All American Boy (33 page)

She blinks. “Kyle?”

“Yes. Kyle.”

They say nothing for a moment, just holding each other's gaze.

“When was the last time you saw him?” Walter asks.

“I—I'm not sure …”

“
Think
, Mother!”

Her son's voice frightens her. It's cold and hard. Like Robert's.

It was graduation day, wasn't it? The last time she saw Kyle? Eighth grade graduation from St. John the Baptist, and Walter was receiving an award from Sister Angela. Oh, how handsome Walter had looked in his beige corduroy suit and green tie. Regina had been right there, snapping the camera, because Robert would want to see the pictures. He'd pass them around the ship, saying, “Here's my son. My son, the future admiral.”

But there was commotion in the back of the auditorium. It was Kyle and his friends—and they were drunk! Drunk, at age twelve! And they were urinating—urinating! Right there, in front of the whole school. All over the floor of the auditorium. Sister Angela had screamed and Father Carson had run down the aisle, but it was too late. The children had all seen, and Walter's award ceremony was ruined. Kyle was expelled after that. Poor Bernadette was a wreck by then, drunk all the time herself. Regina can't remember if that's when Albert shipped Kyle off to the military academy, but that was it. The end of Kyle. They didn't have to see him again after that.

Except he came back. Kyle came back …

“Mother, you've got to concentrate.”

She blinks, looking into Walter's eyes.

“When was the last time you saw Kyle?”

She puts a hand to her head. “I—don't remember—”

He turns away from her, swearing under his breath.

He hates me
, she thinks.
My son hates me
.

“Mommy,” he's asking as he sits with her in the dirt of her rock garden, “who do you love more, me or Daddy?”

Neither one of you
, a queer little voice in her head says all at once. But she pushes it away. “Oh, Walter,” she says instead, “what a thing to ask.”

Of course she loved her son. That was nonsense.

That night, the night after he'd asked her that question, she had looked at herself in the mirror, studying the lines around her eyes. The house was so quiet. She liked it when it was quiet like this. Walter was asleep and Robert was on the ship. It would be months before he returned. She could sleep late, she could sing as she washed the dishes, she could start watching her afternoon soaps again. Funny how even after weeks away she could tune in to them and still understand everything.
Not like life
, Regina thought, studying her eyes—but that's what made the soaps so much fun to watch.

On
The Guiding Light
, for example, the last time she'd tuned in, Bill Bauer had been cheating on his wife, Bertha. Poor Bert had found a lady's hat on the couch, with a veil and a flower in it, and she knew
very well
what was happening inside the other room.

Has Robert ever cheated on me?
Regina asked herself, stretching the skin on her forehead, making it taut, the way it had been when she was young. She'd never really considered the idea before. It was silly. There was no one to cheat with on the ship. It was all men. And when Robert was home, he was here, in this house, every single night.

Every single night.

Regina laughed a little, looking at herself.
It might be nice if he cheated
, she thought, scandalizing herself for being so naughty.
It would get him out of the house
. She covered her mouth as she laughed some more.

Why had there been no other children? No little girl? Robert had wanted another child. He would look at Walter playing jump rope with the girls instead of tag with the boys and he'd say, “Let's get it right next time.” Robert wanted a different kind of boy, when of course what Regina wanted was a girl.

He ruined it for me
, Regina thought, her hands dropping to her abdomen.
He tore me open and the doctor said that was it, no more children
.

Of course, that hadn't stopped Robert from trying; he never believed what doctors said anyhow. But Regina knew it would be impossible. She'd have no girls. Only the boy.

She suddenly felt very sad for Walter, the little boy she hardly knew sleeping in the next room, his poster of H. R. Pufinstuf on the wall. She got up from her mirror and tiptoed down the corridor. Slipping into the boy's room, she stood over his bed, looking down. The sheet across his tiny chest rose and fell with every short breath he took.

