The Child by Sarah Schulman

toward him. Moving in.
    Hockey could see it all before him, twirling and twisting in the sea of unpopular causes and gray zones, ambiguous moralities that most people don’t want to understand, and essential human contradictions. All he wanted was a couple of condo closings and a few wills. That was enough for him.
    “The kid is fifteen,” Joe said again. “He’s a gay kid. We met on the Internet. No deception. He’s been over a few times to have sex, a real frisky guy. The parents are a nightmare, and the kids at school hate him. Now they’ve got Dave, my boyfriend, in jail on child abuse charges, but the kid is not a child.”
    Joe was right on the edge of Hockey’s desk, looming over him, inevitably.
    “Not that that would stop you,” Hockey scolded, feebly, while Thor’s smile became a reflecting pool.
    “Fifteen-year-old boys have the right to get laid,” Thor shimmered. “That shouldn’t be up to someone’s idiot parents and a tightassed cop.”
    “I need your help,” Joe said.
    “I told him what a great lawyer you are.” Thor reached out to rub Hockey’s neck. It felt really good. “They’re going to make scapegoats out of Joe and Dave with everyone going crazy about ‘child abuse this’ and ‘child abuse that.’” He mimicked Joe’s Canadian twang. “This is not abuse, and Stew is not a child.”
    Hockey felt faint. This was going to happen and he couldn’t stop it.
    “David is facing twenty-five years, Hockey. You’ve got to help us.”
    Joe seemed to be a nice guy. He seemed authentically upset.

    “Who is going to pay for this?” Hockey knew he was defeated. He was staring at an endless, stigmatized, no-win cause. Another one. Another drain of money and energy with weird, soon-to-befeuding parties, in an environment of social repression and legal corruption.
    “CLACDF.”
    “What’s CLACDF?”
    “Committee to Lower the Age of Consent Defense Fund.”
    Hockey trembled.
    “We’re not asking for any handouts here. We’ve got to build a good case and get a good legal team and plan a strategy, right, Hockey? And I have a couple of ideas in that direction.”
    “No kidding.”
    Hockey looked over at Joe. Joe didn’t have to stand by his lover. He could worm his way out of his unpleasant responsibilities like most people try to do. But he didn’t. He had integrity. Hockey could see that Joe was loyal. He was trying to do the right thing. Just the way Hockey had stood up for Jose, and the way Jose would have stood up for Hockey if he had lived.
    “What attorney in their right mind would ever take this case?” Hockey whined, letting fate carry him into his own future. Who ever thought there would be a future, and that it would get programmed so passively?
    “We don’t have one,” Thor said. “You have to help us find one. Someone who can make us look good.”
    “What in the world would ever make you look good?”
    “A woman,” Thor said.
    “A woman?” Hockey rolled it over in his mind, landing on one familiar feminine face. “You’re right. That’s what we need.”

7
    Mary and Eva were at home on a lazy Sunday morning. The happy hum of a shared life. This is the highest privilege–another person’s presence–masquerading falsely as the mundane.
    Eva sat on the floor trying to fix her bicycle. Mary was at the computer, both listening to a well-worn copy of Dusty in Memphis . The immeasurable pleasure of the morning chat, that constant conversation between two mutually interested people that means true love.
    “I don’t get it,” Eva asked casually. “Why did he turn you down?”
    Mary’s naturally soft angelic look was so deeply pleasurable to Eva that it transcended everything harsh she might do or say. She was a visceral, visual delight. If the words were painful, Eva could just watch. Many hundreds of mornings Eva looked over at her sleeping lover, her sustained loveliness, and thought, You are so beautiful, and I love you so much . Watching her chest