31
Tony Hall, 2015
At least twenty minutes had passed since he heard the change in Julia’s breath and knew she was asleep. Tony, on the other hand, could feel his mind revving up instead of settling for the night. Thanksgiving was a matter of hours away, and there was so much to do in the morning. Tony would handle the oven: the turkey, mashed potatoes, and pie; Julia would take the salad, hors d’oeuvres, and table. The kids would “help,” meaning they’d double the time it took to do everything. People would start arriving at noon. Their mothers would be on time; Nick would not; Ron and Jeannie were a crapshoot. The first time Tony and Julia hosted the whole family for Thanksgiving, Ron showed up with a buzz on. Ron polished off a six-pack as they ate, and Tony ended up asking him to leave early. He and Jeannie left with less fuss than Tony had expected, but they didn’t show up the next two years.
It was debatable whether Tony and Ron’s relationship had improved or deteriorated with time. To Ron, he suspected, Tony had grown into a disrespectful man who’d adopted some soft-minded view that his father had been abusive. To Tony, he had finally grown too strong for his dad to control with his hands or his words. Over time, Ron had backed down, and eventually he became tolerable enough that Tony didn’t mind him being around Chloe and Seb, so long as Tony or Julia was there. There was always a tension between the two of them, teeming under the surface of their uneasy truce. Neither respected, or even much liked, the other.
If Nick hadn’t existed, Tony probably would have been long done with Ron Hall. But Nick did exist, and that kept Ron in the loop. As difficult a person as Jeannie was, Nick loved her, and she and Ron came as a set. Nick probably even loved Ron, too. He’d gotten a slightly modified version of him—he was still a shit dad, but he would have been worse if Tony hadn’t stepped in.
It happened the same summer that Tony stopped drinking. The same summer he threw his last punch.
Nick was five then. Tony had just graduated from college. He moved back in with his mom while he figured out what to do next. He got a job waiting tables, usually working dinner shifts. Sometimes he went to see Nick during the day.
One day, he dropped by to find Nick playing outside by himself. Nick sat in front of the single-story house, smashing action figures together in the grass. When he saw Tony, Nick ran up to the car and yanked the door open. “Tony, Tony, Tony!”
He climbed out of his mom’s car and swung Nick up, hooking an arm under his rear.
Simultaneously, Tony smelled a foul odor and felt something against his arm. Tony put him down. Nick had soiled himself.
Squatting down at his level, Tony asked quietly, “Did you have an accident?”
Nick smiled at Tony, placed a hand on his shoulder, and ignored the question.
“Can I look?” Tony spun Nick around and realized he had a diaper on. What the fuck?
Tony took his hand and brought him into the house.
Ron and Jeannie were on the couch, each holding a beer, a few empties at their feet. The TV was blaring.
“Nick needs a diaper change,” Tony said.
“’Kay,” Jeannie said.
Tony watched them for a beat. Obviously they knew Nick was wearing diapers, not like Nick had snuck that by them. Tony wasn’t sure what he was expecting. An explanation.
He brought Nick to his room and changed him.
“Can you make cheese?” Nick asked. That meant mac and cheese.
It was late afternoon. “It’s too early for dinner,” Tony said.
Nick pouted.
“What did you have for lunch?”
“Um, nothing.”
“Did you have lunch?”
Nick shook his head.
What was going on?
Tony walked out into the living room. “Has he had lunch?”
“Not yet,” Jeannie said.
“It’s almost three.”
Jeannie looked up at Tony for the first time. “I tried at noon, but he wasn’t hungry.”
“So you just skip a meal?”
“He’s old enough to decide when he’s hungry, Tony.”
Ron spoke. “Just feed him if he’s hungry.”
Tony wanted to lay into them both—still in diapers but old enough to skip meals?—but Nick was standing right next to him. He chewed the inside of his cheek and went into the kitchen to put on the water for pasta. He found a box of Kraft and a can of green beans.
Tony sat with Nick while he ate. Nick polished off the pasta but left the beans untouched.
“Can I have more?”
Ron got up to grab a beer from the fridge.
“Once you eat your veggies,” Tony said.
Ron chuckled behind him. Popped the tab with a crack. “Not so easy, is it?”
“Much easier than you make it look,” Tony said.
“What’d you say?”
“I don’t like them,” Nick said, pushing his plate away from him.
Ron stepped forward, saying, “Shut up and eat ’em,” as he cuffed Nick’s ear.
Tony didn’t even feel himself stand up, he did it so fast. His hands were on Ron’s shirt and bam, he walked Ron backward and slammed him into the fridge. Ron’s beer can hit the floor, and cold liquid sprayed Tony’s legs. The memory was blurry from there—Jeannie was yelling, “Stop it, stop it”; Ron was saying something; Ron’s hands were up, and Tony punched him. It wasn’t a clean hit, but he knew he made contact because Ron’s teeth scraped his knuckles. More yelling, more noise, Tony stepped back, and Ron let him.
“The fuck out of my house.”
At the table, Nick was wailing.
