The Porcupine of Truth Read online

  “Thanks so much,” I say again. “Really. This is so nice of you.”

  Aisha says, “I was serious about the house cleaning. Even a house this big. Totally worth it.”

  Mrs. Bailey laughs. “No need, no need. Heavenly Father asks us to welcome others as we would be welcomed.” She explains that her husband, Robert, is at work, but he knows we’re around, and we should help ourselves to some cookies, as she’s made more than she needs for her committee meeting.

  After she leaves, I look at Aisha. As soon as Stacy Bailey said, ‘Heavenly Father,’ I got that we were in a Mormon household, and I remembered Aisha’s No fucking Mormons rule.

  “I feel like I’m being tested,” she says.

  “Come on,” I say. “She’s really, really nice.”

  “Yeah, you don’t get it.”

  For some reason, maybe because I’m tired and I am so looking forward to sleeping in a comfortable bed for once, I decide to push Aisha a bit. “How is you grouping all Mormons together any better than other people grouping all gay people together?”

  She scowls at me and shakes her head. “Yeah,” she says. “You really, really don’t get it, do you?”

  I put my hands on my hips. “I guess I don’t.”

  She looks away. “Well, never mind, then,” she says. She shakes her head as she walks out of the kitchen, leaving me with a slight pang in my chest and a plate of cookies to eat on my own. I’m so hungry that I devour two in about ten seconds.

  “Cookies? Awesome sauce,” Gareth says, bouncing into the kitchen. He puts an entire cookie in his mouth. Then he pulls a carton of milk from the fridge, chugs from it, puts it back, and belches.

  I wince. I guess I won’t be drinking any milk while I’m here.

  The guy salutes me and says, “Gareth. As in the disappointing son. Are you the new converts? Did they baptize you yet?”

  For once, I’m speechless. He grabs another cookie and smiles. “I’m kidding,” he says while chewing with his mouth open. “I’m used to this by now. People come through all the time. My shrink says it’ll broaden my worldview. I personally think it’ll be the reason I need a shrink, when one of you guests tries to suffocate me in my sleep.”

  “Um,” I say.

  He looks up. “Don’t listen to me. I talk before I think. Gets me in trouble. So who are you? Do you know you’re the first interracial couple my folks have allowed in here? We’re talking serious fucking progress, dude, serious.”

  I laugh. “Awesome,” I say, not sure of what to make of this guy.

  “They’re totally rad now. Like, my dad saw a beer in my room and he didn’t have a coronary. It was awesome, dude. Insane.”

  “I’m Carson,” I say.

  “Gareth,” he tells me again.

  “So you’re Mormon and you drink.”

  “Jack Mormon,” he says.

  “Um. Like Jack Daniel’s?”

  He rolls his eyes at me. “Where are you from, Mars?”

  “New York.”

  “City?”

  I nod.

  “Fucking awesome! Jack Mormons, we’re like, we haven’t left the church and we like the community and stuff, but we don’t follow all the rules. Me, I don’t follow any of the rules. Rules are for dickwads.”

  “They should put that on a fortune cookie,” I say, but he doesn’t seem to care.

  My phone buzzes. It’s a text from Mom.

  I trust your on your way. Please keep me updated on your progress.

  I put my phone away.

  “How long you guys been together?” he asks.

  “Oh, you mean me and Aisha?”

  “Eye-eee-shuh. Dope name.”

  I hope to God she’s not overhearing this conversation from her guest room.

  “We’re not a couple,” I say, and then, for some reason I don’t quite get, I lean in and whisper, “She’s a lesbian.”

  “Right on, right on,” he says, totally unbothered by this.

  “I’m trying to change that, but I’m failing.”

  Gareth grins. He starts telling me stories of the various girls in and around his life, and suddenly there’s a “we should” that appears, and I’m part of some group I don’t really know, and that’s weird, but I like it. He has to get going because he has a rollicking game of Frisbee golf to play, and he asks if I want to come along.

  “Um, sure,” I say.

  “Great, and bring the chick,” he says.

  “Maybe don’t call her a chick if you want to live.”

  “Ooh.” His eyebrows arch. “I like feisty women.”

  “Yeah, maybe don’t say that either.”

