A Question of Manhood

by Robin Reardon

  One of these days Mom was gonna put a special lock on this door and hide the key, and I wouldn’t be able to come in here anymore. Would I still care? What difference would it make? I stood there, looking around at everything, turning in place, and getting angrier with each revolution.

  “FUCK!”

  I yelled it again, just to hear it, just for the satisfaction of doing it. Then, “Fuck you, Chris!”

  Fuck you. Fuck you for signing up. Fuck you for trying to do what Dad wanted you to do. Fuck you for going over there. Fuck you for getting killed. Fuck you for being gay. And fuck you for making me love you.

  Oh, yeah; and fuck you for leaving me this legacy to remember you by. This legacy of secrets. This burden I have to carry for you the rest of my fucking life.

  I slammed the door on my way back to my room, where I nearly threw the mattress off the bed looking for the pages I’d written to him. The albums slid off of each other and onto the floor, but I didn’t care. Crumpled papers in hand, I thundered downstairs, grabbed Dad’s pipe lighter, and set fire to a corner of the wad. Too late I realized I needed to move the fireplace screen before I could toss the flaming mass in, and by the time I managed that with my one free hand, a bit of smoldering paper had separated itself and landed on some paper Mom hadn’t picked up yet. Guess what happened.

  Some indeterminate amount of time later, with the legs of the wooden table nearest the fireplace scorched and the carpet on that side of the hearth burned and stinking, the flames were out. My papers were gone, mission accomplished; but I had to come up with some reason why this had happened. I stood there, looking around, and my gaze landed on the pile of wrapping paper that Mom had left. So I crumpled it, tossed it all into the fireplace, and set fire to it. If I was going to catch hell—and there didn’t seem any way out of that—I needed a better reason than “I was trying to get rid of some stuff I didn’t want you to see.” I contemplated disappearing for a while, but I knew that if Dad got home and I’d skipped out it would be worse. So I went back to Chris’s room and knelt by the bed, thinking I’d wait there. And I prayed.

  Jesus, it wasn’t my fault I didn’t get to church this morning. I was going to go, you know that. If you’re fair, you won’t let this relapse affect what I’ve been asking for. Which, as you know, is for Chris to be in heaven, and for things here on earth to be calm enough for us to figure out how we can go on from here. So please don’t blame me because my dad thinks I did something I shouldn’t have. He’s wrong. Mr. Chandler wouldn’t have done something that would jeopardize his store, and Dad just couldn’t back down from his high horse. So he tried to make it my fault anyway, which you know very well it wasn’t. So don’t take it out on me, or Chris. Please. Thank you. Amen.

  I sat on the bed, but that didn’t seem right. I sat at the desk. But the walls started closing in on me, so I went into the basement and stayed there until I heard the car.

  Predictably, Dad blew his stack. “What in God’s name were you thinking?”

  For a few minutes Mom stood in the doorway to the kitchen looking worried, but she must have figured she couldn’t help because she disappeared into that housewife’s haven.

  “I was trying to help, I told you. I was getting rid of some of this stuff. Cleaning up.”

  “You sure cleaned up, all right. Just look at this mess! This table belonged to your grandmother, and now it’s ruined. And the carpet!”

  Yeah, I can see that. Did you think that got by me? I said nothing aloud but waited for the steam to rise a little higher, which I knew it would; he wasn’t played out. But I wasn’t gonna do anything, if I could help it, to make things worse. I kept my mouth shut.

  “What do you think ought to happen next, hmmm? What’s the next step here?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. I’ve said I’m sorry, I’ve admitted it was stupid. What else can I say?”

  It escalated from there with him shouting about what a child I was until I’d about had it. I started fighting back. “It wouldn’t have happened if you guys hadn’t just left on me. Why didn’t you ask me to go with you? I asked you to go with us last night.”

  “Don’t you try to make this anyone’s fault but yours, young man.”

  “You tried to make it my fault that you were wrong about my nonexistent fake ID.”

  Silence. Always a bad sign. It’s the point in one of these arguments where Dad gives up on words and resorts to physical bashing. His arm shot out and pointed in the direction of the basement door.

