Breakneck
Chapter 6: Crumble
"I cannot believe you're doing this."
I grinned and handed over the money. "What? It'll be so cool."
"Weren't you whining that you didn't have the money to pay for my fake ID?" Daphne asked. "And now you're forking over another fifty dollars to get your nipple pierced?"
"You said we should celebrate," I said with a shrug. The cashier handed me my change, and I thanked her.
Daphne rolled her eyes and pushed the stroller away from the counter. "We look like the most dysfunctional family ever."
"What? You don't think they see a lot of strollers in here?" I asked, gesturing to the tattoo-covered walls of the parlor. It smelled like the inside of a Halloween mask, and rock music was blaring from a speaker somewhere, though thankfully not loud enough to bother Luke. "I can't imagine why not."
"You know, I don't think this is going to do a lot to convince Brian that you're not a masochist," Daphne pointed out.
"I'm not doing this for him."
"Of course," Daphne said dryly. "You're doing it for Luke. Your other boyfriend."
"I don't do boyfriends," I replied flippantly.
I was parroting Brian again. And from the look on Daphne's face, she knew it.
"Luke is my one true love," I declared, making my way around to the front of the stroller. I crouched down so I was at eye level with him. "Isn't that right, dude? You and me, two halves of a whole?"
"Two halves of the same chromosomes," Daphne corrected.
"Luke," I said in the lowest, most gravelly voice I could manage. I cupped my hand over my mouth, making slow breathing noises. "I am your father."
Daphne giggled, but Luke's face crumpled a little and tears filled his eyes.
"Aw, it's just me," I told him, grinning and running a hand over his hair. "Don't be a drama queen. Here—you want your hippo?"
Daphne provided me with the hippo a moment later, and I wiggled it around.
"See? Hippo's happy. Hippo's not a little drama queen like you are."
"Justin!" Daphne cried, laughing. "Be nice to him."
But Luke had finally cracked a smile and grabbed the hippo out of my hands, shoving one of the legs into his mouth. He drooled happily.
"Hey kid, you're next," I heard, and I turned around to see a large man with an even larger mustache standing there with the piercing gun in his hand.
"I cannot believe you're doing this," Daphne said again as she followed me, pushing the stroller. "Seriously. If you parents find out..."
"Hey, I could be getting my dick pierced, okay?" I pointed out as I hopped onto the stool.
"Off with the shirt," the guy said, and I obliged.
"You ever pierce someone's dick?" I asked.
The guy shrugged. "Yeah. One or two. Guys usually like Linda to do it, though. She handles genital piercings and tattoos."
"Tattoos?" Daphne and I said together.
Guy grinned. "Yeah. Like, just last night, some lady got the word RESPECT tattooed on her pussy."
I'm not sure which of us looked more horrified.
"So, which nipple?" the guy asked, tearing open the disinfectant wipe packet.
ooo
"That's disgusting," Molly said, eying the spoonful of squash I was trying to get Luke to eat. "Ew. No wonder he doesn't want to eat it."
"He does," I said patiently, holding the spoon in front of Luke's mouth and following it when he turned his head.
"Nuh-uh."
"Squash used to be your favorite when you were a baby, Molly," Mom interjected. "And Justin always liked the mashed green beans."
I kept my eyes focused on Luke. "C'mon Luke. Open your mouth. Aaaahhhhh..."
I made a face, which caused Luke to giggle, and I shoved the spoon in his mouth.
Luke swallowed and, finally realizing that there was food to be had, opened his mouth for more.
"There we go," I said, grinning. Another spoonful of squash. And another.
Mom quietly cut into her chicken, never cutting down to the bottom so that the knife wouldn't scrape against the plate. She usually tried not to do that because Dad absolutely hated that sound, but tonight she seemed to be extra careful about it. Dad hadn't looked up from his plate since dinner had started, and was almost finished. Molly had been chattering away, oblivious to the tension as always, but now she was taking a break to chew. I hated the thought of being up in my room again, but frankly, anywhere was better than here.
The squash finished, I quickly wolfed down my helping of asparagus before opening up an applesauce-pork-rice mixture for Luke. He'd never had pork before. I'd have to spend the next four days checking for an allergic reaction.
Luke, thinking it was more squash, eagerly opened his mouth. Upon finding out that it was not, he tried to spit it back out. I made him swallow it, and after a few difficult spoonfuls, the applesauce-pork-rice mix was also deemed acceptable, and Luke finished it off.
"I have work to do," Dad said, standing up. "I'll be in my study."
Mom quickly stood up to take his plate and cup into the kitchen.
Molly leaned over as soon as they were both gone and whispered, "What'd you do this time?"
