Chapter 9 three cousins
three cousins
Preston Darling
A week after my cousin Walker busted into our little game, my parents sat us down at the table.
I knew what was coming. Dolly had already told us at school, with lots of blushing and no eye contact, that she’d gotten a spanking and she wasn’t allowed to visit anymore unless her mother was there with her.
Even then, she wasn’t allowed out of her mother’s sight.
Devlin, whose parents didn’t believe in spanking, had given him a talk that he wouldn’t repeat to us. All we knew was that his ears turned red when we tried to get him to explain. Colt and Destiny, who had also been there when Walker found us, also weren’t allowed to play without a grown-up around.
Nothing had happened to me, not a word from my parents.
All week, I’d waited, holding my breath every time they said my name, even when it turned out I just needed to take out the trash or get ready for baseball.
Some part of me hoped, the way dumb little kids hope, that we’d be spared, that somehow our parents hadn’t found out or weren’t going to say anything.
“We’d like to talk to you two about what you were caught doing in your grandfather’s treehouse,” Dad said after we’d retired to the sitting room so the housekeeper could clear the table from supper.
“Allegedly,” I said, because Dad liked to say you were always innocent until proven guilty.
He gave me the barest smile for that one. “Yes,” he said. “What you were allegedly doing in the treehouse. Though we do have two eyewitness accounts…”
“What about what they were doing?” I asked. “Walker and that girl.”
No one seemed to be talking about that. It didn’t seem fair. He was only fifteen, and he’d been going up there with beer and a girl. We all knew what they’d been about to do.
“That’s not our business,” Mom said. “We’re concerned about you two.”
“I wasn’t doing anything,” Lindsey pouted. “I just played the baby.”
“I know, sweetheart,” Mom said, patting her hand. “You’re not in any kind of trouble.”
“That’s right,” Dad said to her. “Your mother will talk to you about the appropriate behavior for a good girl, to make sure you stay that way.”
She was always Daddy’s little girl. I was the one who got in trouble.
I never knew what kind of trouble, what kind of whipping I’d get.
Sometimes, Dad exploded, crashing over me like a firestorm, his blows raining down in such a frenzy that I was sure one day he’d kill me.
Other times, he was slow and methodical, as if he had to savor every stroke to get the full satisfaction of the punishment.
“We want to make sure to say the right things, to do what’s best for you kids, so we sat down and talked with Pastor Rodney earlier today,” Mom said. “Just to get some guidance before we came to you.”
“Preston, I’ll deal with you in my office,” Dad said, rising from the couch. “Lindsey, listen to your mother.”
Wordlessly, I followed him to his office. My heart was hammering against my ribs, but I knew better than to plead my case. My father may have been a lawyer all day, but he was judge, jury, and executioner in our house.
He sat down behind his heavy desk, and I stood before him, my hands hanging at my sides, my fingers tingling with numbness as my breath came quicker with fear.
“Shut the door,” he said.
I obeyed.
“Are you a man?” Dad asked.
I took a deep breath, puffing up my skinny little nine-year-old boy chest. “Yes, sir.”
“Then tell me,” he said slowly. “If all three of you boys were playing this game, why weren’t you the one on top of Dolly Beckett?”
I slowly raised my eyes to his, too surprised to answer.
“If such games are taking place, my son should be the one playing head of household, the father, the one fucking the wife,” Dad said, pulling out his drawer and taking out a cigar.
I stared at it, swallowing hard. Only he and Grampa smoked.
They shared that habit, and somehow, it made me know they were closer than the other uncles.
One day, I would take up the practice, just like they did.
I would be just like them. Everyone already said it.
I had the sharpest mind, the nerve for it.
Sometimes, they gave each other secret, grown-up looks I couldn’t interpret, but I knew that it was a cause for concern as well as a compliment.
“So,” Dad said. “Why weren’t you the one Walker found naked with a girl? You a faggot? A little sissy boy?”
“No, sir.”
In truth, I didn’t know the meaning of those words, just that they were very, very bad things to be.
Dad almost always said them when he was taking off his belt, and kids at school made fun of others for being those things.
I tried to figure out what those kids did, what they had in common with me, but I didn’t know.
My deepest fear was that I must be those things without knowing, and that’s why Dad whipped me so much, why he was always so angry.
“You didn’t want to be the one fucking that girl?” he asked.
My father didn’t often spare the rod, and I knew if he’d forgo that punishment, this must be important. He also didn’t speak to me that way, which gave the moment even more weight. He was raising me up in some way, talking to me like a man, like I was important.
“I—I wanted to,” I said, rushing ahead so he wouldn’t pounce on the stammer I’d let slip. “But Devlin wouldn’t let me. He’s older, and he said his dad said he was going to marry Dolly. He said that meant he was the dad and she was the mom, and me and Colt were uncles.”