  Now we’d reached the point at which our family script says I’m to turn and walk in front of him to the door and down the steps, anticipating the strike of a leather strap against my ass all the way. But this time I didn’t turn.

  “What are you waiting for?” he nearly shouted.

  “I’m waiting for an apology.” I guess I had a death wish or something. “You accused me of having an illegal ID this morning, in case you’ve forgotten, and I had no such thing. The only thing I did wrong was to get you something I knew you’d like for Christmas. And now you’re gonna whip my ass? I don’t think so.”

  He stepped forward, nearly onto my toes, and looked up at me. “What are you gonna do about it?”

  “Andy!” It was Mom’s voice. She was in the fray now, and she pushed me away and faced Dad herself. “It’s Christmas Day!”

  I wanted more. I wanted her to point out that he’d been wrong to accuse me earlier, that they’d both been wrong not to ask me to go with them, and that the burned wood and carpet just evened today’s score. But she evidently wanted all of us to live to see another day and just stood between us. It reminded me of that time Mom had told me I wasn’t taking Laura to any party the weekend that Chris would be home. Jeez, was that only five weeks ago? Then, and now, she was stone. She was ice. She was something that would not be moved.

  So in the end it took a woman to stare down two men who were bent on damaging each other. Because I swear, if he’d come at me with that belt, I’d have taken it away from him, and he’d be lucky if I didn’t use it on him. I think Mom knew that. I think she knew the time when I’d let him do that to me was over.

  Dinner that night was about as glum as it’s possible to imagine. I was civil to Mom, but I didn’t speak to Dad. He spoke to no one.

  She cried as she did the dishes. I felt like a shit, but I didn’t see what I could have done differently. Dad just landed in his precious recliner, and I went upstairs to my room. Mom went into Chris’s room and shut the door.

  Happy Birthday, Jesus.

  The next morning, after Dad was safely at work, I sat at the desk in his den, with the door shut. I’d looked up Mr. Treadwell’s home number and had even written it on a piece of green-lined paper. It was in front of me now, staring up at me. Three times, maybe four, I picked up the telephone handset and dialed a few of the numbers before I hung up again. The thing was, I didn’t know what I’d say to him. What I had was a laundry list of complaints against my dad, and a few against Chris that I couldn’t talk about. And what was Mr. Treadwell gonna be able to do about any of that? What could anyone do?

  In the end I called Marty Kaufman. I could have called Bobby, or Terry, or a couple other guys, but I called Marty, probably because he’s the one my parents liked the least. It had been a while since we’d talked outside of necessity, but we weren’t enemies or anything. So we decided to hook up. He had his license by now.

  “Let’s cruise, kid,” he said. “I’ll let you drive some.”

  When I saw his car from my bedroom window I headed downstairs, shrugging into a jean jacket as I went. I called to Mom that I was going out for a while, not stopping long enough to hear if she had anything to say to that, or if she wanted any more information.

  Marty had a five-year-old Mustang, dark green, standard transmission. We spent some time in a nearly empty parking lot while he let me practically strip his gears figuring out how to work the clutch, and finally I got it. Then he took the wheel back and gunned the car over icy p
atches, spinning around as many times as possible before the tires caught pavement again. At one point something went a little screwy under the hood, and Marty had to get this mondo toolbox, bright shiny red, out of the trunk.

  “Jeepers, creepers,” I said, faking amazement. “Anything you don’t have in that box?”

  “Not much. You never know what you’ll need, eh?”

  He had no trouble setting things to rights, and we were off. I drove some on the highway—license laws be damned—and we stopped for burgers and sodas around three o’clock. After that he just drove around, honking at other cars and whistling at girls, sometimes with the windows down so they’d hear. Marty made so many comments about one girl’s body or another’s that I finally asked him, “How much have you done, anyway? How far have you gone with a girl?”

  “Christ, Landon. What haven’t I done?” He laughed like a hyena and slapped the steering wheel. “You name it. Or just name a girl! Ha, ha!” He sniffed as though that punctuated the expertise he was claiming. “What about you? Popped anyone’s cherry yet? Nothin’ like it.”

