When it’s hot the town has rolling brown-outs, and they make Spencer dreams that his tattoos have melted off.  When he wakes up gliding his fingers over his skin for changes everything is always still there—the thick black angles of his swastikas, his 88; these things stay with him unfailingly.  He droops back staring at the corkboard panels of his ceiling, breathing until he’s certain he’s still caged in his body.

Today it’s 8am and Saturday but it’s the day of the rally so once he’s sure he’s whole he gets out of bed and shoves the futon back into couch posture.  He claws for a T-shirt from the heap of clothes against the fake wood walls, and the smell and soft of them are comforting, real, too.  He fishes out some white one with generic Nazi stuff on the front, a T-shirt a person gave him in a place.  He stuffs his head through and picks up the nearest pair of jeans.  They’ve still got braces dangling from them, though he has to work them over before they untangle enough to be slung over his shoulders.  He fell asleep in his socks, and his boots are keeled over under the futon.  He sits down to tug them on and begin the long process of lacing them.

Dressed, he goes through waking-up’s other token gestures.  He starts coffee in the cheap one-cup he stole from a motel in Nashville, the farthest North he’s ever been.  He lights a cigarette, then puts it down and forgets it.  He cooks an egg or some meat or something.  His fills his pockets with the slim stuff he has to, the safe and necessary accoutrements to the unfulfilled possibility of getting arrested.  He plays the soundtrack he plays every time they rally, calls up the things the cops say every time.  They sneer at Chuck and they make suggestions, like wouldn’t Spencer’s parents be interested in knowing the kind of company he keeps, or his teachers or his pastor or his little sister, and Spencer knows they don’t know shit about him because he doesn’t have a pastor.  He turns off the camping stove.  He doesn’t wash the dishes.

He gets his bike out of the garage and rides toward the park.  The road is empty, baked hard, and in the air there’s still the reverb of everyone’s dead air conditioners.  When he turns up the dirt road he can see cars in the little lot already, mostly trucks and Robert’s white Subaru.  Chuck’s truck isn’t there yet.  Spencer bounces up the curb and rolls to the red picnic table where most of the crew is already assembled, slouching and smoking and scowling.  Robert has his two big flags, the red swastika one and the black White Power one.  Everyone’s dressed like Spencer’s dressed, or the same except in shorts, with dust all over their boots and sweat stains forming at their sides.  He hops off his bike and lets it fall to the ground, patting himself down for cigarettes.

Hey, Alex says to him without looking.  He’s staring across the parking lot where the Anti-Racist Action kids are forming up on the swing set sharing Thermoses of coffee.  Most of them are familiar.  Spencer nods at all his people and busies himself with a smoke.

There a reporter coming, Tom tells him disinterestedly, sipping his own cup of coffee.  And someone from the Stormfront website is gonna take pictures.

How’d they find out? Spencer asks.

Friend of Chuck’s.  Tom shrugs.  You can tell we aren’t doing shit because we’re doing shit they can photograph.

Tom stares at Spencer, challenging but not being aggressive.  He says he’s with them because he’s laying low from Los Angeles.  He’s straight-backed and precise, and his bald head is covered in tattoos and he has spider webs on his elbows.  He’s done a lot of shit they don’t know about, or so he says, shit he can’t talk about.  Spencer finds Tom’s presence constantly threatening, because he’s so tough and solid and believes so passionately in a way that has nothing to do with Chuck or the crew but with something real and private in himself. 

Then they all jump at the asthmatic rumble of a pick-up heaving itself into the lot.  They can tell it’s Chuck’s by the sound, even before the smashed-in green nose of it crests the little hill and the big flags appear rattling off the back.  They’re the same flags Robert has.  Chuck’s windows have been bashed in so many times that he’s never replaced them, and there’s no glass, no windshield or anything.  A few of the guys stand up as the truck sighs into a space.  Spencer sits down on the picnic table.  The ARA kids see Chuck’s truck and slither off the swings, edging close to the concrete and starting to unroll their paper signs.

