Desert Boys

by Chris McCormick

  Take more than the weekend. Take your boyfriend, Lloyd. Understand that the five hours on the road might be tense. Lloyd, despite a tearful heart-to-heart between the romance shelves at Dog-Eared Books, still may not have totally forgiven you for not letting him meet your mother. Now it’s too late. Understand that the only way to make up for this is to introduce Lloyd to your father, and that this is the real reason the two of you are going to the Antelope Valley. Lloyd knows this, too, of course, but neither of you should mention it. Instead, continue talking about the modern, gay, Spanish adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, and tell yourself you’ve made a leap in maturity, that you feel so ready to share your family with another person that a conversation about bringing Lloyd home would merely seem self-congratulatory.

  Make sure, however, to call your father to inform him that he’ll have company. He’s a Midwesterner by birth and doesn’t enjoy surprises. When he, too, acts as though this—his only son bringing a man home for the first time—is not a big deal, continue to play along. One way to do so is to replace the word “you” with the word “ya,” as in, “Love ya, see ya soon.” Hang up the phone and chat incessantly with Lloyd about your hometown. Explain how surprising and uplifting you find it to have a modern, gay, et cetera, et cetera being staged in the conservative desert death-hole you so desperately attempted all your life to escape.

  Drive. Allow Lloyd, whose laptop contains thirteen hundred pages of a novel about whaling, to be the poet. Let him call the I-5 “the yellow spine of California.” Let him describe the Joshua trees in the desert as dancers striking poses or deformed hands or barnacles—barnacles bunching from the smooth hull of a ship. When you’re this close to home, it’s vital you focus on the concrete—literally, almost—on, for example, watching for potholes and observing traffic signals. At a red light beside CAMACHO’S AUTO SALES, ignore the tiny triangular flags beating against one another in the wind. Keep your eyes on the light. When it turns green, feel the wind’s hold under the car and hear Lloyd say it feels as though you’re in an enormous, swirling glass of wine.

  Turn right onto Comstock Avenue. Your destination is on the left. When Lloyd jokingly asks how you can tell your house apart from all the other nearly identical tract homes on the block, point to the only palm trees in town, which a neighbor had transplanted from Los Angeles, and say, “Mine’s the one across from Hollywood Boulevard.”

  Recognize the bent old man examining a sprinkler head in your summer-dried front lawn: that’s your father. Pull the rental into the driveway alongside your mother’s burgundy Corolla, which, judging by the white splotches of oxidation, hasn’t been moved since she last parked it there. Do the math—almost a year. Before opening the car doors, answer Lloyd’s question. He’s had five hours on the road but waits until now to ask what he should call your father. Tell him Ed will be fine. Make that Edward.

  When your father hugs you, remember the funeral at Forest Lawn. Your mother’s brother Gaspar paid for the coffin, the flowers, the space, and the alcohol. You and your father were the only men in cheap suits, and the hug between you—jackets lifted and bunched—was awkward. Afterwards you slalomed between your Armani-clad extended family to the gold-fauceted, marble-floored, ridiculous bathroom and sobbed. “You okay?” asked the towel-dispensing attendant, a Filipino man your father’s age you pretended not to see. “How about these Middle Easterns,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. Other than your long eyelashes, you look nothing like your mother, and this wasn’t the first time someone talked about Armenians as if you weren’t one of them. The attendant must have mistaken you for a member of the waitstaff, frustrated after dropping a tray of wineglasses. When you asked what he meant, he said, “That’s a lot of money to spend on the dead, no?” He passed you a hand towel, thick and soft and slippery, like a cashmere sweater. On the way out, to demonstrate that you hadn’t been affected, you tipped the attendant a dollar. As you hug your father now, allow yourself to feel angry at that man, for making that one dollar what you think of when you think of your mother’s funeral.

  Get over it—you have work to do. Introduce your father to Lloyd, and take a look at them as they shake hands to see what kind of first impressions they make. Your father is in his early sixties, hair the blond-gray of mummies. Otherwise, he looks healthy: he’s lost weight, and he’s wearing a new (creases still intact) polo shirt tucked into slacks. As for Lloyd, you’d convinced him to shave his green-dyed goatee and to discard his usual “à la David Foster Wallace” bandanna, but the rest was his choice—tight white jeans tucked into ’90s-style high-tops; a forest green deep-V; a decorative, lightweight navy scarf sporting white polka dots in the shape of terriers. The pale skin on his face is purple in the two spots where the sun comes through his tinted glasses. You hate those glasses. Hold your applause when he removes them. As he introduces himself, notice his lisp—“Greetingss, Misster Kushner”—for the first time in years.

