Chapter 18
WHEN Zach walked into the sunroom, his mother was telling the shrink, “Oh, we had a lovely day yesterday. Zach’s friend the lieutenant came for the weekend, and David came for breakfast, and both Saturday and Sunday we grilled out. Zach took Mike up around the Garden of the Gods. Have you ever been there? The rock formations are just spectacular—oh, hello, honey.” Jane smiled at Zach. “I was just telling Dr. Barrett….”
“I heard,” Zach said shortly. He dropped into his chair, stretched out his legs and stared at the toes of his boots.
There was silence in the sunroom; then Richard said evenly, “That wasn’t terribly polite, Zach.”
“Sorry.” Zach bit down on a smart-ass remark. His parents didn’t deserve to catch the flak from his lousy mood. Even without looking up, though, he knew his parents were exchanging The Look, the one they always exchanged when he was being a dick. And he was. He didn’t want to be, but he was. He sighed wearily and kept studying his toes.
“Often,” the shrink said to Dick and Jane, “an exciting or enjoyable weekend leaves a sense of let-down behind it. One feels like one can’t ever recapture quite the same enjoyment. Which is true, of course. We can’t repeat our good days, but we’ll have other days just as enjoyable in different ways. Did you have a good time yesterday, Zach?”
Zach shrugged. “I guess. Yeah. It was good. Okay, anyway.”
“How are you feeling now?”
“Okay.”
“Your body language doesn’t seem to agree.”
Zach shrugged again.
“Honey, did something happen last night to upset you?”
“No,” Zach said, then more slowly, “No…. No, nothing happened. I mean, yeah, shit happened, but I’m not upset or anything from that. It was a good evening. Nothing bad happened. Well, I had a nightmare. And I….” he trailed off.
“What did you do?”
“I socked Taff,” Zach said curtly. “Accidentally, so it wasn’t quite payback for him punching me. But he wasn’t mad.” He looked up and met Dr. Barrett’s eyes. “I’m sleeping with Taff,” he said bluntly.
“Is this a new development?”
“Yeah. Since Saturday night.” He glanced at his parents. “I figured you guys figured it out.”
“Well, we suspected,” Richard said. “Pretty confidently.”
“How do you and Jane feel about this?” Dr. Barrett asked Richard. Zach looked up to watch their faces.
Richard hesitated, and then said, “Ambivalent.”
“Join the club,” Zach muttered, and went back to studying his feet.
“Why do you feel ambivalent, Richard?”
Zach’s father sighed. “Well,” he said, “it’s a big step for Zach. We worry about him, but he has to take the opportunities he’s presented with, and make the decisions only he can make, and starting a relationship is both a big opportunity and a big gamble. Jane and I both love David too—he’s part of our family—but our main concern is and always will be Zach. We don’t want him to get hurt, but we have to let him take the chance. It’s not comfortable.”
“I want Zach to have a good relationship with a good person,” Jane said fiercely. “And David is a good person. As long as he won’t hurt Zach. And David’s been Zach’s protector all his life, and I think Zach will be safe with David.”
“What if I don’t want to be safe?” Zach demanded. “What if I don’t want David as a protector? I mean, Jesus! I’m not a little boy anymore. Okay, I’m not quite a normal grown-up, either, but I can take care of myself. You know,” he said roughly, “I fuck David, not the other way around.”
Jane went scarlet. Richard’s hands clenched. “Just because we more or less approve of your relationship with David,” he said tightly, “that doesn’t mean that the details of that relationship are anyone’s business but your own. I’m sure you think that this is an appropriate venue for sharing private information, but there is a limit, Zach.”
“Why did you feel you needed to share that, Zach?” Dr. Barrett asked, unruffled.
