Second Chances (17 page)

“Robbie, I don’t blame you. Brian had a brain tumor and was dying. He wouldn’t have made it much longer.” I bulldozed through so it wouldn’t hurt so much. “It’s okay. But I want to talk about you, buddy. I want you to be safe. Okay? Because I really couldn’t take it if something happened to you too after all this.”

He waited a minute, took it all in. The fear and dread I had seen on his face was replaced with confusion. And determination. “But Zev’ll be looking for me, and he won’t like it if I don’t come back. He’s not really nice when he’s mad,” he said and trembled a little.

Fuck. That. Bastard. I wanted to see that fucker in jail. After about fifteen minutes with me and a baseball bat.

“Robbie, I’m going to cut straight to the chase here, okay? I don’t want you using anymore, and I don’t want you to sell yourself ever again. If I can offer you something else, somewhere else to stay,” and saw the look I knew was coming, saw his fear and moved to head it off. “Somewhere
not
the Hope House. Would you stay?”

He looked a little suspicious, now that he knew I wasn’t talking about him going back there. “Where’re you talking about?” he asked. Time to go for broke. And I filled him in on what my dad was offering. A home. Safety. A family.

“Are you serious?” he whispered. His eyes were round and wide open and his face was a little pale. I leaned forward in my chair so I could be right up in his face.

“I’ve already talked to him about it. There’ll be rules and no drugs. Robbie, you know I’d let you live with me, but I’d have to leave my job, and well….” I stalled for a second and took in a deep breath, “I just lost Brian, Robbie. I need some time to grieve him. By myself. You understand, don’t you?”

“Mr. Mark, that would mean we’d be almost… brothers,” he said. The look of awe and hope about undid me.

“So what do you say, bud? You want to talk to my dad?” I asked gently.

He just looked at me and nodded. Something in me that was clenched loosened a little. And I went and got my dad.

November 2005

I
WONDERED
why the hell I’d ever thought having a phone with a cord was a good idea. All it did was make moving around the kitchen awkward and conversations a bitch to keep focused on. When I pulled bagged salad out of the fridge and tried to take lasagna out of the oven
and
talk to Antonio all at the same time, I ran out of hands and had to balance the receiver on my shoulder.

“If it wasn’t for Robbie pitching a fit, I wouldn’t even be going to the family Thanksgiving this year. I can’t do that to him though. Leaving him alone to deal to that bunch of lunatics would have him running for the hills before dessert.” I laughed. Damn, but the pasta smelled good.

“He’ll be okay, and you need to be there. You know Patty’ll hunt you down if you try to blow off dinner. At least you won’t be eating deli turkey and chips,” he moaned.

“Don’t you have Jason?” I cooked way too much of this shit, I thought. It’s hard to gauge cooking for one.

“No, his mom and stepdad are taking him to Orlando for the week. Just me. How’s Robbie doing? I know him and Jason talk all the time on the phone, but he won’t tell me shit.”

“Yeah, I know. Dad says he’s always on the phone with him. But he seems to be good. He’s in school. The social worker’s still making home visits it seems like every damn week. Dad raised six kids, and I think he knows a thing or two about what works and what doesn’t. And he raised a gay one so Robbie isn’t throwing him any curveballs,” I ranted.

“You know that’s not what that shit is about,” he chided. “It’s them looking out for him because of the drugs and all the other stuff. They’d have him back in a group home or some shit if they didn’t think your dad’s place was good for him.”

“You’re right, damn it. Hey, what’re you doing right now?” I asked.

No way was I going to eat all this. Leftovers for lunch and dinner tomorrow were way too many carbs, and before I knew it I’d invited him to eat. Told him to get his ass over in the next twenty minutes and help me eat all this crap.

“And bring your table with you,” I said.

He was quiet a minute. “You sure? You haven’t felt up to having a massage since, well, for a few months. I don’t mind, but you sure?”

“Yeah. Nineteen minutes now. Get here,” I joked.

“Asshole,” he said and hung up.

I grabbed a couple of plates and flatware out of the cabinet and set the table in the dining room. Then I thought about it and found a bottle of red wine and two glasses.
No
fucking ice. As I moved around and got things ready and watched the clock for when to take the bread out, I kept hearing a funny noise in the house.

Five months in the house alone and I was losing my fucking mind. When Brian’d moved out when we were split up, the house was quiet. Now though, man, it was too much some nights. I couldn’t watch shit on television, and music still hurt too much. Too raw. With Lucy and Ricky living with Dad now—actually with Robbie, since he loved the dogs and they reminded me too much of Brian—I thought I’d gotten used to the silence.

The timer dinged and I popped the bread in a basket, set it with everything else on the table, and eyed the clock again. Everything looked and smelled great, but what the fuck was that noise? Then I realized it was me, humming.

I really didn’t have time to think about it too much before Antonio knocked on the door. He took the massage table into the den. He sniffed and made yummy-yummy noises. I heard his stomach growl, and when I teased him about it, he wrestled me into the dining room.

We made light conversation over dinner and polished off the bottle of wine, and I opened another one. It was Friday and I didn’t have to work the next day, so I could relax. I’d missed this a lot, hanging out with Antonio and just shooting the shit. I hadn’t seen him but maybe five or six times since July, and that was when he called and demanded we have lunch. The funeral had been tough as hell. I felt like days just went by and I didn’t notice. I knew things were going on and life was happening, but I wasn’t really a participant.

Five long months, a hundred and fifty short days.

I hadn’t been able to feel right in my skin. The world was just a little grayer. And for all the friends and family telling me, “Time will make it better,” and my personal favorite, “God works in mysterious ways,” well, the best thing I can say about it is they meant well.

