Bombora (30 page)

Watching Nate’s face the way I always imagined he looked at criminals from across the interrogation room, our dad the cop leaned forward and his voice got really soft. “Son, I hate to ask this, but you gotta tell me the truth. That teacher ever try anything funny with you, or any of the other boys in your class?”

Nate’s palms slammed the tabletop so sharply that I jumped. Dad didn’t bat an eye as Nate shouted, “For fuck’s sake, Dad!”

“You watch your language,” he warned. “I asked you a question and I’d appreciate an answer. This is important.”

“How the
fuck
is it important?” raged Nate. To my eternal surprise, I saw my brother’s face was red, fresh tears making his eyes glossy and wild. I knew if he let them fall, it would open up a whole other round of questions from our father, but Nate composed himself after a second. Though he trembled, the tears didn’t budge. “He’s a good teacher—a good guy—and it’s bullshit he got arrested for something like this. Who the fuck cares who he screws so long as he ain’t hurting anyone? Hell, it’s not like he’s the only fag in Montgomery.”

“It’s important, Nate, because I care whether or not that pervert’s been pulling shit with my kids!” With a screech of his chair, Dad pushed himself up from the table and pointed furiously at the now silent television, the voices from which still echoed through our small kitchen like a ghostly whisper. Breathing hard, Dad let that same pointer finger jab at the surface of the table with a hard
thud
to punctuate each word. “
I
care, since it turns my goddamned stomach to think that faggot was allowed within twenty feet of my boys!”

I watched Nate, whose arms were now folded, visibly try to get himself back under control, to not respond to our father’s words. They didn’t make much sense to me either, because it’s not like unmarried women teachers routinely go throwing themselves at teenage boys, but this was obviously something our dad cared about a great deal, and it’s possible there was something I had missed. What it was, I didn’t know, because despite what I’d seen that day, Nate was technically an adult, and far from helpless. I’d seen him kick the shit out of someone twice his size in a scuffle, and he was the one player the other teams knew to avoid on the football field.

“He’s a good guy,” Nate said again. “I like him a lot, and he isn’t a pervert. Not like you’re saying, and not just because he got caught fucking—”

“Nate.” I saw Dad’s eyes flicker over to me, unspoken caution to watch what he said in my presence, and Nate capitulated with a huff. Gentling his voice, Dad said, “What he does in private is his own business, you’re right, but if that’s the kind of lifestyle he wants to lead, then he should be out in California with all the other queers. Those faggots got no right showing their face in a school. Teaching
basketball
, for crissakes, where they’re around young boys in a locker room. Where boys go lookin’ to him for advice and guidance.” His expression went tragic, and Nate swallowed in response. “Would you be sticking up for the man if he’d been coaching your little brother, huh? If he was watching Hugh here change into his uniform each day after school?”

“Jesus, Dad,” Nate cried, eyes rolling. At the same time I protested, “But I’m too short for basketball!”

Nate shot me a look that meant,
Hugh, shut the fuck up and stay out of this.
“They didn’t say he got caught with a little kid!”

Dad shrugged. “In my experience, there ain’t much separating a man who’ll lay down with another man, and one who’ll lay down with a young boy. Mark my words, it’d only be a matter of time before this teacher was coming on to his students, or better yet confusing someone young and impressionable about what’s right and what’s decent in these parts.” Reaching across the table to cover Nate’s hand, which was quickly snatched away, Dad sighed. “I’m just trying to look out for you kids,” he said unhappily, seeming genuinely saddened that Nate couldn’t see it. “You don’t know half of what’s out there, the stuff I’ve seen.”

Nate laughed. “Last time I checked, I’m an adult,” he retorted. “Don’t need you looking out for me anymore. But it’s good to know what kind of a household you’ve got going here. Real inclusive. Real open-minded.”

Eyebrows lifted, my dad rocked back like Nate had just hit him, expression going from surprised to inscrutable. “What in the hell is that supposed to mean, son?” At Nate’s silence, he said, “Are you sayin’ that—”

“No.” The conversation had become a mystery to me; I no longer had any idea what either of them was talking about, except that Nate looked miserable and my dad looked afraid. “All I’m sayin’ is it’s a good thing, because I’d seriously hate to see what kind of response I’d get if I ever came out with something like that. Or even Hugh.”

