“And you like just plain peanut butter, huh?”
“Dude, it’s not dream analysis or anything. I just like it.”
Rafe smiles; then his expression turns serious.
“Listen,” he says. “I’m really glad you came with me yesterday, but I hope I didn’t put you in an uncomfortable position.”
He touches my arm and I’m reminded of what Ricky said. I count, but even after five seconds he doesn’t take his hand away.
“Um. Well, no, but I just didn’t fit in. Obviously.” I snort, remembering the way everyone stared at me.
Rafe nods. “I know it probably seems that way. Really, though, the people there are pretty diverse. They’ve just been working toward the same goals for a long time. Sometimes….” He runs his hand through his hair. “Sometimes I think we forget that we had to learn about all these issues too. You know? It’s easy to talk to people who are already coming from the same place, politically. But the true test is whether we can effectively communicate those ideas to people who aren’t familiar with the issues.”
Rafe gets this intent look when he’s talking about this crap.
“They’re really good people, though. And Tony told me at dinner that he was glad I’d brought you.”
I laugh but it doesn’t sound right. “Yeah, dinner. I can picture that conversation. ‘Hey, Rafe, I’m glad you brought the stupid car guy who didn’t know what he was doing.’”
“Hey.” Rafe’s expression is serious. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Don’t turn something I said into a weapon you use against yourself.”
My ears heat. I grab a beer from the refrigerator and hold one out to Rafe before I remember he doesn’t drink, and he shakes his head tightly.
“Seriously, Colin. They’re not like that.”
“Yeah,” I say, leaning against the fridge and looking down at the floor I scrubbed the other day. The new bleach-to-water ratio I used definitely helped with the yellowing. “Yeah, I’m sure they’re perfect and you all volunteer at soup kitchens together and shit.” My voice is a snarl and I sound childish even to myself. I don’t know why I do this.
“Actually,” Rafe says, leaning forward in his chair, shoulders tight. “I do sometimes. What are you trying to say?”
“Whatever,” I mutter, wishing I could take it back. Why the hell does it piss me off so much that he volunteers at a soup kitchen?
“No. You think I haven’t seen this before, Colin? Someone trying to make me feel as if the work I do is suspect. Make it seem like my commitment to my politics is about feeling superior?”
And that’s what it is. Like every good thing he does just underlines how I’m no good to anyone.
“You
do
feel superior, though. Don’t you? To me, anyway. I can see what you think. I’m a selfish little bitch who doesn’t do anything for anyone but himself. Hell, who couldn’t even—”
“Stop it right there,” Rafe says sharply, out of his chair in an instant. “Don’t tell me what I think. Don’t put words in my mouth.”
I put more beer in my mouth instead, tossing the empty can and using the time when my back is to Rafe to get myself under control.
For a while we just stand there. Finally, he says, “You know, you volunteer too. At the YA.”
Yeah
, I want to say.
At the YA where the kids think I’m fucking gay because of the way you look at me.
Except he’s not looking at me that way now. Now he just looks… disappointed. And fuck me, my stupid breathing thing is back.
I crack open another beer and slump against the counter, trying to get a deep breath. I have no idea what to say, and Rafe’s obviously not going to help me out this time.
“I’m going to leave,” Rafe says finally, as I finish the beer.
Ugh, I’m furious with him but I want him to stay. I’m a total monster right now, but I want, somehow, for him to choose to spend time with me anyway.
“Yeah? Got to go find someone to hang out with who’s a saint like Javier, huh?” Shit. I did
not
mean to say that. I can’t meet Rafe’s eyes. He stands slowly, like he’s making an effort to stay calm.
“No. But I can’t be around you when you’re intoxicated.”
“Pssh, I am not intoxicated.”
“It’s not negotiable,” he says with this superior tone that makes me feel like a worm.
“Jesus Christ, man, can you take it down a notch? It’s just a few beers. It’s not like I’m a fucking junkie or something.”
Rafe straightens to his full height and looks me right in the eye.
“Yeah,” he says. “Well. I am.”
“UH,” I
say, anger swallowed up by surprise. “What?”
Rafe sighs and runs both hands through his hair, making it fall around his face in messy waves. “Shit. This isn’t the way I wanted to tell you.”
