It's All Relative

by J. M. Snyder

  Uncle Doug looks past me at the house, then turns back to the bench to wipe up excess proofing before it can drip. “Where’s Dan?” he asks. “Your dad’s looking for him.”

  “I know.” I take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and with a smug wink, I tell them, “He’s…preoccupied at the moment. You know how it is.”

  Kenny whoops loudly—he’s not as dense as Ray can be. “That boy is whipped,” he says. I shrug, embarrassed, but I like the awe shining in their wide eyes, their wicked grins. Jerking a thumb at me, he tells Doug, “Color me impressed. He’s got a soldier in his room just begging for it.”

  “I didn’t say that,” I start.

  But it’s too late. They like the idea of me laying down the law for my Army boyfriend. Maybe it makes me stronger in their minds somehow, it takes away the stigma of me being gay, the implied femininity of one boy in love with another. Whatever the case, suddenly I’m one of the guys again, I’m cool, okay to hang with—Doug nudges me and says, “Hey, nothing wrong with being whipped. Ask Kenny. His girl isn’t even putting out and he’s wrapped around her finger.” Turning to my cousin, he wants to know, “Hasn’t she lifted those skirts just a little bit for you yet?”

  “Hey, hey!” Kenny cries. His brow creases and he glares at us, all jest gone. “We’re not talking about Neeshi here, got that?”

  Before Doug can reply, I add, “We’re not talking about Dan, either. Jeez, why is it that suddenly everyone wants to know all about my damn sex life? I should sell tickets or something.”

  Doug laughs. “I hear you’re giving free previews out in the front lawn.”

  “Okay, I can explain that,” I say, and they both laugh this time, Kenny too. Hurriedly changing the subject, I ask, “Where is my dad anyway?”

  Kenny motions at the shed with the paintbrush, and proofing flecks in a spray across the painted boards. “Ken, dammit!” Doug cries, wiping at the splatter with the bottom of his shirt. “Shit, he’ll make us do that next if you mess it up.”

  “It’s too wet out here to paint,” I say. I look up at the sky like it might start to rain again any minute now. “He’s inside?”

  With a backhand swing, Kenny flings his brush at Doug, misting his cheek and neck with the proofing. I laugh at the look of horror that crosses my uncle’s face—then he dips his own brush back into the can and runs his thumb across the bristles. Proofing sprays Kenny like mace, his cheeks, his nose, his lips, his hair…“Okay, you know what?” he asks, dipping his brush in the can with all the solemnity of a soldier reloading ammo. “You’re dead.”

  Before he can retaliate, I laugh and duck behind him, heading for the front of the shed. “I’m not getting in the middle of this,” I tell them.

  Doug turns a half second before Kenny attacks. Most of the proofing this time winds up in his hair, beading like rain. “What,” he asks, slapping the back of my cousin’s wrist with his brush, “can’t get messy? You have a hot date lined up?”

  “Something like that,” I say. His next hit goes wide, misses Kenny completely to splash the side of the shed—so much for keeping it clean. I feel tiny droplets seep through my sleeve and I brush at the dampness on my sweater, indignant. “Hey! I’m not in this fight, remember?”

  They look at me with such pure mischief that I step back, my hands up in warding gesture. “Don’t,” I warn, and even though it makes me sound childish and petty, I add, “I’ll tell my dad you two are fucking around.” I take another step back—I’m in front of the shed door now, I can see the bright light thrown from the bare bulb that hangs from the ceiling, I can see my dad’s back as he stands on a small stepladder to straighten the shelves that he’s putting in. If I raise my voice, he’ll hear me, and from the way Kenny and Doug lower their paintbrushes, I figure the last thing they need is my dad riding their asses. Getting me a little messy wouldn’t justify the punishment, I’m sure.

  With a pout that rivals Caitlin’s—if there’s anything this family does well, it’s argue and pout—Kenny holds his loaded brush at his side, aimed at the ground in defeat. Large drops of proofing drip onto the toes of his black Converse hi-tops, the kind I used to wear as a kid…they still make those? “You’re no fun,” he grumbles. Like a child trying to get in the last hit, Doug flecks his brush at him, and Kenny winces as fresh proofing splatters the side of his face.

