The Thunder in His Head

by Gene Gant

  “Stephanie—”

  “Just hear me out. He’s an adult. You’re a minor. Even if he were gay and wanted you the way you do him, there are laws against adults having sex with children. This is Tennessee, remember? In this state, he would probably go to jail just for giving you a copy of Daddy’s Roommate.”

  “Daddy’s Roommate? What’s that?”

  “A children’s book about a little boy with a gay dad. I wrote a paper for one of my classes on censorship of books. But let’s stay on topic here, shall we? You said this man is a friend of your mother’s. You start anything with him, it will affect your mother’s relationship with him and with you. And your dad’s not going to be exactly happy that you’re involved with a man his age. Do you really want to be the cause of all that turmoil?”

  The last little bubble from my fantasy world popped then, evaporating into the room’s dry air. “No.”

  She reached over the coffee table and patted my knee. “Give yourself time, Kyle. Trust me, one day you’ll find a guy your own age whom you’ll like, and who’ll like you.”

  Dwight’s face flashed in my memory. A nice face and a nice body to go along with it. He was all right. But he was no Reece.

  Stephanie gave me that sympathetic smile again. “Wow. Whatever just went through your head wasn’t a very happy thought. I could see it on your face.”

  “It’s just… there is a dude my age that I met this week through a friend of mine at school. His name is Dwight, he’s gay, and he says he likes me. He got my friend to pass along his number so I could call him, but I haven’t gotten around to it yet—”

  Stephanie shot out of the chair as if a bomb had gone off under her, a wild glee in her face. “Kyle,” she said in breathless wonder. “What are you waiting for? Go call that boy. NOW!”

  She looked as if she would snatch me up by the ears if I didn’t move right then. I hopped up and ran to my room for my cell phone.

  THE call lasted fifteen minutes. When I came out of my room, I must have looked as uncomfortable as I felt. Stephanie was sitting on the sofa, flipping through a magazine, probably without seeing a single page. She got up when I entered, her expression inquisitive.

  I took a deep breath, let it out. “I got a date this evening. With Dwight. I got my first date.”

  She squealed and sent the magazine flying away through the air. At the same time, she threw her arms around me so hard I thought my neck would snap. She started this little hopping spin, turning our bodies together, a happy little squeak coming out of her throat with each bounce.

  The lock clicked, the door opened, and Dad came in from work, all decked out in a fine gray suit. He saw Stephanie and me in our weird little rocking tilt-a-whirl, and he smiled and nudged the door shut with his foot. Then he did a little jig across the room, put one arm around Stephanie’s shoulders and the other around my shoulders, and started hopping with us.

  “What… are… we… so… hap… py… a… bout?” he asked in synch with Stephanie’s squeaks.

  “Kyle got himself a date with a guy named Dwight!” Stephanie announced.

  Dad pulled back and went still, the smile freezing on his face. You could practically see the “Oh, hell no!” form in his brain.

  “Oh, Joey, don’t freak.” Stephanie let me go and turned to Dad. “This will be good for Kyle. And I’m sure we’ll get to meet this boy.” She looked at me. “Right?”

  I hated the way Dad was looking right now. It made me wish I could undo the whole afternoon, go all the way back to when I got out of school, and instead of coming here, maybe I’d just go stand in rush-hour traffic. “Yeah.” I forced the word out. “He’s gonna pick me up here in an hour.”

  “Cool,” Stephanie said with an extra big smile. She nudged Dad with her elbow. “It is cool, isn’t it, Joey?”

  “As ice.” To his credit, Dad managed to put something close to cheerfulness on his face again. He pointed at the magazine on the floor in front of the sofa and said, “Well, pick up the place, you slobs. We’re having company.”

  Seven

  I WAS nervous as hell.

  It was my first date. I didn’t know Dwight at all. I didn’t know where he was taking me. What if he got me out somewhere and he turned out to be the dick I thought he was the first time I met him? What if he said or did something that pissed me off, and I lost it and cussed him out, or made rude remarks about his parentage, and got kicked out of his car?

