Briar seemed to be watching me a lot as the day progressed. I didn’t want him to start hating me, but I was scared maybe he would. That’s the way people were; after they got to know me a little they didn’t much like me anymore. It was me, not them. I knew that. I was just hoping it would be different with Briar. I really liked him. There was just something about him. What I wouldn't give to be like that: independent, cocky without putting anyone else down, sure of himself, not scared of anything. Sure of himself. I know, I already said that, but . . . Man, I wish . . .
He had integrity, too. I’d read that word and hadn’t been sure what it meant. I did now, watching Briar. He did things right, and he did the right thing. He joked about things, but what he did, that was different. There was nothing joking or wrong with his behavior.
Later that morning, when I’d left the table earlier, I was reading a book when he came and sat on the couch next to me.
“I think we hurt your feelings somehow this morning, but I don’t know how. I don’t want you upset with me without knowing why. You’re always quiet, but you’ve been quieter since then. Can you tell me what’s wrong? Please?”
He looked almost sad, and I felt bad about that. But if he was sad because he thought he’d hurt my feelings, well, I guess he wasn’t hating me yet. That was good.
“It wasn’t you guys. You were great. Really. It was me. I don’t know where I want to live, and I should. I should know if I like ice skating or slopping hogs or climbing rope ladders, and I don’t. I couldn’t answer any of those questions, and I couldn’t really participate in the conversation when I wanted to, wanted to so badly, and it made me feel bad. I don’t have opinions about anything. I hated showing you that. I know you saw it, thought, and it made me feel so bad. I hate myself for being like I am. But it wasn’t your fault. And I’m sorry if I’m being too quiet.”
I looked down at the couch, sorta hoping he’d get up and walk away and leave me to feel sorry for myself all alone. I was good at feeling sorry for myself. I’d have to remember to add that to the things I did well. But I was sorta hoping he’d stay, too.
He stayed. I could feel his eyes on me, but they weren’t hostile. They felt gentle. For such a large, strong, imposing man, he had a gentle side. I’d seen it a couple of times before. When he told me to get naked in the car, I looked in his eyes and saw what he was feeling, how bad he felt about asking me to do that. Compassion, that’s the word I was looking for. He was compassionate. I’m not sure I’d have done what he’d asked if I hadn’t seen that.
Well, that’s silly. Of course I would have. I always did what an adult told me to do.
We sat that way for a while. Then he reached over and put his hand on my knee. I was sprawled out on the couch, lying on my back reading my book with my head and shoulders propped up on the arm of the couch. He was sitting near my feet. When he spoke, it was softly.
“What do you think people see when they look at you, Dustin?”
What kind of a question was that? What a crazy question! How was I supposed to know what people thought? About now my father would have been at the beginning of a rage. He hated the way I was. I took a quick glance up into Briar’s face. His compassion was evident in his eyes, and his voice remained gentle. “Tell me what you think of yourself, Dustin. I think I know; you’ve given me clues, but I’d really like to hear it from you.”
I didn’t want to say anything, but he was hard to deny, especially when he was being like this. He was being gentle, but intense, too. I was used to screaming and hitting and demeaning, scathing comments. Kindness and caring were much harder to resist.
My voice seemed to want to get caught in my throat so the words came out sorta scratchy. “I don’t like myself much. I can’t seem do anything right, you and Pat are about the only adults who’ve ever acted like they liked me, and I don’t know how long that’ll last. I even thought maybe you’d started not to like me after breakfast this morning when I couldn’t join in. Who wants to take in a kid who can’t even hold his own in a happy conversation?”
I stopped. I didn’t want my voice to completely break. Adding ‘crybaby’ on top of everything else would be pretty bitter frosting.
He squeezed my knee, and we sat like that for a few minutes. He didn’t get up and run off. He sat there, and I could feel an odd vibe from him. It didn’t seem to be my imagination. I didn’t get the sense that he felt sorry for me, either. That wasn’t it at all. It was that he wanted me to know he was there and that he was on my side. That was a lot different.
