Note: Due to obsessive compulsiveness, this post will be tagged under “Flash Fiction,” as tagging it “uncategorized” will mess up the sorting of my right pane “Categories” section.

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Rita held the drawing up so that I could see it better. It didn’t help.

“What is it?”

“The Joker. You know? Heath Ledger?”

I did. Did she? It looked nothing like The Joker. It’s chicken scratch, the kind of thing a person’s six-year-old draws when they claim their six-year-old can create art, only David is sixteen, not six.

“Oh, right. He’s quite talented, your son.”

“I know. He’s so good at drawing. I told my husband he sure as hell didn’t get it from me. It must have been from his grandparents,” she laughed unnecessarily, the harsh, congested laugh of a chronic smoker.

“So anyway, Jared, this weekend we were at a karate meet and David must have done something to his ankle because he calls me on the phone and says ‘Mo-o-om, I think there’s something wrong with my ankle, can you make an appointment?’ and I say ‘No, I’m not going to make you an appointment, because we’ve seen this type of thing lots and we know whether you need to see a doctor or not.’ So when I get home his ankle is this big and we take him in to the doctor and guess what he says? ‘I’m not going to ride in a wheelchair.’ He walks! And his ankle is this big. Can you believe it?”

I can, but I don’t care. I make a noncommittal gutteral noise.

Later in the day I overhear her showing the drawing to Neena. “Oh, that’s nice. Did Jared draw that?”

The elevator ride was slow and boring. To pass the time, he walked from one corner to the next, trying to make one complete revolution in the time it took the elevator to chime. He half-muttered, half-whistled the children’s song Ring Around the Rosie to himself.  Between the final ding and the opening of the doors, he considered what it would like to be stuck in here. Relaxing, he thought.

There was no sign of a struggle on the roof. That’s what he expected, but he had to check just to make sure. McGuffin stood in the spot that the late doctor had stood before jumping. He looked out over the city with his hands in the pockets of his trench coat as it flapped languidly in the wind. He didn’t want to admit that he was out of his league. It was some time before he went inside.

We stayed with his aunt and uncle, coffee drinkers, ice cream eaters, and lovers of all things television. Their house was nice, but it’s amazing just how far a million dollars doesn’t go in California.

A transient asked us if we smoked. When we told him we didn’t he started following us. He got on our trolley but got off at the next stop. A short while later we looked and he had changed seats. We kept watch on him discreetly and we got off at the Castro stop together, but he went his own way. We laughed at how paranoid we were being and took a picture with a Harvey Milk memorial and a rainbow flag. We gays love our rainbows.

Unintentionally we wandered upon a nude beach. It was just below the Golden Gate bridge. They were more than willing to pose for pictures with us. I have those around here somewhere. I should really scrapbook them.

In the Castro there was a cookie shop that was apparently frequented by a swimming team. A collage of pictures of people in bikinis lined the wall, each about to enjoy a cookie. I had never thought of cookies as being particularly sexy or slimming before. I also bought myself clothing from American Apparel and a man-purse from Diesel, because gaying myself out in one swoop seemed more logical than doing it over a long time.

Jack had moved his locker to be closer to Sam. Jack had somehow wound up with a locker in Sophomore Hall, even though we were all seniors. The move was done out of convenience, Jack contended. That and the sophomores drove him nuts. However, as what Jack referred to as an unintended consequence, this meant that Jack and Sam began spending much more time together, more than two locker neighbors would have had they not been good friends. Or more, as Sam never tired of reminding me, than he hoped.

So, whenever we hung out – which we did on occasion – somehow Jack and Sam we’re always drawn to each other. Not in a necessarily gay way - ”no homo” Jack would crassly say, unaware of the homo of Sam – but in a homoerotic context, nevertheless. The relationship was analagous to the one between Frodo and Sam: you could imagine the two in softscreen and smiling as they giddily jumped up and down on the bed. Mostly it was just putting an arm over the other’s shoulder and playing with each others nipples as pubescent boys are wont to do, but still. One could imagine, and sometimes one did.

We decided to go to Big Ed’s for burgers that night. It’s one of the last of those old drive-up or drive-in or whatever they’re called burger joints where you park your car under this big awning and a girl on roller skates comes skating out and asks what you want. I guess it’s kind of like a Sonic only a lot more tacky. We ordered burgers and put the top down on Jack’s dad car and were sitting on the sides of the car talking and eating french fries dipped in milkshakes.

How’s Susana, Sam asked Jack.

Oh, I don’t know about all that, Jack said, I mean I think she likes me but I just feel so out of her league that, why even bother, you know?

Between Sam and I we had often said that Jack went for Susana because she was so far out of his league that it gave him an excuse for not getting with her. She was awfully cute, what with those tight, ass-sculpting jeans and her almost bow-legged walk that made all the boys wonder.

So, if not her, Sam asked, then who else is on the horizon?

Eh, there’s so many girls in the ocean, Jack said, making a noncommittal, gutteral noise, why settle down with any one girl, right?

So, then, there’s lots of girls, I asked, feeling left out of the conversation and missing the sound of my voice, which I very much liked and wasn’t alone in liking.

I can’t remember how but Jack was able to change the conversation so deftly and discreetly that none of us even noticed, and he kept the conversation up so well that it never came back to him and girls. At the time I couldn’t say if that was intentional or not, but I guess looking back at it now I could make a much better decision. Hindsight’s 20/20. Not me. I’m 20/100 or 100/20, whatever it is when you can see close but not far. I wear contacts, but they’re always making my eyes red and then people assume I’m high. I’m pretty “straight-edge” about drugs, but I don’t really mind the reputation of being a pothead. It’s better than the one about being a bookworm. That one’s true.

I was the first one dropped off that night, which made the most sense since I lived the furthest away. Anything about that night is all hearsay, so whatever you hear you have to take it with a grain of salt. I know everyone has been saying this happened or this didn’t happen, but nobody was there. I think people really just like to gossip, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.