Beautiful Boys Read online

  It’s dark when Charlie, Angel Juan and I come up into the empty diner. The jukebox is still playing “Johnny Angel” like it never stopped. My dirty dishes are still on the counter. But the Angel mannequin isn’t in the window anymore.

  I put on my skates. We go outside and it’s so cold that Angel Juan and I can see the ghosts of our breath on the air. We put our arms around each other in our perfect-fit brother grip. We stumble-shake-skate back to the apartment following Charlie’s light.

  If Charlie’s building reminded me of a beat-up old vaudeville guy when I first saw it, now I think all the rooms are like songs he still remembers in his head. And the best song is on the ninth floor in the Rag Mop room.

  There is a note on the door.

  Dear Lily,

  We are home. The ghost is at peace. We hope you don’t mind but we let ourselves in to give you a few things. Come by as soon as you can. We are worried about you. Love from your benevolent almost-almost uncles, Mallard and Meadows.

  We go in. Charlie flies right over to his trunk and slips inside.

  I look in the cupboards and the refrigerator. Mallard and Meadows filled them with food—apples, oranges, scones, bagels, oatmeal, raisins, almond butter, strawberry jam, tea and honey. Angel Juan and I chomp-down lap-up almost everything and fall onto the Persian carpet wrapped in each other like blankets.

  “Thank you, Niña Bruja,” he whispers, taking me in his arms. “You set me free, Miss Genie.”

  His eyelids flicker closed and I can hear his breathing getting deeper. I get up and go over to the trunk.

  “Come on, Charles,” I say.

  I look into the mirror pieces. “Grandpa Bat?”

  Slowly, like when ripply water in a pool gets still so you can see yourself, his face floats up out of the murky murk of the mirror.

  “I’ll miss you, Witch Baby.” His voice fortune-cookie crackles, old-movie pops.

  “You can come back with me to L.A. Weetzie would rock.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Well then I’ll visit you.”

  “No. I’m going to leave now. I needed to finish some things and now I’m done.”

  “Finish what?”

  “I wanted to stay and meet you, little black lamb. And make sure you would be all right. I wanted to help you but I messed up and really you helped me.”

  “You didn’t mess anything up.”

  “I didn’t help you find Angel Juan.”

  “You helped me find me. You helped me rescue Angel Juan.”

  “I guess I did. I did something right finally. Something besides Weetzie.”

  “What did I do for you?”

  “You made me see how I was—what is it you guys say—clutching? Onto Weetzie. Onto you so you couldn’t do what you had to do. Clutching on life.”

  “How did I do that? I just hung out with you. You’re the one who showed me all around.”

  “I saw you learning how to let go. And I have to remember I’m not alive anymore, honey.”

  “What am I supposed to do now?”

  “Take your pictures, play your drums. I should have kept writing my plays.”

  “Don’t go away, Charlie.”

  “Good-bye, Baby. Send my love to everyone. Especially Weetzie. I love you.”

  “Charlie. Grandpa.”

  But Charlie Bat smiles. It is strange and slow-mo. Real peaceful like the Buddha. It seems like his eyes are smiling along with his mouth now for the first time, the pupils almost disappearing into a crinkle of lines, just shining out a little. He lifts his hand and waves it back and forth, long fingers leaving a trail of light. Then he disappears into the darkness like a candle blown out. The shiny restless whistling whirr of energy that was my grandfather ghost is quiet now. All I see in the mirror is a kind-of-small girl. Maybe she looks a little like an Egyptian queen.

  I open the window and look out. Blast of cold air makes my snarl-ball hair stand up on my scalp. There are stars, electric light bulbs, candles, fireflies. There are a million flickers, glimmers, shimmers, flashes, sparkles, glows. None of them will sing “Rag Mop” to me. None of them will take me through the city. None of them will tell me that we have the same blood. But in all of them is some Charlie Bat.

  “Good-bye, Grandmaster Rag Mop Man,” I whisper, lying down to sleep next to Angel Juan.

  Dear Angel Juan,

  I dream we are inside the globe lamp. But this time we just sleep there for a little while like two genies. In the morning we will fly out of the lamp. We will be able to travel all around the world on our magic carpets, you and I, seeing everything—sometimes parting, sometimes meeting again.

  It’s almost the next night when we wake up, shy like we’ve never touched each other before or something.

  I get the rest of the food and we munch it sitting on the carpet talking about the things we’ve seen. Angels and fireflies, temples and flea markets. How I found his photo booth pictures and his lost postcard. We don’t talk about Cake though.

  “I started playing my songs on the streets,” Angel Juan says. “People give me money.”

  “Can I hear?”

  And Angel Juan plays the song on his guitar.

  Panther girl you guard my sleep

  bite back at my pain with the edge of your teeth

  carry me into the jungle dark

  lope easy past the eyes that watch

  stride the fish-scale river shine

  and the pumping green-blood vines

  we will leave my tears behind

  in a pool that silver chimes

  we will leave behind my sorrow

  leave it in the rotting hollows

  when I wake you are beside me

  damp and matted from the journey

  your eyes hazy as you try to know

  how far down we tried to go

  and the way I clung to you

  all my tears soaking through

  fur and flesh, muscle, bone

  like a child blind, unborn

  whose dreams caress you deep inside

  are my dreams worth the ride?

