How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets

by Garth Stein

  “Then you should have a long time ago, right, Dad?”

  “I wish you’d stop calling me that. My name is Evan.”

  “Okay, Evan, where have you been all my life?”

  Evan shakes his head. These are questions that can’t be answered so easily.

  “Naaaaaa!” Dean makes the sound of a game-show horn blaring. “Sorry, Evan, that’s not a good enough answer! But we have some nice consolation prizes so you won’t go home empty-handed.”

  Dean turns to go.

  “I know I deserve all of this, ” Evan says as Dean walks away.

  Dean suddenly stops.

  “All of what?”

  “Everything. Your anger. Your frustration.”

  “My anger? No, Evan, wrong again. You know what you deserve? You deserve to be locked in a room with Frank, that’s what you deserve. Frank would teach you a thing or two about forgiveness. I’d pay money to see that.”

  “I’m sorry, ” Evan says. “I wish I had time to explain it all, to make you see . . .”

  “Great.”

  “I wish I could tell you all the things I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Big deal!” Dean shouts, his face tight, shaking with rage.“You’re sorry. Big deal! I think it’s real nice that you came to see me. You brought me to this nice scenic place, we said hello. You got some things off your chest. You got to apologize to me. I accepted your apology. And maybe all this made you feel better, Evan. But you know how much it means to me?”

  Evan doesn’t answer.

  “It means exactly dick shit.”

  Dean stalks away.

  BY THE TIME Evan reaches the bottom of the hill, he feels like there’s an emergency. His brain is firing like crazy. He’d had that seizure earlier, on the porch. A little one, but a seizure nonetheless. And now. A space oddity. Strange sounds in his head, strange feelings. He doesn’t like it. He needs some pot.

  Dean is in the car already, in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead. Evan opens the driver’s side door.

  “I need to go to the men’s room, then I’ll take you home, ” he says. He feels like his words are slurring. A telltale sign. Tongue thickness is always a precursor.

  He grabs his bag and closes the door. The restroom is in the main building, but, thankfully, it’s not really inside. The door is on an outer wall. Evan goes in. It’s a park bathroom. Cinder block walls, electric hand-dryers. Evan stuffs himself into a stall. He sits. He takes out his pipe—the one-hitter, designed for times like this—and his weed. At this point there’s a certain urgency to it all. He feels things that he doesn’t want to feel. Twitches. He’s having trouble swallowing. His tongue won’t move on its own. He’s got a big one coming. If only he’s in time.

  He smokes. Immediately he feels it. Smoke. Hot, sweet-tasting, it creeps down his throat like the fingers of some insidious monster, thin, wispy tendrils that reach into his chest, a forked tongue licking inside his bronchial tubes, depositing its medicine deep into the recesses of his lungs.

  He feels the relief. The grip loosens. In a minute there is time. He takes another hit. Much better. He feels glazed now. Protected from the seizure by a coating of hard sugar.

  He hears the door to the bathroom open, close. Shit. Busted by the park ranger. It must reek like pot in here. He scrambles to stow his pot and pipe. He flushes the toilet, like anyone would believe he was just going to the bathroom. He opens the stall door. It’s not a ranger. It’s Dean.

  “Dean, I—”

  Dean turns to go.

  “Dean. I use it as medicine.”

  Dean stops and turns, his face blank.

  “Right, ” he says.“Me, too.”

  He leaves.

  Evan gathers his bag, flushes again. Like it matters. Like any of the details matter.

  • • •

  THEY DRIVE THROUGH town in silence. Evan isn’t thrilled that he got busted by Dean for smoking pot, but it’s better than the other scenario. If Evan had been too late to stave off the seizure and Dean had found him crammed into a stall, his shoes sticking out under the door, jerking and dancing to a rhythm that only Evan could hear, what would Dean have said? Would he have called an ambulance, held Evan’s hand through it all? Doubtful. More likely, he would have been afraid of what he was seeing, unsure of what Evan was doing, wanting to keep as far away as possible.

