The End of Billy Knight

by Ty Jacob

  Alongside the toys in Mike’s duffle bag now, there were several tiny purple baby shirts that Dale had helped pick out, a silver necklace for Lisa, and a Chicago Cubs baseball cap for Paul, the brother-in-law he was about to meet. He continued walking to his gate. He’d already checked his main suitcase. Although the duffel bag was technically too big for carry-on, he’d hidden it from the woman at the departures desk. When he arrived at his gate and it came time to board, he had to smile and flirt with the woman taking tickets in order to be allowed to take the bag on.

  “Please?” he said, smiling. “It’s full of presents for my niece. I didn’t want to check it. It’s too important.” He gave her all his attention, and eventually she waved him through.

  As the plane took off there was a strange, sinking feeling in his stomach, and it stayed with him throughout the flight. He hadn’t set foot in Ohio since that day four years ago when he left Cincinnati and drove all the way to California in his old Chevy Nova. And of course, as Lisa often reminded him, it had been over twelve years since he last saw her. The plane was a time machine, taking him into the past.

  Lisa was waiting for him at the airport in Cleveland. She stood there alone looking so much older that for a split second he almost thought it was his mom. Then she yelled, “Mikey!” and he knew it was her.

  She hugged him deeply, and when she finally pulled away he saw that her eyes were watery. “You look good,” she said. “Why did you go away for so long?”

  He wanted to remind her that she’d gone away first, that she’d fled Brewerton the year before he did, that she’d left him alone there with their father.

  “You look good too,” he said.

  She was a well-dressed, suburban mom – nice wedding ring, a diamond pendant on a gold necklace, khaki pants with loafers, a pink polo shirt. Her hair was still long and brown, the way it was when they were kids, but different. It fell down across her shoulders like a daytime TV star.

  “Let’s get your bags,” she said. “I have to hurry up and get home to Abby.”

  Mike had to remind himself that Lisa wasn’t talking about their mother.

  “She’s a month old tomorrow. This is the first time I’ve left her. It feels so weird, like I forgot my arm. Paul said he’d pick you up, but you two have never met and I wanted to be here. Let’s hurry back. I left Paul some milk but he’s hopeless.” She started walking toward the baggage claim.

  Mike followed. “I can’t wait to meet her.”

  “And Paul. He really wants to meet you. I’ve told him so much about you.”

  She was walking fast. Mike suddenly had an image of his sister organizing bank presidents, telling them when they had to be where, rushing them off to this meeting and that.

  “And I have a surprise for you,” she said.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  As they stood in front of the baggage carousel waiting for his suitcase come around, Mike tried to think of something to say, but he couldn’t come up with anything.

  She turned to look at him. “Why was your flight coming in from Chicago? Why not LA?”

  “I was visiting a friend,” he said.

  “Who?”

  He thought quickly. “My friend Dom. He works at a prison. We met in LA.”

  “A prison? Really? Huh. Sometimes I still can’t believe you live in California. But seeing you now, you look like you live there.” She looked down at his arms. “My little brother has muscles! Do you have a girlfriend yet?”

  “No.” She asked this all the time. He always said the same thing.

  “I can’t understand why a good looking guy like you doesn’t have a girlfriend.” She smiled. “You’d better get one soon or people will start to say you’re funny.”

  “Maybe I am funny.”

  For a moment she looked somewhat panicked, then she laughed. “Oh, God,” she said, slapping his arm lightly. “You’re such a kidder. You’ve always been such a kidder. Where are your bags? I have to get back.”

  He’d never been described as a ‘kidder’ by anyone. He let it go.

  “Is Abby talking yet?” he asked.

  She laughed again. “No, silly. She’s only a month old. They don’t start talking until they’re almost a year.”

  Mike’s brown Luis Vuitton suitcase came around the baggage carousel, and he picked it up.

  Lisa was looking at it closely. “What a nice suitcase.”

  “Thanks.” He didn’t say that a client had bought it for him on a travel job, a week in Key West.

