Ryan and avery, p.11
Ryan and Avery, page 11
“He has a name?! And a gender?!”
“And no doubt a family he’s supporting by appearing on this sign.”
Ryan is hoping Mr. Hot Stack will be the only familiar face he finds inside the diner. As they wait for the hostess, he does a quick scan and is relieved to find it free of classmates or anyone else school-adjacent.
“All clear?” Avery asks once they’re seated.
Ryan likes how much this boy notices. “All clear. Just habit, I guess.”
“How many people are in your high school?”
“About four hundred. Yours?”
“Eighty.”
Ryan shakes his head. There would be no way to be invisible with only eighty people in the whole school. “You must stick out,” he says. “I mean, with the pink hair and all.”
Avery shoots him a look. “I bet you blend right in.”
“Trying to blend in would be like being put through a blender. I abstain.”
Avery finds this funny. “What did you just say?”
“I said, ‘I abstain.’ ”
“Is that what you say when all the popular kids try to get you to hang out with them? ‘I’m sorry, but I abstain from blending in. There are just too many perks to being a wallflower.’ ”
Ryan leans in, as if he’s sharing a secret. “Yup. That’s precisely what I say. But do they stop? No. The popular kids keep bugging me. Calling. Texting. Showing up on my doorstep. Begging like dogs. I’m embarrassed for them.”
“I know precisely how you feel.”
To emphasize his point, Avery squeezes Ryan’s hand. It’s such an openly lame excuse to touch him, and both of them smile in acknowledgment of this.
“Part of you is amused,” Avery says. “And part of you can’t believe this is happening.”
Ryan is startled to have Avery give his words back to him in this way, perfectly understood. “And in the Pancake Century Diner, of all places,” he observes.
With his free hand, Avery holds up the menu so it could be either him or Mr. Hot Stack replying. “Well,” he says, “it is the Pancake Century, after all.”
The waitress comes to take their order. Ryan thinks about pulling his hand away, but there’s no indication that Avery’s hand is going anywhere. And since they both like this awkward position, he keeps it there until the food arrives.
* * *
—
Avery knows it’s a little silly for him to yell, “Ouch! Mrs. Hot Stack, what are they doing to meeeeee?!?” every time Ryan’s knife cuts into a pancake. He does it at least two more times than he should.
* * *
—
One more time, Ryan thinks, and I will definitely have to tell him to stop.
* * *
—
“Okay,” Avery says when the meal is done. “What’s next?”
It’s a natural enough question to ask at the end of a meal. But it has the effect of shifting the weight of the day back onto Ryan’s shoulders. He’s not used to such responsibility. Of his friends, Ryan is not the one who usually decides what they’re going to do. And with Isaiah, they rarely met up outside Isaiah’s house. They never really had a date, not like this. They just did things. That felt different. There were times Ryan wanted it to be like this, but Isaiah never wanted that.
It’s not like there are many places in Kindling where you can do something you can’t do anywhere else. It’s McDonald’s McDonald’s McDonald’s. That’s what most of the kids are like, too. They have McDonald’s personalities. Ryan wants to reject that. He wants to scorn all the obvious paths that life offers teenagers here. It’s not that he thinks he’s better than everyone else. He just thinks that, unlike them, he’d be better somewhere else.
He directs Avery to Mr. Footer’s, the old relic of a miniature golf course on the outskirts of town, a neighborhood where not even warehouses bother to exist. The mini-golf course has been closed for years now, and no one else has bought the land, so it sits in its abandoned state, nearly postapocalyptic in its decay. There’s a lock on the gates, but the gates have undone themselves in places, making it easy to come and go. At night it’s a breeding ground for misdeeds, but during the day it’s graveyard quiet.
“Where exactly are you taking me?” Avery asks. Ryan has a flash of seeing the site through his eyes, and understands this might be a mistake. But he doesn’t want to turn back now.
