Cher fake fainted against the tree, the back of her hand against her forehead and her long legs twisted in front of her. “It can’t be true. I, Cherilyn “Cher” Sarkisian Wagnowsky, am going to actually meet, the one and only, Alex Night.” She sat up suddenly, eyes wide with excitement. “As soon as you walked into class today and that ridiculous Pat ‘keeping up with the Joneses’ Jones made fun of you, I knew we were destined to be friends.”
She reached over and kissed my cheek.
“So what’s the rest of your story?” she asked, just as the bell ending lunch rang and a teacher walked out onto the courtyard. Cher quickly put out her cigarette and stood up, grabbing her backpack. “I guess I’ll have to find out later.” She pulled a black Sharpie from her pocket, uncapping it with her teeth and snatched my hand, writing down a phone number. “Text me later. I have early release after 6th period because I go to work, but we should definitely talk tonight!”
We walked inside together as she continued to talk on and on about Uncle Alex. Once we reached the crossway halls leading to the cafeteria, she hugged me goodbye and ran off in the other direction. I watched her long legs awkwardly pump down the hallway and wished I could be so confident and unafraid. I realized I hadn’t told her much about myself at all, but instead, had hid behind the spotlight of Uncle Alex, the same way I had with Sam.
Walking to my class, I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and programmed her number into my contacts. I noticed she was the only “C” name in my contact list, making me feel less excited about the fact that I had actually made a friend.
The rest of the day went by pretty quickly and before I knew it, my watch read 3:10. It was finally time to go home.
The school’s closing bell rang and I swam my way through the torrent of other students until I arrived at my locker. I was trying to sort my books between ones I needed for homework and ones that could stay behind when a familiar ripple of laughter broke out behind me. Turning around, I found I was encircled by Pat Jones and a group of guys I had never seen before.
“How’re you doing, babe?” Pat asked, followed by laughter from his friends.
I fought the urge to slam my locker and run, but I knew if I tried, my head would be used to leave a permanent mark in the metal door. Sometimes it was easier to stay and suffer for the short term than to have a permanent scar reminding you of the past.
“Not feeling so strong now that your freaky girlfriend is gone?” Pat grabbed the back of my neck with his thick, muscular fingers. “So I was thinking. You’re a fag and maybe I’m a fag too. Maybe you could come over to my house tonight and we’ll have a date.” He smiled as his friends started laughing again. “I don’t cook, but I’m sure we could figure something out.”
His name echoed down the hallway, called out by a faraway female. “Yeah Janice, I’m coming,” he screamed before turning back around. “Well, maybe not tonight, but how about a rain check?” They walked away, slapping each other’s backs as they stretched the width of the hallway.
I had endured the same kind of torment for years and had never told Sam for the simple fact that I didn’t want him to step in and take care of it. That would have only made it worse. I had learned over time to just take it and shut my mouth. Eventually, the Pat’s of the world forgot about you and moved on to someone else. The worst part was that deep down inside, you knew that there was a truth to everything they said. And even if that truth wasn’t bad or good, they still owned part of it. They owned a piece of you.
Feeling safe, I turned around, closed my locker, slung my backpack over my shoulder and walked towards the front door. Since my dad was perpetually late for everything, I knew I still had a good ten minutes or so before he would show up. I walked to the brick wall in front of the school where mom had dropped me off and leaned up against it, the heat from the brick bleeding through my shirt.
To my left, I saw a guy walk up and lean against the wall about ten feet away. He had a dark tan and looked Latino. Thick black hair, twisted in a hundred different directions, flopped around on top of his head. Pouty lips mouthed the words to whatever song he was listening to from under his giant headphones. Underneath the cuffs of his khaki shorts, curly dark hair reflected in the sunlight on his muscular legs over calf length, black socks and black Vans. Black Ray Ban Wayfarers shaded his eyes, but somehow I could tell he was looking at me. He was beautiful.
For the longest time we stood there in silence, watching each other out of the corners of our eyes. Just as I thought I saw Dad’s car turn into the school parking lot, the guy turned to me, taking off his headphones.
“Cool hair,” he smiled, taking off his sunglasses and exposing the brownest eyes I had ever seen.
“You…you too,” I stammered, shyly.
He laughed, walking closer to me. He reached into his pocket and took out a pack of Black Jack gum, handing me a piece. I took the gum out of the wrapper and slowly started chewing it, letting the licorice taste fill my mouth. I carefully folded the wrapper and placed it in my pocket.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Danny”
“Nice to meet you, Danny. I’m Rusty,” he said. “Actually, my name is Jose Luis, but everyone calls me Rusty.”
For what felt like the longest time, he just stood there looking at me. Dad’s Porsche Convertible finally made its way into the parking lot and came to a halt right in front of us.
“Maybe I’ll see you tomorrow, Danny,” he smirked, putting on his sunglasses. “And tell your dad that’s a sweet ride.” With a smile, he walked over to an old, light blue mini-van pulling in behind my dad. Through the windows, I could see a woman with tanned skin and shoulder length hair in the driver’s seat and a bunch of little kids in the back. I watched as he climbed in the passenger seat, turned around and smiled at me again, and they drove off.