  Her car was a four-door family thing. As she drove down the expressway, weaving in and out of traffic, he was struck by the feeling that he had no idea who this woman was. It was as though there had been some terrible mistake. This was not his sister at all. This was not the girl who ate Molly’s dog food. He was in a random car with a stranger. She talked nonstop as she drove, mostly about Abby, how she woke five or six times a night, how they still needed to buy a stroller because the one they’d borrowed from Paul’s sister wasn’t very nice.

  “I quit my job,” she added suddenly. “We can live off Paul’s executive salary, and I just want to stay home and raise kids. I’ll organize large, complicated birthday parties instead of CEO luncheons.”

  Mike felt his own silence solidifying around himself until it became a wall. What could he possibly tell her in return? That he’d just finished a three-week tour, dancing around in a pink sequined G-string and simulating gay sex on stage? That two weeks ago he was paid by a highly respected U.S. Senator to wear cowboy pajamas and yell, “Fuck me daddy!”? There was nothing he could offer to match the small tidbits of baby and home that she was offering him. Why had he come here?

  When she pulled into her brand new subdivision, Mike was struck by how large and perfect all the homes were, how small the trees were, one planted carefully in front of each house. Her house was beige, covered with the same brick as almost all the others on the street. The windows had fake cream-colored shutters that didn’t close, and the flowerbeds in front were planted with brightly colored snapdragons. The neighbors were close on either side, given the size of the house.

  Turning into her driveway, he saw the pick-up truck with the words Dudley Produce on the side in green letters. It took him a moment before he understood. His dad was standing on the front porch, holding a can of beer. Mike’s chest tightened. He looked at Lisa. “Is that your surprise?” He knew he sounded angry. He was.

  “Yeah. Aren’t you happy?”

  “You should’ve told me.”

  “Why? Is something wrong?”

  Mike said nothing. He just stared out the car window at his dad on the porch.

  Lisa leaned over toward him. “You never did tell me what happened the night you left home.”

  “No,” Mike said. “I didn’t.”

  He stepped out of the car and looked across the lawn at his father.

  * * *

  The night Mike left Brewerton was his dad’s poker night. On the first Saturday of every month, the old man would close the shop and drive over to Barry Ferguson’s place to play cards, then he’d come stumbling up the stairs at one or two in the morning, always stinking drunk. Mike always had to open the shop by himself the following morning. He’d been doing that alone, once a month, since he was fifteen.

  In Mike’s dad’s bedroom, there was a TV and a VCR, which Mike wasn’t allowed to use. His dad always said, “That VCR is expensive and new. Keep your sticky fingers off it.”

  It was next to the TV on top of a locked wooden cabinet. Shortly after Lisa left home, Mike had begun using his dad’s poker night as an opportunity to snoop, and one night he found the key to that cabinet in the bottom drawer of his dad’s nightstand. Inside the cabinet was a large collection of porn videocassettes. Nurses Nasty and Nice. Warrior Women. Sarah’s Sticky Summer. Just Between Girls. Hildebranda of Bavaria: Volumes 1, 2 & 3. Given that the collection belonged to a man who’d never left the state of Ohio, it w
as surprisingly international – some American, some Italian, some German, some with subtitles, some without. Mike especially liked the German ones because, for whatever reason, they didn’t seem afraid to show the guys’ bodies before and after they fucked the women, and the men were usually in good shape, unlike many of the flabby, plain men in a lot of the other porn. He never watched the lesbian porn. It was boring, and he didn’t understand it.

  Over time, he began looking forward to his dad’s poker night more and more. It was a real treat to be able to jerk off to porn.

  He told his friend Charlie about this secret treasure trove. Charlie was the one he fooled around with in the Thompson’s hay shed from time to time, and soon Charlie was begging to come over and see the collection.

  So one night when his dad was playing poker, Mike told Charlie to show up around seven thirty. When Charlie appeared at the back door, Mike could tell that he was already horny. The summer night air behind him was sweet. There was the smell of freshly cut grass that would always, for the rest of his life, remind Mike of Brewerton. He stepped aside and let Charlie in.

  “Upstairs,” Mike said, and they moved silently together toward the stairs.