"Tried to sell your kidneys to a drug dealer in Mexico."
"You're a freak."
I smiled. "Luke doesn't think so."
ooo
As I think I mentioned before, Luke hated bath time. He would cry at the slightest provocation, kick and splash madly, and completely ignore any of the bath toys that I tried to put in the tub with him. So needless to say, I was pretty damn efficient when it came to bathing him.
Into the bath seat, two cups of water over the head, a quick wipe-down with a cloth, another cup of water, shampoo, another cup, and we were done.
"All done!" I told him, lifting him out of the bath seat.
Luke twisted and cried as I transferred him onto the waiting towel. He still hated to be dangled, and he was already upset because of the bath.
Molly banged on the bathroom door. "Are you almost done in there?"
"Give me five minutes, Molly!"
I quickly towel-dried Luke's body, rubbed some lotion on his privates, and then got him into a new diaper and his green sleeper. By the time I had the bathroom cleaned up and I was on my way back to my room, Luke was happily babbling away, the bathtub a distant memory.
"Finally," Molly muttered, shoving past me.
I rolled my eyes and pushed open the door to my room—
Mom and Dad were both sitting on my bed.
"Can I help you?" I asked.
Luke quieted, and I realized that I'd tensed up, tightened my grip on him. I forced myself to relax, but I didn't put him down. I couldn't. The urge to run far, far away was almost overpowering, and if I ran, Luke was coming with me.
"We need to talk about this Brian of yours, Justin," Mom said carefully.
"You told him?" I demanded, while my heart plummeted. No, no, no, no... "You said you wouldn't tell! You promised!"
Mom remained passive. Like always. "I had to tell him. I had no choice."
I clutched Luke to my chest, ignoring his whimpers. I was irrationally afraid that Dad was going to stand up and pull him out of my arms and... and... throw him out the window or something. Dad wanted Luke gone. Mom had just given him the perfect excuse.
"You lied to me!" I said furiously. "You said—"
"I know what I said," Mom interrupted, not raising her voice. "But honey, when I—I saw you last night..."
"You said you were okay with it," I said, panic rising. She'd betrayed me. She'd been lying to me this whole time. She'd tried to support me but then she'd seen me with Brian last night and now she'd decided that there was no way that she could let her son be a faggot—
"Justin, it's not for the reason you think." Mom actually sounded a little desperate, beneath the calm. "It's not right for a man his age to be touching you. Honey, you may think you... love him. But... Oh, Justin, that's exactly what men like him want you to think!"
"Men like him?" I echoed incredulously.
"Perverts," Dad spat.
"Brian's not a pervert!"
In my arms, Luke began to cry. I shushed him hurriedly, glaring at my parents.
"He's an adult, and you're a child," Dad said, with an obvious effort to temper his anger. "It's not only wrong, it's illegal. I could have him arrested."
My mouth dropped open in horror. "You can't!"
"Justin, none of this is your fault," Mom said gently. "We don't blame you. Men like Brian, they know exactly what to say to lure you into their beds. You couldn't have known."
"I did know! He didn't lure me anywhere—I chased after him. I asked him to fuck me."
"Jesus Christ!" Dad yelled, jumping to his feet.
I took a step back, my arms tightening around Luke protectively, but Dad just stalked over to the window.
"Craig, you promised you'd stay calm," Mom said, watching him from the bed.
"I am calm," he half-snarled. After a couple of breaths, he turned around to face me, notably calmer. "What about AIDS?"
"He wore a condom," I said evenly. "I put it on him myself."
Mom put her head in her hands. "Oh, Justin..."
"I can't listen to this," Dad muttered. "I'm calling the police."
"You're not calling anybody," Mom countered, bringing her head up. "The last thing we need is for everyone to know."
"Oh, yes, that's the last thing we need!" I said hotly. "I really don't think your reputation could take another hit—your son gets a girl pregnant, your son is raising his bastard child in your house, your son is gay, your son has a twenty-nine year old male lover! You—"
"HE IS NOT YOUR LOVER," Dad roared, suddenly there with his hands on my shoulders. "He's a child molester, Justin!"
"Craig, let him go," Mom said sharply, rising off the bed. "Craig!"
"I'm not a child, and he didn't molest me," I retorted, pulling myself free. Luke was fairly sobbing by now, and I was shaking with fury. "I love him. I want to be with him."
"Justin," Mom said desperately, "a boy your own age would be—"
"There will be no boys at all!" Dad cried. "I won't have it in this household!"
"What your father means," Mom said, as my mouth opened in outrage, "is that we think some time away from Brian would do you some good. Help you... see things clearer. We just want you to be safe and happy, honey. That's all we want."