  He grins. “Aye aye, captain.”

  AISHA STILL SEEMS annoyed with me when I find her in her room, but she reluctantly agrees to come along. We get in the car with Gareth, who plays Phish too loud on the stereo and opens all the windows without asking whether it’s comfortable for us, which it isn’t. Once in a while, he yells out a question, but it gets carried away by the wind and we don’t answer. He’s totally cool with that, and I start to relax into the day.

  We go to the Walter Frederick Morrison Frisbee Golf Course at Creekside Park. We wait for his friends, Mitch and Hodge, to arrive. Both show up wearing green argyle berets, which is … interesting. They fist-bump me and Aisha by way of hello, and then they open up beers, even though it says alcohol is prohibited on the course.

  “Can I have one?” I ask, and Aisha gives me a dirty look.

  “Never mind,” I say, which is fine because Gareth doesn’t give a shit.

  Gareth throws first. He takes a running start on this concrete block that’s the tee, I guess, and he lofts a small red disc a long way, way farther than I could hurl it. It lands about twenty feet to the right of the metal basket that acts as the hole.

  “Hella nice, beyotch!” the guy named Mitch says. Mitch’s most obvious characteristic, besides using decades-old catchphrases, is that his entire right arm is covered in tattoos. He throws next, and his throw is straighter to the basket, but shorter. Then Hodge, who has a soul patch and a gut visible under his tightly stretched polo shirt, flings the disc. It lands within fifteen feet of the basket.

  I go next. Trying to copy how they threw, I run up to the edge of the concrete and let it sail. It surprises me how easy it is to throw a Frisbee, because I am quite sure I have never thrown one before. It streaks toward the basket and finally dies in a patch of tall grass, more than halfway to its intended target.

  “Nice toss, dude,” Gareth says.

  That leaves Aisha, who is clearly the most athletic of us. She also seems the least interested. She stands still and flings the disc, and it flies a decent way, falling a bit short of my throw.

  I get another text from my mother.

  I feel concerned that I havent heard from you.

  Something came up. Can’t get back

  today. Sorry. Don’t want to upset you.

  Don’t worry about us. We’re fine.

  We all walk out to retrieve our discs and make our second shots. “Put your back into it more,” Hodge says to Aisha. “You’re pretty good for a girl.”

  Aisha’s lips stay tight and she says nothing, and I almost go over and say something encouraging, but I can just about feel the anger emanating from her, so I steer clear. Gareth’s next throw hits the chains above the basket, and everyone goes, “Right on!” so I say it too.

  My phone rings. I decline the call.

  Mitch and Hodge take three flips each to reach the chains, and I do it in five. Aisha throws two more times and then says, “I’m gonna sit this out.”

  She doesn’t wait for us to say anything in return. She just walks back toward the car, and I feel torn. Do I go to her? Or can I, for once, have some athletic fun with some guy friends, something that has happened just about never in my life, because I never allow it to happen?

  My phone rings again. I decline again, and then I turn my phone off.

  I wait until Aisha is out of sight,
and I say, “You have an extra beer?”

  Gareth looks at Hodge, who is wearing these huge cargo shorts that look like they could fit a baby kangaroo inside. “Beer him,” Gareth says, and Hodge reaches into a pocket and pulls out a can.

  “Thanks,” I say. I have never had a beer before. I pop the top and when foam comes out, I sip it up. It crackles on my tongue, and the warmth pours down my gullet.

  We keep playing, and I keep sipping, and soon my beer is gone, and Hodge beers me another without me even asking, and it feels fucking great, especially as my head begins to cloud. It’s like the bad thoughts puff out of my brain through my ears, and my brain becomes calm with those bad thoughts gone. I’ve been waiting a million years to feel like this. If this is how my dad feels when he drinks, well, I still don’t get the whole I’m giving up my life and my family for this thing, but I can definitely understand why he likes it. And I don’t ever have to get that bad, because that’s just stupid and reckless.

  As we move through the holes and I drink a third beer from Hodge’s bottomless pockets, the conversation moves on to girls. I don’t want them to know how completely inexperienced I am, so I stay quiet. They start talking about girls they will set me up with, next week, the week after. Which is weird because I won’t be here, but my brain is on hiatus and I keep saying, “Yeah, yeah.” They even make up a personality for me. I’m only about four throws behind as we walk to the sixth hole, and Hodge puts his arm around me and says, “Dude. You’re the king.”

