Dad drove me to school the next morning. He sometimes did that, and sometimes I walked. Today, he wasn’t going in as early as usual, so he drove me.
Even though neither of us was the most vocal guy in the world and we were accustomed to being together without a lot of talking going on, we sometimes did talk, too. Talking to him was a whole lot different from talking to my mom. She always seemed to be analyzing me when we talked, even if it was just a normal conversation. She couldn’t help it, I guess. I always had the idea, even if we were talking about whether crunchy or plain peanut butter was better, that she was looking inside my head, and I usually got the feeling she was seeing things that I didn’t know were there and that not everything she saw was just as it should be. I felt a little violated, sometimes, and that I didn’t have any secrets. I knew, intellectually, that that was a load of crap, that she couldn’t see what I was thinking and feeling any better than anyone else, but it always seemed like she could. Maybe I simply felt guilty all the time. Do all teen boys feel inner guilt?
With my dad, it was different. He was just a solid presence. He was smart, too, but it was somehow different. He had a master’s degree in physical education and was the head of the P.E. department at school. He’d told me once that he could have taken a job at our local community college, that they’d recruited him, but that he liked working with young teenagers and he was really happy where he was. He was in charge of what went on in the gym classes at school and had developed the policies used there that determined how kids were treated. He was the one who had decided our gym activities should be constructed so all kids could participate, even compete, on a more even basis than what was done at most schools. He cared that all kids were safe and were treated right and could develop some self-confidence by being successful and not having to deal with intimidation from bigger kids.
He and I got along great. I was very comfortable with him, probably more than with my mom because it never felt like I was under a microscope with him. I knew my mom and my dad both wanted me to be happy and successful. It’s just that I never felt quite so exposed with my dad.
When we were on the way to school, he was the first to speak. He might not have. We frequently drove all the way there with neither of us saying a word. We were both comfortable with that, too. Today, though, he asked me a question.
“How’s it going with Kevin? You haven’t said much, recently. Has he ever paged you?”
“Never. And I’m sure he won’t.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“Dad, I was wrong about him. I told you how cocky he was, what an attitude he had, and I misread him. I thought he’d use that against me, page me all the time to make me look stupid. I was basing that on what I’d seen of him in gym. And I was wrong, or else he’s changed. I don’t know which, but I know he’s not going to page me. He doesn’t like me, and he’s not going to ask me for help. I’ve tried to help him, tried to talk to him, and he wants nothing to do with me.”
He turned to look at me when I said that, and I tried to keep my face as impassive as I could. I hoped my voice had had the same quality. Impassive. Unreadable.
He looked back at the road and didn’t respond till we were pulling into the parking lot. He parked in his regular spot, turned off the key, and as I was pulling up on the door handle, said to me, “Are you okay with that?”
I pushed open the door, then looked at him instead of getting out. “Not really. But it might be getting better.”
Then he said something that didn’t make much sense to me. “Matt, I really admire the way you keep your head up. You’ve got a lot of courage, something you’re probably not even aware of. I’m really proud of you and who you’re becoming.”
I looked at him quizzically, and he smiled at me and got out of the car. I did too, then, and we walked into school together, neither of us saying anything else.
◊ ◊
Becky was at my locker that morning. “I’ve thought up a Plan C.”
“Becky, I’ve thought about this. I think you’re in love with the drama of all this. Maybe we should just let the poor kid alone. That’s what he says he wants. We should just back off.”
“Matt! Look at the kid! He’s all by himself, he’s got a broken wrist, he’s in love with you and now, now after you’ve got him to come this far, that’s when you want to back away?”
“Becky, you’re twisting this all around, making stuff up, just because it’s exciting. Yeah, I’m responsible for some of his problems, but he’s been asking me all along to just leave him alone. He’s not in love with me. Stop thinking that. And he’s probably just angry because I keep bothering him when he’s made it clear he wants to be left alone.”
“That’s not true, Matt, and you know it. You’ve ignored him this whole week and he’s still angry with you. But he’s not, really. He’s pretended to be, but he hasn’t meant it. I’m sure of it. And Plan C will prove it.”
I sighed. Winning arguments with Becky was pretty much futile. She was more tenacious than I was. “All right, tell me Plan C. But I’m not going to do it.”
