by Rick R. Reed
Henry’s heart lurched just a bit, and his stomach did a similar flip-flop as his mom turned to the man when they were out of the light of the apartment building’s front door and he gathered her up in his arms. Sure, Henry wasn’t stupid. It had crossed his mind that his mother could be having an affair, but the idea seemed so ridiculous Henry could never give it any real credence. Come on, parents don’t even have sex, do they? I mean, like a couple of times, with their spouse on birthdays and stuff and to have kids, but otherwise? Nah….
And parents certainly didn’t have sex outside of marriage. The idea was sickening, repulsive. And even though Henry recognized it as horribly sexist, he thought if one of his parents were going to cheat, it would be his father, not his mother. His mother? The ice princess?
Yet the ice had all melted around her in a puddle as she responded passionately to the man’s kiss, right there in the street. Henry watched as she reached up to bury her hand in the curls at the back of the man’s neck, to pull him closer.
It made him sick, really sick, and Henry feared he would throw up. It was all he could do to hold down that night’s family meal, which had been roast chicken and sautéed eggplant.
He wanted to run across the street and yank them apart, cry admonishing words to them both, especially his mother, but he stayed frozen to his spot in the shadows, feeling like he was spying yet unable to look away. He saw the impulse to separate them as something a little boy would do, whining and hanging on to the hem of his mother’s sundress.
At last, much to Henry’s relief, they broke their embrace and began walking toward him. Henry sucked in a breath and then shrunk farther into the shadows, feeling a strange mixture of emotions—despair, hysteria, anger, loss, and rage—all alternating, jockeying to be first. These were tempered by nausea and the absurd—or so Henry thought—urge to cry.
He spotted his mother’s car and heard the little beep as she used her key fob to unlock the doors. They stood for a while at her car, talking and laughing. There was such a sense of ease between the two of them, and Henry racked his brain, trying to think of a time when he had seen his mother behave so flirtatiously and girlishly with his father.
He came up empty.
Henry had to bite his lip to keep from crying out as his mom reached up to stroke the man’s face, while gazing at him longingly in the moonlight.
Finally the man opened the door for his mother, and she slipped inside the car. He leaned down and kissed her again. Henry’s nausea morphed into numbness.
He could do nothing but watch as she drove away, the man staring after her, raising his hand in a wave. His mother gave a little toot on the horn.
After the man turned and went back inside his apartment building, Henry allowed a few minutes to pass before he emerged from the shrubbery back onto the sidewalk. He looked around guiltily, as though he had been the one who had been caught in a compromising position.
He continued eastward and even started north when he veered right on Fargo and headed to the beach at the end of the street. There, a broad expanse of concrete steps led down to the sand, and Henry sat, to allow himself time to think.
Quickly, and only because his inner child and sense of the world and his place in it wanted so desperately to be righted, Henry grasped at fantastic straws.
The man was only a friend.
The kiss was just a peck, and Henry had imagined it as more.
There was a relative in Rogers Park his mother had mentioned before, and Henry had only forgotten.
Those things shriveled up and died like a Popsicle dropped on a hot sidewalk at the height of August’s heat.
The hard thing was that Henry could not, as much as he wanted to, convince himself that his eyes had deceived him. There could be no other interpretation for that passionate kiss. No alternative to frame seeing his mother tonight and earlier in the summer here in Rogers Park than she was having an affair. An affair. It seemed so tawdry, so lifted out of a television soap opera. An affair was not something that would raise its ugly, lying face in Henry’s own family.
He sighed, staring out at the relentless ebb and flow of the lake along the shoreline. He imagined a tsunami, a giant wave starting from far out on the water’s dark surface, raising itself and steadily gathering force until it was the height of a skyscraper, until it crashed down on Chicago, obliterating the city and its inhabitants.