He tells Avery to park in front. “When I was a kid,” he explains, “this was the best place around. Like, if you were really good and did all your chores, Mom and Dad would take you here. You’d play all the mini-golf you could, and then there’d be ice cream and video games in the hut over there.”
Avery takes it all in. “So what happened?”
Ryan shrugs. “One day it was here, and then the next day there was a sign saying it was over. It’s sat here ever since.”
But still, Ryan wants to say, it’s kind of the same. Like an old stuffed animal. Just because it’s now a ragged version of itself, you don’t stop loving it. You might not keep it with you like you used to, but you’re still nostalgically happy to see it.
“Do you come here often?” Avery asks. He makes it sound like a line from a dive bar.
“Only with special people,” Ryan replies. It sounds sarcastic, but it’s actually sincere.
“Oh, gee. I’m so flattered,” Avery deadpans.
“Let’s go,” Ryan says. They leave the car and walk along the fence until Ryan finds a gap big enough to slide through. He pretends to be a gentleman holding a door open for Avery.
Inside, everything is broken. Toppled windmills, fetid moats, bottles left smashed and cans left crushed.
“Want to play?” Avery asks.
Ryan looks at the torn-up greens, the holes filled with cigarette butts.
“I’m not sure that’ll work,” he says. “There aren’t any clubs anymore. Or golf balls.”
Avery has what can only be called a mischievous gleam in his eye. “So?”
“So…it’s hard to play mini-golf without those things.”
“Use your imagination!” Avery walks to the base of the first green and puts down an invisible ball. “This is the most amazing mini-golf course ever created. For example, this hole is patrolled by live alligators. If they swallow your ball, it’ll cost you three strokes. If they swallow you, it’s five.”
Avery takes an exaggerated swing with a nonexistent club, then makes a production of watching the ball soar into the air and drop to the green. “Comeoncomeoncomeon,” he murmurs. Then he sighs. “Not a hole in one, but at least I dodged the gators. Your turn.”
Ryan wants to kiss Avery on the spot, for sending their day on this diversion. But he doesn’t want to interrupt the imaginary game, so walks over and puts down his own invisible ball. “I hope you don’t mind that I took the pink one,” he says.
“I don’t mind at all.”
Ryan swings at the ball. They both watch it rise and drop.
“Not bad,” Avery says.
“At least I didn’t hit a gator.”
Ryan thinks Avery will stop then, will want to leave this desolate place. But he heads right over to his ball and makes the putt, then steps out of the way for Ryan to take his imaginary turn. Ryan follows his lead, but misses the shot. He gets the next one in.
Avery makes a gesture of gathering the golf balls from the hole, then walks to the next green.
“Your turn,” he says. “What’s the story?”
“Are you kidding? Do you mean to tell me you haven’t heard of the Famous Fondue-icular Folly?”
“Wait!” Avery gasps. “You mean to tell me that’s here?”
“Yes! You might not be able to see them with your very limited human sight, but this green is riddled with troughs of gooey chocolate. If a golf ball falls in, it will taste better, if you’re into that kind of thing, but will also slow you down. Which is why we’ve switched our golf balls out for golf-ball-sized gobstoppers. They’re not as aerodynamic, but they are easier to clean with your tongue.”
“Excellent. I’ve only played with marshmallows, but gobstoppers should roll better.”
Ryan lets Avery go first, go ahead. For a moment, it’s like the greens are greens and the flags are aloft.
The thing is, at this point Ryan’s used to it being wrecked. He’s even appreciated how derelict it was, when he was feeling pretty derelict himself. In the past couple of years, there’s been some catharsis in seeing his childhood so visibly trashed, as if there was some confirmation here about what growing up should feel like. He wasn’t lying when he told Avery he’d only brought special people here—but he could just as easily have said he’s never brought anyone here, not since it closed. This is also true. He’s only come by himself, once he had his license and his truck and needed a destination other than his house. He’s always been careful to make sure there weren’t any other cars around, so he could experience the park in solitude, as if he were wandering around in the inside of his head. It makes him feel less alone, to feel his aloneness so powerfully. Mostly because it’s a confirmation that this town is a place he needs to leave. It isn’t him that’s broken. He still lives, breathes, hopes. It’s just that the landscape is dead around him.
