Toby Reid is a faggot Jew. When I see the graffiti on the library study carrel, I reach into my messenger bag for a Sharpie, and cross it out. No one sees me. No one goes to the library here, anyway. I know for sure that Toby is not queer, but a boy can dream, can't he? He wears a silver Star of David that you can see, along with a few pale chest hairs, when he wears his polo shirts open.
       Toby has carefully wrinkled corduroys and jeans. He is not afraid of the color pink. He is Ms. Mertz's protégé; from where I sit, a half circle away from him, I have a good view. His hair, casually blonde, runs in tight curls alongside his face. He radiates. I pause during the rest a little too long, observed in this scrutiny, and Ms. Mertz yells at me, and we take it from the top again, andante.
       When Toby speaks he pauses first. He reflects into the distance, and his khaki-colored eyes soften as if he is replaying a sad goodbye in his head. I think this is what it means to be Jewish.
       Our school is not overtly racist; still, everyone is assumed to be white, Christian, and untainted by the kind of secrets that Toby and I possess. People get away with anti-Semitic graffiti because Toby is well liked, just not popular enough. He plays soccer, not football. He dates many girls, but the trust fund girls and the prettiest cheerleaders turn him down.
       Chantal tells me these things. I'm in advanced classes, so I only ever see dweebs, chess nerds, select athletes, drama groupies, and other band kids, Toby included. Chantal takes regular classes. Chantal is not her real name, but she likes to use it in social settings. She's the girl the popular kids ask when they need to know about Planned Parenthood, she's a big punk activist, and she wants me to come out at school.
       I think once I tell her about the library graffiti, she'll realize I need all the protection staying in the closet affords.

       I should introduce myself, but I prefer speaking about him. My name is Seamus O'Toole; yes, I do have red hair and freckles. I smoke cigarettes behind the gymnasium, do all my homework, and bring some respectability to drama club productions. I am well respected in my tiny circles, but a social nonentity to the popular kids. I bowed out of the role of Tony in West Side Story, because I couldn't stand the thought of kissing Melissa Henderson, with her oversized bosom and chin full of acne. I play the cello. I'm quite good. I like boys, but I've never fucked one, and I'm afraid everyone knows it. That I like boys, that is.
       I have only one other secret. It is this: that I want to be a Jew. I want the secrecy and the sorrow of histories. I want the knowledge of pain and otherness. I want the story of hope and redemption and that desert candle burning. I want to be one of God's chosen. I would have died in Nazi Germany anyway with a pink triangle on my sleeve instead of a star, so I understand a little of the pain of persecution numbing away the brain.
       When I see that sentence again, Toby is a faggot Jew, I consider crossing out his name and writing my own above it.
       Over and over again we practice the scales. Up and down and one and two. I am in love with my instrument and with the ritual of orchestra. The feel of the bow as we slide the small rectangle of resin over its hairs-or the way the string wears a crease into the finger long after fifth period is over-or the way Toby's vibrato sounds like the voice of a woman I will never love, but he will.
       Vivaldi's Four Seasons for the Spring Concert. Ms. Mertz is crazy. That was my first favorite-Toby's too, I find out. I play a cd of Antonio Vivaldi in the car, singing along to the dizzying violin solos. Nobody but Toby's good enough. Likewise, I'm the best cellist. I think that it will be as close as I will get to him: the two stars of the orchestra, me sliding under him the whole time. A cantina, a sonnet, a love song I'll never sing.

