Common Sons

by Ronald Donaghe

  He undressed. Maybe a nap would help. He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled off his shoes and socks, carefully tucking the socks inside one shoe and placing them neatly at the foot of the bed. He pulled his pants off, folded them, and placed them on the bottom shelf of his night stand. Pulling his pajama bottoms from under his pillow, he slid them on, folded back the sheets, and slipped between them. He shut his eyes, but images in the pickup returned and he opened them again to the familiarity of his room. His gaze fell on a snapshot of Joel taken in his yard. They had been washing Joel’s pickup and Joel was soaked. His T-shirt stuck to his muscular chest, and his cutoffs had a patch of wet across the crotch. Joel was grinning broadly at the camera. Tom closed his eyes to shut out his blinding beauty, and began to drift.

  * * *

  The house was near the high school, but Joel couldn’t remember exactly where. He’d only been there once and that was at night. There was a small porch that framed little more than the front door with a concrete demi-wall enclosing it. He remembered that much, since he and Coach had talked longer on the porch than they had inside. Coach had a baby—a pretty sick baby, he remembered—and after staying inside for about thirty minutes, Joel—politely ignoring the stench of sour milk and dirty diapers—was relieved when Coach had suggested they go outside. He couldn’t remember exactly why he’d gone over that night. Coach wasn’t real social with his athletes, but for a few, he made a little extra time—especially before a match. Whatever problems he had at home, Coach was always willing to listen. And even off the boxing team, Joel had continued to visit him at school.

  Joel drove slowly down the street. The houses looked different in the daylight. Several houses were logical candidates for Coach’s. Three were brick like Coach’s with those small porches—214, 216, 218—any of those addresses could be his. Each house had a freestanding garage, but only 218 had a basketball hoop over the garage door.

  He’d take this blind, wouldn’t think about being nervous, just like he’d done in boxing matches. At the sound of the bell, Joel, just go in there slugging.Before his feet could twist him around, he pressed the door bell and jumped back as it clanged like a fire alarm above his head. It had been added as an afterthought. The wire for it, tacked to the outside wall, ran from the push-button to a bell above the door. Got to talk to someone, he thought, again, as he waited. Blood drummed in his throat, choking his vocal cords. Just slug through it, just slug—

  “Hey, Joel!” Without hesitating, Coach stepped back and opened the door wide. “Come in, Kiddo!”

  The tiny living room was dark and Joel squinted at Coach’s silhouette. Across the room, light burst from their kitchen and Joel saw Mrs. Hoffins at the table. “Did I interrupt your lunch?”

  “Don’t sweat it,” Bill Hoffins laughed. He patted his barrel chest. “I’m supposed to trim down this summer. I’m entering a boxing contest at State in September. Coaches’ meet.” He sat down in a big, square chair and indicated the couch.

  Joel sat down on the end closest to Coach’s chair. “I got a problem, man.” He dropped his head between his shoulders but looked earnestly into Coach’s smile.

  Bill leaned back, appraising Joel. “It ain’t physical is it, Kiddo? Looks like you’ve gained about ten, fifteen pounds since the team. You kickin’ a load of cow shit on your farm, I bet.”

  Joel laughed. “Ranchers are shit kickers, Coach. Farmers like me shovel shit. It ain’t physical. I feel great.”

  “Can’t be school. I know you passed all your courses. I keep a file on you. Did you know that? Just in case you decide to come back to the team. Joel, you could train this summer—we could bend the rules—and take up next September on the team. Best I’ve been able to get since you left is District.”

  “I know, Coach. I keep up. Marty Anderson took the district title for us. And did real well in Albuquerque. Second, wasn’t it?”

  Coach waved a hand almost irritably. “We’re doing for shit and you know it, Joel. You took State when you were just a sophomore, just think what you could’ve done last fall. You’d have a scholarship, I guarantee!”

  Joel leaned toward Bill, resting his arms on his thighs. “You wouldn’t want me now.”

  “You have a big problem, don’t you?”

  “It feels like it. Yeah. I’m.afraid to tell my parents.”

