Charles Bock - Beautiful Children

Just as hard was faking that she did not recognize the colored videotapes as ones Ponyboy had her watch.

But she betrayed nothing. A quick pirouette gave the techies a nice view of her backside, and she made her way back toward the desk now. The increasing attention of the men behind her was palpitant, and Jabba's leer had her on edge. But at the same time, in a different way, it gave her more confidence. Nervous as these guys had her, their looks had her understanding the potential of this idea; and suddenly the blooms of love Cheri felt for Ponyboy flowered; suddenly she was on top of the world, horny as a fucking toad. Man oh man was she looking forward to giving Ponyboy some horny toad love in front of all these exploiter pervs.

She took the cigar from Jabba's mouth, put it in her own, blew smoke in his face.

“Real first-class operation you got here.”

Jabba coughed. “We're renovating.” He cleared his throat. “Your tests came back. Everything's great. All we need now is a picture of your ID.”

“Got it,” Ponyboy interjected. “Right here.”

Jabba took the card without looking, his attention staying with Cheri. “Hiro!”

Halfway across the room, the guy stopped fiddling with the portable lights. Cheri noticed a large camera around his neck, an even more imposing telephoto lens.

“You need anything?” Jabba asked. “A few drinks to loosen you up?”

“Thanks,” Cheri said.

“Amyl nitrate? Poppers? Blow?”

Again Cheri reached for Ponyboy's hand. “I'm good.”

“Great. You sure I can't convince you to show us those flaming nipples today?”

Ponyboy took an uncertain step forward. “Yeah, Jabba, about that.” His hesitance surprised Cheri. She wasn't used to him being deferential. Not to another man, that was for sure. “We just think it would be better if we saved it,” he said, and smiled apologetically. “I mean, why give away a gold mine, right?” A shrug now. “Let's keep it for the box covers, is what I'm saying.”

Jabba grunted, turned into the room. “How we doing over there? Rod, all systems go, or what?”

On the sofa sectional, the overtanned and unshaven guy continued working a blue sleeve up his leg. With painstakingly slow and almost ritualistically distant movements, he fit the metal construct of his knee brace around the sleeve. Cheri could see a doughnut of flab pouring over the waist of his coaching shorts. He might have been handsome a long time ago.

“Wow,” said Ponyboy. “That really him?”

“Live and in the flesh,” Jabba answered. “Five-pound cock and all.”

“I love his work.”

“You're lucky. Normally he won't travel for these. But Vegas is Rod's kind of town.”

Cheri pulled on Ponyboy's shirt, whispered into his ear: “Who's that?”

6.5

Newell had completed the first of his three guaranteed innings when the coach had moved him over from left field to right. The move had dropped Newell's place in the batting order as well; and instead of being the second batter in the upcoming inning, he missed out on getting to the plate entirely. Newell reacted with shouts as to the bogusness of the switch; he called the coach completely bogus and refused to participate in the traditional postgame handshakes with the other team. His folks watched in silent horror in a row near the top of the bleachers, but Newell did not care, and chucked his mitt into a trash can. Ignoring the coach, who shouted “Get back here,” Newell removed his jersey and stalked away. Thoughts of walking home entertained him, but he stopped at the back of his dad's Suburban, his face flushed now, his body sweating. Kids from both teams were gathering around the ice cream shack; his mom and his coach were standing in the middle of the diamond, colluding against him, he was sure.

Newell had a good sweet while to sit and sulk and think about what he'd done, before Lincoln arrived at the Suburban. He was alone, had recovered Newell's baseball glove, and was hiding it (sticky with soda and smelling of refuse) out of Newell's line of sight. He also had a Bomb Pop. Lincoln said Hey in the low small voice that adults talked to one another in when they were serious, and asked if Newell was all right. Newell kept looking down, the wall of defiance inside him suddenly becoming that much thicker. Lincoln did not seem to mind. “We don't need to talk about what happened,” he said. “There's time for that later. And we'll get to punishment, too.”

Patiently unpeeling the wrapper of his confection, revealing its hard, fluorescent colors, Lincoln began telling his son about a phone call he'd once made, and the night he had told his father he'd had enough of minor league baseball. “It was an important moment for me. But my dad, he didn't take it so well. He was sure I could make it to the show, you know, because parents love you, they believe in you. He was sure I could do anything. But it wasn't going to happen, and I could see it, and, well, I don't know how long we talked. Felt like forever. But by the time it was over, I could tell I'd made my point, the old man understood where I was coming from, not that he could do much about it anyway.”

Lincoln passed the Bomb Pop to Newell, who took it with a soberness that matched the mood. Then Lincoln put his hand around his son's wrist, held it there. “But my dad told me some other things that day, and they've stayed with me a long time now.” A hard squeeze; he looked his son in the eye. “Newell, all anyone can ask a man is to do his best. When he does his best, he doesn't look back and wonder. He knows.”

Waiting, Lincoln let his point sink in. “Dad also told me, you quit one thing, it gets easier. Soon you're quitting everything. Giving up before you even started.”

Inside the FBImobile, all of Kenny's sidelong glances, mannerisms, and fumbling silences registered with Newell. Instinctively, subconsciously. The way Kenny started over on his little lecture and talked all low and serious, the effort Kenny was making; the gravity with which he was trying to address his mistake; the logic of his words and the palpable want behind them.

Newell felt the same repulsion that hit him whenever his father tried to buy his friendship, or just tried too damn hard.

He turned away. He looked out the window.

The coach was dragging a bag with the team bats and helmets back to his car when Newell went up and, using the exact words his father told him to say, apologized. The coach offered his own in return, saying he had not meant for Newell to miss his at bat, and asking Newell no hard feelings, right? They shook on it, and the coach said, a good thing about pencils, they have erasers. The coach followed this by informing Newell that he could not have any more tantrums and stay on the team. He asked if Newell understood, and when Newell nodded, the coach said Newell would have to work off his mistake at the next practice. Newell had accepted his punishment, running two laps around the playing field with only a minimum of grousing, and though the tantrum had caused further rifts between him and the more gung ho players, and had caused Newell to be ostracized even more by the core of popular teammates, Newell had not missed another practice or game. And after the pizza party at the end of the season, his dad had proudly placed his trophy on the mantel in the living room, next to the framed copy of Lincoln's first and only professional baseball contract. It was something that still made Newell proud, whenever he saw it.

Probably it was every two weeks or so that Kenny got up his courage and said he'd be there this time. He promised and Newell tried not to get excited, because he'd sworn he wouldn't get burnt anymore, but the boy always ended up thinking this time was the time, for reals. Lorraine would tilt her head in that way she did, tut-tutting because she did not want Newell to be let down again, and this would get Newell mad and he would defend his friend, and that Saturday, Newell would be at the comic book shop half an hour before the guest artist was scheduled to start signing books, and two hours later he would still be waiting, listening to older kids make their sex jokes, acting like he understood what they were talking about, resenting Kenny for not being there to explain the jokes to him, for not being there to tell him not to worry about it in a way that always made Newell feel better. Newell would feel the absence and empty space that came with getting let down, and he'd feel the rancid humiliation of getting burnt the same way over and over. He'd be angry at Kenny for being such a coward, and he'd be furious with his mom because she'd known better than him after all, and he would resent her for trying to be nice to him and saying she was sorry, and would resent her even more when she got upset at him, and sniped that she did not understand why he'd thought it would be different this time.