Chapter Twenty-Six #2
Elliot didn’t smile back. He seemed unhappy, and looked away. Frowning, Dustin waited for him to look back, and when he didn’t, he stopped trying to catch his eye, and finished his breakfast in silence.
They dropped Jordan off at his hotel, and he said he would come by later. Elliot was in the backseat and didn’t move up when Jordan got out. Dustin looked at him in the mirror.
“Are you going back to your hotel?”
Elliot was looking out the window. “Don’t you need someone around to keep you in line?”
“Jordan’s coming by once he gets settled. I feel okay. You don’t have to come over if you don’t want to.”
“Do you think he thought anything was…off?”
Dustin’s heart nervously flip-flopped. “No, I don’t think so. Even if he did…he’s fine. He’s not gonna be weird about it.”
They drove for a few blocks. Elliot was quiet, looking out the window, and after a while, he said, “How long did it take you to get over your dad?”
Dustin was so caught off guard by the question he thought he might drive off the road in surprise.
“Was it, like, a year?” said Elliot. “Two years?”
Dustin stared at him in the mirror. Elliot stared back.
Okay. So they were doing this. Here. Now.
In the car. Dustin put his eyes back on the road and checked what street they were on.
Not far from his place. Not far enough to have this whole conversation without being interrupted.
He saw the turn for his avenue coming, and made the executive decision to skip it and keep driving. Elliot watched it go by with a frown.
“Where are we going?”
Dustin shrugged. “Wherever you want. Unless you’d rather go back to your hotel.”
Elliot held his gaze in the mirror. Then shook his head and looked out the window. “No. We can drive.”
They drove in silence for a long time, Dustin making turns at random while he tried to organize his thoughts into something that might actually be helpful.
He couldn’t do it, so he asked Elliot about his uncle instead.
His name was Salvador. He’d lived in Miami.
He taught Elliot how to play pool, how to pick up girls, all the dirty slang.
He’d had a hip replacement. Spent months stringing out his leftover prescription and then overdosed the first time he bought fentanyl on the street.
The first time.
If the little fucking moron had been harboring any plans to rationalize his way to the North Park Blocks sometime in the future, they evaporated as that hit him in the stomach like a closed fist.
“It happened last year,” said Elliot. “The anniversary was that same day you texted me and we sent all the dick pics.”
“Oh.” Dustin gripped the wheel and stared at the road in shock. “Okay. That’s…pretty fresh.”
“Is it? I feel like I should be able to get over it.”
Sighing, he pulled up to a light and put on the blinker to make another unnecessary turn. “Honestly, kid, I don’t know if you ever really get over it. I think it just gets easier to be under it.”
“Great. So I’m always gonna feel like this.”
“No, but…” The light changed. He still hadn’t organized this into anything helpful.
“Look,” he said, “it’s gonna a big fucking mess.
For a long time. And there’s no right amount of time for it to be a mess; it might be a while for you – I can’t tell you that.
But I can tell you it hurts less often as time goes on.
Not less, necessarily. But less often. And sometimes it comes out in really weird ways. ”
“Like crying while getting your ass fucked.”
Dustin’s heart clenched. He met Elliot’s eye in the mirror. “Is that what that was?”
Elliot nodded and looked out the window.
He sighed and put his eyes back on the road. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
“It wasn’t your fault. You were nice.”
They drove in silence. Eventually Dustin said, “Yeah. Like that. For some people, anyway. Some people don’t ever seem to hurt.
They don’t seem to be affected at all, and you watch them and wait, and you’re, like…
so smugly waiting for them to break down, and they really just don’t.
” He was talking about his own mom, now, which probably wasn’t helpful for Elliot, but it was helpful for him, so he kept going.
“In the beginning, it’s impossible for anyone to say the right thing, but if they don’t say something, that’s wrong too.
And you don’t realize how just…complicated it is to die.
There’s so much paperwork, and you have to do it – well, your mom has to do it – which feels ridiculous, because it’s like, ‘He’s dead.
Why is it so hard to cancel his Verizon plan? ’”
“Right,” said Elliot.
“Sorry. That was just my shit.”
“No, it’s good. That is how it was.”
Dustin looked at him again. He weighed whether or not he wanted to say the next thing. It might not be helpful. But he felt like Elliot should get the whole picture.
“And if the guy who died was an asshole,” he said, “it’s probably not going to bring your family together.”
He didn’t have to say it like that. But it always came out that way, somehow.
“Was your dad an asshole?” said Elliot.
“Pretty much.”
“I think maybe my uncle was too,” he said, and his voice cracked and he went quiet again. They drove for a while.
“Why do you think that?” said Dustin.
Elliot lifted one shoulder. “Just…the stuff we’ve been doing. You and me. He wouldn’t have been okay with it.”
God, there was so much to wade through there.
Dustin definitely wasn’t qualified to do it.
So he said, “Probably someone smarter than me can help you figure out how to deal with that. Like a professional. Which you should look into. But just know: it’s okay to think he was an asshole in some ways and not others.
And even if he was an asshole, you can still miss him.
Or not – that’s perfectly fine, too. You don’t owe him anything.
And it’s okay to feel weird, and it’s okay to feel angry, and it’s okay to cry, a lot, and it’s good to talk to people, if you can. ”
“Is that what you did?” said Elliot.
“I did.”
“Cried a lot.”
“Yep.”
“Even though he was an asshole.”
“Yep.”
“And you played hockey.”
Dustin kind of laughed. “Sure. That too.”
A long moment of quiet, then Elliot said, “You know Diego and I call you the Great Bendito.”
He frowned. “Okay… What does that mean?”
“Bendito? It means ‘blessed’. But in Puerto Rico it means a lot of other things, too. I think Diego just started saying it because it sounded good – The Great Bendito. It’s almost like Bennet.
But I liked it because…in Puerto Rico, people say ‘Ay, bendito’ all the time, like, ‘What a shame,’ or ‘Poor thing.’ It’s like…
a solidarity thing. And I knew about your dad, so…
to me, calling you Bendito would be like saying, ‘Ay, this poor guy.’ But the Great Bendito would mean…
he doesn’t let it stop him, you know? This poor guy…
he lost his father, but he’s the greatest in the world.
When Sal died, I thought about that a lot.
All the stuff I was feeling, I just put it into hockey, like you did. ”
God, this kid. Dustin felt like he might lose it, but he managed to keep it together enough to say, “What you have to understand, Roddy, is it wasn’t hockey that got me through that.
You’re right – it helped. I played a lot, and I don’t know where I would’ve been without that.
But the thing that saved me was Jordan. And my mom, until she left.
If it had just been me and hockey…it wouldn’t’ve worked. ” He was quiet, watching the street.
“Your mom left,” said Elliot.
“I mean, I was eighteen, so… She stayed as long as she could, I think, but then she met someone, and I didn’t like him…like I said: it doesn’t necessarily bring your family together.”
“What happened after that?”
“Jordan was in the NHL by then, so he took care of me. He made me go to therapy for a while. I had juniors. People.”
“I have people,” said Elliot.
“And you talk to them?”
He sighed. “I’m starting to.”
A truck went by and Dustin watched it pass. “That’s gonna be what gets you through it,” he said. “It isn’t going to be hockey.”