  And it feels … good. It all does. The guys, the conversation, the beer warming my gut and radiating out to my head and my limbs. Aisha-hugging-the-seat good, in a way. I am not alone, and even without me saying anything, they know how I feel. Hodge starts bitching about living in his parents’ basement and how he has to go out and look for work. Part of me is thinking, You live in your parents’ basement? But then I remember that back in Billings, I do too. That makes me laugh, and they all look at me, but I can’t even come close to explaining right now. I salute them with the beer and they salute me back, and I do feel a little bit like the king. I find myself thinking, Yeah. I could live here. I could just call my mom back and be like, Sorry, I live in Salt Lake City now. I’m a Jack Mormon.

  I finish my third beer as we approach the ninth hole, which takes us very close to the parking lot. Aisha is sitting on a bench alone, playing with her phone. I toss the can to the ground, knowing these guys won’t mind me littering, because I don’t want her to see it. Then I wave a few times at Aisha, and part of me knows that Aisha isn’t going to like beered-up Carson. But either she doesn’t see my wave, or she’s ignoring me.

  Gareth yells, “Tumble break,” and he climbs a tall, grassy hill. We all run after him. It’s hard to balance, but I don’t fall. Aisha looks up and sees us, and I wave to her to come join us. She shakes her head, and I’m a little pissed. She needs to lighten up.

  “One! Two! Three!” the three guys scream at the top of their lungs, and then they fall to their sides and roll, toppling down the hill until they land in a clump at the bottom, laughing hysterically. I’m left there at the top, my knees locked. Should I do it too? Will it look stupid? What will Aisha think? And then I decide to stop thinking, and I fall to my side and start rolling.

  The world tumbles. I pick up speed, rolling and rolling. I knock into Hodge’s side at the bottom, and we writhe in a pile, and I just let go and laugh and laugh.

  Hodge yells out, “Shit! The beers!”

  I feel the wetness just as he says it. One of the beers in his pocket burst open when he rolled down the hill. Now my shorts are wet too, and I smell like beer, but we just keep laughing.

  Eventually we get up and wipe the grass and beer off of us as well as we can, and the guys run ahead. I look over at Aisha. I should probably go talk to her. Walking toward her, I feel the alcohol sloshing through my veins. It’s a dirty, wonderful secret that Aisha can’t know, so I make an agreement with myself never to tell her how much I drank.

  “You have an accident?” she asks, frowning. She points at the wet spot on the front of my green cargo shorts.

  “It’s stupid,” I say, lingering a bit away from her.

  She smells it anyway. “Carson, were you drinking? Are you kidding me with this?”

  Her voice is higher than usual, and it scares me, the emotion in it. I shake my head. “Hodge had beers in his shorts and they exploded when we rolled.” I laugh, but she doesn’t. She walks over and sniffs my face.

  “Bullshit,” she says. “You drank.”

  I nod slightly. “Just one.”

  “Jesus,” she says. “Are you crazy?”

  “In what universe is drinking a single beer crazy?”

  She puts her hands on her hips and looks at me. “In the universe where your grandfather and your father are alcoholics. C’mon.”

  I look away. She doesn’t get that these are the first drinks I’ve ever had. That’s not quite alcoholic territory. And just because I liked it? People like beer. Please.

  “Carson.” She sits back down on the bench and pulls me to sit next to her. She grabs my head and forces me to look at her. “Seriously. You have even one more sip of alcohol and I am done with you. Not a joke. Done. Like I drive off and leave you here and you never see me again. You feel me?”

  My brain focuses, suddenly sober. The world still spins a bit, but within it I am totally here. “I feel you,” I say.

  We sit there in silence. Getting yelled at for drinking is like this weird new place I didn’t know I’d be in, ever. Was my dad here? My grandfather? A place where they were like, I love this drinking thing. I’ll make sure it doesn’t get the best of me.

  “Will those guys be done soon?” she asks.

  “I think so,” I say. “Sorry about the drinking, by the way.”