Sometimes, one of us would lay on Dolly and then get up and run away when Devlin “got home” in the game. But she was always married to Devlin, always making dinner for him and their kids.
“You are my son,” Dad said, his words measured as he carefully sliced off the end of his cigar.
“You’ll take over the business. He may be older, but you’re the most important Darling in your generation.
Your grandfather and I chose you, not Devlin, to be the leader of this family when we’re gone.
You should have taken charge and taken the leading role. ”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Devlin and Colt are family,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “They’re on our team. But when there’s only one prize, it’s your place to take it. No son of mine comes in second. Do you understand? You get first place, or you don’t play at all.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, nodding solemnly, squirming to stay still. I was still afraid the belt was coming next.
“Any questions?” he asked, lighting his cigar and taking a few puffs to get it going.
“Why do our coaches say it only matters how hard you play?” I asked.
“They have to say that,” he said. “But I’ll let you in on a little secret, Preston.
Coaches, they aren’t as smart as us. Hell, most of them failed on the field, and that’s why they’re coaching.
They’re failures. Losers. They want to make themselves feel better, so they tell you winning’s not important.
But winning is all that matters. Isn’t that the reason you play? ”
He was right. We didn’t play just to run around on the field. That’s what practice was for. Games were meant to be won. That was the whole point in playing, just like he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Anything else?” he asked.
I thought about what Mom must be saying to Lindsey.
“Is Dolly a good girl?” I asked.
“Good enough for Devlin,” he said, offhand like it didn’t matter. “We’ll choose someone else for you. Someone better. But you should still have gotten her in the game.”
I didn’t say it, but there was no one better than Dolly Beckett. I already knew that. She was the best girl, no matter what he said. But I wanted to know what would make her as good as a Darling.
“In Sunday school, they told us about sinning,” I said. “And how we couldn’t do that stuff until we’re married. Is that why you called Pastor Rodney? Did we make her sin?”
I especially wanted to know because I was the one who had taught Dolly to play the game, and I didn’t want it to be my fault if she wasn’t a good girl, if she was a sinner. I was pretty sure it had to be a sin, otherwise we wouldn’t have kept it a secret.
Dad sat back in his chair, lifting his feet onto the edge of his desk and puffing on his cigar. “Listen, Pastor Rodney has good intentions, but he doesn’t know how things work for everyone. In our family, the men act like men. Understand?”
I didn’t, so I shook my head. “He lied?”
“No, son. He didn’t lie. What he says is true—for other people. For most people. Things are different for us. That doesn’t make us sinners. It makes us special. Don’t tell him I said that—or your mother. Understand?”
I nodded. “Yes, sir.”
I understood all about family loyalty, about keeping what happened under our roof secret.
We had lots of secrets, like Dad’s temper and Mom’s closets—the one where she cried at night and the one where she drank wine in the daytime, with the lights off and the door closed. Sometimes she cried in there, too.
She’s the one who taught us privacy, who taught us that some things weren’t for us, and some were meant only for us.
She’s the one who told us not to say anything about Dad being in a mood when someone came over or when we went out somewhere he didn’t want to go.
It was funny, because when he got to whatever function, he smiled and talked like nothing was wrong.
I knew Mom was right, that it was a secret that belonged only to our family, because no one else could see the rage shimmering off him in waves, like an invisible storm brewing.
Only our family could see it, could feel it.
Mom would tell us to be very quiet on the way home.
“Be extra nice to your Daddy,” she’d say. “He’s stressed out at work.”
I could be quiet, but Lindsey was the one who would sweetly ask how he enjoyed the party, say the right things to keep the storm at bay for another day.
That was another thing only I could see—that it was fake, that she only did it to keep the peace, to try to make him feel better so he wouldn’t beat the shit out of me later.
It made me feel sick and guilty somehow, as if what she were doing was somehow obscene, the way she’d placate him.
Sometimes, Dad would be quiet, and you couldn’t tell if it worked.
Lindsey would think she did a good job and feel all proud of herself.
I’d let her because her room was on the other side of mine, where she couldn’t hear them after the lights were off.
Listening to Dad take his rage out on Mom was another obscene thing I didn’t fully grasp but instinctually knew was private, not to be shared with anyone, even my sister.
Those nights, I’d press my little hand to the wall when Mom went in the closet to cry, and I’d close my eyes and pray that she knew I was there, even if I was too much of a coward to go in their room and sit with her.
Maybe that’s what being a sissy boy meant.
When I turned to leave Dad’s office, he cleared his throat. “You forgetting something, son?”
I stopped mid-stride, my back stiff. “Sir?”
“Ten licks,” he said, and I heard his belt clinking. My heart stopped, and that sickening, swimming feeling came up from the bottom of my belly, the clouds rolling into my head. “For not taking what you wanted like a man.”