I Will Be Okay

by Bill Elenbark

  “You want to know the truth?” I say.

  “Jesus Christ, what the hell do you think I’m standing here for?”

  I don’t know why he hates me so much. I don’t know if he thinks Mom favors me over him—that’s flashing through my mind for some reason, that he’s just jealous, a fat jealous jerk who’s always hated me no matter what I’ve done and he’s way too strong for me to try to punch, to smack that stubborn sneer from his face and make him cry like me. For once.

  “Are you going to speak or just sit there all morning and do nothing? Like usual.” That vein in his head is about to explode. I watch it pulse as I say the words.

  “I’m gay.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Stick and me were kissing and he got pissed that I touched his dick and I fell off the bed and hit my head.”

  “Oh my god,” Mom says.

  Dad just stares, expressionless, or the same exact expression, and I focus on the vein to see signs of the impending break, the rupture that will cause a seizure and it’ll be sick when I celebrate.

  “What do you mean kissing?” he says.

  “I’m gay,” I say, loud and proud all of a sudden, into his fat ugly face. Then, more quietly, “Mom knows.”

  “But I thought you said—” Mom says.

  “Wait, you knew about this?” Dad turns his anger to her and I have a chance to catch my breath. I need to catch my breath. What did I just say? I can’t breathe.

  “Relax, Jay. Let me talk to my son.”

  “He’s my son too,” Dad says. “Are you and Stick—wait, what are you saying?”

  I laugh. All of a sudden some laughter escapes, in the place of my breathing, because I’ve gone insane. I’m completely insane. I just came out to my parents and their reaction is, I’m not sure but I feel like I’m floating in space outside of this place, watching their reaction, and I laugh, I have to laugh. Dad backs off like he knows I’m insane.

  “Mom. Dad.”

  I find myself rising out of my seat like my chakra’s been unleashed because I didn’t intend to stand, and I don’t know why I’m speaking.

  “I’m gay and I’m in love with Stick and we kissed last night and we had kissed before but he isn’t gay, he has a girlfriend now, so it doesn’t matter now, he freaked out and knocked me off the bed and I hit my face and my wrist. Then I walked to the train station and he was already gone and there wasn’t a train so I caught the first one to Woodbridge. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I just wanted to get home.”

  “Oh Matty,” Mom says and steps forward, reaching out to hug me. I don’t even care that she called me “Matty.”

  “It’ll be okay, sweetie,” she says, and I wish I could take it back already, that this wasn’t all out in the open but it’s here now and I can’t stop the tears from starting.

  “How long have you known?” Dad says, to me I think but he’s so distant and I don’t want to face him.

  “I didn’t know for sure,” Mom says. “A few weeks ago, I walked in on him and Stick—”

  “Where? Doing what?”

  His tone is harsh, but it’s directed at my mother. Because he’s an asshole.

  “For Christ’s sake, Jay, can’t you see your son is crying?”

  Mom pulls back enough that he can see me, and I drop my head to avoid his eyes but I can’t help but sneak a peek, searching for that vein. He wavers.

  “Yes. Of course.” The sun pushes through the curtains into the room, breaking against my face in a way that almost calms me. “I’m sorry, Matt.”

  He steps forward and reaches out, shaking my shoulders sort of soft but rough, and it’s confusing, like he’s the coach comforting me after we lost the game, which makes me angry again, all this rage building up to breaking but it’s not enough and this is tough and I look up with as much fury as I can direct at his face.

  “You’re sorry you have a gay son?”

  “No,” he says. “No.”

  He looks down at me hard and reaches out to grab my hand. The pain in that wrist isn’t so bad anymore.

  “It doesn’t matter to me, Matt. Not one bit.” He pulls me in close and hugs me, harder than I think he’s ever hugged me before, strong and stiff and tense and weak and I fall into his arms with the weight of it all. He holds me up.

  “Oh Matty.” I hear Mom as she wraps herself around the back of me so it’s Dad in the front and Mom in the back, just hugging. Fully even. I almost laugh, or I think I should laugh. Puerto Ricans do love to hug.

