Taking Lead

by Dallas Redford

  The pot on the stove makes her laugh. “Were you going to cook something, honey?”

  “I was going to try and make some food. Mixed vegetables with something.”

  She taps me on the wrist. “If you’re hungry I’ll make something.”

  “I was making it for you,” I say.

  At the same time, Davis speaks up, “No you won’t. You sit down, Steph. I can stir up something before I head out.”

  My mom spots her flowers on the kitchen table and picks them up. She smiles at me. She puts her face right in them, inhaling deeply.

  “Can you drink a beer, too?” Dad says to Davis. “Why don’t I fire up the grill and we can get a little feast going since Chris is here, too. That’s if you’ve got time.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Don’t worry about me.”

  “Fire up the grill,” my mom says.

  In the living room, she takes a seat. I tell myself not to fuss over her. I know it’ll only annoy her. But, being out of the loop makes me feel overprotective.

  It’s all so weird. Being back. My mom being sick and weak. I know she’s recovering but she doesn’t seem invincible like she normally does. And then there’s the fact that Davis is there. And he’s hanging out with my father and acting like it wasn’t just a couple of days ago that we weren’t doing things that are still illegal in some states. I guess I should be happy that their friendship is in decent shape.

  I pick up the remote and pop on the TV while my mother checks her messages. I try to focus on the images on the screen, but my mind is racing a hundred miles per second. I’m thinking about my mom, money and my apartment back in Chicago, the Basketball Boys Club. And Davis. Thing will never be how I want them to be between us. I know that. Now, I’m realizing something even worse, things won’t even go back to normal. Not like they were when he was just my dad’s friend. I keep seeing that fleeting look of surprise on his face before I came down the stairs.

  It was fast, but as I replay it in my mind, I realize it for what it really was: fear.

  When I feel eyes on me, I look over and catch my mother staring at me. She’s put down her phone and she’s wearing a melancholy smile. “What?” I say.

  “I just miss my baby is all. How’s the city treating you?”

  “It’s fine,” I say.

  I refuse to burden her. Even if I could talk to her about Davis.

  “No news? Nothing going on?”

  “No.”

  “How’s the Basketball Club?”

  I don’t have the heart to tell her I won’t be working there when I get back. “It’s okay. Just got a big grant so there’s shuffling going on.”

  “Any luck of you getting hired on and getting a salary instead of just a stipend?”

  “I don’t need a salary. I do it because I love basketball. I’m good at teaching it. The boys inspire me.”

  My dad pokes his head in. “Baby, chicken or steak?”

  My mom twists her lips. “My stomach still feels a little off. Maybe just a small portion of chicken. I’ll have it with some vegetables.”

  “Okay, babe. What about you, son?”

  “Maybe a burger?”

  “We have ground beef in the freezer,” my mom says.

  “I’ll thaw some out,” my dad says.

  My weird emotionality is back. I can’t help but be touched by how they care for me. Sitting on the sofa with my mom, she pulls me tight and begins to run her hands through my hair. “It’s time for someone to get a haircut.”

  “I know,” I say, and I must take keep my head turned away from her because I feel like I could cry.

  “Did you get registered for summer classes?”

  “I have a few more days.”

  “Don’t wait until it’s too late,” she says.

  Something on TV catches her eye and she laughs a little. I’m grateful that she’s distracted.

  Soon, we start to smell the garlic and spices blooming from the kitchen. I can hear my dad or Davis rustling around on the grill. Someone’s flip flops get closer and Dad pokes back in. He’s got his beer in one hand and the mail in one hand. “Chris, you want a beer?”

  He doesn’t offer often. And it’s not like I’ve been around since I’ve been legal to drink with him.

  “No thanks,” I say. Even though I thought I needed to get away, these are the people I’ve needed the most these past three years. I’ve been so determined to live this other life and to do it all on my own that I’ve shut them out of my life. I’ve been a fool. I’ve been running away from phantoms. I know leaving was the right thing to do but it’s not an all or nothing world.

  “Babe, it’s for both of us. Want me to open it?” he says of an envelope.

  My mother waves him away. “So, tell me what happened with Rebecca,” she says to me.

  We broke up, I tell her. I can sense that she wants details and I say, “It’s a long story.”

