by Neil Plakcy
“It’s what women do,” I said, though I had absolutely no experience in the area. “So, would you?”
“I guess.”
“Hang tight. I’ll call Wee-Roy.”
Since when had I become everybody’s Dear Abby? I was giving dating advice to guys at work. And now I was in charge of a family reconciliation.
Instead of calling Leroy’s cell, I called the house. A woman’s voice answered.
“Mom?”
“Guess again.”
“Lisa?”
She made a buzzer sound.
“Listen, Lori. Is Mom around? I need to talk to her.”
“Hold on.” In the background I heard her call, “Mom! It’s Loser Number Three.”
Yeah, and fuck you too, you little twat, I thought.
Oops, that’s my baby sister. Maybe I didn’t have as much family feeling as I thought. Or my family was just more screwed up than usual.
“Lincoln?” my mother said.
“I believe he would be Loser Number One, Mom,” I said. “It’s Larry.”
“Your sisters are so upset over what happened.”
“Yeah. Anyway, Angie came to see me last night. She dumped Linc, and she asked me to try and get him and Leroy to make up.”
“She left him?” my mother said.
“Yeah. Turns out she’s even more of a jerk than we thought. So I called Linc—he’s staying with that prick Jeff. Linc’s really sorry about...you know...and he wants to come home. You think Leroy would be okay with that?”
“I don’t know. Leroy seems better—he wouldn’t go to work yesterday, but he did today. He came home early with a bucket of chicken and a six-pack of beer and went into his room. I guess he’s working things out.”
Sometimes my parents can be a little too hands-off, if you know what I mean. “Great. I’ll call him.”
“Be nice to him, dear. He’s had a hard time.”
Like this whole business had been a picnic for the rest of us. “Sure, Mom.”
I called Leroy, but he didn’t answer his cell. I called the house again, and a woman’s voice answered. Why couldn’t I tell the difference between my mother and my sisters on the phone? “I need to speak to Leroy. Can you drag him to the phone?”
“I thought you were going to call him, dear.”
It was Mom. “Yeah, I tried, but he didn’t answer his cell. Can you go get him?”
She turned away from the phone. “Lisa? Get your brother, please.” Lisa argued in the background, and my mother said, “Now.”
I knew that tone. It must have been tough for my mom, juggling her waitress job with raising five kids. My dad was not the kind of guy to fix dinner now and then or clean up his own crap. My mom had used that tone on us a lot when we were kids.
Neither my mother nor I said anything while we waited for Lisa to drag Leroy to the phone. That is, until we heard Lisa scream.
“What’s that?” I asked, but my mother had already dropped the phone, and I heard her footsteps running.
In the background I heard a female voice screaming, “Call 911! Call 911!”
Somebody hung up my parents’ phone. Whatever it was couldn’t be good. I grabbed my shoes and my keys and ran for the elevator.
When I was in my car, I tried my parents’ house again. No answer.
My mom had a cell, but she had changed carriers and I didn’t have the number. I realized I hadn’t gotten Lisa’s or Lori’s number either.
I called Linc. “Something’s wrong at home. You’ve got to get over there and then call me. I’m on my way.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I heard somebody screaming to call 911 and then the phone went dead, and now no one’s answering.”
“I’m on it,” he said.
I zoomed across the MacArthur Causeway, darting around slow traffic, then accelerated as much as I could across the highway to the turnpike.
My phone rang. “What’s going on, Linc?”
“I spoke to Mrs. Crumfell.” She was our nosy next-door neighbor. “Leroy cut his wrists, and they took him to the hospital in an ambulance. I’m going there now.”
“Did she say how he was?”
“You know her; everything’s a tragedy. But she said when they carried him out, he was alive and fighting with the EMTs.”
“That’s our brother.”
I hung up and focused on getting to the hospital without being taken there by ambulance. At least this drama wasn’t my fault, I thought. Lincoln and Leroy had screwed this pooch all by themselves.
