All right, warning everyone upfront: there's probably going to be a couple scenes of (non-abusive, please God don't make me spell out non-sexual) corporal punishment here— it's 1978 in the south, it's how people parented— but not exactly an every chapter kind of deal. Sort of compliant with the Shepard family background given in Growing Pains? If Tim thought he had it bad then...
I heave a deep breath, try to steady myself as I grasp the door handle with my sweaty palm. Come on, Shepard, you toted a .45 around back in the day and intended to use it, but the kind of dumb courage it took to cock a pistol isn't even close to what it's taking to get past this threshold. Like a kid afraid of going into the principal's office or something, I think I can postpone the moment of execution.
I could turn around and run, the way my daddy did one day after he went to the corner store— I don't have to do this, not really, take in a kid I've never met and who I'm only connected to by the results of a blood test. The hood I used to be would've laughed right in the face of the state and said they should've found him fourteen years ago, and as much as I like to pretend otherwise, the two of us aren't as separate as I want to believe.
But I choose to be better than him even when it's hard, and getting tired of my own shit, I just push the door open and face my destiny already. My wife would kill me if I returned empty-handed, anyway.
Maybe one sick, guilty part of my brain was hoping we wouldn't end up being related, but the second I see him at the table I know this kid is a Shepard— same shock of unruly dark hair, same wiry build—
Same defiant look, like he's gonna punch the world out if it blinks at him wrong.
"Hey, so you must be Tim, right." He lets a malicious grin spread out like grease on a hot skillet, once he's given me the old up-and-down. "The sperm donor."
Oh, kid, don't I know this one, trying to get the upper hand in a situation that scares you shitless— I want to tell him that I see right through it, that a cop will in a hot minute too, but instead I just say, "State of Oklahoma prefers the term 'father'. Sounds nicer on the paperwork."
He's not nearly as hardened as Dallas or even I was at his age; I can tell by his skittish glances at the door, the brittle quality of his glare at me, like he's afraid the expression is going to be smacked off his face. "You ain't my fucking daddy, so don't expect me to start callin' you nothin'."
I guess I really shouldn't have expected hugs and I love yous from any child of mine, but I hadn't planned on quite so much outright hostility. "You don't have to," I say, trying not to stoop to the level of a pissed-off teenage boy, and I mean it— I sure didn't think he'd want to call a perfect stranger 'Dad'. "But let's try to keep the cussin' to a minimum, get off on the right foot."
"Fuck that—"
"Eli," his social worker says with a loud sigh, patting her beehive, "I'm so close to gettin' you outta my hair. Please at least walk out the door with him."
He gives her another grin that looks like a shark baring its teeth, then turns to glare at me again— I try to channel the gang leader I used to be, but I can't believe I find my own fourteen-year-old son more unsettling than the hoods I used to corral. "Like I'm stayin' in this hick town," he shoots over his shoulder at her, "second this guy's back is turned, I'm headin' to Austin again."
"That's a violation of your probation, so let's be a little more subtle about it," she says drily, while I wonder if it's legal to tie kids to their beds at night. At least this one hasn't learned not to telegraph his every move in advance yet.
"Is that all his stuff?" I ask as I see the black garbage bag he's clutching, already starting to tear at the bottom. Pisses me off, that whatever home they put him in for a month couldn't even be bothered to get him a cardboard suitcase.
"I travel light," he says, his nose crinkling— he doesn't want me pitying him for not having enough, but I do, I can't help it. It's the first genuinely parental feeling I have for him.
Tim drives a pretty crap car, and I tell myself I don't care, that I don't plan on sticking around long enough to. Still. You'd think a guy who used to control half the grass in the city would be able to afford better than a Pinto that he probably got back in the 60's.
"How's your mama been doin'?" The words sound so cheap and fake I just want to throw them back in his face, like he gives a shit about some broad he was fucking fifteen years ago.
"Before the cancer metastasized?" I wish I could have a smoke right now, but they frisked me on the way here. I don't want to talk about Lorraine, not here, not with him especially. "Great."
