Bear, Otter, & the Kid 03 - The Art of Breathing (18 page)

“Sorry,” I mumble. I’m pretty sure I’m the world’s biggest dick.

Bear shrugs. “It’s okay.” It doesn’t take away the pained look in his eyes.

“You and Dominic had a fight?” JJ asks me.

“That’s enough,” Anna says. “Time to eat.”

“It’s fine,” I say, waving her away. “Yeah. We did.”
And he broke my heart.
And somehow, every single person in the room knows it. Which means they all know I was in love with my best friend. That’s… fuck.

“When?”

“A long time ago.”

His face scrunches up as he thinks. “Then why are you still mad?”

“I’m… I don’t know.”

He nods. “We’re not related, right?

“Not by blood. In other ways, though. That matters. Just as much.”

“And Dominic’s not related either?”

“No.”

“But he is too, though. In other ways. Just as much.”

“Yeah, JJ.” My voice is hoarse.

He smiles. “Then you can’t stay mad. Dad says that’s not what family does. He says we can get mad, but we always forgive.”

Creed looks adoringly at his son.

Plates are handed around. Food is served.

Corey squeezes my leg in comfort. Otter whispers something to Bear. Conversation picks up about children and homes and school and the weather and how Mrs. Paquinn would have just loved this, would have just loved every piece of it.

And it’s funny, really, because all I can think about is how a nine-year-old kid sitting across from me might actually be smarter than I am. I wonder if Bear felt like this with me. It’s terrifying.

Shit. I messed up. Big-time. With him and with Dominic.

And I have no clue how to fix it.

Where Tyson
Plans
Attends a Protest

A
WEEK
later, I still have no idea. And trust me when I say I’ve thought about it harder than anything else. I know the simplest ideas are usually the best, but I can’t bring myself to pick up the phone, the nightmare scenarios of how those calls would actually play out running through my head.

Hello?

Dom? It’s Tyson. Let’s be friends again!

*click*

Or:

Hello?

Hiya, Dominic! It’s me, Tyson! Long time no talk? How you been, best friend (and guy I used to be in love with then cut out of my life when you married someone else BEHIND MY FUCKING BACK)?

I’m sorry, I don’t remember any Tyson.

*click*

Or:

Hello?

Hi, Dom. It’s Tyson. I’m so sorry for being really shitty to you.

Hi, Tyson! Glad you called! Stacey and I were just on our way to church to renew our vows because we’re so madly in love! Would you like to join us? You could be my best man! Don’t worry about your heart. I’ve already stomped all over it. But you’ve had four years to get over it, which, as a normal human being, you clearly should have, because that’s how things
work
in the real world.

It’s been so long since I’ve heard his voice that I can’t bring myself to do it. I’m pretty sure if I called him, all I’d be able to do is squeak and grunt and he’d think a gorilla was having sex with a mouse on the other end.

The alternative is to see him face-to-face, and since that is completely out of the question, I’m stuck where I started.

“It can’t possibly be
that
hard,” Kori tells me as we drive toward town in Otter’s Jeep. She has a scarf around her head, large sunglasses covering her face. She looks awesomely glamorous. That is until she speaks. “You’re being such a fucking douche about this whole thing.”

“Why don’t you tell me how you really feel,” I grumble. “Seriously. Hold nothing back.”

“Someone has to,” she retorts. “You obviously have no common sense. Otherwise, this whole thing would have been resolved long ago. Men are so idiotic sometimes. I swear, you’d rather sit in a pile of angst than actually have a single conversation that could go a long way to resolving years of shit that you yourself were the cause of.”

“
I
was the cause?” I say, outraged, even though I have no real right to be. “I didn’t marry a woman!”

“Which affected you how?”

“It was… he should have… it was for….” God
dammit.

“Exactly. Should he have told you before the wedding invites went out? Probably. But you never gave him a chance to explain because you had this foolish romantic notion in your head about how this would all play out. He’d wait for you, and when you got done doing whatever the fuck you were going to do, he’d be there with open arms and you guys would be together forever.”

“Well, that certainly reduced my entire life to a few sentences of what-the-fuck.”

