by Jake Hinkson
“How is Fred Astaire?”
“Richard? Oh, you know, he’s . . . Richard.” And I think of that phone call this morning. And his strange attack at the breakfast table later. At first, I feared it might be a heart attack. Now I’ve begun to think it looked more like a panic attack. Did it have something to do with the phone call?
I shake my head.
“He’s out and about today,” I say. “I’m not really sure where he is right now . . .”
“Good old Brother Richard,” she says. “I never got to know him very well.”
“No. No one does.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that,” she says. “I always thought of him as the most popular man in Van Buren County.”
“Sure,” I say, “but he’s everyone’s confidant and no one’s confider.”
God, shut up, Penny.
“Lord, listen to me,” I say quickly. “I must be in a mood or something today, Sandy.”
Sandy seems surprised, but she hurries to laugh and reassure me, “It’s okay, Penny.”
“Anyway . . . ,” I say, trying to sound cheerful.
She clears her throat. “Well, listen, actually the reason I’m calling, besides wanting to catch up with you, is that I was wondering if you knew anything about Clarissa Sullivan. I’m trying to get into contact with her now to see if she’d like to be part of an upcoming show here, but it looks like she left the school. You’re the only person I knew to call.”
As I’m telling her that I heard that Clarissa moved to Louisiana to marry a man she met over the internet, my voice and demeanor don’t change, but I’m secretly mortified to realize that she didn’t call to talk to me. Why did I just open up to someone who was only calling to ask about someone else I barely know? What’s wrong with me today?
When it comes time to hang up, Sandy tells me, “It was so great catching up with you, Penny.”
“Yes,” I say.
“I really . . . I have to say, it was really unexpected. You know, I always admired you and wished we could be friends, so it’s nice to talk to you and to be able to talk in such an open and honest way.”
She thinks she knows me now, but she doesn’t know me well enough to know that she’s offended me, embarrassed me. “It was nice to hear from you, Sandy.” She doesn’t need to know it, either. “I’ll tell everyone you called. Brother Weatherford will be glad to hear it.”
“Okay,” she says. “And if you ever get down to Little Rock and want to take in a show, you know where you can get some free tickets.”
“I don’t get down to Little Rock,” I say.
Are they happier now? At the time of their divorce, I joined everyone at church in feeling bad about the dissolution of the Loomis marriage. Isn’t it sad that they couldn’t work it out? was the nice iteration of this sentiment, though Isn’t it sad that Sandy couldn’t trust the Lord to work it out? was the harsher way of assessing the same situation.
But what if Sandy’s actually happy now? She says she is, but most people say they’re happy when they’re not. So, who knows? I do know for sure that she was miserable when she lived here. I always felt like that was obvious. And when she left Gene and moved away, although I went along with the prevailing sentiment that she’d been wrong to leave him, I do remember wondering if it wasn’t for the best. Now, to all appearances, it seems like it worked out well.
It’s odd. The hardest things to reconcile in the ministry aren’t the miseries. I’ve seen enough bad things happen to good people to understand why so much of the Bible is about suffering. We hope for a better world because this one’s full of pain. I understand that. It makes sense. What confounds me are all the moments when the world doesn’t work according the dictates of our faith. When Sandy left her husband, Gene tried to stop her because he didn’t want to break up their marriage. He even asked Richard to help, and Richard went over and tried to talk her out of leaving. He told her it was a sin for them to get divorced, which, of course, it was.
But then, everything worked out. Gene left the ministry, moved to Missouri, became a high school music teacher, and got remarried. He has three kids now, a boy and twin baby girls. At least according to the story he’s telling on Facebook, he’s got a good life. I suppose I always assumed Sandy was depressed in Missouri somewhere, but now I find that she’s fat and happy, designing gay theater productions in Little Rock.
Did she call just to tell me that? Did she want me to know? She said she wanted to ask about Clarissa, but did she really call to tell me that she’s not only happy without Gene, she’s happy without the rest of us?
The day he went to talk to her, Richard told her she wouldn’t be happy outside the church. Yet, as far as I can tell, she is. In fact, as far as I can tell, she and Gene are both happier now.
What the hell does that mean?
Richard should be home already.
I stop at the top of the stairs and listen to the kids talking, laughing, and arguing. Johnny has roped Matthew and Mary into a silly debate about superheroes. He loves to do this, to weigh the authority of his older siblings. If I understand this particular dispute correctly, Johnny and Matthew are arguing that Batman could beat Wonder Woman in a fight because he’s better trained. Mary replies that Wonder Woman is an Amazon and has thus been training for thousands of years. When she adds that Wonder Woman is strong enough to punch Batman’s heart out, they all laugh.
Mark, sitting by himself in his room, is listening to Elvis sing “Where No One Stands Alone.”
I walk downstairs to put Matthew’s and Mary’s wet clothes in the dryer. When I come out of the washroom, Johnny calls me from the kitchen to ask my opinion in the superhero debate.
I walk to the kitchen where they’re gathered. Matthew is about to take the ice cream out of the refrigerator. “I don’t have an opinion on superheroes,” I say. “But I do have an idea. Why don’t you all go up to Sonic and get ice cream?”
