How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets

by Garth Stein

  Shame on you.

  EVAN GOES STRAIGHT for the bedroom and closes the door; he reaches for his cigar box.

  His pot is gone. Where did he put it? Where’s his pot? He must have stashed it somewhere else. In the sock drawer? Not there. In the bathroom? No. Maybe under the sink.

  “Wow, that sun really knocked me out, too.”

  Evan whips his head around. Mica.

  “What are you looking for?”

  He can’t tell her he’s afraid he might have a seizure. It was easy to tell her about using pot to stave off seizures when he didn’t really feel in danger of having one. But now that one’s knocking at the door, he can’t tell her. It’s too real. She thinks she understands, but she doesn’t. It’s easy to say you understand and say you’ll help out when you’re needed, but when push comes to shove, they always back off. It’s too much stress for a bystander to manage. A body beating itself up like that. It’s not something people should see.

  “I’m gonna lay down for a little bit. You want to snuggle with me?” Mica asks.

  Yes. No. Not yet.

  “Where’s Dean?” Evan asks.

  “In his room. He’s tired, too. I didn’t realize the sun was so strong east of the mountains. It just sucks the strength right out of you.” She falls back onto the bed and rolls over. “Let’s all take naps, ” she adds.

  Not yet. Evan hustles into the living room. Did he leave it out? When was the last time he smoked? He needs to know where it is.

  He tears through the living room, the kitchen. Nothing. It’s okay, it’s okay. He sits down at the kitchen table. It’s somewhere. He probably put it in a shoe in the closet or something. Why would he even take it out of the cigar box? His medication is still there— three bottles, three pills, three times a day. But his pot. Well, pot is pot. It’s replaceable. Still, though. It would be nice to know where it all was.

  Evan relaxes a little. He crosses his arms on the table and rests his head. The house is dark and reminds him of the third grade when it got hot out and they would turn out the lights and make the kids put their heads down. Other kids disliked these rest periods, but Evan always liked putting his head down in class. There was something so peaceful about it. Cool and dark and quiet.

  “SHE’S HERE.”

  Evan lifts his head. Dean is standing in the foyer. Several bags are at his feet: a large suitcase, two duffles, and a giant bag full of hockey equipment.

  “I guess I’m gonna go, ” he says.

  “I’ll call you tomorrow?” Evan asks, trying to hide the fact that he’d fallen asleep.

  “Okay.”

  “And then we can decide, you know, how long you’ll stay with her. You might like it.”

  “Where’s Mica?”

  “In the bedroom.”

  Dean trudges down the hall and sticks his head in the room.

  “Bye, Mica, ” he says.

  Evan can hear Mica rustling on the bed, trying to rouse herself.

  “What?” she blurts out, confused.

  Dean disappears into the room briefly, a little kiss on the cheek. What a good kid.

  He reappears in the hallway. He opens the door and drags his bags out onto the porch, and, with a pained smile at Evan, he leaves the house, closing the door tightly after himself.

  “OH, MAN, I really passed out, ”Mica complains, entering the living room.

  Evan is sitting on the couch watching tennis. Andre Agassi is playing someone else. If Evan had to be an athlete, he would have been Andre Agassi. He isn’t sure why. The fallible hero. He and Evan are a lot alike.

  Mica crosses over to Evan and gives him a big, enthusiastic kiss, which he does not return so enthusiastically.

  “Where did Dean go?” she asks.

  For the past fifteen minutes, since Dean left, Evan has been beating himself up about Dean’s leaving and wondering how he was going to explain it to Mica. Now it’s time.

  “He went to visit his grandmother, ” Evan says.

  “Is she okay?” Mica asks casually, walking into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator. “Do you have any fruit or vegetables around here?”

  “Who?”

  “Dean’s grandmother. Is she sick or something? Why did he suddenly go see her?”

  “Well, she’s kind of sick.”

  “Kind of sick?” Mica questions, reappearing with an orange which she peels. “What kind of sick? Is it contagious? Will Dean catch it?”

  Good question.

  “I don’t know, ” Evan answers.

  Mica shrugs and eats a section of orange.

  “Is he going to be home for dinner? I was going to cook. It’s not too late, is it? Just point me toward a supermarket and I’ll take care of it. You should rest. You look wasted.” She walks past Evan to the foyer. “I remember passing a supermarket at some point.” She picks up her handbag.“You okay?”

  “No.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  Mica puts down her handbag and goes to Evan. She sits down next to him on the couch. She looks at him for a long time, but he doesn’t look back. He watches the tennis match. Agassi is losing. Big surprise. He’ll come back, though. He’s a fighter.

  “Come clean, ”Mica says softly.

  Evan turns to her. He wants to confess, he wants absolution. So he tells her what happened between Dean and him.

  “You hit Dean?” Mica asks, stupefied.

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  “Yes, you could have. You just don’t do it. Didn’t you say that his grandfather abused him?”

  Evan nods.

  “And so you thought it was appropriate to hit him?”

  “You have to understand the situation, ” Evan says in his defense. “He was pushing so hard. He spit in my face.”

