Nailed

by Patrick Jones

  “I just wonder what it’d be like to be one of the normal kids at school,” I say, thinking about Sean, who blends into the school scene, even if he merges into our musical mix.

  “Why are you so hung up on being normal?” Alex asks the question that haunts me.

  “Take Sean, for example,” I reply, green envy coloring my words. “He knows people find him attractive, and he’s sure that his shy-guy routine will always get him the girl.”

  “But I already got the girl, and so do you,” Alex says, and shrugs.

  “Maybe it’s like Dad says: there are two ways to do things—the easy way and the hard way. I guess normal would be the easy way,” I finish.

  “Look, I don’t know why I’m one way and everyone else is another, it just is,” Alex says. “But I know this: high school is only four years of my life. Hell, people have survived war, famine, and a lot worse than Bob Hitchings for a lot longer than four years, and he—”

  “Ain’t shit,” I say as Alex pulls into the Jellybean parking lot and I prepare to shed some of my self in return for cold hard cash.

  I do great at Jellybean, where the clutter and smell of used books well-read overwhelm and excite the senses. I’m able to part with everything, except for clutching on at the last second to my beat-up copy of Fight Club with the sex scenes underlined. I resist the lure of several CD purchases by Ann Arbor indie bands for sale at the counter, and pocket my profit.

  We next stop at the Wal-Mart where my mom doesn’t work to return the razor.

  Later, counting the green, it looks like I’ve got fifty bucks for Sean, and another fifty for Kylee’s Valentine’s gift. I need also to right the wrong of not wanting her to sing with the band, so I’m two in the hole. Maybe I’ll take Alex’s idea and pen a song about her. Now that Sean and I are good again, he might let me use his equipment to record it. I’ll ask him tonight. Yes, this is shaping up to be a perfect Valentine’s Day. Sometimes, I guess, normal is nice enough.

  “Let’s head over to Sean’s, then we’ll go to Venus to see Elizabeth,” I say, and Alex nods in agreement. A light snow is falling, so he’s driving slowly. I like riding with Alex more than Sean, who always plays his music so loud while he drums on the dash with a stray hairbrush. Like us, he must dream of busting out of Flint, becoming a star, and touching the sky.

  Then I see it in Sean’s driveway: Kylee’s snotsmobile. And in an instant, I know.

  “Stop the car,” I shout, not even waiting until he does to jump out. I look in Kylee’s car, but it’s empty. The house looks empty too, but I see lights in the basement. I run over to the basement windows and kneel down in the fresh wet snow. I look in to see that I’m not the only one on my knees. I can’t see much of Kylee from here, but probably more than Sean can view of her. Right now, all Sean can see is the violet hair on the top of Kylee’s head and her tiny hand stroking him as the sky falls on me.

  “Bret, what’s wrong?”

  Before I can answer Alex, I turn away from the basement window, stagger a few feet back toward the driveway, and leave my macaroni-and-cheese dinner in a steaming yellow bile pile in the gathering snow. I wipe my mouth off, catch my breath, and wish I were dead.

  “What’s Kylee’s car doing here?” Alex innocently asks; he hasn’t seen what I’ve seen. It’s an image I’ll never forget as long as I live, which, with any luck, won’t be much longer.

  “Are you okay?” Alex asks as he walks over toward me. I motion for him first to be silent, and then wave at him to stay away. He catches on that something is very wrong and gets back in the car. I sit in the snow, rocking back and forth, holding my arms tight around my wet knees, trying to fight off the panic that washes over me like the falling February snow.

  “Let’s go,” Alex says as he taps me on the shoulder. I didn’t hear him get back out of the car, but now he’s beside me. He sticks out his hand and helps me up, then we walk back to his wheels. He slides in front, while I crawl in the back and collapse into a fetal ball.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Alex asks forcefully.

  “Just drive!” I shout, my throat sore from swallowing tears and tossing my dinner. My lungs are burning, my hands are a block of ice, and my heart is broken. Kill me now.

  “Where to?” Alex asks in a quiet, respectful tone.

  “I don’t know yet,” I reply, trying to think if there’s a steep enough cliff in all of Flint.