  Examine your father’s tone as he compliments Lloyd’s terrier scarf.

  Follow the men into your childhood home. The living room is decorated almost exclusively with porcelain angels, the one exception to your mother’s hatred of the gaudy. Female angels in ballet poses, baby angels lifting children over a fallen bridge, male angels farming wheat—from the glass-encased shelves of curio cabinets, from the white-flecked bricks of the mantel, and from the sills of windows narrow and wide, the multitudes sing.

  On the coffee table sit three plastic bottles of water and a bowl of pizza-flavored Chex Mix, the extent of your father’s efforts as host. Your mother would’ve sliced and salted cucumbers, tomatoes, and cheese. Flat, skinlike bread would splay in the belly of a wicker basket. Mention, in a light mood, your father’s relative ineptitude, and listen as your father agrees that yes, your mother was better than he, in more ways than this.

  When Lloyd says the scene reminds him of a novel called The Left-Handed Woman, try to change the subject immediately. Your father is in the business of selling furniture. He does not want to talk about literature. Still, try to remember why you’re here. Have compassion. Take a seat with Lloyd on the floral couch you once wet as a child, and listen.

  Watch Lloyd scoot forward on the cushion. “Well,” he says, “it’s about a couple—a hetero couple—and the woman, you guessed it, is left-handed. When she leaves, the man has to go to his cupboard and turn all the mugs so that the handles are on the right side. Isn’t that something?”

  Now you’re depressed, but your father, having fallen into his favorite recliner, calls the image “lovely.” Conceal your confusion. Avoid asking aloud why this trip is going so smoothly.

  Brace yourself when your father asks Lloyd about his novel, which you neglected to notice Lloyd mention just a moment ago, while you were busy concealing your confusion and avoiding et cetera, et cetera.

  Watch Lloyd scoot even farther forward on the couch, so that the cushion comes up at a forty-five-degree angle behind him. As you listen to him talk, imagine the world of his novel entering the living room—Ottoman whalers, Argentine pirates, a Dixieland jazz band lost at sea after a New Orleans flood (working title: Moby Dixie). See these figments rush into the living room alongside the chorus of angels presiding over the father, the son, and the ridiculous boyfriend.

  When your father responds by praising “the mind of a real writer,” resist the urge to defend blogging. Instead, offer an inquisitive smile as Lloyd asks your father if he’s ever done some writing of his own.

  You’re surprised to hear he has. He understands the two of you are out this way to see a play. Well, a million years ago, when he was a member of his high school drama club in Dearborn, Michigan, he happened to write a few plays himself, believe it or not. Choose not to believe it, and then doubt your doubt as he goes on to say he probably has an old typewritten script stashed in a box somewhere in the garage.

  Smile, smile, smile while Lloyd suggests the three of you spend the remaining daylight digging for the manuscript. Keep to yourself not o
nly your skepticism regarding the prospects of finding the play but also your questions regarding what will be done with the play if it were, by some miracle, to be found.

  Go along with the plan. Watch Lloyd open the garage door while you back the rental car out of the driveway into the street, making room for your father to back his car out of the garage. Join Lloyd there. Take note of how utterly full of boxes the garage has become, how the only free space is in the shape of your father’s car. Realize this is because your mother’s stuff has been added.

  While your dad is in his car in the driveway, ask Lloyd quickly if he’s sure this is a good idea. And when Lloyd says looking for the play would make your father “probably happier than he’s been in a long while, Daley,” kiss him on the cheek. Think of the only time you met his parents, two years ago. You met at an expensive vegetarian restaurant in San Francisco. They were visiting from Denver, and Lloyd, an only child, called them by their first names. Remember the stilted conversation you had with Rayne, a ballet instructor, and Lloyd Senior, a lawyer. You knew they were paying Lloyd’s share of the rent, and this knowledge made you a bitter and unpleasant dinner guest. At the time, you didn’t feel as though you could be honest with your parents about your relationship with men. Your mother’s reaction, especially, concerned you. She was an immigrant, a devout Christian, and you feared her as much as you loved her, which is to say, as much as you’ve felt anything before or since. At dinner that night, you saw Lloyd’s friendliness with his parents, and you wondered enviously if money, the flow of it, served as some sort of conduit for their ease, and whether you might’ve been more honest with your parents if only there had been money—like a string between paper cups—keeping you tethered.

