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TRIBUNAL

 The tribunal is Terry’s idea and Terry’s alone. She sees it as her best shot at putting those accusations to rest for both of them. And even though she's a girl, no one in this neighborhood has ever disputed her leadership.

“This court shall now come to order,” she says.

They are gathered in her parents’ front yard. Five squirmy boys (amphibian, slithery) face her in a jagged semi-circle. At center the impeached pair Matt and Danny, almost-ten and not-quite-nine respectively. To her left, exuding eager mischief, sole witness and prosecutor Robert. (At ten-and-a-half he will not answer anymore to Robby.)               

No defending attorney, only to her right the other two boys. David, about eight, whose fat Mexican mother always welcomes them with churros and hot chocolate. In whose garage afterwards they are willingly swarmed by his collection of lizards. And Mark, about nine, whose constant dream is to appear someday on Johnny Carson.

Terry, only girl and oldest member of this accidental band, is already eleven. She sits cross-legged on the ground like the others, but everyone knows who's boss. She sits behind the makeshift judge’s bench (a two-by-four from her father’s garage, propped up on rusty cans) and brings down the hammer five times. You should see those boys jump when she calls them to order!

“Robert Andrews? What’s the big deal that we have to have a trial about?”

“I told you, Terry –”

“You mean the Honorable Judge Terry Rawson,” she interrupts, fixing him with a viperous stare.

“Yeah, Your Honorable Judge Terry. I told you I saw Matt and Danny –”

“Wait,” she interrupts again. And this time he rolls his eyes and looks sideways, across Matt and Danny, at David and Mark. They grin back at him and shrug their shoulders.

“Wait, I almost forgot to swear you in. Hey, do any of you have a Bible or something?”

“Yeah, right,” Robert guffaws. “I carry one in my back pocket all the time.”

“Hold on, smarty-pants. I’ll be right back.”

She leaps up and runs back into the garage. She climbs up on the old, green Plymouth. The 40's-era albatross that her father only drives on weekends. From her perch there on its hood she reaches the box with its not-so-secret stash of magazines. She grabs one off the top, a Playboy with just the right amount of breast. Its contours caught in oblique profile. Teasing its way from behind the model’s cupped hand.

“Whoa!” Robert exclaims at that first glimpse of what she has found. “Now, there’s some bible I don’t mind swearing to.”

“Shut up. And put your right hand here.”

Terry is holding it with the cover so everyone can see. Especially Matt who is right in front of her and who she wants to get a really good look. Not a hint of levity, nothing to give away her plan.

“This is the best I could come up with on short notice,” she says. Having already grabbed his hand, set it down firmly on that bare suggestion of a female breast.

Matt and Danny just sit and sweat, managing only the weakest of smiles. Robert winks, runs his tongue over his upper lip. Mark and David are laughing so hard that, when Terry glares at them, they have to bend over and clutch their bellies before they can make themselves stop.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?”

“Yeah, I’m telling the truth. You’d better believe it.”

“Okay,” Terry answers, letting go of his hand and pushing him back to where he had been sitting. “So what is it already?”

“Yeah, well it’s like this. I was walking around with nothing good to do when I thought I’d go see what Matt was up to. I started to climb up on the wall and look over into his back yard to see if he was there when, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die –”

“Or stick-a-needle-in-your-eye,” Mark finishes for him. Reverting to the same idiot laughter he has barely gotten control of a moment earlier.

“Shut up. Order in the court.”

“I’m not lying, swear-to-God. I was up there, see, and I thought I heard whispers. And I looked over to the side in that closet-like area where Mr. Bolting keeps some tools and junk. You know the spot. Between the wall wall and the house wall? I looked over there anyhow cause that’s where the noise was, right? And there was Matt and Danny with their pants down around their feet and holding their shirts up over their bellybuttons. Looking down and staring long and hard at their wieners.”

“Oscar Mayer,” Mark corrects between more high-pitched squeals. “Oscar Mayer wieners.”

David, who has come along at the last minute and did not already know what this impromptu trial was about, is just sitting there catching flies with that gaping mouth of his. Matt and Danny, for their part, just keep shaking their heads. Their denial an insistent rustling.

“And what do you two have to answer to that?”

Terry’s eyes (reptilian) bore into each of theirs in rapid succession. Show no mercy, she tells herself. No shadow of personal interest. She is in charge here and in the end they'll all have to obey her judgment.

“No,” Matt says then. Lowering his voice to hide the trembling. “No, Judge Terry, that never happened.”

And, “No,” Danny echoes. “I swear it didn’t, I mean we didn’t. I mean, no, why would we do a stupid thing like that?”

