Dr. Evans was very calm and quiet when she replied. “You just described being a great big brother, not a dad, Taco. You’d be a perfect big brother to any kid. I know it.”
“No, dads do that stuff. And feed the kid too.”
“How would you instruct your…let’s say your son…if his girlfriend couldn’t see him anymore? Would you suggest he go over to her house to climb it? Would you tell him to secretly meet her to have sex in private parts of the school?”
“Me and Maggie never had sex in the school,” I said. “Never!”
“Did you take off your clothes?”
“Well…how do you know about that?”
“Don Jackson swears he saw you two naked when he was mopping the stage, but when I got to the costume loft to investigate, it was locked. Did you take off your clothes in the costume loft, Taco? Be honest.”
“Yeah, a few times. But I’d never tell my kid to do that, okay? And I wouldn’t tell him to climb a house. I’m not dumb.”
“You’re not dumb, Taco. You’re so bright in many ways. But you aren’t always smart in other ways.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Okay, that’s true.” Really, I knew that, dingus. There was plenty of evidence.
“Not that it’s terminal. It won’t be like that forever. You’re just not acting smart now because you have a kid’s brain tucked in an adult’s body. Some things that seem like good ideas—and maybe are good ideas for a kid—are terrible ideas for an adult.”
“Really?” I said.
“Really,” Dr. Evans said. “Do you want your child to be affected by your appropriately immature decision making?”
“Oh, crap, no. Of course not,” I said.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I put my hand on my forehead because it felt hot. “I don’t like this,” I said.
Dr. Evans smiled. Then she said, “You know, your brother, Darius, is in the same boat, Taco. He looks like an adult, but he’s not ready to be an adult. Maybe there’s been a little too much pressure on the both of you since your mother died. Have you ever considered that?”
“No,” I said. “But yeah, that could be true.”
“Okay,” Dr. Evans said. “Here’s what I’m going to do, and I need you to go along with it…or else. Got it?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Or else. I get it. Thank you.”
“I’m going to send you home today. I want you to stay there and be quiet. Call your dad if you want. Call Sergeant Frederick if you need to. I saw him at the grocery store over the weekend, and he wanted to know how you were doing, so he’d be a good person to call if you’re comfortable talking to him.”
I offered, “I could talk to Mr. Nussbaum. He’s nice to me.”
Dr. Evans paused over that. “The lawyer?”
I nodded.
Then she said, “Or Coach Johnson maybe? You can call me too, if I seem like the right person to talk to. But, Taco, you spend the rest of the day thinking about what’s happened and what comes next for you. Sort things out. I want you back here tomorrow and Friday to serve an in-school suspension. I’ll make sure you have the assignments you need from your classes so you’ll be up to date. If it goes well, I’ll let you attend classes regularly on Monday.”
I leaned forward and asked the only question that was dangling out there in front of me. “What do you want me to sort out exactly?”
“This situation with you wanting to be a father. Ask yourself a lot of questions. Do some hard thinking, Taco. What do you really want? You’re not going to be a playmate or a brother. You’re going to be a father. Make sure you understand what that really means—the consequences for both you and a baby. I’m concerned that you’re not seeing things exactly as they are. This isn’t a mental health diagnosis, okay? It’s developmentally appropriate. Do you understand?”
“No?” I said.
“Okay, Taco. Listen. You’re a bit delusional, which is charming when the stakes are low but potentially disastrous when they’re not.”
I sat back and thought for a moment. And then it hit me. “Oh, I totally get it. Just like Mr. Corrigan said. This is really real.”
“Yes,” Dr. Evans said. “It really is.”
Chapter 28
That whole afternoon, Maggie Corrigan called and called the suite. She left like a hundred and twenty messages in three hours, but I didn’t pick up. I guess she got kicked out of cheerleading because one of the rules in the athletic contract includes, “Don’t get knocked up.” I felt bad because she was really upset and she wanted to talk. She said she was worried about me, which maybe she was. But I didn’t answer, and I didn’t call her back. Instead I locked the door so I could think without my pregnant girlfriend barging in to stop me from sorting out my business.