  Mike and Charlie never kissed, never flirted. They behaved as though what passed between them was simply a substitute for the real thing, as though they both would have preferred sex with a real live girl but, since none were available, they had to make do with what was at hand. Mike never told Charlie that he didn’t care about having sex with a girl, that in fact he really enjoyed being naked with Charlie. He knew enough not to say that.

  Up in his dad’s bedroom, Mike opened the bottom drawer, reached in back, and pulled out the small silver key. The room hadn’t changed since his mom died. The lamp at the bedside had a ruffled shade. The bedspread had small, faded blue flowers that matched the blue walls. Normally Mike sat on the floor to jerk off – it didn’t seem right to do it in his dad’s bed – but Charlie insisted they pull back the covers and get comfortable. Mike agreed. He let Charlie get the bed ready while he opened the cabinet and turned on the VCR.

  Charlie wanted to watch one of the lesbian films first, but half way through he asked Mike to turn it off, and Mike did. Mike was always careful to take note of what scene the film was on when he put the tape in, and then to rewind it to the same place before he took it out.

  It was during Sarah’s Sticky Summer that Mike went down on Charlie for the first time that night. By then they were both naked on the bed, jacking off side-by-side, so it was easy enough to slide down and put his mouth on Charlie’s dick. Charlie never asked for it, but he never said no. He never went down on Mike.

  Charlie was about to come when he pushed Mike’s head away and said, “Let’s watch one more.”

  “We don’t have to watch them all tonight,” Mike said. “You can come back next month.”

  “Come on,” Charlie pleaded.

  Mike looked at the alarm clock on his dad’s nightstand. His dad wouldn’t be home for a while. He put in Hildebranda of Bavaria: Volume 2, which was his all-time favorite because of the burly innkeeper who took Hildebranda in when she got caught in the rain in the final scene. She was soaked, her long, blond braids dripping with rain, so the innkeeper warmed her by the fire. Mike would like to be warmed by the fire by a man like that.

  He was sucking Charlie’s dick again, jerking off as he did, and they were both incredibly close when the door opened and Mike – his lips still touching the head of Charlie’s dick – looked up and saw his dad.

  There was a look on his dad’s face Mike had never seen before. His dad yelled something and turned around and ran down the stairs. Mike and Charlie, intense erections feeling suddenly vulnerable, scrambled to get dressed. Charlie had his jeans back on and was fumbling with his shirt when Mike’s dad came through the door again and pointed the shotgun at Charlie’s chest.

  “Motherfucking faggot!” his dad screamed.

  Mike fell down to the floor on the other side of the bed, clinging to the floral-print of the bedspread. He looked over the edge of the bed. It was the 12-gauge his dad used for deer hunting, which had been kept behind the cash register ever since they’d been robbed that night so many years ago. The gun was long and black and Mike had always been afraid of it. He’d always refused to go deer hunting with his dad.

  Charlie was screaming now, wildly, not making any words, just noise. Mike’s dad was standing broad-shouldered and blocking the door.

  “Get the fuck out of my house!” his dad yelled. Charlie, still shirtless, bent down and picked up his shoes, his socks, held them with his shirt in his hands, and when Mike’s dad stepped aside, Charlie ran out of the room and down the stairs. The thump of his bare feed on the wooden steps rang out. The back door slammed.

  By then Mike’s dad was already pointing the gun at Mike, not saying anything, just heaving as he held it, short shallow breaths. Mike stayed crouched down on the floor in his underwear, trying not to cry, knowing that would anger his dad even more.

  “Stand up you little faggot!” His dad walked around the double bed and moved toward him.

  Mike stood with his back against the wall. The ruffled lampshade was to his right, the closet to his left. Looking up he saw how close the gun was to his head, the dark black metal. He heard himself screaming.

  “Shut up, shut up!” his dad yelled. “No son of mine’s gonna be a faggot. No son of mine.”

  Mike braced himself for the impact. He felt it was inevitable, that there was no turning back. He truly believed that his father was going to shoot him. And in some way, merely by the fact of pointing a gun at him, his father had already killed something.

