by T. J. Klune
I stared at the television blankly, feeling every breath he took, every twitch of his arms and legs. He sighed in his sleep and smacked his lips, raising a tiny hand in a stretch above his head, letting it fall and rest on my shoulder. I bent down and kissed the top of his head gently, and he yawned then, opening his eyes, first one, and then the other, staring up at me until he smiled and lay back down.
Mom came home two hours later, her eyes glassy, smelling like smoke and booze. I didn’t ask if she’d been driving because I knew she had. She would’ve just told me it was none of my business, so I chose to ignore it. I was starting not to care anymore. She slammed the door behind her and dropped her purse on the ground. Ty startled against my chest at the noise, his hands bunching against my shirt as I stood.
“I have homework to do,” I told her, keeping my voice as level as possible. “I need you to take him for a bit.”
“Homework,” she slurred as I followed her into the kitchen, that ever present cigarette dangling from her lips. “Fat lot of good it’ll do you. I say fuck it! Live a little, Der! You want a drink? I’m going to have a drink.”
“I just need you to take Ty,” I pleaded. “Just for a little while.”
“Put him down in his crib, then,” she snapped as she pulled down her bottle of Jack. “I’ve had a long fucking day. I don’t want to put up with a screaming kid right now.”
“You have to! You have to because—”
you’re his mother
—“he doesn’t want to lie down, and I’ve got a test tomorrow I have to study for!”
“Jesus Christ, Derrick! I don’t care if he doesn’t want to lie down! Babies cry themselves to sleep all the time. It’s the only way they learn that they can’t get what they want by screaming about it. Give him to me. I’ll do it since apparently it’s too much to ask for you to do!”
Tyson watched this back and forth with those big eyes of his, those eyes that had such knowledge in them, such awareness that each day it took my breath away. He saw our mom’s outstretched hands reaching for him, and his grip tightened in my shirt, and he buried his face in my neck and opened his mouth and said my name.
Or, at least as close to my name as he could possibly get. It was garbled and quiet, but it came out in two distinct syllables, “Bear-rick,” and my mother stopped, and I stopped, and we both looked down at the little guy in my arms, who started to mutter the same thing over and over: “Bear-rick, Bear-rick, Bear-rick.”
“Did you hear what he just called you, Derrick?” my mom asked, her eyes wide.
“Yeah,” I croaked out as his head bonked against my chin, and he sighed.
“It sounded like he called you a bear,” she said, giggling drunkenly. “Oh, oh, his first word, and he calls you a bear? He must think you’re ferocious!” She started laughing loudly, bending over and slapping her thighs as if it was the funniest damn thing she’d ever heard.
Tyson stared at her for a moment before turning back to me, his hands coming up to my face as he poked my lips and chin, laughing at how he could press my cheeks in. “Bear-rick,” he said confidently.
I turned and walked out of the kitchen, leaving my mother laughing. I sat him in one arm and dragged his crib from my mother’s room with the other, pulling it into my room, not caring when it banged against the walls, when it gouged out part of the doorway. I shut the door behind me and set him in the crib, and he immediately stood up against the bars, looking at his new surroundings, obviously wondering how and why his bed had been moved, chattering in that way he did, only now punctuated with the occasional, “Bear-rick.”
I leaned over on the railing of the crib, setting my face on my arms so we were at eye level. He watched me as I watched him. “You and me,” I finally told him. “It looks like we’re stuck with each other. Just you and me. Derrick and the baby. Fantastic.”
“Bear-rick!” he shouted happily.
I grinned and shook my head. “Bear, huh? You know I’m never going to hear the end of that, right? Bear and the baby. Bear and a kid. Christ.” I rubbed my hands against my face. “Well, kid,” I told him. “I’ve got a history test tomorrow. Don’t suppose you can help me?”
“Bear-rick.”
“Yeah, Ty. Bear-rick. I hear you. Jesus, you’re going to be a little kid before long. Already talking. Not a baby. What the hell am I going to do with you?”
He smiled.
And then, I made a promise, even though I didn’t know then what it would mean. “I got you,” I told him quietly. “I got you. You’re just a little guy. Just a Kid.”
Tyson slept in my room from that point on.