I pulled out all the things I’d made or written out about the baby, all the drawings, the notes on calendars, the calculations, etc. I studied them.
Made me sad. Seemed reasonable that this stuff would make me sad.
I stared out the window for a long time. I really thought.
Around four, instead of walking over to Nussbaum’s office, I called him. I didn’t call to tell him I wasn’t coming in. I called to thank him for being nice when my own dad had apparently abandoned me and my brother.
He paused for a few seconds after that and then asked, “Where are you, amigo?”
“At home.”
“You don’t want to come to the office to talk?” he asked.
“There was a little trouble at school, and Dr. Evans said I need to stay here and think.”
“How’s that working for you?” he asked.
“Pretty good,” I said. “I’m calm anyway.” It was pretty weird because Mom used to say exactly that when she was checking in on me. How’s that working for you?
“Did this school trouble have anything to do with Maggie Corrigan?” he asked.
“Yeah. Something. Everything,” I said. I sat down at the dining room table and picked up the picture of the wise lion I’d made for Maggie in the fall, the one I thought I’d paint on the suite wall. I shook my head. So stupid.
“You go ahead and think. How about I take you out for a doughnut before school tomorrow morning?”
“Yeah, Mr. Nussbaum. Sounds good.”
And it did sound good. I really like Mr. Nussbaum, even if Emily Cook’s dad says he’s a scoundrel and the mention of his name caused Dr. Evans to lose her train of thought.
I felt pretty good hanging up the phone. There was something to look forward to. Doughnut with old Nussbaum. But the feeling of stability didn’t last because right then somebody tried to come in the house. I could hear the creak as the screen door swung open. I dropped to the floor and crawled into the hall, heart pounding. Someone twisted and jiggled the doorknob. Oh crap, I thought. I was certain it was Maggie Corrigan, and I couldn’t talk to her because I knew that she made me delusional. Seriously! My love for her made me crazy, right? I want to drink her. I want to swim like a dolphin with her. I had to be alone. I had to follow Dr. Evans’s advice. The screen door crashed shut and then reopened.
I stayed in the hall, where there are no windows she might see me through. I waited, barely able to catch my breath. The person rattled the doorknob again and pounded. I slid down flat on the floor and rolled up into a little Taco ball.
Then I heard, “Aw shit, please!” from the doorstep.
I couldn’t believe it. It was Darius.
I ran to open the door. He stood on the step in dark blue sweats and his coat.
“Oh Christ, Darius. You didn’t escape from prison, did you?”
Darius shook his head as he pushed past me into the house. “No, I guess they let people out pretty quick for good behavior. They only have like ten beds up there, so there isn’t enough room to keep dumb drunks for their whole sentences.”
“You’ve only been gone ten days,” I said. “I…I don’t know. Is that enough time?”
He pulled off his coat and dropped it on the floor. “Yeah.”
“Good,” I said, although I really wasn’t sure. “So I guess you behaved well?”
“I didn’t fight with anybody. I watched TV, and I didn’t talk, so I behaved well.”
“That’s great!”
Darius glared at me. “Cut the shit, man. Cut the shit right now.”
“Okay. I’m sorry. I’m just glad you’re out.”
“I bet. Now I can make money to keep you warm and fed, right?”
“No,” I said. “I’m glad you’re free.” Then I hugged him, and he went limp like a dead fish.
“I gotta go to bed now,” he said. “Let go of me.”
Darius went downstairs and passed out, and I relocked the front door.
The rest of the afternoon there were three phone calls and three knocks at the door, but I didn’t answer. I just hunkered down in the hall where no one could see me. I meditated on my situation. At five thirty, when it was dark, I decided I could leave the house. I decided I had to.
I exited, carrying a pillow and my blanket.