  Bill’s face went serious. “Well, Joel, I’m not sure you ought to be talking to me about something you don’t want your parents knowing.”

  “Okay. Thanks.” Joel got up to leave. “I’ll just think about it for awhile, then.”

  “Sit down, Joel. Why can’t you tell them?”

  Joel was relieved and fell back onto the couch. “It’s just something you don’t lay on your parents, man. Not yet. I don’t feel so good. Something happened. Then my friend.today, he’d been crying about what we did. He was freaked. He looked beat up.”

  “You look like shit yourself, Joel. You look like you just committed murder.”

  “I feel like shit. I had sex with my best friend…I…”

  Coach sat up, ran his hand over his receding hair. “Whew! Hit me with that again?”

  “A guy. We had sex.” Joel felt the shakes beginning and he took a deep breath, held it, then let it out slowly. Coach looked stunned, but hadn’t lost his reasonable expression. Joel crossed his arms over his chest. “So what do you think?”

  “What do you want me to say, Joel?”

  “I dunno, Coach. See, I liked it. It…I loved it. But it freaked the other guy.”

  “I understand. And now, Joel, you think you’re.?” He waved his hand.

  “Well, yeah.”

  “It wouldn’t help me to say it’s a phase a lot of boys go through?”

  “I don’t think so,” Joel said. “All I know is, it was like it was supposed to be. I’ve tried liking girls. I couldn’t function with them. Not only sex, but even little things like talking to them. Holding hands. Kissing them was just nothing. We don’t connect. But I don’t care, because me and this guy.”

  “And that made you think.that since you enjoyed it with…your friend.”

  “A lot of things. You know how neat it feels to have a friend? I mean a really good friend? That’s how I feel with this guy. Only he’s freaked out. He’s a preacher’s kid.”

  “I know who you’re talking about, Joel. It strikes me, now, that maybe I should have seen this coming.”

  “You mean I act queer?”

  “No! Joel, I can tell you don’t know a damn thing about what you’re involved with.”

  “You mean something bad, don’t you? Something that should make me sick.”

  Bill sighed. “This is a ticklish subject. I mean real ticklish! I’ve always tried to get you boys to trust me. Hell, I ask you to get in the ring and get your bodies slammed, your noses bloodied. Okay. You know how people feel about this. They hate it. Most guys your age would react like your friend did. I’m sure about that, Joel. But knowing you, I can see how you wouldn’t see a problem with it. It’s none of my business, but you didn’t come here for me to tell you it was all right, did you?”

  “No. But I don’t know what to do.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t either, Kiddo.”

  “But aren’t there books, or something?”

  “Yeah. There are books. Psychology books. But you wouldn’t understand them—I don’t understand them.”

  “Except they say it’s wrong. Right?”

  “They say it’s a mental illness. They say it’s arrested development. They say you hate girls. They say.oh hell, Kiddo, they say of lot of shit.”

  “Is it?”

  “Is it what?”

  “Is it like being crazy?”

  “Insane?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No.”

  “But you just said it was a mental illness.”

  “It’s not crazy.” Coach bobbled his finger against his lips, making a blubbering sound. Joel laughed in spite of himself. “Not like that, Joel.
Maybe an emotional problem, psychologists would say.”

  Joel started to get up to leave again. “Jeez! Coach. I feel good! And they say—”

  But Bill stood up and pushed him back down on the couch. “Don’t run away. That’s what the books say. That’s all you’ll find, I think. But I’ve never looked into it much. Like I say, it’s up to you. One of these days, maybe you should read up on the subject. But I don’t think you’d agree with anything they have to say. You take the advice I give you on boxing because it feels right to you. But if you didn’t believe it with your body, you wouldn’t take my advice. Let the shrinks handle the mind. I think you have to feel your way along on this problem by yourself, Joel. Here’s some advice, though, and it’s against your nature, but like I say, this is ticklish. Work on your feelings, but don’t go spreading them around. You know what I mean. You came to me without any idea how I would react. I could’ve slugged you. Some guys would have. Most guys would. So keep these feeling of yours.well, work them out privately.”