  “I’m plenty fun,” I assure them. “Just ask Dan.”

  I turn away from their laughter, grinning myself. On my way into the shed, I swear I feel a few drops land on the back of my neck, but it’s a scant sensation, it could be anything, proofing or rainwater dripping from the eaves above the door, anything at all. So I just ignore it—mentioning it would be an open invite to include me in their horseplay, and I’ve got things to see and people to do, as they say.

  Inside the shed, I feel trapped—it’s a small building, I could hold my arms out at my sides and the fingertips on either hand would brush against the walls. The ceiling is corrugated tin, which I know from my childhood makes the shed sound like the inside of a tribal drum when it rains. The cacophony is deafening, I don’t know how my dad worked through it. Beneath my feet, the floor is concrete, but there’s river sand and sawdust scattered across it and each step I take leaves behind a thin footprint. A window on either side of the shed lets in muted sunlight, refracted through the trees, and the bare bulb above illuminates everything with a stark clarity, like the negative of a photograph. My dad’s tools, fanned over the work table. Gardening supplies stacked in one corner. Long wooden shelves leaning against the wall, waiting to be hung. My dad on the stepladder, righting one such shelf across two metal brackets. “Hey Dad,” I say, my hands once again in my pockets simply because I don’t know what else to do with them. My stomach churns nervously, and all of my cocky playfulness is gone.

  “Is this straight?” my father asks by way of hello. I stop where I am in the middle of the shed and frown at the shelf he’s trying to hang. With an exasperated glance over his shoulder, he asks, “Well? Straight or not?”

  “Looks straight to me,” I tell him. If it were anyone else up there, I might add a comment about just how reliable am I when it comes to straight, Caitlin would get a laugh out of something like that, but it’s not her, it’s my dad, and I learned early on in life that he has no real sense of humor.

  Like now. Looks straight isn’t good enough for him—he grumbles as he climbs down the stepladder, moving slowly like an old man. “Goddamn shed is build on a slant,” he mutters beneath his breath. He drops his drill on the table with the other tools and stands slightly in front of me, his hands on his hips. “Level don’t work if the whole damn thing is crooked.”

  I don’t know what to say. After a moment, he nods. “Yeah, it’ll work.” Over his shoulder, he asks, “Where’s that friend of yours?”

  I’m almost glad he’s in front of me, because that gives me a clear shot at the door if I have to run. Clearing my throat, I tell him, “He’s not coming.”

  My dad’s back stiffens as if I’ve just insulted him. Slowly he turns, his jaw clenched, his brow furrowed. “Why the hell not?” he wants to know. “He’s got things to finish today.”

  Somehow I meet that terrible gaze—I even manage a shrug, as if my heart isn’t racing in my chest. “I want him to work with me today,” I say. My voice is quiet, I’m going to try to keep it that way. The guys outside don’t need to hear this and, quiet always works for Dan. Maybe this time it’ll work for me. “He’s my boyfriend, Dad. I shouldn’t have to explain this to you. I want him with me.”

  For a moment I think I’ve said too much. His eyes cloud over with anger, his hands fist at his hips. “He helped you out yesterday,” I hurry on—what happened to quiet? I should just shut up but I can’t, my dad’s silence goads me on, I have to fill the emptiness between us. “Changing those locks? I thought that was all you wanted him to do but then you kept him all day long, doing this, fixing that…I barely saw him at all. There are plenty of people here, y
ou know. Get someone else to help you out today. Dan’s staying in with me.”

  “He said this?” my dad asks.

  I can hear the anger in his voice. This isn’t going the way I anticipated—he’s not mad at me, he’s getting mad with Dan, and that’s the last person he needs to be pissed at. It’s my fault Dan’s not coming today, doesn’t he see that? I’m the one out here telling him all this. He still doesn’t see me.

  “No, Dad,” I say, growing angry myself. “I did.”

  With great difficulty, he focuses on me, standing right in front of him. For the first time since I can remember, he looks in my eyes, not through them, not at them, but in—he studies my face, the smooth skin, the blondish eyebrows, the slanted nose that looks like his own did twenty years ago, before long nights of alcohol ruddied it. He looks me over like I’ve suddenly become a complete stranger to him, someone he doesn’t know, and there’s a wariness in his eyes that I like, a look that says he’s not quite sure what to do now. The fact that it was my words that put that confusion there, that strengthens me, it makes me stand taller, my shoulders back and proud. Now he sees me, me, not his son but a man before him, a man with dreams he might not know about, a man with a life beyond his own, a man to be reckoned with. Me.