  She shrugs as if to say so what. “I’m your mother and I’ve been told to rest. All I’ve got is time.” She pats my knee. “I’ve always got time for my baby.”

  The urge to unburden myself is strong, but I don’t. Instead, I ask her instead to update me on her life. She goes with the conversation shift, not pressing the issue.

  As she talks, I can barely focus.

  Then, there is a ruckus from the kitchen.

  “Chris! Get in here!” It’s my dad’s voice coming through the wall, ferocious in a way I haven’t heard in years or probably ever.

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  Chapter 32

  My mom raises her eyebrows at me. “What is it, babe?” she calls to my dad.

  I stand up and cross toward the kitchen.

  “It’s—It’s nothing,” my dad says.

  I enter the kitchen and my dad is standing there, his hands on his hips. “Chris, what the hell is going on up there?” he says in a low voice.

  Davis tips his body through the sliding door that leads from the back patio. He comes to stand just inside.

  “Up where?” I ask. My palms immediately grow moist. The back of my neck is hot.

  My dad’s face is in turmoil. “In Chicago, Chris. You don’t have anything to tell me?” he says.

  “Tell you?” I look from dad to Davis. Davis frowns.

  “You know Chris, if you’re gay it’s not a big fucking deal.”

  “What?” I say, incredulous. I can’t speak.

  “George. What is going on?” my mother says, joining us in the kitchen.

  Nobody gets a chance to respond to her because I’m yelling at Davis, rage surging through me, “You told him? How could you!”

  “Babe, I didn’t say anything.”

  “You knew?” my father asks Davis.

  I start feel faint.

  “Who wrote this?” my mother cries. She’s at the kitchen table. I see now that there are photos scattered across the red tablecloth. Photos of me. It’s like watching the world’s slowest horror movie, frame by frame. There I am coming out of Foxxes with the rainbow flag above the door. I see myself talking to Bryson. Being hugged by Bryson. A close-up of my face. The kiss on my cheek. There I am, letting go of him. Seeing it frame by frame just hurts.

  I see Davis seeing the photos. The pain that clouds his eyes.

  It gets worse. My mother sits down the paper she has in her hand. The one that reads, in giant red letters: YOUR SON IS A FAG.

  “Honey, is somebody threatening you? Chris, what is this?” she says.

  “I don’t know what any of this is! I swear.”

  Then, the room is deathly quiet. Everyone is looking at me. I will the tile below me to become a trapdoor, one that I can fall through right now. But, I’m not so lucky.

  My dad moves slowly to where my mom is, bringing his arm to rest around her shoulder. He looks intense. Too controlled. Like a pressure cooker that’s shiny and clean on the outside even though it’s a thousand degrees inside.

  “Davis,” he says, in a quiet voice. I feel my chest squeeze in. “I�
��m only going to ask you this once. And please don’t lie to me. Did you just call my son ‘babe?’”

  “What?” my mother says. I hear realization settle in for her. “Oh my god,” she exhales unsteadily before making an exit from the kitchen.

  There’s is a long tense moment between us, where I think for a flicker of a second that my dad might be okay with it all.

  All hell breaks loose.

  Davis’ voice cuts through all of the carnage in my mind, roaring, “You liar. You told me there was nobody else.”

  “You motherfucker,” my dad says, and he lunges for Davis and suddenly I am thrown into the fray.

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  Chapter 33

  My dad won’t shut up. It’s surprising to me that after an hour of huffing and puffing, he still has more to say. It’s all a variation on how Davis has betrayed him and used me. Frankly, I am getting sick of it.

  He stops in the middle of the living room, where he’s been wearing a trench into the carpet pacing backwards and forwards and just looks at me. This is almost worse.

  By the time I got him and Davis apart and pushed Davis out of the house, the food on the grill was burnt to a crisp. So, in addition to being grilled by my parents, I’m starving because I came straight here this morning without eating breakfast.

  “How long has it been going on?”

  “I told you there was nothing to be going on. Besides, it’s already over.”

  “Tell me, how long has it been going on.”

  “He’s your father. He has a right to ask,” my mom says. She’s been lamenting “poor Candace” and how she must have suffered through her marriage to Davis.

