It's All Relative

by J. M. Snyder

  Without Evie. She was the one who always managed to tie us all together. How will any of us stay tethered to each other without her holding on?

  The lull of the road is a steady, constant rumble like a drug, dulling my senses, stretching time out like taffy around us. I remember passing Harrisburg—Caitlin isn’t talking to us, so she doesn’t ask to stop for batteries—and I remember the interstate narrowing down to a small, four-lane highway. I remember trees and shrubs, and blinking slowly, taking longer and longer to open my eyes. I remember faint sounds from the radio, a burst of static as we lose the station, Dan’s hand leaving my leg long enough to find a strong signal and then it’s back again. Sometime after that, with his hand on my thigh, the low radio, the rumdrumdrum of the road, I fall asleep.

  I wake to a soft kiss. The car is parked and the radio off, and Dan brushes his fingers along my cheek as he kisses me again. “Michael,” he sighs. I try to crawl closer to his voice but I’m still strapped in my seat.

  A third kiss, my name again, his hand smoothed across my brow, and I open my eyes. Taking a deep breath, I don’t bother to look around—this close, his eyes are amazing, dark as the ocean before a storm. I can see light hairs curve around his jaw, and the next time his heart-shaped lips touch mine, I don’t close my eyes. He doesn’t, either, and we part in breathy giggles. His hand is on the back of my neck now. “Where’s Cat?” I ask. If he’s kissing me so unabashedly, I know we have to be alone.

  “Bathroom,” he tells me. We’ve stopped at one of the numerous rest stops that line the interstate—we’re still be on 83 then. Once we get onto the state routes, these rest areas disappear. Bathroom breaks are taken at fast food restaurants or gas stations. As I stretch awake, Dan unsnaps my seat belt. “You want to get out for a minute?”

  We tumble from either side of the car, and once I’m on my feet, I stretch for the sky. It feels heavenly to be standing—my back is a bundle of knots, my arms ache, my legs tingle because they’ve been cramped up for too long. Coming around to the front of the car, I give Dan a sweet smile and rub a hand down his t-shirt to flatten it across his stomach. “Are you okay to drive?”

  He nods as he leans back on the hood of my car. “Keeps me from getting too sick,” he tells me.

  He gets carsick. Concerned, I lean beside him, our arms pressed together. “You sure you’re okay then?” I ask.

  “Fine,” he tells me, and his smile confirms it. Reaching for his wallet, he asks, “Do you think they have snacks here?”

  “I’ll go see,” I say. When he tries to hand me some cash, I shake my head. “I’ve got it.” With a quick kiss on his cheek—the rest area is mostly disserted, no one I know here anyway—I promise, “Be right back.”

  The snack machines are off to the side of the restrooms, and of course my sister is already there, juggling a bag of chips and three candy bars as she tries to force a dollar into the soda machine. “Come on, you fucker,” she mumbles under her breath. Two older women edge away from her, casting furtive glances at her attire as they mutter to themselves, and in one corner, three boys a little younger than Caitlin’s age sit astride bikes, grinning at her.

  “Let me,” I say, coming up behind her. I smooth the dollar out against the side of the machine and wonder if I have to apologize for our earlier argument. It wasn’t really a fight though, was it? I shouldn’t have to say I’m sorry.

  Caitlin glares at me and doesn’t say a word. Behind us, one of the boys says something I don’t hear, but it sets his friends laughing. I wonder if they saw the kiss out by the car, or Dan waking me. I try the dollar in the machine, but it’s spit back out time and again. I’m starting to feel like Caitlin must, as if the whole world is staring at me, judging me, watching, waiting, and I don’t know how she can do it. I’m just about to say the hell with it and try another machine when someone behind us finds his courage and whispers, “Faggot,” just loud enough for us to hear.

  I’m used to it. I can ignore it, who are these kids to me? But beside me, my sister goes rigid with anger. “It’s okay,” I murmur, keeping my voice low. This time the machine takes her money and I sigh in relief. “What do you want here, Caitlin?”