"I feel safe and happy when I'm with Brian. I can't remember the last time I felt safe or happy in this house." I was resolute, trembling with suppressed rage. "You can't stop me from seeing him. You won't."
"The hell we can't!"
"Craig," Mom snapped. She turned to me. "Justin, we'll talk about this later. This conversation is not over."
Dad stalked out of the room and Mom followed at a more sedate pace, but neither one of them looked back. Across the hall, I saw Molly's head poking out of the bathroom, but for once she didn't have a snide remark for me. Her eyes were wide, and as soon as she realized that I had seen her, she slammed the door shut.
I shut my own door, Luke still wailing in my arms, and set about calming him down.
His face was a mess, wet with snot and tears and drool, but I let him bury it into my shirt anyway, rubbing circles into his back and speaking softly. His hair had dried from his bath, soft and downy. I moved my hand up from his back to the back of his head, stroking his hair.
After a few minutes he'd finally quieted down to a few snuffles, and I reached for a wipe for his face. I'd have to change my shirt, no doubt.
As I wiped his face, he was already drifting off. Luke had cried himself to sleep.
I set him in his crib and then fell down on my own bed, burying my face in my pillow. I fought back the initial wave of sorrow, willed myself not to cry, and successfully pushed it all back. I would not cry. I wasn't some stupid little faggot who cried because his daddy didn't love him anymore—I was stronger than that. I was. Because beyond the sadness and the despair, there was a steel core of determination, and it was white hot with fury.
ooo
The idea of leaving Luke alone in the house with my mother, when my father could come home at any point, made me simultaneously terrified and furious, so I took care of that first. Luckily, gym was second period.
"Hey, Taylor, aren't you gonna take a shower?" Chris Hobbes called.
I glanced up, turning just so that he would see my chest. "I have to finish a paper for Nessler. You know what a bitch she is."
"Don't you wanna check out all the other guys' dicks?" he taunted. "I know how much you like that."
And then his eyes went down.
"What's that?" he asked.
"Nipple ring," I said casually, standing up and walking away.
Chris grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back. "Where'd you get it?"
"Piercing parlor on Liberty Avenue," I said, lying.
"Shit!" Chris let me go with a shove. "You really are queer!"
"What's a nipple ring got to do with being queer?" I asked.
Chris smirked. "'Cause your fudge-packing friends like to pull on it while they're buttfucking you. That why you got it?"
"How do you know so much about what faggots do, unless you are one yourself?" I shot back.
That did it.
The next thing I knew, Chris was shoving me against the locker, but I was ready and my fist swung, punching him in the jaw. Seconds later there was an explosion of pain in my face, and then my head slammed back into the lockers, creating a second explosion of pain.
Reeling, I ducked down out of his grasp and tried to punch him in the stomach, but I was pulled back. He was pulled back. People were shouting, jeering, but all I could hear was the dull roar in my ears. I'd instigated this fight to get out of school, but it was real fury I was feeling now. I wanted to bash his stupid, homophobic face in.
"Come on!" Chris was screaming, held back by arms attached to bodies I wasn't seeing. "Motherfucking bitch!"
"You'd like me to be your bitch, wouldn't you?" I yelled back, an odd wetness in my mouth. "You'd like to shove your dick up my ass, let me suck your cock—"
"I'm gonna fucking kill you!" Chris raged, straining against the arms hold him back. "You fucker! I'll kill you!"
I spat, and blood went flying across the locker room.
Chris roared and almost sprang loose—a guy went flying off of him and across the locker room—when a massive body intercepted him and blew his whistle.
Mr. Rube, our bodybuilder of a gym teacher, held Chris in place easily. He glanced at me. "You. Get in my office before you get killed."
I was released from the arms around me. I didn't dare disobey a direct order from Mr. Rube, especially not right now, and I walked out of the locker room silently. I was still shooting on adrenaline, my ears still roaring, but I was high on the fact that I'd done it at all. I'd picked a fight, and I'd lived to get punished.
Mission accomplished.
ooo
"Suspended for two days!" Mom cried from the front seat.
I grinned at Luke as best I could with my split lip and aching jaw. "Did you hear that? I'm gonna be home for two whole days, dude!"
"Justin, this is serious," she said, irritated. "This is going to be on your record when you apply to college!"
Her country club unflappability really had taken a dive over the last few days.
I raised my eyebrows. "I'm sorry. You're still under the impression that I'm going away to college?"
"Oh, and I can just imagine what your father's going to do when he hears about this," she muttered, shaking her head.
