Chapter 14 Road Trip
Yesterday, Matt had haunted the aisles at TLC Nursery, hunting the perfect “Thinking of You” plant. Not cut flowers because those were dead things and that seemed the wrong message for someone like Adam who had so recently been almost dead himself.
Matt had finally settled for Coleus. It had beautiful foliage that should brighten Adam’s room.
Next had been hand wringing at Hallmark, parsing the words on the competing cards, overthinking how Adam might read them. In the end, he had picked a cheery, oversized one. Now he worried whether he’d collect enough signatures to decently fill the white space on that giant card.
It was the discarded clothes littering the floor that alerted him there was more involved here than just sympathy for Adam. He was primping. Somewhere between when he’d first heard about Adam’s fate and now, he’d developed a crush on this guy he’d never met, whose picture he had never even seen.
A stealth crush that took him by surprise. He’d heard of Stockholm Syndrome, where hostages develop sympathy for their captors. Was there a term for this condition besides “creepy?”
He finished dressing, avoiding further eye contact with himself in the mirror.
He went to the cafeteria, where he hoped to get kids to sign the card. Kids who didn’t have a crush on a suicide survivor.
Once inside, he grabbed a cup of coffee, and stood near the drink station, uncertain what to do next. Adam’s giant card was tucked under one arm.
The cafeteria air was humid, chockablock full of suspended molecules of fried pork, like it could start raining sausage at any moment.
“Hey Mustang!” Idabel beckoned from a table he shared with seven other teammates.
Matt approached the table tentatively. He wasn’t sure how to start this conversation.
Idabel saved him the trouble.
“Is that for Ruth?” Idabel pointed at the card, grinned wolfishly, then returned his attention to wrapping a pancake around a sausage link.
Matt shook his head. “It’s a card for that kid, Adam Maxwell. I’m collecting signatures.” He set his coffee on the table, fetched a pen from his back pocket, and held out the card.
There were no takers.
“Who?” Idabel smeared his pancake burrito through a pool of syrup on his plate, stuffed it in his mouth. It was not a pretty sight. Syrup squished out of his lips. Apparently, the goal was to eat the whole thing in one bite, like he was competing in a contest at the county fair.
Matt grimaced.
Roger sat across the table from Idabel. “Adam Maxwell. Isn’t he that fag who tried to kill himself?”
Seven pairs of eyes narrowed in suspicion, swiveled towards Matt.
Matt froze. This was the point where he was expected to affirm the consensus that fags were disgusting. He’d stood at this crossroads a thousand times in his life, and had always cowardly, half-heartedly, taken the “right” turn, the expected turn.
The wrong turn for him.
He thought of Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Less Travelled.” He had never known what it was like to publicly take that less popular road. Slinking down it in the dark didn’t count.
Real fags turned left—the ones who weren’t frauds, that is.
Matt sensed other eyes watching him, other ears listening to this exchange.
Kids at surrounding tables had paused their conversations and were eavesdropping. Two tables away Colton Langley, Mike Huebsch, and the rest of the College Republicans stared at him with vulture eyes.
Matt looked at Roger, this guy who was his senior on the team. A guy to whom he was expected to show deference.
“You don’t have to sign the card if you don’t want to,” Matt said, trying to sound reasonable. “But please don’t use that word again. It’s offensive.”
Idabel stopped chewing, and looked from Matt to Roger, then back again. This was a serious violation of pecking order etiquette.
Roger eased back his chair and stood, a gunslinger prepping for a shootout with an upstart challenger. “Okay, let me rephrase that. Is this Adam kid the sodomite who tried to kill himself?”
A couple of guys sniggered at Roger’s clever use of the biblical term for fags. Matt could hardly argue the Bible term was offensive.
Matt shrugged disarmingly. “That’s what Dean Smith said in Gay Chapel.
I doubt that anyone at this table knows whether that’s true or not.
” He paused. “What is true is that Adam is my brother in Christ. The Apostle John wrote that ‘if anyone sees his brother in need and does not have pity on him, how can the love of God be in that person?’”
