Calling Calling Calling Me

by Natasha Washington

  “Can you explain this to me?” he said, and pointed to an article on the front page of the paper.

  The headline said something about a court case involving a ban against transgender people using bathrooms for their chosen gender.

  Patrick swallowed. Don’t talk too much, he could hear himself saying to Josh. Could he take his own advice?

  “This all started in San Francisco, I think,” his uncle said. “With that mayor who married all those gay people.”

  “Gavin Newsom, yeah,” Patrick said, nodding. “But that’s not exactly the same issue as…”

  “And now there are all these transgenders around, wanting to use the bathrooms, like their lifestyle is normal.”

  Patrick’s uncle said lifestyle as if he were talking about people who routinely killed puppies or tortured babies. Patrick could feel heat creep up the back of his neck.

  “I’m not sure how a transgender person using a bathroom for their chosen gender will affect anyone else,” Patrick said. “Also, transgender people have been around forever. This isn’t a new thing.”

  “Carter, don’t put Patrick on the spot,” Patrick’s mom said. “He doesn’t speak for the entire city of San Francisco.”

  “Yeah, but I thought he might understand, because I sure as hell don’t,” Patrick’s uncle said. “It seems—”

  “Good morning, everyone!” Patrick heard Josh say, too loudly, behind him.

  He turned and reached out without thinking, brushing his hand over Josh’s wrist, and Josh grasped his hand briefly before letting it go.

  When he turned back, Patrick’s uncle was looking at them with narrowed eyes.

  “We have to go somewhere,” Josh said. “C’mon, Patrick. You know, that place we have to go? The place you said you wanted to show me?”

  Josh’s eyes were wide and pleading.

  He’s trying to rescue me, Patrick thought.

  “Right!” Patrick said, nodding. “That place.”

  They were outside and walking down the driveway before Josh said, “I don’t have my keys, I—”

  Patrick dropped his set of car keys and wallet into Josh’s hand, then shoved him in the direction of his parents’ car.

  “Drive,” he muttered.

  They were out on the highway, cruising along as Patrick fiddled with the radio, when Josh said, “You do know I have no idea where I’m going.”

  “It’s okay,” Patrick said. “Take the next exit and keep on driving. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  The next exit dropped them into strip-mall territory, but as they drove, the road narrowed to one lane in each direction and the strip malls flattened into fields, farms with horses and cows, the heavy scent of manure in the air. Patrick rolled down his window and stuck his head out, the breeze ruffling his hair. His anger felt like a weight in his stomach. He didn’t give Josh further direction. Josh seemed afraid to speak up, like maybe he would say something Patrick didn’t want to hear.

  “Here,” Patrick said suddenly, and Josh had to swing the wheel far to the right to turn onto a dirt lane that led through a field. The earth was dry and yellow-brown, and nothing looked to be growing anywhere, the land hard and unforgiving.

  They bumped down the road for a bit before Patrick said, “You can stop here.”

  Patrick knew Josh wouldn’t be able to tell what was different about this place, exactly, except that they were far enough off the road now that they couldn’t hear any passing cars. It was weirdly silent, actually. Patrick felt tired and twitchy. He shielded his eyes against the sun, now fully risen overhead, and inhaled through his nose.

  Josh fidgeted next to him, and Patrick exhaled.

  “I used to come here,” Patrick said, “after I got my license. I’d take my parents’ car and drive out here and park in the middle of this field and cry.”

  Josh turned and reached out to touch Patrick, but Patrick couldn’t do that right now. He couldn’t let anyone touch him. It was too much.

  He pushed open the passenger side door and got out, slamming it shut behind him.

  Josh shoved open his own door and climbed out. Patrick leaned against the side of the car.

  “You look like the cover of a Steinbeck novel,” Josh blurted out. “In that plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up, those faded jeans—”

  “Josh,” Patrick said, and Josh stopped talking and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

  Patrick felt terrible, but he didn’t know what to say or do to make this better. This was what it was. This was Patrick’s life when he was here. Josh had come down, boyfriend-to-the-rescue, and now he’d seen it. Only a glimpse, but still.