He starts looking around the kitchen like a door might magically open in the wall. Finally, he sighs again and stands up straight, as if he’s forcing himself to be still.
“Look, okay. I had a drug problem.” Rafe’s voice is quiet. A little shaky. “I was… into some bad shit and I…. It’s still a struggle for me sometimes, and one thing that helps me keep it under control is not being around people who are intoxicated.”
I have no idea what to say to that. It’s not hard to picture Rafe being into some bad shit. I’ve noticed the way people look at him, like he’s a threat. When he walks at night, he’s told me, women will cross the street so they don’t pass him, and I know it bothers him even though he understands it. No, it’s the idea of Rafe being helpless, out of control, that doesn’t fit with the way I think of him.
He glances at me uncertainly, and I’m suddenly aware that I haven’t said anything.
“Um. Okay.” I want to be reassuring, but I’m pretty sure I just sound confused. I try again. “But you stopped?”
Rafe winces, his expression half resignation and half shame. “I kicked it in prison.” He says it quickly, like he can throw the words away.
Wait, what? This is like some really bad after-school special where the totally normal soccer coach confesses that he used to be a drug addict and was in a cult and had accidentally killed a whole village with a bomb or something.
“Uh….”
When Rafe walks over to me, he looks incredibly tired all of a sudden. “Look, I’m sure you have questions, but I can’t talk to you about this right now. Honestly, I didn’t want to get into it yet at all. It’s not something I’m proud of, and I’d like to know someone better before I talk about it. But it came up and I….” He shakes his head. “Anyway, I need to take off.”
He hesitates for second with his hand raised like he might touch me—shake my hand or clasp my shoulder—but it never lands. He just turns away and walks into the living room. I’m pretty sure there’s something I should be doing. Some protocol I should be following for how to be a good friend when someone confesses something to you, but I have no idea what it might be. The beer sits heavy in my stomach, the taste like metal in my mouth.
All of a sudden the sending books to prisoners thing makes a whole lot more sense. And I stood there and told him that people in prison were supposed to be being punished. Jesus, I’m an asshole.
And not just for that. But because, honestly, it makes me feel a little bit better to know that Rafe’s fucked things up in his life too.
“SO WHAT’S
up Pat’s ass these days?” Xavier asks after we order breakfast.
“Eh, he’s pissed because I’ve been taking Saturdays off.”
“Jeez, it’s about time, man. The benefit of working in the family business is supposed to be that you don’t
have
to bust your ass working six days a week—or seven, when you take those extra jobs Pat doesn’t know you do.”
“Yeah, I guess.” X doesn’t like Pop. Even as a teenager, he didn’t warm to Pop’s back-slapping, jokey brand of charm. Most likely because Pop often called him Jamal. Jamal was our quarterback, and the only thing he had in common with X looks-wise was that he was also black.
“So, why are you? It’s great and all, but very un-Colin of you.”
“Un-Colin?”
“Well, face it, man, you’re an unrepentant workaholic. I can’t even imagine what could tempt you away from working Sat—wait, is it—did you meet someone?”
Xavier sounds so hopeful that for a second I allow myself to imagine what it’d be like to tell him.
“What? No, man, no. I just wanted a little more free time. You know how it is.”
X narrows his eyes. “You hate free time.”
I roll my eyes. He knows me pretty well.
“I’ve been, um, volunteering. At this youth center. I’ve been teaching the kids about cars, basic repairs, that kind of thing.”
“That’s great, man,” X says, looking genuinely pleased. “But I don’t get it. Why would Pat have a problem with that? It’s not like there aren’t enough hands around the place on Saturdays, right?”
“Oh, well, I didn’t tell him about that. It shouldn’t matter why I want the time, right? I mean, I’m a fucking adult; he doesn’t need to know where I am twenty-four-seven.”
X nods, but his eyes narrow again like he doesn’t quite believe me.
“So, how’s Angela?” I ask before he can say anything else.
He leans back in his chair, his expression so familiar that I’m flooded with warmth for him. It’s the same combination of affection, frustration, and puzzlement that he used to get about girls when we were sixteen.
“She’s all right.” He clears his throat. “She, ah, she wants us to have a baby.”
“Oh shit. Are you into it?”
