I tell myself I belong to this view, this sky, this lake, these trees. I belong here with him.
thirty-eight
As I stand in my room, later that evening, it feels smaller than the last time I saw it. I used to like the way it felt like a cocoon, a shelter. But now, standing in the center of it, I feel too large for the space. I take out some loose paper from my top desk drawer and start a new sketch. It’s the lakefront. The way it felt this afternoon.
I hear the front door unlock. I look at my phone. It’s 9:07 p.m. I put the sketch away and walk out of my room.
“Are you ready for school tomorrow?” My dad is taking off his coat.
“I am.” But I’m not looking at him. I’m looking at my mother.
She takes off her coat and hangs it in the hall closet and motions to my father to hand his over. She takes it and hangs his up next to hers. She runs her hands over her dress to smooth every crease and walks into the kitchen. “Elias, do you want some coffee?” She is ignoring me.
“Yes.” My father looks at me and motions with his eyes for me to come sit with him in the dining room. I do.
My mother returns. She places one coffee mug on the table as well as the cream and sugar. Working as a waitress at my uncle’s restaurant all those years has given her the skills to carry multiple plates and cups all at once without breaking them. She disappears back into the kitchen and comes back with the other mug.
My dad says to me, “How was your time with the Boutouris family?”
But then my mother is back. “Yes, what did you tell Dr. Boutouris?”
“I’m sorry?”
She adds cream and sugar to hers and slowly stirs. She doesn’t take her eyes off the top of her coffee mug. “You know, you’re an interesting character.”
I stay silent.
“You can play the victim without even breaking a sweat. You plant seeds that grow into lies in order to sabotage us.” Finally she looks directly at me with the slightest smile. “You have disgraced us.”
My dad takes a sip of his coffee.
“Your father may be fooled or be soft to your evil, but I am not. I am right with the Lord and He gives me strength.” That last word is spoken so loudly that it even startles my dad. She returns to her singsong way of speaking. “You make people feel sorry for you. For you? If they knew the real you, they would beat you as well to rid you of your sin and your ugliness.”
A long time ago I stopped thinking that I could be surprised by the adults around me. My whole childhood was spent being a literal and emotional punching bag. After a while, if you’re lucky, you learn survival skills by going with the punch instead of against it. I’m not going to try to set the record straight because I was taught a long time ago what little to no use that is. But something in me is churning and burning, and one by one, I can feel all the emotions I’ve worked so hard to contain start to break free.
“You disgrace our family by telling strangers lies and then you go ahead and tell the whole school about your deviant seed inside you. You tell them?”
“Voula, no more.”
“We have no son. We. Have. No. Child.”
My right leg begins to shake.
My father looks back down at his coffee mug and clenches his jaw and then starts to speak. “I think we should all talk with the pastor. As a family.”
Everything is in slow motion. What’s odd is that, in this moment, right now, I feel nothing. Not sad, happy, mad, or anything. I am sitting there filled with peace when bam!
Her coffee mug slams into my face. All of a sudden the slow motion has sped up and now we’re in fast forward. Bam! Now my dad is restraining her. She’s screaming and trying to get away from him. He’s holding her back and I can’t hear or make out what she’s saying. Everything goes back to slow motion. And then there’s no sound.
She breaks away from his grip and lunges toward me, throwing me off the chair and onto the ground. I’m lying on my back as she straddles me and starts beating my chest and spitting in my face. My dad is trying to pull her off of me.
Then the silence breaks.
“I want you dead!”
He jumps up behind her again and tries to keep her down. She keeps screaming.
“I’d rather mourn a dead child than have you around.” She flings both arms and loosens her grip from him. She grabs a wooden tray from the table and raises it above her head, bringing it down right toward my chest. I raise my arms to block it and they take the blow.
“There’s a video. A. Video. Of you telling the whole world you’re a pousti! We are ruined. Humiliated. You killed us. You don’t even have the decency to tell us that happened. We have to find out from strangers.” She is thrashing and trying to escape my father’s grip.
“Voula. Voula! You have to stop.”
“I’ve always hated you since you came out of me. All I wanted was a good family.” Still being held by my father, she starts to weep. “I wanted a family that would take away my pain. My memories. A good place where everything is the way it should be.” She’s sobbing.
“Voula, this is a good family. I knew. I knew, do you hear me? I read some of the journals. I saw the video. I’ve known.”
Suddenly, my dad looks eight feet tall.
All at once, she goes limp. She’s still right above me. Looking right at me and now completely limp. He lets go of her hands. I’m lying on the floor totally still.
A moment passes. Her eyes light up again. Her hands turn to fists and now she begins to pummel him.
Maybe it’s the anger I’ve stored up all these years, or maybe it’s the sight of her beating someone else for a change. But it’s like something has finally snapped.
I grab my mother with enough force to shake her off my father. I run with her into the wall of the dining room and slam her body up against it. I’m pinning her against the wall and staring right into her eyes. The thing that has control of my body now creeps into my brain. I can feel my dad behind me. He tries to get me off her the way he was trying to get her off me. I hold her with one hand and fling him away with the other.