  This was that world outside San Francisco that Josh wanted so much to experience.

  This was why Patrick had run.

  Patrick had come here the night before he left to move to San Francisco. He’d sat in the bed of his parents’ truck, huddled in his hoodie, and cried until the sun set and the stars came out, pinpricks of light in a heavy summer sky. He didn’t even know what he’d been crying about. That he was leaving all this, maybe. That this wasn’t who he was anymore. That in San Francisco, there would be no empty field to run to, because San Francisco was respite, and salvation, and as beautiful as his dreams.

  It was everything.

  Josh was a part of that. He always had been. When Patrick had imagined San Francisco that night, it was more than that sparkling oceanfront city with its hills and fog and rosy bridges that he knew from postcards and movies. It was Josh, and his Castro apartment filled with people and laughter and show tunes and that giant TV. It was Josh, and his wide smile that crinkled his eyes, and the delicate curve of his shoulders, and the way he’d said: I have so many things to ask you.

  “I always liked it here because everything was dead, like a blank canvas,” Patrick said. “This place’s been abandoned for years, and they never can seem to sell it. I’d sit here and imagine what would be different somewhere else, anywhere else. LA or New York or Chicago or San Francisco. Even abroad, Paris or Rome or Barcelona or London…anywhere that wasn’t here, anywhere—”

  “I used to do that sometimes,” Josh said. “I applied other places for college, you know. Outside of California. I thought about it.”

  “Why would you want to leave, though?” Patrick asked. “You live in one of the most amazing places on earth.”

  Josh looked at the ground, toeing at the dry grass with his foot. He didn’t say anything.

  “I know I’ve never really told you much,” Patrick said. “About—”

  “You can tell me anything,” Josh blurted out, then went quiet when Patrick turned to look at him. “I’m sorry. I’ll shut up.”

  “I don’t want you to shut up,” Patrick said. “I don’t want you to have to shut up, Josh. That’s why I didn’t want you to be around my cousins. My parents and my sister and my grandma—they know, they have to know. Even though I’ve never really told them. But a lot of the rest of my family…”

  Patrick sighed. “It’s so exhausting,” he whispered. “It’s so exhausting to feel like this again.”

  Josh did move forward then, one hand brushing over Patrick’s cheek. “You don’t have to—”

  “Feel like this?” Patrick said. “Bullshit. I don’t think I have a choice.”

  Josh sighed. “Please tell me what to do,” he said.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Patrick said. “There’s nothing you can do.”

  “There has to be something I can do,” Josh said. “There has to be.”

  Patrick looked away. The quiet descended over them, and Patrick felt, in a way he never had before, how oppressive silence could be.

  “When I was thirteen,” Patrick said finally, “I used to throw up almost every day before school. I was so afraid of what people would say, what they would do to me. One day I came home with bruises on my face because some dumb basketball player had shoved me into a locker, and my mom said I wasn’t going back. She bought all these books abou
t homeschooling and she filed all the paperwork, and that’s what we did, for a couple years—she kept me home and I did the work, and I didn’t see anybody. That was as good as school had ever been for me. I keep wondering…”

  He stopped. Josh moved forward into his space, holding his arms and squeezing. Patrick could feel himself shaking.

  “I keep wondering what makes kids like that,” Patrick said. “I look at Trent and Lissa sometimes and I think, there’s no way. There’s no way they could ever—but they could. With my uncle, with the shit he says all the time…”

  “Oh, Patrick,” Josh exhaled, and Patrick finally met his eyes.

  “They could,” Patrick murmured. “They could be exactly like that.”

  “But they won’t be if you’re there,” Josh said. “To be an example.”

  “Why do I have to be an example?” Patrick said, his voice pitching up. “Why do I have to come back to this place I hate so that I can be the role model they don’t have? Nobody’s asking straight people to be an example, like: Show everybody that your heterosexuality is harmless.”