  In all the time we’ve made music together I have almost never heard his voice by itself without the rest of our band. It’s a little scratchy and also sweet. I look at him and think, he’s not a little boy anymore. He can go into the world alone and sing by himself. I am so hypnotized that at first I don’t realize that the words are almost the same as the letter I wrote to him and never sent.

  “How did you know?” I say when he is done. I am out of breath.

  “What?”

  “You just know me so much. How do you know me so much?”

  He grins. “Do you like it?”

  I don’t have to say anything. He can see in my face.

  “Baby, I missed you,” he says.

  “Do you need to stay in New York still?” I ask it looking right at him trying not to crampy-cram up inside.

  He looks back into my eyes and nods. “I think so. A little while longer.”

  “Aren’t you scared?”

  “It’s okay now. It’s over.”

  It is.

  “Maybe you could stay with me,” he says.

  “I have to go back to school and everything.”

  “Do you want me to go home with you?”

  I look out the window. I think about Angel Juan playing his music down there in the streets. I think about the crowds rushing past. Some of the people stopping. Breathing in his music like air. Feeling it warm their skin and take them to places where it is green and gold and blue. Taking them into their dreams. Suddenly they can remember their dreams and walk through the city streets wearing their dreams. They turn into panthers, fireflies, trees, fields of sunflowers, oceans, avalanches, fireworks. It’s all because of Angel Juan and his guitar.

  “No,” I say. “You stay. You can stay in Charlie’s apartment.”

  “Niña…”

  I put my finger to his lips. They press out firm and full and a little dry against the
pad of my fingertip. I can feel my own lips buzz.

  “I don’t think I should stay in your family’s place,” he says.

  “Weetzie would want you to.”

  “Only if you ask her.”

  “Angel Juan,” I say, “I found your tree house.”

  He looks at me, his eyes so sparkly-dark. “Niña,” he says. “Only you could do that.”

  “Were you with anybody else?” I ask.

  “No, Baby. I thought about you all the time.”

  “What about that thing you said about us being together just ’cause we’re scared of getting sick.”

  “I’m so sorry I said that shit. It scared me that you were the only person I’ve ever loved like this.”

  “Who was that man?”

  “He was our fear,” says Angel Juan. “My fear of love and yours of being alone. But we don’t need him anymore.”

  I feel the tight grainy cut-glass feeling in my throat and my eyes fill up. Crying for the mannequin children and how we had to learn.

  “Don’t cry,” Angel Juan says, but it looks like he is too. “You’ll get tears in your ears. Don’t cry, my baby. You saved me.”

  Then I feel Angel Juan’s lips on mine like all the sunsets and caresses and music and feasty-feasts I have ever known.

  It’s the best feeling I’ve ever had. But it’s not the only good feeling. I kiss Angel Juan back with all the other good feelings I can find inside of me, all the magic I have found.

  When we go downstairs to see Mallard and Meadows it’s kind of late.

  Mallard throws open the door letting out steamy, fresh-baked-bread-and-cinnamon-incense-air into the hall. “There you are,” he says. “Meadows, she’s fine.”

  “This is Angel Juan,” I say as we come inside to the candlelit apartment lined with magic carpets.

  Mallard and Meadows shake his hand. “Happy New Year,” they say.

  Happy New Year? Angel Juan and I look at each other. When did that happen?

  “We lost track of time,” I say.

  “Well, it’s New Year’s,” says Meadows. He smiles. “And Christmas too.”

  Mallard points to some packages. “They came for you in the mail.”

  We sit on the carpet eating cranberry bread while I open my packages.

  There’s film for my camera.

  I take a picture of Mallard and Meadows on either side of Angel Juan in front of a wall with a magic carpet on it.

  There’s also a big black cashmere sweater and warm socks that I make Angel Juan take for himself.

  From Weetzie there’s a collage she made and put in a gold-leaf frame painted with pink and blue roses. The collage has pressed pansies, rose petals, glitter, lace, tiny pink plastic flamingos and babies, gold stars, tiny mirrors and hand-colored cutout photographs of my family. In the center there’s a picture of me and a picture of Charlie Bat goofing in his top hat and it looks like we’re holding hands. Something about our smoky eyes and skinny faces makes us look like a real grandfather and granddaughter.

  There’s a letter from Weetzie too.

  Dear Witch Baby,

  Happy Holidays! We all miss you so much. We’re sending you a ticket to come home on the second. I hope you have found everything you are looking for.

  After you left I thought a lot about why I couldn’t dream about Charlie. I think it was because I was holding on and trying too hard. But somehow knowing you were in his apartment bringing new life there I could let go of him. I realized how I miss you, honey, and I can see you. Charlie’s gone. I made this collage of you and him and that night I dreamed about him. He seemed very peaceful and happy in the dream and it was so real.

  I’m also sending you this other package that came in the mail.