  That wary look in his eyes gives me the courage to tell him, “I know you have things to get done. We all do. But when you take him like that, without even bothering with me? It’s like I’m not…I don’t know, Dad, it’s like you don’t think I’m man enough, you know? Like I’m still a little boy and I’m not.” He doesn’t answer, just stares at me, say something, I pray. Anything at this point. Let me know you’re hearing this.

  The lines across his forehead deepen. “I know you’re not,” he says gruffly. This is new to him, this talking things out. “I didn’t say you couldn’t come along. He’d just done it before.” As an afterthought, he adds, “You could’ve come, too.”

  I sigh. That’s beside the point—I didn’t go and I can’t turn back time now. “You know, Dad,” I try, feeling my way around the words gingerly. This is hard for us both, I realize that. “When you do stuff like that? It makes me think that you’re using him as some kind of…I don’t know, substitute son, or something. I mean, since I’ve been home this time? It’s like I’m not really here to you. There’s Dan instead. He’s the one you speak to, he’s the one you want to do things with, not me. And that’s not fair.” His frown almost turns to a scowl, almost, but I hurry on, “Not to me, because I am your son, and not to him because it puts him in a very awkward position, almost like you’re trying to play us off one another. That’s just not going to work, I’m sorry.”

  I’ve said too much, I know it—it’s in the way he glares at me again, it’s in the set of his jaw, the thin line of his lips pressed together. I’m about to say I’m sorry again, I’ve gotten good at apologizing these past few days, but my dad sighs and looks away. Without his gaze pinning me in place, my knees feel trembly and weak. His voice is husky when he talks, like the words hurt him to say aloud. “Caitlin brings a boy home,” he tells me, “and I know what to expect. It’s twenty questions while he squirms on the couch and the riot act before they leave. Don’t touch my daughter, don’t even look at her if you can help it, that whole thing. I know what he expects of me, so I can play the part of the overbearing father while he’s in the house, I keep my daughter safe.”

  So she’d have you believe, I think, but I keep silent. Emotions flicker across my dad’s face like sunlight playing over the rippling waters of the creek—his anger has faded, replaced with a sadness I don’t think I quite like. “Ray brings his buddies over,” he continues, still not looking at me, “and I joke with them a bit, offer them beers, we sit and watch TV and eat chips, guy things. I know how to handle that.” He turns towards me again slowly. “Then there’s you, Mike. You come down here and tell us what, you like boys? You even bring one along for show. Out of the blue, though I told your mother plenty of times over the years, I thought you might be a little funny.” He seesaws his hand in that way people have when they don’t want to out and say that someone’s queer. “And what am I supposed to do about it? You’re not my daughter, I’m not going to run him through the gauntlet. But he’s more than just one of my son’s friends.”

  He looks at me, and this isn’t the father I’ve always known, this is the man beneath that, the man the world sees. I notice the gray that silvers the hair by his temple, when did he get old? Lines rim his eyes, his mouth, and tiny dark spots have cropped up like stubble on his cheeks. An old, sad man. “So tell me, son,” he says softly. “Tell me just how you want me to react to this.”

  Chapter 39: Just One of the Guys

  I’m stunned. That has to be the most my father has said to me at one time, ever. Even the “facts of life” talk we had when I was what, ten? About two years after the kiss Stephanie Robichaud gave me—I’ve always suspected that Ray finally ratted on me about it and that’s the only reason my dad came into my room one day, a look on his face that clearly read, I’d rather be anywhere but here. Sitting on the edge of my bed, he patted the mattress beside him and waited until I sat down as well before he spoke. I could smell the alcohol on his breath, a tart scent mingled with the cologne he only wore to church, a Sunday smell that in my mind I’ll always associate with the heavy pall of flowers and the bitter taste of wine. “You know when you jerk off, Mikey?” he asked then. “Don’t play dumb with me, son, I know you do it—boys have been doing it forever. That’s what makes babies.”

