Cut Both Ways
Page 15
One time, I tried to talk to my dad about it, before the papers were signed and the lawyers happened, and the moving back and forth started. I tried to say something I’d seen on a TV show, about how it was a misunderstanding: “It’s not anybody’s fault,” was the thing I remember someone telling the kid in the show. I was trying to be smart. For him to pat me on the head and maybe smile once in a while. I just wanted to make him feel better. For even five minutes.
I said something like, “Dad, you should listen to Mom’s side of the story. Then maybe tell her your side? Because it’s not anybody’s fault.”
But he didn’t smile. He barely looked at me. He just shook his head and sighed and said, “Everyone’s side of the story is just how they sugarcoat their own fault in it. It’s just bullshit, Will. Bullshit.”
Which was when I understood that my dad was right about one thing: being quiet about what bothered you was probably for the best.
Garrett says he’s got the stuff to fix my car now and we head out to do that. I try to focus so Garrett doesn’t think I’m a total waste of time. He won’t let me pay him back for the part and stuff, either. Just wants me to watch and see how it’s fixed, in case it happens again. Even though Angus texted me to come hang out while he and DeKalb practice before tomorrow’s show, I don’t text back, because I want to pay attention to every step. I know Angus must wonder why I’m blowing him off—like with Brandy, I try to answer all of his calls and texts as soon as possible—but we’re not done until it’s really late. Like ten o’clock. Which isn’t late for teenagers, I know, but I don’t feel like it’s right to just be like, “Great! Thanks! Bye!” to Garrett and then tear off after he basically fixed my car for free.
We go inside. Kristin’s not back yet so I ask him what the deal is.
“She’s at her friend’s place for the night,” he says. “They’re working on a website Kristin wants to set up.”
“Oh.”
I think he’ll make us dinner, but then he just pulls out the bucket of vanilla from the freezer. “You want?”
Garrett and me eat ice cream in front of the television. Like we’re old people. Or, given the heaping portions he’s put in our bowls, like we’re old people who’ve just suffered a breakup. All we need is a rom-com on the television. Instead, we watch SportsCenter and then this movie about a little kid who sets things on fire with her mind.
“That’s Drew Barrymore,” he says, nodding at the TV.
“Who?”
“God, I’m old,” he says, shaking his head. “Want more ice cream?”
I’m not really hungry, but I say yes. Mostly I just like how it swirls in the bowl. It’s like hypnosis. I like to move it all around with the spoon until the whole thing’s just a bowl of brown, no more lines of caramel or chocolate.
I can’t finish the next bowl, though. I swirl it to brown, the spoon making little clinks. My teeth feel all gritty, coated with sugar. Like they’re rotting in my head. I can’t remember the last time I went to the dentist. My mom would know.
I put the bowl on the coffee table and Garrett turns off the TV.
“I’m beat,” he says.
“Me too.”
“Hey,” he says, and his tone is different. Now we’re going to talk about things. Talk with a capital T. I wonder if that’s why he gave me a fuckton of ice cream—just to make me all sluggish and immobile so I’d have to stay and listen to him.
“A couple of things, besides you’re back on the schedule,” he says. He leans forward toward the coffee table. I lean back into the couch.
“I’m trying to talk your dad into an inpatient rehab,” he says.
“What?”
“For alcoholics,” he says. “He’s not even considering it, don’t worry. Or maybe”—he laughs a little—“do worry. It’s affecting his health, Will. His judgment. My dad was a drinker. In the same way. Had all the same excuses. Same patterns. Said and did a lot of the same kind of shit your dad’s saying now. But my dad never stopped. Wouldn’t. Only thing he had left by the end was his job.”
“What happened then?”
“Nothing,” he says. “Kept his job until he retired. Then he died two years later, from a fall. A fall while he was drunk, of course, but my family didn’t call it that. Even my mom, who divorced him, she didn’t call it that.”
“Oh,” I say. I feel very cold, suddenly. And the zinging feeling is back. Flying up and down my back, sinking into my stomach.
