Fawn on the Moon

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

June 1974

“Come on, Gerry!”

His sister’s voice, shrill and demanding, cut Gerry to the core of his soul. The sixteen years of her being spoiled as the family’s baby and only girl had ensured her the background necessary to perfect her demands to a stage-worthy performance. She whirled around the open doorframe of the bathroom and glared at his reflection in the vanity mirror. “You’re going to make us late.”

Gerry’s brother was no better. Cliff was the oldest, and his self-importance was just as evident as Angie’s self-indulgence. Cliff’s skill set came dripping with contempt as opposed to mere whining, though. “Oh, give it a break, Angie. It’s not like you have to be there early. That space-princess faggot you’re going to see only has eyes for the boys.”

Angie’s voice rose to ear-piercing decibels. “He’s not gay, you spaz!”

Gerry didn’t involve himself in the argument, but it was hard to completely ignore the two of them. The bathroom was tiny, the door was still open, and both their reflections were as obvious as his own. Even with his dark eyes focusing on nothing but the brush and the draw of that brush through his hair, Gerry could see Angie prop a hand on her hip and get ready to spout off. And for the millionth time that month—ever since Angie had decided she’d flipped through enough articles and heard enough interviews to make her an expert—Gerry wanted to scream in her face that she should just shut the hell up and stop trying to fight impossible battles.

Oblivious to Gerry’s attempts to glare her down, Angie’s acidic tone did its best to cut her eldest brother down to size. “He’s bisexual, duh. Which, if you know anything at all, is the true s****l predisposition of all creatures. God, you are so nowhere!”

Gerry’s stomach rolled. He gritted his teeth. He brushed his hair.

“No, Angie dear.” Cliff smiled and cuffed the top of Angie’s head hard enough to make her hiss and grab at the barrette that kept her long straight hair off her face. “He’s a faggot. He just says he’s bisexual to make sure his female fans keep buying his albums.” He sauntered into the bathroom, doing everything possible to try and lock up his gaze with Gerry’s. “He really likes the boys, doesn’t he, Ger?” He dropped an arm over Gerry’s shoulder and sneered at Gerry’s reflection. “You know, right? What I’m talking about? The kind of boy that’s tickled pink to take a nice hard prick up their—”

“Clifford, that is enough!”

All three of them jumped. Cliff dropped his arm. Gerry looked up in the mirror and avoided his mother’s eyes, “Ma…”

“There is a child in this hallway.” As if mimicking Angie, their mother also c****d her hip and braced a hand on it. It really was no wonder where Angie picked these things up. “I swear I just don’t know what is with you kids these days. Your father would tan your hide—”

“He’s just kidding around, Ma.” Gerry dropped the brush on the sink and shoved Cliff away from him. “Come on, Ang. You ready?”

“Only for half an hour already!”

The sudden ping of the doorbell made Angie spin. “They’re here! Ah!” She clapped her hands together, sixteen years transforming into a mere six, and took off in a run. “Dad, get the door!”

Marcy and Gina and Sally, plus his sister. Every one of them sixteen, every one of them already squealing like stuck pigs, but hey, at least it meant that he got to borrow the car without hours of negotiations with his father. Besides, Mark Devon didn’t come to New York every day. Seeing Mark strut as Maxx Starlight would be more than worth the torture of having to be seen in public with high school chicks.

He smoothed his T-shirt over his chest and shook his head to flip his hair back. The brown corduroy pants he wore hung low on his hips and tight over his ass and thighs. He’d have loved to glitz up like most of the crowd would be, but even with his twenty-first birthday only five months away, there’d be no way his parents would let him leave the house with colored hair, sequined clothing, or make-up. They’d probably ship him off to some kind of monastery and leave him there to rot if he dared to even try.

He caught his own gaze in the mirror and checked a smile before it lit. His bangs were long, the rest brushed his shoulders, and the color was an almost perfect match to his dark eyes. He looked all right. He’d pass. Maybe not for cool, but at least he didn’t look like a complete prude.

From down the stairs, the girls let out another round of shrieks and Cliff groaned. “Ah, Mom, make them stop. Before I have to drown one of ‘em.”

Gerry couldn’t blame them for their excitement. He’d be hollering himself if he’d figured he could get away with it. “I got it, Ma,” he mumbled. “We’re leaving.”

He looked up as his mother crossed her arms and eyed him. “Is this singer really a fruit, Gerald?”

“Oh, my God.” Gerry rolled his eyes and flung a hand in the direction of his brother. “Why are you listening to him? You know he’s just trying to cause trouble.”

“I don’t want anything happening to my girl, Gerald,” his mother said. She pursed her lips and continued to try and hold his stare, even as Gerry’s gaze skipped anywhere but at her. “She’s just a baby.”

As if. Sixteen was no more an infant than twenty was. But arguing the point would just cause further delays. Gerry gestured at a non-existent watch. “We’re gonna be late.”

He didn’t wait for any more questions. He pushed past his brother, through the doorway of the bathroom, and hop-ran down the stairs. “Hurry up,” he mumbled to the girls when he jumped off the final step into the front entrance. “Before Ma gets down here and starts up again.”

Angie’s eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms over her chest. “The name of the game is education, Gerry. We need to provide the less-informed and culturally-manipulated with the information to change their views and enlighten their minds.”

“Great.” He grabbed his jacket and the front door handle at almost the same time. “You spend the next hour trying to do the impossible, and I’ll go see Maxx Starlight by myself.”

“Oh, heck no,” she snorted.

He eyed her with a frown. “Then move it.”

The lot of them ran across the porch, down the driveway, and the moment their hands touched the car, the mood changed. Gone were the house and the parents. The tedium and the bullshit slipped away and were replaced by a sense of freedom and excitement, with the promise of warm summer nights and rock music.

Gerry grinned, shook his head, and laughed. Angie scooted alongside him, tried to grab the car keys from his hand and shouted, “I’m driving!” while her friends tittered and piled into their dad’s Cutlass.

“Not while I’m alive,” he shouted back and held the keys above her head. She’d just got her license, and was doing pretty good, but he’d be damned if he was risking his life by letting her behind the wheel. “Get in or get gone.”

“You suck,” she hissed, then grinned at the statement.

He offered her a smile back, leaned closer and whispered, “Not yet. But I’ve been practicing.”

The comment won him a round of giggles, and while Angie ran around the car to the passenger side, someone already inside the car began to smack the back of the driver’s seat. “Radio, radio.”

As the chant was picked up by each of the girls, Gerry slid into the driver’s seat, and then twisted the key into the ignition. He thumbed the knob on the radio, leaving behind gospel for anything but, and grinned when he was awarded with the sound of a guitar. “Here we go, ladies.”

He rested his arm across the seat, looked over his shoulder and pulled out of the driveway. He had no doubt the rubber he laid on the road as they took off down the street would earn him a lecture later. At that second, however, he couldn’t care less.