The Way Things Are (28 page)

Jay folded his arms across his chest and glared at Ken. “That doesn’t help.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t. Have you thought about just telling him?”

Jay just stared at him like he’d said something obviously stupid.

“Okay, so that’s not a good idea. You’ve got a sport cup, right?”

Jay pouted.

“You know it happens to everybody, so you can just make a joke out of it and hope he’s understanding.”

“I can only make a joke out of it so many times.”

Ken sat down and tried to think back to his own embarrassing high school years. “You wear the sports cup, right?”

“Yeah.”

“If it’s still happening, you’ve probably got the wrong size strap. Tell you dad you need a different one. Not today, though. Today, I need to get you home.”

“What happened?”

Ken zipped the backpack shut around the books and hoisted it. “It doesn’t matter. Shit happened. You need to get home now. Come on, I’ll tell you about it on the drive.”

“Huh?” Jay fumbled with his sketchbook and then hurried to catch up to him. “What’s going on? What did I do?”

“Did you do something?” Ken asked out of habit.

“No! I mean, I don’t think so. But you don’t swear. I mean, you
never
swear.”

Ken stopped midstride, adjusted Jay’s backpack on his shoulder and stared down at the kid. “You’re right,” he said, sighing. He continued toward his car, moving slower this time. “I try not to swear around you. And I shouldn’t. Your dad’s not the only one who was worried about you, and when I’m worried, I tend to forget about things like that.”

“Well, now I’m officially freaked out,” Jay said nervously. “Is my dad okay?”

“No, but he will be once he sees for himself you’re safe.”

“Did he get arrested again?”

“That’s the first thing that comes to mind?”

“He did?”

“No, Jay. Physically, he’s okay. He’s had a rough day. I don’t think it’s right for me to say any more than that, because what he wants you to know is up to him. Either way, I’m taking you home.”

“I can get my bag myself,” Jay said.

Ken passed the backpack back to him and gently nudged Jay toward his car. Once he was settled in the passenger’s seat, Jay wedged the backpack between his feet and shoved his sketchbook back inside. It didn’t fit with all the library books.

Jay fiddled with the zipper pull for a moment. “You won’t tell my dad about this, will you?” he asked, obviously nervous.

“About you going to the library?”

“The guy thing.”

Ken was about to turn the key in the ignition, but stopped. “If you were any other kid, I’d understand and agree. But your dad is gay. You were in the car when he told me he’s gay. And you promised me, three different times, that you aren’t in an abusive situation. You really think he’d be upset?”

Jay wrung his hands together, staring straight ahead. “You’d think it wouldn’t matter, but….” Jay shook his head frantically. “Even though he says he’s gay, he’s freaked about talking about it. Before we moved he picked fights with a few guys who called him a fag outside our building. And when I ask him about it, he just changes the subject. And that’s stupid because all that shit with my mom was my fault anyway.”

Ken forced himself to stay still, to keep a straight face and stay calm. “Your fault?” he asked, parroting back Jay’s own words in hopes of getting him to continue.

“Yeah. I wish I could convince him how stupid it is to try to protect me from something I’m responsible for. It’s not like I can really even remember it.”

“You can’t remember?”

“Well, I can remember a bit. But not most of it. I remember a little bit from when she started dating Anthony, the guy she moved in with after my dad. We went to Coney Island, I remember that. But after….” Jay shook his head again. “I remember the things my mom and Anthony made me practice saying, the things I was supposed to say to the judge so they could take away my dad’s weekend visits permanently.”

“They were trying to get full custody of you? To terminate your dad’s parental rights?”

“Yeah.”

“And they coached you on what to say in court?”

Jay nodded and swallowed hard. “When my mom kicked my dad out, she was really mad at him. When she moved in with Anthony, he hired an expensive lawyer who told her my dad being gay wasn’t enough to take away his rights, that the court would only do something like that if it actually had a bad impact on me. So they told me to say… well, bad stuff. I couldn’t say those things about him. Even when I was little and he’d spank me, he never hurt me. He never would. I guess I told the judge everything, but even that’s a blur. The judge was really, really mad. He had Anthony and my mom arrested, walked out of the court room in handcuffs and everything.”