Zach didn’t answer right away. Finally he said, “They think I’m still a little boy. They think that if they’re careful enough nothing will ever hurt me. But I’m not a little boy. I may be retarded, but I’m not young. I don’t want David to protect me. I… I’m not sure yet what I do want from him, but I don’t want that. But he does. He does. I feel safe with him, and that is not good.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because nobody’s safe. Nobody has the right to feel safe, because it can all be taken away from you. David makes me feel safe and that makes me feel not safe.” Zach shot out of his chair and started pacing. “I know, it’s stupid. But I don’t want to feel that way. I can’t let myself feel that way. If I let myself, what will happen when I’m not safe anymore? I won’t be ready. I won’t be prepared.”
“You’ll be vulnerable,” Dr. Barrett said.
“Yes! And I can’t be. I can’t.”
“Zach, being vulnerable is part and parcel of being human.”
“Then I don’t want to be human,” Zach said wildly. “I want to be, to be Andrew.”
“Do you know what you’re protecting yourself from?”
“No. Yes. Everything.” He stopped pacing and stood before them, his hands fisted. “I’m scared. I’m really, really scared. And I don’t know what the fuck I’m scared of. Everything, I guess. And David makes me feel not scared and that scares me worse than anything else.”
“Fear is also a part of being human, Zach,” Dr. Barrett said. “There’s nothing wrong with being afraid.”
“How do you stop?”
“Well,” he said thoughtfully, “you can look at probabilities and rationalize them, but that doesn’t always work. Or you can face whatever it is that you fear. There are different therapies for specific phobias.”
“What about pantophobia?” Zach asked dryly.
Jane giggled, surprising everyone including herself. The shrink looked at her in puzzlement.
“It’s from Peanuts,” she explained. “Lucy’s trying to analyze Charlie Brown and she asks him if he has pantophobia, and when she explains that it’s fear of everything, he yells ‘That’s it!’ and she goes rolling over from the force of his yell. I guess you have to see it.”
“I remember the cartoon,” Dr. Barrett said. “That was in A Charlie Brown Christmas, right?”
“I think so.”
Zach said, “We always used to watch that every year at Christmas. We haven’t since I’ve been back.”
“We will this year,” Jane promised.
“Zach, back to your fears. Fear is normal, and most of the time more or less healthy. But not when it prevents us doing something that needs to be done or that we want to do. Maybe for your session this afternoon, you can make a list of things that you fear the most, and we can work on them.”
“Okay,” Zach said. He dropped back into his chair, stretched out his legs, and went back to studying his toes.
“WOODCHUCK CIDER,” David said, and slid a five across the bar. “Keep the change.”
“Thanks,” Terry said. “How you been, Davey?”
“Decent, decent,” David replied, and took the bottle Terry handed him. “I’m back for good, I guess. Got a job teaching at Wesley Community College.”
“That so? Teaching what?” Terry opened a Woodchuck for himself.
“Art and design. It’s a good gig. I start tomorrow. Thought I’d treat myself before I jump into the grind.”
“Beth’s sister taught there for a while. Math, I think. She said it was pretty nice there.”
“Why’d she leave?”
“Married a Kansan.”
“No shit?”
“No shit.”
“Flatlanders,” they chorused, and clinked bottles. Terry grinned.
“Haven’t seen your little buddy around lately,” he said. “Not that he’s that little anymore. Holy shit, what did they feed the kid while he was away?”
“No much of anything, from what I hear,” David said. “He’s built up some since he got back, I guess.”
“Yeah, musta. I didn’t recognize him when he first started coming around here. Took me a few days, but then I heard that his folks had brought him back and figured out who he was. Wasn’t what I expected, that’s for sure.”
“Thought he’d be this poor pitiful me type, didn’t you?”
“I did. Nothin’ pitiful about that kid.”
“Nope,” David said wryly. “He’s got a mind of his own.”
“Couple people come around askin’ questions about him, but I ain’t talkin’. I don’t think anyone’s figured out who he is yet, though. Like I said, he’s sure a lot different. I remember when Beth worked for Tyler before the kids were born and we’d go to the company picnics and stuff. He was always such a friendly, happy kid. Not any more.”