“And this witness’s testimony? Why would he say that if it didn’t happen?”

“I don’t know,” Matt says, “but he’s making it up.”

“You swear on a stack of my father’s Playboys?”

“We swear,” Matt says. And Danny swears too before Matt goes on for the two of them. “We swear on a mile-high stack of your father’s girlie magazines that nothing like that ever happened.”

“They’re lying,” Robert says. “They’re both lying and I can prove it.”

“I declare this court in recess till I can talk with both sides and see for myself, in private, what this proof is you’re all the sudden talking about.”

Robert nods in apparent agreement and gets up to go. Mark and David, grinning and gawking respectively, seem to still be registering what Terry has just said. Matt and Danny just keep staring at the ground. Their heads shaking. Suggesting yet again that it didn't happened nor have they ever done it. Nothing like it. Swear-to-God.

“Oh, and hey. Let’s keep this to ourselves right now, okay? Until the court can figure this out and have its say. Not a peep before that to anyone.”

                                                              * * *

They scatter then except for the impeached pair Matt and Danny who remain exactly where they have been. No longer shaking their heads since no one is left to witness that synchronized denial. Still continuing to study the ground immediately in front of them. Heads flitting about occasionally like nervous lizards. Voices rising just slightly above whispers.

"Whatta we do now?" Danny says. "Whatta we do if Robert’s not bluffing?"

"We're dead, we're dead." 

"How'd he see us? How'd this happen?"

"We've gotta just keep denying it or we're as good as dead."

As to the hows, it all started inauspiciously enough when one day their mothers simply took them to cool off at the beach. It was barely summer, mid-June and school just out. Then at home, wet sand and ocean salt firmly entrenched in every nook and crevice of their scrawny bodies, their mothers thought nothing of guiding them out of their trunks and into the same bathtub. Where they gave them a thorough rinsing and left them for what was probably no more than five minutes. While they went into the kitchen to prepare themselves a couple of martinis.

Picture, if you will, the two of them wondrously staring then at each other's boyhood. Transfixed, though God knows they were the scrawniest of things, by the unexpected sight (flaccid baby cobras) of each other's privates. Explain to yourself however you may that ineluctable mystery of adoration.

From that beginning, anyway, it was not long before they started slipping outside into that they-thought-secret space. Between the vaguely Spanish-style, Californian-suburban ranch and the adobe wall that extended around its back yard and lent an illusion of privacy. When they got there, then, first once and perhaps a couple more times before they were caught, all they did was drop their pants and look.

Now, after what they have just endured of this unendurable trial, they can only hope for it to soon be over. 

 “What can he really have on us anyway?” Danny says.

“It’s his word against ours, that’s all.”

“Yeah. Just keep on denying it.”

“And then forget it ever happened. Never let it happen again.”

At which point they both glance over their shoulders to make sure that no one could have heard them. Timorous reptiles fertively checking out their landscape.

“If he does have something?” Danny says. “What then?”

                                             * * *

“So what’s this so-called proof you say you’ve got?”

Terry has just followed Robert the block to his house and then into his room. And that is when he produces the picture. Which he took with that blasted Polaroid he is always carrying around with him. Sneaking up on people at the most awkward moments and creating images of them on the spot. She tries to imagine how he managed to hoist that thing and snap the picture while pulling his head over that wall. And without them hearing him, at that. Tortoiselike. As she heard his own father say once, patting him on the head, gubernatorial candidate Ronald Reagan could have used him to ferret out Communists in Hollywood.

But here he is instead. Here and now. And here is Terry, the truth staring her right in the face. No point in her denying it. Here are Matthew’s baby-smooth cheeks. Danny’s limp little wiener. Right out here in the open for any paparazzi to spy them.

Terry tries to get Robert to give her the picture. Ostensibly for State’s evidence but really for the shredder. But Robert will not relinquish it. No way, he says. Hell no. Somehow, she can see, she will have to save Matt in spite of it. That's how it is that she determines she will have to get him to sacrifice Danny.

She rushes home and finds the two of them sitting in the same position as before.

“Look. Danny, you go home. And I’ll call you when it’s time. Matt, we’ve got to talk. Come into the garage with me.”

Before she left Robert’s, she made him promise to keep that picture to himself until further notice. Now she picks up the Playboy and leads Matt into the garage. Picks it up from off the ground where she left it. From off the ground where until now it stayed.

Terry lowers the door behind them and tells Matt to sit down in the back seat of that ancient Plymouth. That 40's-era albatross, green with memory.