“You might like this one. Listen to me, and think about this. The last couple times you spoke to him, he was okay with that. But the one time you spoke to him and I was with you, he was sarcastic, angry, and he walked away. So, today, you go talk to him again, without me, and this time actually talk, not just sit there.”
“He’ll just walk away again.”
“Not if I’m right. I think he’ll talk to you, if I’m not there.”
“You really think he’s now angry just because he thinks I have a girlfriend? And wouldn’t talk to me the other day because you were there?”
“Yes. It’s obvious. And you’ll prove it by talking to him today without me there. He’ll stay and talk with you. I know he will.”
“But what would I talk about? Talking about me injuring him hasn’t worked. Becky, he’s a couple of years younger than I am. I don’t even know if we have anything in common. And I can’t talk about crushes and being gay. That wouldn’t work at all.”
“Has he said anything at all, any time, that you could talk about? He must have said something you could follow up on.”
I had to think. We really hadn’t said all that much to each other, though it seemed he’d been an integral part of my life lately. I mentally reviewed our conversations, and in doing so, did think I had one thing I could maybe follow up on. If he’d go along with it. He might not. So I kept thinking, trying to come up with something else so if the first thing was a nonstarter, perhaps the second one would be the charm. And while I was doing all this, I also realized I was buying into the Plan C concept. Damn Becky anyway!
“Have you thought of anything?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, look, today, you go sit and talk to him, and I’ll stay back at the table. You have to talk to him without me, at least to start. But look, buster, I don’t plan on eating alone all year while you two lovebirds are an exclusive duet. Pretty quickly, you have to tell him I’m a friend, not a girlfriend. That I’m not your girlfriend is really the key to this. You don’t have to do that in any way that suggests you think he has a crush on you. You just have to fit it into the conversation somehow, and then I can join you from then on. That’s important, or you’ll have the wrath of Becky on your neck the rest of the year. You got that?”
I looked at her, at her intense face and dark scowl, and burst out laughing. “The Wrath of Becky?” And I laughed harder.
She couldn’t help it; she laughed too. “Well, I tried. I want to be part of this, Matt. Please? Don’t leave me out.”
“Becky, I promise. I won’t leave you out. If I can’t have him as a friend as well as you, then I won’t have him as a friend. Okay? And, in fact, I’m starting to feel a little guilty. We’re pestering the kid, and he doesn’t like it. Now we’re doing it based on your guess that he’s gay. What if he isn’t? What if he simply wants to be left alone? I’ll tell you what. I’ll do this today. But if it doesn’t work, that’s it. No more bothering him.”
She smiled at me. A full, warm smile. I think it was because I’d said I wouldn’t abandon her as a friend, not because I said this was it, with Kevin. “Okay,” she said, agreeing with my ultimatum. Then we had to get to our homerooms.
◊ ◊
Becky thought it would be better if we didn’t go in to lunch together, if I just met with Kevin and ignored her. That way, maybe he’d get the idea she wasn’t important to me. I thought she was just being dramatic again and too obscure for a 13- or 14-year-old’s undeveloped brain, but I went along with it. It was a lot easier going along with Becky than arguing with her.
Becky was at her table when I walked in, and I ignored her and walked directly to Kevin’s. I put my tray down, then sat down.
I never knew what to expect from Kevin, and didn’t know today, either. Anger, friendliness, hostility, acceptance, I had no idea. So I sat and looked at him. He looked at me, didn’t say anything, and just ate.
A few minutes later, just when I thought I’d have to break the silence to move forward, he spoke. He surprised me by asking, “Did you have a fight?”
“A fight? What do you mean?”
“You aren’t sitting with your girlfriend.”
“Kevin, she’s not my girlfriend. I just made friends with her last week. We’re in band together. She just broke up with her boyfriend and doesn’t want another one anytime soon. Even if she did, we’re just friends, new friends, and we just started eating lunch together, and I don’t think about her like that.”
He was quiet for a while, thinking about that. Then he asked, “So why aren’t you eating with her today?”
“Because I’m eating with you.” There, that ought to work for an answer.
“Why?” Well, so much for me trying.
