Honestly Ben Page 24

  “There are so many things wrong with that sentence,” Rafe said, but I waved him off.

  “Thanks,” I said to Donnelly. “I support your lifestyle too.”

  I said good-bye to Rafe, who was going to a hotel near the airport in Boston for an early-morning flight. On the way out to meet my mom, I ran into Mendenhall, who shook his head when he saw me.

  “Dude,” he said. “What the hell, dude.”

  I shrugged.

  “You left the team in the lurch. That’s some selfish shit.”

  “I wish I could go to Florida. I did what I had to do.”

  “You’re a strange guy, Carver. You gay too?”

  I ignored the question and focused on the comment. “You’re finally getting it,” I said. “I’m a strange guy. And you’ll never be a strange guy, which is too bad for you. So maybe we’ll just play baseball together and not worry about it, huh?”

  “Whatever, dude,” he said. “If you tell anyone where you got the answer key, I will ruin your life.”

  “I won’t,” I said. “I did what I did. You want to do the right thing, it’s on you.”

  He walked away, and I knew he’d never fess up. He wasn’t that kind of kid, and he wouldn’t be that kind of man, and that was okay with me. None of my business.

  As I drove north with my mom in Gretchen, I was thinking that spring break was going to feel eternal. Two weeks vacation, plus one for my suspension. I had no interest in being up in Alton, but it was the right thing to do—to fix things with my dad, or whatever was like fixing things.

  “Are you afraid of what Dad’s gonna say about your herbal remedies when we get back?” I asked my mom.

  “Nah,” she said, but something in her voice betrayed the words. I guess when you’ve spent twenty years married to someone who treats you a certain way, and you live in a box, it has to be scary leaving that box. “You?”

  At first I thought she meant was I afraid of her burgeoning career as an herbalist, but then I realized she meant was I afraid of what Dad was going to say to me.

  I sighed. “I don’t know.”

  Mom didn’t bring up the fact that I was dating a boy and she’d just found out. She didn’t bring up the suspension. I didn’t say any more about the fact that she had stood up to Dad for the first time ever, as far as I knew. Neither of us talked about the future, like what was going to happen when we got back to Alton.

  “Looks like rain,” she said.

  “Yep.”

  “Hope Richard got the cows in the barn. They get persnickety about their food when they’re all wetted up.”

  “I’m sure he did it as soon as he got back.”

  “How about Czech dumplings for dinner?”

  It was familiar. Sometimes, familiar is good.

  “Sounds great, Mom. Sounds great.”

  A freezing rain had begun to fall. We arrived back at the farm, and the lack of sound beyond the thump of cold precipitation hit me hard. I was back. This was it. I had nowhere else to go, and I was going to have to face my deeply disappointed dad.

  I deposited my bag in my room, and Luke reclined on his bed, playing a game on the same Game Boy he’d had since he was about five.

  “Hey,” I said.

  He didn’t look up. “I hear you screwed up.”

  “A bit,” I said.

  He didn’t respond, just went back to his game.

  “Did you hear anything more than that?”

  He didn’t say anything. I wondered what it would have been like to be here when my dad got back. Did he rant? Was he upset? Any emotion at all would have been nice to see. Anything besides leaving.

  “Because if you did, let’s just stop this thing where we don’t talk about stuff, okay?” I said. “You and me, we’re better than that. Come on. Put the game thing down. Talk to me.”

  He tentatively saved his game and sat up, tossing his dirty blond hair out of his eyes.

  “So, um, are you gay?” he asked.

  I sat down on my bed. “I don’t think so. I’m in love with a guy, though.”

  “But you aren’t gay? That’s weird.”

  “I know. I mean, no. It doesn’t feel weird. It feels like the most natural thing. I never thought about guys, but Rafe just, I don’t know. I actually had a girlfriend this past month. She was great, but I liked Rafe better.”

  He threw his legs over the side of the bed and hyperextended his skinny elbows on his mattress. He whispered, “I have lunch with Julie sometimes now. The girl everyone used to call Bulldozer?”

