Everything, Somewhere

by David Kummer

  On the second day, we met at the old smoking spot. The forest by the old baseball field had grown wilder since we’d last ventured there with Hudson. As the summer wore on, the boys sort of gave up smoking, and I did so on my own. Mason agreed to show up there around ten in the morning. I arrived earlier and had already burned through two cigarettes by the time he trudged in my direction.

  Surrounded by forest, gazing up at a downtown park covered in fog, I opened my mouth to let the thin trail of smoke float away. Mason shifted, hunched over awkwardly, and jerked his head in either direction. Peering at anything but me. I sat on the tree log where I had many times before, gazing straight ahead, as if I hadn’t noticed his arrival.

  “Hey,” he murmured. Still not looking directly at me.

  “Places are so beautiful without people.” I turned my head so I could see him and blew in that direction. My voice had grown colder since we last spoke. All the tears were gone now, and with them most emotion. “Don’t you think?”

  “Are you still mad?” He met my eyes for just a split second and then wavered. His arms were hugged around his chest like a child against the cold. Hair disheveled, like for the first time in months he hadn’t methodically prepared his appearance.

  “I’m not… as much,” I said. He breathed easier. I continued, “But I’m not happy. And it’s gonna take time. To forgive… everything.”

  “Just say it.”

  “You got me fucking pregnant, Mason, and you didn’t even care.” I took a deep inhale from the cigarette and held it for a few seconds. I watched his reaction, my own expression stoic. “You just fight people all the time now, huh? You… you don’t care about me or what I want. You don’t care about Hudson, your best friend. It’s just a lot. It’s hard to explain.”

  “I’m working on it!” he exclaimed, rapidly taking a seat on the log next to me. Pleading, now, with his bottom lip trembling. “Just give me time.”

  “I will.” Another deep breath. I exhaled the smoke into his face. “As long as you are.”

  “Of course.” He placed a hand on my leg now, gentle. “I’ll do anything for you.”

  I kissed his forehead and then pulled him against me, the cigarette dangling from my mouth. I held him against me with both hands and spoke from the corner of my mouth. “We’re gonna have to tell your parents.”

  And then I laughed, because after two days of no sleep, that was the only way to deal with things. Truthfully, though, I did feel a bit like the Joker.

  There weren’t many answers for us, not right away. All that conversation did was reunite us. It didn’t explain what we’d do about college, if we would stay in Little Rush or move away. I only hoped that things would evolve naturally, that we’d find some kind of middle ground. The future remained in fog, only showing a few feet at a time.

  We waited for another five days before taking our next step into that fog. After another positive pregnancy test, I called Mason and told him I knew for sure. In reality, I’d known ever since that moment when he hadn’t used a condom. Just intuition. But we were in the thick of it now.

  I spent that day alone, after the second pregnancy test, but not necessarily in sadness. Something about the way Hudson had reacted brought a shift to my thinking. A child wasn’t a mistake. If somebody as bleak as Hudson could see the beauty in new life, then so should I.

  Mason, upon hearing this news, said immediately that abortion wasn’t an option. Even though I’d decided this on my own, it felt good to hear him say it. And to do it without prompting, either. We had this conversation on a phone call, so I could hear his voice and not just read his messages. I think he started crying toward the end, happy tears. When I hung up, we had a time for that next day. I would meet him at his house, and there, together, we’d go into his dad’s office and… break the news.

  Every horror story I’d ever heard about hateful parents and teen pregnancy filled my brain that night. I imagined how awful it could go. How terrible the reaction might be. But through those nightmares and through the early morning, I told myself everything would work out. Mason and I… we could do this, one way or another. Unexpected? Of course. But not impossible. Not unwanted.

  * * *

  Mason knocked on the door to his dad’s study. I waited behind him, looking around at the walls of his home. A beautiful house, a great place to live. The hallways were wide and everything clean. This house had become familiar to me now. Would it be the last time I ever set foot in here?

