Jordan’s scoffing little breath was surprisingly mature.“He didn’t catch me.He was so wasted he didn’t have any idea what was going on.”
“Something happened, though.”
The boy stared off into the middle distance.Tears were drying on his cheeks, leaving pale salt tracks that were only visible when the light hit them exactly right.
“The guy who owns that house,” Jordan said, “do you know him?”
I nodded.
Jordan ran his arm under his nose and said, “He’s a creep.”
I nodded again.
“I went to pee, and when I came back, I couldn’t find Tip.When I’d left him, he’d been passed out in a chair, so I was freaking out.I thought somebody had taken him.Or I don’t know, he’d gotten sick or something.I looked everywhere.”Jordan swallowed.“I found him upstairs in that guy’s office.He was trying to give him a—he was on his knees, trying to get that guy’s pants open.Tip was so trashed he couldn’t even pull the zipper down.And that guy, he was pulling Tip’s hair.Hard, you know.Trying to hurt him.He was saying the worst stuff to him.”
“Saying what?”
“Calling him a fag.A fag whore.‘Do you like that, you stupid fag?’Stuff like that.”
Jordan stopped and cut his eyes away.
“What else?”I asked.
The boy squeezed his eyes shut.
“What else did Sunny say?”I said.
Jordan shook his head, but he answered in a whisper.“He said, ‘You want that big cock?’And I thought, jeez, who is this guy who thinks he’s hot shit?And then he said, ‘This’ll be a first for me.Mother and son.Whose pussy do you think is going to be tighter?’”Jordan opened his eyes, but he wasn’t seeing me.“And then he slapped Tip.It was so loud.And what he said—it was like my brain turned off.All I wanted to do was—” But Jordan stopped.He swallowed.And then he said, “But Tip just moaned.”He drew out the word with disbelief.He didn’t say the rest of it, but I could hear the words he couldn’t bring himself to utter:like he liked it.
It was yet another version of the little drama that had played out at that party.I wondered how much of it was true—enough, probably, that I needed to talk to Sunny again.He’d insisted he hadn’t known who Tip was, but it sounded like not only had he known, but he’d gotten off on it.
“Did you know what he was talking about?”I asked.
Jordan shook his head, but he said, “Tip’s mom is, like, a dancer.There’s this place, the Beaver Trap.”
I thought about following up, asking if Tip had told Jordan about his mom’s experience at one of Sunny’s parties.But instead, I asked, “What did you do?”
The boy rolled one shoulder.“I ran in there.I told him to leave Tip alone.He told me to get out of his office.”
Jordan stopped, so I asked again: “What did you do?”
“I hit him.”His voice was shaky.“I never hit anybody before.”
“Did he hit you back?”
He laughed, and the sound startled me.“He just stared at me.He touched his cheek, and he said he was going to call the police, and then he left.He wasn’t going to call the police, though.He acted so tough, but I don’t think anybody had ever hit him before.”
“What was Tip doing during all of this?”
“Getting in the way.Grabbing at me.Yelling at me.He didn’t really know what was going on, but he knew enough that he wanted me to leave him alone.”Pain tightened Jordan’s voice.“Somebody had to take care of him.”
“Did you and Tip fight?”
“No.”But then Jordan said, “Not then.He grabbed a drink—there were two drinks on the desk, and I guess that guy, he’d made them.Because they were real glasses, you know?Not the plastic cups we were using downstairs.And then he went back downstairs.He wanted to keep going.”
I remembered the glasses in Sunny’s office.Holding the drink he’d mixed for me.Cool in my hand.How fragile it had felt, like if I tightened my fingers, it would shatter.
“I went after him,” Jordan continued.“I told him we had to leave.What if Sunny came back?What if he went to get some of his friends?Tip didn’t want to go, but I made him.I don’t think he knew what was going on.When we got outside, though, he must have figured it out, because he tried to go back in the house.I grabbed him, and he—he shoved me.He told me to leave him alone.Because I was ruining everything, the way I always did.”Jordan ran his fingers under his eyes, collecting a fresh trickle of tears.“He pushed that stupid glass into my hand and said I needed to chill.‘You need to chill.’He kept saying it and pushing that glass into my hand, like if I took a drink, I’d stop being—stop being so fucking pathetic.”His voice stalled out, and it was several moments before he finally managed to say, “I got so mad.”
