The Dangerous Art of Blending In

by Angelo Surmelis

  Dedication

  For Jennifer, Ed, and Judy

  Contents

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Books by Angelo Surmelis

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  one

  I should’ve guessed something was up when I was walking home. There were cars parked all down my street. My mother’s Bible study group is usually on Wednesday. Today is Tuesday.

  I walk up to my house and open the door very quietly. “May the devil of lust and disobedience be cast out of his sinful shell.”

  My mother is in the living room with a circle of people from her church and Pastor Kiriaditis. There are candles flickering around them and they’re praying together. I can see a framed photo of me in the center of the circle, on the coffee table. Luckily, they haven’t seen me.

  “We cast the devil’s stronghold from his body. We pray to God for His mercy on his dark soul. Amen.”

  Where’s Dad? Why is he never home when this shit goes down?

  I start to hear more regular conversations, which indicates they are winding down.

  “How can I thank you, Pastor?” I hear my mother saying. “I can’t thank you enough for helping me. Let’s pray he can stay in God’s grace. He’s a disobedient child.”

  I close my eyes and will myself to be calm. I quietly walk down the hall to my room but continue to listen. I hear my mother thank everyone again and usher them to the dining room for some spinach pie and Greek pastries. Nothing stops our family from eating.

  I slip into my room. Here, surrounded by my things, I feel safe. With the wallpaper that I personally installed, and the wooden chair rail I put up during the holidays last year, I tried to give my boxy, tract-home bedroom some character. I wanted it to look like an old English library.

  But all this just serves as evidence to my family that I’m a weirdo. None of it makes sense to them. “Why can’t you have those sports pictures on your walls, like other boys?” Which is hilariously ironic because no one in my family is into any kinds of sports, except when Greece plays in the World Cup, or when the Greek team walks into a stadium during the Summer Olympic Games opening ceremonies. That’s pretty much it. I’m literally the only one who is remotely interested in physical activity that does not include baking or going to work, the two forms of exercise that my family holds in high regard.

  So back to my room. I’ve squeezed as many bookcases in this tiny space as possible. Being surrounded by books and magazines makes me feel calm. It makes the room seem wrapped in a layer of protection. As if nothing or no one can get to me.

  Looking around, I think, I need to talk to Henry. He always calms me down, though after what I just saw, I should probably lay low. I scan the room. I can tell that someone has been going through my things.

  My heart stops.

  I glance over at my dresser, which is against the one wall that doesn’t have any bookcases. Above it I installed shelving to store my art supplies. My once perfectly arranged boxes—the ones on top of the dresser, the ones holding the ticket stubs of every movie I’ve ever gone to—are all messed up. A box is open and some of the stubs are scattered on the dresser. I always put everything back where it belongs. But my mother was obviously looking for something. She assumes most of the time that I must hide drugs in my room.

  Watching movies or TV shows that are about God, Jesus, or some kind of spiritual journey or lesson are approved. All other forms of entertainment are “the work of the devil, narcissistic, selfish, and only for girls and the gays.”

  I open the drawer where I keep my notebook. It’s below a pile of neatly stacked books. I quickly leaf through it. All the pages are still there. I exhale but I tell myself I really should have hidden my notebook in a much better place. I should have buried it with the others outside the house. It’s been a while since she’s been on a search-and-destroy mission. I’ve become too complacent. Was that the reason for today’s meeting? I pull my phone out of my pocket and stare at it. I want to text Henry. I put it back in my pocket and crawl into bed. I intend to lie there just for a bit, but I’m exhausted.

  I fall asleep hard.

  two

  “Evan. Evan.”

  My dad is bent over me.

  I squint at him. “What time is it?”

  “It’s almost five.”

  “In the morning?”

  He looks at me strangely. “Yeah. Do you want to go get doughnuts?” He stands up straight. This is a thing my dad and I do. He usually gets up at four a.m. and is out the door no later than five. His work at the bakery starts early, and on certain days, he wakes me up and we go to Dunkin’ Donuts. Ironic that we go to a doughnut chain when his work, his life, is baking. We sit at the counter. He orders coffee and a doughnut. I order a doughnut, sometimes two, and we mostly sit there in silence. If he’s feeling like we have some extra money that month, he buys a dozen on our way out. Then he takes me back home and goes to work.

  I get up and look for my shoes. I fell asleep with my clothes on. I check my phone. It’s a bunch of texts from Henry after I dozed off.

  Where RU?

  Home?

  Just drove by house. WTF, is there a party?

  Call. CU

  I should have texted him. I run to the bathroom and turn on the faucet, but not full blast so that I don’t wake my mother. I splash some water on my face and try to tame my hair with my wet hands. It’s not working. I sneak back to my room, grab a baseball cap, and meet my dad outside. He’s got the car already running and is leaning against the trunk taking long drags off his Marlboro Light. He’s looking toward the house across the street. With the streetlight hitting his face, his already strong profile is even more prominent. My dad has the kind of looks I wish I’d inherited. His face is bold, with angular features and a sharp, severe nose. My face looks like my mother’s.