"Fuck him," I said.
In his car seat, Luke was gnawing on the leg of his hippo again, drool running down his chin.
"Honestly, Justin!" she exclaimed. "What were you thinking? Did you think this was going to help? As if things weren't bad enough!"
Well, yes. This certainly wasn't going to make life at home any sunnier. But at least when I was at home, I would be with Luke, and that was the point. I couldn't let anything happen to him.
"I'm not sorry," I said obstinately.
Mom sighed. "Why doesn't that surprise me?"
I was up in my room writing an essay on As I Lay Dying when Molly appeared in the doorway with a bag of Oreos.
"Mom says—"
I lifted an urgent finger to my lips, slicing my hand through the air,
Molly rolled her eyes and lowered her voice. "Mom says I'm supposed to watch Luke, and that you're needed downstairs in the family room, please."
"You are not watching him!" I hissed.
She eyed the crib. "What's there to do, anyway? He's just sleeping. You're not even looking at him."
"That's not the point. You're nine."
"Mom said it's fine. And she says it important."
"Mom isn't Luke's mother," I said under my breath, but I pushed back my chair and stood up. I grabbed one of Molly's hands as it reached into the Oreo bag. "Molly, I'm serious here. If Luke wakes up, or if he's breathing funny, or if he starts to sniffle—anything other than sleep peacefully, you come and get me. Yell for me at the top of the stairs. I don't care what you hear downstairs, or what you think you're interrupting. Do you understand?"
"Yeah," Molly said, looking a little sulky that there wasn't anything more she could say. She tossed her hair. "Now let go, or I'll cry."
I let her hand go, and she plopped down on my bed happily.
It wasn't the best of situations, but I had a feeling that my parents weren't going to take no for an answer. I also knew that if we were going to solve anything, it wasn't going to be with Luke crying in my arms. So I took one last look at Luke and then ventured downstairs, where I found Mom and Dad seated on the couch and waiting for me.
I threw myself into the chair across from them. "You summoned?"
Mom took in a deep breath. "Justin, we need to have a serious discussion. A mature discussion. I feel like we all handled last night badly, and I want to try to work things out before they get even worse."
That gave me pause. "Okay," I said slowly.
'Mature discussion' could either mean that they were willing to listen to me and work with me, or it could mean that they expected me to be 'mature' about accepting and obeying their decisions.
"We can't go on like this," Mom said frankly. "These last few weeks have been hard on us all, and it's damaging our family. Something needs to change."
"Like what?" I asked, with only a hint of moodiness. "My sexuality? Luke's guardian?"
"Justin," Mom said, giving me a warning look.
Right. Mature.
"Sorry," I muttered.
Dad, for his part, was sitting silently next to Mom with a stony look on his face.
"Honey, for a seventeen-year-old boy, you've been dealing with so much—the death of your friend, your sudden fatherhood, the... the discovery of your sexuality, falling in love... It's so much. It's too much. And we haven't been doing anything to make it easier on you, have we?"
Slowly, I shook my head. I was wary. She was right, and she seemed sympathetic, but where was she going with this?
Mom smiled at me. "You deserve a few more happy years before you have to become an adult. The only things you should be worrying about now are you SATs, your college applications, and having to take the garbage out. But lately, you've been on such a fast track to growing up."
"We feel like you need to take a step back, Justin," Dad suddenly spoke up, his tone gentler than I'd heard it in ages.
"What does that mean?" I asked, frowning.
Mom and Dad glanced at each other.
"We think it would be best," Mom finally said, "if you went away to school for the rest of your senior year."
My mouth dropped. "What?"
Mom raised a hand. "Now hear me out, Justin. It would be a fine arts school, where you could go as an artist. Meet other people who share your passion, your talent."
"You'll still be going to an Ivy League for college, of course," Dad reassured me. "Don't worry about that. Lots of students from fine arts programs get into business programs at Yale and Dartmouth."
"I can't just leave!" I protested. "And maybe I don't want to be a business major."
Dad's eyebrow shot up, but Mom beat him to it.
"Then you don't have to be," she said calmly. "The other part of this, Justin, is that we would find a family in Pittsburgh to raise Luke, and it would be an open adoption. You could see him whenever you like, receive updates and photos and—"
"No," I said flatly.
"Honey, you can't raise Luke and go to college. This is the only compromise we could think of," Mom explained patiently. "I know that you don't want to give him up, but it's—"
"How about," I said, "I go the college part time in Pittsburgh, at PIFA? And don't allow my son to lose both of his parents."
"PIFA?" Dad repeated incredulously.
"Yes. That's the Pittsburgh Institute of Fine Arts. Maybe you've heard of it?"