  “Oh, Evan, ” Mica shakes her head angrily. “There’s something weird going on here. You’re acting very strangely. You know why Dean spit in your face, and you know why he said he wanted to go to his grandmother, but you’re denying it for some reason that I can’t figure out.”

  “You’re giving me too much credit, ” Evan replies dryly. “I play checkers, not chess.”

  Mica smiles at him oddly.

  “That’s funny, Evan.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve never played checkers in your life. You play bridge or some really sophisticated game with six decks of cards. You play a weird game with hidden hand signals to your partner. Evan, you’re on a whole different level of game-playing.”

  Evan doesn’t respond.

  “You’re too smart for this argument, Evan, ” Mica goes on.“You know exactly what was going on with Dean, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think I do.”

  “Dean was testing you, Evan, ” Mica says. “He was testing you and you failed the test. He wanted you to make him stay. He wanted you to need him.”

  “He’s going to see his grandmother for a few days, Mica, for Christ’s sake. Can’t you understand that he may have a good relationship with his grandmother?”

  “What about his grandfather?”

  “What about him?”

  “Evan, you turned him over to a pathological child-beater, ” she says harshly.“That’s not what I would call a vacation.”

  “Frank isn’t there any more, ” Evan says.

  Mica raises her eyebrows; her eyes open wide.

  “He moved to Idaho, ”Evan explains.“He and Ellen have separated.”

  Mica laughs bitterly and rises.

  “What’s happening here, Evan? Why are you telling me all of this after the fact? Why did you send Dean to visit his grandmother? Is it because of me? Is it because you’re afraid you don’t have a chance with me as long as you’re living in Yakima with Dean? Is that it?”

  No. Not at all.

  “Because if that’s what’s going on here, you’ve got me so wrong you don’t even deserve me.”

  That’s not it at all.

  “You may have only met Dean a few weeks ago, Evan, but
as far as I’m concerned, you two are a pair, so you’d better just go over to Walla Walla and get him back, because if you don’t, I’m not staying.”

  Mica waits for an answer.

  “I can’t do that, ” Evan finally says.

  “Why not?”

  Because none of this is meant to be. Dean, Mica. They are simply two more mirages in Evan’s life. They don’t really exist. He’s been dreaming them the whole time.

  “Why not?” she asks again.

  Because, goddamn it, his entire life he’s wanted all of one thing and he’s never gotten it and now he wants it, even if it’s just for a day, just for a few hours, he wants to feel it, to live it, he wants to know that in a different world, a parallel universe, one in which he left the muddy embankment a moment earlier, just sneaked by the chrome fender of the car, made it safely across the street and went home to eat dinner and laugh with his family at the table, in that universe he is a rock star, and in that universe, everything is different.

  “Evan?”

  Evan shakes his head.

  “I have some business to attend to, ” he says coldly, detached.“In Seattle.”

  Mica doesn’t move. Not an inch. But Evan would swear on his life that something about her changes; something gets very cool and calm inside her; she sinks a little lower to the ground.

  “What kind of business?” she asks.

  “Billy sent the demo to Template Records and they’re interested. I have meetings. We have a gig at General Tso’s on Wednesday.”

  Mica glares at Evan for a moment.

  “So postpone it, ” she says.

  “I can’t.”

  “So take Dean with you.”

  “It’s too important.”

  Mica frowns. Then she turns and marches away. When Evan catches up to her in the bedroom, she’s shoving her clothes into her bag.

  “Where are you going?” he asks stupidly.

  “I’m not interested, Evan. I’m checking out.”

  “Why?”

  She glares at him.“Are you joking?”

  He watches her shove her clothes into the bag, jamming them with force, as if she were mad at the bag and the clothes. She stomps into the bathroom, reemerges a moment later with her travel kit.

  “I just have some business to take care of, that’s all, ” Evan says.

  Mica doesn’t acknowledge the comment.

  “It’s temporary. A cooling-off period.”

  She angrily zips her bag shut and looks up.

  “You may be good at lying to yourself, Evan, but if you think it’s working with me, you can forget it.”

  “What are you—”

  “It’s too perfect, Evan. Look at how it lays out. You wanted to give him back from the beginning, you only kept him because you were trying to protect him, and now that he’s safe, you get rid of him. Then you tell me about it after the fact. I’m not stupid. You were afraid I would stop it. But I would never stop you from doing anything, Evan, because if I stopped you, you would hate me for it. So do what you want. Just don’t count on me being a part of it. Goodbye.”

  “It’s about the band!” Evan shouts.“I need a break so I can take care of the band. It’s just about the band!”

  “Bullshit, Evan. It’s not about the band and you know it.”

  “It is!”

  “Then tell me about the band, Evan. Tell me about the damn band. What’s so great about the stupid band that’s worth trading your son for?”

  “I didn’t trade him. We’re taking a break.”

  “You’re lying, Evan! Tell me the truth. I deserve that. You were hoping to ditch Dean on his grandmother, go off to rock superstardom with The Last, carve out your place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and fuck me on off weekends. That’s the truth, isn’t it, Evan?”

