True Letters from a Fictional Life (17 page)

“Away from the car and the driveway,” Hawken ordered, pointing.

I stumbled through some shrubs and fell down onto wet ground, vomited for what seemed like a lifetime. When I stood back up, spitting, Hawken asked, “You ready to talk now?”

“Aw, dude,” I whined. “I've just been puking. No, I'm not ready to talk. Another night.” I spat. “Just.” I spat again. “Take me home. Please?”

He shook his head, got in the car, and started it up.

We didn't talk most of the way, but as he pulled up my
driveway, Hawken asked, “Have you told your folks yet?”

“No. And not tonight. Tomorrow. On the way home from the game.”

“Good. Remember, I can't play tomorrow. Good luck out there.” And then as he watched me trying to get out of the car, he added, “And good luck in
there
.”

My parents still weren't speaking
to me when we got home from the game the next day. I disappeared into my room and wrote a long email to Topher, explaining that I wasn't allowed out of the house until they'd calmed down, which might be tomorrow or might be next year.

Hi, Topher,

Today did not go well. My parents aren't really talking to me anymore.

I had a little rum with Derek last night. Hawken dropped me back home, and I managed to open the front door and yell “I'm home” pretty convincingly.
Just by terrible luck, though, my dad started coming down the stairs just as I started going up. I thought I'd fall if I tried stepping down backward, so I turned around really carefully, hands on the wall and railing, and by this time my dad was right behind me. Suddenly, his hand was on my shoulder. “Up,” he said. “Upstairs.” So I walked up the stairs, my dad guiding me along the way and then he steered me into the bathroom. I put two hands on the sink counter and my father, not even sounding angry, said, “You going to be sick?”

I remember nodding and kneeling next to the toilet, and I heard him close the door behind him as he left. He came back with water and made sure I got in bed, told me to sleep on my stomach. He put the trash basket next to me. It was a good thing he did. I'm pretty sure he ruffled my hair before he left the room.

But then he woke me up at 6:00 a.m. It was barely light out. “Get up. Now. And meet me in the garage.” He handed me a jug of water and a bagel when I shuffled out there. “Take everything out of the garage and line it up neatly on the driveway. Everything. Then sweep it. Then come get me so I can check your work.”

“I have a soccer game at ten.”

“You've got three hours. This is Project Number
One.” And then he turned and left. Two minutes later, I was still just standing there shivering, feeling like I might be sick when he stuck his head back out and said, “Get moving.” No slamming doors or anything, to his credit.

It took less time than I thought, but I felt like I was going to puke six or seven times. At 9:00 a.m., I wheeled in the lawnmower, the last item.

Back inside, my mom just glared at me and we drove to my game in silence. My dad took my coach aside as soon as we got there, and coach came back all serious and said to me, “How you feeling now?”

“Terrible,” I muttered.

“Loosen up with a trot down the road to the gas station and back.”

So while the rest of the team kicked the ball around and did keep-away drills, I ran outside in the cold. It's half a mile to the gas station. And then he had me do push-ups and sit-ups. Everyone in the facility was watching all this. After all that, Coach said, “We're going to give you a rest today. Alan's starting.”

I felt so crummy that sitting out the game was a relief. I just walked away and slumped on the edge of the bench in my socks.

“What the hell did you do?” our backup goalie asked. I ended up telling most of the story to him. At
the end of it, he sighed. “That sucks. I'm high as hell right now. I get stoned before every game.” Which explains why we lose when he's in the net.

So now I'm grounded for a month. Supposedly.

And I never even got the chance to tell them about you.

I hate rum,

James

“I'm sure that wasn't your first drink, James,” my mom said sharply. We were sitting at the kitchen table, me in the interrogation chair, after they'd sent Rex to bed. “But as far as I know, it's the first time you drank yourself stupid.”

She was mistaken, of course, but I nodded in agreement.

“And it's the first time, as far as I know,” my dad picked up, “that you drank the night before you had a soccer game. What the hell were you thinking?”

There was a lot that I was thinking about
, I wanted to say. But I wasn't going to get into it that night. If I was going to tell them about Topher and all that, I wanted to talk about it when I was feeling good, when I could come across as confident and strong. Not when I felt about as bad as I'd ever felt. All I wanted to do was curl up somewhere warm. But they were staring at me, waiting for a response.

