Openly Straight

I felt a certain desire to jump and twist too, like my father would, like Toby might. All those people who weren’t constricted in their movements the way I was by my brain. And just as I was about to say the hell with it and join in the fun, I stopped. My hands half in the air over my head, half protecting my face as if someone were about to hurl a dodgeball at me, I stopped. I put my arms down and smiled to myself. I knew I could have danced if I wanted to, really. But I didn’t, so I didn’t have to. The world needs people who are more comfortable standing still. We keep the earth on its axis when everyone else is bouncing around.

“We’re a pretty tolerant place,” Steve said, an edge to his voice.
“Ah, interesting word. Tolerant. What does tolerant mean?”
“It means we tolerate,” Steve said, flat. “We accept people.”
“Actually, tolerance and acceptance are different. To tolerate seems to mean that there is something negative to tolerate, doesn’t it? Acceptance, though, what’s that?”
I thought about that. It reminded me of the excerpt from Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story that Mr. Scarborough had assigned us. White had talked about the strange sort of tolerance his roommates had had for him back at his boarding school in the 1950s. I remembered underlining the word tolerance. I mean, if you accept something, you take it for what it is. Tolerance is different. Less. So is acceptance at the top of the pyramid? Is that what everyone wants in the best of all possible worlds? Acceptance? I rolled the idea around in my head. It didn’t feel right, somehow.
No one was saying anything.
“Acceptance also has a bit of negative to it, doesn’t it?” I finally said.
Scarborough looked over at me. “Yes! Tell me more about that.”
My face reddened. I knew everyone was looking at me. I didn’t want to stand out in this conversation, but I did have something to add. I took a shot.
“Well, if you need to accept something, that means it’s not like it should be, right? Like you accept something as it is.”
“No,” someone said, from the back. “You get accepted into college. It doesn’t mean you aren’t as you should be. That’s stupid.”
“Not stupid,” Scarborough said. “Stay with me here. That’s a slightly different form of the word. And yet, colleges accept students who are otherwise rejected. Acceptance is an affirmation that you’re good enough.”
[...]
“It’s hard to be different,” Scarborough said. “And perhaps the best answer is not to tolerate differences, not even to accept them. But to celebrate them. Maybe then those who are different would feel more loved, and less, well, tolerated.”

Neither of us said anything about anything when we woke up that morning (well, when he woke up and when I pretended to), or when we finished packing, or when we got in the cab. It was like it was just our sleeping arrangement. Then I wondered if that was what this was, like a Brokeback Mountain thing. We’d sleep in the same bed for a year, and finally we’d do it, but we’d never talk about it, ever, and then Ben would get married and I’d be killed in Texas.
Probably not, but you can never be too careful with these things.

“I still think that you’re overlooking something,” he said. “You say you have this great bond. But how can you, if he doesn’t know you?”
“Come on, Dad,” I said. “He knows me.”
“He does?” he asked.
I could see he didn’t understand that knowing a person is about more than knowing whom they fantasize about. That’s the small stuff, actually. Not the big stuff. The big stuff is lying next to a guy on the floor and locking eyes and having deep conversations about philosophy. The big stuff is letting a friend know your hopes and your fears and not having to make a joke about it. That’s what matters.

“What possible trouble could people get into at an apple orchard?” I asked as we passed through an open field.
“Oh, you’d be surprised,” said Albie. “Haven’t you heard of apple gangs?”
This cracked Ben up, and Albie seemed pleased.
“Absolutely. There are drive-by apple throwings. It’s a dangerous world.”
“Not to mention the terrible things that can happen when rival gangs wear the wrong colors. Like if the Golden Deliciouses wear red, or the Honeycrisps wear green,” said Toby.
“I wonder what they’d call an apple orchard gang?” I asked. “The MacDaddies? Like Mac-Intosh? That’s not bad.”
“Eh,” said Toby. “We can do better. You don’t like the Golden Deliciouses?”
“Would you be offended if I said that sounded really gay?” Albie asked.
“I would take it as a compliment,” Toby said, and Ben laughed again, so I did too.
“Are we forming some kind of apple gang now?” Ben asked.
“Sure,” Toby said as we reached a clearing with a bunch of picnic tables. All around us were groups of trees and signs about what harvests were available and where to find them.
“The Apple Dumpling Gang?” Ben asked.
“What the hell is the Apple Dumpling Gang?” asked Albie.
Ben said, “The Apple Dumpling Gang. Wasn’t that like an old movie or a cartoon or something?”
“It does sound kind of familiar,” I answered. “I like it. We’re the Apple Dumpling Gang.”
Toby giggled. “It’s perfect. Scary, but not too scary. Cartoonish, but not too cartoonish. Sexy, but not too sexy. You don’t mess with the Apple Dumpling Gang.” He struck a pose, his arms crossed in front of his skinny chest, and attempted a serious, menacing expression.
“Yeah, but what does our gang do?” Ben asked as we approached a sign for Jonathan apples.
“We maintain order among the different apple breeds,” Toby explained. “We make sure the Jonathans and the McIntoshes don’t get into it. And, of course, we defend our territory. This, friends, is our territory.”

Five minutes later, Albie turned on his right turn signal and we pulled into a place called Dowse Orchards.
“Huh,” I said. “I was not expecting this.”
“No. Me neither,” said Ben.
“How is this related to the end of the world?” I asked.
“Well, if the world was going to end, an apple orchard would be a reasonably good place to camp out. Food, shelter of the big trees,” Albie said.
“Ah,” I said. “Of course.”
Albie broke into a rare smile. “I didn’t say it was the BEST place to be should the apocalypse hit. That would probably be a cave stocked with nonperishables and enough ammunition to survive the inevitable postapocalypse riots.”

You can do anything for five minutes. This was something my dad used to say, and it was true. When I took swimming lessons as a kid, I hated the cold water of the lake we swam in. But if I didn’t pass, we wouldn’t be able to go Jet Skiing. Dad said: “Five minutes is nothing. You can do anything, anything, for five minutes.” So I did. I pretended I had a wet suit on, that the freezing water against my sides was a second skin, protecting me from the elements. And I started the crawl stroke and I didn’t stop until I heard the whistle.