“Sounds like perjury to me. Or maybe something more serious like conspiracy.”

“Is that a crime?”

“It’s what they use to nail mob bosses and stuff.”

Jay gave him an indifferent half shrug. “If you say so. I went home with my dad for a week. At least he told me I did. My dad told me that first week was a mess. He didn’t even really know how to make macaroni and cheese, so we ended up at McDonald’s for lunch and dinner each day. My mom called and told him she wanted to work out the custody thing and asked him to bring me home. She said she missed me.” Jay spat the words. “But I’ve just got to take his word for it. The first thing I’ve got a solid memory of, after the custody stuff started, is pretending to be asleep in the hospital while my folks argued. Well, while my mom argued. I know my dad was there because she was screaming at him. She kept screaming that it was all his fault, that he shouldn’t be allowed to be near a kid because he was a….” Jay stopped midsentence and grimaced. “Because he’s gay. And he was too selfish to let me go so she could give me a real family. I think it was bullshit, to be honest.”

“Bullshit?”

“Anthony was a dick. He was a dick with money and he was used to getting everything he wanted. He couldn’t get his way legally, so he tried to get his way by lying. He got caught, he got in trouble, and he was pissed about it. It didn’t have anything to do with my dad being gay, even if he said it did when he pled guilty.”

“What did he do?”

“He beat me up. I honestly don’t remember it. I remember waking up in the hospital and wondering how the hell the trees out the window were already turning red. A month went by, I know it did. My dad told me I was awake for most of it, but….” Jay closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Sometimes I figure it’s just easier not to worry about it. I know I had surgery to set broken bones, and part of my lung collapsed, and I know my dad was pissed that my mom’s boyfriend managed to buy his way into a misdemeanor plea bargain. I don’t care that I can’t remember. I want to forget it all. But my dad won’t.”

“He won’t?”

“He believed her. When she said everything was his fault—like if he wasn’t gay they wouldn’t have gotten divorced, she wouldn’t have been angry, and she wouldn’t have started dating Anthony at all. He believed it. He thinks he drove her to hook up with an asshole who hated homosexuals, even though she did that on her own. But my dad being gay didn’t have anything to do with it. It was my fault.”

“You don’t think the guy who beat you up should take the blame?” Ken asked, even though he knew the point wouldn’t sink in. He’d wrestled with the same feelings of guilt when he was young, and nothing anybody said had been able to change those feelings.

“I know
he’s
to blame. But I’m the one who got him in trouble.”

“No,” Ken insisted. “Jay, you listen to me. Abusers don’t need an excuse to be abusive. Even if there had never been any custody battle and your parents split on good terms, it still would have happened eventually. Abusers use every excuse imaginable after the fact to make their victims blame themselves, but it’s all just part of the manipulation involved.”

Jay glared at him. “You weren’t there. What would you know about it?”

“I know you’re damn lucky you have a dad who loves you enough to fight for you, to get you away from that situation. Most kids who are in abusive homes are abused by their own parents, and afterward they get to deal with the physical pain and the guilt and a pretty strong sense that they must be worthless if their own parent can’t stand them. And most kids have no way out. Half the time, the nonabusive parent is just as frightened as the kids and has about as much control over the situation. So unless someone reports it to protective services, they have no hope of ever getting out.”

Ken watched Jay’s eyes and saw the anger simmering there. It was obvious Jay thought he didn’t have a clue what he was talking about, like he could never understand what it was like to be trapped in an abusive home. Ken took a slow, deep breath. Talking about his own life was just one more boundary he was pretty sure he was doomed to cross at this point. “At least my mom was too afraid to get out. And because it was my own father who beat me and my brothers, we had to get on with life knowing no one was ever going to help us.”

“What happened?” Jay asked, his voice barely audible.

“He nearly killed her. Even after he went to prison, my brothers and I still blamed ourselves. But the only person who is responsible for abuse is the abuser. It took me a long time, and some outside help, to convince myself of that. It was not your fault. It was not your father’s fault. This guy got himself in trouble. He was responsible for his conduct when he hurt you and when he tried to get you to lie. Just him.”