When he finally spoke, there was a harder edge to his voice. Not anger, more like determination. “We’ll have to do something about this. Dustin, do you want to change what you think of yourself? Do you want your life to be different?”
“I don’t know. That’s just another thing I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it. I guess I do, but I don’t think it’s possible. I’m just me. And I’m not worth much.”
He frowned. “Now stop that!” Amazing, but the anger in his voice didn’t scare me. It was directed at me, but somehow, it almost seemed affectionate. “Think about it if you need to, but answer the question: would you like to be different? I didn’t ask if you if you thought it was possible. What I’m asking is, are you willing to try to make things different? Because nothing will change without effort on your part. You have to invest in any change. I want to know if you’re up for that or not.”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know exactly what it would mean if I said yes. If I said no, I guessed I could keep reading book s and watching TV and not having friends and getting picked on. I didn’t much like that thought. But I was used to it.
How much work would it be to try to change? What if I tried and couldn’t change? Wouldn’t that just make me feel even worse about myself? And it was unlikely I could make any meaningful change. I’d failed with most things I’d attempted in the past. This would probably just be another failure.
I just didn’t know what it would be all about, anyway, what he was asking. He was questioning me about something I didn’t know how to answer.
“I don’t know,” I said eventually.
“Does that mean you really aren’t interested in trying, or just that you don’t know what I’m talking about?”
“The second one,” I said.
He smiled. “You’re used to letting someone else make decisions for you, aren’t you?” he asked, his voice gentle again, not accusatory at all, just talking to me like we were friends, like he cared what I said, like he was making a real effort to get to know me.
“Yes,” I said, almost too softly for him to hear.
“Will you trust me to make this one, then?”
“Yes,” I said, a little louder, and for some reason, I could feel my heart beating harder in my chest. I didn’t know what I’d just signed on for, but did know Briar would be with me, and he’d have my back.
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Pat had gone to work after breakfast. She said she’d be working day shifts now, mostly. Briar told me he’d be going out in the afternoon and asked if I’d be okay alone. I thought that was funny and almost made a sarcastic remark, but instead just told him I’d be fine.
He was gone till about 6. I was getting hungry by then, and thought of looking for a snack. I was sure he wouldn't mind, but I still didn’t really feel like this was my home. I felt like a stranger and one who didn’t want to take a chance at screwing up.
He came in and said he’d be fixing ribs for dinner and that it would be a couple of hours or more yet, and if I wanted to nibble on something to waylay starvation, to just go ahead. So, I did.
Pat came in about then, and those two started what seemed like their perpetual war. I’d seen a real war between my mother and father so I knew the difference. This wasn’t real. She told him she didn’t like the way he was preparing the ribs for the oven, didn’t like his homemade sauce recipe, and asked if he had any idea what the hell he was doing? He said he’d been brought up in Texas and no one knew barbecue like a Texan knew barbecue, and she should just get out of the kitchen and go spend some time powdering her nose and grooming her cuticles and let the men folk do what had to be done if it was going to be done right. She said she had recipes from both Mississippi and Kansas and either one would make Texas barbecue seem like eating a wash cloth. She asked him if he knew anything about dry rubs, and he said he enjoyed it better with lube, she broke out into giggles and blushed. I’d seen boys in porno videos using lube. I knew what it was. I giggled and hoped they didn’t hear me.
I was lucky; they didn’t notice when I turned red. They were too much into each other, bickering and fussing, but half the time they were laughing, so it was fun to listen to and not scary at all. I felt a closeness between those two I’d never felt with my parents.
The food, when we finally got to it, was wonderful. I think I ate a whole rack all by myself, and there was lots of meat on those bones. Pat and Briar shared the other rack, and Briar started in on how he’d have to take a second job just to keep me in vittles. I’d have worried if Pat hadn’t been forcing more baked beans and corn on the cob and coleslaw on me as he said it, and she told me it was always best when dealing with a fool to ignore him. She’d made all those side dishes and told me they were much better for me than the ribs he’d made, and I wouldn't get nearly as sick if I stuck to eating her food, either.