“It’s okay,” Jeannie said. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Tony tried to move toward Nick.
Ron stepped toward him, his hand clutching where Tony had struck him. “Get. The fuck. Out.”
Tony went back to his dad’s the next day. He parked, and Ron came outside.
“You’re done here,” Ron said when Tony got out.
Tony walked partway up the walkway.
“Leave or I’ll make you,” Ron said.
“I just want to see him.”
“Too bad.”
“I don’t need to see you or Jeannie. I just want to see Nick.”
Ron shrugged. “Deal with it.”
“I’ll call DHS.”
The words hung in the air between them.
“For what?”
“He’s not potty-trained; he’s fucking hungry; you hit him.”
“You assaulted me; I could call the cops on you.”
“Do it. I don’t care. They’ll still take him from you.”
“Okay,” Ron said with an ugly grin. “Call. Let them put him in foster care.”
“You know what I learned?” Tony felt his face spread into the same smile. “They’ll check for family first.”
“They wouldn’t give him to you.”
“Maybe not, but they’d give him to my mom.”
Ron’s face went dark. “She ain’t his family.”
“She’s the mother of his brother. And she’d take him.” He hadn’t discussed any of this with Cynthia, but Ron didn’t know that.
“She knows better than to fuck with me.”
“She hates you.” He hissed the word between gritted teeth. “You know how hard I had to work to be able to see you after she left your ass?”
“You wanted to see me.” Ron said it like it was an insult. A pathetic trait of Tony’s, to want to be near his own father.
“I didn’t know better. I do now.”
“Then what do you keep coming back for?”
“Him.” Tony pointed at the house. “I know how badly he needs me because I needed it, too. I was so desperate for it, I settled for a piece of shit like you.”
“You’re p
issing me off,” Ron said.
“You touch him again and I call. I show up and he’s hungry or cold or sitting in his own shit, I call. You do right, I don’t.”
The change hadn’t been night and day, but Ron must have known there was truth in the threat. Tony never saw Ron hit Nick again.
Tony checked the time on his phone. Almost midnight, and he was wired. He needed to turn off his brain and go to sleep or he’d be useless in the morning. Seeing Nick would make him feel better. They’d texted a bit since the grand jury last week, but it would be good to see him in person. Make sure he really was doing as well as Nick said he was. And then, Tony thought of Darlene Walker’s Facebook post, and he decided to check her page on his phone.
Tony tilted the phone to keep the light from falling on Julia beside him. He pulled up Darlene’s page. This was a mistake.
“Lesson to all,” she had written on her wall on Tuesday of that week. “Have sex with a kink, make sure to film it, in case they call it rape later.”
Tony’s blood boiled. He crawled out of bed. Crossed the dark hall to the bathroom. Closed the door and read the words again.
There was no reason to think Nick had seen either of her posts, but it worried Tony. Nick would feel attacked if he did see them. And even if he didn’t, Walker was poisoning people against him. Tony stood in the bathroom, staring at the sentence on his phone. Worst of all, it scratched at something problematic.
Walker’s whole defense was unbelievable, but it was 2015, and there were still people out there who thought gay men were sex-crazed lunatics. There were people who believed that Nick had been complicit in what Walker did to him. People who believed it was more likely that Nick had wanted to be hit, choked, made to bleed, than it was that he’d been raped.
What if one of those people ended up on the jury? What if Walker stirred up people enough that the ADA got scared; what if it ended in a bullshit plea deal? Court couldn’t change what had happened to Nick, Tony knew that, but Nick’s name needed to come out of this clean. And Ray Walker deserved to suffer for what he’d done.
On his phone, he went to Google. He typed the words he’d thought of over a month ago—a search he hadn’t bothered to run. He clicked through the link. There was another search bar. A drop-down menu. “Search by owner.” There was a creak in the hallway, and Tony started. He stuck his head out of the bathroom. No one was there—just a house sound. He’d felt, for a second, like he was about to be caught doing something wrong. And maybe he was. He was getting himself all worked up again about something everyone else, Nick included, seemed to have accepted. Walker was going to blame Nick to try to save himself. Nick was going to have to wait, maybe a year, for the noise of the case to be over. And Nick’s identity was private, at least for now. Tony closed the browser on his phone. He needed to get some sleep.
* * *
“Can I be excused?”
Blobs of mashed potatoes and gravy clung to the corners of Seb’s mouth.
“Holy moly,” Tony said, motioning for Seb to use his napkin.
Tony had woken up that morning with a nervous energy he’d only fueled by drinking two cups of coffee and fasting until they sat down to eat around one. As the massive meal settled into his stomach, he finally began to feel how tired he was. Tired and calmer. Everything was going well. The food had turned out great—his best turkey yet, Julia said—and everyone was getting along. Julia’s mom, Marjorie, brought out his own mom’s fun side, and the two of them had been laughing together all afternoon. Ron and Jeannie had shown up sober and friendly. Nick seemed to be doing okay. He brought his roommate Elle. The one who’d been there that night. Tony had felt anxious about seeing her for some reason, but when Nick asked if she could come, of course he’d said yes.
