Sick & Tragic Bastard Son

by Rowan Massey

  “When I broke the news to him that it was all a psychological problem, and explained, of course, that the prognosis was therefore much better than if he’d had any of the diseases we’d been testing for, he accepted it completely. Some patients fight that diagnosis, and so do their families. But he started saying to himself every day—every time he woke up from a nap, or woke up in the morning, or just hadn’t talked for a little while and started feeling disconnected—‘Next time I wake up, it will be completely gone. Next time I talk, I’ll talk like I always have’. Every time he went to sleep, and every time he got ready to start talking again, he got his frame of mind in order first, until he fully expected it to happen, even though it hadn’t happened the last fifty times he’d told himself those things. It only took about a week for that to come true for him. He woke up from a nap, turned to his wife, and spoke clearly, body in control. One of the first things he did when he got home was to pick up playing his guitar again.”

  Her story gave me chills. I hated learning about crazy people. It made me worry about what exactly was wrong with me, and I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want some doctor like her to sit there and tell me that if I tried hard enough, images wouldn’t distort, memories wouldn’t be perverted from the truth, and the fits would stop. Did she really think things worked that way, or was she talking about rare cases? I didn’t like her, and wished he would end the interview and come find me.

  “Amazing,” Clay’s voice said. “Terrifying. Does it ever scare you, knowing so intimately what your mind could do to you?”

  There was a pause, and I peeked around the shelf.

  “A lot of people talk about how scary it sounds,” she said. “But no, I’m not afraid of it happening to me at all. Probably because I am so intimately aware of the subject. If I was diagnosed with, say, dissociative blindness, I would know from my patients and research that I would get better.”

  I reshelved the book I’d had in my hand and pulled out another. I looked at the author’s photo and watched it sag and stretch until he wore a monstrous mask.

  Just as I’d once decided that I wasn’t a psychopath, I decided that I was genuinely and permanently insane, not that psychobabble crap about stuff that could be cured by thinking positively. It was part of me, and I didn’t want it to go away so that I could be like all the other boring people who never saw weird lights. Who wanted a life without challenges anyway? I knew I would feel differently as soon as I got scared of myself again, but in the moment, that was real to me.

  Clay was wrapping up the conversation and complementing her on her writing style. He would be going to the pub in just a minute, so I wedged the book in somewhere randomly and hurried out of the store. The bell over the door rang loudly as I left. When I stepped into the street, a car horn bleeped just as I was nearly grazed. The car didn’t slow down, but the one behind it slowed almost to a stop. I used the opportunity to sprint across the street. I reached the pub’s glass door and walked through it. The sound of contented conversations and forks against plates enveloped me. It was warm inside, and the dim, brownish lighting was soothing to my nerves.

  I ran a sleeve over my forehead to remove any flop sweat, and wandered to a booth, sliding in and hiding myself behind the high, wooden privacy screen behind me. I scooted to the far end and leaned against the wall.

  Breathing exercises had to be my focus. Looking as relaxed as possible was key. Just to check, I looked around and didn’t see anything odd. A mental inventory unearthed a quick knot of confusion over whether I had left my driver’s license in my car just in case he might see it by accident. I gave my face a little slap to help clear my head and remembered leaving the ID tucked into the pouch behind the front seat. I could have brought a fake ID inside—one that I’d lifted off a classmate because I couldn’t even nearly afford one—but trying to pull that off in front of Clay would just draw more attention to our age difference.

  Not two minutes went by when Clay stepped into view, surprising me a little.

  “Didn’t mean to startle you,” he said with a smile, and sat across from me, scooting to the end of the bench seat so that we were both secluded against the wall. The closed-in space made it like we’d jumped right back into being overly familiar with each other. But his easy smile and warm body language made me happy and much more relaxed than I’d been while anticipating talking to him again.

  “How was the book thing?” I asked. I put my arms on the table just to see if he would meet me in the middle and give me some touch.

  “Eye opening stuff. I was doing an interview. We’re trying to branch out with the types of content we have. Usually, I sit around at home and read whatever I get sent from publishers for review, but someone had an idea that we should be interviewing authors when we can.” He looked down at his casually folded hands, which rested on the table. I wanted to reach across and slip my hand into his. It was only a few inches. “I don’t know if I’m good at interviews, but I’m certainly inspired to write about it.”

  I bit my lip. I didn’t like the idea of him thinking too much about insane people.

  “What else do you write about?” I asked, even though I’d been to his website multiple times.

  “Oh, mostly nonfiction. A lot of science this month. Self help, which I hate. Sometimes I take overflow from fiction, but not usually.”

  I nodded and wasn’t sure what else to ask, so we were silent for a moment. He looked around at the other people, which gave me the opportunity to look at him openly. His face was freshly shaved, and I remembered what that had felt like against my cheek. He needed a haircut. There were wayward curls around his ears and neck. It was disarmingly cute.