  Josh bit his lip. “It sucks,” he said. “You’re right. It’s unfair, and it sucks.”

  “You probably think I should have stood up to them in middle school, right?” Patrick said. “Been some heroic, proud gay example like you were?”

  Josh sighed. “I think you stand up to people whenever it’s your time to stand up to them. Whenever you’re ready,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be when you’re thirteen.”

  Patrick looked away. He could feel tears sliding down his cheeks. He thought about how he’d held Brad Higgins’s gaze, how he hadn’t looked away or backed down.

  Josh used his thumb to brush one of his tears away.

  “Sometimes I feel like I ran away,” Patrick said. “Ran away to San Francisco, so nobody could touch me.”

  Josh looked so incredibly sad, but he didn’t move away.

  “You know how hard it is to come to a new place where you don’t know anybody and make friends and create a whole life for yourself?” Josh said. “That’s not running away. That’s super-brave.”

  Patrick tilted up his chin.

  “I never did that,” Josh said. “You’re one of the bravest people I know.”

  * * *

  Patrick decided to go back a day earlier than he’d planned. He told his family that it was because he had homework, and he did—exams were fast approaching, and he had finals and papers and all manner of other things he didn’t want to think about. But the truth was, he wanted to get back early, before his roommates returned, because he wanted Josh all to himself.

  He flushed slightly thinking about what they could do with an extra few hours and an empty apartment.

  “Honey?”

  “Yeah, Mom?” he said.

  His mom stepped into his room, lingering in the doorway with a sad smile on her face. “I don’t want you to go, sweetheart.”

  Patrick bit his lip. This was hard. “I’m sorry, Mom. I’ll be back in a month for Christmas, you know.”

  “I know,” she said, and sat on the bed next to him. “It’s just…it’s not easy having you so far away. You call and you email and it’s wonderful, but it’s not the same.”

  Patrick didn’t know what to say. He set his phone down on the bed, and it buzzed with a new message.

  hi, Josh wrote. i thought you should know i’m in the living room, thinking about you naked.

  Patrick made a face at the phone as if Josh could see him.

  “You never let go of that phone,” she observed. “A lot of important correspondence, huh?”

  He shrugged.

  “I don’t know. My friends text me a lot, I guess.”

  She wrapped her arm around his shoulders, pulling him into an awkward embrace. “I’m so glad you have friends, honey. Even if they’ve stolen you away from me.”

  “They didn’t steal me away, I’m not—”

  “Patrick, I know,” she said, giving him a light kiss on the cheek. “I know.”

  There was a pause. She carded her hand through his hair. Damn. He’d totally put product in this morning and everything.

  His mom brushed a hand over his neck, and Patrick thought: Fuck. There was no way she couldn’t see the mark Josh had left there.

  “Josh seems very sweet,” she said.

  Patrick’s stomach flip-flopped.

  “You should invite him to come here for Christmas,” she trundled on. “Not for the holiday itself, maybe, I’m sure he wants to be with his family, but before? Or New Year’s? He could come for New Year’s! I’m sure it’s not as exciting as San Francisco on New Year’s, but we can have champagne, and watch the ball drop…”

  Patrick’s throat felt tight. He’d been trying to figure out what he was going to do about New Year’s. He couldn’t imagine spending it without Josh, and he loved his parents’ dumb, boring traditions. But now…

  “That would be great,” Patrick said softly. “I’ll ask him.”

  She beamed. They were silent for a moment, his mom quietly rearranging the objects on his desk as if they belonged in a particular configuration that had somehow been compromised.

  “You know,” Patrick said, “I ran into Brad Higgins on Friday.”

  Patrick didn’t know why he’d said it. Maybe because he used to tell his mom everything, and it felt strange not to tell her this.

  Her hands stilled. Patrick knew he was breaking a rule. Patrick’s mom didn’t like upset and discomfort. She liked order and control and positivity.

  “Brad Higgins?” she said, and Patrick could see her body tense. “The one who—”

  “Kicked my ass a bunch of times?” Patrick said. “Yeah. That one.”