“Is that a new friend?” Dad inquired, as I slipped into his sports car. It still smelled like Jenny’s perfume, instantly making me angry that he had probably been late because they had been together.
“I don’t know.”
“Well maybe you could invite him over some weekend to swim or have a barbecue or something.”
I didn’t know what to say. How could I explain to my dad that I had just met the first guy who had ever given me what everyone else had always called butterflies? Instead of trying, I just sat back and chewed on that delicious gum, smiling to myself for the first time in a very long time.
Chapter Four
When Sam and I were kids, we stayed with our Grandma Jean the last weekend of every month so our parents could go on a ‘date’ weekend out of town. Grandma Jean’s apartment smelled like stale cigarette smoke, coffee, and Charlie perfume. Our meals consisted of turkey sandwiches with Miracle Whip, homemade apple pie, Rice Krispies treats, and Cokes in those little glass bottles. She let us stay up late, all three of us snuggled together in her big king bed with old and smooth percale sheets while we watched her favorite Alfred Hitchcock movies. What I liked the most was that she had this whole cabinet filled with the coolest snow globes I had ever seen. Grandma Jean must have had over 100, most of which she had collected while vacationing around the world on her senior trips.
On those weekends, she would let both Sam and I pick out a snow globe to play with for the whole weekend. She had often told us to be very careful because breaking a snow globe was considered to be bad luck for the person who had let it fall from their hands. We would point to our globe of choice and Grandma would pull it down from the cabinet. Sam would always pick a different globe, whereas I always picked the same one. It was smaller than the rest and showed a little family standing in front of their house with a dog and a cat. Instead of glitter or snow, small, white clouds floated around in the globed water. During those weekends, I was very, very careful with my little family, carrying them around with me everywhere I went.
One Saturday afternoon, while Grandma was busy watching a Heroes marathon on TV, Sam and I played with our sn
ow globes in the bathroom. We carefully washed them under the sink to make them shine, taking extra care to be gentle. While I was delicately drying mine, Grandma suddenly opened the door to check on us, slightly knocking into me. We both watched in horror as the fragile object fell to our feet, shattering into hundreds of little pieces. I began crying, watching my family struggling for life outside of their artificial world, while Grandma Jean told us to stand still so we didn’t cut our feet. Sam held my hand, telling me over and over again that it would be OK.
After cleaning up the glass, we followed Grandma into the kitchen. She rummaged through the cabinets until she found what she was looking for; an old jelly jar. “We’ll fix it up. Don’t worry about it kiddo,” she told me, smiling down at me while I carefully held the family in my hands like a flopping goldfish. Unscrewing the lid from the jar, she handed it to me for safe keeping. “Now we’ll just find the family a new home,” she said, placing the people from the broken globe into the jar. Grandma scooped up the clouds from the kitchen counter and threw them in on top. With Sam and I close at her heals, we watched as she filled the jar up with water. Grandma let me screw on the lid to their new home. “See. Good as new, buddy!”
Only it wasn’t good as new. It was crap and we all knew it. Everything floated to the top and my family was stuck together with the clouds and pets in one big clump. I don’t really remember what happened after that, but I do know that we never played with any more snow globes. Grandma Jean said we could, but we never wanted to after that weekend. Something had changed. The magic was gone.
A few years later, after Grandma Jean died, we helped our mom clean out her apartment. We found the makeshift globe, on the top shelf, in a prized spot between China and San Francisco. I hated that globe. I took it down from the cabinet and threw it in the trash.
Sometimes I wish I had kept it as a reminder of her warning. Looking back, I should have known that just like that poor, little family, stuck inside their idyllic world that mine too would come crashing to an end one day.
Those were the kinds of stories I wished I could tell to my counselor Neil, but instead, I just sat there, thinking about all of it while I looked around his office, listening to the voices of the people outside and the clicking of his pen.
“Do you want to talk about Sam today?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Don’t you think it would help to talk about him? We could talk about all of the good things you remember,” he offered.
Since Sam had died, everyone always encouraged me to talk about the good things. I don’t think they understood how hard that was. Any time I remembered the good things, it brought back the reminder that he was gone and so were those good things. Death is strange like that. You can’t really experience any new good things, because you’re constantly reminded of how you can’t share it with that person.
I thought about Rusty and how I would love to talk to Sam about him.
“Danny, we can sit here, week after week, in total silence, but I don’t think it’s helping us get anywhere. Why don’t you let me help you?” he delicately pleaded with a genuine concern in his voice.
I knew Neil really cared about me, I just didn’t understand why. Other than the $100 an hour my parents were paying him to talk to me, what was his investment?
I stared at him and thought maybe I should give him a shot. “Why do you think I need help?”
He stopped clicking his pen for a moment and took a deep breath while he ran his fingers through his thick dark grey hair. I don’t think he expected me to actually speak. He exhaled deeply. “I’m not sure you do, but I think everyone probably needs help with something, don’t you agree?”
More questions.
“What if I asked you about things I need help with instead of you telling me what you think I need help with?” I asked.