  No answer. “Cat?” I ask, turning. “What—”

  She shoves her food into my arms and turns on her heel. The boys snicker amongst themselves as she approaches, her Doc Martins ringing on the concrete floor. “What the fuck did you just say?” she demands, propping one foot on the front wheel of the bike closest to her.

  “Caitlin,” I call out. Oh shit. “Really, it’s—”

  She points at me and tells the kids, “That’s my brother, you understand? You want to talk shit about him, you say it to my face, you understand?” Before the boys can answer, she shoves at the bike with her foot, knocking it over. The boy astride it steps clear as it hits the floor. “I don’t know who the fuck you are but I’ll kick your ass.”

  This time she lunges at them and they scatter, dropping their bikes in her path to keep her away. “You’re a freak,” one of the boys says, like that’s the worst name he can think to call her. His friends titter nervously.

  “And you’re a dumbass,” Caitlin replies. The kids stagger back, out of the vending area—they look younger in the sunlight, maybe no more than ten, eleven years old. “Fucking homophobic assholes,” she calls them, “all of you. You better run.”

  When she starts after them, I grab her shirt. “Caitlin, no,” I tell her. She struggles for a moment, but the boys race off into the men’s restroom where she can’t follow. “It’s fine, Cat. I get it a lot. You get used to it.”

  “You shouldn’t have to put up with that shit,” she says. Taking her snacks from me, she hits one of the buttons on the soda machine with a small, angry fist. “No one picks on my brothers,” she mutters as a can tumbles out. “No one but me.”

  Chapter 10: In the Car

  Dan is already coming up to the vending area as Caitlin and I head back for the car. “What’s going on?” he wants to know. He heard my sister’s big mouth, I’m sure. Everyone here did—the few people stopped at the rest area don’t quite look at the two of us, my sister walking ahead of me with her arms full of snacks, my hand fisted in the back of her shirt to keep her from turning to hunt down those boys in the restroom. I stare ahead at the car. “Michael?” Dan asks. “What happened?”

  “Get in the car,” I tell Caitlin, giving her a push in that direction.

  “Some kids called him—” she starts.

  “Go on,” I say with another shove. She almost stumbles and glares back at me over her shoulder but doesn’t argue, thank God.

  Dan waits until she’s far enough way that she can’t hear us. “Michael,” he says, his hand still on my arm. When I look at him, I know he heard her words, I’m sure the concrete walls around the vending machines echoed her voice out here, that’s why he came running. Finally he asks, “Are you going to tell me? Or do I have to guess?”

  Behind us, I hear the bathroom door open, echoed laughter streaming out into the day, and I just want to leave. “It wasn’t anything really,” I tell him, but I know Dan well enough to know he doesn’t buy that. I look back at the restrooms—the boys are still hiding from my sister, I don’t blame them. Handing my lover one of the sodas I bought, I say, “Just some kids being mean, that’s it.”

  “What did they say?” Dan wants to know.

  I shrug and force a laugh—I’m not going to let it bother me. “Nothing, really,” I insist. “Just…you heard Cat. Fucking homophobic assholes, wasn’t that the term she used?”

  Dan doesn’t return my smile. Instead, he studies me intently and holds me back when I start to walk away. “Look,” I say—I can feel his anger brewing. I want him back in the car and I want to drive away, hopefully before those boys come out. If they thought Caitlin was scary, they’ve never been up against an enlisted man. He might seem quiet, but Dan is not someone you want to anger, trust me. When he first moved in with me, we had a neighbor who use
d to make loud comments about our relationship from the safety of his back porch. Dan and I would spend the evening on the balcony off the bedroom, and the neighbor would be downstairs, one townhouse over, grilling on his porch and telling his wife and children and whoever else was around to hear about how disgusting it was, having to live next to flagrantly sinful men. His words, flagrantly sinful. As if going to church every Sunday made him so much holier than either of us.

  I don’t know what happened, what was said—Dan won’t go into details. But one evening we sat together on the balcony, each word drifting up to us with all the hate and venom our neighbor could muster, his conversation dotted with liberal doses of faggots and gays and even a butt-fucker or two, in front of his children. I couldn’t believe it, didn’t want to believe it, and was just about to tell Dan that maybe it’d be nice to watch TV or something, anything to get us out of earshot, when my lover stood up and stretched. Picked up his glass of tea as if he planned on refilling it, gave me a bright grin. “Be right back,” he promised.

