by Lori L. Otto
“So, lunch is on me today,” I tell him when we find a place to sit in the crowded cafe.
“Big spender! I’m going for the coconut pie… a whole one.”
“Whatever you want, man.”
“What’d I do?” he asks me.
“I never properly thanked you for last week.”
“Well, fuck, this ain’t enough to do that, either,” he says, looking at our surroundings. “Brun’s Cafe? No way. A steakhouse. A coupl’a trips, maybe.”
“We need to get back on the road then. I’m running outta cash–fast.”
“You need to sign that deal, is what needs to happen.”
“It’s still in the hands of a lawyer. Apparently, a pro-bono contract review isn’t top priority, for some reason,” I explain. “If I take the deal, you can pick any restaurant back home.”
“That’s better.”
He gulps down an entire large soda before getting up for a refill and ordering a chocolate shake. Someday, our metabolism’s gonna catch up with the both of us, but thankfully, it’s lagging behind us now.
“So Damon, thank you for flying out there for Shea, and helping her make that night such a success, and–most importantly–for bringing her back here. That was one of the coolest things you’ve ever done for me, and… there’s a string of awesome things you’ve done for me over the past eight years, you know?”
“Yeah, I know,” he boasts. I chuckle. “See? Not only would I never take advantage of your girl, Will…” he starts, referring to my worry about him and Shea together, alone, “but I take care of my brother.”
“You do. You take really good care of me. Always have.” I scratch the back of my neck, embarrassed that I ever thought he would do anything to betray me. That’s not the kind of guy he is. “I’m grateful to you, I am. Grateful to get to play with you, to tour with you, to be friends with you… all of it.”
“You forgot to live with me,” he adds.
“Yeah, you’re not the cleanest roommate,” I joke with him. He blows the end of his straw wrapper at me. “Nice. See? That’s what I’m talking about.”
“They tell you about Europe?” he asks me over lunch.
It takes me a second to meet his eyes. “Yeah.”
“What do you think?”
“Extraordinary opportunity, man. When else would we get to see that part of the world, right? And they love you over there. Have you seen the charts?” I ask him. He nods. “Yeah, it’s just amazing, but… but you knew this was temporary.”
“Will, come on…”
“There are things out there to discover!” I tell him, pointing at the sky. “Big things! Tiny things! Things I have to know about before I die… we’re so close.”
“Then let your team back home make the discoveries.”
“I wanna be there. I have to go back to school, man. And it’ll take years to build the telescopes and satellites we need. I’ve gotta be a part of it.”
“Why’d you have to be such a fucking nerd?”
“I’m convinced that if I didn’t live and understand science and math like I do, I wouldn’t feel and play music like I do. I used to see music in colors, but as I learned more in school, it became colors and numbers. When I was teaching myself songs, they were their own intricate problems for me to solve, not always strictly by sound, either. So you take the nerd out of me, you take it all. You leave this lifeless shell of someone who can’t think or create. I’d be some kid you step over on the street corner–give him a few bucks from your pocket and walk on past.”
“I know all this, Will. Just trying to guilt you into it.”
“It won’t work,” I tell him.
“I know that, too. You must get your hard-headedness from your mom, because you and both your brothers all have it.”
“She does stand her ground…” I say pensively.
“Wow. That might be the nicest thing you’ve ever said about her.” I glare at him. “And it’s sad, but…” We both acknowledge the truth in his statement by nodding our heads.
Once on the road to Claremont, I shut myself in my bunk with my headphones on and return to the solitude I’ve allowed myself to be without for the past few weeks. I feel bad for Max; that he’s faced with such an intrusive assignment in the first place. I’m sure years ago, a family tree was an innocuous thing that had merit and value, but these days, when there are so many broken homes, it has to cause pain to more families than just ours.
I text Max.
- “What’s your teacher’s name?”
- - “Mrs. Ernstwhile.”
This may be cathartic, or good therapy for me. It may be good preparation for the conversation I fully intend to have in person with my father in February: week twenty-five, when we’re in Colorado, even though no one knows and no one would approve. Maybe writing this would have been good for Max, and I should have let him handle it on his own. Maybe it’s selfish that I took this over. Regardless, I have to make it good enough for it to make an impression on my little brother, too.
I open my Notes app and start writing a draft of the email I intend to send:
Dear Mrs. Ernstwhile,
My younger brother, Max Scott, informed me earlier today of his family tree project for your class. Please forgive me for stepping in. I’m not his legal guardian, but I don’t believe anyone can relate to Max’s circumstance quite like I can.
After discussing my brother’s homework, we both decided to leave the space for our father empty. Therefore, any ancestors that came before him will also be missing. It’s not because Max didn’t want to put in the time to research. He has. In fact, he completed this same exact project two years ago at his old school, and it’s probably sitting in his closet at home. The blanks were filled in then. There were even accompanying photos of family members we’d never met.