  I could feel my own heart threatening to break a rib or something. I placed a hand on Mason’s back. His shoulders shook as his dad called out for us to enter. Mason turned the knob and pushed it open. Shuffling forward, we passed into the danger zone. I shut the door behind us.

  I couldn’t see his expression as we entered, but Jed’s face lit up in a wide smile. He set down the document he’d been reading. The desk itself didn’t have a square inch of free space. Papers upon folders upon professional-looking books covered the surface, a computer sitting to one side. One day, maybe even that would be under this mess. He certainly looked like a man drowning in business.

  “Hey there,” Jed said, directed toward me. He looked confused now but pleased, nonetheless.

  I waved back a little, just raising a hand slightly from my jeans. Then I moved into a spot near Mason, my head bowed.

  I remembered the story he’d told two days ago, about his dad coming into his room that night and saying, “I love you.” Hearing Mason recount this, how it had really shaken and perplexed him, I’d been struck by the absurdity. My parents and I, while not super close, always said we loved each other. Almost daily. But the way Jed and Mason stared at each other now, the older man brimming with joy, I got a glimpse of how fresh this connection must have felt. How dead their relationship had been for so, so long.

  “Dad, we have something to tell you.”

  Jed’s eyes were as big as bowls right away. Maybe he understood, put two and two together. I’d never come in before, rarely even spoke with him. Mason didn’t initiate conversations much with Jed, I knew, and the two of us together could only mean a few topics this serious. Marriage, of course, but as not even seniors yet, that would be improbable. The only other reason for this dramatic meeting, then, was a pregnancy.

  “We’re…” Mason reached down to hold my hand. “Well, she’s pregnant.”

  Jed’s gaze didn’t shift to me, however. His eyes were focused on Mason. Maybe he blamed him, maybe he would yell. I really wanted to leave at that point. But no, I would stand here beside him. We were a couple. We were gonna be parents. I wouldn’t leave his side.

  “This isn’t a… prank or anything?” Jed looked at me now, then back to his son, as if hoping one of us would pull out a kazoo and scream “surprise!” When neither of us did, he placed both hands flat on the desk and lowered his chin. He murmured something under his breath, closing both eyes. At this point, I expected him to erupt in fury. But he looked up and smiled ridiculously wide. “You… wow.”

  Mason fumbled with the next part of his planned speech. His dad’s mixed reaction had caught him off guard, as well as me. I took up the mantle and carried on our script.

  “We’re definitely keeping the baby,” I said, giving Jed the side of my face. I stared at Mason, leaned my head against his shoulder for a second. When I spoke next, I squared in Jed’s direction, squeezed my boyfriend’s hand, and spoke with determination. “I don’t know if you’re okay with that or not, but we’re going to. We’ll figure it out, and we’d love your help but if not… We love her. Or him. Our baby.”

  “We do.” Mason beamed.

  Under the weight of our intense joy, his dad shrugged and stood from the desk. “You two… you’ve always been a little crazy.” He raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Don’t think I’m completely in the dark about the cabin.”

  Neither of us confirmed or denied whatever info he had. We just held hands, facing him, and refused to budge. Jed shook his head a few times, a wid
e grin, almost incredulous. I didn’t know how to respond, so I hoped one of these two would continue.

  “Thank you for telling me,” Jed said, standing behind his desk now with hands clasped together. “And… well, congratulations, of course.” His head swiveled around the room, as if looking for something. Both hands uncurled now, and he began to tap on the desk. “Myself and Lucy… we’ll be more than happy to help you two.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, hopefully put an end to this awkward stand-still, but before I could, Mason cleared his throat. He took a deep breath and, to my surprise, turned to address me.

  “Can you… step out for just a minute?” He squeezed my hand. “I wanna talk to him.”

  I obliged and left the room without hesitation. As I pulled the door shut from the hallway outside, Jed’s eyes were trained on his son once again. When the handle clicked into place, I walked to one of the recliners and sat alone for a few minutes. Mason’s mom had been gone when we arrived, and he said he’d tell her that night himself. My own task, then, would be breaking the news to my parents. I actually thought about taking Mom along to talk with Dad, just in case he… disapproved.

