first walk on the moon.
One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
Erin had got herself a sex by then, in a rudimentary sort of way. Thirteen. That was the summer things started to change for her, to go wonky. That was the summer their parents bombshelled them, broke the big news. That was the summer, too, that Erin caught them at it, caught him and Zane. Their very last time.
It was Matt’s turn to be on top that day. He liked it on top. He liked it underneath too. Crush or be crushed, smother or be smothered, both were good, everything was good.
“Man,” he murmured—or at least that’s what he murmurs in his memory, and who’ll contradict him? “Man, is your mum …
whoa.”
Earlier that afternoon, when they’d crashed into Zane’s place to grab his cap gun, they’d surprised Mrs. Levin on the patio tending her pots in an orange two-piece. It’d knocked the wind right out of Matt, the water-bomb weight of those things—hooters, jugs, bazoongas—and the slo-mo way they shifted when she stood. Preview of the landing, just hours to go,
she’s on the moon.
Zane opened his eyes. He looked dopey, he looked drugged. His upper lip was still pricked with sweat from their game of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
peow-peow-peow,
in the midsummer heat. Matt had been Robert Redford that day, Zane had been Paul Newman.
“Fuggoff,” Zane sighed. The syllables were muggy against Matt’s neck.
Matt executed a searching shimmy of his pelvis, denim on denim. He said, “You fuggoff.”
That’s another thing, they didn’t even know the word yet. Which didn’t stop them using it, of course. A spell, an incantation, doubly potent for being so impenetrable.
Fuggoff.
They’d shush it if need be, bring it right down to a lip-read—around adults, around other kids, around anybody but each other—but that just intensified it, that just sweetened it on the tongue.
That particular day, though, it felt different to Matt. In fact it felt kind of creepy. He and his friend weren’t saying the same thing anymore. For Matt the sound was now soured with meaning. Erin had overheard him
fuggoff
-ing the night before, and had taken it upon herself to straighten him out. “Only imbeciles use words they don’t understand,” she’d scolded, and gone on to detail the gross, the farcical mechanics. Cross-legged in her rose hot pants she’d had G.I. Joe bounce up and down on top of Barbie, little sis Skipper smiling sweetly on. In those days Erin was constantly bringing Matt bulletins from the grownup world, jabs of unwelcome news about Santa, or Disney, or death—a cruel-to-be-kind sort of thing, her way of inoculating him against the world and its betrayals. Most times Matt relayed these bolts of wisdom directly to Zane, but this fucking thing was too bizarre. And, since Erin had taught him the modifier while she was at it, too
fucking
bizarre.
“They shouldn’t die,” said Zane. “Butch and Sundance, they should shoot their way out at the end.”
“Next time for sure,” said Matt. This was a bit of wiseassery in which they indulged every time they saw the movie, three-four-five times so far. The funny fantasy that things could be different, that you wouldn’t always end up at that same place, two friends going down together in a blizzard of bullets.
There were creaky footsteps from up above—Matt’s dad in the living room, freshening his highball. Fussing with the rabbit ears no doubt, switching from news to news, from Knowlton Nash to Walter Cronkite and back. The boys tracked the sound from their lair in the basement rumpus room, set to jimmy themselves apart and look busy with the mini–pool cues. Matt’s mum—a real mum, brisk and unbeautiful—would be in the kitchen tossing salad, imparting a geometry of bacon to the TV-shaped face of the meatloaf. Erin would be in her bedroom curlicueing in her diary, or maybe she’d have a friend up there with her, Penny or Sharon or Sue, and they’d be
One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
Erin had got herself a sex by then, in a rudimentary sort of way. Thirteen. That was the summer things started to change for her, to go wonky. That was the summer their parents bombshelled them, broke the big news. That was the summer, too, that Erin caught them at it, caught him and Zane. Their very last time.
It was Matt’s turn to be on top that day. He liked it on top. He liked it underneath too. Crush or be crushed, smother or be smothered, both were good, everything was good.
“Man,” he murmured—or at least that’s what he murmurs in his memory, and who’ll contradict him? “Man, is your mum …
whoa.”
Earlier that afternoon, when they’d crashed into Zane’s place to grab his cap gun, they’d surprised Mrs. Levin on the patio tending her pots in an orange two-piece. It’d knocked the wind right out of Matt, the water-bomb weight of those things—hooters, jugs, bazoongas—and the slo-mo way they shifted when she stood. Preview of the landing, just hours to go,
she’s on the moon.
Zane opened his eyes. He looked dopey, he looked drugged. His upper lip was still pricked with sweat from their game of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,
peow-peow-peow,
in the midsummer heat. Matt had been Robert Redford that day, Zane had been Paul Newman.
“Fuggoff,” Zane sighed. The syllables were muggy against Matt’s neck.
Matt executed a searching shimmy of his pelvis, denim on denim. He said, “You fuggoff.”
That’s another thing, they didn’t even know the word yet. Which didn’t stop them using it, of course. A spell, an incantation, doubly potent for being so impenetrable.
Fuggoff.
They’d shush it if need be, bring it right down to a lip-read—around adults, around other kids, around anybody but each other—but that just intensified it, that just sweetened it on the tongue.
That particular day, though, it felt different to Matt. In fact it felt kind of creepy. He and his friend weren’t saying the same thing anymore. For Matt the sound was now soured with meaning. Erin had overheard him
fuggoff
-ing the night before, and had taken it upon herself to straighten him out. “Only imbeciles use words they don’t understand,” she’d scolded, and gone on to detail the gross, the farcical mechanics. Cross-legged in her rose hot pants she’d had G.I. Joe bounce up and down on top of Barbie, little sis Skipper smiling sweetly on. In those days Erin was constantly bringing Matt bulletins from the grownup world, jabs of unwelcome news about Santa, or Disney, or death—a cruel-to-be-kind sort of thing, her way of inoculating him against the world and its betrayals. Most times Matt relayed these bolts of wisdom directly to Zane, but this fucking thing was too bizarre. And, since Erin had taught him the modifier while she was at it, too
fucking
bizarre.
“They shouldn’t die,” said Zane. “Butch and Sundance, they should shoot their way out at the end.”
“Next time for sure,” said Matt. This was a bit of wiseassery in which they indulged every time they saw the movie, three-four-five times so far. The funny fantasy that things could be different, that you wouldn’t always end up at that same place, two friends going down together in a blizzard of bullets.
There were creaky footsteps from up above—Matt’s dad in the living room, freshening his highball. Fussing with the rabbit ears no doubt, switching from news to news, from Knowlton Nash to Walter Cronkite and back. The boys tracked the sound from their lair in the basement rumpus room, set to jimmy themselves apart and look busy with the mini–pool cues. Matt’s mum—a real mum, brisk and unbeautiful—would be in the kitchen tossing salad, imparting a geometry of bacon to the TV-shaped face of the meatloaf. Erin would be in her bedroom curlicueing in her diary, or maybe she’d have a friend up there with her, Penny or Sharon or Sue, and they’d be
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