“Who’s been asking questions?” David asked suspiciously.
“A couple people. Strangers, mostly. Reporters and that crap. But you know, this is a neighborhood place, not like some of those joints downtown. We know who our people are. And we don’t talk about them to strangers.” Terry glanced over David’s shoulder. “Speak of the devil.”
A body settled at the bar next to David, a warm and solid presence. “Taff. Terry.”
“Hey, kid,” Terry said. “Scotch?”
“What are you guys having?”
“Woodchuck Cider.”
“I’ll take one of those.”
Terry served him the cider and then went off to attend to some other customers. They drank in silence a moment, then Zach asked in a low voice, “Are you pissed at me?”
David considered the question. “No,” he said finally. “Not pissed.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know, Zach. Not happy.” David picked at the label on his bottle. “I’m not sure what I’m feeling right now, but it’s not happy.”
“I’m sorry. I just had to get out of the house. I didn’t want… well, that’s not quite true. I did want to stay with you. Too much. It scared me.”
“You don’t trust me not to push. I get it.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“No, it never is.” David sighed. “It’s okay, Zach. It’s a speed bump. Nature’s way of telling us to slow down.”
“I don’t want to slow down,” Zach said in a fierce undertone. “I want to be with you, Taff.” He turned his head to look at David. “I’m scared as shit but I want you.”
David closed his eyes as a shudder went through him at the hunger in Zach’s voice, in his eyes. “I got it,” he said.
“I wish I did,” Zach said. “Come home with me, Taff.”
David hesitated, then shook his head. “Not tonight. My first class is at ten and I gotta be there by nine to get stuff set up. And I want to go running in the morning. I need to get to bed at a reasonable hour.”
“You will. I promise,” Zach whispered.
David shuddered again. “Fuck,” he muttered.
Zach leaned over so his shoulder brushed David’s. “That’s what I had in mind,” he murmured.
“Hey,” Terry said as he came by with a handful of empties, “I meant to ask you—you guys in a fight or something?”
“What?” Zach frowned.
“Well, your nose is all swollen”—Zach put his hand over his nose automatically—“and Davey’s got a black eye.”
Zach turned to David in surprise. “What?” He put his hand under David’s chin and turned his head. “Fuck, Taff! You do!”
“It’s not that bad,” David said.
It wasn’t, just a slight discoloration, but still noticeable. He’d been standing on David’s other side, so hadn’t seen it. “Jesus, I’m sorry.”
“No big,” David said dismissively. “It doesn’t even hurt. It’ll go away in a day or two.”
“And in the meantime you start teaching with a honking big black eye,” Zach said remorsefully. “I’m sorry, Taff.”
“You sock him?” Terry asked interestedly.
“Accidentally,” David assured him. “Shit happens, you know?”
“Don’t I,” Terry said, and carried the bottles over to the recycler.
“Well,” Zach said thoughtfully, “if you have a black eye, maybe that will intimidate the students so they don’t give you a hard time.”
David laughed. “It’s college, Zach, not high school. The kids are there because they want to be there.”
“I wouldn’t know.” Zach finished his Woodchuck and pinned down a five on the counter with the bottle. “Well,” he said reluctantly, “if you don’t want to come home with me….”
“No,” David said, “but you could come home with me.”
Zach raised his head and gave him a hopeful puppy look. “Seriously?”
David sighed. “Yeah, seriously. And if you’re trying to look like a bad-ass, puppy eyes don’t help, dweeb. But you gotta let me get to sleep at a reasonable time and no nightmares, okay? And we go running in the morning.”
“Okay.”
A quick grin flashed on David’s face and he added, “Besides, I moved the full bed from the guest room into my room this afternoon. It’s still not as comfortable as your king, but a hell of a lot better than the twin.”
Zach was grinning widely. “Excellent,” he said enthusiastically.
David shook his head.