I could tell that Briar, when he was teasing me, wasn’t serious just by how his eyes were laughing as he did it. I think he was trying to teach me something, that not all kidding had to be mean, that sometimes it was a sign of affection, and that his kidding would never be meant to hurt me.
I went to bed that night on my couch still completely stuffed and incredibly happy for the first time I could remember. I felt an inner peace for the first time I could remember, too. I wasn’t worried now that Briar and Pat were going to get tired of me and boot me out. Briar had seen some of what a loser I was today, and it hadn’t bothered him at all. In fact, it seemed that he was going to take a stab at helping me get better at some things. It wouldn’t work, I knew that, but it seemed possible if we spent that much time together we could bond a little more, and I’d really like that thought.
It was quiet in the apartment, and as I was drifting off, I felt really comfortable being there. That feeling of being a stranger here that I’d had earlier was all gone, obliterated by how our evening together had gone and the friendship that was being given me. Before, with my father, I always felt safer when he was out of the house. I stayed pretty much in my bedroom when he was home. Here, I felt better when Briar and Pat were in the room with me. It was almost as if I belonged with these people. Really belonged. It sort of felt like I thought a real family must feel.
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The next day after Pat went to work, Briar told me we were going house hunting. He said that part of what he’d done yesterday afternoon was to talk to a couple of Realtors to get some ideas. Today, we were going to check out what he thought looked like possibilities.
“Downtown? Suburbs?” I wondered what he’d decided.
“You’ll see.” He said it with a smile. I could tell, he enjoyed my impatience and keeping me in the dark.
I watched the world go by out the car windows and saw we were headed out of town. I wondered what he had in mind.
He had a list that he kept glancing at. The first place we came to was an old farmhouse with a barn and everything. It was right next to the busy highway, and the place looked tired and dirty and deserted. All around it were fields full of weeds.
“What do you think?” Briar said after we’d gotten out and walked around a little. We hadn’t been inside yet.
“Uh, I don’t know.”
“Well, it’s up to you. Your decision. What do you think?”
I looked at him, feeling awfully uncomfortable all of a sudden. “Uh, well, do you like it?”
He laughed. Then he laughed harder. When he stopped, he said, “I think it’s awful. Noisy, dirty, the roof is caving in, and from the smell of the place, there’s water in the basement.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t like it, either.”
“Why couldn’t you say that when I asked?”
“I wasn’t sure. You might have thought it was great.”
“And if I had, and you hated it, you’d have let me go right ahead and buy it?”
“Well, yeah. You’re an adult, and I’m a kid.”
“Yes, you are, Dustin. You’re a kid. But you’re a kid who has an opinion, and your opinion is just as important as anyone else’s, man, woman or child. When I ask for your opinion, I want to hear it. I’ll also want to know why you’ve formed it because you might have reasons I haven’t thought of. I’m not going to get mad if your opinion is different from mine. I expect some will be. Pat has lots of opinions different from mine, but you know? I think I’m falling in love with her. Don’t tell her I said that! But I might be, even if she does have some odd, fucked up opinions.”
I opened my eyes wider in shock, and he laughed again. “It’s okay to use language like that occasionally, Dustin. Reminds you you’re a free and independent soul. Lets other people know you realize that, too.”
I processed that, and he watched me. Eventually, he said, “Can I expect you to give me your opinion when I ask for it? Don’t expect me to agree with everything you say. But I really do want to know what you think.”
I looked at him a moment before nodding. The change I was experiencing was continuing, and I was trying to get used to it. It seemed like he respected me. No one, no one, had ever respected me or my opinion. Finally, I said, “I’ll try. I lived my whole life not being allowed to have an opinion of my own and never saying it out loud if somehow I did. So, I’ll try, but like most things, I won’t be good at it.”
Briar smiled and patted me on the back. “Trying is what I want for now. Excelling comes later.”