Borrowed Boy

by Gene Gant

  Yeah.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THE NEXT day started off kind of bad.

  In Memphis I usually slumped my way to the breakfast table in my underwear, yawning and scratching my butt. But I wasn’t comfortable doing that around strangers (i.e. the Copelands), so I slumped my way into the kitchen with a robe over my undies and my hands shoved politely in the pockets.

  Guess who did show up at the kitchen table scratching inappropriately through his Playboy bunny boxers?

  Chicago Mom took one look at him and shook her head. “For heaven’s sake, BJ. Spare us.”

  BJ parked himself in his usual chair at the table. “What’s for breakfast?”

  “You can have whatever’s on the menu,” Chicago Dad replied. He and Chicago Mom, I was surprised to notice, were both spiffed up. CD was wearing sandals, khakis, and a polka-dotted short-sleeved button-down shirt, and CM was wearing a long blue linen skirt, a white blouse, and sandals, with her face all made up nice and pretty. “Your mom and I decided we’re going to have a family outing today. We’re starting with breakfast at the Broken Egg.”

  BJ yawned hard, mouth gaping like a lion’s. “I can do breakfast at the Broken Egg. But after that, I’m out.”

  “What do you mean, you’re out?” Chicago Mom asked.

  “I already made plans with my friends.”

  Chicago Mom didn’t even blink. “Call your friends and tell them you can’t make it today.”

  BJ gawked at her as if she’d told him to stick his head in a hot oven. “I’m not doing that. I told my friends I’d drive. They’re counting on me.”

  Chicago Dad stepped forward, chest puffed out and eyes squinted. The man meant business. “That’s not our problem, BJ. Your mom and I told you to keep your schedule clear for two weeks after Dwayne got home. You knew we’d be planning family activities during that time.”

  “And I said I’d do breakfast with the family,” BJ spat, dripping so much sarcasm when he said “family” that I felt like I’d had a ton of mud dropped on me. “The rest of the day is mine.”

  Chicago Mom sighed in a deep, enough-of-this way. “BJ, this isn’t a discussion or a negotiation. It’s not our fault if you forgot what we agreed to for these two weeks. Today we’re going to the Navy Pier as a family, and you will be joining us. After that, you’re free to do whatever you like for the rest of the day. Now go get showered and dressed. I want you ready to go in thirty minutes.”

  BJ just sat there, staring, with this look of total disbelief on his face.

  “You heard your mother.” Chicago Dad impatiently jabbed a finger in the direction of the bedrooms. “Go.”

  BJ slowly shifted his fuming eyes to yours truly. It took everything in me to stop myself from ducking for cover behind Chicago Mom. Still in no hurry, BJ got up from the table and headed out of the kitchen.

  “You should get dressed too, Dwayne,” Chicago Dad said.

  “Okay, Dad.”

  I waited until I heard the bang of BJ’s door slamming shut before making my way down the hall to my room.

  ALL CITIES probably have touristy areas that people who live there don’t even think of going to unless they’re hosting out-of-town guests. I lived in Memphis for thirteen years and never visited Graceland. The only time I even came close to the place was one summer when I was eleven and Cole’s dad drove us down Elvis Presley Boulevard on the way to a soccer tournament in Southaven, right past those big iron gates and the groups of foreign Presley fans cheesing it up and taking selfies in front of the graffiti-marked stone walls.

  The Navy Pier seemed like one of those tourist-only areas of interest. That was my immediate impression when I laid eyes on it, and I couldn’t figure why longtime Chicago residents like the Copelands would want to go there. But then I remembered they had an out-of-town guest they wanted to hang on to, so it was obviously just for my benefit that we went.

  Hugging a section of the Lake Michigan shoreline, the Navy Pier spread out over dozens of acres and featured a hodgepodge of attractions—a Ferris wheel, a carousel, an IMAX and a Shakespeare theater, a funhouse-type maze, cruise boats, restaurants, and a children’s museum. The Broken Egg was an eatery on board a pretty impressive ship. The ship took us on a nice ride over the choppy waters of the lake. I have to admit, it was great eating waffles on a deck under a cloudless blue sky with the Chicago skyline in the background, breathing in the warm, salty sea air. And yeah, I know Lake Michigan is neither salty nor a sea, but “salty sea air” sounds cool, and I’m working hard on my cool these days.