  He hears me opening the passenger door and comes around to the driver’s side. A cigarette dangles from his mouth as he slowly closes the door. He doesn’t want to wake her either.

  “I can go in a little later today. Want to try a different Dunkin’ Donuts?”

  Our neighborhood Dunkin’ is less than a mile away. We could walk there, if we really wanted to.

  “Sure. Which one?”

  “I don’t know. I saw one the other day on the way home. It’s in the opposite direction of the one we usually go to. It looked bigger.”

  Bigger is code for better. More is also better. Bigger and more are not things my family can afford, so when there’s an opportunity to partake in one or
the other—or, on that rarest of occasions, both—we’re all in.

  The window on my dad’s side of the car is halfway down. He holds his cigarette out of it when he’s not smoking. He knows that cigarette smoke makes me dizzy, but I never have the heart to tell him that when he does that—open the window—the air actually just blows the smoke back and straight into my face. Usually most of my time in the car with him is spent trying to find new ways to hold my breath. But I don’t mind because we’re spending time together. A little secondhand smoke and light-headedness is a small price to pay.

  The ride is in silence. We’re on surface roads. This time of day is kind of perfect. It’s so still. I actually let myself wonder if this could be the start of something new and better.

  I daydream that maybe, suddenly, everything in Kalakee, Illinois, starts to change. My hair goes straight and floppy. The flat landscape is suddenly circled by lush, flowering hills. I can walk into any room filled with people without sweating. Everywhere. No more Greek school on the weekends. Our house is quiet and safe and I am loved.

  “We’re here.”

  My dad tosses a cigarette out the window.

  I get out of the car and follow him inside. The place is almost empty except for two guys, both hunched over at the end of the counter, sitting side by side. Their heads are buried in the Chicago Tribune.

  “Good morning, Eli.” The waitress behind the counter has a big, friendly smile.

  Obviously my dad has been to this Dunkin’ without me.

  We sit down at the counter.

  “Is this your son?” She places a coffee cup in front of my dad with one hand and effortlessly pours with the other.

  “Yes. This is Evan. For Evangelos, but he likes Evan.” He taps me on the head as if I’m five years old.

  I smile at her. She has a broad, open, and friendly face.

  “Handsome must run in the family.” The words lilt from her mouth as she searches for a coffee cup for me. “My name’s Linda. For Linda.”

  My dad says, “He’s not drinking coffee.”

  “Nice to meet you, Linda.” I do want coffee. I want a lot of coffee.

  Linda leans on the counter, her hands spread apart. She looks at both of us and asks, “What do you gentlemen want this morning?”

  “I’ll have a cruller and Evan will do a chocolate glazed.” My dad looks at me just to make sure.

  That’s pretty much my standing order. I’ve been known to eat at least half a dozen of them in one sitting. You’d think I’d be larger, but my theory is that the internal nervous energy I work so hard to conceal keeps my metabolism running on high.

  Linda is off to get the doughnuts. My dad is drinking his coffee and staring at the doughnut racks in front of us.

  “Did you sleep okay?” he wants to know.

  “Fine.”

  I don’t mention the nightmares. My dad means well, but he doesn’t want to hear about things like nightmares. He wants to hear things like “I slept fine.”

  “We didn’t wake you for dinner last night because we assumed you were exhausted. You must be starving. What do you want to drink?” Before I can even answer, he motions toward Linda, “Hon, get the boy another doughnut, and he’ll have a milk.”

  With this sugar rush, I am going to be on fire for the first few hours of class.

  “Here you go, dears.” Linda places our doughnuts and my milk on the counter and floats away.

  “I heard about yesterday,” my father says with a mouthful of cruller. He takes a swig of coffee and motions for a refill.

  “What did you hear?”

  “I heard some people from church came over.”

  Just as I’m about to take a bite of my chocolate glazed. The most important bite—the first one. The one that sets the tone for the rest of the doughnut experience.

  I stop myself. Put the doughnut down and swivel to look at him. This is a very calculated move. I want him to know that the next thing I’m going to say is important.

  “Dad, they think I have a demon inside me. Does that seem normal to you?”

  “Oh, don’t be so dramatic. They were just praying for you. Nothing wrong with that.”

  I ask him again. “Do you think I have demons?”

  “Apparently not anymore.” He’s amused with himself.

  I still haven’t taken a bite of the doughnut. Does he not notice? No one loves doughnuts more than I do.

  “This isn’t funny. She’s making it harder and harder for me to have any kind of normal life.” When he doesn’t say anything, I add, “And I have nightmares. I don’t sleep fine.”