  “When did it start?”

  “Start? There is nothing that’s been started. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “When did he first touch you?”

  “Dad, please don’t make me go into details with you…It’s only been a thing—it’s something that happened while we were in Chicago.”

  “Did that motherfucker touch you—before?”

  My mother wails.

  “NO! Dad, Mom. It’s not like that. Fuck. He’s been your friend for longer than he’s been—before he’s been anything to me…Davis is not like that. And I—I can’t explain it. I’m crazy about him. I’m in love with him. Please don’t try to make me explain it. I don’t know why I feel how I do for him, but I do. And we’re not—we’re not even together. We can’t be together.”

  “He’s just using you. Fuck. Chris, you’re young and you don’t know—”

  “I know I’m young! I know I don’t have a lot of experience. But I know what I want. I know which emotions I ‘m feeling.”

  “That’s the thing, you don’t know. You have no clue what you want.”

  “I don’t need experience to know that what I’m feeling is real. The way Davis makes me feel…Please don’t treat me like a child.”

  “But you are a child,” my mother says. “You’re our son.”

  “I’m an adult.”

  “You mother said you’re having work trouble and that your girlfriend left you.” He pauses and rubs his hand through his hair. “Maybe you should come home for a little bit…”

  “No,” I say standing. “What I want is some fresh air. I need to get out of here.” I walk around the room, grabbing my cell phone and my keys.

  “Where are you going?” my mother asks. “You’ve been drinking.”

  “I had one beer, mom. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

  Then, I’m out the door and down the steps before anyone can stop me. I take off down the gravel driveway, my mind spinning. The emotions inside me, swirling. I’m angry at my father and my mother for the way they treat me. I’m angry at Jordan—and I know it was his hateful, backstabbing ass who sent the photos—I’m just heated and angry at the world.

  Without thinking, I’ve driven to Davis’ house. I see a light on in some far room from the road. I pull the car to the side and park. I sit there, my head on the steering wheel, fighting the urge to get out of the car and go talk to him. The truth is that Davis doesn’t want me. And I must accept that. This is what it means to play the hand that’s dealt. I have to take the loss and move on.

  I crank the car and then I see the figure jogging up the road.

  Davis.

  He sees me pull out and he turns around and starts jogging in the other direction.

  I speed and catch up with him. I slow and roll my window down. “How’s your face?” I can see where my dad struck him. It looks painful. It’s going to be a gnarly bruise.

  He doesn’t answer.

  “Davis. I know I shouldn’t be here. I just needed to get out of the house, so I decided to drive, and I ended up here. I know that you don’t want to be with me. I just want to know you’re okay.”

  “I’m okay,” he says. He keeps jogging. I keep tracking him with my car.

  “Why are you jogging? Doesn’t it hurt?”

  “I’m jogging so I can tire out and go crash. Got a long day tomorrow. Need some rest.”

  “Well, Davis. Can’t you just stop for a minute? Talk to me for a minute?”

  He stops and comes over to my window breathing hard. “No, Chris. I cannot stop and talk to you for a minute. Now, will you stop following me and go home? Go home to you mother and father. They’re probably looking for you.”

  My heart craters. But, I obey him. He can’t make it any clearer that he doesn’t want me.

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  Chapter 34

  Later that night, I’m at home. I’m in my room like a teenager. I don’t want to talk to anyone or see anyone. I don’t even go down for dinner. I know that’s rude, but what can they do? Send me to my room?

  Sometime after I hear my parents go to bed, I get up and fix myself a sandwich. Because I need some comfort, I make myself a bowl of ice cream, too. I sit in the living room and eat my makeshift supper in darkness.

  After a few minutes, I hear a voice in the darkness. “Want a cookie to go with that ice cream?”

  “Mom?” I scramble to place her voice.

  “Yeah, honey. How about a cowboy cookie? Let me get you one.”

  She gets up from where she was sitting and goes to the kitchen. I see a brief flash of light. I hear her opening a cabinet. Then, she comes back into where I am and joins me on the couch. She takes one of the cookies and plunks it into my bowl. “There you go, sweetheart.”

  “Thanks,” I say, feeling guilty, shamed, embarrassed. So many emotions just swirling around inside.