  And then there was the whole thing of what to wear. I jumped in the shower and scrubbed until Dad banged on the bathroom door and asked if I was trying to flood the Mississippi or something. Then I brushed my teeth about a dozen times and slapped on some of Dad’s cologne. When I stepped out of the bathroom in baggy gray camouflage pants, a black T-shirt, and my black work boots, Stephanie took one look at me and said, “Kyle, do you really think that’s the right outfit for you tonight?”

  “I can answer that,” Dad cut right in. “It’s not. Kyle, go change.”

  “Why, Dad?”

  “You’re not walking out of here looking like a thug. If those pants were hanging any lower, they’d be around your ankles. Who do you think wants to see your behind, son?”

  Dwight, maybe? But I kept that to myself. I knew Dad hated sagging pants, and I usually cinched up my oversized jeans while I was around him, letting loose once I was out. My brain was so scrambled over this whole date thing I forgot to do that this time. “I can wear a belt—”

  He pointed at my room. “Go change.”

  So it was back to the closet. I returned to the living room minutes later in loose—but belted—white carpenter pants with a hole I had artfully torn into the right knee, a big red sweatshirt with the Chicago Bulls logo across the chest, and my black work boots. I held out my arms. “How’s this?”

  Dad just closed his eyes and shook his head, as if I were hopeless.

  Stephanie got up with a little smile. “Come on. Maybe I can help you find something.”

  She led me back to the closet. Her hands went immediately for a pair of chinos.

  “Uh-uh,” I said before she could even pull them out. “Steph, I spend most of my week in a lousy uniform. Tonight, I just want to dress like a regular guy. You know?”

  “This is special, Kyle. Your first date.” She searched through several articles of clothing before nabbing something. “These are nice.”

  She held up a pair of slim-fit jeans that Mom had given me back in the summer. “I take it you were saving these for a special occasion,” Stephanie said, snatching off the store tags. She tossed the pants to me.

  “Aw, man, not these,” I protested. “I hate these jeans. They hug too close.”

  “Wonderful. They’ll do.” Stephanie was rummaging through the closet again. She turned to me and handed over a faded, short-sleeved denim shirt, white sneakers, and a skinny leather belt that I couldn’t remember ever seeing before. “Now put this together with those jeans and that black T-shirt you were wearing earlier. I’ll step out. Let me know when you’re ready.”

  As Stephanie left the room, more of that seventies R&B started to play on the sound system. I pulled off what I had on and got into the stuff Stephanie had selected, wondering just when I had regressed to the point that I couldn’t pick out my own damn clothes. Muffled conversation mingled with the music.

  “Hey, Steph,” I called out. “I’m ready.”

  Stephanie came in a few seconds later. “Well, let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Standing in front of the mirror, I tugged at the seat of the jeans, which seemed to be unusually intimate with my hind parts. “I look so gay in these things.”

  “Truth in advertising is always good,” Stephanie replied, looking me over. “Oh, stop that pulling. Those jeans are not tight.” She unfastened the buttons on the denim shirt, revealing the black T-shirt and skinny leather belt beneath. “There. You look handsome. By the way, your date’s here.”

  Panic punched me in the chest. “He’s alone out there
with Dad?” I started to rush out, afraid Dad would say or do something to embarrass me with this dude I didn’t even know. But the next second, I hesitated, wondering if I really wanted to go out there and let Dwight see me looking like some wannabe metro boy in skinny jeans.

  Stephanie smiled. “It’s okay. Go on, don’t keep him waiting.” She got behind me and gave me a little push, which was the only thing that got me moving forward.

  I didn’t know what to make of what I saw in the living room. The coffee table and sofa had been pushed up against a wall, clearing a space where Dad stood side by side with Dwight. Dad was in the middle of some slow-motion step, and Dwight was watching my old man’s feet as if he expected money to come flying out of them. But no, Dwight wasn’t just watching, he was moving, too, trying to match Dad’s steps.

  Jeez. Dad was dancing with my date.

  I wanted to crawl under the carpet.