  Chicago Mom and Dad were all smiles, but BJ just sat slumped in his chair, occasionally shoving bits of french toast in his mouth, gazing at the lake’s distant horizon like a prisoner staring through metal bars. Chicago Mom made him give up his cell phone when she caught him holding it in his lap, sneak-texting one of his friends. He looked so miserable even I felt sorry for him.

  When the ship docked again and we were back on the pier, the four of us stood close together as the other passengers streamed around us in their shades and short pants and Cubs baseball caps and Windy City T-shirts. “What would you boys like to do now?” Chicago Dad asked in this way-too-eager voice.

  “Go home,” BJ mumbled. He closed his eyes and let his head fall back, holding his face to the sky. Maybe he was praying for God to get him out of this.

  Chicago Mom ignored him. She turned suddenly, looking behind her. “I love that music….”

  I focused, tuning in to what she was hearing. The music was kind of old-timey, like from the ’90s, with a smooth, steady beat that was neither fast nor slow. After a few seconds, I recognized the song, something my dad in Memphis used to stream in his car, a piece the old-school rapper Tupac had done, “So Many Tears,” but without the crazy sad lyrics. Taking out the vocals left some sweet notes that were actually sort of feel-good. Or maybe it was the big burst of happiness from my Chicago mom that had me suddenly feeling good. Before I could even think about trying to pinpoint the source of the music, Chicago Mom took off, walking like she had a purpose, and the rest of us followed, hurrying so we wouldn’t lose her in the crowd.

  She led us to a big arcade where she had to swipe a credit card to get us in. Inside it was like one big dance video game, dark and cavernous, lit up with bursts and swirls of color with about a hundred people moving across a vast floor surrounded on all sides by giant screen TVs. The people on the floor were moving in sync, like in a line dance, following the moves of the two on-screen dancers.

  CD and CM looked into each other’s faces, and just like that I could picture them as young adults, free of the burdens of stressful jobs and stressful kids, full of love and dreams. In a corner at the edge of the dance floor, they lifted arms around each other and did a twirl before slipping easily into the crowd and falling in step, side by side, with the other dancers.

  The really amazing thing about the crowd was that it was so diverse. Most of the dancers were black, but there were a lot of whites, Latinos, and Asians mixed in. They were all ages, from tweens to people who looked like they were in their seventies. And they all appeared to be having the best time of their lives.

  I was geeking out at the way some of the older men and women added crazy-cool flourishes to the basic steps, taking the dance to a higher level all their own. Bouncing and rocking to the beat, I felt this wonderful energy flowing through my body that made me feel as if I could just float away. Chicago Mom and Dad turned, laughing, waving for BJ and me to come on in.

  BJ stood back, hands in his pockets, watching. It was all so good, and I couldn’t resist. “I’m going in,” I said to him, and then, clapping to the beat, I marched onto the dance floor, slipping into the space CM and CD opened between them for me. Things were a little clumsy at first as I tried to match the steps of the others. But then I got the group rhythm, and I flowed along as smooth as everybody else.

  Chicago Mom and Dad turned, waved, called out, “Come on, BJ! Come on!” I looked over my shoul
der. BJ was still on the sidelines, his hands in his pockets. He shook his head to our parents’ invitations, but he was smiling, and he was shifting side to side with the music. Even without him being on the floor, it was like he was moving right along with us, a part of us.

  Every family ought to dance together sometime.

  “SO, HOW was your day?” Brendan asked as he led me across his living room. He laughed. “Shit. Do I sound like your mom or something, asking that?”

  “No, it’s cool.” I liked that he was actually interested enough to ask. “My day was great, which is the surprise of the century, right?” I went on to tell him about the amazing time I had with my Chicago parents, about the way BJ didn’t slap, kick, jab, or throttle me even once, and how we came home after leaving the Navy Pier and ate lunch together. My Chicago parents were in such a great mood, they seemed almost eager to send BJ and me off after lunch to enjoy our own individual things.