Roger stood there a moment, blinking, his wounded pride not yet admitting what was obvious to everyone else, namely that he had lost the argument.
Idabel broke the tension. “Gimme that pen,” he said, reaching out his syrupy fingers theatrically. “I’ll sign the darn card first. I’ll leave the pen nice and sticky for the rest of you.”
That got Roger’s attention. He snatched the pen before Idabel could touch it. Roger signed the card, then offered the pen to the other guys. “Idabel, you’re last.”
Idabel shot Matt a quick “you’re welcome” wink.
Kids from nearby tables trickled up, emboldened now that the jocks were signing the card.
The kids formed a little line, waiting their turn.
Guys generally wanted to chat with Matt about soccer and tomorrow’s exhibition game.
Girls were enamored of Debbie’s connection with him: the card he had given her, her leading the cheering at the Saints game.
Some girls flirted with him. The batting eye thing. The hair flipping thing.
Matt just smiled back. Soon enough, it would be common knowledge that he had a girlfriend.
The line slowly grew.
Molly appeared at the back of the crowd, broke out her camera, and snapped some pictures. “Obviously these won’t be in The Beakley News,” she said to Matt, after elbowing her way through the line. “I’ll make you some prints for your personal scrapbook, though.”
Matt gave Molly a thumbs-up. He still hadn’t completely processed that she was William’s lesbian counterpart or that he was supposed to start dating her girlfriend, Ava. He and Ava were to be each other’s beards. He was not happy with the arrangement.
Eventually the white space on the card disappeared. It was almost time for Matt to meet Josh.
Matt tucked the card under his arm, headed out into the hall.
“Hey Matt! Holdup a minute,” a voice called out. Colton’s voice.
Matt stopped, turned around. “Hi Colton. Do you want to sign the card?”
Colton checked to make sure they weren’t being overheard. “Yeah, right,” he snarled. “Last chance, buttercup. Drop this thing. Toss the card. Say you’ve changed your mind or that God spoke to you in a dream. I don’t care what excuse you use. Just let it go. Okay?”
“Or else?” Matt knew a threat when he heard one.
“Or else you’ll regret it,” Colton said. “I would hate to see something bad happen to your friends. You should think about them.”
Matt leaned in close to Colton’s face. “You’re a fucking coward, Colton,” he hissed. “Come after me, if you can. Leave my friends out of this. Hurt ANY of them, and I promise you that you’ll be sorry.”
Matt thought of Colton’s threat as he drove to pick up Josh.
Matt had privately questioned the seemingly elaborate security precautions the GM took, things like this requirement that he and Josh meet off campus (Braum’s Ice Cream store at E Memorial, in this instance) and drive together from there.
Now, he was glad for William’s foresight.
He didn’t want Colton connecting Josh to him, targeting Josh.
He worried about his friends. Which of them did Colton have in mind?
Thirty minutes later, Matt drove north on I-35 towards Ponca City, towards Adam’s house. Josh was in the passenger seat, quietly watching Edmond fly by. The Coleus plant was snuggly tucked in the Jeep’s rear storage area.
Josh, who had been the Lion at Matt’s interview, turned out to be the strong, silent type. He had a wide face with thick cheekbones. Short, chestnut colored hair. An easy smile. He reminded Matt of Kevin Sheedy, born in Wales, but who had played for Ireland in the 1990 World Cup.
Josh was wearing shorts.
Matt enjoyed this closeup view of the guy’s muscular, hairy legs.
“How about some music?” Josh asked, reaching towards the radio.
Matt nodded, but secretly worried that Josh would pick a country station. His type usually did.
Josh dialed the radio to Magic 104. Annie Lennox’s “No More I Love You’s” filled the air.
Matt smiled.
They barreled north, past Frontier City. Past the exit to Guthrie, Oklahoma’s first capitol. They listened to music, bonding without talking. Bon Jovi’s new song “Always” played.
Matt felt a pang of longing, listening to those lyrics, sung by a man to a woman. Would he—Matt—ever feel that way about a guy? Was it even possible in this “Don’t ask, don’t tell” world? Apparently not, considering his new girlfriend situation.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Matt asked Josh.
