Two Roads from Here

by Teddy Steinkellner

  Even then I found squat. There was some comments- section speculation about DeSean’s pops being controlling and abusive, but that’s just sad. There were shots of the rest of the football team skeezing in a hot tub with freshman cheer uggos, but those are just predictable. I found some photo shoots from one of D’s ex-girlfriends in which she’s basically wearing lingerie, but honestly, who doesn’t like to get a little nake-nake these days.

  Knock-knock-knock.

  “Baby, I need to come in.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  She barged in anyway. “One minute. You promised.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Yes, you did.”

  “Well, I take it back!”

  “You’re acting like a child.”

  “I should get to be a child!”

  “It would make him so happy—”

  “What about me?”

  “I love you. So does he. That’s why you need to—”

  “No. I hate him. You can’t make me.”

  She held the phone up. She stared at me like she had all night. The woman had the coldest look on her face.

  “Cole,” she said. “Call your father.”

  • • •

  My old man and I have never been able to connect.

  Part of it is we’re extremely different people. He likes basketball and jazz. I like old movie musicals and horrible housewife shows. He wears Mr. Rogers cardigans and Seinfeld jeans. I rock animal prints and purple pants and fly-ass kicks and business-dick socks. He teaches college-level math. I . . . tend to avoid math, when I can.

  And, of course, there is the small matter of me being gay, which I do think is difficult for him to truly wrap his head around. But actually, for the most part he’s pretty good about that stuff. That’s not remotely the reason we can’t connect.

  No, beyond all the superficialities, the overwhelming barrier between Earl and me is this:

  We’re too much the same.

  We are pariahs, Pops and I. Neither of us has ever been able to blend in with the crowd. People see us, and they see something different from themselves. They judge us immediately, and they punish us disproportionately. We have each had to learn the very real truth that life is not fair, that not everybody gets a spot on the team.

  And theoretically, these struggles, this loneliness, it should bring us together. We should be united, father and son.

  But the thing is, we deal with our shared problem in very different ways.

  I embrace my lack of friends. Dad dwells upon his.

  I overwhelm my enemies. Dad invents them.

  I have never understood him. I’ve tried every day of my life, and yet every time I see him break eye contact with someone, or slump his shoulders, or plod away, it just boils my blood. I want to scream, Earl, don’t be a loser; don’t give up. But I know he can’t hear me.

  And I know the polar opposite is true. I know he sees the way I manipulate, whether it’s people in my way, or my score on a test, and I know he can’t understand how he of all men created someone like that. I think he hates me for who I’ve become. I’m certain he hates himself for never being able to stop me.

  The reason my father hasn’t been living with my mom and me this year is because late last summer, he attempted suicide. It was the week before my eighteenth birthday. I was at rehearsal for a summer stock show, and my mom came home from work and found my dad unconscious. She still hasn’t said which room she found him in, or how he tried to do it, but she rushed him back to the hospital where she works, and she saved his life. Even though he didn’t want to be saved.

  We don’t have long-term psychiatric-care facilities in Dos Caminos, or any good ones in the farmer towns near here, so my mom got my dad to voluntarily commit himself to the psych ward up north at Stanford Hospital, where she used to work. She still had a connection there, and she was able to get him a rare open spot. Of course she felt conflicted about how committing him would affect me, like she didn’t want to take him out of my life so completely, but I said hey, Mom, he just tried to take himself out of my life pretty damn completely. And even if he stays crazy forever, I told her, I’ll be up at Stanford next year anyway, right?

  I didn’t stop in to see him when I was visiting campus last month. I promised Wanda I would, but I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was having one of the best weekends of my entire life. It wasn’t his time to destroy.

  I know his attempts have had nothing to do with me. I know his depression, and his refusals to take medication, and overall what’s happened to his brain over the course of his life, I know none of that is my fault.

  And yet.