These are teenage thoughts. Ryan knows that. And with Avery, a little of the old childhood wonder peeks through the clouds. Why experience a place like this as a clear-eyed adolescent when you can engage with it as a dream-eyed kid, seeing castles in every cloud, chocolate in every hiding place? Ryan plays along, and it’s a relief to be playing for once. By the fifth hole they’re not even golfing anymore; they’re just describing all the things they don’t really see. Avery erects the Taj Mahal on hole five, and Ryan presents the world’s first antigravity mini-golf on hole six. At hole seven, they start walking hand in hand, surveyors of what’s become a theme park of their own design. Instead of solemnly holding hands, mourning pose, they swing them back and forth, stretch their bodies away from each other and then pull back together. The sun isn’t shining, but they think it is.
It is not as simple as Ryan looking at Avery and feeling they’ve known each other forever. In fact, it doesn’t feel like that at all. Ryan feels like he is just getting to know Avery, and that getting to know Avery isn’t going to be like getting to know anyone else he’s ever gotten to know. Not if they can be like this.
There’s a wishing well in the middle of the ninth hole. This is not imaginary—it is sitting there, largely intact from its glory days. Avery reaches into his pocket and pulls out a penny.
“No,” Ryan finds himself saying. “Don’t.”
Avery shoots him a quizzical look. “Don’t?”
“I’ve thrown pennies in that well all my life. Not a single wish has ever come true.”
As a kid he wished for money or fame or toys or friends. More recent wishes have been for so many other things, all of them synonymous with love or escape.
He worries he’s ruined it now, by suddenly being serious.
“Here,” Avery says, offering his only penny. “Maybe you didn’t do it right.”
Avery takes the copper coin and moves it to Ryan’s lips. Ryan holds there, not really knowing what’s happening. Then Avery leans in and kisses him, kisses him so that they are both kissing the penny. When he pulls back, the penny falls, and Avery catches it in his palm.
“Now make a wish,” he says.
And Ryan thinks, I want to be happy.
“Got it?” Avery asks.
Ryan nods, and Avery tosses the penny into the well. They both listen, but neither hears it land. Then Avery returns to him, comes closer again, and now they are kissing with nothing between them. Lips closed, then lips open. Hands empty, then hands entwined.
A minute or two of this, then Avery pulls back and says, “We’re only half done!”
They walk, fingers still woven together, to the tenth hole.
“It’s a cloud,” Ryan says. “The whole thing is a cloud.”
* * *
—
Avery is thinking, This might be one of the best days of my life. How fitting it is that they’re golfing through clouds, because that’s certainly where their heads must be. Avery likes that. His head feels free in the clouds.
“You’re cirrusly good at this,” he compliments Ryan, squeezing his hand.
“You’re pretty cumulonimble yourself,” Ryan replies, squeezing back. The fact that he stumbles while saying it makes it even more endearing.
The flow of the day feels so natural…so it’s jarring when Ryan abruptly turns, looking to his right.
“What?” Avery asks. But even as he asks, he can hear people coming and looks to see four guys their age striding over. He tries to tell himself it’s no big deal.
Then Ryan says, “Shit.”
As the four of them get closer, Avery has some idea of where this is going. It’s the sneering looks, the swagger, the almost aimless spite in their laughter. It’s a particular brand of asshole, easily found in straight cis teenage boys traveling in packs.
“What’s up, Ryan?” one of them taunts. “Who’s your boyfriend?”
Ryan lets go of Avery’s hand.
“What do you want, Skylar?” he says.
“We saw a car out front. What are you boys up to?”
Avery notices now that Skylar and one of the other guys are holding golf clubs. Skylar sees him looking and smiles. Then he spots a bottle on the ground and swings the club, knocking the bottle in Ryan and Avery’s direction. Ryan doesn’t flinch, but Avery does. All the clouds have left them now. They’re too visible.
