Chapter 20
After the beach, I decreed we go for a drink at The Green Light. I knew Jay was thinking about it but didn’t want to mention it so as not to sound like too much of a boozehound.
He only kept saying, “What do you want to do next?” until our car found its way to the seedy side of Harlem.
An hour after we left the beach, he was at the counter slurping down a Tom Collins, joy coursing through his body as he bounced
on the stool like a restless boy. A white girl in a shiny dress and headband kept eyeing him from down the counter, until
finally she caught his gaze, and Jay smiled at her, soaking up the attention.
I watched the pianist onstage play with his eyes closed, the keys so intrinsic to him he did not need to see them. I closed
my eyes too, to see if being blind through the music might free me from my jealousy.
At some point as I sat with my eyes closed, I began to hear their conversation.
“This place makes everywhere else feel so tame in comparison!” the girl said. “Don’t you think?”
“Wonderful, isn’t it?” Jay returned, forming a natural chemistry with her.
But she couldn’t see how Jay doubted himself, that he was afraid to be discovered as a fake in these meaningless exchanges.
There was a pause. I could feel the girl’s eyes falling on me, even as I sat there in blackness.
“He a . . . special friend or just a friend?”
“Oh, he’s . . . yeah, he’s a friend.”
You dirty dog! Low-down, no good, second of his name . . .
I jumped angrily off the stool and moved to the end of the counter. When I looked back, I caught him watching my every move,
the soft light framing his focus as the girl continued to chat.
I waved the server down and said, “I’ll have a straight shot please.”
I hoped Jay would see me in a rage, but he put his focus back on the girl!
Break my heart wide open in public, leave it spilling like wine from a busted glass, but I’ll never give you the power to
see my pain. No matter how long it lasts.
He only glanced up briefly as I downed my shot. I ordered two more and drank them, and he barely even paid attention. There
was my answer—he didn’t care.
I wandered around the joint, a desperate thought chirping around in my mind. Why not only me? Why?
It seemed in each dim corner of the place, people were kissing and touching. Everyone had a person but me. I was unlovable! And therefore, I was unsafe in this world. Another year had gone by, and I was still a lone wolf, at least on the inside—a runt wolf, the smallest of the pack.
I went out to the walkway by the entrance, which burned under red light. I closed my eyes again. Tears were bubbling up like
a volcano in me, but I’d give them no permission to fall.
“Why are you crying?” came Jay’s voice. But when I opened my eyes, he didn’t look very empathic toward me. Instead, he looked
done with my mess. “If you want me to pay attention to you, you could just ask.”
“Oh, you were very focused on the young lady, so no need,” I hissed back.
Jay rolled his eyes. “Yes, there is a need. Every time you don’t get your way you go throwing a tantrum. And for what? It
will always be you I return to. Clearly.”
I found myself pinching my fingers together, to test if I still had my shot glass at hand. “This could all be so much easier
if there weren’t other stops on your destination to me,” I murmured.
Who are these girls that distract you, and what do they have that I lack?
“Other stops?” Jay lost even more patience with that, and yet it seemed to make him get closer to me, even as he folded his
arms. “What are you talking about now?”
“You know what I’m talking about. All the time you spend proving you don’t need me, and that you could have anyone and then trying to watch how I react! It’s a game to you.”
He let out an ironic laugh and looked around, as if to see if there were witnesses to get a load of me. But it was just us.
“It’s not a game, Nick,” he said. “People just come up to me. I would never play you on purpose.”
“I don’t believe it. You make a fool of me on a regular basis.”
“I misguided you when I introduced you to liquor,” he said, still laughing some. “Your overthinking becomes worse.”
“I don’t like you,” I said, my voice hoarse.
Jay’s expression became serious, as if hearing the words, even in jest, brought him pain. His charm disappeared. “Fine,” he
said, in a low voice. “I fold. The real reason I drift is because you matter too much.”
I blinked, thrown off. “What?”
“You matter too much.” He held my gaze, and I could see he’d lost interest in patching up his weaknesses. “You see the real
me. Not the version of me I’m forced to be when I pal around with kind strangers, but the me inside. The exposed version.
And that’s scary! Say I get closer, and I lose you? Who’s gonna see me then? Who else?”
It was my turn to say something, but I had no words. Nothing quite so earnest, anyway. It was hard to see Jay in such a fragile
state, but it also made me feel more alive knowing how much I meant to him. To finally be sure.