  I can’t silence this voice in the back of my head. I can’t shake this persistent, permanent feeling that maybe, just maybe, my father isn’t the toxic one. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I sent him over the edge. Maybe if I’d been different these past eighteen years—and I don’t mean a little bit different that one time, or kind of different for a few days right before he tried to do it—but if I’d been way different for my entire life, things could have been better.

  What my dad hates most in this world is lying, trickiness, deceit. He feels so wounded anytime anybody betrays him or anybody else. He’ll never know how to cure himself of his crippling sensitivity. He bears every last scar.

  And all I’ve done for the past eighteen years is stab people in the back.

  There might have been times when I could have changed, could have possibly evolved. There aren’t that many, but there have been a few. The day I made Neil spread his first malicious rumor. The morning I walked into the SAT, against Neil’s wishes, my phone beneath my toes. The weekend I could have visited Dad in the mental ward but said no way, not for me.

  Each of those times, I could have shown mercy. Each and every time, I chose myself.

  I’m eighteen now, basically an adult. I’ve reached my final form, and I show no signs of ever getting better. Even if I wanted to in the future, it’s not like the world will let me. Not this same world that has bent and twisted me into what I’ve become. Not this hateful place that my father tried to abandon for good.

  None of this shit matters, so get yours while you can.

  “You’re right, Mom,” I said. “It’s time.”

  She put her hand to my chin and said, “Good man.” She squeezed my shoulders with her comforting nurse fingers. She gave me the landline. When I nodded, she left the room.

  “Cole!” he said, when I got through to him. “It is so good to hear your voice.”

  He began to speak. He launched into some meandering monologue about what he had for breakfast that morning, the jazz records they let him listen to, and when he might possibly get the chance to have visitors, come back home for a weekend, or some shit along those lines.

  I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention.

  She said I had to call him. She never said I had to listen.

  As my pops blathered on, wah-wah, wah-wah-wah, like the grown-ups in Charlie Brown, I swiveled my chair around. I returned to my laptop. I resumed my research. I refused to stop. I was going to work on this damn thing all night if I had to, and every night to come.

  No rest for the wicked.

  * * *

  9. ALLEGRA REY

  * * *

  My friend didn’t look like himself. There was a listlessness to his gait as he trudged out of the library, a heaviness to his head. The ash-gray clouds that filled the sky this afternoon seemed to be for him and him alone. Even his almost-mustache wasn’t its usual cheddar color, which made me oddly sad.

  “Wiley!” I shouted.

  He didn’t turn around.

  “Wiley!” I tried again. “Wiley Otis!”

  If anything, he moped away faster.

  “Sad Old Wiley!”

  He paused midstep.

  I hustled over to him, posthaste. “There you are,” I said. “Finally.”

  “Yeah,” Wiley muttered. “Things have been crazy.”

  “Wait, w
ere you in detention just now?”

  “Oh. Uh—”

  “What for?”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “What are you still doing here? Didn’t band end a while ago?”

  “Yeah . . . well, I’m staying a few extra minutes. Waiting for Seuss rehearsal to let out.”

  Wiley didn’t respond to that.

  “I miss you,” I added. “Where have you been lately? You know my mom’s been asking about you. She keeps saying, ‘Where’s my Wiley? Where’s my Wiley?’ ”

  Wiley stuck his hands in his pockets.

  “We should get together,” I continued. “Have a game night, do a movie.”

  There was a burst of noise behind us. Hands clapping, a cappella singing. The theater kids had apparently been let out of their cage for the day.

  At that precise moment, Wiley turned away from me.

  “Come on,” I said. “It would be fun. I owe you for your birthday.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, his back to my face. “I gotta go.”

  “We could even throw a party,” I said. “Invite some people over. You know, I really want you to meet—”

  Wiley took off. He hurried away from the library and down the terraces. He walked much more rapidly than before, far more sure of himself.

  “Wiley!” I hollered.