  Below me, I heard the door open and shut. I heard Dan’s gentle voice, “Excuse me, sir?” Our neighbor’s steady stream of hate stopped in midsentence, and I fought the urge to peer over the side of the railing to see what was going on. That would look too damn obvious, I thought…but what was Dan doing down there? I had no clue. “Just a minute,” Dan said. I could hear him clearly. “Just want to have a few words with you, that’s all.”

  I never heard those words. They were low and whispered and kept between the two of them—Dan still won’t tell me what he said. Whatever it was, though, it shut our neighbor up. We never heard him again, and when he passes Dan in the parking lot now, he always gives a courteous nod. Doesn’t have anything to say to me, but I don’t care. I’d rather he said nothing at all than spout bigotry and intolerance.

  And I don’t want Dan to go after those boys in the bathroom. They’re just playing around, probably don’t even know what a faggot is. A bundle of sticks, I think, and for some reason that makes me want to laugh. No, Caitlin managed to scare them enough for one day. Anything Dan might say won’t compare to the scene my sister caused. So I give him my most disarming smile and assure him, “They’re just kids, Dan. Just talking shit, you know how kids can be.”

  “And what if they weren’t just talking?” he asks, but he follows me to the car, at least. “What if one of them had a gun, or a tire iron? I don’t think I could’ve made it to you in time—”

  “I’m fine,” I tell him. “Jesus, Dan, they weren’t going to attack me.”

  “You don’t know that.” He glares around us and actually walks me to the passenger side of the car. Holding the door for me as I slide into the seat, he says, “You’re just not careful enough, babe. They could have hurt you.”

  Before he can move away, I grab the waistband of his jeans and tug until he ducks into the car. “But they didn’t,” I say, planting a quick kiss on the tip of his nose. I love him in this protective role, the soldier in him shining through like a knight coming to my rescue. “I’m fine.”

  “But they might have,” he says.

  When he kisses me, it’s on the lips, and lingers long after he pulls away. He slams the door shut and jogs around the front of the car to the driver’s side. In the back seat, Caitlin crunches on a candy bar and mutters under her breath, “Kiss kiss kiss.” It’s low enough that I can pretend I don’t hear her.

  I stare out the window as we pull away, Dan in the driver’s seat and his hand on the gear shaft, his fingers stretched out to touch my leg. But the boys don’t emerge from the bathroom, even though I watch the rest area until it disappears behind us in my side mirror. I’m not used to this small town mentality, this backwater country. The last time I was this far from a big city, I wasn’t as comfortable with my sexuality as I am now—I sure as hell wasn’t kissing on another boy where anyone could catch me. In D.C., Baltimore, the cities Dan and I live in and visit, it’s not as strange a notion, two men in love, as it appears to be in the rest of the world. My mother’s intolerant attitude seems to be the norm, much as I hate to admit it. If that’s the case, I don’t ever want to venture out of the safety of my home again.

  The miles roll away beneath us. I rest my head against the window and study my reflection in the tempered glass—trees loom in my visage, pass through my eyes. The road is a gray strip that runs through my chin, and if I slide down a bit in my seat, it flows through my mouth like words I can’t hold back. Maybe if my mom wasn’t quite so histrionic about my announcement, or if my dad looked me in the eye just once and told me what was on his mind, or if Ray and Caitlin tried to take my relationship with Dan seriously, maybe then I wouldn’t feel like the reflection looking back at me in the window. Do I even exist in the midst of everyone else? Or am I just this wispy, half-formed ghost whose presence is sensed but never seen?

  The interstate dwindles down to three lanes in either direction, then two, then one long ribbon of tarmac twisting through the trees with a solid yellow line down the center. In the back seat, Caitlin’s asleep again, this time curled into a tight ball at one end of the seat, her pillow shoved between her head and the door. Dan glances back at her to make sure she’s out, then his hand finds mine, his fingers wrap around my own to get my attention. I give him a wan smile and he pulls my hand into his lap, presses it against his lower belly, just above the zipper that bulges at his crotch like an exaggerated erection. “Talk to me,” he says. He doesn’t like me brooding and mellow.