The driver door opens at an angle and Chuck slides out.  Actually slides because of the size of him.  He insists his boys be in tip-top shape but he’s fat, not big or obese or any other polite words, but fat like a definition.  There’s too much of him in the middle especially, and his body sloshes over his hips like a hula hoop.  His T-shirt’s too tight so skin and hair squeeze under it and cascade over the waist of his jeans until you can’t see the buttons.  Spencer’s never seen Chuck’s braces off but he images they’re as long as tape measures.  He’s mostly bald but he combs the remains of his dark hair over his bulbous head like a man from a long late-night infomercial.  His feet are too fat for boots, so in the summer he’s always wearing those cheap neon flip-flops that Spencer’s mom comes home in when she gets a pedicure.  He slams the door with finality and begins the process of bringing all that mass toward the table.  Alex leaps up and hurries over to him.  With Colin not here he’s the youngest at fourteen, and his step-and-fetch-it attitude is cautiously endearing to the other guys, who like to pretend they don’t have it too.

The ARA kids are chanting, Hey hey, ho ho, you Neo-Nazis have got to go.  Hey hey, ho ho…  Their voices bounce through the deserted park.

Cute little signs they got there, Chuck says, collapsing on the bench with an earthquake creak. 

We’re gonna march down to the town square, right? Alex asks eagerly.  They’ll have to follow us.  Those fucking hippies will never keep up.

Oh, let them do what they want, Chuck says, like suggesting they let their puppy eat table scraps.  Maybe that’s what makes him so compelling to Spencer—he just doesn’t care what they think about his beliefs, his commitments.  He’s that sure.   

But the ARA kids are sure too, aren’t they?  Their signs are illegible in the sun but Spencer knows what they say because he probably made some of them, a year ago, before the dykes joined.  They stand out as always in their matching clichés.  It was easy to go from ARA to the Nazis because he already knew all about them.  His ARA friends posted signs all over their school of a class picture when he had hair and the words Spencer Halls Is A Nazi!  But there weren’t any Jews or Blacks in the school so no one cared.  Being a Nazi makes as much sense as being anti-racist did: a series of codes and dogma that can be slipped on and off like a T-shirt.  The dykes ruined ARA.  They made it complicated, brought in some sneaky personal human thing that no one talks about on Spencer’s side.  He turns back to his own people.  They’re just what they say they are and they’re honest about that, no matter what.  They look out for each other and it isn’t complicated or political necessarily, just a fact.  Like stubbing your toe.  Like knowing who you are.

It’s another routine White Power march.  They load up on flags and form a ragged block and march out of the park and down the main road to the center of town.  Chuck leads and so the block creaks along.  They do this every month like a track meet.  They shout phrases whose definitions Spencer has forgotten, but his pronunciation is perfect because of Honors German.  They throw Nazi salutes like flicking water off their fingers.  The ARA kids bounce along screaming insults at them from the grass.  Spencer hurries his face away from them, and his eyes land on the back of the guy in front of him, straight and contained like Chuck isn’t.  The dykes dance in the corner of Spencer’s eye and he lets his gaze droop to the thick soles of ten boots crashing on the pavement around the pad of Chuck’s sandals.  His hatred for the dykes strangles him briefly.  The dykes ruined ARA.  The dykes drove him to this because everyone knows there aren’t any faggot Nazis.

All the cars have arrived at Chuck’s house by the time Spencer pedals up.  The single level is storm-tossed on the huge plot, rolling through dangerous reefs of broken trees and heaps of mysterious metal stuff.  The house resembles a rotting boat thrown down and forgotten hundreds of miles from sailable water.  Dogs lope in the background after damp and squirmy things in the swamp.  Robert’s flags dangle off his Subaru bored and caked with dust.

Inside everyone drinks 40s of OE and little cans of Bud.  Colin and Alex are on the controllers playing some unfamiliar shooter game.  The light from the TV makes Colin’s amateur tattoos glitter.  He’s only thirteen and he lives with Chuck because he can’t live with anyone else when he has swastikas on his face.  But he looks normal in the stifling yellow shag carpet, the barren walls, the Archie Bunker-colored couches and recliners crowding the entertainment system.  The expensive electronics and the full fridge.  The garage with its tools and guns and targets.  Chuck’s good to them always.  There will never be a question. 

Tom comes from the kitchen and puts a 40 in Spencer’s hand.  Your usual, he nods.

You did good today, Spencer shuffles.

Your usual.  Tom stares into Spencer’s face, dark-eyed and illegible.  Spencer looks back at the TV.

Yeah well you’re still here, he mutters.

Yeah well so are you.

I never said—  I don’t complain.

I don’t complain.

No, but…  Man.  Can I have a go? he calls to the kids at the game. 

I’m on next, Roger answers.

Can I play with you?

I’m playing winner.

I’m playing winner after that, Tyler adds.

Well I’ll play after, Spencer insists.

It might be a while.