  “Hey, that’s great, Dwayne,” Brendan said. “I’m glad you had such a good time.” We were sitting on the sofa. He grabbed his controller and started opening a video game for us to play. “I saw you at the pool today.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” I’d gone up to the pool after lunch because I couldn’t drop in on Brendan until five and I had nothing else to do until then. “I don’t remember seeing you up there.”

  “I was cleaning out the storage room where the association keeps the pool supplies.” He was focused on the screen as he pulled up the game, cool as ever when he said, “Why didn’t you say anything to those two kids you were watching?”

  That caught me completely by surprise. There were these two kids at the pool, a white boy and girl around my age. I didn’t get any vibe that they were boyfriend and girlfriend, so I figured they were cousins or maybe just good friends. They spent most of the hour they were at the pool sitting on the deck with their feet dangling in the water, dressed in bathing suits but never actually swimming. Maybe they just wanted to soak up some sun. Seated side by side, they talked to each other between long sessions of texting on their phones. They seemed nice enough, looking like they’d dropped straight out of some Disney TV show, and I really wanted to go over and make contact with them.

  But I didn’t. Sitting on a lounger in my T-shirt and swim trunks, I never worked up the nerve. Close enough to hear their sporadic conversation, I could tell they were northerners from their accents. I kept picturing what would happen once they were exposed to my “backwoods” voice and ways, certain their reactions would basically mirror those of BJ and his two friends. I was too embarrassed to explain any of that to Brendan, and I responded to his question with, “I just didn’t feel like talking to anybody.”

  “Well, that’s strange, because it sure looked to me like you wanted to hang out with them.” Brendan shrugged. “Does this have anything to do with you being afraid of coming off as some kind of hillbilly?”

  Not wanting to lie, I didn’t answer that one at all.

  “Okay,” Brendan said casually. “I can tell this isn’t something you’re ready to talk about. But I know what’s it’s like to feel out of place, Dwayne. If you ever do want to talk, I’m always willing to listen. Let’s move on. Say cheese.” He abruptly lifted his cell phone and aimed the camera lens at me.

  Totally confused, I went, “What?” And then I got all buttered up inside. “Oh. You want a picture of me.”

  “Yeah. We both need pictures of ourselves for this game.”

  I felt a little less flattered after he said that but still smiled as he snapped a pic of me. Then he turned the phone around for a selfie. “Okay, now I just have to upload these beauties….” He plugged his phone into the game console and transferred the pics he’d just shot.

  “What kinda game needs pictures of the players?” I asked, my curiosity spiking.

  “It’s a new one my dad turned me on to, called The Mirror Mage. The computer takes the players’ pictures and hides them in this constantly shifting maze of mirrors that belongs to the Mirror Mage. Starting out, each player is faceless and has to find and open the mirror where his face has been hidden… but he has to do it before the Mirror Mage finds it. You pick up points for knocking the Mirror Mage and other players off course. The faster you find and claim your face and work your way back out of the maze, the more points you rack up. If you find another player’s face before you find your own, you can trade it to any other player or to the Mirror Mage for points. If another player finds your face and trades it to the Mirror Mage, or if the Mirror Mage finds your face before you do, you lose your soul and get erased from the game. And—”

  I held up a hand, motioning for him to stop. “Okay, my brain is spinning like crazy from all that, but I’m really stoked for this game.”

  “Well, I gave you the basics, and that’s enough to get you started. You’ll pick up the rest of the rules and details as we play.” He tossed the other controller to me. “Let’s go.”

  I usually picked up on video games pretty fast, and this one was no different. Brendan and I played three sessions that afternoon, and even though I caught on to the game’s ins and outs quick as anything, in every session I lost my soul to the Mirror Mage.

  “WELL, I hate to cut things short, Dwayne,” Brendan said, “but I need to get in a workout today, and right about now the gym’s usually not that crowded.”