  Evan flinches. She’s cutting a little close. She caught flesh on that one.

  “Fuck off, ” he fires back, out of ammunition, out of his league, fresh out of trump cards, just needing some power shots in the form of anger to hold her off.

  “Do you have any idea how it works?” Mica snaps. “Do you have any grasp of the fundamentals of this business that you’re so desperate to be a part of? Billy says something one day, the next day everyone is calling you, and three days later the phone is dead and you’re nothing. You’re nowhere. It’s called hype, Evan. Have you listened to what these guys are saying? Do you hear how desperate these people sound, these little people trying to make money off of you? Evan?”

  Evan doesn’t respond. He hates what she’s saying, and he hates her for saying it.

  “I can think of five bands off the top of my head that would love to have you, Evan. Five bands. One of them—maybe—one of them might go someplace. And every one of those bands is twenty times better than The Last.”

  Evan burns inside. He wants to believe that maybe things are different with this band. Maybe things don’t fit into Mica’s mold so easily. Maybe this is the exception. And he hates Mica because she doesn’t see that The Last has a chance, that Evan has a chance.

  “You want to be a rock star, Evan?”Mica asks.“Let me put you with some people who are real musicians. Let me hook you up with a band that isn’t worried about how quickly their buzz is going to die. A band with integrity. Then you can go get Dean. You can have Dean, you can have me, you can have your stardom. It just might take a little longer, that’s all.”

  Evan seethes.

  “You know, ” he hisses at her, “your little ‘been there, done that’ attitude really makes me want to puke.”

  Mica catches her breath. It not so much what Evan said, but how he said it, looking out from under his eyebrows, his eyes dark, his face as emotionless as a serial killer’s.

  “You should save that shit for someone else, ” Evan continues, “because I know the truth. I’ve been there. I’ve had a top ten single, if you remember, and it turned to shit in a heartbeat. So don’t tell me to be patient. I’ve been waiting eleven years for another shot. You think I’m going to pass this one up? Well, fuck you.”

  Mica doesn’t speak; she stares at Evan, shocked by his rant.

  “This is my chance, damn it, ” he yells at her.“This is my chance and I’m taking it!”

  “What’s wrong with you?”Mica asks.

  “I’ll tell you what’s wrong with me. I’ve been to the emergency room more times in my life than you’ve been to the dentist. All my life, people have told me what to do, what’s good for me, what will make me better, what will make my life easier. And you know what? Everything that they say is what will make my life easier for them, not for me. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? Every day that I wake up alive I thank God that I didn’t die in my sleep. Do you have any idea how that changes your perceptions? I’m the fucking Elephant Man, okay? And I’m living my life now. And if Dean has to stay with his grandmother another year or two years or five years, and after that I can have a nice respectful adult relationship with him, then great. It’s better than what we had, which was nothing. And the reason we had nothing was because they took him away from me, yet more people deciding things about my life without consulting me. Do you have any idea what I’m talking about? Do you have one clue? Or in your sheltered little famous musician’s world do you think the worst thing that could ever happen to you is your father dies of cancer?”

  He stops. His heart is pounding, he’s out of breath. He sucks air across his dry lips and over his heavy tongue. His eyes are burning.

  Mica moves toward him, tries to hug him, but he steps back.

  “What do you want?” he demands.

  “I’ll stay, ” she says. “You’re all over the place. You need me to help you. I’ll help you.”

  She reaches for him again, but he knocks her arms away.

  “Get away from me, ” he snaps.

  “Evan—”

  “Get away.”

  “I understand, ” she says. “It’s not about the band. I know. It’s about so mu
ch more.”

  “Get away! It is about the band!”

  “Evan, it’s okay, Evan.”

  “It’s not okay!” he shouts.“It’s not okay! Leave me alone! I don’t want you here. I don’t want you around. Get out of here, now!”

  “Evan—”

  “Go!”

  He lunges at her like a crazy man. She flinches.

  “I don’t understand, ” she says, suddenly vulnerable.

  “Get out!”

  He grabs her bag off the bed; with her following, he marches to the door, opens it and tosses the bag out onto the lawn.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Go!”

  “What’s the matter with you? This isn’t really you.”

  “No, Mica, this is me, ” he barks at her. “This is the real me. Get a good look. Ugly and mean and selfish. Now get out of here and leave me alone!”

  She shakes her head and starts to go, but she stops. She turns back. She waits for him to look at her, waits for him to say something. But he doesn’t acknowledge her.

  He rubs his face with his hands and pulls at his hair. He’s sick and tired of everyone wanting things from him. He’s tired of disappointing people.

  After a moment, she picks up her bag.

  “You can treat me like this, ” she says.“I don’t care. But Dean . . .”

  “Dean’s got nothing to do with it, ” Evan counters.

  “Yes he does, Evan. He’s got everything to do with it.”

  She smiles sadly and leaves.

  HE DOESN’T TAKE anything but his wallet and his car keys. He knows he shouldn’t, but he does it anyway: he gets in his car and drives to Seattle.