by P. E. Ryan
He closed up the bag and carried it into the stockroom. When the swinging doors closed behind him, he squatted down, opened the bag, and poured the mouse out onto the cement floor. It stared at him for a moment without moving.
“Go make friends,” he said, and watched it scurry away.
He came home that night to the smell of fresh paint. Mike had covered up the water stain on the living room ceiling with a coat of dull primer, which would be covered with ceiling paint once it was dry. He’d also repaired the screen door, replacing the screen and properly anchoring it into its track with rubber tubing. Both jobs were somewhat slapdash (the new screen had a slight sag in it, and Garth noticed a couple of paint drops on the living room carpet), but why hadn’t it occurred to him to just do that?
Over dinner, his mom asked him how work had been.
“It was fine,” he said. “Same old, same old.”
“What do you do at this store?” Mike asked, turning his fork through his spaghetti.
“A little bit of everything. Cleaning, stocking, whatever needs done.”
“But you like your boss,” his mom said. “Mr. Peterson. You said he’s nice to you.”
“Yeah. He’s great. A real joker, that guy.” Garth forced a smile onto his face, and stuffed his mouth full of pasta.
“I have to say, I never had a boss I liked,” Mike told them. “Not even the nice ones. It was just the idea of having somebody lord over me, telling me what to do, that didn’t sit right with me.”
“That’s what most people call ‘work,’” Garth’s mom said.
“Mmmm.” Mike sounded as if he were half humming, half growling. “You’re channeling my brother, I think.”
“It’s true,” she said. “Even bosses have bosses.”
“Jerry didn’t have a boss. He owned his own hardware store.”
“Well, he had investors…” She trailed off. Garth wasn’t sure if Mike knew the whole story. Not even Garth or his mom had known the truth until after his dad had died: the business had been struggling for some time and things had been much worse than his dad had ever let on. There was a bank loan his mom had no knowledge of. Personal loans from other businessmen. Of course, it had never entered his dad’s mind that something might happen to him. The fallout of all that shaped their daily lives now nearly as much as their grief and healing—if, indeed, there was any healing going on. Sometimes Garth wondered.
“I guess there’s always someone to answer to,” Mike mused. He folded a piece of bread and dipped it into the sauce on his plate. When he was done chewing, he said, “So, not to change the subject, but Garth told me about his, uh, orientation.”
Not to change the subject? It was all Garth could do to keep the pasta he was trying to swallow from funneling into his lungs as he saw his mom’s eyes cut over to him. “Mike’s family. You said it was all right to tell family,” he explained.
There was a long pause while she thought about this. He knew she’d been put on the spot. Thankfully, she rose to the occasion. “You’re right, I did say that. And Mike is family. I’m sure he understands how…delicate…this topic is.”
“Oh, yeah, I totally get it,” Mike said, nodding. “I was telling Garth how I’ve had gay friends before, and how they struggled with being in the closet and with coming out.”
“We’re not thinking about it in terms of his being ‘in the closet.’”
True enough, Garth thought. In the very few words they’d exchanged on the subject, they’d never once used the word closet.
“Well, I’m just saying I’ve known people who’ve stifled who they were because they were afraid, and all of them, hands down, look back and wish they hadn’t.”
Who could argue with that? Garth felt his embarrassment at Mike’s having blurted out the subject slipping away. Instead, he was beginning to feel grateful.
But his mom said, “Garth is only fifteen; he’s not necessarily ready to…defend himself…against people who might have certain prejudices, and we’ve agreed that waiting to explore this impulse is for the best.”
“Impulse?” Garth said.
“Orientation.”
“I really don’t mean to stick my nose in where it’s not welcome,” Mike said, raising an open palm. “It’s just that, you know, he’s my nephew.”
“Well, I’m his mother.”
“And I totally respect that. But I was thinking that an outside voice—from someone in the family—might be helpful. I’m sure it took a lot of guts for Garth to tell you, and maybe there’s room for him to—”
“Mike,” she said, “I know you mean well, but don’t overstep your bounds.”
