I disagreed with the state’s assessment.
“After that his mom got this boyfriend who was bad news. He hit Seth and his mom for a while…” Mitchell drifted off for a moment before continuing. “My parents wanted Seth to come live with us, but Seth was worried for his mom. Then his grandmother died, and they moved into her house without the asshole boyfriend. Seth kept coming around though,” Mitchell said. “Like a stray. Seth’s never had much stability in his life.”
I was quiet after that, imagining Seth’s shiftless childhood with only one parent who was unreliable at best. And the abuse. Seth had never told me about any of it, but then again, maybe he did in his own way. I was thankful Seth ended up with Mitchell and Caleb’s family. Their relationship made more sense to me now. Seth was more careful with Mitchell’s feelings than he was with most people, and even when they argued, they still had each other’s back, like family.
“Listen, though, don’t say anything to Seth about what I told you.” Mitchell glanced over at me with a worried look. “Seth likes to, as he says, control the narrative.”
I nodded, although I hoped one day Seth would trust me enough to share those painful experiences with me.
Even with what Mitchell had told me, I felt compelled to at least bring up the fact that Seth was failing out of school, since I knew Mitchell wasn’t going to say anything, and I doubted Seth’s mother would either.
I usually saved these difficult conversations for after sex. That was Seth’s most agreeable time, when he was blissed out and open to suggestion. The last thing I wanted to do was crush his dreams of being a professional musician, especially when it seemed he was making his passion concrete.
Seth was reclined with his back against my stomach, using my legs as armrests as he rolled a joint on a shoebox lid. I almost always had a contact high when I was around him. I’d smoked a little weed over winter break, but it was too risky now that school was back on, and I’d have to go home and face Mai for family dinner. She’d sniff me out in a second, especially because my eyes got super red and swollen when I smoked.
“I’ve missed you on our car rides to school,” I said as an opener. “Mitchell’s been on a real Neil Young kick.”
Seth shook his head. “I’ll talk to him about it. You don’t have to pretend to like Neil Young for Mitchell’s sake.”
Seth was missing my point entirely. I wondered if it was on purpose.
I trailed a fingertip along his neck and down his shoulder where he wore his tattooed heart on his sleeve. I tried again.
“So… are you coming back? To school, I mean?”
“Welcome to the machine,” Seth said, licking along the edge of the rolling paper and then sealing the seam with his tongue in an incredibly arousing gesture.
Pink Floyd was Seth’s go-to when it came to discussing school or careers or the future in general. He was so counter-culture that he bought all of his clothes at thrift stores and most of his food at local restaurants and markets to avoid “feeding our corporate overlords.” His only weakness was the bulk deals at Sam’s Club, which he justified as being the only way to afford feeding all of us. Then he’d burn the boxes out back and make us pray to the gods of consumerism. I didn’t point out that Seth’s livelihood depended on the oil industry in the form of monthly checks, which he’d begin receiving when he turned eighteen in August. Seth was so full of contradictions, it was difficult to know where to begin.
“Are you withdrawing then?” I asked.
He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Would you think less of me if I did?”
That was a trap. They were becoming easier to spot, though not always as easy to avoid.
“No, but I do worry about what you’ll do if Petty Crime doesn’t pan out.”
“Why wouldn’t it?” His eyebrows dipped with suspicion. Seth always thought people were out to get him. Knowing more about his childhood helped me to understand his paranoia a little better, but I wished he wouldn’t assume the same from me.
There were a million reasons why their music career might not take off—bad luck, the band breaking up, lack of work ethic to make music and get gigs, mismanagement, and the most obvious to me, Seth’s escalating drug use.
“Being in a band is a risk. It might be nice to have something to fall back on.” I winced because I sounded so much like my father.
“A high school diploma doesn’t get you too far this day and age.” Seth said it like an old timer and pretended to hock a loogie. He was trying to turn our discussion into a joke, another one of his defense mechanisms.
