"Karen, he's here."
"What?"
"Danny is in the bed in the other room."
"What the hell is he doing there? Put him on the phone."
"I can't."
"What do you mean you can't? He doesn't want to talk to me?"
"He's hungover."
"What? Wake him up!"
"Karen, calm down. I'll handle this."
"How? You don't know how to handle this!"
"I'm his father. I think I can figure it out."
"I'm coming over."
"No, don't do that. I'll talk to him when he wakes up and I'll bring him home this evening. Please let me handle this."
"Why do you want to handle it? You never deal with their problems."
"He saw us."
"He saw you doing what?"
"Sleeping in the same bed."
"Is that why he got drunk?"
"No, I think he came here that way. Just let me talk to him, okay?"
"Okay. Okay. Um. I'll talk to you later." She hung up.
I knew she was worried sick and would remain that way until she saw Danny for herself. Jerry was staring at me, waiting for me to say something about the conversation or perhaps something about the situation, but I was still trying to catch up with the fact that my son was in the other room, sleeping off his hangover.
"What are you going to say to him when he wakes up?" Jerry asked.
"I don't know. What should I say?"
"I don't have any kids."
"But you know how to handle them."
"I do?"
"You've always been good with kids."
"Well he's not a kid anymore."
"I know and that's what scares me. Did I do this to him?"
"You can't blame yourself."
"I was halfway drunk the last time I saw him. Maybe he smelled the alcohol."
"Maybe he's a teenager the same way we were once."
"Oh I hope not." I had flashes of the debauchery Jerry and I engaged in as teenagers. We were mischievous and sometimes a little devious, but mostly harmless. Boys with too much free time always come up with dangerous activities for the shear sake of having a cheap thrill. "We were bad."
"We were horrible. I'm surprised both of us still have all of our body parts intact after some of the idiotic things we tried."
"Like jumping from the top of Cedar Falls."
His eyes sparkled. "Yeah that was fun, wasn't it?"
"Until Bobby broke his leg."
"He jumped too close to the rocks."
"That was scary. I remember the awful sound of his bone breaking, the snap echoed and I was sure he was dead. Then there was the sight of the water turning red and he wasn't making a sound."
"Lucky for him his leg broke his fall or his head wound would have been much worse."
"What possessed us to jump?"
"Stupidity, adventure, youth. We thought we were invincible."
"Do you think Danny thinks that?"
"Probably, he hasn't had any tragedy to remind him that he's only human." I stood up from the table and walked to the refrigerator. Without thinking, my hand reached for a bottle of rum. I closed the fridge and Jerry said, "Put that back."
"Just a sip, that's all."
"No. How are you going to talk to Danny with alcohol on your breath? What kind of example are you trying to set?"
I sat the bottle back in the fridge. "Is orange juice okay?" I asked sarcastically.
"As long as it's not mixed with anything else."
"Do you want some?"
"Sure."
The orange juice didn't last long. Once it was gone, we relocated to the living room to wait until we heard Danny stirring. A few hours later we heard a loud thud coming from the room. I hurried to see what happened. I opened the door and found him pushing himself off the floor. "What happened?" I asked.
"I fucking fell. My stupid shoe tripped me."
I noticed his language, but decided to address that later. "Let me help you up." I practically picked him up and put him in the bed. "You need some water or Tylenol?"
"Yes, please." I went to the kitchen to fix him a glass of water. Jerry met me in the hallway with two Tylenol pills.
"Thank you." I returned to the room and gave them to Danny. "Is this the first time you've been drunk?"
"No," he confessed after he swallowed the pills.
"How often do you drink?"
"I don't know. Not too often. More lately, since I found out."
"Found out what?"
"That you were gay."
"Who? How? I mean how did you find out?"
"Do you remember my friend Brock?"
"Yes."
"His older brother is gay and he said he hit on you at a gay bar one night and you were with some guy."
"How did he know who I was?"
"He had seen you before." He finished his water. "Is that why you and Mom got divorced?"
"No. Well partly. Okay mostly."
"You love Jerry?"
I was surprised by the way he phrased the question, as if he was telling me more than asking. I wanted to be honest with him so I told him the truth, "Yes."
"I always knew he was gay." He handed me the glass. "Let me sleep a little longer and we can talk more, later."
"Okay." I was new to the whole parenting thing, so I let him call the shots and dictate our conversational development. He wanted to wait until later and I was eager for the extra time to prepare a speech for him, so I was okay with letting him rest a little more. I turned around at the door to find him curled up under the blanket. He looked so small, but I knew he wasn't a little boy anymore.
I walked in the living room in almost a daze. I had one of the longest conversations with my son that we had ever had and he wanted to talk to me some more. He didn't seem upset about my sexual orientation or me being with Jerry. He seemed okay, besides the alcohol.
"How was it?" Jerry asked.
"Easier because he already knew."
"Is he gay?"
"I don't think so."
"Is he okay with us?"
"I think he might be. He didn't seem particularly upset or bitter. He seemed almost like he wasn't surprised much at all, but I think he's having a hell of a time trying to deal with it. One of his friends told him I was gay."
"How would they know?"
"They're older brother hit on me in a gay bar."
"Small world."
"Small city."
