Fate

Chapter 1: First There Was Brian-2

“Amen to that,” said my mom before catching herself. “When are you, um, leaving?” The last word came out in a whisper. Leaving. Like cancer. I fought not to hear it, even though it buzzed around my head like a swarm of angry hornets.

Lisa wiped the tears from her face and straightened herself up, while Ma seemed to scrunch into herself, legs high, arms wrapped around her knees. She was now a ball. She liked to do that with me as well, calling herself Lucille Ball. “Here comes Lucy,” she’d playfully holler, rolling into my bedroom. I never got the joke, though I liked the ball routine just the same. Only, now it was scary.

“Two weeks,” came the also whispered reply, which I heard all too loud and clear.

“Two weeks? Who can pack and move in two weeks?”

Lisa shrugged. “Ted’s company is doing it all. They want him there as quickly as possible.”

I’d always liked Ted. Ted was one of those chill dads who never hollered when you got too noisy or when you dropped ice cream on the carpet. Now, I hated him. Hate built up inside my little body. Hate and fear. What, after all, was I going to do without Brian?

* * * *

Two weeks passed like two minutes. We saw little of them during that time; they were too busy packing, tying up loose ends. Ironically, that’s what we were now: loose ends, frayed, tearing at the seams.

The day before they left, the two families again got together. Ma and Lisa went to the kitchen. Dad and Ted disappeared out back. And Brian and I went to my room, my stomach tied up into so many knots that it’d take years of Boy Scout training to untie them all. Not that I was ever a Boy Scout, mind you. Ma didn’t like organized groups. Don’t even get her started on religion.

“What’s Pittsburg like?” I remember asking.

He shrugged. “You know what California’s like?” I nodded.

“Well, not like that.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.”

Silence invaded my bedroom. Which was odd, because the two of us in there usually meant quite a bit of racket. “We’ll keep in touch,” I said, mainly because it sounded like the thing to say, but even as I uttered the words, I realized how unlikely that would be. I was seven, after all, with no cell phone and only a rudimentary understanding of e­mail. And since I was years away from having my own computer, that wasn’t even an option. “I’ll, uh, call.”

“Uh huh,” he exhaled. He looked hopeful and yet doubtful at the same time.

“I will.”

He sat on my bed. I sat next to him. It was weirdly uncomfortable, despite the fact that we’d sat on my bed countless times before.

“I don’t want to go,” he said, clearly holding back the tears now.

I nodded. “I don’t want you to go either.” I looked down, then up, those eyes of his so close I could just about take a dip in them. “I’ll, you know, miss you. You’re my…you’re my best friend.”

A tear finally leaked out. “Can I…can I ask you something?” I nodded. He gulped. “Can I, um, give you a kiss goodbye?”

I scrunched my face up. “Boys don’t kiss other boys.” That sounded right. That sounded wrong. And, still, it sounded like something I wanted to hear from him even though I didn’t know why.

“I know, it’s just…” he started and then stopped, his eyes momentarily looking away. “That’s okay, never mind.”

He started to stand up. I pulled him back down. “No, it’s fine. It’s a kiss goodbye. Our moms kiss goodbye all the time.”

He nodded. “All the time. And hello, too.”

I nodded. Then I waited. He seemed unsure of how to proceed, even though it was his idea. I sidled in next to him, our skinny bare knees now touching. He paused one more time and placed his lips on mine. The kiss was quick and awkward, soft and nice, weird and comforting. It was all those things and more. And when it was over, he jumped up and ran from my room.

It was the last I’d see of him. Until it wasn’t.

And when I looked down at my lap, I remembered that my d**k was hard. I have few memories of my childhood that weren’t forever captured on film. But that, that moment I remember clearly, have always remembered, even as the image of us in my head long ago blurred.

I knew the word boner. I’d learned it in school, in the hallways. Still, if I’d had one before that moment, I have no recollection of it. Perhaps this one was simply more memorable. I also knew the word fag. Queer. They were just words, words with very little meaning. They were bad words. I didn’t associate them with me, not then, not even after he kissed me, not even as I sat there with my seven-year-old stiffie. All I knew then was that I’d miss him.

* * * *

So what happened after that? Well, the adults talked by phone a lot those first three months. Sometimes I’d get on the line and say a quick hello to Brian, but it always felt forced. Kids don’t talk like that; kids play. And then it didn’t much matter because the calls quickly tapered off and then stopped altogether.

Mom went back on the road, mostly on weekends, and frequently took me with her, leaving Elsie with Dad. And so, the road became my friend. And the other comics became my friends. And the cheap motels became my second home, until I knew each of them by name. By the start of summer, I knew her entire routine backward and forward, every d**k and v****a joke, even though I didn’t understand any of them, not a lick—no pun intended. And as each joke filled my head, the memories of Brian got pushed away, until they almost didn’t seem real at all, more like a dream than anything else.