“No, but it looks a little better on job applications than not having one. You could get your GED if you don’t want to go back to Hilliard.”
Seth lit his joint, rolled over onto his stomach, and propped himself up on his elbows. He took a long hit and blew out a plume of smoke aimed at my crotch. The breeze tickled a little, stirring the beast.
“Is this what it’s like having a dad?” Seth asked, looking up at me from under his luscious eyelashes and pouting suggestively with his spit-shiny pink lips. Seduction, another of Seth’s modes of distraction. I told myself to resist.
“I know your music is important to you, but you’re also very smart. And when you get into something, you give it one hundred percent. You could do anything you wanted if you tried.”
“Oh my God, Hiroku,” Seth crowed dramatically. “Now you sound like Mr. Graf.”
Mr. Graf was a guidance counselor at our school. Everyone with the last name of A-H had him, so he belonged to both Seth and me. Seth took another hit, then handed the joint to me, just to have me refuse it. It was his personal pleasure to try and get me to do things I shouldn’t. He leaned across my lap, brushing up against my junk in the process, in order to ash his joint in a bowl on the bedside table. Not an accident.
“So that’s it?” I felt like a failure. I didn’t necessarily expect Seth to do a 180 and come back to school, but I did hope to find that he had a long-term vision in place, which included some form of education. He was interested in carpentry, so maybe trade school? Or graphic design? Perhaps because excelling in academics had been drilled into me my entire life, I couldn’t imagine a future without it.
“Hiroku, I’m an artist. That’s what I’ll always be, whether it’s music or theater or something else. I’m never going to do time at a nine-to-five job or punch a clock. I don’t give a shit about getting a diploma or a GED from the great state of Texas. Our school system is a joke with all their revisionist history and standardized conformity. Shoving that bullshit down our throats like we’re livestock. Hilliard and the rest of them can suck my big fat dropout dick.” He took another hit, blowing the smoke out of his nose like a dragon. He peered up at me with distrust. “And here I thought we were making such progress.”
That rubbed me the wrong way. I felt it immediately, a prickly heat spreading over my skin, causing me to tense up as though physically throwing up a wall. I crossed my arms over my chest. “What does that mean?”
He breathed out a bullish sigh. “When I met you, you were such a try-hard. You were so…” He motioned loosely with his joint. “…repressed. You had so much personality and talent you were squandering by trying to fit into whatever box your parents had constructed for you. You were like veal, Hiroku, never being able to see the sunshine or feel the grass under your malformed little hooves.”
Veal, huh? I immediately regretted even bringing up the subject of Seth’s future. Let him figure it out for himself. This was what I got for trying to help him. I pushed myself off his mattress and made a grab for my underwear, which had been discarded on the floor along with the rest of our clothing.
“Don’t do that.” Seth grabbed my arm with his free hand. His strong fingers cut into the muscle of my bicep.
“Do what?” I asked, shaking him off me.
He set down his joint and pointed at me. “The moment I challenge you, you go into ice mode and freeze me out. You started this conversation, and now w
e’re going to finish it.” He grabbed my underwear out of my hand and threw it across the room. “Naked.”
I glared at him and sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Say it,” Seth commanded.
He was up on his knees now, pelvis jutting out aggressively, semi-hard and presenting almost defiantly, all sexual bravado and confidence and strength. I was no match for him, but he was right in that I had more to say.
“What about the drugs?” I asked.
His confidence flickered for just a moment, and I saw a flash of what might be interpreted as shame.
“Weed should be legal.”
I shook my head. “You know I’m not talking about weed or your meds or alcohol.”
“Well? What about them?” He wasn’t going to admit to anything.
“You seem to be getting high a lot more frequently.” At least with school, Seth knew he had to get up the next morning, so he would moderate his usage. Nowadays, I’d come over in the afternoons to find him still in bed, sleeping off last night’s debauchery or else he’d disappear into the bathroom for an extended amount of time. I knew what he was doing because a little while later he’d do the fluttery eye, permagrin thing that meant the drugs were kicking in. He always played dumb about it too, which, as a side note, pissed me the hell off.