I had been named, and I was Bear.
Tyson had been named, and he was the Kid.
Looking back now, I can see that was the beginning.
THE Kid scowls at me, pulling me out of my reverie. “Did you see the size of those cats, Bear?” Bear-rick. “I swear to God those are just miniature mountain lions. You really think a wannabe cat lady should be giving me therapy? Call Erica back. Tell her to recommend someone else so that we can give him a therapist to go to.”
“I dunno, Kid. He seems to be alright.”
His eyes narrow. “You were yelling at him. He pissed you off somehow, and you think he’s ‘alright’?” Air quotes. Fun. “You need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.”
“Oh, Lord,” I groan. “Where’d you learn that?”
“You DVR’d Maury Povich again, and I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. Before I knew it, the show was half over, and I needed to find out if Jerome was the father to Sharelle’s son J’real.”
Oooooh. That had been a good one. Jerome apparently had a twin brother that—
My phone rings. Alice Thompson, the display says.
Shit.
“I gotta take this,” I tell the Kid. “Give me, like, two seconds.”
“Oh, sure!” he calls after me. “Go take your secret phone calls! I’ll just sit here and wonder about all these scary feelings the therapist has brought up in me! Maybe I’ll find out I have daddy issues too! Won’t that be special?”
“Hello?” I say as I round the corner.
“Bear, it’s Alice,” Otter’s mom says. “How are you?”
I shrug, but realize she can’t see me. We haven’t spoken since we’d been at their house for dinner. It’s only been a few days, but so much has happened during that time that it feels like so much longer. It’s odd, too, having them back in Seafare after such a long absence. Before they left, we tried to touch base at least once a week. I guess I’d gotten used to them being gone. And, of course, the last time I’d seen her, I’d gotten drunk and told her that I was in love with her son. You know, in case you forgot. “I’m okay,” I reply.
“Good,” she says, sounding relieved. “What are you doing right now? I’d like to meet you for lunch if you‘re available.”
“Uh, now’s not a good time, Alice. We’re at the therapist’s office for the first time, and the Kid and I have already gone, and now it’s Otter’s turn, so he’s in there.”
“Why is Otter speaking to the therapist?” she asked, sounding baffled.
Dangerous ground. I need to tread carefully. “He’s my… partner. The attorney recommended that he be as much a part of this as I am, seeing as how we all live together and he’ll essentially have the same authority over Tyson, even if he’s not listed on any custody paperwork.”
“And he agreed to this?”
I sigh. “It was his idea,” I say. “He made sure the attorney knew how big his level of involvement would be, and he has done everything she’s told him to do. More, really.” I don’t have the words to describe to her just what her son means to me, not in the way that I think she’ll want to hear. I don’t know.
She hesitates. “This isn’t just… a phase… is it?”
This angers me, that someone so intelligent, so articulate, could utter such bullshit. Who the fuck is she to judge her son like that? “No,” I tell her cold
ly. “It’s not a phase. Otter’s gay. You would think you of all people could accept that.”
She immediately backtracks. “That’s not what I meant, Bear. I meant… about the two of you.”
If anything, it makes it worse. “Look,” I say, trying to keep my cool. “I know this is a shock for you and Jerry. I know it came out of nowhere. You can think about me what you want. But what I won’t stand for is you treating Otter like crap just because he has the balls to know what he wants. You’re his mother, for Christ’s sake. Given the history of this family and mothers, you would think you would tread just a bit more carefully.”
“You always were his biggest supporter,” she says, sounding amused by me more than anything. “I don’t really know why I was so surprised by this, given your history. Even after he went to San Diego and even through the anger you showed, I could see how much you were hurting. Did you know? Even then?”
“Know what?”
She’s not fooled by my hedging. “That you loved him.”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I’m sure I knew something.”
That’s one way to put it, it whispers. Maybe you should tell her about that kiss, that one little kiss that knocked you on your ass.
Yeah. Or maybe not.
Alice sighs. “Bear, there’s some things you should know. Things that might cause our… reluctance… to make more sense.”
Ah, Jesus. Not what I need. More secrets. “Why tell me? You should talk to Otter about this. He’s the one that needs to hear it. Not me. He deserves your honesty, Alice, not your indifference. I’m sorry if you can never accept me. But don’t do that to your son.”
