Elroy also felt Kyle needed help in the most fundamental ways. He seemed to be more of a loner than Elroy because he didn’t even have acquaintances. It never took Elroy long to make superficial friends and by October he knew more people at Harvard than most seniors who had been there for four years. People tended to gravitate to him and he didn’t have to try hard for this to happen. Men and women laughed at his jokes, listened to his opinions (even when he said nothing of great significance), and often tried to mimic his style. If Elroy wore a white scarf with a black leather jacket, within days he would see other people on campus wearing white scarves with black leather jackets. Once, just to see what would happen, he wore a bright orange knitted ski cap to a party and the following week he counted more than three dozen people on campus wearing orange ski caps.
But most people didn’t even notice Kyle. He seemed to be invisible and Elroy suspected Kyle knew this—or he didn’t care about it, which was even more dismal when he really thought about it. Whenever they walked together on campus people would approach Elroy and turn their backs to Kyle as if he wasn’t even standing there. Elroy also overheard people talking about Kyle when they didn’t know he was listening. He heard a group of guys in the locker room one afternoon laugh about the baggy clothes Kyle wore. He heard a group of girls snicker at the way Kyle’s eyeglasses tipped sideways. Elroy even overheard two professors laughing at the way Kyle tended to stare down at the floor when he walked down the hallway to class.
So Elroy decided to do something about this. On a Saturday afternoon in October he took Kyle shopping and bought him a few new things to wear. Though Kyle protested at first and said he didn’t want anything, Elroy persisted and said, “I want to do this, man. I’ve done some shitty things to you and I want to make it up.”
“I’ll pay you back slowly,” Kyle said. “I don’t want the money,” Elroy said. “I don’t need the money.”
Kyle clearly didn’t trust him. “And what do I have to do in return? I’m not sleeping with you, so get that out of your head.”
“I just want to go shopping,” Elroy said. “I don’t want to bone you. If it makes you feel better, you can help me out with my math class. It’s fucking killing me. The professor is the meanest fucking dyke you’ve ever seen. She hates men, she hates dick, and she hates me.”
Kyle smiled. “Translation: you can’t flirt your way through this class and you can charm your way around her like you can with everyone else. In other words, she’s got you all figured out and you don’t know how to deal with it.”
Elroy thought for a moment. “She wears plaid flannel shirts and gets her hair cut at a barbershop.”
“Ha. I’d love to meet her. She sounds like a smart woman.”
“If you help me study, I’ll take you shopping. Is it a deal?”
“I’m not sleeping with you, so get that out of your head,” Kyle said.
This was making Elroy’s head hurt. The more Kyle said no, the more he wanted him. “It’s a deal, man.”
Kyle agreed to go shopping as long as they went to discount department stores where clothes didn’t cost a fortune. This passed Elroy by. If someone had offered to buy him new clothes he would have gone to the most expensive designer boutiques in Boston. When they walked into the discount store Kyle had chosen, Elroy looked around and rubbed his jaw. He’d never even been to a place like this. The people all seemed so downtrodden and dreary it depressed him. The lights were harsh, the floors scuffed, and the people who worked there wore name tags. For Elroy, these were stores people passed on their way to the good stores.
It turned out to be an education for Elroy. When he saw most of the clothing wasn’t all that different from what he usually shopped for in more trendy shops, he went to work selecting simple classic things for Kyle. When he glanced at the price tag for a pair of beige chinos and saw they were only twenty-five dollars, he scratched his head and said, “I just paid two hundred bucks for a pair of pants just like this in Boston.”
He wound up getting Kyle a few basic outfits he could wear anyplace without looking unusual, including a warm black pea coat and a few mock turtleneck sweaters. He would have bought him a few suits and ties and some formal wear but Kyle refused. He said he had no intention of going anywhere formal in the immediate future and when he did need something formal he would buy it himself. “I’m here to study and learn, not to run around trying to keep up with the most important social circles in Harvard,” was how he’d put it. So Elroy found solid-colored polo shirts, faded jeans, and chinos without pleats. He didn’t mention it to Kyle, but he liked the way the chinos hugged his ass. They made Elroy want to bang him even more. Along with the outfits he bought for Kyle, he wound up buying six pairs of pants for himself because he couldn’t resist the prices.
While they were in the fitting room trying pants on, he offered to share a fitting booth with Kyle and help him change his pants. Kyle smiled and declined. But Elroy did have a little fun, to Kyle’s chagrin. He couldn’t resist the temptation. Kyle had finished trying on pants and he was waiting for Elroy outside the fitting room. While he waited, in a store filled with other people browsing through racks, Elroy walked out of the dressing room wearing nothing but a pair of tight red boxer briefs in front of everyone. The underpants were so tight his junk resembled a sack of walnuts. Kyle’s back was to the fitting room entrance. Elroy walked up behind him in nothing but the red underwear, tapped him on the shoulder, and asked, “How do these look? Are they too tight?”
A woman pushing a baby stroller took one look at Elroy’s junk, turned around fast, and walked in the other direction.
Two young guys in hoodies stopped and gaped for a moment.
One woman in her sixties giggled.
An older man with gray hair took one look at Elroy in the red underwear and licked his lips.
Another older guy carrying a man-purse tripped over his own feet and knocked over a necktie display.
Kyle turned and stared at him for a moment. With a deadpan expression, he looked Elroy up and down and said, “They make your dick look small.”
Elroy sent him a smile and said, “I knew there was hope for you.”
* * * * Later that same night, Elroy stepped out of the shower and said, “Put on that black T-shirt you got today and those tight jeans. We’re meeting a couple of guys.” He’d decided to spring this on him suddenly so he couldn’t refuse. If Elroy had planned this ahead of time he knew Kyle would have found a way to back out.