Joel pulled me down so that I was lying totally on top of him on the sofa my head on his chest just below his chin.
He stroked my hair. "We need to get ready. The old man hates people to be late for dinner."
"Joel, you don't have to be psychic to know that you don't like your dad. Why are we even going?
"I wanna like him. He just makes it so fucking hard." He lifted his hand in a gesture of frustration and then dropped it. "He's always driven everyone crazy. I'm sure that's what makes him a good lawyer, he's a pitbull. Even my grandfather, his own dad, didn't much like him. I know that he loved him but he didn't much like him. That's why he arranged his estate so that I'd never be dependent on my dad. That makes him fucking nuts too, that he doesn't have money to hold over my head."
I lifted my head and kissed Joel's chin. "It's hard to think that there's anyone that you don't get along with."
Joel was lightly massaging the back of my neck. "I love him.........and, in a totally weird way, I miss him. It's like I know that inside of him somewhere is my real dad and it's like he went away and............I miss him."
Joel rolled over onto his side taking me with him, he kissed me and spoke quietly. "Stephen, you've gotta understand that you mean more to me than he does, what he thinks, what he wants."
-------------------------------------
"Dad! It's not what I wanted to do with my life!"
We were in the living room of Joel's fathers house. I was sitting on the sofa and Joel and his dad were standing by the bay window, each had a drink in their hand and they were getting very close to an argument.
"Well it's stupid! Joel, you'll never get the chance to make the kind of money teaching that you could have made in television." Joel started to say something but his dad turned away from him. "You're being feckless just like when you were a kid."
"Dad that isn't true! First of all I'm making more money teaching than I was in TV. And secondly I still do the occasional interview. And when was I EVER, feckless?" I could see the muscles tightening in Joel's neck and legs as he got madder and madder.
His dad turned toward him and pointed at him with his finger. "Your not committed to anything, you never have been!" He waved his hands and spilled part of his drink. "It's like you're playing your way through life, one thing one day and something else the next. You need to grow up!" He glanced quickly at me with so much bitterness in his eyes that I jumped. "Like I said...........feckless!"
For a second Joel's shoulders slumped and then he straightened up but with a new look on his face. He dropped his head and slowly shook it. "Don't go there, Dad!" He lifted his head and stared calmly into his fathers eyes, his upper body seemed to expand as his muscles tensed. "You.............especially you, don't have the right."
Joel took three long strides to the sofa and took my hand. "Come on Stephen, let's go."
As we were walking out the front door his dad was yelling. "That's right! You and your boooooy friend go play!"
--------------------------------
Three blocks from his dad's house Joel pulled the car over to the side of the road and took my left hand in his right. He leaned his head back against the headrest and turned to look at me and smiled. "Welcome to the family."
"Well, I have two thoughts, the first is that he scares the crap outta me and second, he doesn't know you very well."
Joel stared straight ahead. "No and he never did." He lifted my hand and kissed it. "He doesn't matter...........actually he hasn't for a long time."