  “That’s great,” I said.

  “It’s okay.”

  “Do you like her?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. It’s hard to come up with questions sometimes.”

  I didn’t really know what to say, and I realized that this was, for my brother, a real conversation. Like when we’d talked in the car after the swimming lesson. That was probably the last time he’d had a conversation with someone in his family. My head hurt thinking about it. I looked at him, and he looked fine. Maybe his was a more right-handed path. Perhaps some people don’t feel starved for more, the way I always felt when I was growing up.

  Maybe that was okay too.

  “Tell her things about you,” I said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like things you’re interested in.”

  He shrugged and picked up his Game Boy, and I felt this tenderness toward my brother, who would always be exactly who he was. And that was definitely okay. If I had more to say than he did, I could say it.

  “So anyway. I’m suspended for a week, so I’ll be around for a while. The worst part is it’ll stay on my school record. Good-bye top-level college, I barely knew ye.”

  “Yeah, but. No school for an extra week. That’s awesome.”

  I didn’t say anything, because he’d never get that I actually enjoyed school.

  “Meanwhile, Dad is probably never going to talk to me again.”

  “He didn’t say much to begin with, though, did he?”

  My brain went oooooohhh when I thought about that. Deeeeeepp.

  “I love you, surprisingly introspective bro,” I said.

  He kept playing his game. “I love you too, totally weird older brother.”

  I glanced out the bedroom window at the barn. Dad still hadn’t come out. I’d have seen him. So I waited, all the stuff I wanted to say to him tumbling through my brain.

  Dad. I’m not gonna spend my life being the guy who is afraid to disappoint you. I have other things I want to be.

  I wished Uncle Max were still alive, so I could talk to him. He’d understand.

  Dinnertime came. Still no sign of Dad. I asked Luke to check with Mom, see where he was. In the barn, he came back and told me. I stared out my window, waiting, waiting.

  I didn’t eat. Dad didn’t eat. Luke and Mom had a meal, and when it was over, Mom came in.

  “Give it a rest ’til morning, Benny,” she said.

  “He has to come out at some point.”

  “You know your father. He’s a stubborn old mule.”

  “This is not okay,” I said. “Not anymore.”

  Mom sat down on my bed next to me and put her hand lightly on my knee. “No. He’s got to do better. I know it, you know it. Luke even knows it. Only person doesn’t know it is your dad.”

  I stood up. I didn’t have to say anything. Mom knew. I bundled up in layers—T-shirt, long-sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, jacket, scarf, hat, gloves. I walked to the wet room outside the kitchen and put on my boots. Mom followed and watched me in silence. I knew she was rooting for me.

  The dark barn smelled bitter. Bitter, chilly sadness, like you could feel it in the stale air. Unmet potential. Wasted dreams. Chicken crap.

  Thanks to the moonlight, I could see Dad was in the corner of the chicken stall. Chickens clucked around him. He sat with his knees up, his back slouched against the side of the pen.

  I’d never seen my dad just sitting before. Not in a work area, anywa
y.

  “Hey,” I said.

  His silhouette moved a little bit. He shuffled his behind as if to get more comfortable.

  “Dad, it’s me.”

  In the darkness of the barn, I could almost see him shrug. I could feel the air moved by his shoulders’ motion. It stung my eyes.

  “You gonna just live in here now? Try to wait me out? Three weeks, and I’m not going anywhere.”

  Still nothing. No words.

  “Dad? Are you listening, Dad? I know you can hear me. This ends today. Whatever this is. You can’t just walk away and ignore me anymore when I do something you don’t like. You either have to talk to me, or—I don’t know, but I can’t do this anymore. I can’t.”

  Tears now.

  “I can’t take this. I could take a lot of things, but I can’t take this,” I said.

  I turned to leave.

  My dad’s crusty voice rose from the chicken coop.

  “You’re a cheater now?”

  “It was a stupid choice,” I said.

  “I’ll say. And you traded away a college education for what? So you could date a boy? What kind of foolishness is that?”