  The thought horrified me. Touching myself under the covers at night, jerking off in the shower, that was just fooling around. Ray told me babies came from girls, I knew that much, you stick it in and get off in there and you have a kid. But this was Ray we’re talking about—maybe he had it wrong. I mean, my father knew what he was saying, right? He already had two kids, he should know.

  Still, I had to clarify things. “By yourself?” I asked, trepidatious. All I could picture was me naked in the shower, the steady beat of hot water heavenly on my back and thighs, my legs apart and one hand pumping my hard dick while the other gripped the towel rack to hold my balance. My hand on my balls, squeezing, kneading, working them together like dice in my palm. My finger easing below them, back, until it found a tender spot and with a sharp pain slipped inside. Instant tightness sucking me in, the sting of soap, a wonderful sensation I had never felt before and knew without a doubt that I would want to find again and again. Just thinking of it make me want to shoo my dad out now and take care of the growing heaviness at my groin. I stared at the floor so he wouldn’t see the color rise in my cheeks or the hunger in my eyes. I could almost taste the release, it lingered sweet in the back of my throat…but if that’s the way babies were made, if everyone had it wrong and licking my hand when I was done to savor every drop was a sure way to get pregnant, I was going to have to reevaluate this new past-time of mine.

  My dad laughed then, an uncomfortable titter that was more my mom than him. “Not by yourself,” he said, and he laughed again, a real laugh this time. Running a hand down his face, he sighed. “Jesus. You know, maybe this isn’t a good idea.”

  I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. In an effort to help, I told him, “Ray says you need to get with a girl.”

  “For once, Ray is right.” He looked around the room, studiously avoiding me, and I looked at my feet on the floor, my legs, the budding bulge in the front of my jeans. I willed my father to leave. I had things I wanted to take care of now that he had brought the subject up.

  As if hearing my thoughts, he rose to his feet. “You get with a girl,” he said, raising his voice a little the way people do when they’re on the phone and ready to hang up. “You need a girl to have babies, Mikey, keep that in mind. You keep her panties on and you won’t have to worry about none of that shit, you hear me?” I nodded, though to be honest, getting into a girl’s panties was the last thing on my mind. When I got off, it was to thoughts of boys
doing the exact same thing I was doing, rubbing and fingering themselves. It was still a few years before I started to think of two boys together, and long before Stephen’s first kiss, when I would think of another boy doing that stuff to me. What about boys? I almost asked, but my dad was heading for the door and I didn’t want to delay him. Besides, I was curious, not stupid. There was a part of me that knew even then that keeping my thoughts to myself on that subject might be a good idea. “Your mom knows more about this stuff than I do,” my dad said on his way out. “Go ask her if you have any questions.”

  Then his voice had been just as gruff as it is now, standing here in Aunt Evie’s shed and staring at each other like complete strangers. This time he knows my thoughts, though, I’ve told him where my desires lay, and he wants me to tell him what to do about it. What am I supposed to say? This is just as new to me as it is to him.

  Choosing my words carefully, I tell him, “Maybe it’d be good to know where you stand on this…I mean, how you feel about…about me, first.” I look at him with questioning eyes but see no answers written on his face. “Before we go any further.”

  As if changing the subject, my dad asks, “How old are you again?”

  I don’t see what that matters. “Twenty-five,” I say. “I guess what I’m asking here is—”

  He nods and waves the rest of my sentence away, distracted. “Twenty-five is damn near old enough to start living your own life,” he tells me, “and stop wondering what the hell everyone else is going to say about it. I had a wife and baby by the time I was your age. I had a good paying job, a car, my first mortgage. I didn’t care that my momma didn’t like Laura or wouldn’t be bothered with my son. And I wasn’t about to lose any sleep at night thinking if so-and-so at the plant thought I was doing the right thing. Right or not, it was mine.”

  I know about the animosity between my mother and her in-laws. From the start, my father’s parents didn’t like her much, mostly because Dad’s an only child like Dan is, and believe it or not, he was always a momma’s boy. His father suffered with polio as a child and could only walk with the help of two metal canes that latched to his arms, so when something broke around the house or something needed to be done, Henry was the one his mother looked to for help. Before he was married, he lived down the street from his parents and hurried home whenever they called.