There was one mistake that belonged all to me. I called Julian, and once again the call went right to voice mail. “I really need to talk to you,” I said. “To explain.” I gulped. “But in case I can’t get your call when you try me, it’s because I’m at the hospital in Homestead. My brother tried to kill himself, and I’m on my way there now.” I hesitated, then added, “Please call me, Julian.”
By the time I hit the turnpike, I was crying, though I wasn’t sure if it was for my brother or myself. I might have spent twenty years fighting with Lincoln and Leroy, but I loved them both, and I didn’t want to lose either of them. I hoped Wee-Roy was ornery enough to keep fighting until he was better.
I parked in the lot near the emergency room and hurried inside. My father, my sisters, and Lincoln were all in the ER lobby, sitting on molded plastic chairs. A motley crowd of people waiting for treatment filled the room—an old white lady in a wheelchair with a black woman in a housecoat beside her, a young Latin guy with a dirty white bandage wrapped around his hand, and a bunch of other patients and their family and friends.
“How’s Leroy?” I asked, standing across from my father.
“Mom’s with him,” Linc said. “Apparently he fucked up the cuts so all he did was bleed. Dumb shit.”
Our father reached across and smacked Lincoln in the face with the back of his hand. Linc reeled away. “Da-ad!”
“That’s for fucking your brother’s girlfriend,” Dad said. “And in my house. I hope he lets you have it good when he gets out of here.”
Wow. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard my dad use the F word. He said “effing” or maybe “frigging” if he was really upset.
The rest of my sibs looked as surprised as I felt. Linc started to cry, and Lisa and Lori moved in beside him, one on each side.
“This is all your fault,” Dad said to Linc. “You couldn’t keep your dick in your pants, could you? And now you’re going to cry about it. Boo-fucking-hoo, crybaby.”
“Dad, that’s enough,” I said, and everyone’s eyes swiveled toward me. “It wasn’t Lincoln’s fault. Angie came to see me last night, and she told me it was all on her. She wasn’t happy with Leroy, and she couldn’t figure out how to tell him. Don’t blame either of them.”
“Huh, the fairy has a set of balls,” Dad said. “If I hadn’t seen you as a baby, I’d have thought you didn’t have ’em.”
“Yeah, I’ve got ’em, Dad. And just so you know, ‘fairy’ is not politically correct. You can call me gay.”
I towered there in front of all of them with my hands on my hips, my heart beating so fast I was afraid I’d give myself a stroke. But I was tired of being bullied—by my father, my brothers, Victor, anybody.
Lisa and Lori both gaped at me. “You’re gay?” they said, at almost the same time.
“Like, duh,” Lincoln said. “Where have you guys been for the last twenty years?”
“No son of mine is a faggot,” my father said.
“Wrong,” I said, making a buzzing sound. “I’m your son, and I’m gay. And Linc is your son, and he fucked around with your other son’s girlfriend. And Leroy’s your son too, and he’s in the emergency room with a suicide attempt. Seems like you’re not exactly father of the year, are you?”
By this point everyone else in the waiting room was watching us, having forgotten the aches, pains, and injuries that had brought them or their loved ones there.
&nbs
p; Then the double doors opened, and my mom appeared, pushing Leroy in a wheelchair, his wrists wrapped in white bandages. “All better!” she chirped.
She looked at all of us, and with that mom instinct she had cultivated for years, she knew something was wrong. She stood up straight and said, “I cannot take any more aggravation this evening. Everyone out the door. Now.”
She led the way, and the rest of us followed like the seven dwarfs on their way to the mine, only without the singing. Mom bundled Leroy into the backseat of Dad’s sedan. “You girls ride with Larry,” she said. “Dad and I will take care of Leroy.” Then she turned to my oldest brother. “I expect you back at the house with everyone else. Understood?”
Linc hung his head. “Yes, Mom.”
“Good.” Then she got in the passenger seat and slammed the door.
My dad stood there for a minute looking at all of us. Then Mom hit the horn, and he got in the driver’s seat.
“Shotgun,” Lisa said.