  Return to the boxes. Begin unboxing. The three of you together can rummage through nine stacks of boxes per hour. No need to search through the top boxes—these are your mother’s things. Remind yourself that there is nothing for you to do with her clothes, her records, her wigs.

  Drag the boxes you’ve already checked out to the driveway. When passersby slow down, anticipating a sale, wave them pleasantly along.

  Find a strange box of clear liquor, and, because you’ve never known your father to be a drinker, ask about it. When he explains he’d been gifted the alcohol from your uncle Gaspar, examine the bottles more closely. Recognize the Armenian label. This is arak, a clear, absinthelike liquor. With water, the arak takes on a murky white color. Remember what Uncle Gaspar, at wedding receptions and engagement parties, always called it: aratzi gat, “lion’s milk.”

  During the third hour, when Lloyd proclaims he’s found the play, allow yourself a moment of genuine, surprising joy. Your father wants to fact-check the discovery, and when he does, be sure to give each of your hunting partners a dusty high five.

  Go inside. Bring along one of the bottles of arak, uncap it, and select three glasses. Find Lloyd and your father sitting in the backyard at the patio table near the swimming pool. Make a note to mention to Lloyd how pools in the desert don’t mean wealth, and often, because of maintenance, can actually lower a house’s value. Watch the sun set behind the tops of houses. A bright motion-sensor bulb gives enough light to read by, provided someone waves an arm every now and again. Lloyd has spread the manuscript across the patio table, using rocks as paperweights on each sheet. Glance at the title page: Snow Easy Way to Say It. Giggle. Hand out the glasses of lion’s milk, and make a small toast: To Dad, the Shakespeare of Dearborn, Michigan. Touch glasses.

  Leave them to work on the play, and find canned soup and sandwich fixings for dinner. Make another note: to go grocery shopping before heading back to San Francisco.

  Leave the patio door open as you slap mayonnaise onto six slices of Wonder Bread at the counter, and listen to them talk. Your father says his protagonist has just enlisted in the navy, which is why he’s in such a rush to see Geraldine. Lloyd says the snow itself can’t be the only obstacle between them. Maybe the bus is late because of the weather, and he’s waiting there at the stop, freezing to death, debating whether or not to go on foot. Note that your father likes this idea—hear the pencil scratches. Lloyd wants to know what Geraldine wants. Other than Teddy, the protagonist, your father doesn’t have an answer. Lloyd says Geraldine needs to want something other than Teddy. Something concrete. Like, like a … car! A car, to pick Teddy up at the station, where he’s waiting, freezing, et cetera, et cetera. Hear your father say that Geraldine wanting a car is “a definite maybe.”

  Bring them food, bring them drink. Of the latter, a little will go a long way: your dad wants the cup for any further toasts, but won’t drink a sip of the arak. Remember to wave your arm periodically to keep the light on. When Lloyd excuses himself to use the restroom, wait a beat, and then ask your father how the revision is going. Nod along as he says the word “progress.” Then he tells you, quickly, knowing Lloyd could return at any moment, that although he is happy to see you happy, et cetera, et cetera, he would still very much appreciate it if you and Lloyd would sleep in separate bedrooms. Cut him off to say “of course.” Thank him again for his hospitality, but don’t stop there. The lion’s milk has kicked in, and you’ve summoned the courage to ask him a question.

  “Why are you being so nice?”

  “That unusual?” he says.

  “No, but don’t you think Mom would’ve disapproved? Don’t you still want to be loyal to her?”

  When Lloyd returns, he compliments the hand soap in the bathroom. “What’d I miss?”

  Your father says, “I was just about to tell Daley about the first time I met his mom’s family.”

