The Ambidextrist. Peter Rock
straight into the parking garages of the tall apartment buildings, who never really go outside. The boys come here in the summer; sometimes they jump onto the slow moving trains, then jump off again, lying about how far they’ve gone. Up the Main Line, or all the way to Trenton. When it’s cooler, they play on the rooftops, down near Terrell’s house; now the tar is too hot and sticky. It comes off on your shoes, burns your skin.
Swan and Terrell walk away, toward the river. They sit on one of the square cages, full of white rocks, put there to support the bank.
“It’s a good idea,” Terrell says, looking back at John and Darnay.
“Yeah. It’ll be cool, probably.”
The river swirls beneath their feet, dark patches of oil like puddles sliding by, rainbows on the surface circling plastic bottles and other trash. Their shoes are untied, thick tongues standing up; Terrell feels the cotton stuffed in the toes of his, to make them fit. He sees that Swan’s wearing a pager, transparent orange plastic, attached to the waistband of his shorts.
“Just needs a battery,” he says. “Then anyone can call me up, anytime, and I’d know it.”
“Lot of people calling you?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
Terrell’s known Eric Swan longer than the others, since second grade—they’d gotten caught taking the pencil sharpener apart, after being told there were razorblades inside. Now Swan is wearing his Sixers uniform. He’s so skinny all the bones show in his face, and that makes his eyes seem larger than they are, switching slowly back and forth. His hair is shaved close, but not as close as Terrell’s. Swan’s mouth is always set in a slight frown; he’s always thinking.
“Didn’t you ever want to be the champion of something?” he says. “Have them put a medal around your neck?”
“Champion of what?”
“I don’t know. Anything.”
Behind them, Darnay’s now working on John, who lets out little gasps.
“Sound like my baby sister,” Swan calls.
“Don’t get in my face because you’re nervous.”
“I’m not afraid of getting mine,” Swan says.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” John says.
“Hold still,” Darnay says.
Now Swan’s staring straight up into the sky. Under Terrell’s hand, there’s a crack vial between the stones; he flicks it into the water. His keys, on a string around his neck, rattle. He throws a stone at a splintered board floating by, and so does Swan. They both miss. Behind them, now, two gray-haired white people, wearing red jogging suits, have stopped a short distance from where Darnay is atop John, sticking him with the needle.
“It’s fine,” John is saying. “We’re friends.”
After the people walk past, Darnay climbs off. He looks over to Terrell and Swan.
“Your turn,” he says.
“Let’s see,” Swan says.
Darnay and John pull down their waistbands. Both of their hips are covered in ink and blood, smudged all over, the D and J hard to see.
“We didn’t do the rays.”
“Hurt too much?”
“Takes too long.”
“Can add them later, if we want,” Darnay says. “Mom’s boyfriend got a dragon on his back—took ten times to do it all.”
“Mine stands out more,” John’s saying. “It doesn’t look as good.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“Not mine.”
“Your mother’s.”
“And your daddy’s even whiter. Pasty.”
“We supposed to share a needle?”
“That’s not about this. Where you been? Health class? Next you’ll be handing out condoms.”
“That’s for Swan to worry about.”
“I got one,” Swan says.
“They make them that small?”
“Magnum,” Swan says, reading the label. “Deal with that.” He picks up the needle, then the ink.
“Go with the black,” Terrell says. “You’ll run out of blue and then it’ll be two colors.”
“The colors won’t show,” Darnay says. “It’ll just be dark in there.”
“Make sure it’s deep enough,” John says.
Terrell feels the prick of the needle. It hurts less than he feared. A little blood rises up; the wounds will scab over, then heal, the ink caught there beneath his skin’s surface. He sits next to a stack of long square railroad ties that stink of creosote. He holds his breath, and so does Swan; they both exhale as Swan puts more ink on the needle.
“How come we’re not in the shade?”
“I don’t know,” Swan says.
The overpass is fifty feet away. They both look toward it, into the shade under it, where an old man is climbing off his bicycle, his head turned, watching them.
“That old dude,” Terrell says. “Got nothing better to do.”
“Don’t look at him or he might come over here.” Swan starts with the needle again. “You’ll have this for a long time. Even when you’re old.”
“It’s not like I’m going to change my name.”
“We’re getting there,” Swan says, and then Terrell just watches the needle go in and out. John drifts closer, then away again; down by the river, he’s pulling down his pants enough to check Darnay’s work.
Terrell holds still. He thinks of Ruth, wondering about her reaction. It would almost be worth it to see what she’d do, hear the things she’d say. She might just say she’s disappointed, close the door to her room, but she might really go off. Ruth will not see it, though—their bathroom door locks, they wear bathrobes, they always knock before entering a room. She does not want him to see her uncovered, so she exaggerates his need for privacy. She could be covered with tattoos, pierced with hoops, branded all over her body and he would not know.
Now Terrell has the needle, working on Swan, slowly pricking the curves of the S. He wonders what Swan is thinking, with that condom in his pocket. Ruth gives Terrell condoms, just leaves them in his sock drawer without saying a thing. He suspects she counts them sometimes, when he isn’t there; their number never changes—except for the one he tried on, to see how it worked, if it would fit—and he doesn’t know if that makes her worry more or less.
“Better hurry up,” Darnay’s saying. “Don’t want Swan to be late for his date.”
“You’ll mess it up if you hurry,” Swan says.
“We’re done,” Terrell says.
Hitching up their pants, they squint at the TastyKake clock above. They have twenty minutes to get there, wherever they’re going. Terrell drops the needle in the middle of the pile of empty ink refills and matchbooks, lights the whole thing. The boys walk beneath the overpass, past faded spraypaint, tired old tags, past the old man; he’s now pretending to sleep, with his head propped on his bicycle’s tire, one long arm wrapped inside the frame. John throws a stone, just misses him. They laugh. The old man shifts a little; his eyes don’t open enough to show.
The four boys climb a small hill, onto a level field of grass, where men stand in every shadow, lean against every tree, whistling and sending hand signals. They talk low, calling each other Negro if one ventures from tree to tree.