  We are all going to be there to pick you up from the airport.

  We love you.

  Weetzie

  The other package is from Vixanne. I know right away but I don’t know how I know. I open it.

  The girl is staring with slanted dark-violet eyes under feathery eyelashes. Her hair is black and shiny with purple lights, every strand painted so you can almost feel it. Her neck and shoulders are bare and small painted with creamy paint and there is a hummingbird hanging around her throat. She’s in a jungle. Thick green vines and leaves. You can almost hear the sound of rushing water and feel the air all humid. On the girl’s left shoulder is a black cat with gold eyes. On her right shoulder is a white monkey with big teeth bared. The scary clutch monkey is playing with her hair. Perched on top of her head are butterflies with wings the color and almost shape of her eyes.

  “It’s you,” says Angel Juan.

  It’s weird because I guess it really does look like me but I didn’t recognize myself. The girl is strange and wild and beautiful.

  I think about Charlie like the black cat and Cake like the white monkey and how they are both parts of me and about butterflies shedding the withery cocoons, the prisons they spun out of themselves, and opening up like flowers.

  Angel Juan just puts his arms around me. Mallard pours all of us some sparkling apple cider.

  “How was your ghost?” I ask.

  “He’s fine now. His daughter and he just had to let each other go. She had to believe…”

  “That he’s inside her?”

  “In a way. You know, Lily, you might make a good ghost hunter someday.”

  I just smile and we clink our glasses watching the tiny fountains of amber bubbles.

  “Happy New Year.”

  Outside the window is New York City with its subways and shining firefly towers, its genies and demons. It is waiting for Angel Juan to sing it to sleep.

  I look at Angel Juan. My black cashmere cat, my hummingbird-love, my mirror, my Ferris wheel, King Tut, Buddha Babe, marble boy-god. Just my friend. I know I’ll be leaving him in the morning.

  At home I’ll skate to school and take lots of pictures. I’ll take pictures of lankas, ducks, hipsters and homeboys. When I look through my camera at them I’ll see what freaks them out and what they really jones for, what they want the most in the whole world and then I’ll feel like they’re not so different from me. I’ll send copies of my New York pictures to the hiphopscotch girls, the beautiful lanks and their Miss Pigtails, the African drum-dancers. I’ll take more pictures of me too, dressed up like all the things I am scared of and the things I want. One will be of genie-me in a turban doing yoga next to the globe lamp with smoke all around me. Maybe Vixanne would like to see my pictures.

  I’ll play drums with The Goat Guys and write songs about New York and my family and me. I’ll help with my family’s movie about ghosts. I think they should call it The Spectacular Spectral Spectacle. It could be about a ghost of a man who helps a girl free herself from an evil demon ghoulie ghoul and how the girl lets go of her dad and sets his spirit free.

  I might not see Angel Juan for a while. But we’ll see each other again. Meet to dream-rock-slink-slam it-jam in the heart of the world.

  Like we always do.

  baby be-bop

  part one

  Dirk and Fifi

  Dirk had known it since he could remember. At nap time he lay on the mat, feeling his skin sticking to brown plastic, listening to the buzz of flies, smelling the honeysuckle through the faraway window, tasting the coating of graham cracker cookies and milk in his mouth, wanting to be racing through space. He tried to think of something he liked.

  He was on a train with the fathers—all naked and cookie-colored and laughing. There under the blasts of warm water spurting from the walls as the train moved slick through the land. All the bunching calf muscles dripping water and biceps full of power comforted Dirk. He tried to see his own father’s face but there was always too much steam.

  Dirk knew that there was something about this train that wasn’t right. One day he heard his Grandma Fifi talking to her canaries, Pirouette and Minuet, in the teacup-colored kitchen with honey sun pouring through the windows.

  “I’m afraid it
’s hard for him without a man around, Pet,” Fifi said as she put birdseed into the green dome-shaped cage.

  The canaries chirped at her.

  “I asked him about what the men and ladies on his toy train were doing, Mini, and do you know what he said? He said they were all men taking showers together.”

  The canaries nuzzled each other on their perch. Pet did a perfect pirouette and Mini sang.

  “I guess you’re right. It’s something all little boys go through. It’s just a phase,” Fifi said.

  Just a phase. Dirk thought about those words over and over again. Just a phase. Until the train inside of him would crash. Until the thing inside of him that was wrong and bad would change. Until he would change. He waited and waited for the phase to end. When would it end? He tried to do everything fast so it would end faster. He got A’s in school. He ran fast. He made his body strong so that he would be picked first for teams.

  That was important—being picked first. The weak, skinny, scared boys got picked last. They got chased through the yard and had their jeans pulled up hard. Sometimes other kids threw food at them. Sometimes they went home with black eyes, bloody noses or swollen lips. Dirk knew that almost all the boys who were treated this way really did like girls. It was just that girls didn’t like them yet. Dirk also knew that some of the boys that hurt them were doing it so they wouldn’t have to think about liking boys themselves. They were burning, twisting and beating the part of themselves that might have once dreamed of trains and fathers.