  I hadn’t even popped my own, truth be told. Not with any body parts other than my own hand. I decided against answering; Marty’s question had sounded nearly rhetorical, anyway. But he wasn’t through.

  “Seriously. You done it yet?”

  He kept glancing at me and back at the road. Finally I had to own up. “Not yet.”

  He nodded like he wasn’t surprised. “Got anyone in mind?”

  “No one I’ve seen yet.” I tried to make it sound like no one I’d met was worth it.

  “This is gonna be your year, kid. I’ll see to it.”

  The conversation, what there was of it, ranged over various topics after that. Conversation is not what Marty does best. At one point he rolled his window down out of necessity—not just to whistle at girls. He’d let go of a whopper fart. I was sure he’d blame me, like, Christ, Landon. What’re they feeding you, rotten eggs? But he cackled insanely and then rolled down the window frantically as he said, “Shit! Even I didn’t like that one!”

  Back at my house, he said, “Give me a little more advance notice next time, champ. I’ll have a chilled six-pack in the trunk.”

  My dad was already home, which I thought was probably a bad sign for me. It might mean they’d been waiting dinner for me. That wasn’t the case. Something else was waiting for me, though. Dad was at the kitchen table facing the door, a beer in front of him, with no sign of Mom, or dinner, anywhere. We hadn’t talked, Dad and I, since we’d nearly come to blows the day before. I stopped just inside the door to the kitchen, wary. He glared at me.

  Then he said, “Do you know where your mother is?”

  How could I? I just got here. And why are you always asking me questions I can’t answer? I said, “No.”

  “She’s upstairs. Crying her eyes out. And do you know why?” I took a deep breath as several wise-ass retorts played themselves out in my head. It must have been too long. “Do you know why?” he shouted at me.

  “I’m sure you’re about to tell me.” What does he expect?

  He stood, leaning his fingers on the tabletop. I was trying to get a sense of how drunk he was. His voice seemed steady enough when he growled, “She’s been trying so hard not to cry. She’s been trying to be here, in the present as she puts it, for you. And what do you do?” He waited; I couldn’t tell if it was just for dramatic effect or if he expected me to say something.

  I decided to answer him. “I take her to church and let her hold my hand during the service. I learn to do laundry. I work during my vacation on school stuff to keep my grades up. I pray for God to make me a little like Chris so I can—”

  “Like Chris? You think you want to be like Chris?” His voice rose as he went on. “Whatever Chris was, at least he would never have left his Vietnamese sandals under his bed where his mother would find them while she’s cleaning his room for him.”

  So many things went through my head I didn’t know where to start. All I said in the end was, “Those aren’t his sandals. They’re mine.”

  He moved from behind the table while he did his best to terrify me. It would have worked once upon a time. “They represent your brother. They remind your mother of what she lost.”

  “I lost him, too. And so did you, even if you called me by his name the other night. And I’m sorry if seeing those sandals upset her, but they’re mine, and they’re in my room, and I’m not gonna pretend he wasn’t my brother.”

  “No one’s asking you to. But I’ll tell you this: You’re not going to be like him.”

  He advanced on me, but I was determined to hold this ground. Through gritted teeth I told him, “And he was nothing like you.” That took him by surprise, and I leaned into the weakness I sensed. “Why couldn’t it have been you who died over there instead of him?”

  I was hoping to see more surprise. I wanted shock and awe. What I got instead was delivered in dead tones. “Do you think I haven’t wished that every day for nearly a month?”

  At least we agree on something. I turned on my heel and left him standing there. Upstairs, I stopped outside Mom and Dad’s room, thinking I might go in and apologize to her, but I was still so angry I didn’t trust my tone. Plus, what did I have to apologize for? It wasn’t my fault Chris had given me those sandals, and I certainly didn’t leave them under the bed so anyone would find them and weep. Maybe I should leave the SADEYE pellets out and see what effect they had.

