Boyfriend

by Faye McCray

  I opened my eyes and winced at the stinging sunlight that traveled through the dusty white blinds. Muffled voices coated the air. My head felt heavy and leaden, the taste and smell of alcohol and vomit inundated my senses.

  “You want ME to be quiet? It’s MY house.”

  I lifted my head from where it stuck to the dirty, Berber carpet below me, wiping the vomit from my face with my hand and trying desperately to focus my eyes.

  The door to the room I was in burst open, slamming a discarded bottle of Vodka carelessly set in front of it into a nearby wall. The shards of glass barely missed me. I groaned. Startled into better coherence, my eyes focused on my father who stood in my doorway clutching a wooden cane, his eyes red and lips curled in disgust. Despite his accident and his aging frame, his presence was still formidable. In fact, the balding and deep wrinkles that painted his face added a severity to him that was once hidden in youth. My mother stood behind him, wrapped in her own embrace, her eyes darting around the room frantically. The fat from her arms squeezing through the sleeves of her ill-fitting housedress.

  “What. The. Fuck,” my father said, pronouncing each word carefully.

  I sat up, looking at the pool of vomit below me, my clothes sticking to my body with sweat. “I’ll clean it up,” I managed, my voice hoarse and raspy.

  “Damn right you will. And when you’re done you can get the FUCK out of my house,” my father hissed.

  “Nate,” my mother said reaching for him.

  “Nate, what?” he said shrugging away her touch. “This worthless piece of shit goes to college on an I.O.U. and then comes back to my house broke as fuck, with no job, just to shit and piss and eat up all of my money. I’m on disability. I didn’t win the Lotto.”

  “Junior,” my mother said peering down at me, her nose wrinkled from the smell emanating around me. “Why don’t you go clean yourself up?”

  I nodded, rose slowly and walked weakly out of the room.

  “I should send your ass outside to hose yourself off. Fucking up my house,” my father started again. My mother muttered something I couldn’t quite hear.

  “No, I’m not going to stop, Chrissy. You never taught these idiot kids a goddamn thing…” he continued turning to my mother as I rounded the corner into the bathroom.

  ***

  I looked like shit, I thought peering at myself in my parents’ dingy bathroom mirror. The vanity lights were missing two bulbs, but even in the dimly-lit bathroom, my blood-shot eyes were startling. I leaned against the bathroom door, listening to my parents’ voices escalating. ‘F’ bombs dropping like raindrops. I turned on the faucet and ran cold water into my palms, splashing the remains of vomit off my face and teeth.

  It had been two weeks and six days since the lease on the apartment I shared with Phil ended, and I packed the same duffel bag I had arrived with and headed back to Queens. It was two-and-a-half months since I barely graduated and almost one year since Kerry had walked away from me and never looked back.

  The evening Kerry found out, I got so high and drunk I could hardly hold my head upright. Phil didn’t even have to ask what happened when he got home from class. He plopped on the couch beside me and said little. Watching me from behind the beer he was nursing as if he worried that, at any minute, I would fall right over the edge. About an hour later, Jayna showed up, still angry and sporting a big bruise on the side of her face. She was spitting fire as she told me how Kerry had gone straight to Paul and told him everything.

  “What did you expect?” Phil had asked getting up to get me a glass of water. She glared at him.

  I offered Jayna a place to stay for the night, but I was too fucked up to even think about touching her. With all the damage that we had done and the way we had been found out, I couldn’t have brought myself to go there. When she woke up the next morning, we both agreed it would be best if we maintained our distance. There were volumes of unspoken words between us when we parted ways, but somehow, from then on, we managed to reduce our relationship to awkward “hi’s” and “bye’s”.

  About two weeks later, Kerry moved out of the dorm and back home to Connecticut. I learned later from a mutual friend that she had enrolled in courses at a local college and would return in the fall.

  After I graduated.

  I replayed everything that happened between Kerry, Jayna and me constantly. My thoughts like a ping-pong ball, bouncing between each woman. For Jayna, all I could muster was regret. It was as if I had been slapped sober and suddenly I was smothering in a room full of all the mistakes I had made. How could I have allowed myself to completely lose control? How could I have been so careless? So thoughtless?

