
by Dave M. Brady
We had no clue how Kevin got The AIDS, but Wiki was determined to find a cure and I was going to help---whether I felt like it or not. This shady business went down the night the two of them slept over my house.
All week in school I'd been dying to try hypnotizing Wiki again. Last Saturday, using my mother's rosary beads as a pendulum, I got him to show me his pubes, but afterwards he said it didn't work. He only flashed his fuse box, he told me, because I looked like I'd cry if he didn't. But I wouldn't have. What I really wanted was a kiss. A French kiss. And not from any slutty skirts in seventh grade. And not that serial eighth grader who hangs out in the boys' lavatory. I wanted my first time to be special.
I wanted nobody but Wikipedia Brown to pop my cherry lips.
But when his mother dropped him off he had his neighbor in tow. Kevin Ford, a fifth grader he played ice hockey with. Apparently, my mother had agreed to this behind my back.
"But, it's not fair," I told her, rooting through the junk drawer for a pizza coupon. "I didn't even invite Kevin Ford. I can't stand him."
"What's the big deal, Richie?" my mother said, the yellow pages in her lap. Wiki and Kevin were in the parlor playing Nintendo. "Julie called me from the rink. Her and Kevin's mother need a night out, and next week, they're taking you overnight so I'll have a night off, too. Win-win."
Try lose-lose. Wiki would never make out with me with another hockey player around.
After we ate supper we went upstairs to watch a scary movie in my room. Kevin couldn't understand why the one guy in the mask kept killing all his friends. Because he was a maniac, I said, was why he killed all his friends. Then he dropped this bomb:
"In case anybody gets any ideas I'll be dead soon anyway. I got The AIDS."
I turned on the big light and went on putting the movie back in its case. Stupid fifth grader.
"Nuh unh," Wiki said, scrambling on the bed, "you do?"
"I got lesions to prove it and everything." Kevin raised his sleeves. Up and down both his arms were small marks that looked like fruit. Grapes, blueberries, strawberries. On my bed, Wiki scooted closer and stroked one of the berries. Kevin's eyes fluttered at Wiki's touch. Wasn't it enough that all the guys in our own class worshipped the ground Wiki walked on, now he's got the fifth graders, too?
I wasn't buying The AIDS story, of course. Nobody who went to St. Tom's had The AIDS. Flat out, I asked him, "How'd you get them bruises?" Before he could answer though, Wiki reached across the bed and punched my leg, giving me the be-all end-all of Charlie horses. "Sonofabitch!"
He held Kevin's arm up to the light. The lesions seemed to shimmer. Then heaving his backpack on my bed, he whipped out his laptop. Almost right away he folded his arms. He read, "Lesions mark both infection and stage of disease. In countries like Africa, they are called deathpimples."
As if that proved anything, but it was enough to persuade Wiki to believe in Kevin. And not for nothing, once Wikipedia Brown believed in somebody, he was loyal to a fault. Kevin coughed and laid back on my bed, wiping his AIDS arms all up on my pillows. Wiki and I sat on opposite sides of his feet, and listened to him tell us how he thought he'd contracted this deadly disease. Either by kissing his girlfriend, or---he looked at Wiki---by kissing his girlfriend's brother. I looked at Wiki, too. His eyes were squinting, like he was listening to somebody giving him complicated directions.
"On a dare," Kevin added. Wiki exhaled, nodding happily.
Maybe Kevin wasn't just another dumb hockey player, sucking up to Wiki because all the girls liked him and he was good at sports. Maybe Kevin was more like me. Except, with bigger balls.
Wiki's voice was soft when he said, "So's your girlfriend pretty?"
Kevin rolled his eyes to the popcorn ceiling. "No, she's butt fugly. Of course she's pretty. Wicked pretty. Her brother ain't too bad either." He smiled at me. At me. I had goosebumps. Luckily, Wiki didn't see. I wondered, how did Kevin know about me? Sister Eileen swore up and down she wouldn't tell anybody that I had tried to download pictures from hockeyhunks.com. Could nuns lie? The room spun. My stomach spun. Watching Wiki with Kevin on my bed was my dream come true. Except, in my dream the part of Kevin was played by me. Suddenly, I realized I was the third wheel.
Kevin said we wouldn't know his girlfriend or her brother. They were from New Hampshire. Red flag!
I asked him the name of the town, how'd they met, did she like pizza, what movie star did her brother resemble, did he play any sports, what was his favorite Freddy Krueger movie, did he have hair on his armpits yet?
The whites of Kevin's eyes bounced to keep up, but before I could get any answers, Wiki shut me down. My questions, he said, had no bearing on the case.
"Case?" I said, tossing the DVD in the hamper. "Get real. There's no case here."
Wiki fancied himself a detective, and me, Richie McCray, his muscle. At this point, we were just coming off our first big case. On Monday, Sister Eileen had hired us to find out who had pissed in her desk drawer. Because it was the drawer she kept her community jellybeans, the whole class took this crime personally. Angry Mary, our class president, was breathing fire down our necks all week. Then Friday, in tears, Sister Eileen told us that she bought the jellybeans with her own money and nuns didn't make much money and she couldn't fathom how she could go on buying them with a maniac at large. That day, with no jellybean incentive, nobody participated in class. It was a horror show.
