by Laurie Loft
“He’s sorry,” repeated the dark-haired one. “I, uh, apologize on his behalf.”
“You don’t do shit on my ‘behalf’!” shouted the agitator.
“Accepted,” Todd said. “As for a faggot-in-training, Joshua, I’d be happy to take you on, if you’re interested. We begin with the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Fags, the first habit being: never let a homophobe become comfortable with his homophobia.”
Todd turned on his heel and sauntered off. His body was primed, half expecting an attack, but only sputtered insults followed him and soon faded as he left the group behind.
The door of Sebby’s car flew open as he approached, and the overhead light showed Sebby behind the wheel and Ryan in the backseat. He climbed inside, slammed the door, and was attacked by a frenzied Sebastián.
“Are you all right? Todd, are you all right?” Sebby’s hands flew all over Todd’s body in the most nonerotic fashion imaginable.
“I’m fine, no broken bones. Only my pride was hurt, and I soothed it by means of a few choice words.” He tried to pull Sebby closer, but Sebby moved away.
“We’re getting out of here. We’ll come back and get your pickup tomorrow.” The car jumped into gear, and Sebby laid strips of rubber making their getaway. Perhaps a mile went by before he pulled into a parking lot, empty but bright with security lights, and pressed trembling fingertips to his eyes.
Todd held out his arms for Sebby. “French Press, I’m sorry you were frightened.” He hugged Sebby and felt his embrace returned, but a moment later Sebby’s palm connected with the side of his face, and his head rocked back.
“Jesus!” He raised his hand to his cheek and stared. Ryan whimpered.
Sebby retreated. “Don’t ever do that again! If you ever do anything like that again, I’ll . . .!”
Todd blinked. “W— But— Ah . . . I didn’t do anything.”
Sebby’s voice quavered on the verge of tears. “Walk away, I told you to walk away! You could’ve been hurt, Ryan and me could’ve been hurt, you put us all at risk for the sake of your silly pride.”
“I was protecting you! I told you to go on. I kept them occupied.” He rubbed at his face.
“I don’t need you to protect me! You couldn’t just ignore them? All we had to do was walk away!”
“Can we go home? I want to go home!” Ryan cried.
“Oh, Ryan. Baby, I’m sorry.” Sebby put a hand out to stroke Ryan’s hair, but Ryan recoiled.
“I’m not a baby! I want to go home! Uncle Todd, let’s go home!”
“We will, Ryan, we’ll go home.” Todd twisted toward the backseat and reached both arms to Ryan. “Everything is all right, my lad. An idiot yelling homophobic slurs. Nothing more.” He comforted the clinging Ryan for several moments before turning to Sebby. “Sebby, I owe you an apology. And you as well, Ryan. I didn’t mean to frighten you so.”
Sebby launched himself at Todd, who squeezed his eyes shut in case another slap was forthcoming, but Sebby clutched Todd’s shirtfront and pressed his face into Todd’s neck. Muffled words emerged. “I was so scared, Todd, so, so scared. I called 911, but nothing was really happening. I mean, they don’t send a policeman just for fucking-around talking, and I was about to lie and tell them someone was being beaten, but then I just yelled for you and you came.”
Todd petted him and murmured into his hair. He wondered what was behind Sebby’s reaction, which, to Todd, seemed all out of proportion to an incident that had involved only the trading of insults. The trembling eased, Ryan fidgeted in the backseat, and Todd patted Sebby and sat him up.
Sebby drew a deep breath. “Let’s go back and get your pickup. It’s getting so late. We don’t want to have to come back in the morning.”
“Sebastián, you’re distraught, and I’m uncomfortable with you driving in such a state. If you want to go home, I’ll take you there before I take Ryan home.”
“Then I won’t have a car if I need one! No! I’m fine. I can take care of myself. I’ve been doing it since before you showed up!”
Todd bit back the harsh words that tried to escape. “Please. I’m sorry for upsetting you. I’m sorry that I didn’t listen. Please don’t go home angry, I beg you.”
“I’m not angry, Todd!” Sebby’s tone belied his words, and Todd arched his eyebrows. “Okay, I’m angry a little, but mostly I’m upset, and I just want to go home and have a drink and go to sleep. By myself.”