  “Bret, talk to me,” Alex says, but he’s not pushing.

  “Kylee and Sean,” I say. The image of Kylee with Sean churns like acid in my stomach.

  “What do you mean?” Alex says. Is he that clueless or that trusting? Or maybe he already knows. He’s got more history with Sean, so why wouldn’t he turn on me like Kylee?

  I bite down hard on my bottom lip until I can taste blood. I don’t want to scream at Alex. I just want to die in order to escape from this nightmare.

  “I’m taking you home,” Alex says. “I don’t know what else to do with you.”

  “Kylee and Sean,” I repeat, stunned by the words and the dislocation of Sean’s name paired next to Kylee’s. “She was … she’s cheating on me. He’s cheating on me.”

  “God, Bret, I’m sorry,” Alex says, pulling the car off the road. “I didn’t know.”

  “Swear on your father’s grave.” I reach out and grasp the handle of the car door, because if Alex knew about this, I will exit the car and become a speed bump on the highway. The pain of getting run over would be better than facing that kind of betrayal.

  Alex turns to face me, and then reaches out to touch my shoulder. “Bret, I swear.”

  “Thank you,” is all I can say because I can’t fall any farther into this abyss.

  “I can’t believe it. That rich spoiled prick!” Alex says, slamming his fist on the dash.

  I sit up in the seat. Headlights from an oncoming car hit me right in the face and clear what is left of my mind. The fight Sean and I had the day after Christmas … some other remarks … obviously I was so blindly in love with Kylee that I was also deaf and dumb. Now, once again I’m mute. I lie back down, and Alex takes that as his cue to get restarted on the journey home. I close my eyes tightly, which holds back tears, but not the image of Kylee and Sean.

  “We’re here,” Alex announces minutes later, his voice echoing my exhaustion. He gets up and opens the door, then helps me out. “Anything you need, you call.”

  I give him a big hug, and then lose it. I cling to Alex like I’m drowning and he’s a life jacket. After a while, I let him go. He gets back into his car and drives home, leaving me standing alone in the stone-cold darkness of the night. I look inside the house and see no lights on. Although Mom’s home from work, she and Robin have already gone to bed. I pull the key from my coat and take a step toward the door but stop in my tracks when I see a light still on in the garage. I’m drawn moth-to-flame toward it, my father, and simple, raw catharsis.

  I don’t even knock as I barge into my dad’s sanctuary. He’s sitting on a stool next to his workbench, smoking a cigarette, flipping through a car magazine, and sipping from a white coffee cup.

  “What are you doing in here?” he asks, closing the magazine and straightening up.

  I don’t say anything. I stomp the length of the garage and flip on the large overhead light, then open the door to my mom’s car. I pop the hood open and go to the front, jamming my fingers under the hood as I look for the release latch.

  “I asked you a question,” my dad says.

  “I’m changing the oil like you wanted!” I shout at him. “Where’s the fucking filter!”

  “What’d you say?” he replies, more surprised than angry.

  “Just give me the oil filter,” I repeat, my volume on overdrive. “You want me to change the oil, fine. I’ll change the filter. Why? I know. Just because!”

  “Help yourself,” he says as he unlocks a cabinet and tosses the filter my way. I catch it, then throw my coat and hat onto the filthy floor, while he gath
ers the oil and a funnel. I need to remember what to do; I need to block out the image of Kylee and Sean. Kylee and Sean.

  “Hey, be careful—” my dad says, but I don’t give him a chance to finish.

  “I’ll do it myself, isn’t that what you want?” I tell more than ask. “All by myself.”

  “Don’t mess it up,” he says, like he expects I will. I crawl under the car. I’m under for just a few seconds, when he taps my foot, then hands me a flashlight. “This’ll make it easier.”

  It takes me about an hour, forty-five minutes more than Cameron’s shop guarantees, but I manage to complete the task without help. When I finish, I hand him the flashlight. I’m covered in sticky, smelly black oil and still unreleased red-hot anger. “Happy now?” I spit out, dramatically putting out my left hand, palm facing upward.