“No, no, no,” Mike said, holding up both hands now. “I don’t mean to do that at all.”
“Lisa has gay friends,” Garth suddenly blurted out.
His mom glared at him.
“She even broke up with a guy she was dating last year because he called her gay friends ‘fags’ and said they should all be put on an AIDS island,” he said. “She told him to get lost.”
“That kind of person is exactly why I worry about you telling people,” she said. “What do you think that boy would have done if he’d known that, or even thought that, about you? He and his ignorant friends could decide to go after you, and how would you defend yourself?”
“Well,” Mike said, sounding much calmer than Garth’s mom; he almost sounded like the good-guy attorney on a TV drama, exploring all the angles of a situation, “he could defend himself with words. He could be ready to say, ‘Hey, guys, just look at me as one less man in competition for all those girls out there.’”
“That sounds like the perfect way to get into a fight,” she said. “Honestly, Mike, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Times have changed.”
“They haven’t changed that much.”
“Well, Garth was telling me about this organization. What’s it called? Rosemary?”
“ROSMY,” Garth said.
“They apparently have all these services for teenagers and parents, and it sounds to me like—”
“You know what?” Garth’s mom said, the volume of her voice raising slightly. “You’re not a parent. You don’t know what it’s like to have an immediate family, lose half of it, and be worried about the safety of the other half. And I do. So…forgive me for putting my foot down, but I don’t want to hear about ROSMY anymore. I’m Garth’s mom, his only parent, and he’s my responsibility until he’s an adult.”
Garth looked at Mike, who was still staring down at what was left of his spaghetti, his mouth not grinning now but pursed. Was he irritated? Pensive? Regretting that he’d brought up the subject in the first place? He put his elbows on the table and folded his hands together over his plate. “Actually,” he said in a softer voice, “I do know what it’s like to lose half my family. My dad passed away, so I’ve got my mom and my twin brother. Then my brother’s suddenly gone. So I know what it’s like. But you’re right: I’m not a parent. I just want what’s best for Garth here.
Garth was still feeling grateful, but he also had the vague sensation of being an object—like a piece of furniture in an empty room, with two people standing over it, deciding where it should reside. Yet he thought Mike understood him better than his mom did, or at least was willing to acknowledge that the decision about where the piece of furniture was placed wasn’t so obvious, so…cut and dry. Neither Mike nor his mom was saying anything. He wanted to break the silence, so he said, “I want what’s best for me, too.”
His mom cleared her throat, pushed up from her chair, and said, “There’s ice cream, if anyone saved room for dessert.”
His uncle stopped by his room that night, just as he was getting ready for bed. “Got a minute?” Mike asked.
“Sure.” Garth was sitting on his unmade bed reading an old dog-training manual.
Mike looked at the title. “You going to teach Hutch some new tricks?”
“Nah. I just like reading this stu
ff. Did you know you shouldn’t give your dog a one-syllable name because it’ll take him longer to learn it?”
“Good thing neither one of us is a dog, then.” Mike was in cargo shorts and a Grateful Dead T-shirt. He had a little bit of a gut, Garth noticed for the first time. He wasn’t holding it in, either. He seemed comfortable with himself.
Garth folded his legs up and Mike sat down at the end of the bed. His brow was furrowed and his hands were working around an imaginary object, as if he were shaping clay on a spinning wheel. “I don’t want you to think your mom and I are at odds,” he finally said. “That’s the last thing you need—your uncle coming into town and fighting with your mom.”
“I don’t think that,” Garth said, even though that was exactly what he’d perceived at dinner.
“The thing is, when it comes to the whole gay thing, I know you don’t agree with your mom.” He looked Garth directly in the eye until Garth nodded. “And neither do I. But I understand where she’s coming from. She’s exhausted. I mean, she’s overworked, and she’s worried about you, and she loves you; I get all that. I mean, that’s real stuff. There’s a burden on her. I can see it when I look at her and hear it when she talks. What she’s been through…honestly, I can’t imagine what it was like for her. Or for you. Right now, I just want to be there for you and her both, you know?”