No, dingus, I wasn’t heading over to Maggie Corrigan’s for a sleepover. Even though it was a Wednesday and not my shift, I headed to the hospital. How about this? I’d signed up Maggie and me for the birth class, and the first session was that night.
And no, dingus, I wasn’t going because of my capacity for delusion. I was going because—I’d come up with this while hanging in the hall—what better place to figure out what it means to be a dad than a birth class?
The instructions in the class brochure said that each couple had to bring a pillow and blanket. That’s why I carried that through the polar bear night.
Mrs. Poller, my boss, sat at a little decorated card table next to the hospital reception desk. When I entered, carrying that pillow and blanket, she looked pretty confused.
“Hi, there,” I said. “Here for my class.”
“I saw that you were on the list. William Keller and partner? That’s Maggie Corrigan, I’m going to assume? I believe she’s pregnant, isn’t she?” Ms. Poller sounded all weird and skeptical.
“Uh, yeah. I don’t think she’ll be joining me though,” I said.
“Oh,” Ms. Poller said.
I checked out the decorations festooning the table. There were little baby booties and some tiny diapers and a little baby beanie that some grandma must’ve knitted, and there were a bunch of baby pictures on a poster board. (Alumni, said the caption.) And there was a little plastic first-aid kit filled with baby shampoo bottles and some Q-tips and a little thing of rubbing alcohol and some kind of ointment in a squeeze tube.
“What’s the muck in the squeeze tube for?” I asked.
“Diaper rash,” Ms. Poller said.
“Ouch,” I said. “Poor kids get their butts burned by poop, huh?”
“Yes.” Ms. Poller nodded. Then she said in a whisper, “This class really is for couples, Taco.”
“Do you mind if I just attend as an observer then? Dr. Evans up at school would like me to sort things out, so I’m trying.”
Ms. Poller smiled and swallowed hard. “Taco,” she said, “you just break my heart.”
“I’m sorry.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“You’ll be meeting in the common room. Several couples are in there already. Go ahead,” Ms. Poller said.
Usually there are institutional lunch tables in the common room, but they were all folded up and pushed to the side. At the front of the room, there was a screen with a projector showing a baby inside a belly. For whatever reason, the kid looked like Darius, which was weird. Same facial expression.
The other couples were sitting on the floor on their blankets, and there was an iPod plugged into the projector speakers playing some yoga music, the kind Mom listened to when Dad would get pissed and head out to Toby’s Tap for beers. Two of the couples looked relaxed, but one of the guys in another couple was all jumpy, making stupid jokes. I’d actually seen this guy at the roller skating rink when I was a kid. He was an employee, the “skate cop” back then. He’d roll around acting cool, and he’d make lots of dumb jokes and stop teens from making out too hard by the snack stand. Didn’t seem like he’d changed much. His wife or girlfriend or whatever kept whispering to him in a voice you could totally hear. “Just stop, Craig. Calm down.”
Two more couples came in after me and put their stuff on the floor, so I put my blanket on the floor too, and yes, dingus, the couples all stared at me. One woman asked, “Are you here for school or something?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Trying to figure this whole deal out.” It seemed like I was telling the truth, even if my original plan was to be on a baby team with Maggie. A minute later, a woman with long hair, yoga pants, and clogs came into the room. (“Hippie,” that dude Craig whispered.) She said, “Welcome, welcome!” Ms. Poller came in too and handed everybody questionnaires to fill out, which included a section about what health insurance we’d be using to cover the class and delivery.
“I don’t know anything about insurance,” I whispered to her.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ms. Poller said. “You’re just observing.”
Then the yoga pants lady said, “I’m Jo, the nurse practitioner who will be leading you through the next month. I’m so happy you’ve decided to take this class. Giving birth can be stressful, right?”
“Right,” a few women agreed.
