was trapped—"
"Dude? Is this your gay inkling thing? Or mine?" He doesn't wait for my answer. "So there he is."
"So it involved rope, and sit-ups?"
"That's the situation. The thing, itself, involved a ball. A testicle."
"Whose?"
"His."
"What happened to it?"
"Well," he says, "it dropped."
"From?"
"His shorts."
"Wow." I wish I had a wise or insightful comment, as I usually (ha) do.
"And do you remember in Citizen Kane? At the end, when he's holding the snow globe?"
We had a Masters of Cinema class last year; we saw Citizen Kane, Wings of Desire, All About My Mother. "Rosebud. It falls from his hand, in slow motion."
"It was like that." He waits. "Falling gently." He waits a little more. "With some hairs." He shuts his eyes and uses this odd voice, like Dylan Thomas reading A Child's Christmas in Wales, which I am forced to listen to each Christmas with my grandma. "And it was golden." His eyes stay shut. His nostrils move. I give him four seconds.
"Golden," I say.
His eyes open. "You heard me."
"The whole ball."
"It's a metaphor, you fucking idiot."
"A metaphor for what? And not to be Literal-Minded Guy?" We have a Hall of Guys, stocked from our observation of humanity in New York. Expert Guy, Lacks Irony Guy, Literal-Minded Guy; these are just a few. "But there's no way you could have thought of the Rosebud thing when the ball fell. We hadn't seen Citizen Kane yet."
"Wow. That's astute. I'd say you're ready for Brown." I'm not really clear on what the Holy Grail is, but whatever it is, it's Brown at my school. Brown, Brown, Brown, forced down our throats like broccoli, starting when we're still hitting each other over the head with blocks.
"Was Noah aware of all this?" I ask.
"Fuck. I hope not."
"So you didn't tell him."
"Well, no," he says. "It's not the kind of thing you point out, exactly. He just kept sitting up. And what would I have said?" I can't think of anything, which makes me sad; in all the time I've known Theo, which is all of both of our lives, I've never even had to think. The words were always just there.
"And that told you you were going to be gay?"
"It seems like it might have. Wouldn't you think?"
"I just thought of something."
"What?"
"I have cookies." George puts something in my backpack every day. I dig around and find the bag. "They're called ciambelline. They're Italian. They look like fetuses, but they're good." I give one to Theo, who eats it fast.
"Thanks." He takes another. "I like these."
"They're traditionally served with vin santo." I learned this from
George. He's taught me a lot. " Which is a sweet dessert wine. Made from Trebbiano grapes, if you're interested."
"And about the ball?"
"I won't tell anyone. I swear."
"That's not what I mean. I mean, have you ever had something like that?"
"A golden ball situation?"
"With a girl."
The texting girl. Minutes ago. I'm grateful. "Yes."
"Who?"
"You wouldn't know her."
A text. It's for Theo. "Shit."
"What?"
"My family. I texted them about it all? So now they all want to meet. At City Bakery, for fair-trade cocoa. My mom, my dad, Fartemis, my grandma. Someone from the New Yorker, probably. Maybe I'm a Talk piece. My mom says that a lot. You know what that is? That's a Talk piece."
"You should probably go," I say.
"Yeah, probably," he says. " Sorry about tae kwon do."
"Whatever."
"I should have told you before."
"You didn't know."
"What other secrets lie in store, right?"
"It is what it is."
He gives me a nickel. We do that when we hear a word or expression that, to quote Mr. Frechette, has led to the "ongoing gang rape of the language of Shakespeare, Milton, and Jennifer Weiner." There's a list, a long one, that we call the Nickel List. It is what it is is on it. As are skill set, farm-to-table, growing the business.
"Say hey to Fartemis," I say.
"Can I ask you a favor?"
"Sure."
"Several small ones, actually. I hope it's not too much."
"Let's hear them."
"One's about the Innocence Project. I thought your dad might have some views on the subject."
This is a school thing. We stage fake trials for real people who were executed and whose guilt is in question. Theo and I are defending the Rosenbergs (Donatella Gould and Morgan Blatt), who did or didn't give secrets to the Russians.
"I'm sure he does," I say. "He has a lot of views."
"The second favor involves your dad and George. It revolves around gayness."
"Like how to have sex and stuff ?"
"No," he says. " About when they knew they were gay. Their golden ball equivalent, one might say."
A new text now, for him. As he checks it I think once more of Texting Girl, her flying fingers, the possible smile at me. Then I think, for some reason, about Blake Lively, when she was young, anyway. And I think about jerking off, just last night, to the jacket photo of one of my mom's authors, a lady who writes short stories about her bittersweet colorful childhood on some island, somewhere, but is also, actually, hot. My mom's this big deal editor. Everyone around me is a big deal something. Except George, of course.
"That was Fartemis," Theo says. "To tell me she always knew. Astute, for nine. So you'll ask your dad and George?"
"Sure."
"And