  “Oh, honey,” his mom said, her face crumpling.

  “It’s okay,” Patrick said. “I handled it fine. He wasn’t even that much of a jerk to me.”

  His mom stayed quiet, twisting her wedding ring around her finger. “I’m sorry about that, sweetie,” she said. “That can’t have brought up good memories.”

  Patrick realized, in that moment, that he couldn’t keep doing this. He couldn’t keep skirting around this part of his life, couldn’t keep acting like it didn’t matter that they never talked about this fundamental thing that everyone knew.

  Patrick was gay. It was part of the fabric of him, essential, his very core. It was how he loved and how he saw the world, and there was no way in hell he was inviting Josh to come back to Fresno for New Year’s if his parents didn’t know who Josh truly was to him.

  It was more than that, though. Patrick didn’t want his parents to know he was gay because of Josh. He wanted them to know because he wanted them to love him for it. To love him for the way he loved.

  Patrick didn’t know how to do this. There was no handbook or instructions.

  No way out but through, he thought.

  “Why do you think Brad beat me up, Mom?” Patrick asked.

  She looked up.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Why do you think—”

  “Why are we talking about this now, sweetheart?” she asked. “That’s all behind you, isn’t it? You never have to see him again.”

  Patrick felt frustration press at his temples. “That’s not…that’s not the point. I want to know if you know why he beat me up.”

  “Because kids can be terrible,” she said. “Because he was a bully, and you were smaller than him, and—”

  “No, Mom,” Patrick said. “He beat me up because I’m a fag.”

  His mom closed her mouth, her lips forming a tight line. Her eyes filled with tears.

  Fuck. This was exactly why—

  “Don’t you say that word, Pat,” his mom said. “Don’t you…”

  “It’s true, though,” Patrick said. “It’s why—”

  “No!” she exclaimed, and she reached out and grasped his arm, her nails digging into his bicep through his sleeve. “It’s not true. I know you’re gay, honey, but you are
not a…fag.”

  Patrick felt his whole world tilt on its axis. “What?” he said.

  “You are not—I won’t even say that word again. I don’t care what he may have called you. He was an awful, angry, mean young man. You are who you are and that’s that. He had no right—”

  “Mom—”

  “He had no right, Patrick,” his mom said.

  Patrick’s chest felt tight and split wide open, all at once. “Yesterday morning,” he said. “What Uncle Carter said—”

  “Carter is an idiot,” his mom said. “He’s always been an idiot.”

  “Mom,” Patrick said, scandalized. For his mother, saying someone was an idiot was akin to saying they were, as Taneisha might say, worthless as hell.

  “He’s my brother,” his mom said. “I can’t change that. But I have those kids over whenever I can. I’m not going to let his views be the only ones they hear.”

  Patrick looked at her. She was looking back at him, her gaze unwavering.

  “You know, don’t you?” Patrick said. “About Josh and me.”

  His mother lifted her chin. “I’d rather you tell me,” she said.

  Patrick’s stomach hurt. He stared out the window, his gaze coming to rest on the swing set his dad had installed when he was seven. He remembered swinging on it for hours, how his dad would come by from time to time and push and he was off.

  Not everything about Fresno is bad, he thought. You have people who love you here too.

  “He’s…my boyfriend,” Patrick said. “I guess that’s what we’re calling it now. Since Halloween.”

  He looked back at his mother, and the second he saw her face, he knew that he’d been wrong to ever doubt her.

  “He’s lovely, Pat,” his mother said. “Is he—”

  “Yes,” Patrick said. “He’s amazing, he’s charming, he’s perfect.”

  “But is he good to you?” his mother said. “Does he make you happy?”

  Patrick had to swallow around the lump in his throat. “Yes.” He repeated, “Yes.”

  “Then…good,” she said. “That is all I need to know.”

  * * *

  Josh examined various objects in Patrick’s room while he packed up his stuff, running his fingers over Patrick’s debate trophies and framed play programs and literary magazines.