Now You See Him by Eli Gottlieb

sneakers. We were talking about whether or not Jeanie Locasio would let me see her seventh-grade breasts during the coming school year. They were vaunted breasts, universally admired, and even more than to touch them, I wanted somehow to be incorporated by them. Rob laughed at the thought, and his eyes, luxuriantly lashed and sky blue, blinked with slow, sensual beats before he grew serious and asked, “What do you think it must be like to havetits? I mean real ones, that just lean out onto the air, and everybody looks at?”
    “I dunno,” I said. “I never even thought about it.”
    He rolled over on his stomach.
    “Or that milk pours out of them. Then what?”
    I had been sitting on my heels in the leaves, and at this, lay all the way back onto the ground and extended my legs. We were then lying next to each other, facing in opposite directions. Through the tapering needles of the shrubs the sun was flinging dancing motes, trembling bars of light.
    “Girls are awesome,” I heard him say. “They’re chariots, man. They’re these beautiful genetic machines that carry the whole human race on their backs. I want to marry Lisa Staley.”
    “Do you?” I asked, unable to resist the sudden rush into consciousness of all the things that were awful about Lisa Staley, that were rankly offputting about Lisa Staley; that in my opinion would have disqualified Lisa Staley from ever even presuming she could be with someone like Rob: she had hair that sometimes clumped greasily together and paper white pimply skin; once I was certain I’d heard her fart. But all these small cavils were erased as if in a single wave by the fact that Lisa Staley, at age thirteen, was possessed of an ineffable cool so distinguished that, when around her, it made me feel like a basset hound. She had a vast following of girls who dressed like her and imitated her verbal mannerisms down to the last detail, and it was obvious that she would never have even spoken a word to me if not for Rob. Among the many other things I loved Rob for was the fact that he’d never, not once, brought this up.
    “Why?” I asked. “Isn’t she kinda gross?”
    He swiveled around and put his face next to mine. He smiled, and placed his hand affectionately on my shoulder. Alone among the hip kids, he didn’t care that I was so überdorky I was never called upon by the teachers, or even noticed by the girls. He didn’t give a shit that I wasn’t—like the rest of his friends—instantly, cascadingly witty on command. But I wanted him to tell me something just then. I wanted him to address that hidden fierceness I felt in his company, otherwise hidden to the world. His hand on my shoulder was meanwhile sending warmth outward from his palm. His glowing, foxy face was looking at me from up close, smiling. I smiled back, hopefully.
    “Because Lisa Staley is a goddess,” he said, “and I want to be her Zeus.”
    My smile fell, and I watched as, pressing downward on my shoulder, he slowly levered himself to his feet.
    “And because,” he added, “we’ve decided to run away together. I’m sick of taking grief from Mom and Pops. I’ve got some money saved, and we’ll take a bus away from here. It’ll be like incredibly cool. What’s the matter, Nick?”
    “Nothing,” I lied, and then noticed he was standing in front of me with his hands in his pockets, shifting slightly back and forth on his heels. I got the reference. Two weeks earlier we’d seen the video of the movie Badlands together in his basement while drinking his dad’s filched wine, and in the casual alpha-male insouciance of Martin Sheen had glimpsed a vision of a jaded God whom each of us, for slightly different reasons, found irresistible.
    “On the run,” he was saying, “things’ll be easier. Lisa’sa go and we’ve got people across the country we can stay with.” He made of his finger a pistol and pulled the trigger. “When needed,” he said, adopting a British accent in recognition