I am Max’s only full-blood brother. We share the same parents. As you can see from his chart, our mother is Margie Scott, maiden name Phelps. We were grateful to have an older half-brother named Jon. You don’t have a line for “father figure,” I presume, but if you did, Jon would go there.
Our family doesn’t fit into the perfect little diagram. I know when I was in school, they handed out special, custom trees so kids could include their step-parents. Obviously, this homework wasn’t being done for any genealogical record. I think it was a decision the school-board made to appease some parents and make them sleep better with their second (or third or fourth) spouses at night.
The problem is that our tree was hacked down by an axe-wielding maniac when I was very young–before Max was even born. My father was such a disappointment to his parents for choices he made that they decided they didn’t want to see him anymore. I’m guessing he was in his early twenties when this happened, because it had already taken place from my earliest memory of him. There was already this “detached” quality to him. When he was clean, which wasn’t often, he would tell us he’d never be like his parents.
But he was never there for us, and for me, I made the same decision his parents made. I didn’t want to see him anymore.
Fuck. How fucked up did my parents actually make me? I tried to stay away from them both, but I somehow learned from him to push people away, and be somewhat of an addict from my mom.
Max was better than I was. He was the same kid back then that he is today. Outgoing and friends with everyone. Always making people laugh. Always seeing the good side of people. Our criminal father and alcoholic mother–they were no exception. I wanted to rip off his rose-colored glasses sometimes, but Jon would do everything short of tackling me to the ground and holding my hands behind my back to make sure I didn’t. And I’m grateful he did that, because I would have tampered with Max’s kind, funny, genuine soul, and I never would have forgiven myself.
This man that Max and I knew as our father for most of our life made the conscious decision to walk away from my little brother a few months ago. I could feel sorry for the man and say that he was just doing what he lea
rned from his own parents, but he wasn’t. Max had never done anything to disappoint him. No choices Max had made were bad ones.
He just doesn’t like who Max is.
And there’s something fundamentally crazy and wrong and inhuman about that.
For that, we don’t acknowledge him as our father, or as a human who exists on this planet, for that matter, because he doesn’t deserve to walk on the same soil that the rest of us do. I’d volunteer to ship him to another planet, but as an astrophysicist, I care too much about protecting the pristine nature of our vast universe to do that, either. We’ve decided not to be angry or to hate. We are just indifferent and we are moving forward with our lives and with the people who accept us and make us happy.
Neither Max nor I wish to document the existence of this man on his homework.
I caution you when assigning such a project in the future. It’s not simply that some children may have multiple sets of parents these days, or that some parents may have left, which is also a painful situation for many kids. Some adults are just cruel people and don’t deserve to be mentioned at all.
Thank you for your time and thoughtful consideration of this matter.
Sincerely,
Will Rosser (soon-to-be Scott)
I lied. I lied in the message, and I’m sure it shows, but I am still angry with him. I do hate him. I wish I could simply be indifferent, but I can’t fathom how anyone could treat Max the way he treated him. I’ll never forget what he’d said in the voicemail he left me:
“Will, you got some nerve. And tell your queer brother to stop leaving me messages. I don’t have no sons no more.” I’d never felt like his son, but the words still cut through me. When I let Max hear the voicemail, I regretted it instantly.
The look on my little brother’s face was pure devastation. I’d seen hints of that look more than I’d wanted to over the summer, but this was a low point for him. He’d tried to make his relationship with my father work–all his life. The second he found out Max was gay, that was it.
But then Max, in true Max-fashion, worked up the nerve to call him from my phone and gave him more than a piece of his mind. He was fucking brilliant.
I was so proud of him. But shit, I’m always proud of that kid.
Chapter 17
“The guys aren’t gonna miss you tonight, are they?” Jon asks me on the way to the fancy hotel twenty-five minutes south of the concert venue in San Diego. He’d asked for some time to talk in private–which I thought was a good idea–so he booked a suite for one night in between the two sold out shows at the House of Blues.
“Peron’s gonna miss me horribly,” I tell him, scratching my head, “but everybody’s gotta learn to stand on their own two feet someday.”
“What have you been helping him with?” he asks.
“I’m a good wingman.”
“Ahhh…” my brother says with a chuckle.
“What’d you think of the show?”
“Phenomenal. You guys have really pulled it together since I last saw you. The sound is much tighter, I guess.”
“Yeah. There’s this weird, amoebic quality in a band,” I tell him, hoping he can relate to the visual I have in my head. “We just seem to start learning everyone’s nuances and moving in the same direction after being so close to one another.”
“One mind,” he says.
“One goal, one mind… one tiny fucking bus.” I grin at him.
“That Where Your Horizon Meets Mine song, Will. You wrote that?”
“Yeah.”
“Max has played it for me a few times… some bootlegged copy or something.”
“We recorded it on the bus and sold some EPs. They got leaked online, yeah.”
“It pales in comparison to seeing it live. I was… moved… by it.”
“Pussy,” I say to him, nudging him with my shoulder.
“I saw your eyes tear up, asshole. I was close enough to see that.”