  “Tell me you’re not a faggot,” his dad said. There was no bullet. No blast or bang. “Tell me you’re not,” he said again. He shot the words out.

  “No, Dad. I’m not. I’m not a faggot, Dad. I swear.”

  His dad moved quickly then, and Mike didn’t know what was happening until he felt a sharp pain. The back of his head slammed into the wall behind him as he fell. Only when he was down on the floor did he realize that the butt of the gun had hit him on the forehead. One hard, sharp thrust. Then there was a solid kick to his ribs, and his dad stepped back, yelling. “Get the fuck out of my room! I ever catch you doing that again and I will shoot you!”

  Mike hadn’t seen his dad since.

  * * *

  Looking up toward Lisa’s porch, Mike saw the man now. There were his bulky hands holding his beer. There was his steady gaze, as harsh and mean as ever. But this man, the one in front of him now, looked thin and unhealthy. There were spots of grey beginning to form around the temples. The once-broad shoulders were stooped.

  Suddenly Mike saw a pattern, like he was viewing his own life from a distance, and he recognized the shape of something that he hadn’t been able to grasp up close. He’d changed cities twice in his life. The first time, it was his father attacking him – nearly killing him – that had made him leave Brewerton. The second time, when he finally left Cincinnati, it was another man who had attacked him, who could have killed him in a different way. Mike was forever fleeing, trying to find a place that was safe.

  Lisa was already pulling his duffle bag out of the trunk and walking up to the house. She shouted playfully, “Are you coming in or are you going to just stand there by the car?” She had no idea what she’d done.

  Mike had never told her what happened that night because doing so would have required him to admit to too many things – the least of which was jerking off to his father’s porn. It was almost as though he and his dad were complicit. They’d agreed to allow Lisa to walk through her life inside a cloud of make-believe. She was not tainted by their secrets.

  Up on the porch, his father didn’t move. Mike stepped to the back of the car and picked up his suitcase. Then he began walking toward the house. He felt he had no choice.

  Lisa yelled, “Dad, look who’s here!” She waved Mike on and stood back.

  “Yo
u didn’t tell me he was coming,” their dad said.

  Lisa answered in a sing-songy voice. “It’s a surprise. Dad, I asked you to please not drink on the front porch. The neighbors will see.”

  Two concrete steps led up to the porch, and Mike stopped in front of them. His father, standing at the top and looking down, seemed to be intentionally in the way. There were wrinkles around his mouth and neck. Up close he looked even more feeble.

  Lisa said, “Give dad a hug, Mikey.”

  “Step back, old man,” Mike said. “You’re blocking my way.” His dad moved to the right, and Mike walked up the steps to the porch, ignoring his dad as he passed by.

  Up out of the shadows of the house came a tall, thin man with dark hair. He shouted “Hello!” through the screen door and stepped out onto the porch. “I’m Paul,” he said, shaking Mike’s hand vigorously. “Glad to see you made it. All the way from sunny California! Bring any movie stars with you?” His voice was loud and nervous.

  Mike shook his head. “Nope. No movie stars. Just me.”

  “Well, that’s all we need. Come on in.”

  There was a large, pale beige living room with matching off-white couch and armchairs, soft cream carpet, milky walls. Somehow the colors all seemed slightly blurred, in a kind of soft focus. On the table was a rose petal potpourri, and everything was orderly and pristine. Mike recognized the china cabinet in the corner. It held his mother’s glass figurines.

  From somewhere a baby started crying, and Lisa began directing everyone. “Paul, take Mike’s bags up to his room, would you? Mike, you sit down and talk to Dad. I’ll go get Abbey. Dad, come inside and sit down. What are you standing out there for?” Then she and Paul ran up the stairs.

  Mike’s dad walked in the front door and set his empty beer can down on the coffee table. Mike sat with his back to the wall so he could see where his dad was at all times. He did the math and realized for the very first time that his dad was only four years older than Dale. It seemed impossible that this old man with the wrinkles around his mouth and the hunched shoulders could be almost the same age as Dale. Although Dale was fatter, and balder, he didn’t seem half as old.