Bad Judgment

by Sidney Bell

  Embry let him pretend to watch TV for a few minutes. Then he said, “You hear stories about how hard it is, but I can’t really imagine what it was like.”

  “You’ll think I’m mad, but sometimes I miss it,” Brogan said. Embry lifted an eyebrow in question, and Brogan shrugged. “There’s something pure about the desert. It changes you, just being over there, and that was what I wanted, more than anything. I didn’t like myself for joining the way I did, but I liked who I was in the army. I wasn’t the kid who’d ditched my family, or stole shit, or had crappy grades and no future anymore. I was a reliable, competent soldier. That was worth it to me.” He could feel his throat squeezing closed, and had to cough. “I killed a lot of people. That’s the part that plays with my head. Not the times when I almost died. The times I pulled the trigger. I was luckier than a lot of soldiers. I never had to take a life that I wasn’t certain about. That’s what makes it bearable.”

  “Did you have trouble when you came back?”

  “A bit.” Brogan fought not to recall those first few months, when he’d been buffeted through the hours like a balloon on a windy day, spun every which way by the slightest turn in the weather, by every new face, by even a single sentence out of place. Everything had been surreal, too dim and polished after the overbright, dusty desert. He’d ridden sudden waves of unprovoked anger and confusion—one day at a store, he’d seen a couple arguing over what show to buy, and he’d found himself thinking, I put my life on the line so you could own Season 4 of Desperate Housewives on DVD? He’d had to leave and sit in the parking lot for twenty minutes in order to calm down. It was one thing to risk your life for something noble and great, but it was something else to die for something vapid and unexamined, like shitty relationships and shittier TV. The arguing couple and the show obviously weren’t anywhere near the source of his actual problem, but he’d been so angry and it was easier when the anger had a target, even if it was the wrong one. He’d spent so much time idealizing the concept of home—ironic, maybe, considering how he’d grown up—only to return and find that it felt fake and superficial and excessive after the stripped-down realism of the life he’d been living.

  “Disorienting?” Embry asked. His fingers closed around Brogan’s wrist, his thumb stroking the vein at the base of his palm, as if he knew Brogan was struggling with everything he wasn’t saying.

  “Understatement.” A familiar hum of electricity started up under his skin at the mere thought of it all and his muscles began to tighten. After a minute he added, “I joined a support group at the VA to help me acclimate to being a civilian again. That’s actually how I got into security—I had the right skills and I met a guy in group who knew Timmerson. It’s a similar mindset. It sounds bad to say it, but I’m probably at my most comfortable when there’s violence. It’s the only time I know exactly what to do.” He wiped a shaking hand across his mouth.

  “Do you get nightmares?”

  “Nosy little thing, aren’t you?” Brogan’s shoulders tightened further. Relax, he told himself. Remembering doesn’t have to mean reexperiencing. “I had my bad nights. Still do, sometimes.”

  “What are the dreams abo—”

  “Can we not talk about this?”

  Embry shifted gears seamlessly. “What about your father?”

  “Because that’s a much easier topic?” Brogan managed a chuckle, though, because compared to the shit that cropped up in his brain when he thought too much about his time in uniform, this was easier.

  Embry dropped his eyes. “Sorry. I’m not very good at this sort of thing.”

  Brogan didn’t give him a chance to take it back. As much as he hated talking about some of this stuff, the fact that Embry wanted to know was reason enough to get him to open his mouth.

  “Never knew him,” he said with a shrug. “My mom said he died of cancer, but my grandmother told me that he was killed in a drug raid.” He remembered that moment: her wizened hands clutching his, the way her eyes ran over his face as if searching for evidence of this man in his features as she’d said, “It’s for the best.”

  “Your turn,” Brogan said, and Embry’s expression froze.

  “I’m not very interesting. I haven’t gone anywhere or done anything important.”

  “Start small. Parents?”

  Embry took a tiny, bracing breath. “They’re dead. Years ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brogan said. He could see Embry’s tension building, so he didn’t pry. “Brothers? Sisters?”