  “I didn’t trade it away. And anyway, losing the scholarship had nothing to do with Rafe. I’ll figure it out. I’ll find a way to still go to college.”

  “And this Rafe boy … he’s nothin’ more than another rich kid.”

  “That’s not true, Dad.”

  “It is true. And what’s worse? You’re lettin’ him screw you. I don’t know what that makes you, but it sure don’t make you a Carver.”

  It took every muscle in my body not to walk away.

  I swallowed three times. Four. It was like I was afraid of the sound of my voice.

  “I am a Carver,” I said. “I’m as much a Carver as you are.”

  “If you’re a Carver, I’ll tell you one thing you are. Not gay. That ain’t okay. You ain’t doing that while living here, you understand? You wanna stay in this family, you’ll never talk to that boy again. And you can forget about going back to that school next year. I’ve had enough of your foolishness.”

  The words repeated over and over in my brain. You’ll never talk to that boy again.

  This time, I walked away. I’d promised Rafe I wouldn’t, but in this case, I was pretty sure he’d be fine with it.

  I walked with my head down, away from the barn, away from the house. I took the road toward town, not minding the cold rain beating down on my head, each heavy drop like an assault on my brain.

  I grabbed my phone out of my pants pocket. I shielded it from the rain and dialed.

  “Hey,” Rafe said.

  “Hey.”

  “I’m at the hotel.”

  “I’m on an abandoned road in Alton, alone.”

  “You okay?”

  “Nah. Is that ticket still available?”

  “Yeah, absolutely. Sure. Let me call my mom. You want directions to the hotel?”

  The rain around me couldn’t touch me. I didn’t feel cold. Not anymore.

  “Yes, please.”

  The second time Rafe and I flew to Colorado together was very different than the first.

  The first trip, it was Thanksgiving. The night before, he’d slept in my arms. I was freaking out about it a little, and I knew he was too, and then we talked about it. I didn’t know then that we were freaking out for different reasons, but that wasn’t important now.

  This flight felt to me like I was taking a trip away from my life, like maybe losing my mind a little. In twenty-four hours, I’d likely given up a college scholarship, been rejected by my father, left my home, and stayed in a hotel with my boyfriend for the first time ever, and now I was heading to Boulder for who knows how long.

  I felt nauseated, and yet goose bumps dotted my forearms. I wanted to scream from anger and sing with excitement and curl up and sleep off the stress.

  Leaving Alton had been tough. I went back to my room and started packing my stuff, and my brother watched, and I didn’t want to say anything, because if I started talking I might start crying. And then he started freaking out, which was very un-Luke of him.

  “Ben? Don’t leave. C’mon. You know Dad. He’ll be back to normal in, like, three days and it will be like none of this ever happened.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said, clenching my jaw and measuring my words really carefully so my voice didn’t crack.

  “You’re afraid of that?”

  “I’m not doing it anymore. Okay? I can’t do this again. Okay?”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Colorado.”

  “Ben,” my brother whined. He sounded six all of a sudden, and it hit me in my chest. “Don’t go, Ben. Don’t go. Please.”

  “I gotta go, buddy. I’ll be back.”

  “Uncle Max was gone five years. Please, Ben. Don’t leave me. Please.”

  “I’m not Uncle Max,” I said, but at this point I was shaking because I couldn’t hold the feelings in anymore. “Don’t worry.”

  Then he had an all-out tantrum, jumping on his bed and kicking and pounding his mattress. “You can’t do this! You can’t go!”

  I ran over to him. “C’mon, buddy, hold it together. It’s okay, buddy.”

  “No! It’s not okay! This sucks!”

  Tears streamed down his face, and I closed my eyes and leaned in to hug him.

  He punched me in the chest, hard. His flailing fist clipped me in the sternum; I was shocked, and my body’s reaction was to punch back. I’m glad I didn’t. I’m so glad I didn’t. Instead, I squeezed him harder until he squeezed back, and then I grabbed the back of his skull in my two hands and moved his face so that he was looking directly into my eyes.