  “As a matter of fact, yes,” he says, his weathered face creasing into a melancholy smile. It is a smile that says “I won” yet seems to acknowledge that I look as ludicrous as his ridiculous requirement. I’m filthy, but we both seem to know that I’ve come clean and he’s broken me.

  “The keys,” I say, pushing my hand closer.

  My dad looks me over and then reaches into his pocket. He pulls out his big NASCAR keychain chock-full of metal, because everything in the garage has a lock. He starts to fiddle with it, placing two keys in my hand. I casually snatch a cigarette from his pack.

  “Here,” he lights up the smoke for me, then does the same for himself. “It’s too late and too snowy for you to drive tonight.”

  “Fine,” I say, pulling the smoke into my lungs in a slow-motion suicide.

  “Ask your mom about her work schedule, maybe you can drive to school tomorrow,” he says, forcing out something resembling a smile. “That is, if the roads are good. You don’t know how to drive in the snow. Nobody in Michigan knows how to drive in the snow, anymore.”

  “Fine,” I say, although I know I can’t go to school tomorrow and face seeing Sean.

  “How many?” he says, tapping his Marlboros.

  “Maybe two packs a week,” I reply, waiting for my punishment or a pissed-off look.

  “It’ll kill you, you know,” he says. I think about being dead, and I take another puff, which floats around in the silence.

  “So?” my dad finally shatters the stillness.

  I shake my head. To speak of it will cause tears, and to cry would undo everything.

  “Bret, what the hell’s wrong with you tonight?” he’s almost shouting, but not in anger.

  “Like you really care,” I say bitterly, showing off the key to Mom’s car. “I changed the oil, and we both got what we wanted. You can stop pretending like my life matters to you.”

  He just glares at me, no doubt trying to pick the right cruel remark from the many dancing through his head, so I turn to leave. I get about six steps away.

  “I’m your father, Bret, of course I care,” he says, his tone no longer brisk, his anger having changed like the oil into something approaching sympathy.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, my eyes facing away from him.

  “I know you don’t,” he says, and I turn now to face him.

  “Really?” I reply. “How’s that?”

  “I was sixteen too,” he says, almost a whisper, like he’s telling me a shameful secret.

  I don’t know how to respond other than the regular way. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “And that’ll kill you quicker than these,” he says, taking a deep drag on his cigarette, then holding it up in front of my face.

  “Good,” I say, as the thought of suicide brings relief, not fright.

  “Jesus H. Christ, talk to me, Bret,” he says, taking a swig from the coffee cup.

  “I don’t know where to begin,” I confess, waiting a few minutes before sitting down on the stool next to him. I’m about the same height as my dad, but tonight he seems much taller. I’ve lost everything that matters, so I may as well try for something that I’ve never had. If ever I needed my father to be there, it’s here and it’s now.

  My dad gives me time and space as he walks to the other side of the garage to turn off the overhead light. He pops the hood again, and looks inside. He smiles. “Good job, son.”

  “It’s my girlfriend, Kylee,” I say, measuring each word so they were close enough to keep the tears from spilling out. Letting them take over would be the easy way. This is something worth doing the hard way.

  “And?” Dad’s only met Kylee a few times. He took one look at her violet hair, and she didn’t stand a chance. He’s been civil, but not accepting and loving like her parents are with me. But then I’ve never seen my dad be that way with anyone, except his poker pals.

  I try to speak, but I can’t. My father sits back down, but even though he’s trying to be considerate, I can’t escape the feeling that this person across from me is a stranger.

  “She pregnant?” he asks, his voice sounding strangely tired.

  “No, she’s not,” I say, trying to keep my balance. “I mean—”

  “You’re having sex, right? Don’t lie to me, Bret.”

  “Yes, but we use, you know, protection.” I say, feeling unprotected as I say the words.

  “I know, your mother found a condom wrapper in the laundry a couple of weeks ago,” he says, with a laugh. “I said I would talk to you, but—”

  “We don’t really talk, do we?” I say, accepting my responsibility. My folks never had the big sex talk with me. Not that it would have mattered. I would have done everything the same with Kylee, except now I wish that I had never met her. “You’re not pissed?”

  “Your mother is, but I’m not,” he says. “You know why?”

  I can only shake my head and tap out some more ash.

