The Other Way Around (5 page)

I never thought about myself that way before—like somebody's burden. I just figured that parents felt about kids the way they do on TV: like they were the best thing that ever happened to them. Wasn't it your responsibility to sort all that “who am I” crap out before you had kids? I don't know how they can expect me to have the kind of answers that they don't even have when they've got like twenty-five years on me.

I was never a very loud or needy person, I'm pretty sure of that. But after I heard that conversation, I made an even bigger effort to lie low and stay out of Mom's way. It was weird. I expected her to notice and react one of two ways. I thought she would compliment me on what an easy kid I was to raise, or I
thought she would say something about how she missed spending time together. But she never said anything. So I just kind of kept on disappearing little by little. And it was never really a big deal until I started messing up in school. And even then, Mom's never really put two and two together.

Barry and Uncle Kris have been here for approximately twenty-eight hours and forty minutes. I don't know how much more I can take. Tonight Uncle Kris came into my room while Barry was brushing his teeth. Barry gets my bed while he's visiting, and I sleep on this pull-out futon on the other side of the room. Kris sleeps on the couch in the living room. Personally, I think if we're going to have a strict policy here, that Mom should give up her bed for Kris and take the couch, seeing how they're brother and sister and Barry and I are only cousins.

I can tell by the look on his face that Kris wants to have some kind of heart-to-heart with me. “Barr Barr is really kind of a sensitive guy, Andrew,” Kris begins. “And when you put him down it really kind of bums him out. So if you could try and go easy on him this weekend, I'd appreciate it. He's in a lot of pain.”

I want to scream, “Are you serious? Are we talking about the same kid here? The one who just spent the last six hours telling me how and why I'm gay?” But I just nod and say, “Sure.” It seems to be the quickest and easiest way out of the conversation.

Uncle Kris has always been a little deluded when it comes to his progeny. He used to get all excited and proud when Barry would rip a good one, like Barry's flatulence is some kind of proof of his masculinity. But then at the same time he expects the kid to memorize Shakespeare or have like this deep emotional side. I just don't see it.

Mom did mention something about Aunt Allison not showing up for Thanksgiving. I just figured she was still pissed off at Mom for making fun of Martha Stewart at their house a couple years ago. It turns out that Aunt Allison is on a cruise with some of her girlfriends and made the conscious choice to avoid all of us on this holiday, including Barry and Kris.

The last time Barry and Kris were at our house for Thanksgiving, Allison was with them. Mima came out from Indiana and even Dad was there. It was right after the divorce was finalized; Dad had his new place in the city, and Mom and I were back at our house. I guess they thought it would be less jarring to try and celebrate the holiday all together, but the whole thing was forced and awkward. Mima was staying with us, and Dad was staying in a hotel.

I got up early on that Thanksgiving morning to go swim in the heated pool while Dad slept in one of the plastic chaise lounge chairs, the newspaper covering his face and his hangover. I remember being worried about leaving my cat alone in the house with Barry. Merlin had recently had surgery to remove a fatty deposit from his leg. He was loopy from the pain medicine and kept bashing the plastic cone he was wearing to prevent him from pulling out his stitches into the furniture. Every time he crashed into, something Barry would laugh hysterically and say, “Hey, Andrew, even your cat is retarded.”

We ate dinner early because Dad said he had to get back for a work thing. Mom was extra irritable because she was only on her second glass of wine. Aunt Allison had made these candle holders out of cut-up magazines and seashells collaged onto paper towel rolls. Whatever she used to glue them together must have been flammable, because when she went to light the candles, the whole thing went up in a ball of flame.

Barry burst into hysterics; meanwhile, Kris was waving his hands, trying to put out the flames but only fanning them further. Under the table, Merlin was yowling and bumping his cone into the table legs. Finally Dad leaned forward and blew really hard on them, which put out the flame but sent a spattering of hot wax all over Mom's turkey. So Mom was pissed, and Aunt Allison was pissed, and everyone had to pick little wax blobs off their turkey.

It didn't get any better from there. After Mom had her third glass of wine, she started talking about food prices and how expensive everything was getting. She and Aunt Allison got on a rant about how much kids cost, all of which, I knew, was a semi-veiled attack on Dad because Mom and Allison never agreed on anything. Then Dad said, “Great, Nancy, why don't you make him feel even better about his existence?” At which point Mom told him not to put me in the middle of things, even though she kind of already had.

***

Later that afternoon, while Kris and Barry snored off their pie and ice cream on our couch in front of a football game, I caught Dad trying to sneak out unnoticed. “Where are you going?” I asked as he slung his travel bag and briefcase into the passenger seat of the Volvo.

“I'm sorry, Andrew, but I've got to get out of here. Your mother is making this impossible for me.”

“She doesn't seem that happy either,” I mumbled lamely.

“Yeah, this was a dumb idea,” Dad said. I guess he was interpreting my comment as agreement.
Anyway, what was a dumb idea? Having Thanksgiving together? Or having a kid together?

That afternoon I played card games with Mima and lost every one, even though I could tell she was going out of her way to let me win. “No offense to your mother, Andrew,” Mima said. “But this is a drag. Next year the two of you should come out and see me instead.”