  “It’s too late, Coach.”

  “Oh shit.”

  “Yeah. See, we were at a dance, and we started making out in front of a bunch—”

  “Holy shit, Joel! What in the hell were you thinking!?”

  “But nothing.It just happened too fast.”

  Coach began laughing. “Remember all your boxing pointers, then. Jesus!” He got up and walked Joel outside. In the front yard,

  Coach put a hand on Joel’s shoulder. “Give this kid a chance to calm down. If he’s your friend, he’ll be your friend when this is over. But Jesus, Joel, maybe you should think about this. You’re a virgin aren’t you?”

  “Am I still a virgin? We had sex. I mean we—”

  “Don’t.” Bill put up a restraining hand. “We’re not supposed to be having this conversation. To answer your question, I guess you’re not a virgin in the technical sense, okay? But that’s none of my business. All I meant, Kiddo, was if you were a virgin with girls, you’ll feel different maybe.when you have something to compare to these.homosexual.feelings.” He shook his head. “Jesus, Joel. In front of people? That was stupid. I mean that as your friend.”

  “Thanks, Coach.” They shook hands. Joel ran to the pickup feeling stunned. It was a relief to know that Coach was the kind of guy Joel thought he was. Coach didn’t say what to do, he realized. Except keep it quiet. Give Tom a chance. But Coach did give him a name for his feelings. He called them homosexual. He would have to think about that.

  * * *

  At supper Saturday night, Joel was quiet. His parents wanted to know what was wrong, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Like Coach Hoffins suggested, he decided to stay quiet for awhile, at least until he could get a chance to talk with Tom. How could he tell them anything? Wouldn’t they get upset thinking he may be crazy? A homosexual? Maybe even worse? He imagined, like Coach said, that his father might actually slug him, or want to, and that picture was painful. But surely Dad would be like Coach, he thought, looking at him puzzled, until he realized what he was doing and excused himself from the table.

  Later, he sat on the porch gazing mindlessly at the glow of light over the mountains to the west, where the gray-pink color sometimes remained long after sunset. His father came out and sat down by him. He picked up a piece of wood and turned it thoughtfully in his hands, looking at it for peculiar shapes he could whittle out of it at some future time.

  “You’ve been acting strange all day.”

  “I know, Dad. I’m sorry. It’s nothing.”

  “Anything your old man can help with?”

  “No. Uh.no. Thanks.”

  “You and your girlfriend have a falling out?” He smiled sympathetically.

  Girlfriend? Oh yeah. He knew what his father was talking about, thanks to Tom’s underwear in the pickup. He managed a grin. “Yeah. Sort of, I guess. But it doesn’t matter.”

  “Maybe.” His father tossed the piece of wood across the lawn and it landed in the dark shadows of the rose bushes. “I don’t know where the time goes, but I can see now you’re almost a man. You’ll be eighteen in July, am I right?”

  “Huh?”

  “Getting to like women?”

  Joel lay back on his elbows blocking his face from the porch light so his father couldn’t see it.

  “You trying to push your girlfriend into something she’s not ready for? That what’s got you pissed?”

  Joel touched his father’s shoulder. Oddly, it comforted him. What if he told him, now, just at this moment? “No. Me and Tom. We got into a fight. It’s okay.”

  His father nodded, distracted, then frowned. “There’s only one thing’d make me disappointed in you, Joel.”

  He felt a surge of guilt. “What?”

  “If I’m wrong, well, that’s good. But if I’m right, then I’d expect you better hold your temper. Never show disrespect to people, Son, and you won’t do anything to be ashamed of. If you want something from somebody, and they aren’t willing to part with it, that’s their decision and your tough luck.”

  Joel looked at his father in the porch light. He was smiling. The wrinkles around his eyes permanently fixed from it. Joel sighed. “I do respect Tom, Dad. It’s just an argument.you know? A fight about something. Wish I could tell you, but I’m not even sure what it is.”

  Douglas chuckled. He patted Joel on the head. “You’ll work it out, I’m sure. You need me, I’ll be here.”