       I space out in the locker room, thinking about Antonio's Summer. At night, cooped up in my third floor bedroom with the windows open and the music turned up, I think how the seemingly unresolvable sexual tension of Summer is resolved so neatly. I come to and I'm in my boxers and an undershirt, staring at the bank of lockers opposite mine where Toby and his pals from the soccer team are staring back at me. You a faggot, or what? Get dressed, O'Toole. Christ, fucking fairies. I smile at Toby, hoping he can read my mind. It's just Vivaldi, really. He pulls up his shirt and I'm mesmerized by his firm abs. And blushing. I turn around and dress hurriedly, thinking of Melissa Henderson's ginormous breasts to get myself sufficiently grossed out.
       Chantal and I go to the mall. At the mall, we take chicken pieces from the Chinese girl outside Shanghai Xpress, as many as we can hold in our hands, and we do this once or twice and that's dinner. We cruise for boys, hopping into accessories stores to pocket some earrings. Chantal has never been caught. This time she's taking some for me, and she's going to pierce my ear with a needle and an ice cube. I'll have a faggoty symbol of my own. We choose a little diamond stud. I know my ma will wring her hands and my pa will thrash me and try to rip it from my ear. He might succeed.
       Outside the mall we're smoking and waiting for it to be late enough that it will feel late, dark and special and old. Guys from another town come up to us and they're hitting on Chantal, waiting for me to all jump to her honor like I'm the boyfriend. And the one who is reaching for her, running his grubby paws up her forearm, him with the baseball cap turned backward and the cargo shorts and varsity sports jacket, him, he's gay too. I am sure of it, suddenly. I smile at him all tenderly and watch it trip him up; I know his body is responding to me even as he's forcing it to notice Chantal. I'm not the only fag in this one horse town. I have never been so ecstatic.
       Driving around I see Toby with his yarmulke on. He's walking somewhere, all stiff-like with his hands shoved in his cords. Hey, Toby, wanna ride?

       As the violinists fumble around with the interlude to "Eleanor Rigby" while they wait for practice to begin, I take off on my own transposition of Winter into the low register, a parodic dirge of Toby's swoon. Across the stage he grins, jumps in after the first few phrasings, and we're echoing one another across the emptiness. His Red Sox hat still covers the hair. I want to whisk it off, sure it smells of sweat and cheap beer and pot. The music stirs me and I'm threatened by a second erection, but Vivaldi's rhythm is so powerful. I think of busying bees storing up their honey, shepherds combing out the locks of their sheep and wives spinning wool for the winter weaving. I think of old Antonio with a carafe of good wine, singing to himself in a garret, this is how I want it to go.
       When we're all in the rush of playing, and all you can see is a hundred hands flying like rivers, and fifty bows so furious there's little clouds of resin, and the music sings out-the voice of all the cellists becomes my cello, my fingers, my breath held and rhythm scissoring to catch up-Toby the golden star (star of David, star of life)-my pride about to burst I don't think life gets any better than this, here, now-and the final note rings out with such authority I see Antonio's peasant fattening up for Winter's storms-but right now there is so much bounty and so much now, the music shimmers in the afterglow like a lesson we are all on the tip of grasping, so clear you can see it floating in midair.
       I doodle my name over again in the library carrel: Seamus O'Toole. When I come back, what will it say?
       Ms. Mertz calls a private afterschool rehearsal for the principals. That's Toby and me, and Vicki the viola player who's so quiet she might as well be mute, and Maxine the upright bassist who is the only black girl in our school. Ms. Mertz lectures us all about the importance of the Four Symphonies. She unearths some poems Antonio wrote to go along with his works and reads them all aloud so we can get his images into our head. Toby twitches compulsively like dogs do when they dream. I've heard he's started dating Melissa Henderson.

Two days ago I visited the temple where Toby goes. In nice clothes. Inside the temple door and safely out of view I ran my hand over the plush velvety benches and compared their stained glass windows to the ones over at Saint Agatha's. On a new member card, I wrote Seamus O'Toole, but only crumpled it up in my pocket and didn't hand it in anywhere.

       Right now the Pats have lost their first game in a while, and everyone's kinda bummed and Chantal is sick again so I wander around the mall, alone. Toby finds me in the food court, reading an old newspaper someone left on the table.
       Hey, Seamus, hope you're getting ready for the big concert next month.
       Yeah.
       You're always staring at me in rehearsal, what's that about?
       It's not about nothing. I just blank out a lot.
       Your girlfriend's not here tonight.
       No, she's sick.
       She really your girlfriend?
       No.
       Wanna come with us? I'm meeting some of the guys down by the quarry; Zach's gonna go free climbing. Stupid fuck.
       Okay.
       Toby lets me into his car, which is an old Volvo wagon that must have been handed down through his two older brothers cause it's now all junked-out. I see a Playboy on the floor and put my sneaker through the model's lips. He speeds on the highway and revs the thing too long before shifting into gear, and we're listening to hippie shit music but of course I can't say anything, not even anything about old Antonio who's our only connection, mine and Toby's.