  She responds with a tiny, tight-lipped nod.

  “I’m sure they’ll be back any minute. I know you hated that, but hey, it’s almost over.”

  “Yay,” she says. “Can we never, ever see those people again, ever?”

  “Yeah, you don’t really get them, do you?”

  She picks at her fingernails. “You’re right,” she says. “I don’t get them. I wanna smack that guy Gareth’s head against the concrete. I don’t want to do that with you. How come you actually wanna spend time with this person when I want to kill him?”

  I bite my lower lip. I know the answer, in a way, but I also know she won’t get it. “He’s a ’sup, dude.”

  She screws up her face in a mask of annoyance. “A what?”

  “A ’sup, dude. I’ve never had a ’sup, dude friend. You know. Someone who you’d meet for breakfast at a diner. Someone you’d order huge breakfasts with, and guzzle down milk shakes, and order more bacon, and talk about cars or Frisbees or baseball, maybe.”

  I brace myself for her laughter. It doesn’t come. Instead, she says, “You want that?”

  “Well, no. Yeah. I don’t know. I want to try it, maybe.”

  “Can’t someone who is not a total asshole be your ’sup, dude?”

  “He’s not a total asshole.”

  “He’s not not a total asshole….”

  I laugh. Then she touches my shoulder, bats her eyes, and says, “ ’Sup, dude?”

  I kiss her shoulder. “I can’t believe it. You’re jealous.” My skin tingles. The ego boost I get from making Aisha feel jealous of me is way more than I got from the entire Frisbee golf game.

  “Not really. Maybe,” she says, pulling away slightly.

  I pull the shoulder back and plant three kisses on it. “I love you, Aisha Stinson. I love that you can be jealous of me, when you’re you. That’s just … I love you, okay?”

  “Okay,” she says, giving my shoulder a quick peck. “Love you too, asshole.”

  THAT NIGHT’S DINNER starts out with a prayer. Aisha and I are across the table from Gareth, while Mr. and Mrs. Bailey sit at either end. We see them grabbing hands, so I tentatively take Aisha’s hand with my
right and Mr. Bailey’s with my left. Aisha takes Mrs. Bailey’s other hand.

  Mr. Bailey says, “Dear Heavenly Father, we’re thankful for this bounty and for the chance to spend time together as a family with our new friends. We’re thankful for the people who helped grow the food that went into this meal. Please bless them. Amen.”

  I say “Amen” when Mrs. Bailey and Gareth say it. Not sure if Aisha does or not. But for me, saying the word in unison makes me feel like part of something, and I want that. Thanks to this trip, I’m beginning to really enjoy feeling like a part. Rather than always apart.

  And that prayer? It was just … thankful. It was nice. I didn’t hate it.

  Over dinner, Gareth talks about Frisbee golf, and about a new set of “rockin’ discs” he’d like to buy. Mr. Bailey jokingly asks Gareth if he’s considered putting half that much enthusiasm into a job search, and you can kind of feel the tension at the table, that there’s a story and an ongoing drama surrounding this.

  I guess no family is perfect. Though clearly, some families are more perfect than others.

  I have never sat at a dinner table with both my parents that I can remember. When my mom took us back to New York and we moved in with my grandparents, the four of us had dinner sometimes, but that’s it. Ever since my grandparents moved down to Florida four years ago, I mostly dine in front of the TV. Mom and I rarely eat at the same time. And meals are important, aren’t they? I have never really thought about that before.

  I turned on my phone before dinner. There were three long voicemails from Mom. The first one went like this:

  “Carson. I feel like we need to have a conversation about boundaries. I feel really surprised that you would violate my boundaries like this. I hear that you have your heart set on this trip you’re taking, and if you would simply engage me in a conversation, perhaps I could come to understand why you think it’s necessary at this time, of all times, to drive off with a friend you barely know. I want you to know that I recognize that you’re individuating right now, and certainly that process is made no easier by spending time with your father. I know that’s been terribly difficult for you, and I honor that. But you simply need to be aware that my boundaries are not to be crossed. If you do cross them, there will be repercussions. I intend for us to sit down when you return and really tackle some of these issues. Please keep me updated about when you’ll be back.”