Josh shook his head. “Not anymore. When I was a sophomore, I had a similar arrangement as yours. Three, four months later we broke up. It was enough to quell any questions about our sexuality, hers and mine. Since then, the straight girls have given up hope on me. I’m nursing a broken heart, you know. ”
“And Harley?” Matt asked, picking one of the other seniors in the GM.
“He’s in a long distance relationship with a fictional girl, who happens to live in my neck of the woods,” Josh smiled. “Every few months when I head home to visit my folks, William whips up a steamy love letter from her to Harley. I drop it in the mail.”
They drove past Perry, home of “Ditch Witch,” Seth’s home town, also the area where Timothy McVay, the Murrah Building bomber, had been stopped by the Highway Patrol.
Finally came exit 214 to Ponca City, home of Conoco Oil. When they drove past the refinery, the Jeep filled with a sour, sulphury smell.
Matt wrinkled his nose.
Josh said. “Adam claims the locals call that ‘the smell of money in the air.’”
At mention of Adam’s name, Matt’s stomach tightened.
Adam lived in a one-storey frame house on a street of similar such low-slung houses, where the same five floorplans repeated.
Adam’s mom, “Call-me-Janet,” met them at the door. She was a petite woman with kind eyes and a welcoming smile. Her face was creased with worry. She ushered them into a living area with a dining table in one corner. She left to fetch Adam.
Matt and Josh sat on the couch. It faced a picture window overlooking the small backyard. Josh set the Coleus between his feet.
Matt held the signed card, nervously fidgeting with it.
Adam, wearing cotton pajamas, trailed into the room behind his mom.
He was hesitant, as if he still hadn’t decided whether to remain in this world.
He gave Josh a weak, half-apologetic smile, nodded at Matt vacantly.
He sat in a wingchair facing his guests, pulled his knees up to his chest, hugging them.
Matt noticed a bandage on Adam’s left wrist.
Adam self-consciously covered it with his right hand.
“Would you boys like something to drink?” asked Call-me-Janet. “I have iced tea, water. I could make some Kool-Aid…”
“Thank you, Mrs. Maxwell,” said Josh. “I’ll have some tea. Matt could probably use some as well.”
Call-me-Janet stepped into the kitchen.
Adam spoke for the first time. “It’s southern, sweet tea,” he warned, in a quiet voice.
“That’s what my mom makes too,” Matt said. What he didn’t say was that he hated the stuff.
Matt wished Adam would speak again, would grace him with his hazel eyes.
Adam was a Christopher Robin looking kid (the eighteen-year-old version): Thick, brown, unruly hair.
Triangular face. A stripe of freckles across his cheeks and button nose.
Eyes with a slight downward droop at the outer edges. He was the puppy dog in the window.
Matt felt a twinge of jealousy that Josh, as Adam’s sponsor, had kissed this boy, probably shaken hands with him as well. Then Matt felt guilty for having such thoughts.
Call-me-Janet returned with tall glasses of iced tea, which Matt and Josh accepted courteously. Matt laid Adam’s card on the couch beside him.
A nervous pall settled on the room. Call-me-Janet took a seat in a La-Z-Boy recliner facing the couch. She smoothed imaginary wrinkles on her slacks, looked at the floor. “I just don’t understand,” she finally said. She sounded utterly defeated.
“She knows,” Adam volunteered. “I told her that I’m…..gay.” His voice trailed off. He looked at his mom apologetically, as if he were sorry for having burdened her with this knowledge.
Call-me-Janet blinked back tears. “I love my son.”
Matt’s heart ached. His eyes clouded. “I wish I could hear my mom say those words. She won’t even return my phone calls.”
Call-me-Janet looked at Matt, gazed into his eyes. They shared an entire conversation in a heartbeat, an unloved gay kid connecting with a distraught mother, who had thought her son was some sort of freak.
“You’re….?” she asked Matt, unable to even say the word.
“Gay,” Matt said, nodding.
Adam shot Matt a surprised look.
“I’m gay, too,” Josh said, seemingly begrudging being required to talk.