The scarf flutters around her face. “He’s straight, darling. You’re gay. He’s your best friend. Or at least he was. You were like brothers. He did love you, but not in the way that you would have wanted.”

“But Bear didn’t come out until—”

“I love Bear,” she interrupts, “to death. Don’t get me wrong. But it doesn’t surprise me he had no idea about how he was gay until it was blaring right in front of him. He’s not always the quickest on the uptake. Wait. Is he gay? Bi? What?”

I roll my eyes. “I don’t think anyone really knows. It doesn’t matter anyway. He’s got Otter and that’s all he’ll need. It’s sickening. Really.”

Kori grins at me. “Bullshit. You love it.”

“Yeah.” Because I do.

“But you’re not just gay for someone,” Kori says. “That’s not really how the real world works. Life isn’t some romance novel, no matter how hard we might wish it so.”

I sigh. “It’d sure make things easier, though.”

“Well, sure, and we’d all be well-endowed, have six-pack abs, high-paying jobs, and perfect teeth. We’d all go on quirky adventures, and in the end, everything would turn out right because that’s the way it should be.”

“I’m well-endowed,” I say.

Kori snorts. “Above average, I’d say.”

“I think I had an ab. Once.”

“Most likely a bout of gas, darling.”

“I’ll have a high-paying job.”

“Mired under piles of mounting credit-card debt.”

“Perfect teeth?”

“You’ve got that one crooked one that is so very endearing, but doesn’t know if it’s coming or going.”

“We’re going on a quirky adventure right now,” I conclude.

Kori sighs. “Dragging me to a protest over a new restaurant is not what I would consider quirky.”

“There’ll be hippies,” I say, as if hippies make everything better. In truth, they were the only ones who responded to my post on the underground vegetarian message boards I’m a part of. The group (one of many, I assure you) is called Don’t Eat Animals, Dammit! or DEAD! for short. I know. It’s the most ridiculous name in the history of activism. But they’re the only ones this far west.

“If you think hippies are supposed to be a bargaining chip,” she tells me, “then you seriously need to work on your negotiating tactics. I chipped a nail making your hilarious protest signs.”

“Hilarious? They’re not supposed to be hilarious! They’re supposed to be serious!”

She laughs. “Okay, sure. Keep telling yourself that. I’m sure carrying a sign that says ‘Do You Want A Side Of Lies With Your Burger?’ is meant to be taken with a straight face.”

“That’s not funny! It’s a clever play on words that brings to light the injustice of beef farming that plagues this country! You’re being force fed untruths on a daily basis. The beef industry wants you to believe that—”

“Tyson.”

“What!”

“Have you ever asked yourself why God made cows so delicious if we weren’t supposed to eat them?”

“God?
God
? God had
nothing
to do with cows! Bovines are naturally evolved, just like everything else on this planet.” I shake my head. “God. Santa’s not real, either, in case you were wondering.”

“Naturally evolved, huh? So the way they are now is the way they were meant to be?”

“Exactly.”

She nods and her scarf flutters in the sea breeze. “Well, then, they naturally evolved to taste great with ketchup, so I guess that’s one thing.”

“It’s only because you’ve been conditioned to think so. You were just raised to believe that was okay.”

“Oh, careful, Ty,” she teases me. “That’s what the conservatives say about the gays. Pretty soon, you’ll be sending me off to a conversion camp where I’ll have to pray to beat the meat.”

“You’re impossible!”

“Which you only say when you can’t think of any kind of comeback.”

“When are you leaving?”

“Not for another month,” she says. “You’re stuck with me for now. And I’m going to eat sausage in front of you. So very, very slowly.” She licks her glossy lips, a sweet, little swipe of her tongue.

“I’m driving.”

“I noticed.”

“I don’t know why anyone would want to go back to Tucson voluntarily. I’m pretty sure Arizona is the closest thing to fascism that America still has.”

“It’s home,” she says. “Or as much of a home as it can be. I do miss it sometimes. But I miss the people there more. I had a lot of help when I was a poor, confused little bigender. One friend in particular.”

“But you’re okay now.” I don’t mean it as a question. I reach out and take her hand, curling her fingers in mine.