“It was stupid, I know,” I finally said. “I won't do it again. Does it help that now I hate rum?”

“No,” they answered in unison. My dad had his arms
folded, while my mom was perched on the edge of her seat as if she might launch herself across the table at me.

“Didn't you learn anything from Mark getting drunk and putting Aaron Foster in the hospital?” she asked.

She actually wanted an answer. “Don't punch people?” I tried.

“Don't drink like that. Ever. The night can end in an ambulance. Or a police car.” She was on a tear.

“Please stop. I just want to sleep,” I moaned.

“First, you're folding that laundry,” my mother said, getting up and pointing to a basket overflowing with socks. “Your father's working up a list of more things that need to be done around the house and in the yard. And Rex is free from dishwashing duty for the next week.” Suddenly, she was stabbing the air in front of me. “And if your brother, who worships the ground you walk on, ever sees you drinking, you'll be sleeping in the garage. Do you understand me?”

I glanced at my father, hoping for some sympathy, but he looked even angrier than she did. “Okay,” I sighed, slithering out of my chair. I had to appear sorry and worried, though I knew my parents would either forget all those punishments or, after a couple of days, just tire of following through on them. They always did. I started for the stairs, but my mother called me back.

“N-n-no, young man,” and she laughed the sarcastic laugh that makes me want to scream. “What did I just say? Laundry.”

“In the morning,” I moaned.

“Now.” She stood there, hands on her hips, until I walked back into the kitchen and collapsed into the chair next to the hamper.

“And this conversation isn't over,” she said.

I folded the first few socks, boxers, and T-shirts as though I were murdering them. But the rest of them would've won in a fight.

I woke up at 3:00 a.m. and could not get back to sleep. Was Derek ever going to speak to me again? Theresa? Even Hawken was angry at me now. I got up, took my notebook and a pen, and went downstairs to the kitchen. I made a sandwich, drank some water, and wrote a letter to my parents at the kitchen table. Part of me was hoping one of them would come down to investigate and I could just tell them everything that was going on. But that didn't happen.

Sunday, June 5th

Dear Mom & Dad,

I know I'm behaving miserably at the moment, but trust me—there's nothing you can do to solve my problems. If I'm cool and quiet about it, things might get better on their own. Even if this problem won't fix itself completely, maybe I'll just get used to things being broken. Last time Luke asked you whether we could have someone come in to tune the piano, you told him that he needed to get used to it sounding out of key.
“It's only out of tune if you accept someone else's definition of what's in tune,” you said, Dad. I know you were joking, but you still didn't get the thing fixed. And maybe that's the attitude I need to adopt. I'm only not okay by someone else's standards. If I can get all this anxiety back down to the lower-level worry it was before, everything will be fine. At least by my standards.

Love,

James

I felt fine on Sunday. Rex and I ran into each other on the stairs, and we karate fought long enough to earn a yell from the kitchen. I could hear Rex quietly continuing the fight against invisible assassins as I shuffled into the kitchen. The promised list of jobs waited for me on the table.

“How do you feel today?” my father asked, peering over his glasses.

“Great,” I chirped.

He exchanged a disappointed glance with my mom, and then muttered into his coffee, “Wait until you hit twenty-five.”

I was cleaning the upstairs “boys' bathroom,” as we call it, when my mom stuck her head in and announced, “Tim Hawken's here. He thinks you're going for a run with him.”

I put down my sponge. “May I?” I overplay the model prisoner for the first thirty-six hours of any grounding.

My mother shook her head. “I suppose I should be encouraging you to find better ways to spend your time than drinking. I'll tell him you'll be down in a minute.”

Hawken thumped my back when I bounced into the kitchen. “I'll have him home in an hour, Mrs. Liddell. He's looking a little pale, you know?”

“Well, you should have seen him yesterday, Tim. Better pale than green.”

“Let's go!” I shouted, and pushed Hawken to the front door.

“Thanks for getting me home the other night,” I said once we were outside.

“Yeah, you were a real mess. Who do they think brought you home?”

“Theresa.”

“Oh, that's good of you. Let the lies just pile up.”

