The Son of Every Man

Chapter 5.1

There were so many events that shook me during that time, countless revelations stripping away everything I possessed, real and imaginary, one by one, until I stood naked, subjected to the scrutinizing gaze of millions of people I did not know. But the difference in severity between Miguel and Gabe's sentences was easily the worst among them. Whatever sliver of meaning I still managed to derive from life up until then dissolved beneath that ferocious discrepancy.

"I always held on to what he told me," Gabe says when I ask him how he dealt with it. I know right away that he is referring to Miguel. "You probably don't remember, but we had a moment to ourselves after the ruling. We found a spot...I don't know how or where, but we found a place all our own. He put his hands on my shoulders, looked into my eyes and said, 'Better me than you.' I cried and told him he was wrong, but he just kept repeating the words, telling me not to worry. And I came to believe him. I believed he possessed traits I did not that would let him survive in there."

While Gabe speaks I turn to look out the front window onto the vacant lawn, though I listen carefully to every word. I don't look back at him until long after he has finished speaking. I open my mouth in reply, but the words don't come to me right away. Finally, I say, "Funny how we are so inclined to believe the men in our lives."

"Yes," Gabe says. "That is funny."

;-;

Gabe checked the clock incessantly as he drove back to the park-and-ride. Eddie had been reminding him to relax a bit when it came to the deliveries. Don't overthink it, he would say. Don't get yourself worked up—not until there's something to get worked up over.

Wise words, to be certain, but Gabe was finding it difficult to change his ways.

And yet, he was not alone in the car. He took full blame for that. Miguel had been very persuasive, as Gabe had quickly learned was a talent of his, but it wasn't Miguel's fault. Gabe was a grown adult, perfectly capable of saying no. Instead he had constructed a flimsy excuse about how it wouldn't be a very comfortable place for them to spend time. The house was empty; there was nowhere to sit. That didn't matter to Miguel. He wanted to see where Gabe had grown up. He had tossed around that light, charming smile like it was nothing, adding that it was a bad time for either of them to be alone, a statement that had sounded so over-the-top to Gabe that he almost laughed out loud.

Miguel sat on the passenger end of the tan leather seat. "It's like a spaceship in here," he said, running his fingers over the forest of knobs and buttons on the dash.

Gabe commanded the Acura with an extra ounce of confidence now, having recently discovered that Miguel never learned to drive. The thought occurred to him that he might possess just as much power over the situation as his shifty new friend. And maybe even more, since he now had Miguel trapped in a nondescript delivery car at seventy miles an hour.

So far, Miguel had not shied away from asking Gabe uncomfortable questions about his life, so Gabe decided it was time to give him a taste of his own medicine. He turned down the stereo. "I want to know how you ended up living on the streets."

Miguel looked over, clearly surprised. "There are a few different versions of that story."

"Pick one."

He shot Gabe a coy grin. "One version is that I had my heart broken by someone and then proceeded into a tailspin."

"Who was it?"

"Remember the waitress at the bar?"

"Yeah."

"Well, she's not really a waitress. She's the owner."

"And she broke your heart?"

"No," said Miguel, chuckling quietly to himself. "Her boyfriend did."

Miguel was messing with him, for what felt like the hundredth time. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Sure it does," he went on cooly. "I fell in love with someone who was dating someone else. I tried to do right by everyone, and it blew up in my face."

"Oh." Gabe's grip relaxed on the steering wheel. "Well if that's the case, then I'm sorry."

"It is the case, and I'm sorry, too. For how I handled everything. He was an asshole, but it wasn't really about him. I was running from a lot of problems at the time, trying to pretend they didn't exist. All he did was remind me just how real they were."

"I don't follow you."

"That's because I haven't given you any context. He and I met at Bonnells—don't know if you've ever been out there, but there are about a million little fishing shacks, and we worked in the same one, gutting. The girl he was dating, Alice, she was about five years older than him. We used to go hang out at the place she owns—the same place I took you—and, man, she had no clue about us. I stayed at his apartment just about every night. If she stayed over, I'd go find some other place to sleep. He was just so fucking good at hiding it. At first, my instinct was to go along with everything, but once I started seeing what a cool person she was, I couldn't handle my shit. He would be all over her, kissing her, touching her, and any normal person would think he was madly in love with her. But then, when him and me were alone, he would confess his love to me. He'd say some shit about how it was me he really cared for, not her, and how he'd liked boys for as long as he could remember, and he couldn't stop it no matter how hard he tried. And then we'd usually end up...you know...having a good time. Well, after about a month of this, I told him he should stop lying to her. He got all offended and asked why I couldn't just be happy with things the way they were. The fucker never even planned on telling her. He just thought it could somehow keep going on like that forever."

To his credit, Miguel was clearly not afraid of answering questions about his own life. Gabe was fascinated. "And I'm guessing that didn't work for you?"

"Fuck no. For one thing, now I could see him for who he really was. I didn't like it one bit. And then there was Alice... I cared about her too much by that point not to say something. I skipped work one day and told her."

"How did she take it?"

"Not well. It shook her up a lot. She said she didn't want to see me ever again. She kept asking how I could've done this to her, and all I could say was that I'd liked him as much as she did. Anyway, I knew she'd bring it up with him the first chance she got. Alice is strong like that. Then he would know what I did. I decided to face him head-on. I waited for him that night at his apartment, and by the time he got there he was already drunk. He shouted some shit about how I couldn't keep my mouth shut when it mattered, and that was the reason my life had gotten so shitty. He threw me down on the ground and I hit my head so hard that things started going black. But then they came back. He was yelling like a crazy person. He was saying all kinds of stuff he knew would get to me. He spit on me; he started going on about how my parents never even came to find me and how if I had meant anything to them at all I would've already heard from them. He said he'd never known anyone who was that worthless in the eyes of their own parents. The thing is, I'd already had those thoughts on my own. I'd been pushing them back into a little corner of my mind. He made me face them—all of them, all at once."

Gabe exited from the freeway and slowed the car. He glanced over at Miguel. "I didn't know you ran away from home."

"I didn't. Not really. I was thrown out."

"Why?"

"Because I'm gay."

Even now, the word made him twitch. The ease with which Miguel put it out there intimidated him—almost as if Gabe were stupid for not having realized. To Gabe, such a word required gentle placement, like setting a paper boat into water. "But how do you know for sure they didn't try to find you?"

"I guess I don't. Not for sure. But I had this bank account that my dad helped me open, and when I went to take out the money the night I left, it was already gone."

"Oh."

"I'm sure they worked it all out. Called my high school and withdrew me, gave my sisters some fucked-with version of the story...and who knows what they told everyone at church? They're incredibly crafty—both of them."

"They're religious?"

"Extremely. My father is the bishop of the Allentown ward. Or at least he was. Who knows what he's up to now."

"They're mormons."

"Yes," Miguel said in a hollow voice. "And so was I."

;-;