  And so Evan is stuck again. Hiding his horrible secret from the world. Trying to live a life without a sign around his neck that says KICK ME, I’M A CRIPPLE. Sneaking around in dark corners, taking the only drug that really helps him, the only drug that helps him without killing him, he affects the attitude of someone who smokes as a lifestyle choice: musicians and drugs were bedfellows thousands of years before Evan came along. But for Evan it isn’t a choice. It’s survival. It is who he is.

  He stops his car across from Frank and Ellen’s house.

  “Listen, Dean, ” he says, “when I was seventeen, I got a girl pregnant and she had a baby—you—and I never saw you. It wasn’t my fault, Dean, but I can’t say I’m not guilty. And I—”

  He looks over at Dean, who is sneering at him, and stops. It’s no use. He can’t stuff his life into a nutshell and make a child see. He can’t reverse the past: fourteen years of Dean going to the annual father-and-son picnic with his mother—he can’t change that. He can’t explain it away; he can’t mitigate it in any way: Dean grew up without a father, and it’s impossible for Evan to erase that reality while sitting on the sticky vinyl seats of his car, a car that is older than Dean himself.

  “Are you done?” Dean asks after a moment.

  “Yeah, I guess I’m done.”

  “Good. Maybe we’ll see each other again some day. Like at your funeral. I’d like that. Be sure to put me on the invitation list.”

  He climbs out and walks around the front of the car. As he passes Evan, he calmly reaches out his hand and gives Evan the finger. The finger. Evan has to laugh. The kid just makes you want to smack him.

  Dean walks across the street and up onto the front porch of Frank’s house. But instead of continuing into the house, Dean slows to a stop. Evan follows Dean’s eyes to the front door. It opens suddenly and Ellen flies out of the house. She rushes to Dean, turns him around and herds him off the porch. What the hell is going on?

  Frantic, Ellen prods Dean down the walk toward the street. Evan rolls down his window.

  “Take him, ” she calls out in hushed hysteria. “Take him away, please!”

  By now they’re crossing the street and Dean has pulled away from her. He stands in the middle of the road, looking at her with disbelief. She rushes to Evan’s car.

  “You have to leave here, ” she pleads.“Please!”

  It is then, with Ellen practically pushing her way through Evan’s window, that Evan realizes something is terribly wrong. Her cheek is scarlet and swollen. She’s holding a damp washcloth to the corner of her mouth. The towel is dark, but he thinks he sees blood on it.

  “What happened?” he asks.“Are you all right?”

  She calms herself, musters her energies, looks Evan directly in the eyes.

  “You have to take him away from here, ” she says as steadily as she can. “Take him away, Evan. I’ll call you when you can bring him back. Please, just—”

  Bang!

  They both jump. Dean spins toward the sound. A door slamming violently, a house shaken. A bear wakened from its slumber. Frank.

  He storms out of the house with a great roar, which might have been funny if it weren’t so fucking scary. He’s still wearing his suit. No tie. He is barefoot.

  “Get your ass in this house!” he yells.

  A dog down the street barks violently at Frank, charging and hurling itself against a chain link fence with a CHING-ing-ing! Bark, bark, shuffle, CHING-ing-ing!

  Evan, Ellen, and Dean are all frozen. A living tableau.

  What has Evan gotten himself into? What’s going on?

  There’s no time to wonder. F
rank has been loosed, and he’s on his way, a human cannonball, a projectile ready to explode on impact. Evan doesn’t know what the story is, but there’s time for that later. Right now, he wants to take Ellen’s advice and get out. He looks at Dean, who still hasn’t moved though Frank is closing in, off the porch, onto the walk, fifteen yards at most and closing fast—

  “Please!”

  “Get in the car, Dean!”

  “Wha?—”

  “Get in the fucking car!”

  Dean hesitates. Ten yards from being smashed to oblivion.

  “NOW!” Evan screams.

  And this time Dean moves, bolts from his position on the broken yellow line, shoots around the car and into the passenger seat. Frank is at full speed, running at them. Ellen quickly backs away, and for a moment, Evan wonders what will happen to her. But he can’t worry about that now. He revs the engine and drops the clutch, leaving squealing tires and a cloud of acrid smoke in his wake. They fly down the idyllic residential street, posted speed limit twenty-five (the old Saab still can get off the line pretty good, Evan notes with a grimace), and away from some crazy scene. Dean twists himself around and looks out the rear window.