“Me too?” Chloe asked. They’d all been at the table for nearly an hour now.
“First,” Tony’s mother said, “could we go around and share what we’re thankful for?” Cynthia was holding her handwritten name tag in one hand, clearly thankful for her grandchildren. Julia had had the kids make place cards for the guests. After Julia set up the folding card table against the dining room table and covered them with a long cloth, Tony noticed that she had set his parents’ cards as far apart as possible.
He looked to Julia, who held up her glass. “Go for it.”
“Well, I just wanted to say how thankful I am to have all of you in my life. I just love you all so much.” She reached to her right and squeezed Chloe’s cheek. Chloe grinned and squirmed away. “I have the best family in the world, and I’m so glad we’re able to be together. All of us.” She made a point to look at Ron and Jeannie at that moment. It was actually pretty sweet.
Julia’s mom went next, and then Elle as they moved clockwise around the table. Tony couldn’t help but notice that Nick looked a bit pained as his turn to speak drew nearer—he was wringing his hands together under the table.
Even more pained was Seb, who had already grown bored with being at the table. He began to slide, slow motion, out of his chair.
“Bud, stay in your seat,” Tony whispered, but Seb kept sliding.
After Elle thanked the Halls for letting her join in their family event, she moved on to Nick. “I’m thankful for you, Nick. You’re my best friend, and the best person I know. You’ve just been so brave.”
“Seb, honey, come back up here,” Tony said full volume.
A muffled voice under the table said, “What’s that?”
Nick banged his hands against the underside of the table, making the silverware rattle over its surface. His face was white.
“Honey, come back to your seat,” Julia said to Seb.
“What’s what?” Elle asked, lifting the table cloth.
“What’s on your arm, Uncle Nick?” Seb said.
Jeannie was looking at her son now—Nick was tugging at his sleeves.
“What is on your arm?” She reached over and yanked his left sleeve up.
From his seat, Tony could see a long, blotchy red wound running up Nick’s forearm, continuing under his sleeve.
“The fuck is that?” Tony said involuntarily.
“Tony.” Instantly, Julia chastised him for swearing in front of the kids.
“Oh my God!” Jeannie pulled at Nick’s sleeve, leaving the gashes on his arm visible.
Nick ripped his arm away and stood, knocking into the windowsill behind him. “Mom!” He pulled his sleeve back down and pushed past his parents’ seats to run through the living room.
Tony shoved backward in his chair and followed.
“Tony!” he heard Julia call after him.
He made it up the stairs to the bathroom door just in time for it to slam in his face. The noise woke him up to what had just happened. He hesitated, then said, “Nick?”
“Go away, Tony.” Nick’s voice was sharp, punctuating each word.
Tony fought the urge to turn the knob—their old-house doors didn’t lock. Instead, he leaned forward, resting his forehead on the door.
“Please,” he said quietly. “Please let me in. I’m so scared.” The relief that came from saying those words aloud nearly overwhelmed him.
After a pause, he felt Nick moving on the other side, and the door creaked open.
Nick’s face dissolved into tears first, and Tony pulled him into a hug. Nick shuddered and sobbed wet, hot breath on Tony’s neck.
What was that?
Tony clamped his teeth around the question. He knew what it was. He began to cry, and he held Nick tighter.
* * *
They stood, holding each other, until their surroundings came back. They were standing in the hall, excited voices downstairs in the dining room. Jeannie’s voice was rising above the others.
Nick shifted to release himself from the embrace.
“Can we please talk?”
Nick nodded.
They sat on the bed in Tony and Julia’s room, and Nick sighed a shaky breath. Tony didn’t want to see the marks again. But did he have an obligation to look closer? “So that’s— You— When did you . . . start doing that?”
Nick shrugged. “I guess not that long ago.”
Was Why? a stupid question? Tony didn’t know.
An obvious statement would be easier. “You’re not doing okay.”
Nick shrugged. His arms were crossed over his torso, and his legs were crossed, too. He looked like he was trying to shrink into a little ball. Tony realized he was unconsciously doing the same thing. He released his legs to sit wide.
“Does your counselor know?”
“Not yet.”
“I need you to tell him.”
“I will,” Nick said quickly.
That was hard to trust, since Nick had been in counseling all this time. But how was he supposed to explain that to Nick?
“I don’t want to say the wrong thing,” Tony said.
Nick looked up at him. “Just say it.”
“I’m afraid you won’t tell him.”
“I promise.”
Tony looked down at Nick’s covered arms. “I feel like you’ve been lying to me.”
Nick frowned and looked away.
“You’re cutting yourself?”
“No,” Nick said. “Just . . . I’m not cutting.”
“Then what is that?”
After a long pause, Nick said, “More like scratching.”
“Nick,” Tony whispered. Nick was in pain. Even more than Tony had worried.
In a quiet voice, Nick said, “I have been lying to you.”
The Damage Page 15