She slides in beside Matt and shows him that centerfold. He studies it for a moment. Wide-eyed and kind of wondrous. Startled? Terry choking back memories of her own, things best forgotten, things she can't be shed of.

Matt looks at her. As if to ask why a girl would be showing him this. After they have thumbed through the magazine and looked at some more pictures, Terry tosses it on the floor and touches his hand.

“I’ll show you mine if you’ll show me yours.”

They are both wearing shorts. Terry slides her hand across his leg. Guides his fingers across hers. Across the inside of her thigh.

“Unzip your pants.”

She helps him as he fumbles awkwardly to do so. She lowers them just enough. Caresses it just enough to excite some little pre-pubescent response.

All the while her eyes are averted. Closed. Trying to forget the heavy feel of other hands.

“Now touch me.”

Terry shudders. Her mind twisted around the thought of what it takes to please a man. Around misbegotten thoughts of what it will likewise take to command this or any other boy’s affection.

She has drawn her hands back from Matt. Unfastened her own shorts and slid them down. Along with the panties, to just below the knees. She leans back, then. Opens herself partially to his view. Guides his timid fingers along the opening. She leans closer toward him. Takes his other hand up under her T-shirt. Across her belly to where her breasts, still tiny enough, are just starting to make themselves known. Then she feels his confusion. That frightened hesitation of his that she also has known. So she kisses him once on the lips and pulls back and pulls up her pants. He fixes his up too. Then sits waiting for whatever unexpected thing might happen next. She feels him trembling.

Terry trembles, too, remembering the moment she first loved him. It was a couple of years ago. His family had just moved from somewhere out East. The adults were inside laughing and drinking. Her father who had already begun touching her was laughing and drinking. Outside she was chasing Matt around in front of the other children. Promising aloud to catch him and kiss him. Promising herself silently that the kiss would hurt. That it would hurt someone other than her.

She did not catch him that night. But chasing him she began to sense that he really wanted to be caught. In front of the other children, mostly boys and a couple of younger girls, he only ran that much faster. After she stopped chasing him, it seemed to her that she could feel his disappointment.

It was then that Terry realized she loved him. And that she had to have him.

Not too long afterwards she went walking with him and Robby, as Robert then preferred to be called. They walked on down past the neighborhood K-8 school. There on a wall that divided the school from some apartment complex was a cacophony of graffiti. In aggressive, black, capital letters the word FUCK. Matt had apparently never seen it before. He wondered aloud what it meant. Out of tenderness Terry had to stifle a laugh. Clearly this boy was in need of an education. Which if the opportunity someday presented itself she would happily give him more of than she could then.

Sitting now in the back seat of this ancient green Plymouth she tells him some of what she thinks he should know. Pulling no punches, since it is obvious to her that a moment of decision has arrived for him.

“Look. Matt, you’ve got trouble. Cause Robert got a picture of you and Danny with your pants down.”

She pauses for dramatic effect. To let the words sink in. She touches him where his heart is and feels it racing.

“Do you know what ‘faggot’ means? It’s a guy who pokes other guys instead of girls like nature intended.”

She explained to him that other time what the graffiti meant. Helped on by worldly-wise Robby in a graphic simulation that even so she could not be sure Matt understood.

“Pokes ‘em in the butt since they don’t got the other hole. And if you’re not careful, Matt, that’s what everyone’s gonna be calling you.”

She tells him now in no uncertain terms that he's the one she has always hoped to do it with when he's ready. But that no way is she going to be strung along by a damn faggot. She doesn't hold anything back now. Even though she's afraid of losing him. Would rather be hugging him. Kissing. Cuddling with him. She must be counting on the impression she's just made before telling him these secrets. Hoping it will be enough to save him for her. And from disgrace.

Terry tells him that she's always known he loves her too. That whatever is going on there with Danny, she knows in her heart he's not a faggot. As for Danny, though? Always playing with his sister’s Barbie dolls and all? If Matt knows what's good for him, he'll cut Danny loose and make up some story. Like it was Danny’s idea or something and he was just proving that his own was bigger. She just doesn't know about Danny, she says. He seemed kind of faggoty all along. But she believes in Matt. And she wants him to know that before they go back to trial.

When they do emerge from the garage and file individually onto the front lawn, the rest of the gang is present. Danny included. There is nothing to be done but to pick up where they left off when Terry told them all to keep quiet until the court reached a decision.

“This court is now back in session.”

The hammer-gavel descends again. Terry’s open-air courtroom falls silent.