* * * *

Before I knew it, I was eight, nine, and the double digits ten. I hadn’t spoken to Brian in almost two years, and the adults hadn’t spoken either. Despite all that, I always remembered the kiss. I tried to forget it. Honestly, I did. I knew what it meant now. Another guy had kissed me, even if the other guy was nothing more than a kid. And even though the adults kissed, all friendly like, Brian’s kiss wasn’t the same, at least not to me. It was wrong. I knew it, felt it, even without putting words to it. Words such as fag and queer. Words that you heard more and more of the older you got. Words you used even if only to distance yourself from them.

Sometimes at night, I’d sneak down to the living room and look at the pictures of us, of him, at his eyes that were so blue they almost didn’t look real. And it was then I’d remember the kiss, even as I fought against it, even as the boner sprang up, seemingly with a mind of its own.

Sometimes I’d pop it out and look at it, thrilled at the sight of it, at the feel. It looked so different like this, like another limb. I’d go get a mirror and look at it from all angles, above and below, on both sides, wondering at it, curious as to what the adults did with theirs, ashamed of those thoughts at the same time.

And then I wondered what Brian’s looked like now. I’d seen his when we were kids, when we changed in and out of bathing suits. I looked at his back then, just cursory glances, curious peeks. His looked like mine, small and insignificant, almost like another pinky. But what about now? Did his grow like mine did? Was it bigger, smaller? Would he grow blond hairs down there? Would I grow brown ones? And why was I thinking these thoughts? Was that normal?

I put the photo albums away. I put the mirror away. I put my d**k away, always promising myself I’d stop looking, stop remembering, stop these thoughts. Though I always went back to them just the same.

* * * *

At fifteen, I simply stopped telling myself that I was like the other kids I went to school with. I never thought about girls, at least not in the way my guy friends did. I played with girls, hung out with them, studied with them, but as to dating one, nah, no good; it wasn’t in me. I was gay. I knew it. And not because of the kiss. The kiss was great. The kiss, or at least the memory of it, now made me smile when I thought of it, nothing more. No, I was gay because I was gay. There’s no easier way of putting it.

When I first realized this, or at least first admitted it, accepted it, to a degree, I thought about calling Brian. I’d never had another friend like him. There was a connection there like none I’d had since. Sure, I had friends, good friends, many friends, but Brian had been like a piece of me. When he left, that piece went with him, never to return, to get filled in by another.

I didn’t call him, though. What would I say, anyway? I’m gay, are you? Even as a teenager, I knew that wasn’t a conversation you had on the phone, especially with someone who, by and large, was more a memory than anything else.

So I kept it to myself. No big deal. Life was busy enough as it was. I had school, weekends on the road with Ma from time to time, track, swimming, studying. If girls were interested in me, I hadn’t a clue. As for me liking guys, sure, I stared in the locker room, but that was it. Fifteen-year-old guys didn’t ask other guys out on dates, at least back then. Still, I was fine with that, at peace with it. In fact, it terrorized me to even think about it, so I simply didn’t.

And then at sixteen, fate stepped in.

I often wondered about the notion, about fate. What were the odds that our moms ended up having us so far away from home, unplanned, in a hospital they never heard of before? Multiply those odds by the odds that they lived so close to one another, then multiply them again by the odds that they’d ever become friends, given the fact of who and what they were. When you totaled it all up, the odds racked up to way over one in a million. And yet there we were, two families merged together, at least for a good amount of years.

Anyway, back to sixteen.

Ma was on the road for the summer. At the last minute, I decided to go with her for two weeks, leaving Elsie with dad. She was daddy’s little girl, while I was clearly a mama’s boy. The arrangement always worked for us. I suppose I loved my little sister, but the age gap, not to mention the s*x one, was hard to bridge.

Besides, I loved the road, the motels, sitting in the back of the clubs watching Ma get laughs for money. I loved room service and snacks in mini-sizes, loved the way trees and houses looked as you whizzed by them, wondering who lived inside, what they looked like, what they were doing at the time we were driving by.

That night we were outside of Portland, having done eight shows since we’d been on the road together. Most of them were in small clubs, the occasional hotel bar. Didn’t matter; Ma loved them all.

And then she walked in.

I almost didn’t recognize her. Nine years did a lot to a kid’s face and body. Nine years did the same to an adult’s. She’d went from twenty-one to thirty. So, yeah, she looked different, especially in the dim light of the bar. In fact, I wasn’t even sure it was her, Lisa. I mean, she lived in Pittsburg, last I knew. And this was Oregon, which was nowhere near. Not to mention, we were out in the boonies of Oregon, which is what most of Oregon is, I suppose.