“Yeah,” Garth said. Was he agreeing to something? Committing to something? He wasn’t sure; he was just glad Mike had stuck up for him and was glad this late-night visit wasn’t to say anything bad about his mom. “She works really hard. And, like I said, she’s been kind of overprotective since Dad died.”
“She’s been through hell,” Mike said. “So have you. I just hope I can help both you guys out while I’m here.”
Again, Garth had no idea what the right response might be.
“Seriously,” Mike said, and tapped his index finger against his temple. “I’ve got the wheels spinning on how to help.”
“Thanks,” Garth said.
“There’s a mall nearby, right?”
“Willow Lawn isn’t too far away.”
“Do you want to go with me tomorrow? I could really use some new clothes. My shirts are played out, and I have some other shopping I need to do.”
Tomorrow was a Wednesday, his volunteer day at Bone Sweet Bone. But what was one more day at the dog shelter compared to a day with Mike, who wasn’t going to be here for very long? The more time Garth spent around him, the more he liked him. He could call Lisa in the morning and explain. He could call the shelter’s number and leave Ms. Kessler a message saying that he needed one of the other volunteers to replace him. No big deal.
“Sure,” he said. “Let’s go.”
5
Mike recognized the part of town they were in. Garth was directing him toward the mall, and while Broad Street pretty much looked like Broad Street block after block, Monument Avenue, west of I-95, became very suburban: apartment complexes, ranch houses, two-story homes with wide lawns, chain-link-fence-lined yards, oaks and pine trees growing in abundance.
“We’re near the cemetery, aren’t we?” Mike asked, guiding the Camaro with one wrist resting casually on top of the steering wheel.
“Sort of. This is the way we took to get there—”
“—the day of the funeral. I remember this stretch of road. I got to the funeral home just in time to follow you guys out here.”
They rode along in silence for a mile or so. The sky was bright and clear, the sun burning through the windshield despite the car’s air-conditioning.
“Would you mind if we…?”
“No, it’s fine,” Garth said. He’d been half expecting the request. “I can tell you how to get there.”
They passed the turnoff for the mall and drove up Monument till they reached Three Chopt Road. Ten minutes and a few turns later, they were at the entrance.
Garth had been out here with his mom frequently, at first, and then once a month since she’d taken on the second job. It wasn’t a fancy, old-fashioned cemetery. It was clean and meticulously laid out and overwhelmingly level—as if someone had steamrolled the land before digging the first grave. There were very few upright headstones; most were just flat marble markers with brass plates, barely visible from a distance. Mike slowed the Camaro to a crawl and followed Garth’s directions for which lane to take.
“It’s right here,” he said, and they rolled to a stop.
“Hard to recognize the spot without the canopy and folding chairs,” Mike remarked, peering through Garth’s window.
They got out, and were immediately engulfed in heat. Garth knew the way by heart: five markers over, four in. Then they were standing in front of the marble square fixed with the brass plate that bore his dad’s name. The brief thirty-five years his life had spanned. The engraved phrase that they couldn’t afford but that his mom had insisted on adding: LOVING HUSBAND, DAD, AND FRIEND.
The two of them stood at the foot of the grave in silence for a little while. Then Mike said, in a soft, uncharacteristic voice, “Hi, Jer.”
“He can’t hear you,” Garth said, embarrassed by his uncle’s presumption that he could just “talk” to his dad so easily.
“I know whatever’s in there can’t hear me,” Mike said. “But that doesn’t mean he isn’t”—he stirred the warm air with a finger, indicating the cemetery, the surrounding suburb, the whole world, for all Garth knew—“listening.” He cleared his throat and said, “Anyway, Jer, I came through town for a visit, and Sonja and Garth have been nice enough to take me in. They’re doing great, by the way. I think your boy’s grown a couple of inches.”