So here goes Plan C. “Because of what you said the other day, Monday, when I sat down here. And because of what you’ve said to me a couple of times now. I can’t get any of it out of my mind, and I want to know. I want to talk to you about it. If you’ll do that, and give me honest answers, then if you don’t ever want me to bug you again, I won’t. I promise. I won’t be happy about it because I’ve kinda got used to you bugging me, which I don’t understand but it’s the truth. Anyway, you talk to me, answer my questions, and I’ll respect what you want. Okay?”
“What did I say on Monday?”
“You said, ‘My life is shit, and I don’t want to talk to you.’ I’m not asking about the not talking part, but about the shitty life part.”
I was looking in his eyes, and he was looking back, and I was hoping he was seeing compassion in mine. He didn’t reply right away, and I was afraid he wasn’t going to. I was asking for some pretty personal information, and we didn’t know each other. That was why I had wanted to have something else to talk about when Becky had sprung Plan C on me. I didn’t know if he’d go along with this. He really didn’t have any reason to that I knew of.
It was a good thing I’d given myself a backup position as his next words were, “And what did I say to you a couple times now that you’ve been thinking about?”
“You’ve told me I wasn’t the person you thought I was. That’s bothered me. I don’t know who you thought I was, but the fact you were disappointed I wasn’t that guy bothered me. I’d at least like to know who you thought I was. And why you’d decided I wasn’t that guy. I’d also like to know why you told me you weren’t angry with me because I broke your wrist. If not for that, then why all the anger? That’s been bothering me all along. I mean, a lot. Will you tell me?”
I was still looking intently at him, and he looked back, but then, pretty quickly, he dropped his eyes. He looked down at the table. His words, when they came, were spoken without the intensity they’d had before. His entire personality seemed muted.
“I don’t think I can.”
I heard a small voice, a voice without any edge to it. It wasn’t angry, which it’d been all the time lately, nor was it the feisty, challenging voice I’d got from him in gym. This was just a normal young teen voice, a little tentative, a little shy, not very confident when talking to an older kid, and quite a bit awkward at the moment. I realized, in what was for me a blaze of insight, that I was hearing the real Kevin for the first time.
I was about to reply when something stopped me. It seemed almost anything I said here might scare him away, or break the mood, and the mood he was in seemed much more likely to produce what I wanted from him than any other mood of his I was familiar with. So, I didn’t say anything, merely kept looking at him compassionately, even if he didn’t know that as he wasn’t meeting my eyes.
It was a full minute before he spoke again. A minute is a long silence. But it was at least that long. Then, what he said surprised me, and it was my turn to pause.
It was like he’d made a decision, and because of that, there was more strength in his voice. “Matt,” he said, and I realized that was the first time he’d ever used my name, “I heard rumors that you had a very hard time of it your first two years here. Would you tell me about that?”
It was my turn to look down at the table. This was the very last thing I had expected. And what he asked, I didn’t want to do it. I really, truly didn’t want to do it. I never talked about myself, and I certainly didn’t talk about this. It was behind me, and that’s where I wanted it to remain.
What had he heard? And why, and from whom? Not that it mattered. What mattered was I didn’t want to answer the question. I didn’t want to tell him about that.
I had to say something.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because you asked me a question. If I answer it, I’ll be telling you things I don’t want to tell you. Some of my anger, some of the things I’m feeling, are based on what I heard about you. Before I tell you, I’d like to know how much of what I heard is true. Or if any of it is.”
What a weird answer! I didn’t know what he meant. “What did you hear?”
“I want you to tell me. It’s only fair, if I’m going to answer your questions. And I decided. I will answer them. But you have to go first.”
This was awful! I’d finally gotten him to talk, finally gotten him to stop being mad, and this was the price I was going to have to pay? I didn’t want to do it. Yet I knew where he was coming from. I didn’t know how I knew, but I knew. He was telling me he was willing to expose something of himself to me, but he wanted me to do the same thing for him.
I didn’t know how hard that would be for him, but it was almost impossible for me.
Was all this worth it? Stripping myself naked so a young kid wouldn’t hate me? It was strange, but it seemed to me that Kevin was worth it. And I didn’t know why. What did I expect to get out of this? I guess I expected to get to know Kevin better. That was it. Was that worth it?
I felt it was. I had no idea why, but the alternative, Kevin just walking away from me, probably still hating me, was something I didn’t want to happen. If I didn’t do this, there’d be nothing left between us. I knew that. And as long as I had the chance to avoid that, I was going to take that chance.