Todd was not a person who was much desirous of solitude, but he respected the idiosyncrasy in others. Or tried to. “Very well, but—”
Ryan whimpered again, and Todd decided the discussion must wait. He reached to touch Sebby’s face, where his dimple would be if only he would smile, and Sebby took hold of Todd’s hand and pressed it closer.
“I was so scared,” Sebby whispered.
When Todd and Ryan arrived home after midnight, they found Donna and Lloyd waiting up. Todd relinquished Ryan to his parents and went to the bathroom. He texted Sebby and made certain he was home. When he returned to the living room, he knew he was in trouble. Lloyd regarded him sternly, and Donna with wide eyes.
“Go to bed, Ryan,” Lloyd said. Ryan left, throwing anguished glances at his uncle, and Lloyd indicated that Todd should have a seat. Perching on the edge of a chair, Todd leaned forward, clasped hands between knees.
“Ryan told us what happened,” Lloyd said.
“I was going to tell you. It was nothing serious.”
“We don’t want you and . . . Sebby . . . taking Ryan out anymore.”
Todd rolled these words around in his head. “W-what?”
“Ryan’s eleven,” Lloyd continued. “He doesn’t need to witness a hate crime. Especially one that involves his own uncle.”
“At no time was there any danger of that. The most that might have happened was a few punches getting thrown, and I did manage to avoid it.”
Lloyd folded his arms. “You’re playing down the situation, but Ryan’s upset. It’s clear there was more going on than you’ll admit. Besides, the fact is, if Ryan’s out with a gay couple, he could come up against homophobia at any time.”
Donna put her hand on Lloyd’s knee. “You can still take Ryan out. We’re not forbidding you to see him. But we don’t think it’s safe for you and Sebby, as a couple, to—to take Ryan places. He’s just too young. This thing scared him.”
Todd’s mouth opened and shut several times before any sound came out. “But nothing happened!”
Lloyd folded his arms. “I don’t call that nothing. Sebby called the cops?”
Todd wrung his hands. “Sebby . . . he seemed to be more . . . afraid . . . than the plight warranted.”
“You’re saying he overreacted.”
“In a word, yes.”
Donna and Lloyd looked at one another. After a moment Donna spoke. “But, honey, what we hadn’t thought of before is that something could happen. There’s a lot of hatred out there against gays. It’s not your fault, but it’s there. Ryan’s our son. Our number one job is to protect our kids.”
How many times in one season could a man’s heart be broken before it crumpled like a dry husk? “You’re just giving in to homophobia! Many circumstances incite hatred. Suppose I were straight but involved in an interracial relationship. Would you hand me the same conditions? That Ryan might be in danger because some white supremacist could take offense?”
Donna blinked rapidly, but Lloyd shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “But, anyway, that’s a hypothetical.”
Todd bolted from his chair and paced across the room, gesturing madly. “So is my whole life. If I someday take a spouse, you’re saying my husband and I can never take Ryan to a ballgame, to a movie, to the fucking mall.”
“You, just you, can take him wherever you want to, honey,” Donna reminded him.
“It’ll be different when Ryan’s older,” Lloyd said. “Right now he’s too young to understand, and we don’t want him exposed to that kind of crap.”
“Please
respect our wishes,” Donna said. “If you ever have your own kids, you’ll understand.”
Todd stopped in the middle of the room. “If I draw out your assertions to their logical conclusion, I and my husband should never take our own children anywhere as a family. No family vacations, no family trips to play minigolf. No fucking family.”
Donna appeared stricken, but Lloyd remained unmoved. “It’s true that your kid would face a lot of prejudice. It’d be tough for him, and you should think about it real hard before you have any.”
“No worries,” Todd said. “Right now I’m thinking that I would never be so cruel as to curse my children with a family.” He strode across the room toward the front door. “I can’t stay here, can’t live with you, knowing you feel that way. I’m out of here. As soon as I can swing it.”
“Honey!” Donna was on her feet and across the room. She attempted to hug Todd. “We don’t want you to go! Ryan’s nuts about you, so am I. You’re overreacting.”