  For Kerry, I mourned. I dreamt of our most intimate moments and woke up drenched in self-pity and heartache. The thought of her was like an open wound that I could not stop picking. It stung worse when I thought of how I hurt her. How every pure moment we shared was most likely summed up as her biggest betrayal and biggest regret.

  “Why haven’t you called her?” Phil asked the afternoon we moved out of our apartment. He was rushing around with air freshener, trying desperately to get the smell of weed out of the air before his parents arrived to help him move his things back to Maryland. I stood by the window, watching a fly dart around, crashing into walls and beating its wings fast and furiously in a mad dash to find an escape. The buzzing was loud, like tiny wails. I wondered why it was so hard for the fly to find its way out when it seemed as simple as going back the way it came.

  Phil placed the bottle of air freshener on the couch and leaned against the wall beside the window with his arms across his chest. He stared at me, resolved to get an answer.

  “Ugh,” I grunted. “We talked about this.”

  “No, we haven’t. You have Kerry sightings with girls that don’t even look like her. You stare off into space like you’re remembering watching someone murder a kitten. We’ve talked about how fucked up you were, but we never talked about what you are going to do about it.”

  It wasn’t as though I hadn’t thought about it. I picked up the phone a number of times to call her but each time my fingers grew stale before I could press the first button. I doubted she would even pick up and if she did, I wasn’t sure I would know what to say. I fashioned winning arguments in my mind about the influence of alcohol, the distance between us, and Jayna’s obvious vendetta. Even if there was a slither of hope, I respected her too much to try. I knew it was over. I was not the man she needed and I never was.

  ***

  I took off my clothes and stepped into the shower, allowing the hot water to beat down on my weak and achy body. Like the prior evening, the last year seemed like a collection of out of order minutes running together in one long trip to the bottom of a glass. I thought of Kerry, her soft touch, the “I love you’s” that I had learned to take for granted. I pictured her sneaking her arms around me from behind and resting her head into my back. Her warm body melting into mine. I bent my head under the beating water, feeling both angry and impatient that I was still so consumed by her memory. I watched the water crash at my feet, hoping to finally wash away every thought of her that remained.

  ***

  Six months after I moved back home, I was still jobless and getting drunk and high almost every day. I was running out of local girls to fuck with and my life in college had begun to feel farther and farther away. But for the calls and texts from Phil, I would have wondered if it had actually happened.

  Living back with my parents required sedation. A steady stream of alcohol and narcotics were constantly flowing through my system and any long periods of sobriety were maddening. My parents’ apartment was a merry-go-round of connecting rooms and doorless thresholds. Privacy was a foolish fantasy and even the rise and fall of my breaths felt like an unwelcome disruption.

  Leaning forward on my parents’ tattered old, brown couch, I closed my eyes and listened to my mother shuffle back and forth in the kitchen. Her feet formed a bitter song with the sound of
oil and fat sizzling in the heating frying pan. It was a Thursday in January. I was sober, and I had nowhere to go. Two facts that were beginning to drive me crazy.

  I sighed and opened my eyes, watching my father’s profile from where he sat on an old folding chair in the kitchen by the doorway. He brought his beer back and forth to his lips, staring loads of venom into the air.

  I rose, almost too suddenly, reaching for an almost empty bottle of brown liquor sitting on top of the television set. I briefly caught my father’s attention who looked over at me from where he sat and then slowly back into space. I grabbed the bottle and gulped the rest. The liquor piercing its way down my chest and into my stomach. Barely enough to sustain the taste it left in my mouth. I walked back to my parents’ moss green armchair and took a seat. I grabbed the remote and turned on the television.

  “Turn that shit off,” my father grunted from where he sat in the kitchen.

  I obeyed.

  “You want some chicken, Junior?” my mother asked standing in the threshold of the living room. My father rose, sucking his teeth loudly and heading to his room.

  “You spoil him and then wonder why he ain’t worth shit,” he spat just before he slammed the bedroom door.