  “Hey, look who’s all set to go, guys,” Stephanie said to them, waving her hand at me.

  Dwight gave me a smile and went right on working on his dance steps.

  “Come on, Stephanie,” Dad called out, reaching over to take her by the arm. “This kid saw me getting on the Electric Slide and said he wanted to learn. Let’s show him how the pros do it.”

  So now I was standing there watching the three of them step to the side, step to the side, step to the back, step to the front, dip, kick and do it all over again, sliding back and forth across the floor. Why the hell does Dad have to start stuff like this? And why does he have to bore my friends with it and shame the hell out of me in the process?

  But, I’ll be damned if Dwight didn’t seem to be enjoying himself.

  ABOUT twenty minutes later, Dwight and I stepped out onto the porch of Dad’s town house. It had taken that long for me to peel the dude away from Dad and Stephanie, who were still dancing away inside.

  “Sorry about that, man,” I said to him once I got the door shut. “My pops can be a goof with that old-school stuff.”

  “No, your dad is cool.”

  I looked at Dwight. He was either crazy or playing me. “You think my dad is cool?”

  He nodded. “I thought I’d just swing by here, pick you up, and we’d go. But when I got here, you were still getting dressed, and I was sitting there with your dad and his lady friend, and I wasn’t expecting all that. Your dad saw how nervous I was, and he put on that music and started dancing. I thought it was cool that he wanted me to feel relaxed around him.”

  “Ah. Well… good, that’s good.”

  We started walking to his Corvette, which was parked in one of the spaces in the middle of the parking lot that were designated for visitors. The western sky was a blaze of orange red, and the rest of the sky was going dark. Dwight wore wide-leg jeans and a blue Tennessee Titans jersey. He looked way trendier than I felt.

  “So where are we going?” I asked.

  “You had dinner?”

  It still felt as if my chest and stomach were fluttery. Any food that went in there now would probably not stay put. And something in my head was urging me to keep myself close to home. “I’m not hungry. How about we go bowling? There’s an alley at the mall over on Hills Crossing.” That mall was barely two miles away. I could walk home if I had to.

  “Sounds good to me, man,” Dwight replied. “Let’s go.”

  We reached the Corvette. The top was down and the silver finish was so finely polished that it was shining in the orangey haze of fading sunlight. “Nice ride, man,” I said, opening the passenger door and climbing in.

  “Thanks.” Dwight slid behind the wheel. He fumbled briefly with the key before getting it into the ignition. He started the engine. Cold hard rap poured out of his satellite radio, thank God.

  “How’d you get a ride like this?”

  “Present from my dad.” His tone was abrupt, giving the impression that this was a sore subject for the guy.

  I decided to leave that one alone. A conversational lull opened as he drove out of the parking lot and down the street. The lull was making me anxious, so I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “How old are you?”

  “I’ll be seventeen in November,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “I just turned sixteen in August.”

  That scintillating exchange gave way to another lull. Wow, this date was off to a great start.

  “So,” Dwight said, “your parents are divorced?”

  “They’re in the process of getting there.”

  “That’s gotta be tough.”

  “It’s a little better since they separated. Now when they fight, they do it over the phone and I don’t catch so much of it.”

  “And you’re out to both of them?”

  “I’m out to just about everybody,” I said. “When I was in sixth grade, I had this crazy mad crush on this guy three grades ahead of me. I practically stalked that dude for months, watching him shoot hoops in the gym, hanging around his locker, but he never paid much attention to me. One day, he left his cell phone on the bench while he was playing basketball. When no one was looking, I picked up his phone and got his number. Then I sent him this long text message telling him how I felt and how much I wanted to be with him. Dude went flat off, cussed me out right there in school. His parents went to the principal, who went to my parents, and there was all this talk about having me charged with sexual harassment.”

  Dwight shot an amazed glance at me. “Are you serious?”

  “I’m not kidding, man. The guy blew it all out of proportion. I never touched him, never even mentioned sex. I just told him that he looked good and I wanted to hang out with him, and he goes and gets the school all worked up to have me arrested. And later, when he and some of his boys happened to run into me, he spit in my face. That got me so mad I beat the crap out of dude—”

  “Wait. You were in middle school, and you jumped a guy in high school? What were you, suicidal?”