“But what about Dad?”

“He can come if he wants to,” Mima said. “But I have a feeling he'll be busy.”

I didn't intend to run away. I just threw some stuff in my backpack and started walking. I guess I intended to make a statement. My face is still burning, and the whole way down Evergreen Street I keep glancing over my shoulder, looking for Mom's car. But it never comes. This just pisses me off more, and I walk faster. I had figured on Kris and Barry wanting to do turkey and all that, but I had forgotten about football. After the third game in a row, I felt the yellow and white lines swimming in front of my eyes. Every time I got up to do something else, Mom would shoot me that look like I was deserting the family.

Finally I managed to ignore her death stare and I found refuge in my bedroom. I pulled out one of the books on colleges that Dad sent me as a means of communicating about my future. I figured now was that moment when there was absolutely nothing else I would rather be doing. I flopped down on my bed, brushing aside Barry's dirty T-shirt and boxer shorts. It was wet.

“Jesus Christ!” I screamed and hopped up off the soggy sheets. I stuck my head out in the hall. “Barry!” I yelled. “You freakin' slob, what the hell did you spill on my bed?”

Barry didn't even look away from the football game. Kris shot my mother a distraught glance, and before I could say anything else she was dragging me back into the room by my sleeve.

“Your cousin Barry is going through a very rough time right now, Andrew, and I need you to be a little more compassionate.”

“Fine,” I said exasperated. “But does he have to be such a slob? Why does going through a rough time give you the right to dump soda or whatever on somebody else's bed?”

My mother glared at me. “I don't think it's soda, Andrew.”

It took me a minute to figure out what she meant. “WHAT?! He pissed the bedmmph?” Mom thrust her hand over my mouth before I could get the words out and dragged me into her office “That's disgusting,” I said. “And why didn't he say anything?”

“I don't know, Andrew. He's probably mortified. Kris says he's been having a lot of trouble at school with kids picking on him.”

It didn't really fit with my ideas about Barry. I guess I just figured, from the way he talked about girls and hockey, that he had friends. He seemed to me like someone who would fit in pretty well. But what do I know about fitting in?

Mom went over to the bed and pulled off the comforter and the sheets. “It's not that big a deal, Andrew. You did it when you were little. It's mostly water anyway.”

I looked at the wet mark on my mattress. It vaguely resembled the mitten-shaped state of Michigan. “Easy for you to say,” I said. “You're not the one sleeping in piss.”

“
Compassion
, Andrew,” she said as she went through the door, carrying the bundle of soggy sheets to the laundry room.

Sullenly I walked back into the living room, where Kris
and Barry were transfixed by the men moving on the screen. I even felt a little bit bad for Barry. Until he opened his mouth again.

“Hey,” he said without glancing away from the screen. “You know how I know you're gay?” I couldn't believe he was starting in on this shit again. “You don't like football,” he said, and then he choked on a swallow of soda so it came out his nose.

“Come on Barr Barr,” Uncle Kris said, still staring right at the game. “Don't make a mess.”

A MESS?
I wanted to scream.
How about the mess you already made in my bed?
I stormed back down the hall and into my room. That was when I packed my bag.

I dumped out my backpack onto the bare mattress, careful to avoid the wet spot. I had brought home most of my textbooks in an effort to impress upon Mom my interest in improving my grades. I scooped up all the books and loose papers and looked around the room for somewhere to put them. I used my big toe to nudge my desk chair away from the desk and dumped the pile there. When I pushed the chair back in, you could hardly see the stack. As an afterthought I went back and grabbed the notebook I'd been doodling in and my copy of
Into the Wild
.

Into the backpack went a couple changes of clothes, some clean underwear, my toothbrush, and my extra glasses. I grabbed all the cash I had, which wasn't much, and the emergency credit card Mom gave me but told me never to use. I also had a check from Mrs. Grindle down the street, who'd paid me for raking her leaves the last two Saturdays. It wasn't much, but I figured it was enough to get me a bus ticket to Indiana. If I had to use the credit card, that wasn't a big deal. It wasn't like I was trying to hide where I was going. I planned to call Mom
and tell her where I was—just not until it was too late for me to turn back.

When I turn the corner of Evergreen Street and Washington Avenue, it really kind of hits me. No one is coming to stop me. I'm really leaving town on my own. The bus station is on the far end of Washington, and even though there's a public bus that runs along Washington, I'm pretty sure it doesn't run often on holidays so I just keep walking. It feels good to walk. I'm kind of afraid if I stop walking to wait for the bus I might lose my momentum all together.

I keep trying to rationalize my escape in my head as I walk. Going to Mima's isn't such a big deal. I'll be back in a few days, and Kris and Barry will be gone. Mom will be pissed, sure, but she'll get over it, or at least forget about it when the first post-holiday crisis erupts at school. I'll just have to fly under her radar for a little while, which is what I do most of the time anyways.

***

The Glens Falls bus station is really just a holding room with uncomfortable plastic chairs, bad fluorescent lighting, and a few snack machines. Mom and I spent some time here waiting for Mima's bus the last time she came out. There's not even a real public bathroom. If you want to use the bathroom, you have to ask for a key and then they buzz you back into this other room that's like a break room for the employees.