Stones in the Road (18 page)

“Stop it,” I said. “It’s fine.”

“And my dad just sits there, and he’s too afraid—”

“Forget it,” I said.

“And I just want to get up and smack the shit out of her.”

“And I’d hold her down while you did,” I offered.

“You would, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would. What are friends for?”

“Is that what we are, Wiley? Friends?”

“I think you know the answer to that.”

“It’s just that I don’t know,” he said.

“Don’t know what?” I asked.

“Why you love me.”

“You don’t know why I love you?” I was confused and somewhat incredulous.

“Nobody ever loved me for
me
,” he said.

“I did,” I pointed out.

“And that’s what confuses me.”

He fell silent.

I did too.

“It’s so Psychology 101,” he said, turning to look at the road as an old truck lumbered past.

“Is it?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“I don’t follow,” I admitted.

“If you can’t love yourself, how can you love someone else?” he asked.

I shrugged.

“If I can’t love myself,” he said, “how can I love you? I feel like I’m cheating you. You deserve so much better than me.”

We were wading balls-to-the-wall into deep, troubled waters.

“Mack was the only boyfriend I ever had that she liked,” he said. “It didn’t hurt that his father was a CEO at a Fortune 500 company. Mack was the one who got me started on drugs.”

“That was yesterday,” I said. “That’s the past.”

“But at least she liked him,” he said forcefully. “With Mack, it was skiing trips to Vail, or flying off to Paris, or invitations to private parties. He bought that Jeep for me as a birthday present. Mama wasn’t crazy about him, but at least she approved. ‘Money marries money,’ she always said. As long as there was money involved, it was all right.”

I remained silent.

“But it’s not all about money,” he said. “Is it?”

I shrugged. Until this past week, I would have readily agreed. Now… I wasn’t so sure.

“Don’t listen to me,” he said. “I’m just talking shit.”

“I was just about to get you some toilet paper and a toothbrush.”

“Do you love me?” he asked with a strange earnestness.

“Of course I do.”

“But do you really,
really
love me?”

“Yes. I really,
really
do.”

“But why?”

“You’re cute, and you’ve got a nice big cock. What else is there?”

“Is that all it is?”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“I need to know, Wiley. You could have any guy you wanted. Why me?”

I did not know what to say. He was a schmuck, but he was my schmuck, and I loved him.

“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” I said finally.

“You could go to the clubs in Boston and they’d eat you up.”

“We’re not in Boston, and I’ve already got what I want, so why would I be going to the clubs?”

“You don’t think about other guys?”

“No,” I said. “Do you?”

“You know my friend Barry at work? The other day, he said to me, I don’t know what Wiley sees in you. What’s a man like that doing with someone like you? That’s what he said.”

“Barry? The guy with the acne problem who lives in his mom’s basement? The guy who has to use a cucumber when he wants to get laid?”

“You don’t have to make fun of him.”

“Hardly a good source for romantic advice.”

“He had a point, though.”

“He did?”

“What’s a guy like you doing with a guy like me?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah.”

“If you don’t know,” I said, “far be it from me to spell it out for you.”

“I want to know!”

There was a powerful gust of wind through the oaks and pines surrounding Mama’s house. The tree branches groaned, and the green leaves fluttered, and the sky took on a dark tone.

“It’s going to rain,” I said. “And the food is getting cold.”

A
FTER
DINNER
,
I helped Mama with the dishes. Bill, who usually disappeared out to the front porch to drink beer, chew and spit, scratch his balls, and other manly things, stayed in the kitchen.

“I got a phone call,” Mama said hesitantly.

She glanced at Bill.

I could see they were up to something.

“I did too,” Bill admitted.

I let out a huge sigh.

“What’s going on, Wiley?” Bill asked.

“Don’t you have something you need to be shooting or killing or chewing or something?” I asked.

“The DHS came out to the house, asking about you and Jack,” he said.

“So?”

“Don’t give me that, bro. What’s the deal?”

“Nothing.”

“Like I believe that.”

“That woman from the DHS came to see me,” Mama said. “Wiley, this could be serious. They could take Noah away from you.”