“You’re the one who keeps me at a distance!” he continued, his voice gaining volume and anger, through the pain. “You hold
back too! You’re inconsistent too! Every time I’ve tried to pull you closer—I mean, I asked you to the dance for crying out loud!
” He covered his eyes with his hands and fell back against the bricks as if the memory took the life out of him.
“You ran off when we were just getting started,” he said, voice quieter, tinged with disappointment. “That was you.”
And now, an accusation left me standing like a slain pig hanging in the window of a butcher’s shop. My breathing was not flowing
normally, though I’d only just noticed that. How could emotions make me feel this way? Was he right? Of course not—never.
We stood there, the music and noise of the juice joint fading into the background of our pregnant silence.
“Well, I am a coward,” I said finally, my voice barely audible over the music. “What can I say? More reason to leave me alone.”
I stormed down the alley. That would show him what it felt like to be abandoned. To be falling and wishing someone could catch
you, but to never be caught how you needed to be.
“You can’t be serious, Nick?” he called, following me out.
I didn’t need Jay Gatsby! I only needed me!
“Nick!” he called.
To hell with his Nicking!
Whatever was just over the bridge of admitting our truest feelings frightened me to no end.
I continued to stumble toward the end of the alleyway until I lost him and met a street pole. I banged my forehead lightly
on it just to feel the sensation. What sense did it make to let someone else control you? To let emotions rule?
A white woman was staring when I pulled my head back for the third smash. She alerted her husband, and then they both stared.
“Yes! Drunken Negro boy!” I called out, but I barely recognized my manic voice. “Ever heard of one?”
They scurried off after that, not even caring to mask their fear. I fled the other way down the sidewalk and lost myself in
another alley between two tenements. I stumbled a few steps and then I fell. I pushed myself up again and fell again.
“Never find me again, Jay,” I growled, the rawness of the sun in my chest. “Just stay away.”
The pavement had me. My head was pounding, and the world was spinning. I couldn’t separate up from down—cobblestones, bricks,
and sky were everywhere I looked.
“Hey! Faggot!”
Was that for me? There were two belligerent men rushing toward me, and their tone was a promise for a beating. I fell right into a puddle,
biting the street for a third time. In the reflection of the water was a boy with bloodshot eyes and saliva pooling in his
mouth.
I spun around, sat in the water, and started to splash. The two guys rolled up their sleeves as they advanced on me.
“You kill Tony? It was you, wasn’t it?” one of them screamed.
I got up to run the other way and then collapsed again. A pair of shoes became level with my eyes.
“Back up!” I screamed, turning around and scooting backward on my butt. “Back up or I’ll alert the sheriff, and he will shoot
you.”
“The sheriff doesn’t shoot, dummy,” one of the men said.
He picked me up and slammed me down against the alley. I could not sense a thing but his foul breath when he growled in my
face, “You the one who killed Tony?”
“Tony? I don’t know a Tony!” I yelled back.
I didn’t have a clue who that man could be. An Italian at the casino? Some enemy of Jordan’s who had nothing to do with me?
A foot kicked my stomach, and it stole my breath.
Did I kill Tony? If so, I was sorry to Tony, whoever that was.
The Italian spat on me, and his saliva smelled of plaque. “We find out you’re responsible, we will kill you. Understood. For
now? A warning.”
One boy punched my stomach so hard vomit surged in my mouth. He picked me up and threw me down again. All I could do was mutter,
“Sorry . . . sorry . . .”
Then I was all dizzy, like those slaves who took alcohol and became so tired they couldn’t think of escape. Free people didn’t
mess with wines, beers, liquors—free people were too focused. Why did I let Jay introduce me to that poison?
“Nick?” someone called from the end of the alley.
It was Jay . . . He was running to me.
“Jay, no . . .” I lifted up a weak hand to stop him, but he kept coming.
“What’s going on here?” he asked, the lights dimming some in his eyes.
The other boy ran to him and gave him a good hard punch to the mouth, sending him down. Jay and I crawled to each other and grabbed hold of each other—me with a sore stomach and Jay with a busted lip bleeding in a silk line to the pavement.
“Remember this next time your folks think to mess with my family,” one of the boys said.
And they both fled.
Jay and I sat up against the bricks, all covered in spit and blood and catching our breath.
“You know why things like this happen, right?” he asked.
“Because we’re faggots,” I said, and spit to remove the sour taste from my mouth.