  At that point, her family had been in the country for just over a year. The only person aside from your mother who spoke any English was her older brother Gaspar.

  “Her father invited me over for a glass of arak,” your father says. “I was never a drinker, but I agreed to the visit anyway, expecting the meeting was more important than the drinking. But when I got to the apartment, I saw twelve men—every man in the family, cousins and brothers and uncles—sitting in chairs arranged in a semicircle, with her father at the center. Everyone had a foggy glass of arak and a pack of cigarettes within reach, and the room was full of smoke. One empty chair sat facing the jury. Her father said something in Armenian, and Gaspar translated for me: ‘Ed, have a seat.’”

  Notice how Lloyd’s jaw looks unhinged. He looks at you and says, “How have you not told me this story before?”

  You’ve never heard this story. Say, “I’ve never heard this story.”

  “They passed me a glass of arak, and even though I had no intention of drinking, I held on to the glass, trying to keep my hand steady enough so that the ice didn’t rattle. One by one, each of the men asked me a single question, with Gaspar translating. Most of the questions were easy: ‘Are you a Christian?’ ‘What is your job?’ ‘Why do you love Lena?’”

  Lloyd, beaming, says, “What was your answer to that?”

  Your dad doesn’t have to think: “The first time I met Lena, I forgot the name of every woman I’d ever known. Hell, I barely remembered my own name. I knew—I swear, I knew—hers was the only name I needed to know from then on.”

  Lloyd grabs at his heart.

  “And then came the final question,” your dad says. “Her father was a tailor, and until he was in the hospital at the end, I never saw him out of a suit. At that point, I’d never even seen him wear a smile, let alone a T-shirt. He sipped his drink seriously, took a thoughtful drag from his cigarette, and asked his question. I looked to Gaspar for the translation.”

  The light switches off. You’ve forgotten to wave an arm. In the brief moment of darkness, remember the name of the first boy you loved, Robert Karinger. He used to take you to the desert and show you how to siphon water from plants. He’d pinch the prickled flesh of an ugly cactus at just the right spot, and you’d kneel to catch the stream in your mouth like a wanderer in the holy land.

  Lloyd waves his arm, and the light retu
rns. “Her dad was asking you the final question,” he says.

  “Right. And Gaspar translated. Only it wasn’t a question. Her father had given me an instruction: ‘Drink the arak.’ I explained to Gaspar that I didn’t drink. I’d made a vow, because my father had been a drunk, and I didn’t want to be anything like him. Gaspar listened to me and slowly relayed my message. And then her father stood up and shook my hand. Gaspar said the old man respected me for my convictions. I had his approval.”

  “Bravo!” Lloyd says, for both young Ed’s victory and for old Ed’s telling of the story.

  So your father had to pass a test to join the family, and he’s being nice because he doesn’t want to put Lloyd through the same wringer. Why does this make you feel uncomfortable? Call it an early night, and stand up from the table. Brush your teeth, and head to your childhood bedroom, which, aside from a new futon your father probably brought home wholesale from the furniture store, looks and feels eerily well preserved from your high school days. Glide your fingers along the glossy surface of the poster of John Lennon. Scan the colorful spines of the Goosebumps novels and volumes of Encyclopædia Britannica lining your old desk’s oak shelves. Pick up the baseball signed by Mike Piazza and Eric Karros. Karinger always envied you over that baseball, and you would’ve given it to him if he’d asked. He was the only person who could teach you—a boy obsessed with escaping—to love the desert. He was the only person who’d taken you past the tall fences of the driving range to hunt for golf balls, the only person who’d convinced you to brave the aqueduct’s currents and risk your life only to prove you could.

  A long time ago, that boy rapped his fingernails against this window. You were sixteen, and you opened it. Maybe you hoped he’d shake the world that night by coming into your bedroom and touching you. Instead, he told you that Dan Watts, licensed driver as of noon that day, was parked in his dad’s pickup at the end of the block, waiting for you to join them on their way to a strip club in Los Angeles. You hesitated—you’d never sneaked out before. You were nervous to break the rules, even though your sister, the only person who would’ve heard your window slide open, had already moved away for college. You were nervous, too, about your ability to mask your apathy for naked women. Your friend promised to have you back soon, and so you climbed through the window thinking, you remember, of that Beatles song.