“Jerkwad,” Lori said.
Linc saddled up his motorcycle, and I led the twins back to my car. Lori climbed into the backseat, and Lisa slid in next to me.
“So are you really gay?” Lisa asked as I backed out of the parking space.
“Absolutely.”
“You’re not making that up to mess with Dad?” Lori asked.
“I could think of a hundred other ways to mess with him,” I said, navigating the hospital exit, a complex series of stop signs and turns.
“We always thought you were a geek,” Lisa said.
“I’m that too. People are complicated.” I looked over at her. “Even you two. I’m sure there’s at least one brain under all that hair.”
Lisa punched me in the arm, and Lori smacked the back of my neck. “What’s with all the physical abuse tonight?” I said. “You guys take after Dad or something?”
“As if,” they both said.
30 – Drama Magnet
We were almost home before Lisa turned to me and asked, “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“It’s complicated.” Victor Kunin sure wasn’t my boyfriend, and the way Julian had responded to that photo, he probably wasn’t going to be my boyfriend either.
“Cooper is single too,” Lori said. That was the flamer who worked at the salon with her. I’d met him and was glad he’d never hit on me.
“That’s not his real name, is it?” I asked.
“It’s his porn name,” Lisa said.
I turned to look at her. “He does porn?”
“No, stupid,” Lori said from the backseat. “You take the street you grew up on and the name of your first pet. That’s your porn name—for guys. For girls they call it a stripper name. His porn name is Cooper Pierre.”
“I think you’ve got it backward,” I said. “He should be Pierre Cooper. Which is a terrible porn name, by the way.”
“Whatever. Do you want me to fix you up?” Lori asked.
“No, thanks. So my porn name would be Blackie Southwest Hundred-Eighty Third Court?”
“It doesn’t always work,” Lisa said.
“Duh. But let me know if either of you decide to become strippers. I’ll come up with names for you.” My brain started buzzing. “How about Satin and Sapphire? Kitty and Candy?”
“How do you know we aren’t already?” Lisa asked.
“Boys can be strippers too,” Lori said.
“Yeah, like Chippendales,” Lisa said.
“But none of the three of you could strip,” Lori said.
“You need to be more buff,” Lisa said.
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I pulled up in front of the house. Linc was sitting on his motorcycle ahead of me, and Mom was already standing by the back door of the car trying to get Leroy out.
Lisa, Lori, and I joined Linc to walk up the driveway. Dad stood behind Mom, letting her deal with Leroy, even though she was getting nowhere.
“You guys go inside,” I said to my parents and the twins. “Linc and I will take care of Leroy.”
Dad started to protest, but Mom took his arm and steered him for the front door. Lisa and Lori lagged behind until I waved my hands at them and said, “Shoo!”
Lori held up three fingers. “Read between the lines.”
Lisa giggled, and the two of them followed Mom and Dad into the house.
I slid into the backseat beside Leroy. “How are you doing, bro?”
He looked down at his lap. “My life sucks.”
“That’s no reason to kill yourself, though.”
He hung his head. “I wasn’t serious. I work with this girl, Angie’s cousin, and she told me today that Angie had left Lincoln. I thought if I did something really dramatic, I could get her to come back to me.” He looked up. “But you know what? I realized when I was at the hospital that I don’t want her back.”
“That’s a good thing to figure out. She came to see me last night, and she doesn’t want you back either.”
“But without her, I haven’t got shit.”
“Sure, you do. You’ve got a good job and a big dick. What more could a girl want from a guy?” I slid out of the car. “Now come on, get out, Leroy.”
“No.”
“Don’t be a pussy, all right?”
He scrambled out after me. “Who are you calling a pussy?”
Linc stepped up and said, “I’m sorry, man. I should never have screwed around with Angie.”
Leroy punched him in the stomach, and Linc staggered back. Leroy yelped and shook his arm, and the bandage flapped loose. “Man, that hurt!”
“I’ve got some pills,” Linc groaned. “Come on, let’s go inside.”