  “What’s happening?”

  We break the embrace all together at once with Nico in his pajamas on the bottom step.

  “Is Nana dead?”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  THE AIR CONDITIONER BROKE AGAIN. I couldn’t sleep, not with that much heat pressing into my bedroom and the salsa blaring through my opened window, praying for a breeze that hasn’t come, my mattress sweat-soaked and empty, wet cat T-shirt ripped a little more and wrists sore, both of them. My phone is charging in case Stick texts but he hasn’t—he won’t—and I just keep checking because I can’t really sleep, and my cast is itching all the way down to my shirt.

  We’re having a party for Labor Day—full tent and the usual family invites and I was excused from the prep because of no sleep and the swollen lip and the somewhat major revelation I started their day with, which yeah, I’m not sure how I feel about it yet, I almost feel nothing, or the exact opposite reaction I expected after coming out to my father. He didn’t freak which is good but I’m not even sure what he said. At least I didn’t have to help with the tent.

  I throw on a clean shirt from one of the piles on the floor—half-hearted with the sniff test because I need to shower but the house is filled with relatives and I can’t risk one of my aunts stumbling into the bathroom by accident. I slap on a baseball cap and head down the stairs past a bunch of cousins watching television into the kitchen, oddly empty. I do a drive-by on the stove—Nana’s rice, black beans, and a plate of tostones that I sneak a snack from before heading out onto the patio. Dad’s been replacing the shed this month and it’s more like a shell than a shed now, three walls and a roof with nothing inside and no door yet. I climb in through the opening, checking the phone one last time for Stick. No texts.

  Dad has a bench set up to cut wood—a makeshift sawhorse with flattened edges connected by a wide board so I take a seat, I need to sleep, I’m half-awake in this weird half-dream in the heart of a party I’m not attending. I feel like a Shinobi, lurking around unnoticed, senses alerted to escape this place if anyone asks about Stick and me but I don’t have spiky hair and I don’t know ninjutsu and no one is looking for me, not now. I close my eyes and try to sleep.

  I hear Nico screaming past, he’s always screaming past, and my eyes are closed so I can’t tell for sure, but I think he comes into the shed. I’m off to the side in the shadows and I hear a knock on the beam above my head and I’m about to shout for him to leave but I hear Dad’s voice first.

  “Matt, you in there?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I say, and he peeks through the opening, shrouded in light.

  “What you doing, buddy?”

  He never calls me buddy, like not even as a kid, and I think for a second he thinks I’m someone else, someone he likes.

  “Nothing.”

  “How’s your lip? Did you ice it?”

  “Yeah,” I say, reaching up. The swelling’s gone down but it’s still bruised and bloated. Mom got me some ice before I went to bed.

  “Nico said you were in here.” He steps through the opening, admiring his work. “Did you get enough sleep?”

  “No,” I say. “It was hot.”

  “Yeah that goddamn repairman did a real shit job for all the money it cost me.” There’s the father I know. “I was thinking we could have a catch.”

  “A catch?” I lift my cast in the shadows.

  “Yeah, I know, I’m not an idiot.” He lifts up a white disk. “I found a Frisbee when I was cleaning out the old shed
. You only need one hand.”

  “Oh,” I say. We used to play Frisbee on the beach when I was a kid, me and Dad and Nico and Mom sometimes but it’s been a while. Forever even. I miss it.

  “Yeah, so if you’re up for it, just meet me at the side of the house.” His mouth forms a weird unnatural smile, like why is he talking to me like this and why is he smiling. “Okay?”

  “Thanks,” I say, like it’s something I should say because I can’t really process what’s happening—last night I was in a mosh pit then I was on a roof in Asbury with gay guys dancing around me then I almost had sex with Stick but this is the strangest moment of the weekend.

  “I don’t care, Matt,” Dad says, half in and half out of the shed, the sun beating at his back. “Whatever makes you happy, I don’t care about the rest of it. Understand?”

  “Thanks,” I say because words are confusing to me. What is he saying?