There’s a sharp inhale, and I know she’s suddenly having a hard time keeping her emotions in check. “Does he love you, Bear?”
I laugh, not unkindly. “If you had to guess, what would you think?” I say this not to come off as arrogant, but to get her honest opinion.
But she doesn’t even go there. She doesn’t have to. “And you love him?”
“With everything I have.”
“Silly boy,” she says with a laugh, her voice cracking. “You are my son, as well. You know this. Don’t forget it. Are we clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Bear?”
“Yeah?”
“You know why I called you first, right? And not him?”
I think for a moment. “You wanted to make sure I was in this all the way. Because you knew already he was. Otter wears his heart on his sleeve. You can see everything he feels in his eyes. And you saw what he looked like when he watched me. But I’m harder to read. You just wanted to make sure I felt the same.”
“Yes,” she breathes. “Yes.”
“Don’t doubt that. Ever.”
“He’s very lucky, you know. To have found you. Even if you were right in front of him the whole time, he’s still very lucky.”
I hear a door opening, and I look up and see Otter walking out of the therapist’s office, Eddie trailing behind him. Otter’s saying something to Eddie, and he’s got that crooked grin on full display, his eyes dancing, and I know he’s gotten a kick out of Eddie, just like I thought he would. He looks around and sees me down the hallway and arches an eyebrow and drops a wink in my direction as the Kid runs up to him and stands on his right foot, wrapping his arms around one of Otter’s big thighs. Otter reaches down, still talking to Eddie, and ruffles his hands through the Kid’s hair, an act so unconscious that it seems to be like breathing for him.
“No,” I tell his mother. “I’m the lucky one.”
IT’S nothing sordid, you know. The explanation behind Alice and Jerry’s reluctance. I know you’re probably thinking that there’s some big tragedy in the past that forever shaped this family, and that some dark secret is about to be revealed. While it was tragic, and while it did shape people, it’s not dark or morbid or life-altering, at least for us. It’s just sad. And even though I don’t rightly agree with their actions toward Otter and his coming out, I can still see their point.
Sometimes things have simple explanations, even though the consequences are complex.
Jerry had an older brother, a man named Alan. In 1982, right before Otter was born, Jerry was twenty-three, and his older brother was twenty-seven. Alan started coughing one day and couldn’t stop. Soon there was blood. Soon Alan was in the hospital. Soon Alan, an out-and-proud gay man, was diagnosed with what would be referred to later that year as AIDS. The world became a scary place then, as some of Alan’s friends became sick, as people turned their noses up, as Reagan acted like nothing was wrong, even after almost four hundred people had died by 1983. Alan was one of them. He died due to complications from pneumonia on January 19, 1982. Otter was born three days later.
Jerry had idolized his older brother. He had worshipped the ground he walked on. He’d held his hand when he took his last breath, even though he was told not to touch him, that doctors didn’t know how contagious he would be. But he’d seen the fear in Alan’s eyes, the despair, and he didn’t care what happened to him. He didn’t think about his new wife, his unborn son. He held his brother’s hand, and his brother had smiled around the tube down his throat, and right before his eyes closed, he winked at his brother, a look that Jerry had known his brother to give all his life.
He buried his brother on a winter day so beautiful it felt like a slap in the face. It shouldn’t have been so bright out. The sky shouldn’t have been so blue. The day should not have looked like it was celebrating when it should be mourning.
He’d been one of the pall bearers, carrying the casket on his shoulder, the weight there only a reminder of what he’d lost, of what he’d no longer have. Even when the coffin was lifted off him and lowered into the ground, he could still feel it on his shoulder, his back, digging into his skin as the sun shone down, as a gently fragrant breeze blew across his face.
Fast forward to four years ago. Otter came out. Jerry and Alice were smart people, caring people. They were also people with long memories, with scars that had never fully healed. They were scared. They worried. They knew how the world worked, that much had happened since Alan’s death, that such a diagnosis didn’t mean death. But it was still Alan. It was still Jerry’s brother. It wasn’t a nameless face or a statistic. Jerry hurt for his son, hurt for his brother. He didn’t know how to act, didn’t know what to do. So he did nothing. It seemed safer. He didn’t know that sometimes nothing is worse than something.