“I don't know about boys,” Regina whispered in the dark. “I don't know what you're supposed to be or what I'm supposed to do. If you were a girl, I'd know. I'd dress you up real pretty, the way Mama dressed Rocky and me. I'd take you for ballet lessons and teach you how to sew. If you had been a girl, everything would have been so much better for everybody.”

He cooed in his sleep, turning over onto his side.

“You would have been your father's little princess and I would have tied beautiful ribbons in your hair.” She paused, looking down at him. “But you're a boy, and I don't know about boys.”

His mother reached down to touch his soft little face. “But still. You're a good boy, Walter. You're a good boy.”

And with that, she tiptoed out of his room.

He's not leaving, her son. Not yet.

She spoons some Swedish goulash onto a plate for him. She'd made it special for him. He sits at the kitchen table, not saying very much.

“Ketchup,” she says. “You'll want ketchup.” She turns to Jorge. “Will you bring out the ketchup? Walter likes ketchup on his goulash.”

Jorge eyes Walter with a little jealousy. He's not sure about this strange man who barked at him, who's sitting now slumped in a chair at the table, eating the meal Missa usually made for him. But he obeys Regina, who smiles as she watches the boy.

“I'm so glad you decided to stay and have supper with us, Walter,” she says, as she sits down at the table herself. “Eat up now. I know this is your favorite.”

Walter takes a bite. He can't help but offer a little smile.

“You see?” Regina beams. “You remember now how good it tastes. Do you ever make it for yourself in the city?”

“No,” he says. “I've never made it for myself.”

“Do you remember, Walter, how we would sit eating my goulash on TV trays in the living room, watching
Match Game PM?
How we used to laugh, you and I, when Brett Somers and Charles Nelson Reilly started carrying on?”

He laughs, almost despite himself. “Yes, I remember.”

They're quiet. Walter seems to consider saying something, stops, then finally goes ahead. “I've worked with him, you know,” he says. “Charles Nelson Reilly. He's a brilliant acting teacher.”

Regina can't speak for a moment. “You've worked with
Charles Nelson Reilly?
Oh, Walter!
Really
?”

He doesn't answer. He seems embarrassed, as if he wished he hadn't told her. He just brings another forkful of goulash to his mouth, then puts his head back and closes his eyes as he chews.

Jorge is standing at Regina's side, looking up at her with his big brown eyes, feeling forgotten. She pats her lap, and he gratefully climbs up.

“I can't get over it,” Luz had told her. “How he's taken to you. He's usually so afraid of people.”

Regina looks down into the little boy's face.

“Push him down if he gets too heavy,” Luz would add. “He can be like a dog, just sleeping in your lap all night if you let him.”

“You're not too heavy, are you, Jorge?” Regina asks.

She looks up. Walter is staring at her cradling the boy.

“Thank you for supper, Mother,” he says abruptly, standing up, “but I've got to go.”

“Oh, Walter, you're not going for good, are you?” She tries to stand, but Jorge remains insistent in her lap. He is indeed too heavy for her to budge.

Walter stands over her. “I don't know. Let me just say good-bye now in case I'm not able to stop back—”

Regina feels terribly desolate all of a sudden. “Are you still going to see—
him
?”

Her son's face tightens. “You mean Alexander Reefy?”

Regina nods.

“Yes, I'm still going to see
him
, Mother. That's why I came back to Brown's Mill.”

“It wasn't because I called you?”

“Goddamn it, Mother!” Walter seems to snap, the way Robert used to snap, his emotions suddenly shooting across the room and ricocheting against the wall. “No, not because you called me! What—do you think you can just call me and then make me some Swedish goulash and I'll just forget all about the past? You think you can just suck me into your life and your dramas and make me
care?
”

“Walter, I—”

“Why
should
I care? Why should I care what some goddamn homophobic cop thinks about you? Why should I care what happened to that asshole Kyle? Why should I give a damn when you never did? Not once, Mother! Not once did you care about what. happened to me when I was growing up! Not
once!
”

“Oh, Walter, please, you were always such a good boy—”

But he's paying no attention to her. He rushes out of the kitchen. Regina can hear the front door slam as he leaves.

