Tom was late. Even in rain, it was only a five-minute bike ride over. Jude rehearsed it in his mind: the red bicycle, its spaced spokes flashing and fluttering with racing-ribbon, continuing up the walk to the front step (where he always insisted on locking his bike before he came in); he could see him, too, dismounting, his scooped cheeks stained pink as a girl's by the effort, his breakable knob-jointed body crossing itself, yellow-feather hair tufting up at odd angles. His hair reminded Jude of the baby chickens on his grandpa's farm, "little dears", bobbling on their silly feet. He shook off the image, frowning, and swept the accumulated shavings off his leg.

The house was silent but for his own carving and the patter of the rain on the scene. He moved away from the window. He did not want Tom, thin-shinned and yellow, to see him waiting there beside the window, overeager. Like his sister peeking out of the windows, rubbing lipstick from her teeth as she awaited the sinuous hubcaps of her date - he pushed the image off again but not before he'd seen himself in lipstick, his hands clasped breathlessly, as the headlights spilled over him in the window.

Putting down his knife, he walked down the unlit hall to the kitchen. Alone, he didn't put the lights on. In daytime, they seemed rude and yellow. As he walked he left bits of wood behind him in the carpet, and the whole house seemed to shudder with his weight. He was heavy; his thighs were broad and solid and his thick hands were encrusted with calluses. Though fat he was strong and his face was composed of unblunted angles.

In the kitchen he took out the Cuisinart from under the dishware, fit the two-pronged plug into the socket and secured the plastic lid on top. He pressed the buttons and watched the blades whir, empty. The machine whined at high pitch, a pinched soprano. Jude tried the different settings: each emitted a distinct noise and between them all he was able to make up a song. Midway through his shot at 'Mary Had a Little Lamb' he heard the mild frail knock on the front door. Hurrying, he disassembled it and shoved it back into the cupboard. Tom's knocking grew quicker; it grew continuous until it became a succession of pleading thuds, over and over, blithe and dumb. Jude unlocked the door, knob clenched in his fist, and then eased the door open.

"Kee-rist," he said, "are you stupid or somethin'?"

"I thought maybe you wasn't home," said Tom, holding the hem of his shirt. He was wet, and his yellow hair had flattened from the rain. "Or maybe your mom was."

"I told you she was out the whole afternoon, didn't I?"

"Yeah."

"Man. You really must be stupid." Jude held the door open with his body, expectantly. "You coming in or not?"

"Oh," he said. He stumbled a little as he stepped inside, and the raindrops flung themselves off of his twiggy legs. His t-shirt was gray and it had the Braves logo on it. A little part of the sleeve was white from bleach. "You like the Braves?" Jude asked him.

"They're okay."

"Julian Solvarez is pretty good, but Boston kills 'em. You put the Braves versus Boston, they kill them."

"I don't really like them," said Tom quickly, "I don't know."

"I bet you don't even watch baseball," said Jude, and his upper lip curled in pleased derision. "You want juice?"

"What?"

"Some juice, faggot."

"Oh. Sure."

Jude hooked his arm into Tom's and pulled him down the hall. His sneakers scuffed the low carpet. "It's dark in here," said Tom as they passed into the kitchen. There, even the light left by the window-blinds did not reach.

"Yeah."

"Don't it bother you?"

"Nah, I like it."

"Okay," said Tom. Jude did not pull him any farther but he kept his arm twined with Tom's.

"We got apple, orange and Kool-Aid."

"What kind?"

He unlaced his arm to open the refrigerator and check. "Red."

"What kind of red?"

"Jeez-us, I donno. Red."

"I'll have that. Please."

Jude took out the pitcher and poured a glass full to the brim. "Here." Tom sipped it gratefully. "Sit down."

They sat down across from one another at the table. "It's cherry, I think," said Tom. As he drank his lips flowered red and redder, crimson at their seam. His hair had begun to dry; it rose in a static halo about his head.

"I want to show you something," Jude said suddenly. Tom looked up from his cup. "You can finish that first." He sipped, and his lips grew redder.

As Jude tugged at his sleeve, urging him down the hall, Tom was slow to move. The soles of his shoes made friction with the low-pile carpet. "The wolfskin is in there," he said.

"No, it's not."

"That's the room where the wolfskin is," he repeated. His eyes were wide and his bright cheeks paling. The slivered light from the window made an illuminated wound across his face.

Jude held his shoulder firmly. "I put it away," he said, "you won't see it."

"Sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

He guided him down the hall to the dark of his father's study. While Jude retrieved the thing from the metal desk, Tom stood in the doorway. He clutched himself. His fingers unravelled the worn hem of his t-shirt. "You like it?"

It was a wooden tiger, maybe three inches or so in length, well-carved. Jude presented it to Tom in his palm and the boy took it tentatively, slow to touch his hand. "You like it?" he repeated.

"It's nice," said Tom, "it's real nice."

Jude smiled. "Good," he said. His eyes traveled over the waywardyellow hair, pink cheeks, red lips. "Chris says you're a pretty boy."

"I hate him."

"It ain't a bad thing, necessarily."

"The way he means it, it is."

"He doesn't know." Jude took the wooden figure back and placed it in the drawer. "You want one? I'm learning."

"You made that?"

"Sure," he lied.