  Embry opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally, he said, “No. There’s nobody else.”

  “Friends?”

  Embry shifted his weight on the couch, giving himself space. Brogan let him retreat until some of his discomfort eased, struck again by how difficult Embry seemed to find it to talk about himself. He was so quick-witted most of the time that the change was glaring. Brogan wondered why that was.

  “In case you’ve missed the obvious,” Embry managed, “I’m rather inept about making people like me.”

  “I like you.”

  “That says more about you than it does about me,” Embry replied, a bizarre mixture of affection and scorn coloring the words.

  “You made Henniton like you,” Brogan pointed out.

  “That’s different. You don’t have to like someone to want to fuck them.”

  “How did that whole thing come about?” Brogan expected Embry to shut down, but after a long, considering look, Embry replied.

  “It was obvious as soon as I walked in that they thought I was too young.” He stopped, staring into space. “About halfway through the interview, he kicked the HR lady out. I didn’t understand at first. What he was asking me for, I mean. He started off talking about his wife, then moved onto the whole ‘I’m not gay’ rigmarole.”

  “I hate that shit.”

  “Yeah. Joel’s whole identity is wrapped up in this hyper-masculine image.” Embry smirked. “He said it’s only gay if you’re the one taking it.”

  Brogan couldn’t help smiling back. “That’s a convenient definition.”

  “Isn’t it?” Embry’s smirk faded. “It was my first experience with internalized homophobia. I had no idea where he was going with that speech. I thought I was about to get my ass kicked, actually. Then he said...well. I, uh, figured it out pretty fast then.”

  “Did he try something?” Brogan asked quietly, and Embry shook his head at whatever he saw in Brogan’s face.

  “No. It wasn’t like that.”

  “What was it like, then?”

  “Brogan...”

  “Don’t lie. Please. I’ve told you things that—”

  “That doesn’t mean I owe you anything.”

  Brogan exhaled hard. “No, I guess you don’t. Tell me anyway.”

  Embry rolled his eyes. “I played him, all right?” His mouth twisted. “It was easy once I realized what he wanted. He didn’t give me the job as payment for a fuck, if that’s what you’re thinking. I said no.” He stopped, chewing on the inside of his lip, then added, “I said it in a way that made it clear I was interested, but I still said it. He gave me the job because he wanted me close by so he could seduce me.”

  “So when he pushed, you’d be obligated?”

  “You keep trying to believe I didn’t have a choice here,” Embry said. His cheeks reddened. “He’s an awful person, and he’s a horrible husband, but he didn’t manipulate me into this. I made my choices with my eyes wide open.”

  “Why then?” Brogan asked, and yep, getting loud.

  The Doomscowl reappeared. “I’m not answering that.”

  “Is that all you think you’re worth?”

  For a heartbeat, the truth was written large on Embry’s face before he covered it up, expression going blank, and he stood, distant and immovable as a glacier. “You a
sked me not to lie to you, so I won’t. But we either need to change the subject or you need to leave.”

  “Fuck,” Brogan muttered. He didn’t get up or say anything else—he’d pushed too hard already. If there was one thing he’d learned about Embry, it was that he would reveal things on his own terms only. Asking for more would just lock him like a safe.

  Brogan wished he didn’t find it sympathetic rather than annoying, but watching Embry struggle to find words plucked a string inside him, left him with a complicated hum up his spine. He wished he could leave, wished that he could actually want to, but instead, he wanted to pull Embry into his lap, coax him into feeling safe enough that he could say anything.

  The silence stretched thin, the surface tension almost unbearable by the time Embry said, “When I was seven or eight—I don’t remember exactly—my father got it into his head that he wanted to cultivate orchids.”

  His tone was sharp as razors, like he hated the words themselves, and his shoulders were knotted, but there was something beseeching about the way he delivered this statement, and Brogan’s frustration stumbled. He accepted the admission for the apology it was, a substitution for the part of Embry’s life that Brogan couldn’t have.