We had three clues to go on. The piss smelled fishy, it wetted even the top of the drawer, and the crime could only have taken place during recess. With a little prodding from me---hint, hint, wink, wink, a lot---Wiki deduced that the suspect had tuna for lunch, had wicked good aim, and, obviously, had come in from recess to use the bathroom. This narrowed the suspect list to one---Petey Capozza, star altar boy.
"Jellybeans give me the shits," he confessed in the coatroom, after an hour of interrogation.
I'd worked myself up pretty good, and I stood at the threshold catching my breath and wiping the sweat off my forehead with my tie. Petey, the poor kid, frantically looked for a big coat to hide under. Wiki congratulated me, then stepped into the sunny classroom and proclaimed, "I did it. I got the confession."
"Glory to God in the highest," Sister Eileen said, waving a piece of chalk in the air. Angry Mary brought out a bag of jellybeans from her desk, name brand, and plopped it on Sister's desk.
"This one's on student council," she said. "Remember that."
As she walked back to her desk Sister pursed her lips. She looked at Jesus hanging on the cross over the doorway and bowed. "Thank you, Mary." The class erupted. I stood at the threshold, watching Wiki take all the glory.
I don't know why, but I walked back into the coatroom and gently kicked each of the backpacks lining the walls until one kicked back. "Petey?" I said. "Just so you know, jellybeans give me the shits sometimes, too."
Since yesterday all Wiki's been able to talk about is our next big case. Curing The AIDS, it seemed, fit the bill. "Think about it," he said. "Wikipedia Brown and Richie McCray cure The AIDS. It'll be front page in the Sixth Grade Gazette."
For entertainment's sake, I was usually willing to use my imagination and go along with Wiki. That's partly why I liked him. We could pretend my basement was a lost tomb in the Great Sphinx of Giza, we could build a shitty tree house and imagine it was CIA headquarters besieged by terrorists. Unlike most of our friends, we weren't too cool to pretend. Whether because I wasn't positive Kevin was pretending, or whether I was jealous, this seemed mighty retarded.
I said, "I thought after the movie we could fill in some Mad Libs with dirty words. Or pretend we're Al Qaeda and prank the Baptist church again. Plus, I'm not in the mood to cure The AIDS tonight. Know what I found in the alleyway near the graveyard the other day? A condom. Want to feel it? It's still squishy."
Wiki sat Indian-style on the bed, squeezing his toes. He was sweaty with anticipation. Plus, I was curious to see where this might lead. Given Kevin's kiss confessions. In the end, I couldn't say no.
While Kevin relaxed on my bed watching TV me and Wiki setup a lab. Basically, Wiki's laptop next to my chemistry set on my desk. Kevin lay stretched on his side, facing away from us. I knew his mind was on Wiki, though. He wasn't even fast-forwarding the commercials. And he kept repositioning himself, raising a leg, lowering a leg. The waistband of his mesh shorts slipped down, further and further. There was no doubt in my mind now. Kevin and me had something in common.
I don't know what Wiki was doing with the test tubes and the food coloring, but I was thinking some deep thoughts. Regardless of how much I'd helped Wiki solve cases, he'd never give me what I wanted. If he was going to switch-hit he'd switch-hit with Kevin. If you're going to have nacho cheese chips, why buy Poritos if you can afford the real thing? He'd already kissed half the girls in seventh grade and even felt up Angry Mary at the dance. He didn't need me.
"Ah ha," Wiki said, pouring a yellow solution into a blue one. "It's green!"
Kevin came over and leaned over Wiki. Seven long dark wisps of hair stuck out from his armpit. He looked up at me and smiled. I couldn't focus. Three, I thought, was a crowd. One of these guys had to go. My lips ached counting those armpit hairs. Needing a moment to think this through, I went downstairs to get us a snack. On the second floor, I poked my head in my parents' room.
"Hey, Ma? I don't mind Kevin staying, but three's a crowd. What if I wanted Wiki to go home early?"
As my father snored beside her, my mother said, "Richie, it's too late. You're stuck." She sounded drowsy, but her lazy eye was still watching Dogs Poop the Darndest Things. "Have a séance or something. If the boys are fighting, separate them."
That's right, I thought. I could separate them. Make some excuse or other. My odds would double. Tonight was the night, I could feel it. I would lose my lips-virginity tonight. What did Wiki have that Kevin didn't? Not much. I hurried in the kitchen to find something to eat.
Climbing back up the stairs, I was careful, balancing crackers and cokes on an old checkers board. My hands were shaking. When I got to the third floor I saw my bedroom door was closed. Not latched, but closed. This didn't bode well. I listened for a minute, but I only heard whispers.
I set the checkers board on the carpet and peeked inside. The overhead light was off. Wiki and Kevin were kneeling on my bed. Their lips touching. That bastard Kevin Ford was stealing my kiss. I shut my eyes. Of course. If Wikipedia Brown was going to kiss a dude, why would it be me? With my curly hair and big nose, my thunder thighs. Kevin had blonde hair and blue eyes, just like Wiki. They both played sports, both their mothers were drunks. I rushed to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face.