  She would be okay with it, I already knew. Definitely supportive. And my younger brother, maybe he’d even be excited. Maybe he’d even like the baby, once it came. I didn’t know for sure, but I felt optimism. That was something new.

  Those minutes in the chair were full of relief and wonder. Imagining what our kid would look like, what names we might choose, how awful senior year would be. Pregnant in my prom dress. A mother for graduation. My nightmare, honestly, but now… those felt like brief stops on the path to something so much happier. Something worth all of it. The puking, the nausea, the cramps, the pain. Mason would stand by me in the hospital. I had no doubt of it. No doubt anymore.

  He emerged from his dad’s office about ten minutes later. Both him and Jed were wiping tears from their eyes, grinning through all the emotion. I rose from the chair and tried to catch something from Mason’s expression, but he walked past me. Jed reached out his arms and embraced me tightly, full of his old-man deodorant scent. First Hudson and now Mason’s dad. Two people I never expected to hug like this. Funny what a pregnancy could do.

  Ten minutes later, I sat outside in my idling car and conversed with Mason, who leaned through the open window. His mom would be home soon, and I didn’t have any reason to stick around. Not when I had to break the news to both my parents.

  “The real question,” he said with a mischievous chuckle, “is when to make it Facebook official.”

  “Oh, shut up.” I planted my lips on his for a moment and then pulled back. “Hey, you really should text Hudson.”

  “I know.” All the air deflated from his chest. “I just don’t know what to say yet. I feel…”

  “It’s okay.” I reached out and stroked the stubble on his cheek. “You’ll find the words.”

  “We haven’t talked in two weeks.” He rested his forehead against the top of the car door and closed his eyes. “It’ll take a miracle for all this to just… disappear. You know?”

  14

  Bruce

  I never expected it to happen.

  That’s not entirely true. The honest truth, if there was such a thing… well, the honest truth was harder to explain.

  Ever since it happened, ever since that awful mistake, I knew it would eventually come out. Stuff like that didn’t stay buried. Not for somebody like me. Not when the action was so real, unbelievably sordid.

  No, I had expected it. I’d just hoped it would happen after I passed on. Or even that I would disappear from public view enough for them to forget me. If people erased me from their minds, then it wouldn’t matter as much. If only the story broke a year or two later, once I’d fully vanished. No, it just happened too quickly. They still thought of me as an eccentric actor, a wild old man, searching for something out there in the wilderness beyond LA’s lights. If only they knew.

  It happened too quickly and not soon enough. If I’d been unmasked right after that fateful night, years ago, maybe I could have suffered through the consequences and forgiven myself. I would rather be in prison, I realized now, with a clean conscience. But I never came forward. I could’ve, really. Could’ve admitted to my sins, unearthed my own dirty secrets. I didn’t. And so, I deserved whatever came down the line.

  Those damn lawyers had been no help after all. Not when Madeline refused a settlement. That would’ve been easier to explain. This… not so much.

  The cruelty in coincidence never struck me like it did that evening. I stood in front of my mirror when the news broke, straightening my tie. Dressed in my finest, most pretentious suit, the kind that made it clear I wasn’t from around here. The kind that shouted, “I am not one of you!” and attracted them like magots to rotting fruit.

  Just minutes later, I was going to leave out that front door and drive into town, where the mayor of Little Rush waited. He said we could meet a little after ten, once the restaurant had closed and we had the whole place to ourselves. Back at the steakhouse with dusty deer heads and the overwhelming aroma of grills. He wanted to meet me, at long last, and talk about my future in the town. Probably make sure that I wasn’t going anywhere before he really took time to know me. I understood all of that, even appreciated it. And I really looked forward to the dinner.