“There’s kind of a history for me here. And not just with your dad. So I hope you don’t think I’m butting into your lives unnecessarily or anything.”
“I don’t think that.”
“Good. But you might not like that I’ve told your mom what’s going on,” he adds.
I don’t say anything. My stomach clutches up. He’s going to have to have this conversation by himself, from here on out. I’m so angry and so close to crying, I can’t handle words.
“She’s okay with you staying here, but I know she’d prefer you home. Says you’ve got friends there, says you’ll be more comfortable around family.”
“Jay’s not my family.” That just flies out. Louder than I mean. It’s not like I even hate Jay. Jay and I barely even bullshit; he stays out of my way. I’m his wife’s problem, and he’s always understood that. But he’s not my family and I can’t help but point it out, I guess. Even if I’m arguing against something that’s already over.
“Your sisters, she means.”
I am quiet.
“She agrees, though, that whatever you decide, you need to give your father some time and space,” he says. “He’s not thinking clearly and he’s not doing well. You really don’t need to see him like this.”
But I have seen him like this, I want to yell. I mean, what the hell is everyone talking about alcoholic shit for? It’s not alcohol. It’s like no one ever asks why he drinks like that. When it’s totally fucking obvious to me. It’s that he’s never gotten over the divorce. He’s all by himself. Nobody is helping him. Nobody is there for him. Not even me.
Garrett says more stuff. About patience. About understanding. About support. About coming to terms with our parents’ flaws. I nod. I nod and say “yeah” and “okay” and “right” so many times I wonder if he can tell I’m not listening. I am listening; it’s just that there’s nothing to really hear. Nothing I don’t already know. Finally, he asks me what my weekend looks like, because it’s one of my last free ones before I have to fill in for Everardo’s shifts and I tell him that I’m going to Angus’s band’s thing tomorrow, and he says, “Good, good. You need to keep doing the stuff you do. Living your life.”
When I get in bed, I text Brandy. I’m halfway hoping she’s over whatever pissed her off in Photography. hey what’s up
She texts back: just say it to my face
I have no idea what she’s talking about, so I call her.
“What,” is how she answers.
“Hi,” is what I say.
“Just get it over with,” she says. “I don’t want to be in some long, dragged-out breakup, okay? I’ve got better things to do.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re not into it anymore,” she says. “It’s all right. I could tell all week.”
“Brandy?”
“Just say it already.”
“Okay, I’ll just say it: DeKalb and Angus have a band and they’re doing a show at this coffee place tomorrow and I have to be there. To help with equipment.”
“So?”
“So, after that, do you want to go out?”
She’s quiet. I can hear her breathing. Is she crying? I hate this. I wish we were just texting. This feels different from waiting for a text back. Waiting while she breathes. While she withholds. It’s terrible.
“What if I don’t want to?”
“Brandy, Jesus Christ. What the hell?”
She’s quiet. God, I hate people when they’re quiet. Or maybe I just hate her being quiet.
“I’m not over it,” I say, lowering my voice for no good reason. “I like you. This week kind of sucked, okay? I had to move out of my dad’s. It’s sort of complicated. He might go to rehab.”
“What?” Suddenly, she’s back. “What happened?”
I tell her, then. About the basement and about the house being all unfinished and about Garrett telling me I have to stay with my mom and how I don’t want to do that, but probably don’t have any choice.
“Why don’t you want to do that?” she asks.
“My mom’ll be all I told you so about my dad. She’s just kind of, I don’t know. A jerk about it. She’s never understood him.”
“Good they’re divorced, then,” Brandy says.
“Yeah,” I say. “I guess it is.” Though it doesn’t feel like it. It feels like they’re still together and unhappy with each other, but it’s just from a bigger distance. Even if she started over. Even if he didn’t. It feels like he didn’t on purpose, kind of.
“So you’d rather live with your dad, then?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oak Prairie is so far away,” she says.
“We’ll figure it out.” I tell her how my car broke down, but then got fixed. I tell her, as I’m stripping off my clothes and getting into bed, how I’m back on the schedule. How I’m sorry my fucked-up situation made me an asshole. How it won’t happen again. She laughs at me.