  “Hell, I was as tall as he was. And I probably outweighed him. After all that happened, I guess some of the guys around school thought it was open season on me. Dudes I didn’t even know were ragging my butt. I’m not gonna let anybody make me a dumping ground. I had to kick a lot of butt and got suspended six times, but nobody’s called me a fag at school in two years.”

  Dwight’s face tightened with this uncertain look, and I felt panicky again. “I’m not psycho or anything,” I said quickly. “I mean, I don’t go around beating on people for the fun of it or anything like that.” Well, not often, anyway.

  “Hey, I get it, man. You were standing up for yourself. That’s cool.”

  Good. I had thought for a second that he was either afraid of me or going judgmental, the way he seemed to do the night we met. But hearing him say he understood about my banging heads relaxed me a little.

  “You look a lot like your dad,” said Dwight. “Both of you are tall as light poles. You into basketball?”

  “Yeah. I play center for Pemberton’s team.”

  “I’m on the football team at Somerset. Wide receiver.”

  “Yeah, you look like you got some speed on you. Are you out? At school? At home?”

  “Yeah. Kind of.” He didn’t seem inclined to elaborate. He hesitated a bit, and then said, “A couple of years ago, I had these strong feelings for this friend of mine named Curtis. That’s when I realized I was gay… am gay. Curtis is straight, and I was afraid to tell him how I felt because I thought he would hate me. I was afraid to tell anybody. It was driving me crazy. Then my dad got suspicious about me right after my mom died….”

  “Oh, yeah. Ty told me about your mom. Sorry.” Damn. It always sounded so lame to me, saying that to someone who had suffered such a devastating loss.

  Dwight acknowledged my sympathy with a nod. “She had a heart attack at our house. I was outside with my dad when it happened. My dad and I had just gotten home, and we didn’t know she was inside. I was in a funk over something that happened at school that day, and I sort of got i
nto it with my dad.” Pain slid over his face like a curtain. “If I hadn’t done that, if I hadn’t distracted my dad, we would’ve found her sooner. We would’ve gotten her help sooner, and we would’ve saved her.”

  “Oh. Uh….” My tongue suddenly felt as if it had pasted itself to the roof of my mouth. I felt this guy’s pain, and I hurt for him, but what could I say to that? What could I do for him that would make it better? The last thing he needed was to see me sitting there staring at him with a big, dumb, uneasy look on my face, but that’s exactly what he got from me. Jeez.

  He glanced at me, his eyes shiny, and he broke into an embarrassed smile. “Wow. Sorry, man. I don’t usually do this, especially with someone I just met.” He wiped a hand over his forehead and blew out a breath. Then he gave his shoulders a shake while keeping one hand on the steering wheel. “All that counseling I went through, and I still want to blame myself for something that nobody really could have helped. Anyway, Mom’s death threw Dad into this big depression. I was afraid me being gay would push him right over the edge. So… I lied and… did stuff to make him think I was straight. That’s why he got me this car. He was relieved. I guess the car was my reward for being what he wanted, or something.”

  “So you never told your dad you’re gay?”

  “Yeah, I did. Last Christmas, as a matter of fact. I had to. Things were getting way too complicated for both of us. I came out to my godfather and his new wife, too, but I’m not out to anybody else. Oh, except Ty. And now you.” He rolled his eyes. “And your dad and his lady friend. I guess the list is growing.”

  I grinned. “Yeah.”

  Dwight gestured toward the windshield. “Are we going in?”

  I looked up, surprised to see that we were parked in front of the bowling alley. I looked back at him. I liked talking to him. I wanted to keep talking to him. “Why don’t we take a walk instead?”

  Eight

  WE WALKED along the winding sidewalk that circled the mall, past shops and cafes and groups of kids hanging out, past couples and families lined up at the movie complex’s box office. Night came down as gently as a falling blanket, suspended by the glow of the mall’s lights.