“I don’t know if I buy it,” Otter told me later that night, after we’d come home from their house. We lay in bed in the dark, Otter wrapped around my back. “Over twenty years later, and they freak out about that?”
“People remember what hurts them the most,” I replied quietly. “It’s hard to forget when it feels like it still chafes.”
He kissed my ear. “Do you remember? What hurts you the most?” His voice was low, but I heard the question behind the question.
I was careful with my reply, knowing exactly what he meant. “I remember that you came back.”
This seemed to satisfy him. “I don’t know if I can forgive and forget so quickly,” he said. “I’m not like you, Bear. After all that I did, you still found some way to forgive me. I don’t know if I can do the same with my parents. It hurts too much.”
I turned in his arms and cupped his face. “I forgave you because I love you,” I told him, that gold-green sparkling in the dark. “I forgave you because I needed to in order to forgive myself. You’ll do the same. You’ll see.”
“And how do you know that?” he whispered hoarsely. “How can you know?”
I smiled at him and gave him the words he’d once gifted to me. “I have faith,” I said simply.
He kissed me, long and deep, but not before I saw the shine in his eyes.
WHAT is it about brothers that make us act so much differently than we normally would? Why is there a bond there that doesn’t exist anywhere else? I can’t answer that, even though Tyson is my brother
, even though Creed is my brother, even though Otter has grown to be more than my brother. My brothers shaped me to be who I am, whether or not I knew what was happening, and in return, I’d like to think I had a part in shaping them.
These are the men (and one Kid) that I will need for the rest of my life. They might anger me, they might hurt me, they might make me want to pull my hair out, but I will never forget what I’ve learned from them, because regardless of what else happens, regardless of who we are or what we’ll become, they are my brothers, and they are mine.
SO WE were told what we were, and although it didn’t immediately fix the tension between Otter and his parents, it was at least a start. You can’t just wipe away years of rigidity with a single conversation, no matter how sincere it might have been. I think, in fact, it might have made things slightly worse for Otter, at least for a short time, that the explanation for his parents’ reticence was one of family, of brothers. But regardless of the reasoning, I could still feel bitter for him, that they would let a ghost from their past cloud their relationship with their son. Even if we both could understand what it meant to be haunted, years cannot be corrected in a matter of days.
I think Alice and Jerry knew that too. They stepped back and gave Otter time to think, time to figure things out on his own. They knew as well as I did that he would come to the right conclusion, if only given time. I wasn’t kidding when I told him that I had faith in him. I do. I know he’ll see it for what it is, and a day in the not so distant future will come, and Otter will wake up one morning and be past everything that has been gnawing at him. It’s not in Otter’s nature to hold grudges. He’s not like the rest of us.
I don’t know what I did to deserve him, that’s for damn sure.
It’s this I’m trying to keep in mind when he comes to me a few days later with a request so mind-boggling that I can’t seem to wrap my mind around it.
He wants me to what?
It’s Thursday night. I’m sitting at the kitchen table, trying to work through my psychology homework, not understanding the reading, wondering if maybe I could get Eddie to help me, but then getting the image in my head of Eddie asking me how the book makes me feel, and I shudder and shove that idea right out. It’s probably better to fail on my own than ask my brother’s gonzo therapist to help me. I consider briefly asking Isaiah to go over it with me, but I don’t think Otter would like that very much. He’s made it very clear he’d be okay if Isaiah was no longer subject to the laws of gravity and fell off the face of the earth, careening into space as his flesh froze against his bones (you think I’m exaggerating when I say that—I’m actually toning it down quite a bit; Otter really doesn’t like Isaiah). It’s my fault, really; I’d made the mistake of telling him that Isaiah had kissed me, however brief it might have been. I assured him that I had done nothing to bring it on (“Are you kidding?” he scowled. “You bring those things on by breathing”) and that I didn’t respond (at least my lips hadn’t; my dick… well, that’s another matter entirely. And don’t give me that look. I’m a guy in my early twenties who just discovered sex with men is fun; I can get a hard-on just by thinking about it. It’s not like Isaiah did anything special, so hush).