  “Your mom had a friend in college who was gay—I don’t know if she told you that. He was really cool but I think he moved to California or Colorado or somewhere out West but you know, he was a good dude, we used to hang out.” Dad steps forward a bit and he’s talking normal, like this is normal. “I just … don’t be afraid to be yourself, okay? Around me especially. I’m fine with you being gay. I’ll even march in a parade if you want.”

  Damn. He’s starting to make me emotional. I almost want to forgive him for everything. I nod and he’s still smiling. I choke back the tears.

  “I promised Willie I’d take a look at his engine,” he says, “but I’ll meet you by the neighbor’s yard when you’re ready for Frisbee.”

  “Okay,” I say.

  We spent last fall by the neighbor’s yard where there’s more room to practice and he’d be out there every day, pitching to me. I never thanked him for that. He turns and leaves so abrupt it almost ruins the moment but it’s okay. This is so strange either way and I sink back into the shadows away from the party. Naruto never dealt with coming out to his father.

  I close my eyes again, wiping the sweat from my forehead. I think I fall asleep.

  “Matty?”

  I’m definitely asleep.

  “You in there?”

  It’s Titi, snaking her head through the opening—curly black hair wrapped in a bun atop her head.

  “Yeah.” I open my eyes and squint in the light.

  “There’s someone here to see you.”

  She spins and waves him in and then he’s standing here, in front of me, and Titi keeps speaking but I can’t hear what she’s saying.

  “I saw him walking out to Route 35 and I thought it was you for a second—you both have those T-shirts with that weird band name.”

  He’s hiding his face like he’s afraid to face me.

  “And I wanted to drive him to the hospital but he said he needed to see you first and he wouldn’t listen so I brought him here.”

  Stick looks up for half a second, the sun at the side of his face. His nose is swollen, and his left eye is shut, puffing out at the bottom with blackened veins across his cheek.

  “Hey.”

  I don’t recognize his voice, I don’t recognize his face, his hair is a swirl of knotted black and brown and his eyes are sunken in.

  “Matt’s mom has a first aid kit inside,” Titi says, “but we should really get you to a hospital.”

  “Thanks,” Stick says, but his voice is slurred, or maybe just jumbled in my head. “I need to talk to Matt.”

  Titi looks from Stick to me and I wish for once in my life I knew what the fuck was happening.

  “I’ll go get some ice,” she says. “Matt, keep an eye on him, please.”

  “Okay,” I say, or I think I say, I might have only nodded or not responded at all, watching the wide smear of blood seep down his cheek, all the way to his chin. I step aside and offer him a seat as he limps over to me.

  “What happened?”

  I stand back to give him some room, the salsa blaring in the distance.

  “My mom.”

  “She hit you?”

  “No, I would have slapped that bitch right back,” he says, the anger fixing his speech. “I came downstairs this morning and she yelled at me for not coming home last night.”

  He shakes his head and winces, the scarring already starting beneath the welt around his eye. His nose looks broken.

  “So I yelled back, I told her everything I’d been holding back and all of a sudden her asshole boyfriend comes into the kitchen and he gets all loud and I just—I lost it, Matt, I fucking lost it on him—”

  “You hit him?”

  “Yeah. I mean I kind of took a swing and he ducked and it hit him on the shoulder then he was about to hit me back but Mom—she jumped in between us to keep us apart and I was trying to get back at him and then I feel these hands yanking me away from her and out of the kitchen down into the garage.”

  His left eye starts flickering, the blood caked onto the lid.

  “David and Marcus,” Stick says. “They said I hit Mom and maybe I did, I was trying to get at her boyfriend and they wouldn’t let me explain what happened so I called them fucking assholes for defending that bitch and they held me down and beat the shit out of me.”

  “Oh my god,” I say as Stick catches his breath. The swelling keeps mounting around his eye.

  “Yeah.” The music is louder again, and Nico is screaming outside the fence. I wonder where Titi went for the ice because Stick is still bleeding.

  “I ran out of the garage and called Sherry. They’re down at the shore but when they get back, they’re coming for me,” he says. “I’m not going back to that house.”