The affair wasn’t so surprising, really, even though the thought made his stomach roil as if he had eaten something rotten. He had seen his mother and father together for years, and their lives never betrayed so much as a hint at intimacy. When they did kiss, it was little more than a quick peck, when Henry’s dad left for work in the morning. Even that was rare. They seldom shared a meal. They all used to go to the country club together, for holidays and Sunday brunch, but Henry couldn’t think of the last time they did that.
No, the truth was his parents lived more like roommates than husband and wife, existing alongside each other rather than together, if Henry really wanted to be objective about it.
And he did not want to be objective about that. These were his mom and dad. His small world depended upon their being together. He had no siblings. Other than Maxine, there was no one he could turn to in that beautiful six-bedroom lakefront house, a house Henry now saw as a sham and a testimony to money and little more.
Was his family a lie?
The rush of grief was sudden and started first as a big lump in Henry’s throat that quickly morphed into tears, snot, and sobs that shook him to his very core. He covered his face with his hands and wept, cried until he could barely breathe, until his eyes burned.
And then he stopped, straightened up, and gazed around himself. There was a man with dark buzzed hair and a goatee standing about three feet away from him, taking his Boston terrier out, Henry guessed, for a final walk before bed. Both man and dog stared at him in silence.
The man spoke. “Hey, sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” The dog tugged at the leash and looked up at its owner. “Are you okay?”
Henry nodded, trying to gather some spit in his mouth, some breath that wasn’t quivering behind his words. “Yeah. Just had some bad news.”
“I’m sorry.” The man seemed to be thinking for a moment, searching for the right words. The best he could come up with was: “Well, take care.” He disappeared into the shadows, heading back west.
Henry drew in a deep breath. He thought of Carmela and Antonio and his disappointment at seeing them take off together. Antonio was not only married, but Henry knew, from talk around the restaurant, that he and his wife, Mia, were expecting their first baby around Thanksgiving. Henry didn’t know if he was more upset with Antonio or Carmela. He supposed Carmela, because he thought she knew better. Didn’t she respect the fact that Antonio belonged to someone else?
Was he really thinking about Carmela? Or was he thinking about his mother? Henry felt like someone had just knocked all the supports out from under him, as though he were a multipaned window and a mysterious hand had just come along and ripped out all the wood surrounding each pane, leaving the glass to crumble, fall, and shatter.
The world was an ugly place. Look at how his own tentative steps toward love had turned out with Kade. Henry had hoped their friendship and closeness would blossom into something deeper, more intimate and powerful. Henry had given him himself.
And Kade used him for a hole, a come receptacle.
Henry stood and wiped the sand from his ass.
He felt homeless. He couldn’t abide the idea of turning and heading north, back to that house that was no longer a home. How could he walk in the door and face his mother? And if she wasn’t still up, how would it go if he ran into her in the morning? Could he look into those cornflower blue eyes, so like his own, and pretend nothing was wrong?
But could he tell her the truth? Tell her what he’d seen and demand an explanation? That thought made Henry shake his head, because he felt unreasonable fear at it. To confront
his mother would be entering a world he didn’t think he was old enough to trespass in. Not yet.
Should he tell his father? No, that prospect was even more terrifying, although he felt the poor guy had a right to know. His father, a big blowhard, a perfectionist, a man who didn’t know the first thing about compassion, suddenly seemed like a pitiable figure to his only son, and that made Henry’s heart ache.
He didn’t want to go home, but he had no idea where to go.
And yet his feet began to take him south, walking along the shoreline of the lake.
CHAPTER TEN
VITO IS barely awake when he turns in the darkness, wrapping his arms around Kevin and aligning his chest with Kevin’s spine. He smiles, eyes not open, as he feels Kevin’s smooth, satiny chest beneath his fingertips and runs them playfully across Kevin’s nipples, which they jokingly refer to as pencil erasers.
Kevin stirs at his touch and pushes his ass against Vito’s hardening cock. They both sigh into the darkness, and the heat from their bodies beneath the quilt is like a warm cocoon. It’s as though they are the only people in the world.