His instinct is to run, but since Ryan is staying put, he stays put. He understands it’s easier to run from strangers. There’s much less pride on the line.
Skylar lines up another bottle, and this time it smashes on impact, glass flying everywhere. The other guys find this hilarious.
Avery can feel himself shutting down, going into survival mode.
“What the fuck do you guys want?” Ryan spits out.
“So tough!” Skylar mocks. Then he throws his golf club at Ryan’s face.
Or at least he makes it look like he’s going to throw the golf club at Ryan’s face. At the last possible moment, he holds on to it. But not before Ryan’s lifted up his arm, cringed from the blow that doesn’t come.
Avery can see Ryan’s humiliation at falling for the fake-out. As the guys are laughing some more, Avery wants to walk over and put a comforting hand on Ryan’s back, wants to tell him it’s okay. But he can’t do that, because he’s not sure what kind of reaction that will get, and also he’s not sure if it really is okay.
“Did we interrupt you guys making out?” Skylar says with a playful disgust. “Did we miss the show?” He’s close now, too close. He takes the golf club and uses it to push Avery toward Ryan. “Don’t let us stop you. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Avery feels the guys’ eyes on him and has no idea what they see.
“Come on!” one of the guys calls out. “Do it!”
Skylar starts to poke Ryan with the golf club, making rude kissing noises. Ryan grabs at the club, tries to pull it out of Skylar’s hands. He expects Skylar to pull back, but Skylar surprises Ryan by pushing instead. Ryan’s caught off-balance and falls back on his ass, knocking into Avery. Then Skylar takes back the club, easily shifting it out of Ryan’s hand.
Everyone is staring at Ryan on the ground, even Avery. The other guys are loving it, shellacking on the insults. But Skylar stays quiet. He lets his satisfaction speak for him. No matter what Ryan does now, Skylar’s already won.
“You need to get a new boyfriend,” he tells Avery. “This one’s damaged.”
“Fuck you,” Avery says. It feels lame to say it. Stupid. There has to be something better for him to say, but that’s all he’s got.
“No,” Skylar says. “Fuck you.”
Ryan is getting up now. Skylar steps back and putts a piece of glass so it hits Ryan’s sneaker.
Survival mode is on full volume now. Fuck pride. Fuck justice. Just get the hell out of there.
“Let’s go,” Avery says.
“What, so soon?” Skylar taunts. “That wasn’t much of a show!”
Avery tries to read the expression in Ryan’s eyes, but he can’t. He has no idea what Ryan is thinking right now, what he’s going to do next. It’s like none of the rest of them are there—it’s just Ryan and Skylar, facing off.
“I want to go,” Avery says. Let them blame him. Let him be seen as the weak one, if that will get them out of here.
“Okay,” Ryan says. It’s directed at Avery, but he still doesn’t take his eyes off Skylar. “It was great to see you guys.”
“Yeah, great to see you, too,” Skylar replies.
Ryan and Avery start to walk away. The guys respond by knocking more cans and bottles in their direction. Ryan doesn’t break into a run. He just keeps walking, and Avery keeps pace. Glass and aluminum are hitting them, flying around them. The guys are whooping with joy. They follow for a short distance, then finally, at the sixth hole, let them go.
Avery starts walking faster. Ryan keeps up.
As soon as they are out of range, safely crawling back through the opening in the gate, the cork pops on all the words Avery has been keeping inside. “That was scary,” he says. “But we’re fine. We’re totally fine. Those guys are assholes. The important thing is that we’re okay. Let’s just forget about it, because there’s no use in worrying about it now. We’re okay, right?”
“I’m really sorry,” Ryan says, “but I think I need us to be quiet for a second.”
He tries to say it gently, tries to make it clear that it’s nothing personal against Avery, but Avery can’t help but feel a little rebuked.
