The Freedom in American Songs by Kathleen Winter Page B

own house. Even the sequined mask with a feather pluming up from one eye, hung by a bit of elastic over the corner of Xavier’s mirror, did not seem out of place.
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    The singing started as they lay on their backs on Xavier’s bed, Kerry’s forearm burning from its proximity with Xavier’s body but not touching, not ever admitting he would like to touch. There was something about Xavier, now that they had become close friends, that prohibited it. Xavier was exactly like a girl, Kerry realized, only he was a boy. He was like a girl inside a boy’s body, and he did not seem to want physical intimacy. Xavier asked the craziest things. He wanted to know if Kerry ever thought about the fact that the moon was moving and so was the sun and all the planets and really, the way days and weeks and years and time happened wasn’t like a line of numbers, it wasn’t really time at all, it was just things moving around in space and making shadows on each other. Or he wanted to talk about why clothing manufacturers did not make pockets inside your jeans, which would make the jeans smoother and nicer and the pockets wouldn’t show under a long shirt and you could keep money a lot safer since no pickpockets could reach it. He talked about how the continents on the world map obviously fitted together like jigsaw puzzle pieces and how come no one ever told them about why that was in geography class, and he knew a lot about fish and aquariums and coral reefs of the world. He liked talking about ideas and Kerry got caught up in it because he would have done anything to lie on that bed close to Xavier, but talking about all Xavier’s topics was pretty interesting too. And one day when he felt brave enough he asked Xavier if he liked singing. He was afraid to ask it in case Xavier did not like it, and it might have changed the way Kerry felt about him. He could not admit that he had fallen in love with Xavier, but he was not ready to fall out of love with him either.
    â€œIt’s okay,” Xavier said.
    â€œI love it.”
    â€œI know you do. You never shut up singing.”
    â€œI don’t?”
    Xavier laughed. “You don’t know you’re doing it?”
    â€œAm I doing it loud?”
    â€œNo one can pick out the words. You’re always mumbling-singing like water in the culvert out back.”
    â€œOh.” Kerry was embarrassed.
    â€œWhy did you want to know?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œIf I like singing.”
    â€œIt doesn’t matter.”
    â€œCome on. Why?”
    â€œI like singing … harmonies. I just wondered if you—but you wouldn’t.”
    â€œI wouldn’t what?”
    â€œSing the melodies. The easy part. You probably wouldn’t want to.” Kerry was dying to sing duets with a voice not his own tape-recorded voice.
    â€œAre there any easy ones?”
    â€œThere’s Down By the Riverside .” They started with that, and by the end of a week Kerry had taught Xavier every song his cousin Poppy had taught him.
    â€œI have to stick a finger in the ear closest to you,” Xavier said, “or I’ll lose it.”
    â€œBut then you’re too loud.”
    When they came out for some ham and gravy and mashed potatoes after one particularly successful song session, Mrs. Boland said, “My, that sounded lovely.” She had put maraschino cherries on the ham and she had placed the little jar with a few cherries left inside on the table with a tiny spoon in it.
    â€œDid it?” Mrs. Boland was the very first audience Kerry had ever known. He was bursting with pride though he saw Mrs. Boland’s comment meant nothing to Xavier, who poured a stream of gravy over his potatoes and started shovelling into them.
    â€œOh my, yes. I haven’t heard anything like that since my husband was alive, when we were young. How do you know all those old songs?”
    â€œAre they old?”
    â€œMy dear, they