  This first step. The moment where I felt like a future here could really happen. It had been a dream of mine, one that I would make happen. Those folks at Allen’s Burgers had been so kind and the conversation so enthralling. I wanted all of that again. I wanted it nightly. Hell, I might have bought an old bar downtown and opened it up myself, just to sit there and chat with locals. Just to feel like one of them, to drink their drinks and taste their personalities. That’s all I wanted. That’s all I goddamn wanted. To be normal, like them.

  I could picture it in my mind. An old actor who held court at the bar a few times a week. Who kept the place going out of his heart’s kindness and his bank account’s swollen stomach. Trading stories with locals for years to come. Really becoming one of them. Goddamn it, I swear that’s all I wanted, all I fucking wanted. But even that perfect, innocent picture shattered as soon as I saw the news.

  Broken into shards. Glass scattered on the ground, cutting into my hand.

  It’s not my fault that I punched the mirror. It’s not my fault that I continued punching it until my knuckles couldn’t stand anymore. And it’s not my fault that life teased with the promise of a real future.

  “Damn.”

  I sat rigid on the couch, holding my phone gingerly. Reading. Scrolling. Bleeding profusely.

  The vacant television screen looked on as I scrolled through Twitter that night. Right around ten o’clock, just as I’d planned to leave, the article started to circulate. Rumors flying left and right. TMZ had something go viral. All of this hit in waves when I opened the app. Saw the shares, saw my name thrown around in all directions. I imagined the hell-storm for whoever ran the Bruce Michaels account. The mentions, the replies. Well, fuck them, at least they got paid to deal with it.

  I never read the actual article, the one written by some Gina Roberts. That name popped up three times as I scrolled through my feed. I googled her and found, among all the random faces that surfaced, a few pictures of an attractive, intimidating woman with sleek glasses. I recognized her in an instant. And my fears were confirmed. She’d been here, in this very house. Well, fuck her too. I guess this really was the end.

  I propped my feet on the small table and leaned back on the couch, groaning loudly. Unsure what I felt. Unsure what any of this meant. What did allegations alone even do? They had no proof, apart from the story she’d told Gina. No other women had come out yet. I realized the absurdity, that I didn’t even know Madeline’s last name. Until I clicked on one of the TMZ stories, that is.

  Gina Roberts, a well-respected if somewhat obscure journalist, had done the legwork, the interviews, the research. And ye
t, her story didn’t even break the news. TMZ got a hold of it, one way or another, and their own recount turned out to be much more salacious and disturbing, more to the public’s interest. Madeline’s name showed up multiple times, even her home city. And it had a last name now. Suso. Madeline Suso.

  Five beers and three shots in, I could barely make out the words on my screen. I read the TMZ article over and over again. Saw the public response, the instant backlash, the “cancel Bruce Michaels” threads. And then the hashtags started. By the time I looked away, the story had three separate hashtags, all of them trending. All of them incredibly damning.

  “Is this what I deserve?”

  I stood from the couch and ripped open the curtains. Not a single light out there. No stars tonight, no moon. Just a black canvas stretching as far as the universe itself. I placed a hand on the cool window and noticed that I was sweating. Remembered that my knuckles were ripped to shreds, blood running down my forearms. But I couldn’t even feel it. My whole body was ravaged by a fire more painful than any alcohol or cuts.

  All I wanted here was a quiet life. I just wanted them to forget me. I just wanted to visit a nice little bar and tell stories to the locals, hear their own in response. I just wanted to be him. That’s all I ever wished for here, and this stupid fucking town couldn’t even grant me that.

  “Is this how it ends?”

  I turned back toward the couch. The photograph rested on the coffee table. I picked it up and gritted my teeth, staring into the image. Without a thought, I hurled it at the wall. The frame broke, glass shattered, and the entire mess dropped to the ground. At some point, I bent over it and extracted the Polaroid, carrying it gingerly into the other room. Blood dripped onto the photo and I hastily wiped it clean. Then I stuck it back into my hiding place. Maybe I would never look, ever again, at that frozen memory.