I want to say something, but I have a feeling this thing will be hijacking my voice as well. Maybe I am possessed after all.
“You can’t hurt him. Stop. Stop!”
It’s not my voice, but it is my voice.
I lift her away from the wall and shove her back into it again as a way to make a point. And there it is—she’s angry and furious and her eyes are full of sadness and hate. But there’s something else there. Fear.
I drop her, and all of a sudden it’s gone. The thing that took over has left just as quickly as it arrived, leaving me standing there.
Evan Panos.
Just me.
My voice is calm and steady. “I’m gay. Mom. Did you hear me?”
I stare at my mother on the floor crying. I get down to where she is. She looks right at me and spits in my direction. It lands on my face. I wipe it away as I say, “I’m not evil. I’m not ugly. I’m not perfect. I’m a good person. A really good person.” She continues to sob, and by this time I do as well. “I’m still that boy you came to pick up in Greece. Do you want me? The way I am?” I’m looking right at her.
“My God is disgusted with who you are.” She stops. Looks at me, and for a moment I see her eyes soften. Then she says, “I am too.”
My dad comes up behind me and swoops me up. He carries me to my room. Puts me in bed. Kisses my forehead and shuts my door.
“Evan. Evan.” My dad nudges me.
I look up at him. Where am I?
I look around. It’s my room.
“Wake up. It’s almost six a.m.”
I get up. I’m still in my clothes. My whole body aches. I grab my hat, slip on my shoes, and walk outside to the car. I’m going through the motions. It’s like I’m not even aware of what’s happening, it’s just happening out of habit. Routine. Everything’s back to being in slow motion. Once in the passenger seat, I flip down the visor and look at
my face in the mirror.
“I cleaned the cuts and put Band-Aids on the bad ones.”
“Thanks.” I look over and he’s not smoking. You’d think this would be a good time to light up. I go back to gazing at my head in the small mirror. The Band-Aids are small, so the cuts can’t be that big, but the bruise sure is. I can now feel my head, and it’s throbbing.
“You don’t have aspirin in here?” I rummage through the glove compartment.
“No.” My dad pulls the car over.
“What. Where are we—”
“I’m sorry.”
“Are we going to the . . .” I stop myself. I look at him. I’ve never seen my father cry. He’s not crying now. He doesn’t talk about feelings.
“She’ll get past this. I promise.” He’s looking straight ahead.
“Dad. Please.”
“I know her. She’s always so sorry afterward. It’s like something else takes over and she can’t help it.” He turns to me. “She loves you.”
“I can’t be loved like this anymore. It’s going to kill me.”
This is the closest I’ve seen him come to pleading with me. “I won’t let that happen.”
“Dad. You don’t stop her. Really stop her.”
“Listen. We’ll go get doughnuts. We’ll go for a drive. Give her time to relax and then we’ll make a plan. See the pastor. Pray. With God’s help we can do this.”
“Dad. I’m going to move out.” I can’t believe I just said that. But I realize it’s true. It’s what I’ve been waiting for since I turned eighteen.
He looks back in front of him and I half expect him to fight me on it. But after what seems like an eternity, he nods. Just like that.
I continue. “Going back isn’t—I don’t know how to fit myself back into that box. Back to that world anymore. I couldn’t do it even if I wanted to. I think I’ve . . .”
“I can help you move.” His hands are firmly on the steering wheel, yet they’re trembling. He takes a breath. “We can pack your things when I get back. There may be a place you can . . .” He stops and looks at me. He shakes his head. “Evan, my heart is beating so hard and fast it feels like I have two.”
I don’t know what to say so I put my hand on his shoulder. He starts to weep.
We pull into the Dunkin’. Once inside, my father waves at Linda and motions for me to sit down. He speaks with her for a minute alone. She looks my way and gives me a sweet smile. He sits down next to me and we have our usual order in silence. After we’re finished he drives me back home and waits for me to get in my car and drive away. He heads to work. I drive to the monastery.
I’m parked outside the gate, the metal box in the passenger seat next to me. I’m ripping out pages from the notebooks.
Flipping and ripping.
This page? No.
This? Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
No.
No.
Yes.
thirty-nine
I am in the school parking lot behind the wheel of my car when Jeremy knocks on the window. I jump about ten feet. I roll the window down and he goes, “Dude, whose car is this?”
I sigh. “Get in.”
He comes around to the passenger side, opens the door, throws his backpack into the backseat, and drops into the seat next to me. “When did you get this?”
“It doesn’t—”
“Panos, is your face—”
“Let’s not.”
“Who—”
I want to blow it off, but that’s not what I’m doing anymore. “My mother. I’m not accident prone.”
“Fuck. I don’t—”
“You don’t have to. Just sit here with me, okay? I’m waiting for Henry.”
“Oh.” He hangs his head a little. “He probably hates me.”
“Yep. Blame him?”
“No.”
We sit in silence before Jeremy says, “Can I go in with you guys?”