       When we get there five cars line the path. I get out and make to follow Toby but he's too fast and I can't see where he's gone. He yells back, hang on O'Toole. Just as I'm starting to get scared of the dark he comes back with five of his friends.
       Yo, O'Toole.
       Hey, nice to see you, congrats on the win last weekend.
       Enough of your shite, O'Toole.
       Huh?
       We know you're the one, O'Toole, been writing that sick shit about our boy. We thought it was high time to invite you out here for a little lesson and it turned out tonight was perfect time, right guys?
       What are you talking about?
       Seen you in the library, boy, we know you go there. Don't pretend like you don't know.
       I'm a geek, okay, but I don't know what you're talking about.
       Geek isn't it, huh boys? You're a fairy. A fucking homo.
       Backdoor operator, O'Toole.
       And you're looking at our boy a little too much.
       We saw you, O'Toole. In the library, in the locker room, in your faggoty orchestra class.
       You been spreading lies, O'Toole.
       It's time you got yours, O'Toole.

       Fear tastes metallic in my mouth tastes like a knife pulled out and what I'm thinking about now is hearing is perfect pitch is the relentless hum of the bumblebee in Antonio's-and someone's hands fumble at my zipper-Toby Reid is in the dark-I can't see Toby but I do smell nicotine and that sets my body to craving-my wrists behind my back, and suddenly I'm bare-assed and face down on a picnic table, the red peeling paint and smell of staleness, shit gone horribly wrong-someone's hand oh god on my underwear-say it, O'Toole, say it, if you fess up we just might stop here-the fingers that grab my ass are rough and I've imagined how good it might feel to have someone's hand rubbing me but the air is cold and these fingers are not gentle and I hear them mumble-crumpled tiny sounds-someone's inside me and my insides are tearing out-he thrusts into me, his voice in my ear is the voice I know-say it, O'Toole, I know you, oh you like this come on you like this let's hear you scream, you fucking fairy. But instead it's his voice I hear and his cries, as the grunt of labor mixes with pleasure of his body and he shakes as he comes and rolls quickly off, fades into the darkness like blue smoke trails from their cigarettes-I try to think of boats by the sea, of soft bobbing and him holding me all night long in a quiet suburban bedroom, and his voice saying kind things-try to love the roughness, the feel of his fingers and his body inside mine if this is the only way I'll ever feel it and-
       Everyone is behind me-another one takes his turn and my body adjusts to the rough thumping fuck fuck FUCK. But not this, no not this-the peasant's wife cooking meat, baking bread, maybe dancing a little with her husband after-and when story fails to work, I play la da da da, that sweet part in Winter three right before the frenzy whose tempo matches this, this… but the notes fall out of order, and I can't put the stanzas back where they belong.
       The pain like nothing I've ever felt. Dull buzzing in my head and my mouth tastes like the inside of a tin can and I try to find the language to tell them I never wrote anything, never anything bad, and it's all a horrible mistake but I can't speak at all.
       Meanwhile wooden splinters worm their way inside my cheek as his rhythm pushes me against the table, my hipbones catch the edge of the table, and I can't feel the pain anymore but if there's any skin left there I'm sure it's bruised. My legs hang off into space-too late, I think maybe I could kick-I give in. Wish I had a cigarette to calm me, conjure again the peasant and his wife, the hunt, the feast, Antonio drunk and brilliant, because if I am outwardly unresponsive then maybe it will just end.
       As one more takes his turn, a very heavy body and I feel my own flesh sink into the picnic table deeper than I had thought possible, more pain now, even though I thought no more was possible; some shocked part of me coughs vomit out onto the table and everything smells now, everything is bad, they murmur shocked:
       Oh shit.
       Let's go.
       Fuck, man, we gotta get out of here, this is fucked up.
       Just a minute, man, I gotta finish.
       And while he's still inside me they taper off start the cars bodies pile in and he's left heaving on top of me and I begin to cry, my face half stuck in the puke and the tears mingling all of it leaking into my open mouth just making more bile, and I gag again and at that moment he rolls off me-I hear the zipper tugged up, and don't turn around as the cars zoom off counting after each one two three four five.
       Tell anyone and you're dead, O'Toole.
       Don't fucking say a word.
       No one will defend you, O'Toole.
       Who's your daddy, O'Toole?