“That would make y’all happy, wouldn’t it?”

“Don’t say that, Wiley,” Mama admonished.

“So I suppose you told them what a great dad I am and all that bullcrap.”

They said nothing.

“Well?” I prompted.

“You know how I feel,” Bill said.

“So you told them….”

“I told them Noah would be better off in a proper home with a mother and a father.”

“Thanks.”

“Well, he
would
be.”

“Whatever.”

“So you’re not going to tell us what’s going on?”

“I don’t know what’s going on, so I’m not sure what I’m supposed to tell you.”

“You must have some idea,” Bill said.

“Bet you can’t wait to hire that lawyer.”

“I’m not going to fight about that again, Wiley.”

“Wasn’t that long ago you were sitting at the table right over there telling me you were about a cunt hair away from hiring a lawyer and having me declared an unfit parent.”

“Thanks to your book, the whole world knows that story, Wiley. What of it?”

“If you think I’m going to stand here and give you ammunition so you can take my son away from me, you just can kiss my ass, Billy.”

“I’m thinking about his best interests!”

“And I don’t?”

“No, I don’t think you do. If you did, you wouldn’t have the DHS knocking on your door.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you called them. That’s about your speed.”

“Believe me, I’ve thought about it,” Bill admitted.

“I’ll bet you have.”

“Boys, please,” Mama said. “What are you going to do, Wiley?”

“There’s nothing I can do,” I pointed out. “Any jackass can call the DHS, and frankly, I’m surprised they haven’t visited sooner. If they want to take Noah, fine.”

“You don’t mean that,” Mama said.

“I know someday it’s going to happen. I’m never going to measure up, and y’all are the sort of mentally challenged idiots who think Noah will be better off in an orphanage, so do your worst.”

“Now you’re just talking shit,” Bill said dismissively.

“Maybe you should be glad you don’t have to justify yourself every single day, Billy. All you have to do to be a good father is lust after a big set of tits. They know better than to expect anything more from a straight guy. Scratch your balls, smack your bitch up once in a while.
It’s all good
! Then people like you take it upon themselves to make decisions about whether people like me can be good parents or not. Based, of course, on sex—because that’s all you fucking repressed Christians think about.”

“Wiley!”

“There you go again,” Bill said. “Making fun of my religion.”

“The comedy is built right in.”

“I wonder what a judge would say.”

“Do your worst, Billy.”

“Noah deserves to be happy!” he spat out.

“What makes you think he isn’t?”

“If he’s so happy, why is the DHS visiting?”

“I thought you had made your peace with this, Billy.”

“I have,” he said. “But if there’s something going on….”

“There’s
nothing
going on.”

“If you say so.”

“My pastor read your book,” Bill said, switching gears.

“So?”

“He had a lot of interesting things to say.”

“Of course he did.”

“You’re an example of how this homosexual agenda is steamrolling the rest of us. Y’all don’t give a shit about our feelings, our beliefs—you just want what you want and you don’t care about the consequences. You don’t care about what’s going to happen to Noah when he grows up and tries to make his way in the real world and he has to explain to people about his ‘two daddies.’ What kind of future is he going to have?”

“Since when did you ever worry yourself about his future?”

“He’s my nephew. We’re not the heartless bastards you pretend we are.”

“What do you want, Billy? Do you want me to give up custody? Will that make you happy? Do you want to take care of him? Do you want him to live with you? I don’t understand what the point is here.”

“I’m tired of being embarrassed by you!”

“Fine! So… what? Give up custody of Noah? Turn him over to the state? Kill myself? What do you want me to do?”

“Everything would be fine, but now you want to get married. What’s next, Wiley? Do I have to be your best man? Do I have to walk down the aisle and give you away to your ‘husband’? If you could just keep your mouth shut and stop rubbing our noses in it….”

“Just be a second-class citizen?”

“Just be glad someone doesn’t string you up on the nearest magnolia tree like they used to do in the old days! You embarrassed our whole family with your stupid book. You expect us to keep silent?”

“So it’s not about Noah. It’s about you, and about you feeling embarrassed because your little brother is a great big ole homo. Am I missing something?”