Dad snorted. "And what do you do with a degree from there?"
"Become an artist! It's what I want to do."
"What your father is trying to say," Mom forcefully cut in, "is that being an artist is not a secure lifestyle, Justin. We want you to live comfortably, and going to a fine arts institute may not insure that. Maybe you could double major in art and something else, at a regular school?"
"It won't be the same," I said, shaking my head. "PIFA is one of the leading art institutes in the world. I'd get training there that I couldn't get at a school like Yale. I mean, art majors? Don't go to Yale."
"PIFA is also very hard to get into," Mom pointed out. "What if they don't accept you?"
I threw my hands up. "I don't know! I guess I won't go there, then. But I'm not giving Luke up for adoption, and I'm staying at St. James. Anyway, I can't abandon Daphne in our senior year."
"What do you suggest, then?" Dad asked. "You've gone wild. You're getting into fights at school, going to bars, sleeping with... Christ. Justin. Please, I just want my son back. That's all I want."
"I am your son," I said stubbornly. "I'm your queer son who has a kid. That's me. That's who I am, Dad. I'm sorry that who I am ruins your reputation at the country club."
"Justin, it isn't about our reputation with our friends," Mom insisted, leaning forward. "It's about you. We're concerned about you."
"Understand something, Justin," Dad said seriously, looking me in the eye. "When you hurt, I hurt. When you make bad decisions, your mother and I, we hurt because those bad decisions are going to hurt you someday. Raising a child is only hurting you. It's denying you your youth, your college experience... So much more than you realize."
Mom nodded in agreement.
"And this homosexuality business?" Dad suddenly added. "It's hurting you, too. I know that things have been difficult for you since we found out about Luke, and I know that I was hard on you. But I didn't realize that I'd driven you so far as to do that as a cry for attention. And I'm sorry for that, Justin. But this whole mess with Kinney and you being 'gay' is only going to end in disaster. And I don't want that for you."
Ringing silence.
"Is that what you think?" I asked, struggling to speak.
"Craig, I don't—"
"Jennifer, we're getting somewhere," Dad interrupted, focusing on me. "Justin, it's okay. You have my attention now, it's okay. You can stop."
"I have your attention?" I repeated. My voice trembled.
Dad nodded.
"Good, then listen to what I'm about to say," I said, standing up.
Mom's eyes widened.
"Fuck. You." My voice shook with rage. "Fuck you. I'm gay, Dad. I'm not acting out. I'm not going through a phase. Sending me off to boarding school isn't going to make me go straight. If anything, I'll be getting fucked even more, because at a fine arts boarding school, there are gonna be more fags per square meter than there are on a Friday night at Babylon. And I like getting fucked, Dad. I love it. I love the feeling of a giant cock up my ass, ramming into me, push—"
"Stop!" Dad bellowed, leaping off the couch and clutching his head in his hands. "Jesus! I don't want to fucking hear that, Justin!"
"Craig, sit down and stop yelling," Mom said sternly. "Justin, sit down and stop acting like a spoiled child. We're having a mature discussion."
"No, we're not," Dad said furiously, rounding on me. "Not until he decides to stop being an obnoxious shit and lets us help him!"
"I don't need help!" I yelled back, my hands clenched into fists.
"Justin, you're a victim. You need counseling, you need therapy—whatever it takes, I'll pay for it!"
"Why is it so hard for you to accept the fact that I'm queer?" I demanded. "Why?"
"Because you're not! There is no queerness in this family, I won't have it!"
"You know, most homophobic tendencies stem from repressed homosexual urges," I said with a nasty grin. "Something you wanna tell us, Dad?"
He smacked me.
"Craig!" Mom screamed, rocketing off the sofa, but I held out a hand to stop her.
"I'm fine," I said, my eyes never leaving Dad's. "It didn't hurt."
My face throbbed from the assault to my previous bruising, but I barely felt it. I felt like I was back in the locker room with Chris—I was high on adrenaline, a roaring in my ears, a fury like none other pounding in my veins.
Dad looked shell-shocked.
"I guess I'm no longer part of this family, then," I told him, with faux calm. "I'll take my queerness and leave, and I won't let the door hit me on the way out."
And then I turned on my heel and marched out of the room.
ooo
Mom apologized. She begged and pleaded and followed me around, insisting that she didn't agree with Dad, that she understood that I was gay and didn't want to change me and that Dad would come around soon... But I ignored her and went about my night without speaking to either one of my parents. Finally, around eight, she gave up and dragged Dad into the bedroom where they began a heated but quiet discussion.
I knew that nothing would come of it.