  I laughed to myself.

  “It’ll be ready soon,” my mother said shuffling sleepily back into the kitchen as if nothing had been said.

  I needed some air.

  I grabbed my brown jacket and headed out.

  ***

  I welcomed the feel of the cold air on every inch of my exposed skin as I stood outside of my building in South Jamaica smoking a cigarette. I leaned up against the dirty brick and looked out onto the project courtyard watching as two boys played basketball on the faded court adjacent to the back entrance to our building. I smirked as they continuously missed ambitious shots into the tall netless basketball hoops. A homeless man shifted angrily on a bench beside the court, grumbling incoherently every time the ball hit the pavement. I took another drag as a cute teenage girl in tight jeans and a short black coat caught my attention. She walked towards the entrance beside me, pausing to flash me a flirtatious smile before turning her key into the black, steel door of our building. I watched her ass as she walked in, laughing to myself, pretty sure she wasn’t old enough to be looking at me like that. I took another puff of my cigarette, letting the tobacco and cold air dance in my lungs.

  “You should know better than that,” a familiar voice chastised.

  I looked up, smirking sheepishly, my grin almost instantly turning to surprise.

  “Natalie?”

  Natalie stood in from of me in a white wool coat. Her hair was cut short around her face and an oversized, brown scarf was wrapped fashionably around her neck. Her hands were stuffed in her pockets, and her head was cocked to the side awaiting my reaction. I wanted to embrace her, but I held back. I was pretty sure I no longer had that right.

  “Hi.” She hesitated for a moment and then reached for me. I accepted her embrace, eagerly wrapping my arms around her, squeezing her a little too tight.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as we pulled away. The question sprinted out my mouth without a thought. I hadn’t laid eyes on Natalie since she walked out of my apartment almost two years earlier. I had gained pieces of information throughout the years from my mother. Information she gained from people in the neighborhood who had known her and the guy she left with. One rumor was that she was living on the streets and addicted to cocaine. Another rumor had her living in a halfway house after being arrested for prostitution. I took a moment to take her in. Looking for signs of abuse, addiction, pain… I watched small fogs of air escape her lips as she exhaled, the tip of her nose turning mahogany in the cold. She always did have sensitive skin.

  “I’m fine, Nate.”

  “What’re you doing here?” I asked, unsure why she would ever come back.

  “I could ask you the same thing,” she said with a laugh. “Actually, I don’t know,” she answered after a moment. “I’ve come by a number of times, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to ring the buzzer.”

  A number of times? My mind was reeling. How long had she been back?

  “We got here in July,” she said as if reading my mind, still staring over at the buzzer to the building.

  “You’re still with that guy?” I asked, struggling to remember the name of the guy she was with when she visited me in D.C.

  She looked at me confused. “Who?” she asked. “Oh, Chris?” She laughed. “No. Well, not exactly. We had a son. I have a son. By we, I mean, me and my son.”

  “Wow.” I guess my mother had been right.

  “Want to see a picture?” she said, beaming. I nodded. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone and began flipping through her pictures. “Here he is,” she said holding the phone in front of me. A small boy with big dark eyes and a head full of light brown curls sat in the middle of a blue carpet, with a smile so big, he looked like his face might crack. He had four teeth, two jutting out of the middle of each row of gums. “His name is Cole. He turned one in October.” I took her phone and studied the picture.

  “Where is he?” I asked, handing her back the phone, looking to see if he was playing in the nearby courtyard.

  “I wouldn’t bring him here.” Her motherly protectiveness was evident. “He’s with a good friend. We work together.”

  I nodded. “He’s a cute kid, Natalie. Cole is a great name.”

  Her face softened. “Thank you. Remember when Aunt Laura used to listen to those old singers?”

  I smiled, remembering. “Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra…”

  “Nat King Cole,” she added. “He’s named after him,” she explained. “I used to love sitting on her lap and listening to her hum to those songs.” She closed her eyes for a moment. “Off key,” she added, chuckling. “Remember, ‘smile, though your heart is aching, smile, even though it’s breaking…’” I nodded.