       Slowly I begin to clean myself up and I won't even tell you how. I turn on my cell phone and give Chantal a ring, hey girl, you've got to come get me and don't ask any questions it's like life or death I'm at the quarry. By the time she gets there my clothes are cleaner though I can feel my body bleeding out through my ass and have thrown up twice more in the bushes. Thank god for the water in the quarry.
       You smell like hell, she says.
       Been through hell too, I say, bum me a cigarette, only my fingers shake as I light it and though I think I'm cool she tells me later my teeth are chattering, I smell like something's rotting, and my hair's a mess.
       When I get home Pa's waiting up as it's late and I never called. Fuck they don't usually do this, see, and when I make out his outline through the living room window I call Chantal back and beg her to take me to her house for the night. But then it's too late. He sees me, already, somehow. I feel him watching. Besides all I really want is my bed, and so I swallow my fear and chew on some gum. Head to the door. Hey pop, sorry I'm late, my watch broke and we lost track of time.
       You out there fucking that friend of yours?
       No, pop. I don't like her like that.
       What did I tell you boy? Abstinence. Else you'll end up with little shits like yourself before too much longer.
       Can it and let me go to bed, pop. We just lost track of time.
       Don't talk to me that way you asshole. Treat me with some goddam respect. Bust my ass for you and your sister and your mother, all day long, and this is how you treat me.
       Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Goodnight, sir. With that I climb the stairs and lock myself in my room. I change into some long pajama pants, even though it's too hot what with the heat blasting. I unlock the door and slink into the bathroom, where I wash my face and brush the metallic taste out of my mouth. I pull my pants down and inspect my ass. Long scratches across it, from who knows what. Everything is red and sore. Blood in my boxers. I put an old sweatshirt on the bed in case it starts up again and stains the sheets. fall asleep thinking that maybe I'll go to temple and confess everything. I'm not too sure that being a homo is a sin if you're a Jew. I'm not too sure that god with the capital G has anything good for me, anyway. Fucking faggot.

       Chantal's been bugging me all week as to what the hell happened, but I keep my mouth shut. I wouldn't even know where to start. The bruises are fading, and all the details of that night are getting fuzzy. For all I know, they're sitting behind me in math class watching me shift in my seat every few minutes when it starts to hurt real bad. I meet every guy's eyes when I walk through the halls, half hoping one will flinch so I'll know he did it. I get Chantal to go to a soccer game with me because I want them to feel guilty and haunted, but no one breaks down and confesses, so what can I do?
       I want it over with.
       One thing for sure: I don't go to the library anymore. I spend most of my frees hunched in a bathroom stall with my headphones on, listening to good old Antonio.
       Pa still thinks I'm fucking Chantal, and most every night I hear him arguing with Ma about whether I should be allowed out or what they should do. He thinks it's a slippery slope from hooking up with Chantal to dropping out and becoming a crack addict. I think about going downstairs and telling them not to worry, that I'm queer, but I know the tears my mother will shed and the fear in my father's punches. Holed up with only Antonio I half wish that they were right, that I were a boy with a girlfriend. Someone who could have those kinds of troubles.

One Friday night I lie to everyone and go back to the temple for Shabbat services. I wear nondescript khakis and a polo shirt. White sneakers. I want to look straight. Just like Toby. I zone out while the rabbi talks about God. The peculiarities of the service are unfamiliar to me. I stupidly assumed there'd be the same singing and praying and mumbling of promises as in the Catholic church. After all half of the Bible is what they use, too. I fill out another new members card, with Seamus O. This time, I make sure to stick it in the proper box. I'm wondering if any of the guys who raped me come here, but no one looks familiar. Toby's missing, though I know he has a soccer game. It's all families and little girls with long, zany hair. I can feel them all staring at me, certain of my non-Jewishness. I never think how few Jews there must be in this town, how all the time they're feeling oppressed by the Christian calendar, and Christmas.