"Wow," said Tom, "I wish I could do that."

"I'll show you," he said.

Jude took his arm. Tom did not hesitate when he directed him up the split-level stairs, through the sitting-area with its thousand porcelain eggs to his bedroom. It was a small room. The only source of light was a single ill-placed window, and Jude did not raise the blinds. Above his bed hung the Marshall Heiser - Red Socks poster, and about the bed wood shavings, tortured wire, burnt places in the wood-planked floor; across from the bed he kept a mini-TV on a slanted shelf - it looked as though he had nailed it on himself - and the mini-TV had dwarf rabbit-ears, thick with tinfoil to compensate for the poor reception. Jude sat on the bed. Tom stood with his knees locked, shoulders curled and his hands stuffed into his pockets. He looked at the bed.

"I thought you gave up on paper clips," said Tom, shifting.

"I was gonna make a chain," he said.

"For what?"

"I donno," he said. He smiled. "C'mere."

Tom held his elbows. The remaining wetness about his neck formed a dark collar to his t-shirt. "You're sure your mom ain't gonna be home for a while?"

"Sure I'm sure. She's out with her boyfriend."

He drew him towards the bed. His weighted hands were large enough to encircle the pale knobby wrists.

"I had a mint," he said, "you're not worried about that, are you?"

"No," said Tom, "but you're sure about your mom?"

"Yes," he said. "Come on."

Tom leaned to him on his tiptoes. Jude, securing his doll-like wrists, steered him closer till their lips were pressed against each other; they stayed that way a while, lips steeled shut, pushing at cross-purposes, till Tom gasped and they parted.

"You gotta breathe through your nose, stupid," Jude said, "or else it won't work."

"They don't do it like that in the movies," protested Tom, "they open their mouths and they do lots of short ones too."

"So open your mouth."

"I can't open mine if you don't open yours."

"So I'll open mine."

Gently, Jude towed him in, a thick hand giving direction to his neck still damp with rain. They jawed at one another until they had made a fit, lips in a tense adhesive seal about the cavity of their mouths. But when that happened they did not know what to do. For a moment they sat, exchanging humid breath. Then Jude pushed out his tongue.

"Ow," said Jude. He pulled back. "What did you do that for, faggot?"

"You didn't have to do that."

"You bit me."

"You didn't say you'd do that."

"So, I did. They do that in the movies."

"Let's not do that." Tom shuffled his feet, then awkwardly took Jude's hands and began to kiss them.

"Shove off." Jude withdrew. He stiffened, arms crossed and tucked securely under his elbows. Tom stood up and straightened his shirt.
"You're mean to me all the time."

"You bit me!"

"You call me names and you're mean. All of the time."

"What do you care? Everyone calls you names."

He shook his head. "Not you."

"What? What the hell are you talking about, then?"

"I'm going home."

"Are you retarded or what? We have all afternoon and you want to go?"

"Say you're sorry."

"No."

"Then I'm going."

"I'm not gonna say I'm sorry just because you're too much of a pansy to kiss right."

Tom threw up his hands. They fluttered on his knobby wrists.

"See? See?" Tom ran out and through the sitting-room with the thousand eggs. As he ran his footfall knocked one from the side-table to the floor. It cracked, hesitating, and then slumped under its structure. At first Jude did not run for him. He sat on the bed while his face half-turned to purple. Then he reconsidered. When he reached the front door he could only watch, panting, as Tom undid the kickstand and began to ride teetering away.

"Pretty boy!" he yelled through the screen door. For a moment, the racing-ribbon seemed to waver before the speed struck and it was beaten straight by the wind.

By: Emily Alpert

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Untitled Poem

oh for green unpricked by industry,
Georgia would I never know within
our striated Atlantis, pulse of highway
That flexed and bragged itself anew,
big in its britches, swaggers. Two hours
took us from smoke and smut,
deposits us here, waking into a dream
and not out - butterflies who dreamed themselves
Atlantans, and woke to loop the rungs
of Jacob's ladder. He laid his head to rest
in Georgia.

What's this? The road knits
the wide river like a schoolboy's wound,
cool satin surface, the heat a firmament of God-arms
Steadies us and checks the verdant frenzies
Waxweltering in nubile eyes. We pull up to
the white windmilled house, the orthopedic figure
like an angel sticklegged, a mind reeling.
There is no discord here.
Good Christian soldiers come and go,
the cattle are lovely. Brown lumberers,
sleek skins. Ask and they'll say, it hasn't
rained, the greenness has seeped from the pasture
Down into the earth. But I looked at
the thirst-bleached 'scape and saw Eden,
the sylvan circuits we rode together,
three kids, incandescent, at ease.
My deliberation was so gray and gridded,
riddled with apprehension, addled, mind a
frittered length of meat. How to match ambition
to the fear of God, via purgativa, via illum-
inativa.

And I ought to have come here first.
Nobility, chivalry, ethereal blue, bless our Lord
for these. The kiss on my cheek
snags the breeze, stays, best to know
we know nothing. Country wisdom
absolves me in the city, his bluster undone,
dispelled in zephyrs, eddies away.
I like to think that that's enough
For salvation.

By: Emily Alpert

Comments On Untitled Poem

Comments can be sent to uchicago2006@hotmail.com