“The idea is that we’ll get ready for any possibility. We’ll control what we can control. We’ll get to know the things we can’t. We’ll give those things up to whatever our higher power is, and we’ll keep the stress low. Daddies, that’s your main job, okay? Lower the stress.”
Craig raised his hand.
“Yes?” Jo asked.
“So after the baby comes, how much time do we have to wait before we can get it on again?”
“You mean resume a normal sex life?” Jo asked.
“He’s worried his junk will turn blue and fall off,” his partner said.
“Oh, honey,” Jo said with fake sadness. “You’re going to be fine.”
“I don’t know. Ha-ha,” said Craig.
Some of the other moms-to-be and dads shook their heads at him.
Introductions followed. Everybody seemed a little nervous. I said I was observing for school. Craig made some more lame jokes about forgetting his condoms or whatever. Then the conversation swirled into basics: vaginal tearing during birth (got me dizzy) and some kind of surgical cutting called an episiotomy (made my mouth water like I might puke) and then into this, like, oil massaging that the ladies (or their partners) could do on some lady part called the perineum that might help that part be more supple and rubbery or whatever, which would keep it in shape and make it less likely to tear and make it more likely that the lady will be ready for more sex on the early end of things. Just in case the dad’s junk is turning blue and is in danger of falling off. And right then and there I barfed on the floor.
“Oh, honey!” Jo exclaimed.
“Oh, gross!” the woman next to me bellowed.
“Wait till he sees the birth videos!” Craig cried.
“Oh God. Oh man. I’m so sorry. It’s not about the women parts, okay?”
“I don’t think you’re ready for this, honey,” Jo said, standing up. “Katie! Katie!”
Then I started crying, which you know I don’t really do, dingus.
Another of the men leaned toward me and said, “I’m not interested in sex right now, kid. I just want my daughter to be healthy. That’s why I’m here. We’re not all like that guy.”
“Okay.” I hiccupped. “Okay.” That was good. I needed to hear that.
Then the night janitor came flying in with
a mop and bucket, followed by Ms. Poller, who helped me clean myself up out in the hall. I’d barfed mostly on my blanket, and she said she’d put it in the hospital laundry for me to pick up the next day at my shift. After that she said, “I don’t want you to go back in there, Taco.”
“I won’t barf again. Promise. That Craig guy just made me really sad, but the other guy is nice. I’ll be fine.”
“No, they’re going to watch videos of difficult births.”
“I can handle it. I’ve seen all kinds of blood since I’ve worked here.”
“That Craig fellow is going to make more bad jokes. I know his type. You’ll get to know his type too. But I can’t have you freaking out in the class, Taco. These new parents really need calm.”
“Why would he make jokes?”
“Because that’s how some people respond to difficult situations. By making dumb jokes. It’s a defense mechanism.”
I exhaled and put my head in my hands. “I think I kind of do that sometimes.”
“You’re going to be okay.”
I looked up at her. “I’m not ready for this, Ms. Poller.”
“For what?”
“Just everything, you know? I have the maturity level of Craig, except it doesn’t make him barf to be that way.”
“It probably should,” Ms. Poller said.
“Yeah, well, it doesn’t, and what does that mean?”
“Adults can be awful,” Ms. Poller said.
“This is real,” I said. I shook my head. “I need some water.”
Chapter 29
I was only gone from the suite for a couple hours, but that was enough time for Darius to turn into a destroyer. As I walked up the block to the house, I sensed something was wrong. The front inside door was wide open. Has Darius gone stupid? He knows how much that heat is going to cost! I thought.
I burst in through the screen door all ready to lose my mind at Darius for leaving the interior door ajar, but what I found was that Darius had already lost his. He sat in the middle of the floor in the living room. Behind him, Dad’s old recliner had been turned over. In front of him was a giant pile of ripped up paper and photos. He had a bottle of Jack Daniel’s to his left that was two-thirds empty. He must’ve been chugging. He also had scissors and a steak knife lying on the carpet on his right. He held up an old photo album, and he was tearing out the pages.
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