  “Evan. Eat.”

  I start in on it and say with a mouthful, “I’m not the one being dramatic. She’s creating it. What happened was—is—”

  “Evan.” He looks right at me. “Let’s drop this. It’ll pass.”

  “It won’t.” Under my breath: “She always gets away with it.” I’m mad at my father right now. Disappointed. It’s easy to be angry with her, but I expect more from him.

  “Your friend asked about you a lot when you were at Bible camp.”

  That’s out of left field. “Henry?”

  “He came by the house. I was outside working on the car.”

  “He knows we’re not allowed phones or—”

  “He just wanted to see how you were. If we had heard from you.”

  “I’ll see him today.”

  He nods.

  “Your mother thinks—we think—that Bible camp was a good change this year.”

  “I could have gone camping with Henry and his family in Wisconsin again this year.”

  “Maybe next year.” He turns. “Linda, we’ll take a dozen assorted to go. Make sure there are six chocolate glazed, three crullers, and Evan will pick the rest.” My father takes out a big wad of cash from his front pocket and hands it to me. “Pay the lady. I’ll be outside.”

  “What’s with all the cash?”

  “I went to the bank yesterday. We’re not using credit cards right now. Emergencies only.”

  He goes out, lights a cigarette, and leans up against the car. It’s not autumn yet, though he’s dressed for it. He’s wearing a beige cable-knit turtleneck sweater and too-tight cords. It’s an outfit that he can pull off, but it embarrasses me. I’ve had female teachers tell me how good-looking my father is, in a very inappropriate way.

  “Here you go, Evan. I made the rest some of my favorites, if that’s okay with you.” Linda hands me the box of doughnuts. “How old are you, honey?”

  “Seventeen. I’ll be eighteen in October. I plan on getting a car soon.”

  Why did I say that? Linda doesn’t care about my transportation plans. The sugar is starting to take effect and I’m running all my words together.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asks with her big, broad smile. “You must. I bet she’s really pretty.”

  I turn bright red, hand her the money, and walk out.

  We’re pulling out of the parking lot when I say to my dad, “Why do you put up with her?”

  I regret the words even as they are coming out of my mouth. He never takes his eyes off the road.

  “You know she’s had a hard life. There’s a lot you don’t know. Your mother’s childhood back in Greece wasn’t easy.”

  My go-to move normally is to just nod my head and pretend to understand. But I don’t understand. How can someone who had a difficult life want to make their child’s life even harder?

  “That’s no reason to do what she does. I’m getting too big to beat, so now she punishes me with mind games and this prayer shit. I don’t understand it.”

  “Evan!” His eyes are still on the road.

  “I’m sorry.”

  I whisper, almost to myself, “Have you forgotten all the things she’s done over the years?” Have you forgotten my entire life?

  I can tell just by looking at his face that he hasn’t.

  I’m seven years old. Dad leaves the apartment at four a.m. for his firs
t gig. He works all day at the bakery. He’ll come home for a quick shower midafternoon, and then go off to the next job, as a restaurant line cook. Sometimes he doesn’t get home till ten p.m.

  Today when he came home between jobs, he found me in the corner of the living room. In a ball. Blood coming down my face from somewhere under my hair. It’s summer with a lot of midwestern humidity. We don’t have air-conditioning in the apartment, and the mixture of sweat and blood is such a weird, uncomfortable feeling. I’m too scared to get up and go anywhere else in the house.

  He calls to me but I don’t move. He walks over and places his hand on my head. He can feel the lumps. I know he can. At that moment, my mother walks into the living room from the bedroom. I hold my breath.

  It would be better if he hadn’t found me, because the fact that he has makes it into a “thing” with my mom. And once he leaves for his second shift, everything gets worse. He usually never says anything when this stuff happens. I want to believe that he secretly yells at her. But she’s usually the one yelling at him.

  Today is different.

  He lifts his hand off my head. My left eye must be swollen shut. I can’t see anything out of it. I turn slightly so I can see the action with my right eye. My shirt is drenched and sticking to my body. He walks toward her and grabs her upper left arm. I can tell the force of his grip on her bare skin by the way his fingers look—all red and white.

  They just look at each other. She starts to cry.

  Her crying no longer affects me. It stopped having an effect on me about a year ago.

  He pulls her into their bedroom and closes the door behind them but I can hear clearly. It’s a cheap apartment with even cheaper walls, windows, and doors.

  “Are you trying to kill him? Is that what you want?”

  I’ve never heard him speak this way to her.

  “Do you want me to come home to a dead child?” His voice is escalating. She’s sobbing.

  He continues. “I don’t know what to do here. I don’t know what to do. I can’t.”

  “He’s not a good person. I don’t want him. I want him gone.” I can tell she believes it. I’ve heard it so many times that I believe it.

  Am I bad?

  Is there something wrong with me?