“I have you beat in fucked-up family situations,” she says. She laughs again. “I can’t even talk about it without getting depressed,” she says. Her voice lowers.
“You can, though,” I say. “Talk about it.”
“No,” she says. “Because I’m in bed and I just want to fall asleep listening to you. I don’t know why I freaked out. I freaked out for nothing. I do that. I get ideas, I hear rumors, I assume the worst. I always assume the worst.”
“I missed you,” I say. Finally meaning it.
FOURTEEN
IT’S THE NIGHT Angus and DeKalb’s band plays, and Brandy’s coming. Because her friend Shania is all into DeKalb lately. There’s nothing I can do to talk her out of it, because then she’d ask why and I can’t explain that, either. And I can’t get out of helping my friends.
I can barely eat any dinner. Kristin looks at me sadly. Garrett is preoccupied with something on his phone. I take my plate to the dishwasher pretty quick and thank Kristin for the food that I didn’t really eat.
It gets worse, though. Brandy calls to say that she’s told her aunt that she’s staying at Shania’s. She tells me I should tell my mom I’m staying DeKalb’s house or something.
“Then we can be together,” she says. “All night, even. And Shania knows of a guy whose parents are out of town; DeKalb knows him. Maybe you do too? Just a sec . . .”
I listen to her ask Shania what the guy’s name is, even though I already know. Jack’s parents are in San Francisco for the weekend. He’s not having a party but has invited some people over later. “A select, specific few,” he said, which made me want to kick him in the face.
“Jack Telios,” she says. “You know him?”
The coffee place is in a strip mall by an Olive Garden and a bunch of other little shops. A nail place, a dry cleaner, a dollar store, a Radio Shack. The kind of place nobody hangs out at, really; you just run in and do your errands and leave. It’s kind of embarrassing—this is where they’re playing?
Angus has parked his mom’s Escalade out in front of the coffee place when I get there; right away, though I’m not late, I feel a little shitty. DeKalb and him are already unloading their gear.
“It’s just this bass and one amp?” I ask. Now I’m pissed; they hardly need any help.
“The keyboards are heavy, though; everyone else isn’t here yet,” Angus says. He looks at me just a second too long and then DeKalb butts in the way and we start unloading the stuff and dragging it inside the coffee place.
I feel the zinging again. My stomach is growling but I don’t feel hungry. I look at Angus, at how his jeans slide low, how his boxers stick up when he bends over. I remember touching him and I feel sick. I feel sick because I like to look at him. I want to touch him. I know him, I think, but then I don’t know him, either. It’s been a lot of years since we talked about our hopes and dreams, our favorite colors. Not that we have favorite colors. Maybe he does. I just have colors I don’t like. Purple and red and yellow. Angus mostly wears black and white. Angus smells like aftershave and deodorant; he uses the same deodorant as me. I want to touch his chest. Angus wants to go to college and major in art; he’s been working on applications since last spring. Angus, I don’t know why it matters, but I can’t stop thinking of what we did and I’m so stupid. Brandy’s on her way here and she has no idea. I’m so fucking stupid.
Then this girl and guy show up, park right behind Angus. The girl is wearing pigtails looped with pink ribbons and a black dress and a necklace made of tiny rubber ducks and she’s got star tattoos all up and down her forearms. The guy is just a guy; nothing rubber ducks and tattoos about him. The guy has a keyboard thing and the girl opens a violin case—her violin is yellow and has a big duck sticker on it. So this is Andrew and his girlfriend who made him pussy stupid.
Once everything’s been heaved into the stage area, there’s nothing for me to do. I look around the coffee shop. Just a few people sitting in front of their laptops. I don’t know where to sit, though there are plenty of tables. The guy at the counter is squirting whipped cream on top of a giant mug of something for a customer. The zinging feeling is back. Buzzing in my stomach, all the way to my spine. It’s the worst. I wish I could curl up and go to sleep.
