The Son of Every Man

Chapter 6.1

I finally bring it up one day, when the moment feels right. It's not that I was ever worried about offending him, just concerned that he wouldn't listen, which is a tendency of his whenever he doesn't see value in what I have to say. But today he is in a receptive mood.

"There's a resource I would like you to take a look at. I'm sure they have it in the library here."

"Resource?"

"A book."

He places his hand palm-up on the table and beckons me, as if to say, "Bring it on." This is a signature Miguel move.

I take a breath. "It's called 'Life After,' and it prepares you for all sorts of things you'll encounter on the outside. I know you're smart enough to anticipate the ways things have changed while you've been away. But everything I've read says that even the best mental preparation can fail you at times. The book will teach you how to cope in those moments."

He scoffs and looks off to the side. (My heart sinks. I've lost him already.) "They have a class for that."

"You should take it then," I say quickly.

"I already am," he says. "It's mandatory."

I'm certain he can read the relief I feel in this moment, no matter how subtle the change in my face.

"Hey," he says. "They keep telling us to find a support network. The irony for a lot of these guys is that the only real network they've ever had is in here. But look at me. I'm miles ahead of them." He laughs. "Fuck, I mean, I've got you. What more could a guy need?"

He stops there, but his voice continues telepathically: "And, most of all, forever, I have him."

;-;

Saturday, July 10th, 1999

Miguel stood with his arms crossed on the corner of Coronet Street and 195th Avenue. A forest-green sleeping bag and bare white pillow lay at his feet. A daypack snugged against his back. He was trying to think of something to say to the kid as they waited for Eddie. It was late in the morning on Saturday, and soon they would be headed out of town. On the train they had cracked jokes, laughing endlessly until an older white man told them to shut up or get off. Who could have guessed they even shared a sense of humor? But now, that easy conversation had drifted from him once again, back into hiding.

If he could have gone back in time, Miguel would have changed his response after Gabe had brought up their fateful night together. Sure, he would've said. It was a lot of fun. Thanks. Let's do it again, but maybe give it a little time? I'm worried I was being too hasty. I don't want to wreck a good thing.

Now that he'd had time to calm down, this was honestly how Miguel felt about it. But back when Gabe had first brought it up, he had not calmed down. Not even close.

The problem wasn't the event itself; it was what Miguel had promised himself earlier that night, from the very moment he heard his phone ring from the shower. Don't come on to the kid. Whatever you do, don't sleep with him. Not tonight.

He had good reason to wait. The ghost of Marco still haunted him, showing up when light caught the kid's face at just such an angle so that half of it hid in darkness. He feared anything that signaled the possibility of misplaced affection. If he had truly caught feelings for the kid, it should be because the deep voice greeting his ears, the handsome face that swam partly in shadows, belonged to the kid alone. Not someone else.

How exactly he had known it was the kid calling was a mystery. It could just as easily have been Alice, hoping to vent during her shift over a sticky beige handset hidden beneath the bar, or national polling, or another late-fee collection from Blockbuster. But he'd had a feeling. And when that deep, achingly familiar voice came sailing through the open bathroom door from the speaker of Miguel's answering machine, he quickly rinsed off and jumped out. The kid went on for so long that Miguel almost caught him before the message ended. Naked and dripping from his elbows onto the brown carpet, Miguel hastily dialed the numbers Gabe had just listed, imprinted on his brain.

Before leaving his apartment, he had told himself once more, all but aloud: Nothing is to go on between you, not tonight. Maybe sometime. Not tonight.

But things didn't turn out the way he had planned, and by now his mind had replayed the memory of that fortuitous middle-of-the-night episode a thousand times. Every second, every action could be recalled at will. He was grateful to remember it so well—finally, he was grateful for that. Miguel had come a long way since the morning after it happened, scrambling to get out of that sad, stripped apartment, wanting only to forget what he had done. A broken promise to himself had precipitated their actions together. It was a total abandonment of his constitution, which, before that night, he believed he had come too far to forsake. How wrong he had been about that.

Standing on the corner with nothing to say, his mind went right back to it. It was that one instant, which broke into even smaller fragments—each one still burning crystal-clear in his memory—of the kid removing his underwear, that deeply secret part of him all at once fully exposed, rigid, and frankly larger than Miguel had expected.

"There he is."

Miguel looked to where Gabe was pointing in time to see the sand-colored Acura pull swiftly along the curb twenty feet away. Eddie sounded the horn in two bright blasts and the trunk popped open. They slung their bedding inside and Gabe slammed the lid down.

Miguel was more that willing to cede the shotgun seat to Gabe. When he climbed into the dark cool of the back seat, though, the kid climbed right in after him.

"I'm not a chauffeur," barked Eddie immediately. "Maybe one of you could act like a grown adult and join me up here."

Without pause, Miguel dumped himself out the other side and circled around to the front passenger door, leaving Gabe alone in the back seat.

"It's freezing in here," Miguel said once they got underway.

"Turn up the temperature then," said Eddie. "I'm not picky."

Miguel heaved his backpack over his shoulder and into the lap of Gabe, who wordlessly shuffled it to the side. "Did the kids wake you up early this morning or what?"

"I don't sleep in," said Eddie flatly. He threw Miguel a smirk. "But I could've used another hour or two, I guess."

"I'd take over if you needed a break," announced Miguel. "Unfortunately, I don't drive." He twisted around and looked Gabe dead in the eyes. "But luckily we have someone in the car who has turned driving into a profession."

The kid returned his stare so intensely that Miguel was the first to back down. After he turned back, Gabe's deep voice crept over his shoulder. "It was a profession long before I started doing it."

Eddie unleashed a startling laugh. Gabe had apparently struck on the big man's sense of humor, elusive as it was. Miguel felt a sudden twinge of jealously as Eddie turned the car east, connecting onto Sunbird Boulevard, steering aggressively for the express lane which lay insulated near the core, by the tracks. One by one, over twenty miles, the outermost lanes would peel away like skin from a snake until all that remained were this lane, a stripe of yellow paint and its counter-flowing twin. At that point, things got lonely pretty fast.

Maybe in some people's eyes, the friendly exchange between Gabe and Miguel on the train that morning would serve as amends. A tacit apology, or something of that nature. But that wasn't the way Miguel felt about it. Any unspoken component of an apology was worth very little on its own, unconsummated until the words were said aloud: I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for how I behaved. Miguel knew then exactly what he should have said back when they were waiting on the corner. He should have apologized for being so standoffish, for abandoning the kid during a sensitive time for them both. For only adding to the confusion. He glanced helplessly around his small corner of the car, knowing the opportunity to do so had passed him by, perhaps for some time. He would just have to live with that.

A soft beeping came from Eddie's pocket and he drew out his cellular phone. "Battery's low. Remind me to grab the charger from the trunk next time we stop."

"Can I take a look at that?"

Eddie threw it into his lap.

Miguel studied the small lump of gray plastic, running his thumb across the raised rubbery buttons. "In ten years, everybody's going to have one of these—that's what Time Magazine says. Even kids will have one, and they'll do all kinds of things. Way more than just call people."

Eddie glanced in the rearview mirror. He seemed to make eye contact with the kid before saying, "God help us all."

;-;