  He didn’t spin around. He wouldn’t give me that.

  “An awesomeness of Wileys!

  “A super-awesomeness of Wileys!

  “A BACCHANALIAN, MASQUERADED, THE-PASSWORD-IS-‘FIDELIO’ ORGY OF WILEYS!!!”

  Nothing from Wiley. Nothing from Wiley for the umpteenth time. I’m not sure what I keep doing wrong. Or, well, I suppose there is one thing I can think of, but that’s not my fault, and it’s none of Wiley’s business. I get to make my own choices. My life belongs to me.

  Goodness, though. I wish I knew what I could do to help my old friend. I miss the boy.

  “Yo,” Brian said seconds later, coming up behind me. “Is there a problem?”

  “What?” I said. “Of course not.”

  He wrapped his arms around my sides. He snuggled up for his daily spoon.

  “What were you shouting?” Brian said. “It sounded weird.”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  “He wasn’t bothering you, was he?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “You sure he wasn’t trying to bone you?”

  “Don’t be juvenile,” I said. “No.”

  Brian nuzzled the back of my head. “Ready to go pick up your brothers?”

  I turned around so I couldn’t see Wiley anymore. I faced Brian chest to chest, still ensconced in his comfy chrysalis of a hug. I stood on my tiptoes. I kissed my boyfriend on the lips.

  • • •

  “All right, men.”

  Brian transferred the oblong ball from hand to hand. He beat his chest twice and grunted like a warlord.

  “I’m going to teach you kids . . . how to play football.”

  Alejandro and Augusto oohed and clapped. I stood a few feet off, on the sidewalk adjacent to the park, marveling at the little trio they made with Brian. My sweet guys.

  There was an atmospheric rumbling. The clouds above, which had prior to this point been a lighter gray, immediately darkened to a charcoal shade. Within seconds it was raining, and heavily at that.

  “Aw, no,” Alejandro said. “Now we have to go home.”

  “Allegra never lets us play in the rain,” Augusto said. “She hates washing mud out of our clothes.”

  “Oh,” Brian said. “Huh.” He scratched the back of his head with the football. “Well, what if I told you . . . that I don’t care?!”

  Brian scooped each of my brothers into his arms and proceeded to toss-slash-roll them, like two bowling balls, into an especially muddy stretch of grass. They scooted on their little eight-year-old tushes down nature’s Slip’N Slide, exploding into giggles and giddy screams. Brian then joined them, sliding headfirst into the puddle himself, splattering their faces utterly and completely, sending my brothers into further hysterics.

  “Sorry, Allie!” Brian called back to me as he rolled around in ovine fashion. “Looks like you’re dating a third grader!”

  I put my hands on my hips and shouted back, “I already knew that!”

  Brian grinned. “Are you mad?”

  “Furious!”

  “Grossed out?”

  “Nauseated!”

  Brian took each of my brother’s heads, dunking their hair in mud, little doughnuts into coffee. They squealed in delight and crawled all over him, the world’s greatest babysitter and most magnificent jungle gym all in one.

  I suddenly got an idea. “Hey, boys!” I yelled. “Guess what?”

  “What?”

  I scampered toward them, with abandon. “I’m a third grader too!”

  I hollered “weeeeeee!” and cannonballed myself into the center of their love pile, completely staining my jeans and boots with brown goop but absolutely rolling right onto my brothers’ good sides and straight into my boyfriend’s heart.

  • • •

  Brian was even more impressive this evening. The first thing he did when we got back to my house was ask my dad if it was okay that we had taken the boys to play football.

  “I appreciate you checking with me,” Dad said. “You are a respectful young man. But one thing you must admit: You did not, as you say, play futbol.”

  “We did,” Brian said. “I taught them how to throw spirals.”

  My dad shook his head. “No, no. Futbol, real futbol, is a canvas for artists, a spectacle for magicians. What you call ‘football’ is a game of savagery, and smelly rhinoceros men.”