“Hm, that’s not a bad idea,” Matthew says. “The pickings here are pretty slim.”
Mary nods. “This is a phenomenal idea. I’m going to see if Mark wants to go.”
She runs upstairs, and a moment later, she and Mark come down.
“You coming, Mama?” he asks me.
“No, I think I’ll stay here. I want to talk to your father.”
The boys all take in this information nonchalantly, but Mary furrows her brow. She doesn’t ask if anything is wrong, but she’s more sensitive to my moods than her brothers. She just asks, “Would you like us to get you anything at Sonic?”
“No, thank you.”
When the kids are gone, I walk through the quiet of my home, listening to the soft padding of my own feet.
I walk upstairs. I look at the clock.
I sit down on the bed to wait for my husband.
EIGHT GARY DOANE
Mom and Dad aren’t home when I come in, so I stop in the kitchen and dig through the refrigerator for leftovers. Lasagna. I don’t even heat it up. It’s good cold. I’m not going to miss much when I get out of this town, but I will miss Dad’s lasagna.
I grab a Coke Zero and carry it down the hall to my room and shut the door.
I pop open the Coke and take a sip. Then I put it on my beside table and plop against the wall and look around. The room is the same as it was when I was in high school. Poster of My Chemical Romance. Poster of The Shining. Some art I drew back when I thought I wanted to be an artist.
I won’t miss this room.
I fork some lasagna in my mouth as I try to really imagine leaving town. I left once before, when I went away to U of A, but it wasn’t like leaving forever. I knew I would be back during the summers and for the holidays. But when I leave town this time, I won’t be back for a long time. For years. Hell, I may never come back.
The door to the garage opens. Dad calls out, “Gary?” He’s got the usual panic in his voice.
The suicide watch is home.
“In my room,” I call back. I sip my Coke and
wait.
Sure enough, they both come down the hall. Mom says, “Can we come in?”
“Sure.”
The door opens, and there they are, my parents, a little worried, a little relieved. I hate the way they look at me. Especially my poor father.
“Hey, bud,” he says, coming in. “How’s it going?”
“Good.”
He stops at the foot of the bed. Mom lingers in the doorway a second, and then she moves in behind him. “Where you been?” Dad asks, trying to be casual.
“Just out.”
“Oh. You didn’t tell us where you were going.”
“I told you yesterday I was probably going to run around this morning.”
Mom tries to smile, but it only comes off looking like a pained attempt not to be irritated. “We tried texting and calling you.”
“Yeah, sorry. My phone died. I think something’s messed up on it. It can’t keep a charge.”
“Oh,” she says. “We got—we got a little worried.”
“There’s no reason to worry, Mom.”
I feel ridiculous saying it. I’m sitting on a bed they bought, in a house they own, eating food they made. Hard to stand up for yourself under these circumstances.
Dad has on khakis and a navy-blue polo shirt. When he sits down on the bed beside me, he looks like an understanding father on a TV show. “We know there’s no reason to worry,” he says, jostling my foot. “We’re not trying to ride you, son, but look at it from our point of view. We get up, you’re gone. Then we can’t get you on the phone.”
“I told you. It was the battery on my phone.”
Dad nods understandingly. “Yeah, that’s right.” He turns back to Mom. “Just a problem with the phone.”
Mom stares at me.
“Everything is cool,” I tell them. “Can we just, you know, go on about our day?”
Dad says, “Yep. Of course.” He looks back at Mom. “Everything is fine here. Right?”
Mom folds her arms and nods.
“You mad, Mom?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No. Just glad you’re okay.”
I know that what she’s saying is only partially true. She’s relieved that I didn’t go drive myself off a cliff or something, but it’s not true that she’s not mad. She’s been mad at me since I came back home to live. Dad is the kind of guy who can love you without it costing him anything. He’s got an endless amount of love to give, and he’s always eager to give you more. Mom isn’t that way. She loves you, but she lets you know that it costs her something to do it.
I tell them, “I’m sorry I worried you guys. I was just out and about. Pretty morning.”
“Awesome,” Dad says, giving my leg a gentle slap. “Hey, don’t forget that we’re going over to the Beckers’ in a bit.”
“Right. Do you mind if I don’t go to that with you guys?”
Mom says, “But you love the Beckers.”
“Well, yeah. They’re great. Just, they’re your friends. I don’t want to be the fifth wheel. The odd man out.”
“Oh, you shouldn’t look at it that way,” Dad says. “We love to have you there, and Janet and Dale—”
“It’s okay,” Mom says.
Dad looks back at her.
She tells him, “If he doesn’t want to hang around with the old folks, you can’t blame him.” She asks me, “Do you have other plans?”
“I don’t know. Might just goof around.”
She pats Dad on the shoulder. “Let him goof around. It’ll do him some good.”
“Okay,” Dad says. “Let us know if you change your mind, though. I think Dale is going to make his ribs.”
“Okay,” I say.
They get up to leave. Dad spies my empty bowl and dirty fork. “Here,” he says. “Let me take that for you.”
At moments like this, it’s easy for me to spiral into feeling bad about myself. Mom and Dad didn’t used to treat me like this. They weren’t so scared all the time.