“They help me reach a higher level,” Seth said.
“That’s bullshit.”
“How would you know?” Seth said viciously.
I narrowed my eyes at him. It came down to this, the line he drew between us—whether it was age or experience or drug use or who was more committed to their art. Seth fell back on these artificial divisions when he felt most threatened, even though it was the hurt that cut deepest.
“That’s right. Because I’m veal?” I said snidely. I’d already given up on this conversation anyway. “Look, the reason I’m bringing all of this up isn’t because I’m judging you or trying to act like your dad. It’s because I care about you, and I felt like I should say something or else I wouldn’t be being a good boyfriend. But if I’d known you were going to throw it all in my face, I never would have—”
“I’m sorry,” Seth whispered. I glanced up, not trusting my ears. His posture had shifted entirely—shoulders stooped, head hanging—and he appeared as a lost little boy, the one who got left behind by his mother when he was nine. “I’m sorry for being such a dick, Hiroku. I know you mean well. I’m not used to anyone giving a shit.”
He glanced up at me, and I saw the real Seth, the boy who was sensitive and kind and needed encouragement, love, and acceptance. Not rock star Seth or sex god Seth or whatever other persona he adapted to shield himself from the world.
“I really care about you, Seth.”
He nodded glumly. “I know you do.”
I opened my arms to him, and he crawled on his knees toward me. He draped himself over my lap, squeezing my waist with his inner thighs. Our kiss lasted forever, and my mind got lost in the almost psychic connection we shared, like threads crisscrossing into knots and being pulled tighter and tighter until there was no separation between us at all. He reached down between my legs and massaged my balls in a lazy motion, then squeezed my dick, which was always responsive to his touch. I ground against him until we were both sweaty and moaning.
We had sex again. Seth let me top him, which was a rare treat. He accepted me taking control without question and became uncharacteristically docile and compliant. All of the anger and passion I’d felt in our argument I channeled into our fucking. We were so loud and shameless, the bedframe jumped, and the walls shook. I hoped his mom wasn’t home to hear it. I rode him until we were both unraveled, all of our petty fights and mild irritations falling away as we climbed and peaked together. When we were finished, we collapsed, dizzy and panting, onto his bed. Seth hugged me tightly with one arm and grabbed the side of my head with his hand to draw me in closer. He whispered in my ear almost desperately, “I love you so much, Hiroku.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d said it, but it was the first time I truly believed it, all the way down to my marrow.
“I love you too, Seth.”
“Please, don’t ever leave me,” he begged.
“I won’t.”
“You promise?” he said with a sudden urgency.
“Yes, I promise.”
I didn’t even hesitate. Even when we argued or fought, I never thought of leaving him because I loved him, and even in his most infuriating moments, I understood him. He was a part of me as I was a part of him.
I thought it was our argument that had brought on Seth’s sudden bout of insecurity, but looking back, I realize now it was something else altogether.
NOW
There’s a theme that comes up a lot in group therapy. It’s never explicitly stated, but it’s something we all have in common:
Betrayal.
Ryan was betrayed by his mother’s pervy boyfriend when he was a little kid. Sonora was betrayed by her older sister who was always putting her down and calling her names until her self-esteem was such shit that she’d seek affection anywhere she could find it. Felix was betrayed by a cousin and then later, by some gang members who beat him up and left him for dead.
I was betrayed by Seth.
It’s like a daisy chain of hurt and anger because then we go on to betray someone else. It’s hard to avoid when you have a drug addiction, so all-consuming is that desire to get high. Other people’s feelings just don’t have the same importance.
In group that’s all we ever talk about—what was done to us, what they ruined, how we were left to pick up the pieces. So many of our stories begin with betrayal, but we don’t talk about the choices we made that got us to where we are now. That material belongs in our one-on-ones.