  “Because you’re not being stupid about it.” He takes another drink. “Unlike me.”

  “I don’t understand,” I say, words falling far short of describing this unreal scene.

  “You know that I got your mom pregnant when we were just seventeen. I went to work to support my family and I haven’t stopped for a day since. But you know all of that.”

  “Dad, I don’t really know anything about you,” I say with blunt force, since my brain is fried from the memory of Kylee and Sean burning hot. Then, just like Mrs. Pfeil did with me, I go silent and wait him out. We’ve waited sixteen years, what’s a few minutes more.

  “When I was seventeen, my dad and your grandfather, God rot his soul, gave me a hundred-dollar bill the day Cameron was born, telling me that was the last money I was getting from him. When I first told him your mom was pregnant, he jumped in his car and drove away,” he says softly.

  My father let out a loud sigh before lighting up another smoke. I passed when he pointed the pack my way. I want to concentrate as my dad dredges up the details. “He comes back an hour later, and pulls me out of the house—and I mean pulls me—I was probably bigger than him, but he was my dad. Anyway, he opens the trunk and throws out a brand-new suitcase, tells me to pack my shit, and move in with your mother, although that’s not what he called her.”

  I don’t ask, he doesn’t tell.

  “He’s drunk and standing there in the driveway, screaming at me about what a loser I am and how I’ll never amount to anything,” Dad says, then looks like he wants to cry, although I don’t think he actually knows how. Instead, he takes a drink to add fluids. “And he was right.”

  I’m feeling short of breath. My heart is pumping so hard it’s compressing my lungs.

  “Your grandpa died when you were two, so you never knew him. You didn’t miss anything. He was a loser too.” Dad says. “He wasn’t religious, like your mom. He’d never set foot in a church except to get married, and then thirty years later, to get buried. When he died, the priest asked me to help with the eulogy. He asked what kind of man my dad was.”

  My dad could have been an actor. I didn’t realize he’s such a good storyteller.

  “And I rememb
er, like it was yesterday, although it’s been over fourteen years now, what I said when the priest asked me what kind of man your grandfather—what kind of man my father was.” He takes a drag to steady his voice, and another drink from his coffee cup to clear his throat. “I said this: ‘He’s one mean, rotten, drunk son of a bitch, and I’m glad he’s dead.’”

  For the second time this evening, I’m too shocked to speak.

  “Maybe I should have told you this before. I know you think I’m a son of a bitch, and you know what? You’re right. I am. In fact, that’s all I know.” He scratches his forehead, but I think he’s really hiding the emotion in his eyes. “So what’s wrong with you and Kylee?”

  “She’s cheating on me with my friend Sean,” I say, the weight still heavy but somehow less crushing. I can almost breathe again.

  “I’m sorry, son,” he says and puts his hand near the middle of the workbench. He can’t bring himself to touch me, but he wants to connect. It’s enough.

  “It’s not fair,” I say, the dam bursting. He just lets me cry out without comment.

  “Bret, I want you to remember something,” he says, when he thinks I can hear again. “I had to go to work at seventeen, and I’ve never had anything. My dad was a drunken piece of shit, and I swore I’d do better. I had a few good years, just a taste of a good life—I was able to buy my Camaro, just like the one I always wanted when I was your age—when that taste of an easy life got slapped right out of my mouth. They shut the plant down, and I was out of work with kids, a wife, a mortgage, and a drinking problem,” Dad says, trying to find a comforting voice after so many years of using a caustic one toward me. “You learned how to change the oil on the car, and that’s a good lesson. Well, here’s another one: life isn’t fair. That’s a hand you can always bet on.”

  I look at my watch. It’s almost two in the morning on the longest day of my life. The worst day of my life; the best day of my life.

  My dad picks up his cigarettes and magazine, and motions for me to come to the door. I get up, but in my sleep-deprived daze and daily clumsiness, I knock over the white cup, the liquid within spills on the table, then drips down to the floor. My dad turns to look at me as I put a finger into the forming puddle of fluid, then put it to my mouth. It tastes terrible, but I’ve never liked the taste of coffee, even if it takes my dad Twelve Steps every day to drink coffee instead of something else.