That’s my fault, but I have to remind myself that I don’t need to feel guilty about making them worry. I shouldn’t feel guilty about what happened to me.
I didn’t choose for it to happen. It happened to me, inside of me. People always want to know why. Hey, me, too.
But it’s hard not to feel guilty. My parents weren’t prepared. I always did well in high school, and I was always ready to get out of this stupid town, so when I got a scholarship to U of A, everybody just assumed that I’d do great. And at first, I did. My grades were okay, I had a good dorm, and I made a few friends. For the first time ever, I even started dating. I went out with two girls that I told Mom and Dad about, and one guy that I didn’t. Nothing magical happened with any of them, but it was all pretty nice. Everything in my life was going fine.
I still don’t know why it all came undone my junior year. I think about it all the time. All I know is that when the semester started, I couldn’t make myself go to class. I’d get up and get dressed and walk over to the building, but then I’d just keep walking. I’d go to the library and sleep. I’d go to the student center and watch TV. I’d go back to my dorm and lay in bed all day. I stopped hanging out with people. I wasn’t even drinking or smoking weed. I just watched TV and slept.
Once all my grades were in the toilet, I started getting stern emails from the school. I was in danger of flunking out, so I dragged myself to my advisor’s office. He told me that I was in for a hard climb back, that I would have to do at least one additional year, maybe two, in order to graduate. I puked in his trash can.
I just curled up in bed after that and didn’t move for two days. I couldn’t eat. I pissed and shit myself. My roommate called for help, and finally the school brought in my parents.
So now I’m home. And Dad is worried. And Mom is furious. And I tell myself I shouldn’t beat myself up for falling into a depression because it’s not my fault.
I worked with a therapist for a while. I told her it all just got to be too much for me. Life. Living. Walking around being a person with a name and an identity. At a certain point, that just became absurd to me. Why do I have a name? A collection of little letters that goes on papers and forms? Why does that define me? Underneath all that crap you’re just an animal that breathes and eats and shits and fucks and dies.
Of course, now I’m back here, in the cradle of my identity. This house. This room. These people. They gave me a name, a religion, my whole identity. Gary Doane. Two little words that comprise a symbol, a shorthand, and people think they know what it means. Mom and Dad think they know what it means.
The difference is, now they worry. That’s the part I do regret. I feel like I was this great kid for them for a long time, until one day I just broke. They don’t know how that happened. They’re still trying to figure it out. They blame the school, they say, well, maybe it was drugs or liberal professors or bad roommates or some girl. But it was none of that. Like I told the therapist, it was just life. That’s the part they won’t face because it’s too upsetting. It was life that broke me.
Not too long after Mom and Dad pull out of the driveway, Sarabeth texts me, R ur parents gone?
Yes, I text back.
k be there in a sec
I put down the phone and close my eyes. I’ll keep them closed until she gets here. She’ll come right in, and I won’t open my eyes until she’s in front of me. She’s the only thing I want to see.
NINE SARABETH SIMMONS
He’s not the only guy I’ve ever been with—far from it—but I’m his first anything. It’s weird because he’s older than me by like four years almost and he went off to college for a while. He’s not ugly or anything, either. I can remember him a little, from when I was a freshman and he was a senior. He was smart and kind of shy. I always figured he was gay. Even now, I’m not sure what he is. He never wants to talk about that with me. In a lot of ways, he’s the same as he was in high school. Too quiet, too smart for his own good, too sensitive. But he’s sweet. And he’s good.
I slide up his body, let my tits run over his skin. He lets out a little groan. I don’t stop to blow him because he doesn’t really like blow jobs. He’s the only guy I ever met—in fact, he’s the only guy I ever heard of—who doesn’t like blow jobs. But I’m not complaining. Most guys watch too much porn, and they can’t wait to stick their dick in your face.
Gary’s not like that. He wants to have sex all the time, but it’s never really nasty with him. He wants to kiss a lot. He wants to look me in the eyes while we do it.
He does. I climb on top of him and put him inside me, and he stares into my eyes. He likes to watch me, and I like him to watch me. Other guys have made me feel horny; some even made me feel nasty. And I liked it, mostly. Everybody wants to be nasty sometimes, I guess. But with Gary, it’s different. He’s the only guy I’ve ever met who actually makes me feel sexy. It washes over me, that feeling of being sexy, of being pretty enough to watch. He’s totally into me, but he doesn’t seem to want anything from me. He’s never in too big a hurry to come, and he doesn’t beg me to blow him or let him stick it in my ass. He’s just really into me. It’s weird, but he makes me feel younger than I am.
“I love you,” I say.
He slows down, smiles, brings my face down to his and kisses me. “I love you, too.”
We’re staring at his blank, white ceiling.
I say, “I have to tell you something.”
The way I say it makes him look over at me. “What?”
“I’m starting to get nervous,” I say.
“About what?”
“About him. About Holy Shit.”
“What about him?”
“I don’t know. About what he might do. Desperate people do desperate shit.”
“Yeah, and the desperate thing he’s going to do is give us thirty grand,” Gary says. “You’re not getting cold feet, are you? It’s too late for that.”