  “No,” I say, “you can’t.”

  “I just started walking, I don’t know where I was going,” he says. “I didn’t think I could come here. I wouldn’t have come here but your aunt, she—”

  He reaches up to his eye and winces again.

  “She’s getting you ice.” I look back for Titi but Stick pulls at my cast.

  “Matt?”

  It hurts, everything hurts, but his eye is fully closed, and his cheek is twice the size of a normal cheek.

  “What happened to your lip?”

  “It’s nothing.” He’s looking at me, his face more broken than mine. “When I fell off the bed before you left,” I say.

  “Shit.”

  “It’s okay.” I don’t want to relive last night right now. Ever.

  “It’s not okay. Shit.”

  “I’m fine,” I say. “I mean, forget it.” I want to forget it.

  “No, Matt, it’s just … fuck …” He shakes his head and winces. “I shouldn’t have left like that. I just—I freaked out—and I know that keeps happening and I shouldn’t have said what I said I … I’m just so angry lately. I’m angry all the time.”

  Tears start to mix with the blood on his face and I want to reach out to touch but I’m afraid. And I can’t forgive him this time.

  “What happened in here?”

  I turn and see Willie limping across the broken concrete into the shed. Titi pushes around him, placing the bag of ice on Stick’s face. His left eye is closed completely.

  “I said ‘what happened’?” Willie says. “And don’t bullshit me. No one got time for that.”

  He’s speaking to Stick, and I don’t know if they’ve ever met but he somehow knows to answer.

  “I got in a fight,” Stick says.

  “Nope. Did I not just say I got no time for bullshit,” Willie says, legs bowed as he steps closer to Stick. “Who beat you?”

  Stick hesitates, looking to me, but I nod for him to tell Uncle Willie what he needs to know.

  “My brothers,” Stick says.

  “Does your father know about this?”

  Stick drops his head, pulling the ice away, and Titi explains about the funeral.

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry to hear that,” Willie says, then smacks me in the shoulder. “Does your father know?”

  I shake my head. “No.
”

  “I’ll be back,” Willie says and shuffles out of the shed.

  Titi returns the ice to Stick’s face and repeats her demand that we head to the hospital. Stick says he can’t—he says they’ll notify the police and Marcus has an arrest record and even though he hates him they’re still family but I don’t know why he’s defending him. Dad comes in through the opening to the shed.

  “Who did this?” he says.

  Stick looks over to me again. Willie is standing behind him.

  “Stick, which brothers did this?”

  “David and Marcus,” he says.

  “The ones in the garage always smoking pot?”

  Stick nods. Dad doesn’t like Stick’s brothers, I’m not sure he even likes Stick, but ever since his father died, when we’d drive by and see the door open, David and Marcus would always be smoking and I’d have to convince Dad not to stop the car and yell, like a father yells, now that their father is gone.

  “I figured.” He steps back out of the door with Willie. “We’ll take care of it.”

  “What are you going to do?” Titi asks.

  “We’ll have a talk with them,” Dad says. “Family or not, you don’t beat your little brother like that. They need to know.”

  “Wait—Jay—don’t make it worse,” Titi says.

  “We got it,” Willie says. “Ain’t your concern. We’re just having a chat with these boys. Ain’t nothin’ you need to worry about.”

  “No, please,” Stick says, attempting to stand. “Marcus is legit crazy. He can’t control himself.”

  “Well if they get crazy, we’ll get crazy right back,” Willie says, and I see one of my aluminum bats in his lowered hand. I look at Titi because this shit is escalating way too fast and it’s all my fault, Stick would have come home with me if I didn’t touch him in Teddy’s bedroom.

  Titi nods and follows them out of the shed and I hope she can help but I doubt they’ll listen. My dad never listens. I guess it’s kind of cool that he’s defending Stick—it’s like he’s defending me by proxy, but he has to know it won’t help, nothing will help. My head starts spinning and I feel like I’m falling, bracing myself against the walls of the shed but it won’t stop, it doesn’t stop. I look over to Stick and his face is covered in ice.