"Kid, Jesus Christ, can you just work with me here?" We've known each other for all of twenty minutes and I've already managed to worm my way deep beneath his skin; it gives me a little sick satisfaction. "I just found out I got a son I never knew about a couple days ago, Miss Manners didn't cover conversation topics."
"Hey, I'll start." Might as well gather some intel, find out what I'm in for. "You got a family, or you just live by yourself and eat TV dinners every night?"
"I'm married, my wife Sally and I have a four-year-old daughter, Jessica." He seems pleased that I'm capable of getting a sentence out without cussing during it. "She can cook, she'll kill you if you talk about no TV dinners in front of her. I got two siblings, too, Angela and Curly. And a mama, but I doubt you'd like her."
"Why not, she a lush or something?"
"Pops pills like there's no tomorrow," he says drily, "you were close enough. She's a religious nut, too, not exactly a doting grandma."
"A grandma oughta be too old for mother's little helper— how old are you, anyway?" I scrutinize him from the edge of my vision. Younger than Rick, definitely—
I'm not ready to think about my stepdaddy yet. He's one of those things I keep locked up in a mental box and throw away the key for.
"Thirty-one."
I do some quick mental math and burst out laughing. "So you was my age when you had me, huh?" No wonder he cut and run when Lorraine got pregnant.
"Three years older ain't exactly your age." Eh, same difference to me, fourteen, seventeen. Still getting the vibe that he thinks he gets to call the shots from now on, and I'm just not feeling that, so it's time to give him a little reminder of where he came from.
"So, one of the cops in this joint, turns out he remembers you, we were talkin' while I was at the station." I put my feet up on the dash for this next part. "He's got a helluva lot of stories 'bout the Shepard gang, claims you was runnin' this town back in the day."
Yeah, when I heard about all this, I was starting to get a little excited about the mafia don I was gonna be moving in with, even though I'm determined to hate him. Too bad he doesn't seem any different from your average white-collar guy, or very eager to initiate me into any trade secrets.
"I've been done with all that stuff for a long time now," he says, "it ain't the kind of game you can keep up your whole life, trust me. Not if you wanna make it past twenty-five." I don't really understand what he's getting at— Rick's older than him, and he's still a pretty accomplished hood, so are most of his friends. But I can guess what he's about to say next without him having to bother, he gives off a do-gooder vibe like every social worker and guidance counselor that's had the misfortune of crossing paths with me. "Dunno what idea you got from no cop, but I ain't just gonna let you run wild... or bring you into that lifestyle, Christ. You ain't goin' back inside on my watch, at least."
I scowl at him, wondering just what he's playing at— he doesn't even know me, the hell does he care if I go back inside or not? He'd get a reprieve from feeding my mouth if I did. "Lorraine never told me what to do."
He gives me the same kind of side-eye I've been giving him. "Lorraine? That what you called your mama?"
"Yeah, what about it?"
"Explains a lot."
"Who are you to judge?" I snap before I can help myself— I fucking hate it when people go after her or our relationship, especially now that she's dead and can't defend herself. And trust me, plenty of people have made cracks at her over the years. "Ain't like you was even around to raise me."
"I know," he exhales, slumping a little in front of the steering wheel, "I know I wasn't, but I told you the truth, I swear. She didn't tell me nothin' about you all these years."
"You really expect me to believe that?" I crank down the window, but the air is muggy and humid, even worse than in Austin. Doesn't help me breathe any easier. "We used to live in one-bedroom places with roaches climbin' the walls. You must be somethin' else if she never hit you up."
He lets out a low, mean whistle. "You're one smartass kid, I'll give you that. You got that from her."
See, there's jibes I can take, and they just slide off me like water off a duck's back— cold, heartless, selfish, cruel, whatever. Because they mean I'm strong, I can take care of myself, and deep down, that's what I value above anything else. Rick in the back of my mind, telling me I'm whiny, stupid, needy, that's what fucking stings, rolls around there and gets stuck. Because that means I'm weak, and I just can't afford that, never could.