None of this made sense to me. He was younger than I was, and as far as I knew, we didn’t have much in common to build a friendship on, and a friendship didn’t make much sense anyway, although that was the only reason I could think of that I was even contemplating doing this. So was a possible friendship worth considering this? Wasn’t the price I’d pay way too high for just that?
I didn’t know. But I did know, viscerally, that I didn’t want Kevin just to become another kid I barely even knew at school. I kept seeing him in my mind the way he’d been in gym class, a grinning, self-confident kid who was teasing me, challenging me, and that vision appealed to me. I didn’t want to walk away from that and leave him the way he’d become.
I wanted to help him. He was finally talking, he didn’t seem angry, and he was going to relieve my mind with some of his answers to my questions, but it was more than that. I just thought he was a kid who needed help, and I thought I could do that. I wanted to do that. I wanted to see him with a bunch of friends around him, I wanted to see him happy, and if I knew why he wasn’t, maybe I could help make that happen. And the corollary to that was, he’d then see me not as a kid who’d broken his wrist, but a kid who cared about him and had gone the extra mile because of that care. But in telling him about me, he’d also see what a fucked up person I was!
This was so hard. I really, truly wanted him to see me as a good guy. One who wanted to help him more than anything else. And somehow I knew that if giving him what he was demanding from me was price to pay for that, well, I’d pay it.
I realized I had talked myself into complying with his request. I hated the idea of telling him what he was asking, I didn’t want to revisit all that, feel all that stuff again. But I knew now, from the excuses and reasons I was building for myself, that I was going to do it. I’d accepted the idea, even though I didn’t like it.
“Kevin, this will be difficult for me. I don’t want to do it. I hate it, really. Are you going to make me do it?” I could hear the plea in my voice. He must have heard it, too.
I saw a quick glint in his eye, and then it was gone. He looked me in the eye and said, “I want to know.” His voice was a little stronger.
“Well, I’m not going to do it here. It’ll have to be somewhere private. Your house or mine, maybe. Or someplace else where we can be alone and won’t be interrupted. It’ll take some time. And Kevin, I hate this. You need to know that. I really hate it.” I looked at him, and for the first time, I had some real intensity in my eyes. I wanted him to see this wasn’t a trivial thing for me.
He looked into my eyes, but seemed to ignore whatever he saw there. “Can we do it at your house?”
Wow! Where did that come from? Still, that was best for me, because I had the most control of everything that way.
“Okay. I can’t do it tonight. I have the half-time show to play.” I looked at him, all sorts of thoughts running through my head, almost too many to sort out. I didn’t want to answer the question he wanted answered, but did want to get his answers to my questions. I didn’t want to do this right away, I needed time to prepare, but the sooner the better. I didn’t want to meet him all by ourselves for some reason, but it was exciting to imagine that, being together, alone. I couldn’t ask him to get together on the weekend, could I? Doing that was scary. Maybe that was because, if I did in then, there was all the time in the world, not like there would be on a school night where he’d have to eventually say, ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go now.’ Or maybe it was something else, just that inviting him over on the weekend seemed, I don’t know, sort of personal. But this whole thing was personal. Way personal. And that made it exciting. But I was scared, too. Could I do this? Why had my dad told me I had courage? I didn’t have any courage. And Kevin was looking at me, waiting. I didn’t know what to say. I was confused.
I always seemed to be confused. Even just thinking my own thoughts, all by myself, I was confused.
What did I want? Maybe I should just do what I wanted to do. Except it seemed like it would take me another few hours to try to figure out just what that was. This was all too hard.
“Kevin, I . . .” Damn! “Kevin, how about tomorrow? Could you come over to my house? Where we could talk?” Damn! Damn! Damn!
“Okay.” That was all. But it was a lot, too. He sounded like the normal 13-year-old that he looked like. No pretensions. No anger. No challenge.
My heart was racing, and I was feeling funny. I realized I was excited by what was going to happen tomorrow.
I told him my address and we set the time. He had a very neutral look on his face when I left. This evidently wasn’t nearly as traumatic for him as it was for me. Why should a little kid be so calm, and an older guy be so weirded out by all this?