Vito thinks about spitting into his hand, lubing up his cock, and sliding slowly into Kevin, being careful to take it easy, although his body is telling him otherwise—his body urges him to be fast, brutal, and selfish.
But it’s late, the middle of the night, and Vito knows that, in spite of Kevin’s murmurs that connote pleasure, he is not awake.
A more physical connection, penetration, can wait until they’re both consciously present, until morning’s light creeps in through the slatted wooden blinds at their window. Vito contents himself with burying his face in Kevin’s blond hair, the faint tea tree oil aroma of his shampoo. For now, this is good, this spooning, and Vito drifts back off to sleep.
When he awakens again, Vito has turned on his other side, away from Kevin. It is still the depth of the night, where darkness reigns, and even here, in the beating heart of the city, it’s quiet, most of the world lost in slumber.
All except for one little boy, whom Vito hears cry out in his sleep, “Daddy!”
Little Sal has been prone to nightmares lately.
Vito gets up quietly, careful not to wake Kevin, and rubs the sleep from his eyes. He places his feet on the floor. Cold.
“Daddy!” Sal cries again, and Vito hurries to stand.
He rushes from the room, taking care only to open and close the bedroom door slowly, so as not to wake Kevin. Quick down the hall and then he is in Sal’s room. It’s dim in there, but there’s more light because of the Bert and Ernie night-light. Vito thinks the little boy likes the duo because they remind him of his two dads.
He sits down on the edge of the bed and runs a hand across Sal’s forehead, which is warm but not hot, and tangles his fingers in the boy’s dark curls, so like Vito’s own.
“What’s the matter? Bad dream?”
Sal nods.
“You need some water?”
Sal nods again. Vito gets up and goes into the kitchen, turns on the tap, and runs it until the water gets cold. He fills a glass and brings it back.
“There you go. Don’t spill.”
Sal gulps the water down and, with two hands, gives the glass back to his father. He sits up a little more in the bed.
“Bad dream?” Vito asks again.
“The very baddest.”
Vito scoots closer to his son on the bed, pulling his legs up and wrapping an arm around Sal’s shoulders. “Wanna tell me about it?”
In a voice much too old for a little boy, Sal says, “There was a car.” His voice echoes, deepening. In the background, there is the boom of a collision, tinkling glass, the shriek of metal against metal.
And suddenly Vito is alone on the twin bed, holding a stuffed rabbit. The room is dark.
VITO AWOKE with a start. He looked around and realized he must have sleepwalked, because he was lying on Sal’s old bed. Watery grayish light seeped in through the single window, imbuing the room with a kind of black-and-white unreality. It must be just before the dawn, Vito thought, sitting up.
He had to resist casting a gaze around the room, searching for his little boy. The dream fragments stayed with him, and it made him feel almost as if his son were there, which was both a good and a bad thing. Good because he could savor the feeling of the little boy being close once more. Bad because it ripped the scab off the wound, made the approaching day outside that much harder to bear.
He stood up and moved to the window. Sal’s room faced Morse Avenue, and the street below was just beginning to come to life. Trash skittered along the sidewalk, and the wind rattled the glass in its pane. The streetlight outside the window winked off. At the moment there was no one on the street, and it looked like a movie set, with its restaurants and bargain stores, many with iron gates shuttered across their fronts. The street had a dystopian feel, as if Vito was the last man on earth.
What’s with you? Go make yourself a cup of coffee.
A scratching at the closed bedroom door told Vito he had another task to take care of before he could think about the sustenance of strong black coffee. Vito yawned and stood. As he did, a stuffed rabbit dropped to the floor, and Vito looked down at it and frowned. He picked it up and put it carefully back on the bed.
He opened the door. The girls waited outside. They both stood at once, and Vito realized they must have been lying outside the door, perhaps trying to puzzle out the mystery of why their master had gone into this other room and shut them out.