  “They were—were my mother’s favorite flower. My dad built this pseudo-greenhouse out of the shed in our backyard—God, it was a mess—and he, um, he read every book in the library, but he couldn’t grow a weed if he tried.”

  Embry broke off, the skin around his eyes pinching as he worked to keep going. Brogan wanted to brush his fingers against the back of Embry’s hand to ease his awkwardness and show that Brogan appreciated the effort—considerable as it seemed to be. But he wasn’t sure Embry wouldn’t pull away.

  Embry continued, “Then one day our neighbor, this smart-mouthed little old lady, took pity on him and started calling advice over the fence. A bigger pot, less sun, that sort of thing. The orchids started to live longer than a few weeks at a time. One in particular that lived long enough to bloom.”

  Embry smiled without looking up, a smile that was soft and sad and fond. “My mom cried when he handed it over. I remember thinking that it was the ugliest fucking flower I’d ever seen in my life, but she loved it.”

  Embry swallowed hard, like he wasn’t sure he could keep going, but Brogan waited, determined not to push. He thought Embry might be able to find more if Brogan gave him the space, and eventually he did. “He talked about entering it in this amateur contest held by a local gardening club, but it turned out our neighbor had been a botanist. My dad felt like it would be cheating if he entered the contest with a flower grown with professional advice.

  “He...he was a decent man. People get decency mixed up with weakness, but they aren’t the same thing. It takes a lot of strength to do the right thing when it would serve you better to play dirty.” He took a steadying breath then added in a rush, “Besides, my mother had an orchid for her mantelpiece, and that had been the whole point. It died, like, three months later, but she was so proud of him that it didn’t even matter.”

  Brogan could tell there wouldn’t be any more—Embry looked exhausted at managing that much—so Brogan said, “They sound like they were happy.”

  Embry nodded, and returned to the sofa, perching near enough that his knee rested against Brogan’s, heavy grief lingering in his eyes. His voice was rough when he added, “I’d rather talk about something else now.”

  “Okay.” Brogan considered. “Tell me about guy number one. Your first time.”

  “Greg Jivens,” Embry said, and made a face. Not the Doomscowl, but he definitely wasn’t happy about it. “I’ll tell you if you want, but you’ll get mad.”

  “I won’t. Really.”

  Embry jerked a shoulder in a way that was probably meant to be casual but wasn’t. “We were in a class together my first year of college. A debate got a little heated between us. He tracked me down at a coffee shop later, said that anyone who could use the words ontological crisis in a freshman-level course was someone he had to know better.” Embry’s cheeks flushed red and he tipped his gaze away. “Then...then he spent a few months getting me to trust him so he could take my virginity before dropping me cold as punishment for humiliating him in front of the class. Of course, he didn’t tell me about that part until after he threw the condom out.”

  “You’re right,” Brogan said. “I’m mad.” Embry’s worry about Brogan “taking him down a peg” made more sense now.

  “But I learned something important.” Embry stared at the Madonna over Brogan’s shoulder, or through it, more like, as if he was really seeing something else.

  “That he was a dick?”

  Embry shook his head. “That it hurts more when the knife in your back is put there by someone you trust.”

  Brogan went still. After a minute, Embry refocused on him. “And,” he continued pleasantly, as if he hadn’t just given away a dangerous piece of himself, “that the words ontological crisis aren’t sexy after all.”

  “What are you up to?” Brogan asked, remembering Embry talking about Henniton, saying, “You think I don’t know that he’s a bastard? But I was handling it, I was getting it done.”

  Embry gazed at the television. “Cartoons these days are crap.”

  Brogan used one finger on Embry’s chin to turn his head back so Brogan could read his face—or try to, at any rate. Embry’s expression was carefully neutral. “Are you still playing him?”

  The phone rang.

  Embry rose, the vulnerable mixture of softness and tension disappearing. He put a finger over his lips as a warning to Brogan, and answered, his tone brisk and empty. “Ford.”

  There was quiet for a minute. “Yeah, a while ago.” More quiet. “There’s a fracture. I might need surgery.”