A lot of shit's happened to me that I didn't plan for— Lorraine kicking the bucket, Rick getting tired of me, juvie, now Tim swooping in on the scene and whisking me away to Bumfuck, Oklahoma— but I should've, and that's on me. So I keep my mouth shut for the rest of the car ride, lean against the headrest, and I think about how the hell I'm going to get out of here before anyone back home misses me.
I know exactly what Sally going to do once she sees him, and I'm powerless to stop her— she holds her arms out and pulls him into her chest. "Oh, honey," she says, "I'm so glad you're home."
I cringe, expect him to pull away from her and make some smart remark, but instead he just leans into her and actually hugs back. Guess he's not as hardboiled as I thought, or at least knows how to get women on his good side. "You're Sally, right?"
"Yeah, hon, I'm your stepmomma," she says, and unlike his explosive reaction to thinking of me as his father, he just sort of nods as she turns to glower at the bag in his hands.
"What is that— they didn't even bother to get you a suitcase?"
"It ain't no big deal," he says, and for the first time looks a little humiliated by his shabby possessions. He doesn't look too well-dressed, either, in the bright kitchen light, massive holes in his jeans and a grease-stained t-shirt that's clearly seen better days. I'm surprised Sally hasn't dragged him off to the shower yet and shoved him into the spray. "Y'all got any beer?" he finally adds as the silence grows more and more awkward. "It's been kind of a long day."
"Not for you." I'm sure as shit not sharing the six-pack of Budweiser in there with him as any kind of father-son bonding experience, though part of me wonders if it'd make things flow a little smoother. Sets the wrong tone and all.
He looks at me like I've grown a second head. "Why not? You didn't drink when you was my age?"
"I... did," I reluctantly admit— like he's going to believe me if I say I waited 'til I was twenty-one, now that the cat's out of the bag about my... wayward youth— "but if you wanna drink, you can damn well sneak it like any other teenager. I'm not fixin' to supply you with booze."
He snorts and looks around. "You really run this place like a monastery, huh?"
"Yeah," I don't miss a beat, "there's an early bedtime, too. Lemme show you your room."
Fortunately he doesn't fight me as I lead him upstairs to what used to be the guest room. "Sorry I didn't have a lot of time to decorate," I say with a scratch to the back of my head; it's pretty sparse, white walls, and I'm embarrassed by the scuffs no one bothered to buff in the floorboards. He doesn't even blink, though, just throws the bag onto the bed. "You can do whatever you want with it—"
"Thanks, but I don't need to put Zeppelin posters and shit up, this is fine." He gives me a look that's pure, unadulterated challenge. "Don't plan on stickin' around for long."
I'm not rising to the bait, though it's damn hard, not entertaining this. "At least wait 'til tomorrow mornin', Sally's makin' chocolate chip pancakes, you won't want to miss that."
I hover in the doorway, reluctant to just leave him to his own devices, even though it's almost midnight and he should really be in bed. "You wanna tuck me in or somethin'?" he shoots at me when I take more than a couple of seconds. "I'm good."
Maybe I could've when he was younger, and inadequacy floods me as I think of all the firsts I never got to have with him, what I just took for granted all these years with Jessica. Now he's a hard-eyed stranger to me, and I don't see that changing any time soon. "You sleep okay now," I say, and cringe as he just smirks at me. He'll probably stay up all night out of sheer spite now.
"If you say he's like a little me, I'm filin' for divorce," I groan as I slide onto the couch, The Price Is Right blaring at me, refusing to meet Sally's knowing gaze. "Little Curly, maybe—"
She snickers. "Oh, that's definitely your son all right, didn't need a blood test to prove it— I knew you back in high school. Remind me what he went inside for again?"
"Dealin' pot," I mutter— nobody bothered to elaborate on the motive when I asked, and I'm not so sure if I want one. "Did we just bring a hardened criminal into the house with our young, impressionable daughter?"
"Yes," she says with her usual lack of tact, "but we got four years to reform him, don't we? You came around eventually."
Easier said than done.