  “I’m not him. Them. I’m not Uncle Max and I’m not Dad. I’m not running from you, Luke. You have my phone number. We can talk every day. I have to go away because I can’t be here anymore and be me.”

  “You mean gay?”

  “No. I mean me.”

  He softened up then, like he understood, in a way, and we got to say a real good-bye. He asked me to call tomorrow, and I promised I would. And I did. This morning. We talked about nothing, and it was great.

  Mom was hard too. Or maybe not hard. Just sad. When I walked out with my suitcase, she was in the kitchen, drinking a beer and reading a book about herbs.

  “Where are you staying?” she asked.

  “With Rafe. Going to Colorado.”

  “This time of night? No. Go in the morning.”

  “We have a flight in the morning. I’ll go to his hotel at the airport. It’s fine.”

  “It’s fine,” she repeated, flat. She sipped her beer. “I don’t know, Benny. Is it my fault? I should’ve straightened your dad out years ago.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, going over and hugging her. “You get why I’m leaving, right?”

  “Oh, I get it,” she said.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “Love you too, Benny. Don’t get too crazy, hear? And you come back here. You know it’ll be okay with your dad.”

  I didn’t know that, but I nodded anyway.

  And then there I was, driving and driving, until way after midnight, the roads spreading out in front of me, miles and miles and miles. Country roads, where all you see is the road ahead of you illuminated by headlights, are the loneliest place in the world. Then highways, which were surprisingly busy for so late. Five hours to Boston. It was three in the morning when I got there, and I was more tired than I’d ever been. I had to park in this crazy circular structure, at a skyscraper hotel right in the middle of town. Too tall, too loud, especially for how exhausted I felt.

  Rafe came to the door in boxers and hugged me tight, and I just about collapsed into his arms. And this time I had no problem falling asleep.

  And here I was. On an airplane. Going to Colorado to—I didn’t know—visit? Still tired. Still unsure of everything.

  I glanced over at Rafe. Who was my best
friend. Who I loved. Who just about three months ago I was so mad at I thought we’d never talk again. And we got past it. That filled me with some hope. Maybe this was just today, with Dad. Maybe things would get better.

  Rafe was reading a book called Two Boys Kissing. I reached over and pinched him on the neck.

  “Ow,” he said, continuing to read.

  “Do you think things will ever be normal at school again?” I asked Rafe.

  He put down his book. “Were things ever really normal there? I had a feeling you were thinking something like that.”

  “I was thinking about a lot of things. I was actually thinking about how it had been a while since I’d thought about history stuff. World War II. I used to have a constant running monologue, like the History Channel was in my brain. This was the first time I can remember where that all went away.”

  “Hard to live in the past when the present is so … busy.”

  “It’s been busy, all right.”

  “The cheating thing. That surprised me. Why’d you do it, Ben?”

  I was too tired to get into it. “Insecurity.”

  He nodded, like he got that.

  “I don’t know. I guess I’ve never really understood the whole emphasis on ‘achieve achieve achieve’ that you have,” he said.

  “You also don’t come from a family that has nothing.”

  Rafe took a sip of his Bloody Mary mix, which, by the way, was absolutely disgusting. “I was thinking about that just now,” he said.

  “That I come from nothing?”

  “No. That you think you come from nothing.”

  I felt my jaw tightening. This callous attitude about what my family did or did not have really bugged me, but who was I to say something when Rafe’s family had footed the bill for my ticket to Boulder, and had offered to put me up for an extended period?

  What if Rafe and I got into a big fight? Would I be homeless?

  I wiped my hair out of my eyes, and this crazy thing happened. I began to cry. On a plane.

  Rafe put my head on his shoulder and massaged my scalp and let me cry, and for once in my life I wasn’t my dad, telling myself to simmer down, or man up, or some other way of telling me to be more up or down than I truly was. I just let myself cry, on a plane, in front of people, who weren’t gawking, exactly, from across the aisle, but who were definitely looking. I could feel their stares without looking up.