What's great is that Hawken and I run at exactly the same pace, so that neither of us has to slow down or speed up to accommodate the other. Within a half mile of leaving my house, our feet had fallen into that easy, gentle rhythm that I never find when we're just running laps around the soccer field. For a mile and a half, all the way to the river trail, we just ran in silence, listening to our feet on the road's gray grit, listening to our deep breaths. “Summertime!” Hawken yelled without breaking pace, and then without any attempt at a segue, he said, “So, I take it you haven't talked to your folks yet, huh?”

“The timing didn't seem right yesterday.”

We splashed through a sprawling puddle. “Talk to Derek again.”

“I will.”

Just the sound of our feet hitting sand for a few yards. “He's a little fired up,” Hawken continued. “Derek, I mean. I had to explain the letter situation to him. He doesn't understand why you think he was the one to do that. And he doesn't care that you're gay, you know.”

I couldn't help wincing. That word just bothered me. “When did he figure it out anyway?”

“That night at your house, the fire ring, and Topher. It wasn't hard to do the math. He asked me about you guys. He was surprised, but he doesn't hate you because of it.”

“His church doesn't like gay people.”

“He's not brainwashed, dude. Give him some credit. He wants to talk to you about it, but he doesn't know how. Well, neither of you knows how.”

“And you don't think he cares,” I ventured, not knowing what else to say but not wanting the conversation to die.

“I know he doesn't care, dude. He's furious that you accused him of being a liar and a thief, but that doesn't have anything to do with the fact that you like boys.”

“That I like Topher,” I said.

“Right, Topher, who you like because he's a great
guy
, a good-looking
boy
. Who cares? You like boys. It's not that big of a deal.”

“To some people it is.”

“No doubt, but not to Derek. Not to me.”

“My parents? The soccer team?”

“Who
cares
about the soccer team?” And Hawken stopped running, stood with his hands on his hips. I walked back toward him. “I don't know your parents all that well,” Hawken panted, “but it's not like they're abusive. They'll get over it. My father didn't sleep for a while after my brother came out to him and my mom cried a lot. But that was years ago. Now Patrick's boyfriend comes to our place for Thanksgiving. They sleep in the same bed when they visit. My parents love him.”

“That's your parents. And maybe I'm not like that. Maybe I just like Topher, and later I'll meet the right girl and end up marrying her and having kids and living a totally normal life. I don't want to cause all sorts of confusion for nothing.”

“Really? You really think you'll meet a girl who you'll like enough to marry? Do you like Theresa at all in the way you like Topher?”

I just stood there, breathing hard and sweating and staring off to the river.

“Have you ever wrapped your arm around a girl's shoulders and walked her down a dark road to confess your love to her? Honestly?”

I looked up at him, embarrassed and little hurt that he'd bring up that night.

“Come on, man, that didn't bother me, you know that.
But you're being totally dishonest with yourself. And dishonest with your friends. You're not giving Derek any credit, and Theresa got completely jerked around. Neither of them understands why you've dumped them.”

“I didn't dump anyone,” I muttered.

“They feel like you've dumped them. You should set things straight with them. Even if you find being straight difficult.”

“Ha ha,” I said. I wiped my face on my sleeve and nodded. “Okay. I'll talk to Derek. Maybe tonight.”

“He's in Boston with his folks. They don't get back until late.”

“Aw, that's right. Well, I guess tomorrow. And I'll figure out what to say to Theresa. But, well, one more thing.” I took a deep breath. “What about Mark?”

“He won't care. He gets along fine with my brother.”

“I mean, the letters. He's the only one—”

“No. No.” Hawken looked off into the trees. “He doesn't do crap like that. No. Seriously, he's okay around my brother.”

“But does Mark even know your brother's gay? You've laid it out for him? I didn't know until you told me.”

“Mark's been around my brother more than you have. He's met his boyfriend.”

“I've met him, too. I always figured they were just friends.”

“I'm sure he's figured it out.” He hit my back and we started to run again.

We ran the rest of the route in near silence. When the stop sign that marks the finish line came into view, I was actually disappointed. Normally, I can't wait to reach it. We walked slowly up my driveway, dripping sweat, happy to be hot in the cool of a spring evening.