10
Male Bonding
IDENTIFYING CHARACTERISTICS: Prearranged meeting, typically in a sports facility or other odorous setting. Structured around activity that involves not being able to talk for long stretches.
STAGES OF ENCOUNTER: Initial greeting, assessment of each other, awkward period, eventual breaking of ice, final decision on whether another meeting will occur.
It was only eight a.m. but the sun was already bright and high through the Kaplans’ kitchen windows. As far as Norris was concerned, “bright and high” was the only position the damn thing ever occupied in Texas. He’d gotten used to sleeping well into the early afternoon on weekends since arriving in Austin, which made this whole thing an early morning state of affairs.
Not to mention that he was still a little hungover from the party. Norris’s greatest secret as a red-blooded teenager was that deep down, he was the lightest of lightweights. He’d drunk exactly nine times in his life, and all nine incidents had left him with a massive hangover the next day. Even a beer made him giddy, according to Eric. Luckily, having no other barometer to compare him to, Judith always assumed that the occasional morning grogginess was just a natural stage of living with a pubescent body. Norris didn’t feel like he needed to correct her.
“Don’t yawn in his face when he gets here,” Judith chastised, rinsing the frying pan before the egg grease could harden.
“Why not?” Norris asked, swallowing a second yawn. “Yawning is a valid response to being up this freaking early.”
“He’ll think you find him boring,” she continued. “People pick up on those things.”
“Jesus, Mom, it’s not a date.”
“I know that,” she said, looking over her shoulder to give him an eye roll. “It would be so much easier if you were gay. Plenty of literature there. Podcasts. Support groups, even.”
“Mother.”
“I’m teasing. It’s just exciting to, y’know, see you actually start to fit in here!”
“I’m fitting in fine,” Norris said, thinking of the new contact in his phone. He’d checked it this morning, just to make sure it was still there. His hands were itching to text Aarti, to say something clever, but so far Maddie’s advice had worked and he was playing it cool—or at least, trying to. “You and Eric act like I’m some vicious monster. Like those ostriches at the zoo they warn you might beak your eyes out if you try to feed them.”
“Well, I’ve always trusted the peer-review system,” Judith added, a smirk to her voice. Norris might have gotten it from her and not his dad, after all. He was ready to unleash the perfect reply when his train of thought was derailed by a burst of three quick honks outside their door.
“Nice car,” Judith commented, glancing out the window, and Norris peered outside to look. He nodded in agreement; it was a nice car, a new-looking silver Land Rover.
A few years ago, all Norris wanted was an Xbox 360. It seemed like every other kid in his class had gotten one over the holiday break. Eric had one. Julien Tilbault, that throbbing asshole, had one. It was all anyone at their school could talk about, which, in turn, made it all Norris could talk about at home. And then, one day, it was waiting for him on his bed after school. Norris was over the moon, clocking in twenty hours of gaming a week and coming as close to a gamer as he ever would, until over the following weeks—months, really—Norris noticed a change. Their meals had become more basic, and they were often just reheating leftovers. Their cable package had shrunk down to just the basic channels. It was the moment when Norris realized that, despite all his mother’s impressive degrees, they were in “The Lower Half.” And he loved her for protecting him from that realization for thirteen years and that damn Xbox was still carefully put away after each use.
“I didn’t know he was rich,” Norris commented, eyes still on the car outside their building. Part of him suddenly felt self-conscious for living in an apartment. So far, everyone at this school seemed to have big houses in the suburbs. With a car like that, Liam probably had a full compound somewhere.
“Hurry up!” Judith said, pushing him toward the door. “You don’t want to keep your new friend waiting!”
As Norris and Liam pulled out of his driveway, Norris suspected which of the two halves Liam and his family inhabited. Still, money wasn’t a topic polite people discussed.
“So,” Norris whistled over the click of his seat belt. “You’re rich, huh?”
Liam looked at him for a beat, hand freezing on a very leathery steering wheel. It was the usual blank Liam look, but his rapid blinking betrayed an attempt to gauge the proper answer—this was Liam Hooper taken aback.
“Um, I don’t . . . Yeah, sorta, I guess,” he eventually said. “Is that okay?”
“Sure.” Norris shrugged as casually as he could. He hadn’t meant to make him feel bad. “I didn’t mean to, like, wealth-shame you.”
“Right.”
“I mean, I’d love to be rich. We’re not, obviously. Apartment building and all,” Norris’s mouth continued. “I would absolutely use it for evil. Not active evil, but definitely morally gray evil.”
“Right,” Liam simply said as they came to a red light. “So, good morning.”
“Good morning.”
Judith had clearly gotten into his head. So far, it wasn’t going too well with this “socializing” business. Norris cleared his throat and shifted the sports bag resting on his knees. It was then that he caught a glimpse of something in the rearview mirror that made his heart skip and realign.
“Are these your skates?” Norris exclaimed, reaching for the back seat because No frickin’ way . . .