Todd laughed again, the sound so hollow that he impressed himself. “The strangest thing of all about this entire night is that I appear to be the only individual who is not overreacting.”
He shook her off and, as he exited the house, heard Lloyd say, “Let him cool off.”
Todd slammed the door, climbed into his truck, slammed the truck’s door, and dialed Sebby on his cell, hoping he was still up.
“It’s my fault,” Sebby said, after Todd related what had passed.
“No, it isn’t! What is?”
“Ryan. He thought you were going to beat them all down. He wanted to watch. But I freaked, and I made him scared.” There was a pause, and there were noises in the background, familiar. It took Todd a moment to place them as the sounds of the grinder.
“Are you making coffee?”
“Yeah. Ryan, he, you know, thinks you hang the moon. Every night.”
“What I wouldn’t give at this moment for some coffee.”
“Todd, you’re avoiding.”
“Avoiding? I? You’re the one who refuses to admit that there is a reason behind your overreaction to tonight’s incident.”
“I had a friend who was beaten. Satisfied?”
Todd had expected something like this. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. Was he all right?”
“No. And what you did was foolish. Standing up to a group of men all by yourself . . . You think you were being heroic, but it was just stupid. Violence doesn’t solve anything.”
Todd drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “I cannot say that I agree. Many issues in our world are resolved by violence, and there are times when backing away from a fight would be morally wrong. Sebby, your friend, did he . . . was he killed?”
“No. What was going to be resolved if you got put in the hospital? Whatever in the fucking world makes you think you can take on six men? I wouldn’t even bet on you against one; you used to box, you told me, but when was the last time you actually hit a person?” Sebby paused for breath.
“That’s not important. What’s important is that there is a sort of person who believes he can with impunity badger homosexuals, that we cannot or will not defend ourselves. By putting up a good fight, even if I come off the worse, I make that person consider his folly before he attempts the same again, thereby having saved a future homosexual from suffering said oppression.” He continued in a bantering tone, “You are so convinced, are you, that I couldn’t thrash six men? Ryan had faith in me.”
There was an exasperated sigh, like white noise through the cell phone. “How would it be for Ryan to see you beat up and bleeding, spitting teeth, falling in the gutter?”
“Sebby, my love, is that what happened to your friend?”
“No. You can’t change those people’s mind by fighting them! Six of them. Dios mío, you’re like Don Quixote, fighting windmills, only not windmills.”
Being compared to Don Quixote delighted Todd more than it ought. Though he was sure Sebby didn’t mean it as a compliment, he held his cell as if it were a microphone and sang the opening lines of the title song of Man of La Mancha, about being Don Quixote.
Putting the phone back to his ear, he heard Sebby’s muffled laughter, and his heart lurched sideways. “What say I come over there, French Press?”
“Toddfox, it’s so late, and still I’d say yes, but poor Ryan is probably crying his little eyes out, and you should go talk to him.”
“Shit. What, Sebastián, am I to say? I can’t stay here any longer, after what they said. Fucking hell.”
“Your brother and Donna, they don’t mean to hurt you. What I think is, it’ll blow over. Everyone overreacted, and now you’re overreacting. After they think about it, they’ll realize they’re being silly.” A sentence or two in Spanish followed, soothing as a lullaby, and it occurred to Todd that Sebby was probably right.
“Okay, French Press. Sebby, I . . . I am fond of you.”
“I know, Todd.”
“And I’m sorry that I frightened you.”
“I know.”
“At times, I am not . . . the most prudent prune in the prune jar.”
“I know that too.”
More than coffee, at that moment Todd craved the feel of Sebby’s skin next to his own, and he almost said so. “Well . . . good night. Buenas noches, mi chico.”
“Buenas noches, Todd.”
Todd stared at his phone in his hand, and then he kissed it. I am kissing my phone, Todd thought, and he grinned. He got out of his car and drew in lungsful of sweet night air and realized three things. One, he had not gotten the story out of Sebby of whatever had happened to his friend. Two, the moon appeared to be full. Three, he had called Sebby my love.