The bedroom door opens.  Chuck has changed into a blank T-shirt already ringy with pit-stains.  He gazes fondly on the crowd.  Spencer tilts hard into the 40 so he can only see amber bubbles.  Half the bottle in he’s forced to take it down.  Chuck stares at him, one hand on the doorframe.

Spencer, he says, can I see you in here for a minute?

I’m about to play, Spencer answers. 

No you’re not, Colin says.

Spencer? Chuck repeats. 

Spencer picks across the crew and moves into the bedroom past Chuck’s sweaty body.  He swigs more OE and keeps his eyes ahead, on the sagging bed and the wreckage of bedroom stuff around it.  The clutter is all nondescript, invisible in direct sight.  The door snivels shut.  The floorboards under the carpet whimper with Chuck’s weight.  Spencer keeps looking straight even when he can feel Chuck’s steamy body at his back.

You did good today, Chuck says, his mouth closer to Spencer’s face than he expected.  His breath smells like cigarettes and bacon or some other rank meat. 

Thanks.

I’m so proud of you.  A lot of boys have come through here, and you’re really one of the best.

Tom’s the best.

Tom’s… different.  Than the rest of you.  And he won’t be here long.  I think we all know that.

…yeah.

You boys are my core, my crew.  I’ve practically raised you—I have raised Alex and Colin.  It’s not easy, Chuck continues.  Having a houseful of boys.  Teaching you pride in yourselves and your race and your manhood.  And you’re all so young, so full of confusion and needs.  I may as well have ten sons, he chuckles.  You’ll send me to an early grave.

Spencer can’t help smiling.  Chuck moves a little closer and his skin touches Spencer’s arm. 

Your father never tells you he’s proud of you, does he? Chuck asks.

Not anymore, Spencer admits.  He won’t admit not ever.  Middle-class parents don’t have to do that kind of thing.  He doesn’t want to say that he doesn’t care, that it really doesn’t matter.  He knows it’s important for some of the other guys, especially the actual working-class ones who break themselves trying to be good, trying to be better.  Making themselves the kind of people someone should be proud of.

Well I’ll say it.  Chuck’s hand lands on Spencer’s shoulder like a cow turd.  I’m proud of you, son.

Spencer sits down on the bed because he’s uncomfortable, but Chuck stays close.  From the dip in the mattress Spencer can see a few of Chuck’s buttons under his belly.  On the very lowest he can make out the little brass letters of LEVI’S hammered in by some machine that’s taken the place of someone’s dad.  At the top of Chuck
 where his glasses are his look is smudged and sincere.  He’s always sincere.  It’s confusing and terrifying because Spencer knows that he never is, and no one ever lets on if they know that or not.

I’ve been thinking about you a lot, Chuck goes on.  About what you do for us, and how much we depend on you.  How much I depend on you.  And you’re smart.  You’re the only one of them who goes to school every day.

It’s hot.  The school has A/C.

You’re going to graduate next year, and there’s so much you could do with yourself.  So many things you want, right?  And I’ll be honest: I’m concerned that we’re going to lose you.

But… you know.  I might go to college or something.

But what is college going to do for you that I haven’t already done, or that I couldn’t do?  Whatever you need, I want you to get it here.  We need you.  You make us better.  You give us possibility.

I don’t.

You do.  Chuck wraps his soft palm around the base of Spencer’s skull.  For a moment Spencer thinks Chuck’s going to pull Spencer’s face in to his crotch.  He doesn’t, but it doesn’t mean he isn’t.  He doesn’t do it right away.Just think about it, son, Chuck says over Spencer’s head, staring toward the living room where their crew is yelling.  Think about what you mean to us.  Think about what you want.

By four they’re at the bar, hammered and loud and sloshing all over.  The bar feels like nighttime from the low lights and the neon glaring in from the windows.  The country music on the stupid juke box makes Spencer nostalgic even though it’s modern country.  Sung by all those identical and non-threatening Nashville stars that everyone went to see when they were up there.  Spencer didn’t go.  He wasn’t part of country’s time but he’s sure that time has passed.  He thinks maybe no one should be allowed to write a country song again.  He places more pitchers on the tables and sits on a bench.  Everyone’s talking but him and Tom.  He feels the way he always feels after he’s had his tattoo dream, quiet and complicated and a little lost.  He looks down at his inked hands.  They’re there.  They’re always the same.  Around him swirls talk of video games and sports and where there’s work and ideology.  Their private vocabulary.  Spencer stares across his plastic cup at the classy rows of liquor behind the bar.  They’re lit like they could be in a fancy place, like Atlanta or Austin.  Spencer imagines living in a city.  He could go to college.  He could go to a town big enough for no one to notice he just doesn’t know how to care.Your usual, Tom says again.  He’s probably had more to drink than any of them, but he’s stoic and disengaged. 