       Since that night, I feel everyone looking at me differently. Like something is painfully obvious, like I've got a trail of shitty toilet paper stuck to my shoe and everyone's just too polite to mention it. I walk around with my headphones on, humming Winter to myself. I feel so cold and dead inside, nothing but dried-up leaves and a thin crust of ice. When I start to think about those words leaving my head, to confront Toby or any of the others I can only guess at, I freeze.
       The week before the concert is when I'm finally alone with Toby Reid again. Ms. Mertz has called another principals rehearsal. Ms. Mertz is talking to Toby about what schools he's applied to and if he's going to play in the orchestra in college and Toby's sitting there, cool and professional-like, giving me the old boys' head nod thing. Yo, O' Toole, how's it hanging? He turns the wattage up on his smile and I see we're in competition for the best actor, who can play it cooler.
       Hey, it's all good. Been a while since I seen you. I watch his face real carefully for any sign of blush but he comes through it okay. This is not what I want from him; I want him, at least, to be ashamed. I want him to remember it and to hate himself, even momentarily.
       Alternately I could hate him. I just stay real quiet and tune my cello. I could hate Toby; what would that mean?
       I take off on a solo, one of Bach's cello sonatas. I think about going to college, finding a boyfriend, staying out all night in bars dancing, not having to be the boy in love with the first violinist. But he'll have to be a stain: I'll carry him with me, the boy who took me, the horrible mistake he committed, I'll tell the story to other boys, I'll never be able to let him go.
       Good old Toby goes off to the john, pulls his baseball cap low over his eyes. I think that where he's going he's already forgotten about me by the time he carefully wipes his hands.

       Chantal comes to the concert. Of course my parents don't, which is just a-okay with me. My new pants are creased and scratchy; I'd been wearing my old ones that night, at the quarry. There's a tie tight enough to choke at my throat. We've been backstage for hours, dress rehearsing, and pizzas have been ordered in and passed around. The green room smells like pizza still. If I can make it through this, I won't see Toby for a couple of weeks. But then he comes around the corner, with his baseball cap messing up his raging hair, and my stomach bottoms out again. It's his cheekbones, really; they're killer. Or the muscles, or the silent brooding thing, or the ease. I'll never have it. He's still the most gorgeous boy and I can't.
       Onstage, the lights are hot like I'm back in my bed that awful night after-I should be nervous of course. Me and Toby Reid displayed onstage right across from one another, and his buddies, probably, out there in the dark void of the auditorium part of me is pretending doesn't exist. I should be wicked nervous so the pepperoni pizza and Diet Coke I scarfed tingles at the back of my throat like it's coming to life. I should be that nervous, but I'm not. There will be another whole year after Toby is gone, but there will never be an equal to him. No one else as worthy of any of it.
       One and two and-Ms. Mertz is off and we're running, cascading like the first-ever snow flurry. Do you think you can imagine what it would be like to invent snow, to shape the flakes and vary the texture, and pour it all down over the landscape of your brain? It's snowing in my head, we're coming down the andante stretch and Maxine comes in behind me, underscoring my line. There are five other cellists, but it's my line, mine and Maxine's, and soon we'll reach the part by the riverbank, where I like to imagine old Antonio.
       In my head I see everything playing out, I've choreographed the entire symphony, this is where he takes my hand and I-just a cowboy thing, really, as off into the sunset we go cross thick cracking ice, no fear here, into the thicket where he takes. Months of this, see, drilled into my head every night in that tower room upstairs, living by Antonio and Toby.
       The story is closing down now. It's racing so fast, it can hardly contain itself. If I could make the notes with my hands I would just to get that close to them. But there's not much left in it for me. The high register, the sweet lilts of violinning, and Toby is full furious, exactly right, of course. He's always been it. I draw my bow across one final time, keeping my eyes on his fingers flying across the stage and on the sweet music pouring out that we've made together, Toby and I, how very connected we are that my part would be nothing without his, how I need him, Christ, that beautiful, unattainable boy whose hands I can still feel pulling me, driving us both into something deeper.