“Well, him and my mom, but I’m not supposed to say that….”

Ken thought about the way Patrick had lashed out at Corbin Hollis the day they’d sparred in the gym just because the man had called his ex-wife a bitch. He thought about the messages he’d left at women’s shelters when he’d tried to get in touch with Jay’s mother. Ken would bet she’d been just as frightened and lost as Jay, probably more so with the added insecurity of having no way of supporting herself and a child on her own. That Patrick had figured out she was probably frightened too was impressive. That he could distance himself enough from the situation to realize talking shit about his ex to his son wasn’t in the boy’s best interests was phenomenal. But Jay had so many issues with his mother that Ken doubted he could ever believe she was frightened too.

It was worth a try, though. “You know, maybe your mom was scared.”

“She chose him,” Jay muttered. “Even afterward, she chose him.”

“Things aren’t always that black-and-white,” Ken tried once more.

“Yeah, well, sometimes they are.”

Ken ran his fingers through his hair and wished he’d insisted on Jay going to a few therapy sessions. “There are different kinds of fear. A lot of women in abusive relationships don’t have jobs or money or friends. A lot of them have never gone to college, they’ve never had to support themselves, and they feel trapped. Their abusers usually make them feel worthless and convince them that they’ll never make it on their own.”

Jay grumbled, but he didn’t say anything. He also didn’t look in Ken’s direction.

“All I’m saying is that there are usually a lot of sides to every story,” Ken went on.

“Whatever.”

“Like I said, you’re lucky. Your dad cares about you more than anything in the world. If your dad gets nervous about talking about homosexuality around you, I’m sure it’s just him trying to protect you from all of the other assholes out there who might be just as bad as your mom’s boyfriend. It doesn’t mean he’d be upset. And he’s a pretty perceptive guy, so he might already know.”

“He’d freak out if I told him. He freaks out if someone says the word ‘gay’ on TV,” Jay pointed out.

“No matter how he reacts, he’ll still love you and accept you, and he’ll probably have some decent advice. And if he’s willing to risk his life to rescue a kid he doesn’t even know from being gay bashed when he’s outnumbered three to one, you can bet he’d do damn near anything to protect you. That’s more than most kids who are questioning their sexuality can hope for.”

“I don’t want him to know,” Jay insisted.

“Okay. He won’t hear about it from me. But if he already knows, don’t assume I told him.”

The silence that followed was awkward, but not as bad as Ken had feared it’d be. When Ken parked down the street from Patrick’s apartment, Jay gaped at the half-dozen police cars parked in front of the building. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“You can ask your dad about it upstairs.”

Jay didn’t hang around to argue about it. He left his backpack behind and raced down to the front entrance, slipping past a uniformed police officer who had likely been posted at the door to wait for him. Ken followed him at a pace that wouldn’t make his knee feel like he was trying to walk with a joint filled with broken glass, taking the old rickety elevator instead of the stairs.

Even though the hall outside Patrick’s apartment was still filled with loitering police officers, Malcolm was nowhere to be found. Unfortunately there was no sign of Patrick and Jay either.

Ken went straight into the apartment, scanning the mess of people inside. He could hear Jay’s voice from the hallway, firing questions at a frantic pace, but he couldn’t see him. Patrick’s friend Corbin, dressed for a workout instead of a night clubbing, was pacing around the clutter and debris.

He glanced up at Ken and smiled brightly. “The sexy probation officer came through!” he called, oblivious to the half-dozen law enforcement officers in the room with them. “And you found the kid too. How’d you manage that?”

Ken was about to roll his eyes, but something about Corbin’s tone made him pause. Corbin was staring at him, studying him. He saw Corbin glance at one of the police officers when he chuckled, then look straight back at him. Another test, Ken realized. Corbin was waiting to see Ken’s reaction.

Ken smiled brightly and charged across the room, getting close enough that Corbin wouldn’t have an excuse to shout. “I just looked for Jay right where he said he’d be. Not that hard. Is Pat okay?”

Corbin grinned. “No. But he’s better. Now he’s no more fucked-up than usual. He’s trying to reason with the kid about all the sketchbooks.”