  Brian smiled. “I’m glad I quit the team, then.”

  My dad nodded. “I’m glad too.”

  Brian extended his hand for a shake. “You’ve got to teach me how to play futbol sometime.”

  Dad took Brian’s hand in both of his. “It will be a pleasure.”

  Next we went into the kitchen, where my abuela was preparing tortas for dinner.

  “Hey, Abuela,” Brian said. “How can we help?”

  “You know how to cook a Mexican dish?” she said.

  “No,” he admitted. “But I’m pretty good at eating them.”

  “My Esteban could eat five tortas in one night,” Abuela said.

  “Well,” Brian said. “I guess I’ll have to eat six, then. One for me and five for Esteban.”

  “Mi gordito precioso,” Abuela said, pinching Brian on the forearm.

  Finally, we went into my parents’ bedroom. My mother recently began another round of chemo, so she hasn’t been coming out for dinner lately, or honestly leaving the bed much at all. Still, Brian makes sure to pay her a visit when he’s over, every night.

  “Mija,” Mama said to me. “I’m surprised you weren’t here earlier.”

  “What? Why?”

  “With Wiley.”

  “Wiley was here?”

  “This afternoon, with his mother.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  I glanced over at Brian. He looked up at the ceiling.

  “Well, I’m here with Brian now. My boyfriend.”

  “Oh, yes,” my mother said.

  Her eyes were half closed. Her mouth was shaped in a loopy smile. “I love Brian. . . .”

  That was the last thing she said before falling asleep.

  I put my hand on Brian’s lower back as we tiptoed out of the room.

  “I hope that wasn’t too awkward,” I said.

  He batted his hand. “Not a big deal.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Oh, I’m damn sure. No worries at all.”

  He leaned in and whispered something: “Hey. Wanna get out of these dirty clothes?”

  • • •

  I legitimately can’t recall the last night I got even a minute of time for myself. With my mom’s condition worsening the way it has been, and the
rest of my family’s needs escalating as a result, free moments have become exceedingly scarce for me. I’ve got to pounce on them when I can.

  Brian and I were in my room before dinner. We were both on my bed. We had each just showered. I was wearing a tank top and pajama pants. He was in one of my father’s robes. My door was locked.

  “Mmm,” I said, interlocking my fingers between Brian’s.

  “Yeah,” he said, shifting onto his side, laying himself down.

  “Brian,” I said as I lay down too, curling myself into him and kissing him on the cheek.

  “Allie,” he said as he ran his hand down the front of my body and gently placed it on my thigh.

  I’m not certain where I stand on the subject of fate. Most of the time, the future feels too fickle, and frankly unfeeling, to be anything but preposterously random.

  It is tempting to believe, however, that Brian Mack has mud-slid his way into my life for a reason. At this precise moment in time, just as Wiley has fled my friendship in private shame, just as college has let me down and shattered my hopes for my education and career prospects, just as my mom’s cancer has left her clinging to life, has left me wondering if I will ever truly be whole again, it is right now of all times that Brian’s world has, for whatever reason, converged with mine. That doesn’t strike me as an accident. Truth be told, it feels more like a gift from God.

  “Brian,” I said as I tucked one hand into the chest area of his robe.

  “Ahh,” he said, wrapping his legs around mine.

  “Brian,” I said, my eyelashes brushing up against his.

  “Brian.”

  “What?” he said, snapping out of his amorous daze.

  I scooched in and kissed him on the cheek. “I think we should have sex.”

  Brian froze when I said it. He half sat up. He opened and closed his mouth a few times. It was like he had to turn off and reboot, all in an instant, to process the magnitude of what I’d just confessed.

  “Now? Before dinner? Okay, I have a condom in my wallet. I stole it from Kyle’s room, like, two years ago. It’s ‘Ribbed for Her Pleasure.’ ”

  I covered my mouth to keep from laughing.