  I fell onto my bed, feet on the pillow, head toward the foot. Is this how they’d bury someone they were ashamed of, rather than the right way around in the grave? And then I cursed God. I damned Jesus. Why couldn’t even they do something right? Here we had a houseful of people, all mourning the loss of the best member of the family—at least we agreed on that point—and we couldn’t even get along? We couldn’t even comfort each other? We couldn’t even talk to each other in normal voices, have normal conversations? We had to be at each other’s throat? And Dad even had to rub it in. “You’re not going to be like him.” It had almost sounded like he should have added, “If I have anything to say about it.”

  It would be one thing, I chastised the Almighty, if I hadn’t been asking—begging, praying!—for help. Did this mean God was equally incompetent at saving Chris’s soul? Was my brother turned over to Satan to be tortured forever because he’d had a few misguided intimate moments with guys, and God Himself was powerless to do anything about it?

  If Jesus was the son of God, then it was the same way I was the son of my father. All four of us mean-spirited and useless.

  As if we needed any more drama, Thursday the twenty-eighth was the day of Chris’s funeral. I have to say I don’t remember much about it. Mom had told me to invite anyone I wanted, so I’d asked Bobby Darnell. I wanted to ask Terry, ’cause I knew him better, but I knew Dad would throw a fit and Terry would feel weird. Bobby would understand.

  So that was the next time I was in church. I sat next to Mom on the far side of Dad, and Bobby sat next to me with his parents beside him. I think if Ken had come home already it would have been impossible, but he was still over there, so Bobby and his folks were the right choice, even if it was a little tough on them. At least I did something right.

  I’d expected to be, like, totally numb. And for the most part I was. Two things freaked me out, though. One was walking past the casket. It was closed, of course, and as we approached it I was thinking that was better. I’d seen it at the funeral parlor, but I’d stayed pretty far away from it. The thing had seemed so unrelated to Chris, anyway. And everyone there had kept coming up to me and saying how sorry they were and all, so it was pretty distracting, and it was easy to ignore the thing. But in the church, as it lay there looking imposing and dark and—I don’t know, maybe ominous, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. Like it was the last I’d ever see of Chris. But it wasn’t Chris, and the last I’d seen of Chris was him getting into that cab and slamming the door. In a way the coffin was no mo
re related to him there in the church than it had been at the funeral parlor, but in another way it felt even more him than the cab that had taken him away, even though I’d actually seen him then. None of it made any sense. My brain felt like it was retreating from the insides of my skull, and I started breathing really quickly. As we approached it, I tried focusing on Dad’s limp; he was ahead of Mom, who was ahead of me. That helped for about seven paces but no more.

  I wanted to shout that Chris wasn’t in there. That everyone was mistaken. They were just as wrong about this as they were that he’d been a brave soldier who would one day marry some sweet girl and have kids. But I was the only one who knew the truth, and all they’d do is lock me up. So I clenched my jaw shut and put one foot in front of the other.

  The other freaky part was at the cemetery. They had Mom and Dad each throw a handful of earth onto the top of the coffin once it was in the hole, and of course Mom was sobbing the whole time. I couldn’t blame her; I kind of wanted to do that, too. What got to me was the sound when the dirt clods hit the top of the casket and made this thud. Dad’s was worse, ’cause his hand could hold more dirt than Mom’s. And it was almost like Chris was knocking, banging on the other side of the lid to be let out.

  They ushered us out after that; didn’t let us stay and watch the rest of the dirt get piled onto him. Probably just as well. So we walked back to the big black car while the occasional piece of frozen rain bounced off someone’s black-clad shoulder. At least that didn’t make any sound.

  I didn’t go to church that Sunday. Neither did Dad. Uncle Jeff and Aunt Diane came to pick Mom up.

  So 1973 started out with a kind of armed truce going on in our house. Dad and I barely spoke. Mom gave up on trying to turn me into Sunday Chris, which was fine by me because I’d decided God/Jesus/Whoever was full of shit, anyway. Mom started going regularly with my uncle and aunt. She stopped making cookies, and I didn’t much care.