He dropped to his knees and kissed each dog in turn on the top of the head. He scratched them behind the ears. “Hungry?” he asked, and their ears went up, alert.
He stood and felt like an old man. “Let me throw on some clothes. We’ll take care of business, and then we’ll see about getting you girls some breakfast.”
Connie barked, and it seemed Vito could detect happiness in the sound. Gabby sat again, tail thumping on the floor. Life was so simple for them.
Once he was dressed and the girls were leashed, he headed outside.
As soon as his front door closed behind him, Vito saw him standing across the street. Henry.
What the fuck?
Vito turned to peer inside the dollar store’s window. He knew from past experience there was a wall clock above the checkout counter. It showed that it was a little before five o’clock in the morning.
Had the kid followed him home again? Had he hung around outside all night? This was getting creepy and, frankly, intolerable.
Their eyes hadn’t met, and Vito turned away, walking west with the dogs. He usually liked to take them down to the lakefront but thought that Henry might also enjoy that idea. It was where they had gone before.
But west on Morse? Nothing scenic awaited. Just more apartment buildings and storefronts, most of them nothing much to look at. Urban sprawl. Yet the girls didn’t mind. They got to sniff and stretch and take care of their needs. It was all that mattered. Again, Vito envied his pets.
After they had gone about a block, Vito turned his head ever so slightly so he could peer peripherally over his shoulder.
The boy followed. Vito noticed he kept his distance. Vito had to give him that much. At least he was trying to be discreet.
Up ahead, there was a bus stop. “Come on, girls, let’s sit for a minute.” Vito herded the dogs into the plexiglass and steel structure and sat down on the bench bolted to the sidewalk. He kicked a Budweiser beer can away from his feet, and Connie watched its progress into the gutter with her ears up.
Vito sat and waited, studying the graffiti etched into the plexiglass. Every so often he’d cast his gaze east, and there was Henry, pacing just at the edge of his vision. The kid was nervous. Vito could tell that much from his jittery movements and the way he wrung his hands.
Vito shook his head and sighed. “Always the rescuer and never the rescued,” he said to Connie, reaching down to scratch the back of her neck. He stood and walked to the edge of the bus shelter and pe
ered down the almost empty sidewalk. A vintage red Mustang raced by, shattering the quiet morning into fragments. In the distance, beyond Henry, Vito spied a homeless woman, rummaging in a metal mesh trash barrel, searching for treasures or sustenance.
“Kid,” Vito called. “Do you think you’re invisible? I can see you. I saw you the minute I walked out the door. What the hell are you doing?”
Henry stood frozen to the sidewalk, and at last he grinned sheepishly at Vito. Vito gestured for him to come closer, and Henry did, until he stood in front of Vito, staring at him as though terrified.
“What the hell are you doing?” Vito asked again. “And this time don’t give me any bullshit about just happening to be in the neighborhood. Or getting some fresh air.” Vito laughed and emerged from the bus shelter to join Henry on the sidewalk. “Come on. Walk the girls home with me.”
One thing Vito knew, just from the boy’s demeanor, was that he was upset. In addition to his physical aspect and the nervous tics that gave him away, there was the circumstantial evidence to support emotional trauma. For one, it was around five o’clock in the morning. The kid should be home and in bed, sleeping. Vito knew he had worked him hard and ceaselessly the night before. A boy Henry’s age should be sawing logs until noon today, until some mom or pop yelled up the stairs for him to get his ass out of bed.
Yet here he was in Vito’s neighborhood, watching his apartment from across the street like a spy. This neighborhood wasn’t the safest. There were robberies, assaults, and gang violence all the time. It was pretty much a matter of routine. And although Henry was a strapping kid, he was soft. There was a vulnerability about him that a predator could take advantage of.
As hard as he tried, Vito couldn’t help but be the nurturer, the hero. He had informally pledged to himself he wouldn’t allow himself to go to that place where he was cast as hero ever again. It only brought him heartache.