“What the hell are you guys talking about?” I asked, voice shrill with confusion.

Typically, Nate ignored me, lost in the staring contest currently going down between him and our dad. Amazingly, it was Nate who lost, his gaze skittering away to somewhere in the middle distance when Dad sat back down in his chair. What followed was a pregnant pause if there ever was one, though I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what would result.

Then, from my father: “I’ll tell you one thing, if I ever catch wind of either one of you boys carryin’ on like that queer, you best not come home. Do I make that much clear?”

I wanted to say,
What?
but decided it was better to stay quiet. Some hidden meaning was playing out between Nate and Dad I wasn’t yet equipped to interpret. Nate clearly understood, however, since he got up from the table again without waiting for permission to do so.

“Sure thing, Dad,” he spat, and gave the kind of mock salute which our father, as a Nam veteran, couldn’t help but find offensive. “You don’t ever have to worry about finding one of your boys eating dick.”

Considering it was a promise made out of spite, it’s ironic, in a way, that Nate never broke it. I don’t think our dad was ever too impressed by his womanizing ways, and Nate certainly got an earful when the news broke that he had a son, but Dad loved Liam like crazy and, true to Nate’s word, there was never another discussion about sexual orientation in the Fessenden household. Although Mr. Garrett went to jail and was eventually released, he was mostly forgotten about in the excitement of Nate dropping out of school. Despite my suspicions about why he did it, I mostly put it out of my mind in favor of concentrating on my own future and, to be honest, forgetting a secret from Nate’s past I never really understood or wanted to know in the first place.

Not, like I said, until now.

I knew something was up the second Nate asked to talk to me in the kitchen bright and early on a Saturday. Because Nate at times still resembles an overgrown twelve-year-old, Saturday mornings, for him, are always reserved for cereal and cartoons in the living room; instead I found him at the table and fully dressed in jeans and a T-shirt when I wandered downstairs in my pajamas. A cup of coffee sat cupped between his hands, which after a second I noticed was no longer steaming, a sign it had probably not been touched in a while.

“Morning,” I said, pausing in the doorway to cast a wary eye over what looked suspiciously like a setup. A paranoid conclusion to jump to, perhaps, except that I’d encountered this very tableau when Nate staged his intervention to pack me off to rehab. “What are you doing dressed? You got somewhere to be?”

Nate smiled, a grim sight if there ever was one, and nudged a chair away from the table with his foot. I saw he was also wearing his boots. “Maybe. Have a seat, Hugh, there’s something I gotta talk to you about.”

I did, and that’s when my brother told me, in surprisingly few words, that he was gay. For the first time in over a decade, I thought about Mr. Garrett and what I’d been so determined to deny having seen between them in that classroom. How I let it fade from memory because the alternative scared me too much and made me question everything I knew about my world.

Very little time has passed since Nate opened his mouth to say, “Hugh, I’m queer,” and, when I failed to respond, “I left Emilia because I’m in love with a dude.” I still haven’t said anything, caught between not knowing where the fuck to begin and thinking I haven’t seen a look this beatific and calm on Nate’s face since the day he met Liam and said,
I’m a dad.

Suddenly I wish I had a coffee or a beer or—hell—a bottle of Jack in my hands so I’d feel less like a big speechless, useless lump. Nate is still looking at me expectantly, expression growing a little worried now, as the seconds tick by and I try and try and try to come up with something better than “Um.”

“Hugh?” Nate’s eyebrows shoot up and he leans back in his chair, nervousness bleeding into a quirked smile that, to a brother’s eye, is as powerful as a look of complete terror. That’s the smile Nate gives when he’s so worried about something that he can’t even let himself see it, let alone anyone else. Not surprisingly, it doesn’t reach his eyes, which are bleak and creased with pain. “C’mon, man, you’re killin’ me here,” he pleads. “Say something.”

There is a note of such pleading in Nate’s voice that it actually makes me afraid. Of what, I don’t know, but the knot that springs up in my stomach makes me bypass every last outpost of reason and spring right into fight-or-flight territory, sweat breaking out on my palms and lower back like he told me I’ve got five minutes left to live. “You’re gay,” I repeat.