"That too."
"You have to help me figure out how to talk to him later."
"He went back to sleep?"
"Yes." I sat down next to Jerry. "Should I tell him we're moving in together, or will that be too much?"
"You might as well throw that in. He already knows about us."
The life I pictured for myself looked nothing like the life that I was now a part of. My gay lover was sitting next to me trying to prepare me to talk to my teenage son and be open with him about our relationship. I wasn't sure how to tell my son about me and Jerry and now I didn't have to because he knew, but I still had to explain how Jerry and I got together. I felt I owed Danny that much and I wanted him to know that Jerry and I were not together until after I was divorced because in my mind that was a very important detail. I wanted him to know his mother gave me her blessing to be with Jerry.
"What are you thinking about?" Jerry asked.
"How I got here."
"Where? This apartment or this situation with Danny?"
"Both. What have I done to my life and my family?"
"You regret where you are?"
"No, but I miss where I was. I used to have so much and I didn't appreciate it the way I should have. I had a good wife, two great kids, a great job, well I still have the great job, but everything else is gone. I don't know who my children are. I mean what kind of parent has never had a real conversation with their children? I was never there for them."
"Yes you were."
"I don't mean physically. I know I was there, but all of me wasn't there."
"Well you can make it up to them."
"Isn't it too late? Danny is more of a man than he is a boy."
"It's never too late. Didn't you tell me Jack told you that?"
"He did, but that can't be true. Just look at him and his children. They haven't spoken to him in years."
"Your situation is completely different. Karen didn't catch us together, she let you go so you could be with me and your kids may act like they hate you all the time, but I know they love you. Look at Danny, where did he come last night? He came here."
"He was drunk because of me. I was probably the last conscious thought he had."
"When you're drunk and you're on autopilot, you go home. He came here because he wanted to talk to you." "What should I say to him?"
Jerry and I talked for about an hour and he helped me rehearse my speech to Danny. I was fixing us some lunch when Danny straggled in to the kitchen.
"How you doing Danny?" Jerry asked.
"I'm fine." Danny sat across the table from Jerry. "How does it feel to ruin someone's family? Is it worth it?"
"Danny!" I shouted. I had misread his reaction earlier, perhaps due to my own wish for him to understand, but most likely due to my ignorance of him.
"It's okay Daniel. I'll answer him." He looked at Danny. "I'm not trying to ruin your life. I love your father with all of my heart and whether you believe it or not, I love you and Katie and Karen. You guys have always been like my second family."
"If you loved us so much, how could you hurt us?"
"I never meant to hurt any of you."
"But you did! It was bad enough when I found out my father was gay, but can you imagine how I felt when I walked in and found him in bed with you?"
"I wish you would have found out about us a different way, but what's done is done."
Danny slammed his fist in to the table. "You stole my father from me! He may not have been around much, but he was still my father. You made him gay and took him away from me forever."
"I didn't take him away from you. He's still here."
"No he's not! He was rarely home before and now he's never there. When he does pick us up, he seems like he doesn't even want us there and you did it. He loves you more than he loves any of us. He's always loved you more!"
I couldn't listen in silence. "Danny you can't believe that."
"How come you never tell me you love me?"
"I didn't think I had to."
"Well maybe you should have. That's why I never want to come here. I can't stand being around you and knowing that you don't want me to be here."
"That's not true. I do want you here."
I walked over to Danny and did something I hadn't done in a long time; I put my arms around him and hugged him. That seemed to soften him a little because he cried on my shoulder for a few minutes before he pulled away and said, "You never hug me."
"I'm sorry." I went to move my arms and he pulled me close again.
"I miss you Daddy."
I didn't know how he could miss a phantom. "I thought you hated me."
"I hate that you're never around, but I don't hate you. I could never hate you."
I thought about all the times he had shouted that he hated me and they all seemed to change. He was reacting to me. I made him feel like I didn't want him. He wasn't really upset because he thought I was gay, or because I was with Jerry. He was upset because he thought he had finally lost me for good. Understanding his position made it easier for me to talk to him. I broke our hug after a few minutes and Jerry grabbed his sandwich and
excused himself to the living room so Danny and I could have our first ever heart to heart conversation.
The conversation was difficult, but we both pushed through and talked about all the uncomfortable topics. I told him how I felt about Jerry, his mother, and him and Katie. He told me how he felt about being ignored as a child and how his mother's new man could never be me. I was astonished by all the miscommunications we had over the years. When we finally got around to me telling him about moving in with Jerry, he was back to the understanding young man who I first met in my extra room.
He wanted me to be with his mother, but somehow knowing that she was okay with my relationship made him think maybe it was for the best. He was angry about being lied to for so long, but he understood how it might be difficult for me to tell my children I was gay and in love with Jerry. I asked him to let me tell his sister on my own and he agreed. By the time I drove him home that evening, he and I had decided to consciously work towards building a better relationship.
Jerry was still at my apartment when I got home. "That went well," he told me.
"Better than I expected."
I figured he was still there because he didn't want me to come home to a bottle of alcohol, but I didn't question his presence; I accepted it.
Copyright Lustyville 2007 Please send comments to lustyville@yahoo.com and check out more of this story and my other stories at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lustyville