Todd entered the darkened bedroom quietly, against the possibility that Ryan might be sleeping, but Ryan spoke up as soon as Todd closed the door behind him. “I was listening. I heard everything you said.”
The conversation with Sebby was fresh in Todd’s mind, and it took a moment to realize that Ryan was referring to Todd’s conversation with his parents. “Thank Christ. That relieves me of having to relate it to you.”
“So I guess you came back to get your stuff.”
Todd threw himself facedown onto the lower bunk and hugged his pillow. “Why? Tired of me, nevvy?”
“You said you were leaving. You’re not leaving?”
“I talked to Sebby, and he convinced me that I was acting impetuously and that this entire thing with your parents will blow over. Therefore, no, I’m not leaving. Unless you’re kicking me out.”
“I’d never do that. Um, I’m sorry, Uncle Todd. It’s all my fault. Are you mad at me?”
“What? Ryan, my lad, nothing is your fault.” Todd rolled over and lifted his legs, placed his feet on the bottom of the bunk above, and pushed, giving his nephew a few jostles. “If anything, the fault is mine for not walking away.”
Ryan made no comment on the jostling. “You did walk away, though. I mean, um, it’s my fault that I told my parents and now they’re all mad.”
“Nevvy, if you hadn’t told them, I would’ve told them, and then they would’ve questioned you, and the end would’ve been the same. Besides, they aren’t angry. They’re worried.”
“I wasn’t scared at first. But then I thought something bad might happen. But nothing did, so. Those people were just yelling mean things. Did you break up with Sebby?”
“Why would you think that? No!”
“But he hit you!”
Todd had quite honestly forgotten it. “If you call that a hit. Ryan, every man gets his face slapped now and then. It’s proof of one’s manhood.”
Ryan’s voice was puzzled. “Why?”
Todd grimaced and jostled Ryan again. “I was being flippant. Ah . . . Sebby slapped me because he was in an agitated state due to having been frightened. Not that I endorse hitting one’s significant other—in fact, quite the opposite—but . . . I understand that there were extenuating circumstances, and I forgive him.”
“Oh. Di
d he say he was sorry?”
Todd’s brow wrinkled. “No . . . he did not.”
“Uncle Todd, is Sebby kind of like a girl?”
Todd coughed. “Ahem . . . what makes you say that?”
“Well . . . he stayed in the kitchen with the moms, and he’s kind of pretty like a girl, and he got scared like a girl, and the way he hit you was kind of like a girl.”
“Out of the mouths of babes.” Todd heaved a sigh and wondered why it fell to him to explain these things. “First of all, you are stereotyping females. Secondly, some men tend more to the effeminate, just as some women tend more to the masculine. There isn’t necessarily a dividing line between the genders, is what I mean. Ah . . . rather, there is a line, but it’s often blurred.” Todd despaired of making any sense and went back to jostling Ryan with extra gusto.
Ryan let out a muffled yell. “Quit it! But I’m glad you’re not leaving.”
Todd’s Peace Corps interview was a devastating disappointment. The recruiter asked about any relationships Todd might have and how they might be affected by a long absence, and he told her he’d just ended a relationship. She excavated the whole Vivian story out of him. She told him that it was not a good idea to make such a decision at such a time and that they’d be happy to interview him again in six months if he was still interested.
“She was doing her job, then, wasn’t she?” Holly said.
“Interfering busybody,” Todd grumbled.
“Well, I’m glad. It’s a dumb idea. Geeze, Todd.”
Todd did not tell Sebby about his interview. He was afraid of hearing I told you so, and, moreover, afraid of hurting Sebby’s feelings. Todd’s aggravation at the recruiter gave way to despair. What was he going to do with himself for six whole months? He didn’t know if he could stand it.
Todd wandered into the mobile office on the construction site. Even though he knew it was no longer his place to worry about Vivian, he couldn’t help wondering whether Viv was all right, whether anyone was caring for him properly. Did Vivian regret giving Todd up now that he no longer had Todd’s hands for back rubs, Todd’s voice for reading aloud, for singing him to sleep? Not that it mattered. Even if Vivian did miss those things, time was passing and he would stop missing them; Todd would be a memory, an indiscretion of Vivian’s youth.