My throat feels like it’s closed up. Instead of feeling knotted, my stomach has suddenly transformed into what feels like a birdcage with some wild thing beating itself against the bars inside, fighting to get out with everything it’s got. There’s no surprise television crew, no twinkle in Nate’s eye or cocky smile to let me know he’s had me going, gullible Hugh to the very end. All I’ve got is my brother sitting in front of me with a look that’s somewhere between terrified and utterly fucking serene.

“Okay,” I choke out. “I’m here. I’m listening.”

“So it’s like I said,” he tells me. “I’m gay. I won’t pretend that isn’t outta left field for you, because as much as I’d love to be glib about it, I know what you’re saying is true. The whole ladies’ man thing is something I worked pretty hard to establish for a long time, right up until I met Emilia. And it’s not like I mind women, ’cause I don’t. I like ’em okay. But that’s not….” He sighs, glancing away briefly. “That’s not who I am. I don’t want to be involved with a woman, and I’ve pretty much known it forever, so it’s about time I started owning up to the fact and not hiding it from everyone. Especially you.”

Considering my brain has started doing this thing where it only picks up maybe one word out of every three to come out of Nate’s mouth, I’m pretty proud to have followed along with at least half of that. “So you’re bi,” I clarify, for some reason seizing upon the part where Nate said he still likes women. Call it petty, but it’s like I need to start there, start with something familiar. The rest of that speech could have been delivered entirely in Swahili for all it resonated.

Nate shakes his head. “No, man, that’s not what I’m saying.”

“But—”

“I’m
gay
.” Nate leans on this extra hard, like he’s figured out my brain is only running at half speed right now. “I know it’d be a helluva lot easier if I agreed with you, said something about how I’ll never get tired of tits, but—that’s not what I’m saying. Women don’t turn me off, but to me they’re like forcing myself to eat salad when what I really want is a burger.” There’s a flash of something in Nate’s face, a twitch of his lips. “Or a hot dog.”

“Oh God,” I groan, appalled in equal parts by the untimely humor and the inappropriateness of the image, in about a million ways.

“Too soon? Sorry.”

I shake my head. Starting to feel a bit trapped even in the airy white brightness of my kitchen, I push away from the table and stand up, needing to pace. “Nate, this is….” I trail off helplessly. “I don’t even know what to make of this, man. This is like….”

From the corner of my eye, I catch an oddly bittersweet smile from his lips. “I know, Hugh. It’s like I just told you Santa Claus isn’t real. Liam more or less responded the same way when I told him, except I used a lot more baseball analogies there. But… I get it. You won’t catch me pretending like this is easy for anyone.”

At the mention of Liam’s name, I turn to face my brother, wondering if he’s even conscious of the whole other layer he opened up in this conversation. “Wait, you told
Liam?
”

Nate lifts one shoulder. “Yeah. A couple weeks ago. I knew he’d be having a hard time with me bein’ out here and all, and I figured I owed the kid a full explanation since his mom didn’t exactly give him the whole story.” Chewing the inside of his cheek, Nate stares down at his hands for a couple of minutes, then wipes at his eyes before looking back up to me. “I don’t know what he makes of the whole thing. He said he understands, but… I could tell he was confused, and I haven’t been able to talk to him about it since then either. I think he’s scared.”

No shit
, I want to say, but for one thing, that wouldn’t be helpful, and for another, the tears beading at the corners of Nate’s eyes tell me he knows perfectly well this isn’t a picnic for anyone. “So Emilia knows too, then?”

“Of course she knows, Hugh,” says Nate. I see his throat constrict and the rough swallow that immediately follows. I know from Nate’s voice gone thick this won’t be good. “She’s the one who found me out. Caught me in the middle of the fucking act. Obviously it was pretty clear where my interests lay after that, but I came out and told her point-blank before I left Ohio too. When I told her we needed a divorce once and for all, I said there was no changing the fact I had no business being married to a woman, ever. That it was my own fault for not accepting it sooner.”

“Holy fuck, Nate.” I sit back down heavily, rocking both the chair and the table with the force of my weight collapsing into the seat. “So this whole time you’ve been saying you had an affair with a woman, when—”

“There was no woman.” Somehow I manage to lift my eyes to find Nate staring back at me. “I’m so sorry, Hugh,” he says. “Lying to you hurt most of all, but I just… I didn’t know how to say it. ”