Two Boys Kissing(28)

“I bet if we wanted to break the world record with a straight kiss, they’d never give us the high school,” one guy complains, as if this is a particular aspiration that’s been robbed from him.

“Totally,” his girlfriend agrees.

“This is bullshit,” another guy loudly declares, his voice and confidence amplified by the Budweiser he’s consumed.

You’re bullshit, the drama club girl next to him wants to say.

Eventually the crowd thins out—there’s not much to see after a while. It’s getting late, a little chilly. People get back into their cars—some to go to late-night parties, but most to go home.

Even within Harry and Craig’s team—that’s what they think of themselves now, over eleven hours into it—there’s a shift change. Harry’s mom blows a kiss to both Harry and Craig, then goes home to get some rest. She’ll see them in the morning. Rachel also heads home, so she can relieve Tariq later on, even though he’s pledged to stay up the whole time. Smita promised her mother she’d be home by one. Mykal has a schedule of a few friends who are sleeping now but who will come in the middle of the night, bearing glow sticks and caffeine.

It’s also the end of Mr. Nichol’s shift. As his replacement comes closer, we can’t believe our eyes.

Look, look, we tell each other. It’s Tom!

He’s Mr. Bellamy to his history students. But he’s Tom to us. Tom! It’s so good to see him. So wonderful to see him. Tom is one of us. Tom went through it all with us. Tom made it through. He was there in the hospital with so many of us, the archangel of St. Vincent’s, our healthier version, prodding the doctors and calling over the nurses and holding our hands and holding the hands of our partners, our parents, our little sisters—anyone who had a hand to be held. He had to watch so many of us die, had to say goodbye so many times. Outside of our rooms he would get angry, upset, despairing. But when he was with us, it was like he was powered solely by an engine of grace. Even the people who loved us would hesitate at first to touch us—more from the shock of our diminishment, from the strangeness of how we were both gone and present, not who we were but still who we were. Tom became used to this. First because of Dennis, the way he stayed with Dennis until the very end. He could have left after that, after Dennis was gone. We wouldn’t have blamed him. But he stayed. When his friends got sick, he was there. And for those of us he’d never known before—he was always a smile in the room, always a touch on the shoulder, a light flirtation that we needed. They should have made him a nurse. They should have made him mayor. He lost years of his life to us, although that’s not the story he’d tell. He would say he gained. And he’d say he was lucky, because when he came down with it, when his blood turned against him, it was a little later on and the cocktail was starting to work. So he lived. He made it to a different kind of after from the rest of us. It is still an after. Every day it feels to him like an after. But he is here. He is living.

A history teacher. An out, outspoken history teacher. The kind of history teacher we never would have had. But this is what losing most of your friends does: It makes you unafraid. Whatever anyone threatens, whatever anyone is offended by, it doesn’t matter, because you have already survived much, much worse. In fact, you are still surviving. You survive every single, blessed day.

It makes sense for Tom to be here. It wouldn’t be the same without him.

And it makes sense for him to have taken the hardest shift. The night watch.

Mr. Nichol passes him the stopwatch. Tom walks over and says hello to Harry and Craig. He’s been watching the feed, but it’s even more powerful to see these boys in person. He gestures to them, like a rabbi or a priest offering a benediction.

“Keep going,” he says. “You’re doing great.”

Mrs. Archer, Harry’s next-door neighbor, has brought over coffee, and offers Tom a cup. He takes it gratefully.

He wants to be wide awake for all of this.

Every now and then he looks to the sky.



We reach midnight. Tariq can’t keep up with all the comments. Even with Harry and Craig on their phones, also answering, there are too many people to thank one by one. Tariq had thought it would slow down as it got late, as people started to go to bed. But he hadn’t been counting on it becoming so global. As people go to sleep in New Jersey, they are waking up in Germany. Australia’s heading into the afternoon. Tokyo, too. Because of the pink-haired blogger and all the other posts that have echoed out, word is passed on and passed on and passed on. Rachel hastily put together a Facebook page, and it already has fifty thousand fans.

Tariq is exchanging chat messages with someone from the site that’s hosting the feed, making sure there’s enough bandwidth, when he hears an engine gunning behind him, like a truck passing by.

There’s a shout:

“FAAAAAAAAAAGGOTS! DIRTY FAAAAAGGOTS!”

Then laughter and cheers coming from the car that’s making the noise. Everyone turns, and the car rolls through the parking lot, turns around for another pass.

“YOU’RE NOTHING BUT FAAAAAGGOTS!”

Because of the spotlights, it’s hard to see outside of their circle, hard to see anything besides headlights and a blurry head leaning out the passenger window. Tariq feels himself freezing. He knows these guys aren’t going to get out of the car, aren’t going to come over here with all the cameras going and the police officer and so many witnesses. But still, his instinct is fear.