Spencer scowls, Look, if you hate us so fucking much, why don’t you just disappear?  There are other places you could hide in.

Sure are.

So what the fuck?

I used to live here. 

He says it like it’s no big deal.  Spencer’s hand loses some beer from his cup.  He starts pulling imagined layers of Tom apart, but there aren’t any layers to him, or there aren’t any loose threads.

You did not, he says.

I was with Chuck in the beginning.  Way back.  I was probably at your Little League games. 

That’s…  Chuck says you’re different than us. 

I am different, Tom says distantly.  And he doesn’t like that.

He says you won’t be here long.

It’s the first time Spencer’s seen doubt in Tom’s eyes and mouth.  He swallows the rest of his beer and reaches for the pitcher.  Halfway across the table he sees that the pitcher’s empty, but he takes it anyway.  He puts it down in front of him and peers momentarily at Spencer through its slated sides.  He lifts his eyes to stare at the brand names pulsing backwards through the windows.

I’m not going to do anything because Chuck doesn’t like it, he says.  But I’m different.  I hope. Not what I was, not what… you are.  They are.  And Chuck doesn’t like that.

Spencer wants to tell Tom he needs him to not be complicated, but even though it’s his turn to talk he can tell that the conversation is over.  When Tom doesn’t say anything else for long enough Spencer gets up and goes to the other side of the table. 

The boys on that side are playing with their cups and glasses and coasters and plastic utensils to construct a tower.  It begins with two levels of pint glasses bridged by their cardboard coasters.  On top of the coasters they’ve moved to plastic cups four high, some weighted with remnants of beer.  Now they’ve moved on to hanging utensils on the ledges and balancing them on each other.  It’s really unbelievable how tall it is.  Everyone sits so still and breathless, hovering around the tower’s unpredictable energy.  They’re building unrealistically, but somehow it stays up.  Somehow it grows, as coasters are added around the bottom like a row of two-by-fours.  Forks swaying, balanced, on knives.  Spoons hanging from the tines of forks.  Damp coasters supporting impractical weight.  Beer foam running down the insides of the glasses and making everything slippery.  Colin reaches a spoon toward a precarious knife.  He has little swastikas on each of his fingers and a huge one in the center of his forehead.  He smiles at Chuck’s ear and the side of his neck as he pushes against gravity and succeeds.  Chuck isn’t looking.  He doesn’t need to, maybe.  But Spencer can’t stop staring.  He doesn’t want it to fall.  He wants it to keep growing, changing, becoming possibilities and promise, becoming new.

The suspense is killing me, Tom spits. 

He stares at Spencer, waiting for him to agree.  Spencer feels himself wanting to hate the tower too, but he doesn’t.  He likes the tense effort.  He likes watching them all try together.  

When Tom doesn’t get a concurrence he gruffly announces, Piss, and pushes away from the table.  He tramps across the sawdusty floor toward the bathroom.  He crosses through the bartender’s cigarette smoke and passed the jukebox where the dishonest bullshit music plays for free.  When he gets to the bathroom door he pauses, maybe, or just holds the door a little too long.  Then, even though he doesn’t look back, Spencer realizes that Tom is waiting for him. 

He looks at the tower, tenuous and unlikely.  He wants to know what will happen.  He looks at the door, swinging open and closed and empty.  He looks at his hands.  For a moment he’s back in his dream, but when his tattoos come off it isn’t scary but relieving, unbelievable, honest.  He looks at the door again.  He looks at these people who are more than his friends.  He could walk out on all of this, everything except his skin.  Maybe that too, though; his mom has hassled him about laser surgeries before.  A doctor could do it. The tower swaying, holding.  Someone could burn the layers of his flesh off until they uncovered a clean one, unmarked, blushingly honest, so new that it hurts. 

 

© 2009 Riley MacLeod

Riley MacLeod holds a Masters in Theology from Harvard Divinity School, where he also holds the dubious honor of being the school's first trans anarcho-punk.  His novel Against, a radical queer retelling of the life of the Buddha, will be published this fall by Rebel Satori Press.  He can be reached at rmacleod@riseup.net.