  The conversation continued, and Brogan wandered back to Embry’s bedroom to pace and distract himself, torn between needing to know what Embry would say and not wanting to hear any of it. He could hear the difference between the way Embry spoke to Henniton—smooth and respectful, the bullshit so practiced that it was no surprise that people didn’t recognize it—and the way he spoke to Brogan, like he didn’t fear that Brogan would hold his words against him. Today, for the first time, he’d spoken about personal things, and his words had been uneven, halting and small. As if Embry’d had to chip away at that polished, plastic surface to get to the secret things underneath in a process both messy and draining.

  But it was honest and it was real, and Brogan craved more of it. It meant something that Embry was willing to try for him, even if it barely scratched the surface.

  He studied the books on Embry’s shelves, recognizing Flaubert if not much else—he’d had to read Madame Bovary in high school, albeit not in French, like Embry evidently preferred it.

  Embry was saying, “You don’t have to buy me anything. No.” Then a pause. “It won’t fix anything.” Another pause. “Fine, I’ll think about it.”

  Brogan wondered what the hell he was doing here.

  In the background he heard, “Joel, no. I don’t... I don’t want to. Yeah, I’m angry, but that’s not why... I’m tired.”

  Brogan stared at Summer, the Monet over Embry’s bed, then left the bedroom, stomach churning, his thoughts whirling with questions he knew he wouldn’t get the answers to. Embry glanced at him, gave an apologetic wince, and said, “Does he have to stay here?” The words cut even though he knew Embry was just saying it to cover for them. He sounded petulant now—convincingly so. “I don’t know, watching some stupid TV show. I can’t work.”

  Brogan lifted an eyebrow and Embry shrugged, lips twitching.

  “Fine, but I’m not letting him eat my food.”

  Brogan shook his head despite the ache in his chest. He hated this. He was trying not to say or do any of the things he wanted to, because he didn’t want to be the dick who said,
“I understand the restrictions,” and then bitched about them anyway.

  But.

  Embry hung up then used a finger to wipe away a speck of dust. The gesture was precise and fastidious, like virtually everything Embry did. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke, his voice was disciplined. “This is an outrageously bad idea.”

  That stung.

  “You want me to go?” Brogan asked.

  “It’s best for both of us, I think,” Embry said. “You have to do what’s best for you, and I can’t believe that’s me and this...mess.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.” He didn’t know why he needed to make Embry acknowledge it. Perhaps that was mean. Perhaps he didn’t want to be the only one aware of what they were missing out on.

  Embry hesitated for so long that Brogan thought he might not answer at all. Then he said, “I’m not leaving him. Saying anything else would be cruel.”

  Brogan didn’t know what to say, either. Embry was being honest. Brogan had no right to expect anything else, but the words left an ache every bit as palpable as if he’d been punched. Even knowing that Embry didn’t want Henniton—and he believed that—he still felt like he ranked about five notches above the common earthworm in Embry’s estimation.

  The idea that tomorrow Henniton might be here, talking to Embry like Brogan had today, being allowed to touch him without restraint despite the fact that he put a crack in Embry’s fucking skull, perhaps even pushing Embry down on his knees to perform any number of lewd acts... Brogan closed his eyes and forced himself to think.

  If he stayed, if he tried to work himself into the tiny space Embry would allow him, he’d come to hate Embry for it, no matter how apologetically the pain and insecurity might be dealt.

  And he’d hate himself for putting up with it.

  “Yeah,” he said, and his voice sounded rusty, like he’d been breathing barbed wire. “Yeah, I’m gonna go.”

  Embry looked away, his jaw working. “I understand.”

  Brogan collected his jacket, his hands knowing what to do even if his brain was on autopilot. On the surface, he supposed this was eerily similar to what he’d done with his family all those years ago—they’d needed him, and he’d left. But the experience of it differed greatly—back then, he’d been a dried out husk, desperate to escape. This time he felt alive, like he had the strength to crawl over broken glass if that was what Embry needed.