  When he turned back to me, I smiled. He smiled back, and just for a second or two, it was like all my lies didn’t exist and I’d manifested the world I wanted to live in—one where Clay wasn’t my father, and we would go on dating for as long as we wanted, without any perversion.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Clay Age 38

  EVEN WHEN HE smiled, Zander was full of intensity. He was giving me a mix between seductive and cautious body language. I’d never met anyone who had such opposed emotions. There was a slight gap in his front teeth that lent a silly sort of charm to his grin, which, in my short experience with it, was always slow to grow over his face, always worth the wait. The way he rested his forearms on the table was begging for touch, but the last time we’d been in the same room together, everything had happened so swiftly. I didn’t think I’d survive the tension of another such interaction. If I was going to try to date him, we needed to slow things to a more normal pace.

  “I don’t know anything about you,” I started. “Are you in college?”

  His smile fell into only a half smile, and his eyes darted up and to the right before he answered. “No, it’s not for me. I know it’s not something you want to hear from a date, but I’m looking for a job.”

  Already I’d stumbled onto another of his insecurities. I nodded reassuringly. “Well, you told me you weren’t looking for a sugar daddy. I’m not either. So it doesn’t matter to me.”

  He laughed and leaned forward a little, about to say something, but a waitress in the usual black uniform appeared at the table looking harried.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I didn’t see you guys over here. What can I get you to drink?”

  I asked for a lager and Zander ordered a water. He probably didn’t have any money. That was fine with me, but I wanted him to be comfortable. “Get a real drink,” I told him. “It’s on me. You want to share some fries?”

  “Wow. Fries?” he said in a teasing tone. “You lied about wanting to be my sugar daddy.”

  I chuckled, a little shy, even at my age, at the look on the waitress’s face. Zander asked for a lemonade.

  “Okay,” I said when she was gone, “what kind of job are you looking for? Maybe I can help.”

  He shrugged and turned his eyes away. “I’m not exactly recruitment material. I don’t
have any experience. I’ll just take whatever shitty job I can find.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out in any case.”

  “Thanks.”

  I hadn’t meant to make him feel awkward, and tried to think of another subject. He was back to looking at me with that intensity—almost a pleading look—and it was turning my mind into a slightly nervous fog. I knew there was one thing I wanted to tell him.

  “You know, I want to thank you,” I said. “For the way we talked that day.”

  “Really?” He laid his hand flat on the table in an almost desperate gesture, asking for touch, so I took the bait and put my hand over his fingers. They were a little cold, so I absently rubbed his skin. Why had I let so many years go by since the last time I’d taken someone’s hand in mine? I hadn’t known how badly I’d needed simple human touch.

  “It seems like we met each other with impeccable timing,” I continued. “You don’t have to tell me anything about your story unless you feel like it, but talking about what happened with my son helped me, and I’ve decided I’m taking action to find him. I can’t let myself avoid the situation anymore. So, thank you for pushing me to talk about it, not that I’m anywhere near ready to spill my guts again anytime soon.”

  I gave him a self-deprecating smile, trying to keep the mood somewhat light. His mouth opened but he didn’t speak. He seemed to be contemplating something deeply—just as deeply as he tried to gaze into my soul every time he looked me in the eye.

  “So how are you taking action?” he asked slowly.

  “Well, I called his mother twice, but she only sent a text message saying she’d told him about me and that she won’t go any further than that. I guess she doesn’t want to push him, or he doesn’t want to meet me, but I can’t be satisfied with that. Honestly, I don’t trust her to communicate the situation to me. For all I know, she’s lying.”

  He nodded slowly, rubbed a hand over his mouth, then looked down at the hand I was holding, and squeezed my fingers. I was touched by how affected he was by what I was saying. Was he that concerned with a stranger’s relationship with his son? Something serious must have happened to him with his father. I hoped he would feel free to tell me about it, maybe in a more private setting, in case he was afraid of getting emotional in public.

  “So anyway,” I continued, “I’m going to get some money together this month to track him down. I’ve already found as much as I can online. When I tried to use his mother’s information, I found conflicting addresses. She was kind of a technophobe when I knew her, and I don’t think she has any social media. Apparently, her parents died a while back, and…I won’t bore you with the details. Just wanted to tell you that night meant something to me. Thank you for that.”

  He smiled hesitantly and squeezed my hand again. “It’s not your fault, you know. I really don’t think it’s your fault,” he said.

  His words knocked some of the breath out of my chest. Did he know how much I’d needed to hear that? Even if he was no expert on relationships, as young as he was, it was soothing. He was someone whose father had probably abandoned him at some point. It was encouraging to know he found it forgivable.

  “You love him, right?” he said. “Even though you don’t know him at all?”

  “Of course. Yes, I’ve loved him every day of his life…” I trailed off, afraid it sounded false, considering. He nodded and gave me a sympathetic smile.

  We sat in silence, holding hands for a comfortable moment in which I felt an unreasonable amount of intimacy all over again with the young man in front of me, just like our last encounter. This time, it was more normal, less frenzied and frightening.