  I don’t blame him—I don’t like this mood much, either. “It’s not just those kids, is it?” he asks.

  I shake my head, no. “It’s…everything,” I tell him. I can’t seem to narrow it down. “Evie and my family and the hateful way my mom looks at you, everything, hon. The kids back at the rest area were just another brick in the wall, you know? I can’t…” I sigh and turn back to the window and my own sightless reflection staring back. “I don’t think I’m going to get through this,” I whisper. I mean the funeral, the family. I don’t see how I can possibly make it through to the end of the week.

  “I’m here for you,” Dan reminds me. I try for a halfhearted smile, but it comes out as a grimace and I quickly give up. Leaving my hand in his lap, Dan reaches out and touches my cheek. “Michael? Look at me.” I do, but only from the corner of my eye. “What’s the worse that can happen?”

  My mom, I think—nothing specific comes to mind, but knowing her, she’ll find some way to make my life hell at Sugar Creek. I already suspect that I’ll never return when this week is over. Evie’s funeral will be the last pilgrimage any of us make. Without her, it just won’t be the same.

  Carefully, I tell him what my mom said about the sleeping arrangements. If she has her way, Dan and I will be stuck with someone else in our room, despite Aunt Evie’s steadfast rule that allowed couples some semblance of privacy. But Evie’s gone—so who’s to say what will happen now? Knowing my mom, she’ll cry over my homosexuality with her aunts and the fact that Dan’s my lover will spread like ivy. Who’ll want to share a room with us then? None of my male cousins, I’m sure, and those with children won’t want to let them sleep in the same room with two gay men. It’s just going to be a mess, I feel it in my bones like a coming storm. Despite the fact that we’re family, that we grew up together and bathed together and skinny-dipped in the creek and shared rooms when we were younger, someone is going to make this rough for me. Someone is going to equate my liking guys with my liking every guy, it’s the way the TV depicts gays, and maybe it’ll just be for the best if we drop Caitlin off at the house and get a hotel room after all.

  When I suggest it to Dan, though, he squeezes my hand and says, “But you don’t want to do that.”

  I know I don’t. There’s a part of me that thinks staying at Evie’s house might bring me some sense of closure, some form of peace. “If we have to share a room, though,” I start.

  Dan laughs. “Baby,” he says, and then he raises my hand to his li
ps, kisses my knuckles. Mirth twinkles in his dark eyes when he looks at me, a faint smile on his face. “Three days, Michael. We can hold out that long. Jeez, how do you manage when I’m in the field?”

  To be honest, I don’t know. I hate that part of Dan’s life, when the Army takes him from me for temporary duty. TDY, he calls it. Two weeks, sometimes four, out in the field, cut off from civilization, his survival skills put to the test. I picture him dressed in fatigues, hunkered down in a tent with another soldier, running through low grasses and ducking bullets and my heart stops in my chest whenever I hear the term friendly fire. The day his unit returns to base, I’m there in front of the barracks, waiting as the covered truck pulls up. He stands at attention with the rest of his men while the CO shouts out last minute orders, and when the command is given to fall out, he jogs over to me. In the car he smells of sweat and dirt and musk, manly scents that stir my groin and make me ache to hold him again, to kiss him and strip him bare and love him, to make up for our time apart. I wait until we’re off post before I kiss him, but it’s all I can do to hold out until we get home to take him and make him mine. I don’t even let him shower—most of the time, we don’t get much farther than the front door before I’m on him like an incubus, kissing and tearing at his clothes to get to the man, my man, underneath the soldier’s guise.

  The first time he left for duty, I sat by the phone the whole week, even though he told me he wouldn’t be able to call. He was stationed for a few days’ training at Fort A.P. Hill, and it was all I could do not to drive down to the base, which is just an hour or so from D.C. I didn’t know if they’d let me on post or not, but I had grand dreams of sneaking into the fields where the men were camped, crawling on my elbows and knees like I’ve seen done in so many war films, slithering through the mud and grass until I found my boy. When he was scheduled back, I was at Myer two hours before his truck rolled in.