Bill shook his head. It was a despairing, put-upon gesture.

“Boys, please don’t fight,” Mama said.

“Brother John is right,” Bill said, referring to his pastor. “If we don’t stop this now, one day we’re going to be swamped with all this nonsense. Faggots marrying their poodles and God knows what else. We didn’t become a great nation by letting faggots run the show, I can tell you that. They want to bring us down to their level, but we don’t have to let them. You can do what you want, Wiley, but you will never force me to accept it.”

“Billy, please,” Mama said. “Don’t fight while the Ledbetters are here.”

“I’m sick of him, Mama. He never thinks about anyone but himself. I’ve never met such a goddamn selfish bastard.”

“What do you want me to do?” I said. “Kill myself?”

“Christ, we could only hope!”

“Is that really the answer, Billy? You’re so ashamed of having a faggot for a brother that you wish I’d kill myself?”

“You’d be doing us all a favor!”

“Billy, stop it!” Mama pleaded.

“He would be, Mama,” Bill said hotly. “I wish he would blow his fucking brains out and leave the rest of us in peace.”

“Billy, don’t talk that way!” Mama said. “Please!”

“I’m not going to let you provoke me,” I said to Bill. “I respect you. I respect your beliefs. You have to do whatever you think is right.”

“If I had my way, we’d herd the whole goddamn lot of you into a concentration camp and set your asses on fire.”

“Whatever.”

Bill threw me one final look of disgust as he marched out of the kitchen.

“Don’t get him started,” Mama pleaded.

“Nothing I do is going to make him happy,” I pointed out.

“It’s hard for him.”

“He takes his dick out and pisses on me, but it’s hard for
him
? Jesus, Mama. Leave it to you to side with the abuser.”

“He’s not an abuser!”

“C
OME
ON
,
Uncle Wiley,” Mary Cantrell said. “Let’s do ‘Happy.’
I brought the CD. You promised you’d practice with me.”

The kids and I were in the living room. Bill, Shelly, and Mama had taken the Ledbetters outside to show them Mama’s garden and the rabbits and chickens Mama kept out back.

“I don’t feel like it,” I said.

“Please, Uncle Wiley? Please, please, please?”

Mary was my favorite niece. My only niece, actually, but had there been more, she would have been my favorite. Bill didn’t like it, but Mary and I were peas in a pod.

“All right,” I said, because I could never refuse her anything. “But I am
not
singing this song with you at the First Baptist Nazi Youth Marathon Campfest Radical Christian Soviet Indoctrination Ceremony, or whatever the hell it is.”

“It’s the Youth Explosion,” she explained. “And all you have to do is help me practice so I don’t forget the words. You promised!”

She put the CD into Mama’s player and cranked up the volume.

“Mama doesn’t have a karaoke thingie,” I pointed out.

“Stop making excuses, you old fart,” she chided. “And you brats are the audience,” she added, looking at Josh, Eli, and Noah.

“You’re so lame,” Josh said.

“Shut it, booger breath,” she ordered.

The opening strains of Pharrell Williams’s “Happy” floated out of the stereo, and Mary put on her Pharrell shades—large white sunglasses.

“I don’t even like this song,” I said.

Mary sang the first few lines, ignoring me, using a flashlight for a pretend microphone and holding out her hand to me. She was completely in character now.

I took her hand, and she graciously welcomed me to the stage, and when my part came along, I sang about how I happy I was.

It didn’t take long for Noah to start dancing, and once he broke the waters, his cousins Josh and Eli began to pretend they were robots, jerking their heads and arms about rather comically in what they considered the only acceptable form of dancing available to Baptist boys of their age.

We quickly had ourselves a little dance happening going on in Mama’s living room. We were in full swing by the time we got to the bridge. While Mary riffed, we discovered that Gloria Estefan was right: The rhythm
is
gonna get you.

As soon as the song was over, Mary hit the replay button and forced us to do it all over again. This time we were more organized and professional, and I had my own microphone (a spatula). The boys and I managed to clap in all the right places, and Mary worked the living room rug like she was auditioning for
The Voice
.