“It’s a sad, fucking song. What can I say?”
“She die at the end?”
“Yeah.”
“Why’d you go and kill her?” my brother asks me.
“I didn’t deserve her. I didn’t deserve to be happy.” I have to clear my throat.
“Well, that got serious real fast.”
“That was just my thinking when I wrote it. That’s all.”
“All right,” he says.
“Anyway, the studio says Horizon has the potential to be nominated for Song of the Year once we record and officially release it. I know I’m not supposed to care about those things, but uh… that’d be pretty cool.”
“Would people still buy it when they can get it for free online?”
“Oh, it sounds totally new. We have a string part in the middle that I helped write. Not overproduced at all. It’s amazing, and they hired much better background singers than me. They said they were gonna release it ahead of the album–probably at the beginning of the year, so it’ll be good. I can’t wait to see the reaction when it’s officially out and getting airplay on all the stations.”
“Sounds like you’re having a good time,” he comments.
“Time of my life.”
“Are you happy you did it?”
“I would not change a thing,” I admit to him, thinking of all the opportunities I’ve had since this tour began that would not have come to me had I stayed at my job in New York.
“I’m glad you didn’t listen to me.” I would have expected it to have been harder for him to say that to me, but it flowed easily off his tongue.
“I’m glad I didn’t, too.”
“Listen, the lawyers say that the contract looks sound, Will. I had Jack look it over, too. The only thing I have questions about is the quantity. Is fifteen too many songs?”
“No… I’m surprised they asked for so few, actually.”
He nods his head, thinking. “And you could do all that from the road with Damon?”
I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. “You saw the start date was after the tour ended,” I press him, wondering if he’s digging for more info from me.
“He’s getting bigger and bigger, Will. You think I don’t know they’re planning to lengthen the tour? There are rumors about it all over the internet. Europe, Asia…”
“Asia, too?” I ask him. “So, yeah, they’re planning.” No point in hiding it.
“I know the lure of international travels. I couldn’t turn down Brazil when I got the offer, either.”
“Well, had Livvy not had an offer, too, you would have.”
“Yeah,” he admits. “I would have considered it, but I wouldn’t have left her. You’re right.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to CERN. Literally, that’s all I’ve been thinking about since I found out about Europe. How many days could we park it in Geneva, and would they miss me if I just disappeared for awhile?”
“You’d probably have a better chance of going there if you went back to your old job,” he says.
“Exactly,” I agree. “Which is why I’m gonna do that.”
I hurry down to the hotel restaurant after I’ve showered and rested for a half hour. The hostess takes me to a booth near the back of the place where Jon’s nursing a beer.
“You didn’t have to dress up,” he says to me, reaching across the table and tugging on my tie.
“Well, you were, so…” I shrug my shoulders. “Plus, look at this place.”
“Get comfortable, Will. Yeah, this place is fancy, but I don’t want you to feel like you have to be someone you’re not. Here.” He takes off his tie and sets it on the table.
“Okay.” I follow suit, then unbutton the top button of my shirt, taking a deep breath. “Better.”
“Good.” I take a drink of the Coke that’s already waiting for me.
“Hungry?” he asks, checking his watch. “It’s late.”
“Starving,” I tell him. “I don’t eat much before shows. We go out a lot after.”
�
��Let’s order something then.” I settle on a steak, while Jon orders the sea bass. While we wait, we both look at each other nervously for a few seconds before he speaks. “Are you sure I’m not cramping your style by making you come here tonight?”
“No, Jon. If Peron and I aren’t trying to find him a date, we’re at a late-night diner, talking about the show before we head back to the bus or hotel to write. And we just did three weeks of intense writing. Plus, now with these offers on the table, it’s weird to know what song belongs to whom… it’s kind of weird until we hash all that out.”
“That sucks… but, uh… going back, and I hope you don’t mind me asking, but you didn’t mention trying to find you a date.”
“No, I didn’t,” I say, breezing over it. “Just focusing on Peron right now. He just got dumped, remember?”
“I do remember.”
“Speaking of cramping styles, what about you? I’m not keeping you up too late, right?”
“Are you kidding? I’m out with another adult and I can sleep as late as I want tomorrow. There’s no chance a baby’s waking me up in the middle of the night. I’ll stay up as late as you want.”
“I thought you had meetings in the morning,” I remind him.
“I lied,” he says. “I just wanted to see you, and I’ve been wanting to check out this hotel. I’m just here for you.”
I fold my hands in my lap and nod toward him. “Well, thanks for coming. That really means a lot. And it really is good to see you–not just because you’re a little bit of home, but to actually see you. I don’t feel like it’s just been a couple months.”
“I know,” he says, looking sad. “I kind of feel like I’m seeing you with fresh eyes today, Will. And I’m so glad to see my little brother. I’ve missed you so much.”
“So,” I say, trying to segue into something less emotional, “can we get some business out of the way? Max didn’t send me my bills and I asked him to give them to you.”