He’s lying to the dead, Garth thought. For his sake or his dad’s? He stepped around the grave to the marker, bent down, and began pulling at the weeds that had grown up around the base.
“I’m sorry we didn’t always get along, Jer. I think about you a lot. If I’d had any idea something was going to happen to…erase…either one of us so suddenly, I would have, you know, made more of an effort to stay in touch. Keep on good terms. I don’t know. I guess you just can’t predict anything. You take the most important things for granted without even knowing you’re doing it.”
Garth stood up and dusted his hands together. When he looked back at his uncle, he saw that his eyes had gone damp.
Mike dragged a thumb over each eye and said, “I’m sorry.”
Should he take his hand? Hug him? Garth had never thought much about it before, but he wasn’t very good with physical contact—or hadn’t been for the past year and a half. When people touched him, he tended to flinch. When he felt moved to touch someone else—even his mom—he did so awkwardly. “You don’t have to apologize,” he said.
Mike sniffed. “I, ah, wasn’t talking to you.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
His uncle smiled. “You don’t have to apologize, either. None of this is easy…”
Garth nodded. “Mr. Holt is buried over there,” he said, pointing to a marker several rows over.
“Who’s Mr. Holt?”
“The other man. The one who—”
“Oh, right. Of course.”
They walked over and paid their respects to the man who had died with Jerry Rudd. “We used to be pretty close to the Holts,” Garth said. “I went to school with Sarah, and Mr. Holt and Dad were good friends.”
“You don’t see them anymore?”
“They moved to Atlanta not long after the accident.”
Mike squatted down next to Mr. Holt’s marker and dragged a hand over it, as if reading Braille. He raised his head, and peered around at the expansive sea of graves. “You guys went out too far,” he said in a low voice. Was he talking to Mr. Holt now as well? “You took too much of a risk.”
The accident slide-showed through Garth’s mind all over again. “I have this nightmare,” he said. “I see them in the storm. I see them struggling, and then—they go down.”
“That’s not good.”
“It�
��s awful. But I haven’t had it once since you got here.”
Mike nodded—but cautiously, as if unsure whether or not it was okay to take credit. “All right,” he finally said, and stood up. “Enough with the heavy stuff. Want to move on?”
Garth did. He never minded going to the cemetery, but once there, he never wanted to linger. Going seemed to serve a purpose; lingering was just depressing.
They followed the narrow asphalt strip, circling the grounds as they made their way back to the front entrance. At the other end of the cemetery, a funeral was under way. It wasn’t a large affair: maybe half a dozen cars behind the hearse, a single row of chairs, the familiar blue canopy.
“You never know where the day’s going to take you,” Mike said softly as they crept past.
At the mall, Mike bought himself a few dress shirts and a pair of pants. He tried on some shoes, decided against them, then eyed Garth’s worn-out sneakers and said he could do with a new pair. Garth didn’t want Mike spending any money on him, but Mike insisted and wouldn’t even let him pick out anything that was on sale. Did he know his mom’s shoe size? Garth had no idea, so Mike bought Sonja a gift card she could bring to the store and use whenever she wanted. Garth carried his old shoes out in the box and wore the new ones, which were white with blue laces and—he had to admit—looked pretty cool. He thanked Mike repeatedly, until Mike finally waved him off: “They’re just shoes.” Before leaving the mall, they ducked into a gift shop, and Mike bought an oversized, decorative photo album for Garth and his mom to fill with the photos he’d given them.
“Where’s a good lunch place?” he asked as they were nearing home.
“Turn here.”
They parked on Cary Street, and Garth led the way to the Galaxy Diner.
Just as he’d done at The Tobacco Company, Mike told Garth to “order large.” Here, that meant a bacon double-cheese burger, curly fries, a few side orders, and a chocolate milk shake. Mike ordered the same.