  “We should go back.”

  “She told me to get you out of there, Dean. She knows what she’s doing. She said she’d call.”

  “But—”

  “Sit down!”

  Dean reluctantly resumes his seat, snaps on his seat belt.

  “Grandpa’s scary, ” he says.

  “To you and me both.”

  • • •

  THEY STOP FOR gas about an hour out of Walla Walla. Dean has sucked himself into his shell. He isn’t Dean; he is a husk, a hollow casing. The real Dean is somewhere else, far, far away.

  Evan gets himself a bottle of water; Dean doesn’t want anything. While he’s in the mini-mart, Evan takes out his cell phone and gets Ellen’s number from information.

  “Hello?” she answers with false brightness.

  “It’s Evan.”

  “I said you could talk to him, ” she says, dropping her voice to a whisper. “I said you—”

  “What’s going on there, Mrs. Smith?”

  “I said you could talk to him, not take him.”

  “I thought you meant—”

  “Frank was very angry.”

  “Did he hit you? Is that what happened?”

  “No, Evan.”

  “Is he abusing you? Should I call the police?”

  “No, Evan, don’t be so melodramatic. We had an argument and I bumped into the freezer door, if you can believe that. The door was open and I turned.”

  She abruptly stops; a moment of silence; then she says cheerfully, “I’ll call you in a few days and we’ll get together.”

  What? She’s either lost her mind or Frank has walked into the room.

  “What am I supposed to do with him?” Evan asks.

  “Thank you so much for calling. I’ll be sure to pass along your thoughts to Frank, of course.”

  “What am I supposed to do with him?”

  “We’ll be fine. It’s difficult, yes, but we’ll get through. I’ll call you in a few days and we’ll get together for a nice lunch, okay? Okay, talk to you soon, Sally.”

  She hangs up. Wonderful.

  Evan could have anticipated almost all of this: seeing Dean, having Dean yell at him, even having a barefooted Frank chase him down the street. But bringing Dean home with him? No. Not in a million years.

  He goes outside and climbs back into the hot car. Dean doesn’t acknowledge him; he stares out the window as they pull onto the road.

  “Can you turn on the air conditioner?” Dean asks.

  “It’s on.”

  “Can you turn it up?”

  “It’s up.”

  Dean closes his eyes and leans back in his seat.

  “I wish my mom were here, ” he says quietly to himself, his last words until they arrive in Seattle, almost four hours later.

  TRACY CALLED FROM the hospital to tell him.

  “I didn’t do it, ” she said.

  “Didn’t do what?”

  “I mean I did it.”

  “You did what?” Evan asked, feeling his pulse quicken.

  “I had it. Him.”

  Evan’s head spun once around, a perfect three-sixty, and stopped. It. Him. She had it. Him.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, not knowing what else to ask.

  “I’m fine. I just wanted you to know that I didn’t have the abortion. I had the baby. It’s a boy. I named him Dean.”

  Evan stood, dumbfounded, for several seconds before he hung up.

  I had him. There were implications to that statement. There were strings attached. Lots of strings. He’d given her money to have an abortion and she didn’t do it. But she’d taken the money, didn’t that make it a contract? He definitely wanted the abortion done. She’d convinced him of it. Didn’t she? He wanted the baby killed. He really did. (Didn’t he?) He was seventeen years old. He wasn’t supposed to want a child. He wasn’t supposed to want to worry about another life. So he paid Tracy to kill the baby.

  I had him. Dean.

  What a great name. That’s the name I would have picked, Evan thought to himself. And suddenly everything made sense. He and Tracy had steered clear of each other at school after he gave her the money, and he only saw her once after she graduated in June. It was then that she told him she didn’t want to see him any more. It made her too sad, she said. And, besides, she had to start thinking about college. So he left her alone. She lived a mile away from him and had his son right under his nose.