Brandy and Shania show up then. Shania’s a cute girl; she’s very tall and smiley. DeKalb thinks she’s cute but he says she talks too much shit about people. As if DeKalb doesn’t! They come over to me and look around. Shania looks at the place like it’s kind of disappointing, but she waves at DeKalb, who waves back, and then she says, “This where we’re sitting?” She points to an empty table by me and I just nod and sit down while they go get their drinks.
I’m watching Angus while he sets up a microphone with the rubber ducky–violin girl. She’s laughing at something he’s saying, he’s smiling back. Then he puts his guitar over his head and his shirt rides up over his stomach. The part where he has the little trail of hair down to his dick. Trail to the whale, DeKalb calls it.
Just as they start doing sound checks, Brandy sits down with a cup of coffee and a muffin. She leans into me and says, right into my ear, “I packed like I was going to a sleepover. I brought all my face cream stuff. And pajamas.”
“Oh really,” I say. I watch Angus tie his bandanna up to get the hair out of his face. See his shirt slide up again, the strip of hair on his stomach.
“They have owls on them,” she says. Then she kisses my cheek and Angus makes eye contact with me at just that second. I see, for the first time, something on his face. Like he’s disgusted with me. Pissed too.
“Sexy,” I say. But it’s not sexy. And now Angus is moving out of the way so the pigtail-rubber-duck girl can stand next to him and they don’t even say anything about who they are. The girl just says, “Good evening,” even though it’s only like seven o’clock, and then they start playing a song with no words.
Then it’s kind of boring. The zinging/buzzing fades a little, even. Like, I don’t know what the hell I was worried about. Angus is just playing his guitar and Brandy is just sitting by me; it’s not that big of a deal. It’s sort of lame. They don’t do anything but play the music, which is nice and everything, but there’s no one singing. When I look around, there’s really no one paying attention, either. They’re like a living version of background music. Except they don’t seem to notice this. They’re just playing and looking at each other, not the rest of
us. Shania’s on her phone, texting sometimes, and holding it up other times, clicking away like she’s taking pictures. Brandy’s just staring. In a way that’s natural. Normal. Like she’s happy she’s here. Like she likes the band. Her face is calm and pretty, and I like how her hair won’t stay tucked behind her ear. How it slips out, slowly.
It’d be nice, sitting here next to her. If she weren’t looking up at Angus. Angus isn’t looking at me anymore. He’s just focused. Intense. Looking at the music in his mind, maybe? He doesn’t look at me. Only DeKalb, and sometimes the rubber-duck girl, and sometimes the keyboard guy. It’s like nobody else is even here. I almost feel jealous of him. Like the music builds a big loud layer between him and people looking.
After a while, the zinging feeling is almost gone. Because the music? It doesn’t stop. There’s no break. There’s no singing. And it’s like, what’s the point of watching? I go and get a muffin and a thing of Coke, which they only sell in a bottle and it costs, like, three bucks but whatever. I eat the muffin and then I go get another one. Shania is texting, still. People come in and go out of the coffee shop; the guy working the counter looks bored, and when I go up to get a third muffin, I say so.
“I’ve been here since six, man,” he says. He shakes his head.
“That sucks.”
“Yeah,” he says, pushing the muffin onto a plate across the counter. “Plus this music? It just makes me want to fall asleep. Not that it’s bad. It’s good. Seriously.”
I laugh and he laughs. The second I think how he’s kind of a good-looking dude, it panics me, though. I quick hand him the cash and take the muffin and then neither Brandy or me eats it. It was four bucks and I stare at it like everything’s the muffin’s fault. I want to leave. I don’t want to go to Jack’s.
The music: it goes on and on. Shania picks at the third muffin. DeKalb is sweating and looks like he’s in pain. He looks like he’s going to fall over. Angus is sweating around his pits and neck. The boring guy never looks up. He isn’t sweaty. Or hot. Either meaning of “hot,” really. I hate that I’m all gay about this. While sitting next to my girlfriend. The counter guy is dumping a big vat of iced tea into the sink when I turn back to look at him and he catches me looking. Great. Now he probably thinks I’m gay too.