"There's always that perv in the eighth grade, Richie. Or, you can be a nun. A guy nun."
I flushed the toilet to announce my presence. Kicking the door open, I brought the snacks in. I said, "I was thinking. We might need a lot of money if we want to cure The AIDS. We can make some signs on poster board---I have these wicked good magic markers. They're industrial strength. We can make a few signs, then hang out at the mall tomorrow and ask for donations."
My bedroom seemed to shrink while I was gone. It felt crowded now. Wiki was back at the desk. He'd left the chemistry set and was on his laptop. He didn't look up. "That's an awesome idea, Richie. Ask Kevin what he thinks."
Kevin, again lying in bed watching TV, except under the covers, shrugged.
"Do you want my help or not?" I said, annoyed. "Because you're the one with The AIDS, Kevin, not me. Not Wiki."
"Ha!" said Kevin. Wiki blushed.
I fished the markers out of my bookbag and rustled up some poster board left over from last year's science fair. After I took the cap off one of the markers I drew a scar on my cheek. Then I sniffed the tip till my nostrils burned. "For real, guys, these are the best markers."
Wiki and I got started on the posters right away, while Prince Kevin watched cartoons. We'd barely finished the first poster when, covering his face, Kevin broke into a coughing fit. "I think the smell of those markers is aggravating my AIDS or something," he said. "They're not toxic, are they? Toxic stuff aggravates my AIDS, you know."
"Yeah, you don't sound good," Wiki said, rolling his eyes. "Maybe you should go lie down in the other room." The TV flashed to black. On it I caught a glimpse of Kevin's ghostly reflection. His hands covered his face. Wiki shut his laptop. "Even better, why don't we do the posters in the other room. That way you'll have the TV."
I put my marker down. Wiki gathered his laptop and the poster he was working on, and all but tiptoed out the door for the spare room down the hall. How transparent.
"Like I don't know," I said, furiously coloring in a lesion on the poster. "So what? I'm supposed to follow him in there like a Chihuahua or something and in ten minutes he'll make an excuse to come back? I will definitely be washing my sheets tomorrow. With bleach. Did you know I have twenty-twenty vision, Kevin Ford? Because I do. And I saw what happened."
"You did? You won't tell anybody, willya?" Kevin switched the TV off with the remote and switched on the reading lamp clamped to my headboard. Blood trickled out of his nose. My shoulders slumped. My face began to sting and the walls seemed to heave like they were about to puke their itchy pink insides all over me. Once again, my stomach was turning.
"I kissed him, Richie. Just a peck, and he punched me in the face. He hates me. Now he thinks I gave him The AIDS. These stupid lesions? I painted them on with my mother's stupid makeup so I could stay home from school. If you look close enough you can see the sparkles. Some detectives, you'se are."
Pressing one nostril closed, I stuck the marker up the other and inhaled. "Smells like gasoline in here," I said. Kevin sniffed, jogging his nosebleed. Placing the marker in my pocket in case Kevin decided to steal that too, I went in the bathroom to get toilet paper for his nose. Couldn't have him bleeding all over my room. I bunched up a handful and sat beside him on the bed. The top of his lip was crusty. "Here," I said, wiping his face. When he jutted his chin out to let me, I stopped.
"I got blood all over your pillowcase," he said, folding and twisting a square. He corked his nostril. Then began to sob. "Wiki said he's going to tell the entire hockey team that I'm a fag. He's going to pay one of Angry Mary's goons to announce it on the P.A. at the rink. The whole school's going to find out. I never kissed anybody before. I'm probably the only fifth grader in the universe who's never been kissed."
"Hey," I whispered, my hand on his knee, "that really sucks. I'll make Wiki promise not to tell anybody, though. I swear. Know what? I have an old Hustler. Why don't you finishing cutting all the girls out while I go talk to him."
Thinking how I always knew the right thing to say, I shut the door so it latched. Holding the banister, I treaded down the hall to the spare room. Wiki's voice was clear through the door. "Major routes of transmission... unsafe sex, contaminated needles, breast milk, perinatal transmission---kissing! Crap. My mom is going to kick my ass. That kid is so dead. Fucking faggot. Rich, that you?"
Slowly, I backed away from the door. I crept by my bedroom and down the stairs to my parents' room. They were both snoring now. I shut the TV off, and curled up beside it on the floor next to my mother's side of the bed. With my eyes shut tight, I lay still. My heart rattling in my chest like a wild animal in its cage. I couldn't get those two doors out of my mind. My heart beat faster until it sounded like a drum and I was afraid my parents might wake up. I reached into my pocket for my rosary pendulum and prayed for the Virgin Mary to let the bed collapse on me. But she wasn't so kind. I squeezed my eyes till they hurt, until I remembered. The red marker was still in my other pocket. With it, I colored the inside of my nose as hard as I could. Until the excess ink dripped out, then drew a pair of lips on my fist. Underneath my mother's bed I kissed and kissed until I fell asleep.