It would be so much easier if we could all be blameless in our addictions. But if that were the case, then we’d have no power to stop it from happening again.
To have the strength to say no. What an awesome and terrifying responsibility.
THEN
Petty Crime started getting gigs. Dean had some connections through a couple of the previous bands he’d been in, and when the band agreed they were ready to play out, Dean made some calls. Sabrina kept the calendar. Because of school, they could only accept gigs on weekends, and even that was a stretch for Sabrina’s parents. Only a couple of months into being a band, Seth had convinced Sabrina to try and graduate a year early in order to devote more time to Petty Crime. I wasn’t the only person susceptible to his powers of persuasion.
The story I told my own parents was that Sabrina and I were getting into spoken word and going to coffee shops where they had open mic nights. I tried to stay as close to the truth as possible. It made me feel a little less guilty about lying to them all of the time.
According to Seth’s specific instructions, I’d found a local silk screener to avoid feeding our corporate overlords, and we had T-shirts made with the design of Petty Crime graffitied across a brick wall. It was my attempt to pay homage to one of Seth’s favorite albums, Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Jeannie and I worked the merch table at their first show, but as cute as we were, the club’s patrons weren’t exactly lining up for T-shirts for an unknown band, which left Jeannie and me with plenty of time to take breaks, during which Jeannie vaped, and I admired my sexy boyfriend on stage.
During their shows Seth always looked for me in the crowd. Sure, he spread his attention around, but when his eyes found mine, we dialed in, and his words took on a new meaning. It probably didn’t hurt that I’d helped write some of their lyrics and inspired a few of his melodies, so in that way, they truly were our own artistic spawn.
One night in particular, Seth was really feeling the crowd. It wasn’t a big venue—just a one-room pool lounge slash quasi-gay bar called Eileen’s that was sandwiched between a tattoo parlor and a Tex-Mex restaurant, but the bar was packed, and Seth had cast a kind of spell over the crowd so that even those who might not normally be into their music
had taken a break from whatever else they were doing—playing pool or shooting the shit—to watch their performance.
They were about to launch into another song when Seth motioned the band to take a break. “Before we continue, I’d like to ask all of you to help me sing a special song to a pretty little bird I love dearly. He’s here tonight and has been with me since the beginning of Petty Crime. I hope he’ll be with me until the end. It’s a song you’ve all heard before, so I’m counting on you to get the words right and not fuck it up for me.”
We made eye contact across the darkened room. Seth’s mouth quirked on one side, which meant some mischief was afoot. Then Seth launched into the “Happy Birthday” song while motioning me up to the stage. Jeannie gave me a nudge in that direction. When I got there, Seth bestowed upon me a cardboard crown, spray painted gold and bedazzled with all number of semi-precious plastic rhinestones that spelled out Birthday Boy. Sabrina pulled a sheet cake from somewhere behind her drum kit, already lit with candles.
“Sweet sixteen,” Seth told the audience. “Isn’t he beautiful?”
When I glanced up from the cake, Seth was looking at me with such affection and sorrow that I felt a little sad without knowing why. He told me to make a wish, so I wished for the continued success of Petty Crime because I wanted all of Seth’s dreams to come true. Once I’d blown out all of the candles, Seth swiped a fingerful of icing and held it up to my face. Even though I was hot with embarrassment, first at being sung to, then being brought on stage, I figured I had little dignity left to lose. I licked the icing from Seth’s finger, and he grinned wickedly, then pulled me in for a long, passionate kiss.
The crowd ate it up.
“There,” he announced to the audience. “Now, he’s had his first kiss.” He patted my ass, and I took that to mean I could retreat back to my merchandise table, where Jeannie had taken the cake and was slicing it up and passing it out to friends and patrons alike. Their second set was even better than the first, perhaps because the audience was fully invested, and most of us were still riding a sugar high. We sold out of Petty Crime shirts, all except for the one I was wearing, which after that night became my favorite T-shirt.
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