the rec room and played Nintendo.
I ended up on the couch upstairs with Mom and Dad, watching a dumb movie.
They seemed to enjoy having me sitting there between them, ruffling my hair, treating me like a little kid.
It made me mad. I told them to stop. I wanted to go downstairs to hang out with Ev and Shane, but I also wanted to see if they would invite me rather than me inviting myself like always.
I sat on the couch long after Mom and Dad went to bed. I watched some shows and reheated some more pizza. Neither Shane or Ev came to look for me. It hurt my feelings. I started thinking that I am the annoying little brother after all. I’m not Shane’s friend. I’m not anything to him. It hurt.
Sometime around midnight, I heard someone come up from downstairs. I thought maybe it was Ev, going into the kitchen for some more soda, but it was Shane!
“What’s up, Ethan?” he said to me. He got some cans of Pepsi from the fridge.
He always says it with my name. I’ve paid attention and I don’t think he does that with anyone else. Not even Everett. I like to hope that he says it that way just for me.
I shrugged and told him not much.
Shane looked at the TV and smirked. I hadn’t been paying attention to what was on it, so I was mortified when I saw it was some old-timey, black-and-white movie.
“What are you watching?” He sat next to me on the couch. He handed me one of the sodas. I felt my stomach flip-flop.
I scooted over on the couch to make room for him, even though I wanted to be right up against him. “I don’t know.” I cracked open the soda. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
He watched the screen for a moment or two. A lady in a silky evening gown sang by a man playing on a piano. She was singing some lame, old-timey song. It was really dorky and weird.
Shane laughed, though. So I laughed too.
“Old movies are weird,” he said. He looked over at me with his big brown eyes that always seem to have a little bit of sadness in them. I wish I knew what he might be a little bit sad about. “What’s been going on with you lately?”
I was shocked by his question. I didn’t know what to say for a few seconds, so I kind of mumbled something about the upcoming science fair and a math test I’d had on Wednesday.
Then he said, “No, not with school. I meant like, with you.” He took a sip of his soda. “How are you?”
I did and didn’t know what to say all at once.
Because if he really wanted to know how I was, right that second, then I’d have told him that I was happy.
It was the truth. But I didn’t know if I could tell him that the reason I was happy was because he’d come upstairs, brought me a soda from the fridge, and sat next to me.
All on his own. But other than right that moment, I wasn’t great.
Most of my friends at school are only my friends when they need help with homework.
And I don’t feel like I can talk to anyone.
Like really talk. At lunch at school, all anyone talks about is going to the mall, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and who like-likes who.
None of it feels real to me, and it makes me feel like a weird, invisible freak.
I asked him what Ev was doing and he said that Ev fell asleep like a wuss. Then Shane looked at me and said—just like this: “Seriously, though. How’s…life and stuff?”
On the TV, the lady in the silky evening gown danced with a man. They danced like a waltz across the screen. I watched it for a minute or two before I asked Shane why he wanted to know.
“Why not?” He shrugged. “Just curious.”
“About me?”
“Sure.”
I wondered what it would be like to hold his hand and talk about things with him.
Anything. All things. So I told Shane about how in science class, we learned that some of the stars we see in the night sky might be already dead.
We learned that it took thousands of light years for that star’s light to get to us, but that it could already have collapsed and died in the meantime.
And so, if that’s true, then our sun’s light is a star in the sky right now, but its light might not travel to other planets for millions of years and by then it’ll be gone, and Earth will be gone and so will we.
When I finished talking, Shane just stared at me, his eyebrows raised.
I felt a pain in my chest. Why did I blab those stupid things?
Shane would have to think I’m crazy. But he blinked at me and nodded to the TV.
He said, word-for-word, “It’s kind of like how that lady and the guy on the screen are probably dead now.
But we’re just now seeing the movie they were in, like a million years later. ”
I grinned in relief. “The 1940s weren’t a million years ago.”
“Sure as shit seems like it.” He laughed.
I laughed too.
We watched the movie for a few minutes, and I thought it was sad. The actor and the actress were once alive, being filmed, and now they’re gone. But their light remained.
I looked at Shane and he looked at me.
“It makes me sad,” I said. “That stars die.”
It’s what I’d thought in class. Then I went to my next one and to lunch and nobody seemed to care as much as I did, so I pretended that I didn’t. I was hoping I wouldn’t have to pretend in front of Shane.
“It is sad,” he agreed. “But at least those stars left us their light to enjoy. Right?”
“Right.”
He smiled at me, and I smiled back.
So, we watched the rest of the movie together, and it seemed he understood. It seemed he understood a little part of me no one else ever has.
And he didn’t laugh at me. Maybe one day Shane will consider me a friend. I hope.
Until then, I’ll just hold on to this.