“I think that’s a great idea,” he replied.
In my head I could see Sam smiling, encouraging me to actually open up to someone and let them help me. If I had asked him what I needed help with, he would have given me a laundry list of issues: talking to people, confidence, making friends, being OK with being gay, finding a boyfriend, dealing with our parent’s divorce, being lonely, missing Sam. And I realized if he could list these things, then I must know them to be true too.
“Ok,” I said. “Let’s say if you meet someone and you really like them, but you don’t know if they like you or not. How do you know if they like you? I mean, how do you know if they just want to be your friend or if they want to be something more?”
Neil looked at me as if he wasn’t expecting this question either. “Does this someone have a name?”
“No. Like, just hypothetically,” I responded, not wanting to get too personal.
“Well, I guess you could just come out and ask that person if they like you, but for most of us that’s pretty scary. The same goes for telling them that you like them.”
I imagined Neil at home with his girlfriend or wife, the both of them telling each other how much they liked each other.
“But isn’t there a way to tell, without actually asking them,” I asked.
“Danny, do you think you might like to talk about your sexuality?” he said, just as the buzzer on the old fashioned, alarm clock on his table started buzzing. “Well, I guess we’ll have to pick up there next time.”
I went through the routine of handing him the check Dad had given me for the session fee and he walked me to the door. The same girl I had seen earlier at school who had been crying and writing in her notebook was sitting in the waiting area. I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. Sometimes pain likes to be alone.
“See you next week Danny,” Neil reminded me, before closing the door.
I walked down the stairs and found Dad parked right in front of the building.
“How’d it go, buddy?”
“Why is it that I have to go see a counselor when you and Mom are the ones who need the help?” I asked.
“Whoa,” Dad said. “Must have been a bad session.”
“Yeah, I’m not going back. It’s a waste of time.” I could feel myself getting angrier as I suddenly realized the actual reason I had been sent to counseling. “Did you and Mom tell Neil that I’m gay?”
Dad was silent for a moment and then looked over at me, turning off the car. “You know, we haven’t actually talked about it since that day Danny, so your mom and I just thought it might…”
“What? That it might be good for me to go see some guy who has no clue about gay teenagers and just wants me to spill my guts out so I can be humiliated?”
Dad started laughing and it angered me more.
“Is this funny to you?” I cried out, hitting the side of the door so hard it hurt my hand. “Just take me to Mom’s. I don’t want to be around you right now.”
“I’m not really sure when you learned that it was OK to talk to me that way, but I’ll take you to your mom’s if that’s what you want Danny,” he said, starting the car again.
We were silent the rest of the ride home. The truth was that my dad was pretty cool, besides having an affair on Mom with his personal trainer part. He had been Mom’s nerdy, punk band counterpart and they had been just friends until after high school, when at a party, they got drunk and realized they had been in love the previous four years but never knew it. They quickly eloped before Dad left for the University of Michigan, returning home for medical school, with Mom, four years later.
Dad became a plastic surgeon and he and Mom had Sam and I and life went on. They bought a bigger house and nicer cars and before long, the punk duo had sold out, living in the actual suburban wasteland that Uncle Alex had so eloquently referred to in his book.
Dad still played bass and had an incredible jukebox with first edition vinyl records. When he wasn’t operating, he wore black jeans and concert t-shirts. He had a handlebar mustache and a faux hawk long before the hipsters thought it was cool and he brewed his coffee every morning in
a percolator.
None of that changed the fact that I was really pissed off at both he and Mom. They were incredibly cool but complete assholes. Parents always thought if they could get on your level then that allowed them secret passage into your world when in reality, they were just manipulating you the whole time. But I could play that game too.
Chapter Five
Dad called Mom before we arrived to the house to let her know what was going on. I could hear her on the other end of the phone asking a bunch of questions, but I tuned out their conversation.
We pulled up to Mom’s house and found her in the driveway smoking a cigarette. She smoked from the time she was a teenager until she found out she was pregnant, never smoking again until the day Sam died. Since then, it was like she had never quite in the first place. I grabbed my backpack from the backseat, slamming the car door which made my dad cringe, and walked right past her without saying a word. Upstairs in my bedroom, I sat on my bed in the dark and listened to them talking in the driveway.
“I don’t know what happened. He just got really upset because we told Neil that he’s gay,” I heard Dad say.
“Maybe we shouldn’t have Rick. Maybe we should’ve let him tell Neil himself. I guess I do understand his feeling betrayed.”
For a few seconds, neither one of them spoke.
“Can I have one?” The next thing I heard was the sound of a lighter. “I miss smoking.”
“Me too, that’s why I started again,” I heard mom say as her voice trembled, slightly choked up as she started to cry. “Rick, what are we going to do?”
“He’s going to be OK, Alice. It’s just going to take some time.”
“I’m not just talking about him. I’m talking about us. You and I. Danny. Sam. Hell, even Griffin,” Mom whispered. I could hardly hear her now.
Moving closer to the window, I looked down at them standing only thirty feet below me. They were so close, yet the distance felt profound, like I was in a movie theater watching a film about my life.
The Before Now and After Then Page 3