Of course my sister Brenda, she of Sister Mary Vagina fame, wasn’t talking to me much these days. I loved her because I had to, but to try to tell me just two weeks after Brian’s death “God has a plan, and it’s not ours to know it” didn’t sit real well with me.

“Tell me, Bren, if you got a call telling you Frank and the kids just got killed in a wreck, how would you feel about God’s fucking plan? You’d just go quietly about your business because they’re in a better place or some shit? You fucking sit there and tell me how it’d feel if I told you some lame-ass shit like that when you’ve lost everything
you
loved.

“When you’ve got something real to say to me that isn’t something you think is appropriate for a nice little Christian girl to say, and don’t we fucking know better than
that
, when you can be my fucking sister and think about
me
for a fucking change, then you come talk to me.”

“But until then, you just fucking stay the hell away from me. Don’t call. Don’t write. Don’t email. I don’t want to hear from you until… just until.” I was so mad I was breathless. Then I hung up on her.

Damn, the anger had lit me up, and I felt something. Almost alive for a minute while the adrenaline burned through my body. Then it melted away, and I just felt sick.

Was I cruel? Maybe. Did I regret it? Not for one damned second. And there were other tensions in the family right then too. Dad’s decision to foster Robbie went over like a lead balloon with the God Squad and the Asshole. Funny about their family values. Now I’d given them some more ammunition against me. Just, fuck ’em.

Family. Can’t change ’em, can’t feed ’em to the lions. Gotta love ’em.

But today I felt a little more like myself.

Afterward, we cleaned up, and yes, I made his Italian ass wash plates and help me scrub out the lasagna pan. We joked around some more and flopped down on the sofa with the second bottle of wine. I’d been drinking most of it myself and knew Antonio was watching how much he’d had since he was driving. At his house, I usually was the one having just one glass. I didn’t miss his glances at my glass and how I kept filling it. But I was having too much fun to care.

“Thanks for coming over and eating. There just isn’t an easy way to make meals for one. Can’t be done,” I said.

“Sure there is, you just got to portion it in smaller dishes and freeze it. But I much prefer this solution.” He rubbed his belly. I watched him and noticed more definition in his abs than I remembered.

“Shit, you been working out every day or something?” I asked. He wasn’t small, with his wrestler’s build, but he was always really nicely muscled, not ripped. Not like what I saw there now, and I reached over and knocked on them with my knuckles. He laughed and shoved my hand away.

“Business’s been slow so I’m hitting the gym every day. It’s been a while since you went with me, but that’s cool. I’m doing more of the computer stuff now anyway. I’ll have to show you. Started designing custom workstations and tinkering around with how to work some caseless circuits and neon and fans. This shit is the wave of the future, Mark. If I can just figure out how to keep the dust out, and then fit the components into a handcrafter frame, there’ll be people knocking my fucking door down to buy these things. I’m getting closer, but all the things I need to do this right just aren’t on the market yet,” he rambled on.

I was clueless and not really paying attention as I poured us both the last of the wine left in the bottle. He kept saying something about motherboards and sound cards and processor speed. I kind of just watched his face and his hands move around. He was really dorky and nerdy-looking and all intense when he got wound up about computers. I laughed to myself.

“Are you even paying attention to me anymore, buddy? Or has the wine got you? You want me to go on home and you can go to bed?” he asked. That woke me up some.

“No!” I said probably a little too loudly. “No, man,” I took it down a notch, “I’m having too good a time right now. And we haven’t hung out that much lately. I needed this. Needed to do something again.”

I rolled my head on the back of the couch and looked at him. “Man, I’m sorry I’ve been such a bad friend,” I started to apologize.

He reached over and pushed my head. “Mark, shut the fuck up. It ain’t about who’s been a good friend or any bullshit like that. Five months is still fresh. You miss him, man, I know. I can’t imagine going through what you did, losing the person you love the most like that. If I ever lost Jason,” his voice cracked a little and he shook his head, “or you. Damn, Mark, I owe you so much. You helped me out when nobody else would. I don’t know why you hang around with an asshole like me anyway. You know what I do every day, what a struggle it is to make ends meet. You deserve better.” He pulled me over and shifted us sideways a little, my back against his chest.

He put his arms around me and rubbed my chest with those big, strong hands of his. “But it ain’t about me. It’s about you. You just needed some time and some space. Man, what kind of asshole would I’ve been not to let you have it? Let me take care of you here, okay? I ain’t going anywhere.”

His hands were so nice on my chest and belly, and he made smaller and smaller circles on me.

“Don’t you go anywhere either, baby,” he whispered. He kissed the back of my head and hugged me against him tight. He leaned back against the arm of the couch, and I slid in between his legs, back still against his chest.

It felt really nice to lie there against him like that. The wine and food made me a little drowsy, and I snuggled into the V of his legs and shifted up on the couch. I pulled his arms around me and laid my head on his neck. The wine, I thought, I must be a little more drunk than I thought, and he must be too. But it felt nice to be held again. Even if it was Antonio and not Brian.

When I rubbed my cheek against his jaw and sighed a little, he sucked in a lungful of air and held it for a minute. As relaxed as I was, I noticed it but didn’t give it much weight. He let out his breath and pulled me against him really tight. I felt him brushing light kisses down my ear and neck. The feeling of safety and peace, that beautiful feeling I’d been missing all these months, was right there in that moment.

I turned my head around and up to him, and looked at him through eyes barely open. His lips grazed against mine, and I felt him smile. How funny, I thought. He kissed me. I smiled and lay back down against his chest and dozed off.

W
HEN
I woke up I wasn’t sure for a minute where I was, and in my disoriented and half-buzzed state, I thought Brian was the one laying there with me. So I stretched, groped him, and chuckled a little. But the body didn’t feel anything like what it should have. Beefier, more muscles, even the smell was different. I opened my eyes and saw my hand was on Antonio’s package.