  She hugged herself, staring into the air. For a moment, I could smell the sweet scent of Aunt Laura’s pies traveling through the breeze. I would give anything to be pulled into her warm embrace again. Just one more time. To feel loved… understood… without condition or disappointment. Natalie’s laughter pulled me out of my memories. I watched as she wiped the beginnings of small tears from falling from her eyes. She looked at me, her face growing serious. “Cole changed everything, Nate.”

  I believed her. It was like someone had relit that candle inside of her. A candle I was sure had burnt out. Her newfound serenity emanated from her and I was both happy and envious. For a brief moment, happiness had seemed possible for me. I ran my hand across my forehead, once again feeling consumed with guilt for all the ways I kept fucking it up.

  “How about you?” She nudged my shoulder playfully. “Are you still with that girl you were with in college? Kerry?”

  I shook my head. “We broke up. Nothing much has been going on,” I continued changing the subject. “I’ve been back home since I graduated.”

  “You’re living here?”

  I nodded.

  “I just assumed you were on your own,” she said surprised. I shrugged, feeling ashamed I didn’t have more to show for the four years I had spent at college. Considering it was the reason I had abandoned her, the least I could do was have more to show for it. I flicked away the embers of my cigarette and took another long drag. I imagined my parents settling down at the table, eating the chicken with their fingers, barely speaking to each other and guzzling their alcohol like water. This was their routine. Bubbling up each night like the scalding hot lava in a volcano, always on the verge of eruption. I watched as Natalie stared back at the buzzer, probably picturing the same thing.

  “Look, Nate,” she started after a moment. “I know what it’s like here. No one should have to live here. Not even them.”

  “It’s cool,” I began, taking another slow drag of my cigarette. It wasn’t. But, as far as I was concerned, there was no current solut
ion. I didn’t have any money and frankly, I didn’t have any energy to try to fix it.

  “No, it’s not,” she said. Her voice was stern. “I have an apartment uptown. It isn’t much, but we have an extra room. You’re more than welcome…”

  I laughed cutting her off. “I’m not letting you go there, Natalie.” Not only was I not going to burden Natalie with my failures, I knew I wasn’t worthy of her help. After the way I treated her… after the way I abandoned her. “You don’t owe me anything,” I concluded.

  “Nate,” she began again, reaching out and holding my wrist. “It was fucked up what you did that night,” she continued knowing exactly what I was talking about. “I have never felt so alone and afraid in my life. But I survived. We were both victims. You couldn’t have saved me. You barely saved yourself.” She took a deep breath. “If you need my forgiveness, fine, I forgive you. But, I’m not letting you stay here with them.” She looked into my eyes with a level of understanding only she could have. We were the only two people on this planet who knew what it was like to be raised by Nathaniel and Christine Best. We were the only two people who knew what it took to survive. I looked at the buzzer. The back of my eyes began to sting. A lump formed in the pit of my stomach. She smiled. “Get your stuff, there’s a bus coming soon.”

  I nodded and went back into my parent’s apartment, feeling overwhelmed that she had managed to do for me what I had been too weak to do for her.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Living with Natalie had only two conditions: first, that I get a job (and keep it) and second, that I didn’t bring “skanks,” drugs, or alcohol into her house. She had admittedly been to some dark places when she was living in Atlanta. As a result, she was very protective of her sobriety.

  Her rock bottom had come on a Wednesday. She was four months pregnant with Cole and binging on cocaine and Jim Beam.

  “I guess I just got tired of waiting to die,” she admitted.

  After hours of using, she woke up in a wheelchair outside of Atlanta Medical Center, blood pouring from her nose and barely strong enough to blink. The nurses would later tell her Chris had dropped her there, only staying to tell them her name and that she was pregnant. Alone and scared, Natalie clung to a night nurse named Angie, who had a kind face and gentle demeanor. Angie was deeply spiritual and was convinced that Natalie was destined for bigger things than the path she was going down. One night, as Angie was changing her IV bag, she asked Natalie if she had a guardian angel.