  His son. What should he do? Didn’t he have some kind of an obligation? And even if he didn’t have a legal obligation, didn’t he have a moral one? Wasn’t there some code of honor that he had to abide by? Didn’t he have to pick up his son and say, I am your father and I will not allow anyone in this world or any other world to hurt you? I am your father and I will lay down my life so that you can live? Didn’t he have an obligation to pick up his son and say I AM YOUR FATHER?

  So that afternoon he went to Swedish Hospital. He strode into the maternity ward and demanded to see his son.

  “Baby Smith, ” the nurse said, scanning a list.

  “Dean Smith.”

  “We call them all ‘Baby, ’ in case the parents change their minds.”

  “Well, I’m his father, and I won’t change my mind.”

  The woman raised her eyebrows and continued scanning.

  “Your wife is in her room. Dean is in the nursery. I’m sorry for the formality, but if you want to see Dean, you’ll have to show me some I. D. You’re not wearing a bracelet.”

  Evan pulled his driver’s license out of his wallet and handed it to the woman. She studied it for a moment.

  “Your name isn’t Smith.”

  “No.”

  “No.”

  “Do you have a marriage license or a health insurance card?”

  “No.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you hold the baby, then. Only immediate family.”

  “I’m his father.”

  “You’ll have to offer proof of that.”

  Evan smiled. It was all he could do, considering that he wanted to throttle this officious little nurse with her white hat and white uniform, white stockings and white crepe-soled shoes.

  “Can I at least look at him?”

  The nurse nodded.

  “You can see him through the nursery window, but you can’t hold him.”

  But I need to tell him. I need him to know. I am your father. I am. Your father. Me.

  “Where is it?”

  She pointed down the hall and Evan wandered off in a daze.

  “Young man?” the nurse called out.

  Evan turned.

  “Your girlfriend is in room 236. If she asks to have the baby brought in, you could hold him there. I’m sorry.”

  Evan nodded. He didn’t really care about her rules. He had to
tell Dean something.

  He found the nursery window, behind which were half a dozen bassinets, two with pink cards and four with blue. Blue for boy. One blue card read: SMITH, B.B. Inside that bassinet was a tiny baby who’d already managed to undo his swaddle, and who flailed with purple fingers, closed eyes, and cupped mouth in search of food.

  Evan pressed his face against the window.

  I am your father. I am your father and I will protect you.

  Evan watched little Dean with a complex mix of emotions coursing through his body. Guilt, shame, love. Helplessness. Evan felt as helpless as this child who couldn’t yet see or feed himself or survive without the intervention of others. That was Evan. He survived, but not without the help of others, and if he assumed responsibility for a baby, he would need those who helped him to help the baby as well, which would then make him nothing more than a middle man. Completely dispensable.

  Evan left Dean alone in the nursery and went to find room 236. He would talk to Tracy about it. She had called him, maybe she had a grand plan. She usually thought things out pretty well. She was sharp. Together. She wouldn’t be taken unawares by something like this.

  He paused outside her door. He could hear conversation inside. A man, a woman, another man, Tracy. Her family was there. They were all there. He peered around the corner of the doorway. Tracy was lying in the bed. Frank was standing over her, his back to Evan. Ellen was sitting, facing the bed. Brad was saying something. It sounded like he was behind the door. None of them but Tracy could see Evan.

  She looked up. He caught her eye. Frank was talking now. Softly, tenderly. Tracy looked right at Evan. Evan smiled at her. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. Evan didn’t move. Had she waved him off? He waited. She did it again. Ever so slightly. A shake of the head.

  No. She’s saying no. She’s saying don’t come in here.

  Evan backed away from the door and leaned against the wall. He held his head in his hands, dejected. I am your father.

  True. But what good is that? Who really cares? I am your father and I paid money to have you killed. Now that you are alive, I love you.

  No. It doesn’t hold water. It doesn’t wash. If you pay to have someone killed, you can’t repair that. You can’t then go back and say I was just kidding. Once you pay to have someone killed, it’s over. Finito. The man with fire in his belly will come after you and crush your skull with his clay hands.