“It’s probably not going to be good.”
“I feel like an asshole.” He squints toward the school. “You know, I don’t totally get . . . what you and Henry are . . . but I know that what happened isn’t right. You shouldn’t get the shit beat out of you for who you are.”
I look at Jeremy. “I’m gay. Henry too. That’s it. Everything else is . . . well, it’s all the same. Really.” Jeremy nods.
We get out, and I think I can practically hear Jeremy breathing. He looks scared to death. His usually pink face is white. Paper white. Henry spots us and starts walking over.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
I say, “He wants to come in with us.”
Henry lifts my chin with his hand and starts to examine my face. I pull away. “Sorry. It’s a little tender.”
“Ev, this . . .”
“She can’t hurt me anymore. This was the last time.”
I look at Jeremy, who hasn’t moved at all, then back at Henry. “He knows he fucked up.”
Henry sighs. “It’s your call.”
“I guess I want him to come in with us too.”
Henry looks at Jeremy and slightly changes his tone. “As much as I want to punch your face right now, at least you’re not a complete asshole.”
I remember the first time I entered high school. The anticipation and anxiety of what this place would be was overwhelming. It looked so big and frightening that I was sure the best way to make it through would be to keep my head down and go unnoticed.
Okay, so that hasn’t exactly played out.
The three of us are walking up to the entrance and part of me feels the same anxiety I felt that first day as a freshman, but now there’s another feeling. One of belonging. I belong with these two people I’m walking with.
Once inside, we all look at one another, knowing that, at the very least, we’re going to have stories to share at the end of the day.
“Your F-squad growing?”
That didn’t take long. Tommy and his pals are wasting no time. I’m figuring the F in F-squad isn’t referring to fun.
Ali chimes in. “Jeremy? Really? I guess it figures.”
Before anyone can react, Principal Balderini appears and physically gets between them. He’s not a fast man, but he is large. Over six foot two and built like a defensive lineman.
“Nope. This isn’t going to happen.” He’s blocking them. “Everyone is going to class. Now.”
People start to disperse. Mr. Balderini says, “Tommy, Lonny, Scott, and Gabe. You stay close.” He then zeroes in on me. He continues, “Everyone to class. We’re all on high alert. No shenanigans.” He stares right at Tommy with that one. “Mr. Panos, my office, please.” He turns to Tommy and the others. “You all will wait outside my office. I’ll be with you next.”
This is the second time in my whole high school tenure that I’ve been to the principal’s office. I sit across from Principal Balderini, waiting for some sort of lecture.
“Take a seat.” He drops into his chair. “You’re back now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How was your week? Thanksgiving?”
“Fine.”
“I had a conversation with Henry’s parents. I’ve watched the video. Spoken with the others involved after viewing the video.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Kimball wanted to make a few things clear.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Panos?”
“Yes, sir?”
“You didn’t start it. I’m sorry.” He shakes his head.
“I blacked out for some of it.”
“It looks that way. The students involved will be dealt with. The video is with the police and they will need a statement from you.”
He clears his throat. Stares down at his desk. When he looks up again, I can see the frustration and sadness, and for the first time I think, What a hard job this must be.
His voice is firm but soft as he says, “You can always speak to me. I want you to know that you will always h
ave a safe place here. I’ll make sure of that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’m sorry if I or anyone else here at this school has made you feel misunderstood or unsafe.”
“Thank you.” As much as I appreciate what’s happening here, the guy can’t even begin to comprehend the half of it.
I’m barely halfway down the hall before Tess Burgeon and two of her volleyball teammates pop up next to me.
“Hi, Evan.” Tess seems to have more pep than usual. “Good holiday?”
“Sure. Yours?”
“Probably not as good as yours. Nice face, by the way.” This from Leesha Johnson.
We’re at my locker now and I turn around to look at all three of them. I’ve never had any kind of real, lasting experience with any of these girls. The only reason I’ve ever spoken to Tess was because I was hoping to help Jeremy, before . . . well, before everything.
“So—I feel a little better knowing that it had nothing to do with me when your boyfriend wasn’t interested.” I think that Tess is gloating. “He wouldn’t have been interested in any girl.”
I roll my eyes and turn to my locker. I can hear them walking away.
All but one.
“Come on, Kris!” Tess yells.
I turn around and see Kris just looking at me. She half smiles. “Good to have you back, Evan.”
I smile back.
forty
Everybody says this, but this Christmas really did come out of nowhere. In the last few weeks here’s what happened:
I lost my job at the deli, due to business slowing down.
I got that internship at the art gallery. My new small studio apartment is two towns over and allows for uninterrupted work on drawings. I even taped back together the drawings my mother had torn and stacked on my bed. I brought them back to life like Frankenstein’s Monster and turned them in to Mr. Q.
And lastly, I now work at the Dunkin’. My shifts are all over the place and some of them are with Linda. Also, it turns out, I’m not sick of doughnuts. Yet.
The Dangerous Art of Blending In Page 20