  Douglas got up then and looked down at his son. Joel had sat up and resumed his crazy stare into the yard. He doubted that Joel was even still aware of him. He shook his head. Always a surprise, that boy.

  CHAPTER 3

  For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly.

  Romans 1:26-27

  Sunday, May

  30 5:35 a.m.

  Tom slept for fifteen hours and came awake in the predawn feeling the wet slime of semen on his skin. It was drying like flour-and-water paste under the waistband of his pajamas and smelled doughy, too. He just shook his head, realizing it was no use. Just one thing, he thought. I didn’t ask for this. And damn it—I’ve tried to get over it.

  But that was a lie. Joel. God forgive me, I love you! Why did you have to be so damned willing?

  Even the wet dream was sexy. Maybe it was a sin to harbor sexual thoughts, but was it a sin to have a wet dream? Could you stop one? Wasn’t it like being a bed wetter, or did it have something to do with what you thought about all the time? Would his father say wet dreams were just nocturnal emissions, to be cleaned up and ignored—or what?

  Come to think of it, wet dreams were never discussed in church. Masturbating had been. Sex between boys and girls, sodomy, even lustful thoughts had been. But never wet dreams.

  Funny. He didn’t remember ever having one when he spent the night with Joel sleeping innocently on his side of Joel’s bed.

  6:30 a.m.

  The telephone wouldn’t ring.

  As usual on a Sunday morning, Joel was in the living room waiting, pulling on his socks and boots. He had been there since a little after six, but this morning the telephone stayed silent. He stared at it. Tom said we’d talk, didn’t he? Joel thought. Besides, Tom always called on Sundays to let him know if he would be busy with church stuff or not. Except today. And he wondered if it was because of what they had done. He laughed soundlessly, bitterly, the knot of doubt and hurt in his stomach like a live thing, lying on its back and kicking. Fuckin’ right it was. Tom was really upset. He’d never seen him like that. He felt sorry for him, and hurt by him, and embarrassed. Then Mrs. Allen said he was sick. He finished dressing and drank a cup of coffee, but still nothing. By seven o’clock, his parents were ready to go, and he got up reluctantly. He decided that he would go sightseeing with them today, although he was jumpy an
d nervous about leaving the house. By now Tom would be in church.

  His mother had prepared a large basket of sandwiches and cold drinks, which Joel carried out to the pickup as he walked beside her. They were able to talk eye-to-eye since he had inherited her shortness. She was only five-foot-five and he was five-seven. She stopped him when they were out on the porch. Standing with her back to the sun, she studied his face. He had to squint at her against the sun. “What, Mom?”

  “You’re sick, aren’t you?” she said. Her eyes crinkled. Her mouth formed a little o, and he had to smile at her, secretly thinking she looked like a cross between I Love Lucy and Miss Kitty, from Gunsmoke.

  “No, I’m not sick,” he said. “But Tom is, I think.”

  “Oh. That’s too bad,” she said. But she was satisfied. “Oh my goodness! I forgot Mrs.—” She hurried off the porch, looking about her. “Douglas! Did you call Mrs. Tucker to let her know we’d be by for gas?”

  He stuck the oil stick back into the engine and closed the hood. “Yes, ma’am, I did.”

  “Well, that’s good. I just hate honking her out of bed.”

  Joel brought the basket to the pickup and handed it his father.

  “Foothills okay?” Douglas asked.

  “Floridas or Tres Hermanas?” Joel smiled weakly.

  Douglas clapped him on the back. “Floridas. I thought we’d get a better view of the valley, and I like it this time of year. That okay?”

  “Sounds great.” But he was relieved, since the Florida mountains were the closest. Maybe he could get hold of Tom early in the afternoon.

  They headed south past their property along the west fence; his father was sitting on the passenger’s side of the pickup, leaning out the window like a curious little kid. He preferred letting Joel drive so he could get a good look at the country they passed. On this stretch of road, the Reece farm was on the left, and the desert began directly across it on the right-hand side. It was still cold out and the open windows let in the early morning air. But none of them were cold since they were all used to the iciness of the desert. Even in late May, the hour after sunup was even colder than predawn.