  We had moved on from The Mirror Mage to a session of Grand Theft Auto, and I was having a blast because I was finally kicking Brendan’s ass at something. As he shut down the game console and flicked off the television, I slowly tucked my controller away on the shelf below the TV.

  Brendan looked at me. My face must have been as hang-dog as I felt inside. Brendan smiled and said, “Hey, guy, you’re welcome to do a come-with. As a resident, you have an automatic gym membership. We can be workout buddies.”

  I felt my eyes light up. “Cool.” Brendan was wearing jeans and a Cubs jersey, but I still had on my T-shirt and trunks from my visit to the pool, so I was good to go.

  “Okay. Give me a sec to change into my workout stuff.” He disappeared down the hall.

  Practically the instant he crossed through the hallway door, I started snooping around the living room. In turn I picked up each picture of his dad posed separately with the three women I’d spotted on my last visit. Closer study showed that one of the women was older, closer in age to Brendan’s father, an African American whose skin tone was about as light as my own. The woman in the second photo had dark skin like Brendan’s and looked way younger than the woman in the first photo. The woman in the third photo was actually a girl, a very tall and gawkily skinny one who, judging by her round baby face and mostly flat chest, couldn’t have been any older than thirteen. Both the woman in the second photo and the girl had faces that closely resembled Brendan’s.

  I started wondering again who the women and the girl were. The girl and the second woman had to be directly related to Brendan in some way, like maybe a cousin and an aunt or something along those lines. I might’ve pulled the photos from their frames to see if there was any identifying info on the back of them, but then I heard Brendan’s footsteps coming up the hall. I quickly put the pictures back in their places.

  “I’m all set,” he announced as he walked into the living room again. He was sporting a black T-shirt and a pair of loose gray sweatpants that he’d cut off at the knees. He had strong legs, like soccer-player legs. His key ring was looped around his index finger, and he idly twirled it as he started toward the front door. The key ring whipped off his finger unexpectedly, plopping down on the floor right in front of me.

  I stepped forward to pick up the keys, but Brendan stopped me with, “Thanks, Dwayne, but I’ve got it.” He bent down. His T-shirt rode up and the sweatpants sagged down a bit. That exposed a section of his smooth brown skin, with two dimples in his tight lower back winking up at me from right above the waistband of his white boxers.

  Something electric raced through my insides.

  “Sorry,
Brendan, but I gotta go.” My voice was loud, just this side of a scream, the words tumbling all over themselves in a rush. It was a good thing I was already racing for the door when I said them.

  Brendan straightened up, keys in hand, and looked at me in total confusion. “Say what?”

  “Gotta go,” I spouted over my shoulder, ripping the door open. “Just remembered. Can’t stay. Really gotta go, gotta go. Have to work out with you another time. Bye!”

  I don’t know if Brendan tried to ask another question after that. In one stupid, stumbling sweep, I was out of his condo and yanking the door shut behind me. I ran down the hall. By the time I got through the door into the stairwell, the tingle between my legs reached full intensity, and the front of my swim trunks got major tented.

  “Oh jeez,” I groaned, nearly as afraid as I was the day an FBI agent showed up at my Memphis home and revealed that my whole life had been a lie.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I WOKE up lying on my back, my head hanging over the edge of the mattress. My mouth and throat were dry as cotton. And I had an erection.

  I’d woken up with an erection every morning since I got that glimpse of Brendan’s bare lower back.

  Jeez.

  Sometimes I felt like a complete stranger to myself. Sometimes I thought I was actually going crazy.

  Morning sunlight glowed cheerfully around the window blinds. Yeah, the start of another wonderful day in Chicago. Yay.

  I rolled slowly out of bed, zombie-walked into the bathroom, and slurped down water from the faucet to take care of my cotton mouth. Then I lifted the toilet seat and pulled down the front of my underpants.

  A couple of days ago, after I’d run out of Brendan’s condo to keep him from seeing me get hard, I started a list on a little notepad Chicago Mom had given me to write down things I wanted when she made her weekly run to the supermarket. The list had a title: Things I Learned about Me.