X smiles a little and cracks his knuckles. “Maybe? I dunno, man. Kids are great; it’s just….” Kids
love
Xavier. He always picks them up and flips them upside-down and stuff, and they scream with laughter. I can definitely see him as a father. “I don’t know what my problem is. Every time she brings it up, I panic. Not that I don’t want to go for it. More, like, I just can’t picture what shit would be like with a kid, you know?”
I nod. Yeah, I definitely know. But, then, if you’d asked me if I could picture myself volunteering at a queer youth center, I probably would’ve punched you. And picturing myself spending time with someone like Rafe? No way.
“Anyway, she’s pissed because she says I’m desperately clinging to my youth as it recedes and that it’s time to get my head out of my ass.” It’s clear from the way X says this that he’s quoting Angela. She has a particular way of speaking. She never stumbles in her speech or has to pause to search for her words. Everything’s delivered like a line from a play.
X changes the subject, telling me about some of the guys we used to play football with who he’s been in touch with on Facebook. The diner is filling up, and my mind doesn’t stay on Kyle Healey and Jackson White and whatever the hell they’re doing now.
“All right, Colin, get to the point, would you?”
“What?”
“Come on, man, you’re taking time off from the shop and being all secretive about it, and you call me up, ask me to meet you for breakfast—which you never do—and now you’re zoning out. You got something to get off your chest, just say it, ’cause your… whatever is making me nervous.”
He gestures to the table in front of me where I’ve forced everything—sugar packets, condiments, jelly pods, napkins, crumbs, and cutlery—into a tight grid pattern. I clear my throat and try to force myself to mess it up, but X waves me off.
“You okay, bro?”
I nod, but now that we’re here, I don’t even know exactly what I want to ask him.
“Um. You don’t—do you know anyone who’s been in prison?”
“You in trouble, C?” Xavier’s immediately on guard, leaning in to me, his expression fierce. I relax a little. This is the guy who’s known me since we were freshmen in high school, the guy who’s always had my back.
“Nah,” I say. “Just, like, do you think… do you think someone who’s been in jail is… super fucked up?”
X looks confused. “Well, yeah, in some ways, because prison is terrible. But I don’t think only fucked-up people end up in prison if that’s what you mean.” He sounds like he’s measuring his words carefully.
“Fuck, I don’t know what I mean. I just, um—” I can’t tell Rafe’s personal business, even if it is to Xavier.
“Does this have something to do with these kids you’re teaching about cars?”
“Kind of.”
“Ah, look, C. It’s cool if you don’t want to tell me what’s going on. But, can I just—” He leans in, sounding almost apologetic. “Look, man, you’re… white.”
I laugh. “You only noticing that now?”
“Just, you know, you hear prison and maybe you think, yeah, the person did something wrong. But folks go to jail every day for the shit that white guys get away with. Like, remember, that cop caught you and Brian smoking weed in the park and let you off with a warning? My ass would’ve been in deep shit. For real. So, do I think people who’ve spent time inside are necessarily criminals? No way.
“Angela’s stepbrother served six years in Georgia for hot-wiring a car and driving it around the block. Only, right before he got it back, he got stopped because one of the taillights was out. He freaked and the cops thought he seemed suspicious so they pulled him out of the car and searched it. There was an unlicensed gun in the glove compartment and he had an ounce of weed on him. He was charged with grand theft auto, possession of an unlicensed firearm—even though it wasn’t his—and possession with the intent to distribute. It was total bull. Dude should’ve gotten a misdemeanor for joyriding and they never should’ve searched shit.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah. Angela was so pissed because he didn’t call her for advice and got some shitty public defender instead. She said if she’d gotten him a real lawyer, they could’ve gotten that time way down. Anyway. I mean, as for what can happen to people in prison… yeah, I think it’s pretty fucking grim, man.”
“Yeah.”
“So, if one of these kids is in trouble or something… I don’t know, maybe Angela could help? At least help hook them up with a criminal lawyer.” I always forget what kind of lawyer Angela is. Something with building permits, maybe?
“Nah, it’s not like that, but thanks, man. Yeah, I’ve just been thinking about it, I guess.”
“Yeah, okay, C.” X looks suspicious, but thankfully, he doesn’t push.