  The waitress arrived with our drinks and fries. We munched on them together. I would only realize the following day that neither of us had ordered a meal or mentioned being hungry for more than a snack, although I’d been famished during the interview with Monique. Focusing on him had made me forget my hunger.

  “Tell me when you can start looking for him and about everything that happens,” he said, almost sternly, which made me smile, and I agreed.

  We took the conversation to less exciting topics. He asked me more about my family in general, and I told him about my estranged brother, my retired and long since divorced parents, and the old farm house I’d inherited and currently rented out, which along with renting the upstairs of my own house, made it possible for me to do what I loved for a living. Zander divulged similar information about his own family. It seemed there was no one except his mother, who he described as “the exact opposite of a helicopter parent”. I asked about his friends, but he only made a face and shrugged. His life seemed as empty as mine. No wonder we’d each been behaving the way we had. It wasn’t normal to be so lonely.

  I was reminded of the description Monique had given me of the lost astronaut, desperate to make contact with the rest of humanity. The book and all her stories had given me a new phobia. I’d rarely encountered even a horror novel as chilling as that book. Zander and I were both lost astronauts, but we’d somehow, in the vastness of the cosmos, encountered each other. Thinking of it that way made me squeeze his hand again. His skin had lost its coldness with my assistance.

  A few hours passed, and our conversation rambled. We traded stories about our high school days, laughed at the ridiculousness of a man in the pub who was drunk and striking out with one appalled woman after the other, and eventually started wondering how we ended up talking about famous criminals. The conversation had been slightly stiff at first, but I ordered a few more beers, and we both took sips from the same glasses until we were socially lubricated. Tucked away in the booth as we were, no one saw or cared that he wasn’t quite of drinking age yet.

  When our conversation fell into a lull, I checked the time on my phone and lamented needing to go home and write for work. I’d been afraid he’d expect to go home with me, but he smiled and seemed satisfied with the time we’d spent together.

  He seemed to notice my relief and said, “I’m not going home with you again until the third date. I’m not that kinda gal.”

  I laughed, and he picked up the beer and downed the last of it, which wasn’t much.

  “Are you okay to drive?” I asked, and he nodded.

  “I’m not exactly a lightweight. How about you? I could drive you home,” he offered.

  “I’m good,” I said. “Let’s get some air though. We should walk down the street and make sure we’re feeling steady.”

  He gave me an amused look, but agreed. We walked out into the night air and glanced in opposite directions. Our cars were parked down the street from each other, apparently, but I told him we should walk down to his, and I wanted to do some strolling anyway, so we crossed the street and headed that way.

  “Promise to tell me as soon as anything happens with your son,” he said, his expression serious. “You have to brief me on every detail or else.”

  “Or else?” I grinned, pleased he cared so much.

  “Or else something bad. Guaranteed.”

  “Threat registered. Yes sir.” I saluted him.

  He smiled and snaked his arm around my waist. Maybe it was because I was older and remembered rougher times, but I darted my eyes up and down the lamp-lit sidewalks before putting my arm around his shoulders. Most people were still inside the bars and restaurants, or else at home. Still, being publicly gay inside had been safer.

  “You know,” I said, “I’m afraid…nevermind. Sorry.” I didn’t want to talk about something serious right before we said goodbye. Better to leave things on a lighter note.

  His arm tightened around my back, his fingers massaging my side. “C’mon,” he said simply, and somehow his tone convinced me to go on.

  “Well, just a thought. That he’ll be homophobic and disappointed that I’m gay.”

  He burst out laughing, then slapped a hand over his mouth and apologized. I was a little irked. It was a serious concern for me.

  “That won’t happen,” he said, and he stopped walk
ing and rubbed my chest with his other hand. “It’s going to be fine. He’ll probably love you. A lot. Maybe he’s gay too and needs a friend.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “That seems unlikely, but thank you.”

  He bit his lip, and I saw a flash of worry in his eyes, but he smiled, if a little stiffly, and moved to keep walking. Would I eventually decipher his cryptic reactions? It was intriguing.

  Our steps were slow and easy. We switched to walking arm in arm, and his eyes watched our feet move in unison. I observed the way his mood had changed, and wished I hadn’t voiced my thoughts.

  Thinking of Lysander, a few things struck me as if for the first time, although I’d been struck by such things over and over in the past several days. Zander was only two short years older than my son. I was so bewitched by Zander that I kept forgetting that fact. It had hit me at least once a day since I’d met him that it was too strange, but my need to continue texting him, and getting to know him, was stronger than any misgivings. A newer thought came to mind—that he was someone I could confide in, yet he wasn’t mature and experienced with life enough to understand my story. How did he make me feel as if he deeply understood everything I said? I didn’t know if I was delusional to think he did, or if he was advanced for his age. It wasn’t as if I talked to younger people that much, and I could only compare to my own twenties, which were obviously fraught with harrowingly stupid mistakes. Maybe he was simply more intelligent than I had been at that age. I settled for that possibility.