“Yeah, why? No good?” Liam suddenly sounded worried. “I ordered them online.”
“Jeez, these are . . .” Norris took off the plastic protector, revealing freshly sharpened blades.
“. . . really, really good skates,” he finished once the lust that overtook his heart had been quelled. If Liam wasn’t a civilian, he might even smell the blade; that fresh titanium had a way of hitting Norris where he blushed.
“Are you all right there?” Liam asked.
“I’m just considering if I can get away with killing you and running off to Mexico with these skates,” Norris said nonchalantly, fingers drumming against the blade.
“Well, I am currently driving,” Liam noted with a frown, eyes still on the road and giving the matter all the seriousness it deserved. “You’d probably get hurt in the crash.”
“You’re right,” Norris acquiesced before nodding over to his window. “Do you mind pulling into that gas station parking lot for a second?”
Liam snorted, and an invisible tension gave way. As they continued to drive to the undisclosed ice rink, Liam became more talkative. Norris learned that he was exactly as weird as he first appeared, and that this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. He wasn’t into hockey in the National Hockey League sense of the word and therefore had no opinions on any of the teams. He likewise did not despise Texas with the fiery passion of a hundred suns, which admittedly limited Norris’s range of topics. This newfound passion for ice hockey was only the latest thing on Liam’s long list of growing interests this new semester. He was also president of the Irish Student Organization, which was A) a thing and B) had a “small but very involved membership,” although Liam wouldn’t divulge an exact number. Norris suspected the number to be one.
Mostly he didn’t feel the need to fill every lull in conversation with chatter, for which Norris was rather grateful.
“We’re here,” Liam said as the car pulled into a warehouse-peppered corner of the city, separated by plots of tall dry grass. They might as well have been in a different county altogether.
As Liam reached for his bag in the back seat, Norris noticed the hint of a tattoo under his raglan sleeve. From that angle, it looked like a semicolon. Norris was about to point it out when Liam suddenly pulled his sleeve farther down.
“Ready?” Liam asked, clearing his throat. Norris nodded, lips pursed and raising his own skate bag in answer.
It was only once they reached their destination that Norris realized he had been deceived. Lied to. Betrayed. Whatever it was unscrupulous Texans did to overly trusting northerners.
“This is not an ice rink!” he huffed as soon as they stepped into the chilled warehouse. His wet pits from time spent crossing the giant, deserted parking lot were already drying.
“What do you mean? Of course it is,” Liam said, already sliding onto the ice. His dirty sneakers left a dark streak trailing in his wake. “Ice” was a generous term for what was, in Norris’s eyes, no more than a glorified layer of air conditioning frost over concrete. The ceiling was high and every sound they made reverberated around them.
Almost as soon as they stepped onto the ice, Norris could tell it was going to be a long day. The thing with Liam’s skating was, well . . . it was hard to say. Some people skated driven by the fear of falling, their bodies stiff and motions constricted for fear of losing their footing. Norris was used to drawing people out of that stiffness one push of the blade at a time, steadily building their confidence. Not to brag, but David Laflèche, who ended up the star of Norris’s team, could barely make it across the ice before Norris gave him a few pointers—in exchange for a full term of calculus notes two days before an exam.
Liam was the exact opposite. The moment they hit the ice he began to propel himself forward, landing stomach first across the makeshift rink in one swift motion that almost qualified as graceful.
“Slow down! You have to—”
Norris couldn’t get through his thought before Liam was literally up and at it again, this time swinging his arms to increase his momentum. At the rate he was now going, he was headed straight for the—
With two quick kicks across the ice, Norris planted himself directly in Liam’s path. He grabbed the taller boy by the forearm and spun them around the ice once, taking most of Liam’s momentum onto himself. After two spins, Norris released his hold and let Liam fall lightly on his butt.
“How did you do that? That was awesome!”
“I’m the understudy for Negro on Ice,” Norris said, scratching at his cheek in mild awkwardness. “Small show but a big following.” Even back in Montreal, he was often the only black kid. By Norris’s estimation, something about seeing a black ice skater was akin to seeing a teacher outside of school deciding between ice cream flavors at the grocery store: a few blinks were in order.
For the next hour Norris coached Liam through balance, edge control, and—most important for Liam—how to fall without killing himself or innocent bystanders. The taller boy’s enthusiasm never flagged. Well . . . what passed for enthusiasm in Liam. It was hard to tell with him. Norris was able to forget about everything for a while: about how much he hated Austin, the sticky suckage of sweating through at least three shirts every day, the orange paint he was still finding in random places. (Seriously, how?) It all faded away on the ice. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was actually enjoying himself.
It seemed that Liam felt the same way. “Maybe we can do this every week,” he suggested at the end of the hour, as they glided off the ice. “Like for an hour or so?”
Norris didn’t even balk. “Sure,” he agreed. He was surprised to find he was smiling.