He put his arm around Leroy’s shoulders. Leroy hesitated for a second, then hooked an arm around Linc. I felt left out—but then, what else was new? I followed them up the path to the front door.
I stepped into the living room behind them, and my exhaustion caught up to me. It was after midnight, and I was wiped. Mom, Lisa, and Lori stood by the breakfront having some kind of private conversation.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked.
“He went to bed,” Mom said. “We should all do that.”
“I’m going to head for home,” I said.
“It’s such a long way,” Mom said. “You should stay here tonight.”
“Where am I going to sleep?” I asked. “You sent my bed to Goodwill, remember?”
“You can share with me,” Leroy said. “As long as you don’t hog the covers.”
I was so tired I couldn’t argue. “All right.” Ours was only a two-bathroom house—one for Mom and Dad, and one for the five of us. Leroy headed straight for bed, and I jumped ahead of the twins. “I have to pee. Then you guys can take all the time you want with your makeup and stuff.”
By the time I got back to the room I’d grown up sharing with Leroy, he was zonked-out on one side of the queen-size bed. I stripped to my shorts and slipped into the other, careful to leave a no-man’s zone between me and my brother.
When I woke the next morning at seven, he was still asleep on his back, small snores rippling his lips. I ransacked his drawers for some clean clothes and took them to the shower with me.
The XXL T-shirt hung on me like a funeral shroud, and Leroy’s baggy shorts bunched up in the back because I had to pull the drawstring so tight. I walked out to the kitchen, where Mom was already up and drinking coffee. “It’s nice having my whole family back together,” she said, looking up as I walked in.
I shook my head. Mom was sweet but clueless.
The teakettle was still hot, so I poured some instant oatmeal into a bowl and doused it with water—the breakfast I’d eaten for years as a kid. I sat down across from Mom and poured myself a glass of orange juice.
“Have you spoken to a priest about your...problem?” she asked.
It took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about. “It’s not a problem, Mom. It’s who I am. And I’m too old for a priest—they like altar boys young, don’t they?”
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br /> “Larry!” she said, scandalized. “Nothing like that—”
“No, Mom. I was never molested or anything. But I’m gay, and I always have been, for as long as I could figure it out.”
“Was it something I did? Or your father?”
“No.” God, this was turning into a Lifetime movie or something. “At least you won’t have to worry about me sleeping with Lincoln’s or Leroy’s girlfriends,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
“You’re terrible,” she said, but she smiled.
We sat together without talking until I’d finished my oatmeal and juice. “I’d better hit the road. I have to drive home and then get to work.”
“Drive carefully, dear.”
I stood up, then leaned down to kiss her cheek. “I will, Mom.”
The rest of the family was still asleep. I grabbed my dirty clothes and walked out to my car. Funny, I had come out to my family, but the world was still there—the sun was shining, a squirrel was chittering in the palm tree out front, and down the street a group of little kids waited for the school bus.
Eventually Lincoln and Leroy would get over the Angie situation, and my parents and my sisters would get accustomed to the new me. I was still surprised that Linc had known, when Leroy hadn’t. As I drove north on the turnpike, the rising sun glaring at me from the east, I felt more a part of my family than I ever had.
Then I realized that I still hadn’t heard back from Julian after the messages I’d left him the day before. I grabbed my cell and checked for calls. None. No e-mail either.
It was the middle of the night in California, if Julian was still there. For all I knew he’d caught another plane to Mexico City, or he’d come back to South Beach and was at that very moment cuddled up with Eddie, or whoever else was replacing me. I thought about leaving him another message, or texting him. But the next move was his, no matter what it was.
Cars were bunched up on the eastbound Dolphin Expressway like drag queens at a Sephora sale, which gave me way too much time to imagine what would happen the next time I saw or spoke to Julian. Would he laugh about the photo, then jump into bed? Would he think I was still hung up on Victor Kunin? Maybe he’d refuse to believe the giraffe idea was Victor’s, tell me to go find a guy who liked to dress up as a lion and play predator and prey.