“So. Matthew Bolting and Daniel Coulter. You’ve both been accused of being caught with your pants down. Looking at your wieners like a couple of faggots. Those are the charges. So how do you plead to them? And first I’ve got to tell you that Mr. Andrews here has some pretty tough evidence against you. Daniel?”

“No,” Danny answers. “I mean, why would we do something stupid like that? Just like I said before. No, it never, I mean we never. Honest-to-God we didn’t.”

She thinks how cruel it is the way she has set him up. Not telling him beforehand, as Matt is now aware, of the evidence they face. But she had to do it. She can only hope Matt will take the bait. And not being stupid, as she knows he isn't, she thinks he will. He'll have to if he wants to survive. If she has made any impression on him at all. As she obviously has.

“Not guilty, then. That’s your plea. And Matthew now? Before the court’s forced to rule on the evidence?”

He hesitates for just a second. She sees Danny look at him. His face start to fall as Matt begins speaking.

“Well, okay. There was something happened, yes. But it wasn’t like you think. I’m not no faggot. As for Danny, you’ll have to ask him. I only did it to satisfy his curiosity, you know. Cause he wanted to see whose was bigger or something. Then I started to get uncomfortable. And he wanted to touch it, I guess. It was really kind of creepy, you know, but maybe he didn’t mean it. I’m not no faggot, though. Don’t call me no faggot or I’ll have to bust your face. As for Danny, you’ll have to ask him yourself. Maybe he’ll bust your face too.”

In that moment Danny takes off for his house without saying anything in response or even looking at any of them.

"There you have it," Terry says. "That's proof enough that it's the way Matthew says. If not, why doesn't he stick around and defend himself?"

"Yeah," David says. "What a wuss."

"You see, I wasn't lying. I've got the proof in pictures if you still have any doubts."

Mark, grinning like a serpent, jabs Matt in the ribs and snorts.

"Yeah, let's see that now, Judge Terry. Don't you wanna see whose is really bigger?"

"Yeah, let's see."

"A little contest right now. Let's take a look right now. Let Terry judge right now between all of us."

Terry sneers at that suggestion and brings down her gavel for one last time. Matt, for his part, blushing chameleon, looks down at the grass.

"This court is now adjourned," Terry says. "Go play with yourselves if you want, you stupid faggots."

                                                             * * *

One weekend in late summer – they have barely started back to classes – the five of them are out walking behind the school. In a vacant lot that has been one of their favorite haunts. A to-their-minds pristine marshland where there are frogs and salamanders and other slimy creatures galore.

"Hey, Matt," Robert says, scooping one of them up. "Is it longer than this?"

"Shut up, faggot. I'm gonna bust your face."

The two have just begun tussling when the others interrupt.

"Look over there. Isn't that Danny?"

They stop fighting to look. And there he is, off by himself, hunched over his own amphibian find.

"Now, there's a faggot for you."

"You ain't fibbing."

"Hey, Matt. With you it's only a joke. We don't mean nothing by it."

"Hey, but you've got to admit it's pretty funny."

"You were asking for it, Matt."

"Hey, I've got an idea. Why don't we jump the faggot and give him a little scare? Push his face down and hold it in the water till he's ready to cry injun."

"Yeah. Push it down till he's really gasping for air."

"Till he's ready to confess that he's the biggest faggot in Judge Terry's domain."

"That his wiener's so small it couldn't poke a frog."

They converge on him then. He looks up and then away, as if sizing up his options for flight and as quickly giving them up. They jump on him and hold him down. Nose in the mucky water.

Only witness to the orgy of splashing and taunting and mingling that follows are the creatures that live there. At first assault they scatter from that furious epicenter and then settle down to observe. With whatever senses by which the surrounding ecosystem is made visible to them. The androgynous swamp stares up at the struggling children. And they, having surrendered at once to that single violent spasm, merge with each other and with that muck into the stink of their most primeval urges. Into the stink of their most primitive instincts of fear and survival.     

At last, after the one at the bottom of that pile has stopped fighting, after the others have released their hold, turned laughing, and run, after one of them has glanced back and seen him still lying there, face down in the water, then run back to him, pulled him up by the hair, set him back face-up, punched his chest, pinched his nose, breathed short frantic breaths into his mouth, the others forming a tight circle and waiting, after all that, the boy still flaccid and pale, the girl retching and sobbing beside him, then crab-walking away, limping sideways to her feet, the others’ heads flitting about like nervous lizards, checking for witnesses or predators – after all that, they simply bolt. 

The swamp’s slimy creatures emerge from their several vantage points. Indifferent to the human drama that has just disturbed them. Yet drawn (inevitably; inexorably) toward that fresh scent of decay.