“Of course,” she says, giving me a beautiful smile. “But he talked some sense into rebellious seventeen-year-old me that I needed to hear at the time. I got everything back on track and am the stunning vision you see before you today because of it.”

I know Kori and Corey had a rough go of it for a while, but I didn’t know how big of a part her friend played in it. She’ll tell me when she’s ready. “And he’s a drag queen? Your friend?”

“Yes, she is. One of the best, even. And that’s saying a lot….”

“I should have been a drag queen,” I sigh. “But then pride happened sophomore year and well… you remember
that
disaster.” Let’s just say I do not make an attractive woman. There are many gorgeous queens in the world. I ended up looking like duckbilled platypus in a dress and heels.

“It was certainly… interesting.”

“‘Catastrophe’ is a better description, I think.”

Kori squeezes my hand. “The world is definitely lacking without a Minerva Fox. You’ll get to meet her one day, though. And when you see her perform, you’ll be in the presence of a true queen. You guys would really get along, I think. Hell, her friend Paul reminds me of Bear. Same type of open-mouth-what-the-hell-did-you-just-say kind of thing, so you’ll at least be able to commiserate together.”

The idea of another person in the world like Bear is surely a sign of the coming apocalypse, so I try not to dwell on it too much. “What’s her drag name?” I ask, trying to match the pronouns like Kori does. It’s important to her. And therefore to me. Kori keeps things close to the vest, and if this is the first time I’m hearing about an old friend, I need to make sure I don’t screw anything up.

“You’ll love it,” she says as she looks back out to the sea. “It’s Helena Handbasket.”

That’s so much better than Minerva Fox. “Epic,” I say.

“Indeed,” she says. “Oh, and Ty?”

“Yeah?”

“You know how you’re forcing me to protest even though I don’t believe in this?”

“I’m saving your soul. But sure.”

She grins evilly at me. “Just remember not to be nervous when you’re getting interviewed by the reporter today. I’m pretty sure you won’t screw up all your words on live TV and get put onto YouTube for all the world to see and make fun of you. Too much, anyway.”

Oh, goddammit.

I
T
STARTS
out well. Or, at least as well as a last-minute, slap-dash protest of a chain restaurant initiated by a nineteen-year-old ecoterrorist, assisted by his bigender best friend, who seems to be doing her best to channel Marilyn Monroe today, and a group of five hippies who I think live in some kind of compound thing on one of the beaches, can get. And since they live in a compound, I’m pretty sure they probably belong to some kind of cult and dance naked every full moon and then go back to their drum circle and have orgies so Mother Gaia renews them with vigor or some such thing. I’m not judging, especially when it comes to these kinds of protests. The greater the numbers, the louder the voices, and rah-rah-rah. To each their own. I just don’t want to be in a hippie orgy.

But the cult aside, at least they show up in force. Five of them, with their own signs—
LOVE YOUR ANIMAL BROTHERS AND SISTERS
and
HOW CAN YOU EAT SOMETHING THAT HAS EYES?
and
WHEN THE ANIMALS ARE ALL GONE, WILL WE EAT EACH OTHER?
It’s a start.

The restaurant, BJ’s, has some very shady meat-procuring practices and prides itself on quadruple-decker hamburgers it calls the “HeartSlammer.” It’s as grotesque as it sounds. The fact that one of the restaurants in Connecticut was found to be using horse meat only made things worse.

All I want to do is bring attention to the good people of Seafare what kind of businesses are opening in our city. I just want to make sure everyone knows the kind of food they are putting into their bodies. All I want to do is exercise my right to assemble peacefully. A local news reporter shows up (though I invited at least four more—I guess they were all busy with the fast-paced news world that is the coast of Oregon). I planned on giving an interview. We would protest for a while. Then we would leave. That’s all. Sounds fine and dandy, right? Sounds easy as pie.

And it is!

At first.

But it devolves, very, very quickly.

Later, I’ll see myself on the ten o’clock news and think,
Never trust beach hippies ever again for the rest of your life. For anything. Beach hippies ruin
everything
. Goddamn beach hippies!
But this will be thought in a daze, as it will end in such a way that all else will be driven from my mind.

Yeah. This is about to get ugly. Sorry.