She starts to cry.

She sits there, crying almost as hard as she had the night Luz left. She forgets all about the little boy sitting in her lap.

A little boy who eventually reaches up with his sticky hands and places them against Regina's cheeks.

She looks down at him.

“You're a good boy,” she says, between her tears, “aren't you, Jorge?”

He smiles a gap-toothed grin up at her.

Regina pulls him close.

“I had a little boy once,” she says, rocking him in her arms. “He was a good boy. Just like you. He was a very good boy.”

19

IT'S GOING TO BE GRAND

The day after Schaefer's Shoes closed its doors for the last time, Wally let the world find out what he'd been doing with Alexander Reefy in the orchards.

The little shoe store just couldn't compete with the brand new Shoe Town that had opened up on North Washington, next to the new Burger King with the giant playground. “There's a big parking lot out there,” Wally's mother would say, by way of explanation, as if parking lots could explain the entire world. His father, meanwhile, blamed Jimmy Carter and the A-rabs.

Standing in front of his house, Wally dreads going inside. He just stands there on the sidewalk looking at the front door, his bookbag slung over his shoulder. What will his father be like today? What will he do? Yesterday had been very bad. The store was gone, he was out of work, they were all going to end up on the street. Wally hopes his father has gotten so drunk that he's fallen asleep in his La-Z-Boy.

Finally he works up the courage to go inside. His father is sitting wide awake on the couch, not moving, not speaking, just staring into the air.

“Don't say anything to him,” Wally's mother whispers. “Just go to your room and pray, Walter. Just pray.”

Pray for what? For Shoe Town to get struck by lightning? For Jimmy Carter to resign? For the A-rabs to give us free oil? Wally closes his door and lights up a cigarette. Newports. His parents have begun to suspect he smokes in his room but can never prove it. He keeps the window cracked and aims the smoke outside, an incense stick burning at all times to cover up the smell.

It's raining. Or maybe that's just how Wally will come to remember it, because his life is about to become a drizzly blur, a damp mist shrouding everything he does.

“You're going to end up like your cousin Kyle if you don't change your ways,” his guidance counselor had scolded him.

“What am I doing that's so wrong?” he'd challenged back at him.

“Wally, you once were the most promising student in Brown's Mill. You could have had your pick of colleges. But you're barely passing chemistry and sure to fail trigonometry. The only class you've got decent grades for is art history. Face it, Wally, you can't make much of a career as an art historian.”

And why not? So Wally breezed through his classes, sometimes stoned from a morning joint, pilfered from Missy's house when she wasn't looking. School
sucked
. He had no friends left at all: David Schnur had transferred over to Mayville after a particularly savage beating by a group of seniors outside the gymnasium. They claimed he was spying on them in their jockstraps in the locker room. Some of the teachers actually acted as if they thought David deserved what he got.

“David Schnur was a cocksucking faggot,” Freddie Piatrowski told him. “I
know
. I caught him once with some kid out behind the bleachers.”

“No way,” Wally said. “You really saw him with another guy?”

“Oh, yeah. Sitting real close together. Him and some guy. Talking like they were little faggot girlfriends.” Freddie had scowled. “You ought to be glad he's gone, Wally. Hanging around with him only made
you
a faggot, too.”

Might he have stood a chance at that moment? Might there have been a opportunity for redemption? Later, Wally would remember that conversation with Freddie: did he miss his last shot at a normal life? With David gone, might he have regained his old friends, been accepted back into his old world?

No, not so long as Zandy remained in the picture.

For the moment, however, Wally remained too obsessed about the identity of the boy David had been making out with to really ponder anything else. So there was
another
gay kid in Brown's Mill? Fucking David Schnur. He'd never admitted that he was gay. Sure, Wally had kept his secret from David, too. But David—clueless David—keeping a secret from
him?