Outtakes Of A Walking Mistake (18 page)

I’m dreaming. It’s more than a dream though. It’s life-like because it really happened. There’s mom, dad, and me, and we’re seated at the top of sardine-packed bleachers inside a massive white tent. Below lies the opening act of the circus. I’m all of five years old and mom says this is the greatest show I’ll ever see. This is the greatest show on Earth.

Suddenly, the lights go dim, extinguishing the noisy crowd.

In the center ring, a tall shirtless man bends backward as if preparing to do the limbo. His black hair is pulled back in a long braid, and just when I think he can’t bend any further, a long stream of fire ejects from his mouth. That’s when the aerialists take the scene. Illuminated by the blaze, they hang from wires above my head. They twirl and twirl in pink spandex, spinning so fast their bodies become a blur. “I can fly too,” mom whispers, as she feeds me cotton candy. Dad is being dad, making certain I’m safe and secure on the bleachers. But mom shows no fear of heights. She stands up to cheer as the bleachers rumble below.

This is when the announcer silences the audience by sending in the clowns. Over a microphone, he uses a deep commanding voice, and from a small black hole in the center ring, four clowns appear, juggling red-tipped bowling pins and yellow balls.

Mom likes the clowns. “Maybe too much,” dad notes. Taking in the scene, she’s mesmerized. Her arms drop to her side and a smile engulfs her face.

The dream changes.

We’re in dad’s old 4X4. Darkness surrounds the red sunset, and mom dangles her hand from the window in hope to capture the last hint of light. Crisscross applesauce in the passenger seat, she rattles on about her favorite shade: pink. How she finds it symbolic. How it represents a need for change. “Rudy, human beings aren’t meant to live in the vanilla,” she says, pointing to the amber sky. “Don’t you wish that you had more color in your life?”

Dad doesn’t reply but stares hard at the road as mom continues her tirade, ending with her desire to venture out, maybe take a class. “But not your ordinary class,” she informs dad. “No, I want to take a class on how to make people smile.”

The dream ends.

In the real world, I wake up with dad shaking me in bed. He’s in uniform, having to work the day shift. “It’s Jenny. Get dressed,” he says.

Soon after, I’m showered, and we’re in morning traffic with the sun playing peek-a-boo behind puffy clouds. Downing his morning coffee, dad takes a breath and begins talking about the trouble associated with keeping secrets. That Jenny came to him with just that – a secret. And that he may have failed in coming to her aid. “She’s been admitted to the crisis unit,” he tells me. “She’s under a seventy-two hour evaluation. She assaulted her dad last night. He has a broken nose and some bruised ribs.”

I don’t ask why.

I know why.

Why I never spoke of it, I don’t know.

Maybe the phone never rang loud enough.

Maybe the truth is too hard to admit.

Dad confirms Jenny’s been sexually abused in a most professional manner. “I hate telling you this, bud.”

Breaking down, I hunch over. My head falls in my lap and my eyes leak on Puddy’s fur. I brought Puddy to comfort Jenny when we reach the unit. I never guessed I might need to be soothed as well. This kind of stuff happens on TV, not to people guarded by gated communities. “Oh my God!” I say. “Please no!”

“Tye, you listen to me. You need to calm down.”

“Ahhh!”

“Damn it!” Dad smacks the steering wheel of his patrol car. The horn sounds. Traffic clears. “You don’t need to be worrying about shit like this. You’re good kids, you and Jenny. Kids your age don’t need to know shit like this goes on. I try to protect you from it.”

“Then why didn’t you protect Jenny?” I snap.

Dad says he tried. That he called the abuse hotline. That the day mom returned was the same day he made the call, minutes after Jenny told him about the abuse. Why she told him instead of me, I don’t know. “She denied the abuse when the investigator interviewed her outside of her home,” dad says. “She said it was all a lie. That she just wanted attention.”

“Why would she do that?”

“She’s scared,” dad says.

I’m scared too. God, I’m so scared.

“And now she’s mad at me,” dad continues. Taking a quick turn down a narrow street, we enter a low-income housing district where shoeless tykes and teen moms fill the sidewalk. Many of the homes have peeling paint. In front of one home, a skinny black dog is tied to a tree.

“Jenny’s not mad at you. She loves you,” I say.

“She’s mad that I told.”

“You had no choice,” I begin. Then I crack and the tears roll again.

Fully prepared for the water works, dad pulls a red handkerchief from his pocket. “Take this,” he says. “All that crying is no good for you. You hear me?”

Nodding weakly, I focus on his badge, a symbol of protection. Yet somehow, I feel that no one is truly safe. Not with Jenny’s dad out there, not with other dads like him. So I focus on the trees, no, the clouds, the sky. The sad truth is there is nowhere to focus when the focus of your life has been harmed.

“You go. I’ll wait here,” dad tells me, reaching our destination. Seated in the vacant reception area of the crisis unit, located in a brick building behind the Salvation Army, dad nudges me to follow the orderly who says he’ll take me to see Jenny.

“Think of it as a little vacation destination,” the orderly says, noting my hesitation. He guides me down a long hallway with bright lighting. His blue nametag says ‘Alex’ and twenty keys hang from a belt around his waist.

Anxious, I suddenly feel lost as we take two turns, and then another turn. To me, the unit is like an endless maze where each identical steel door tells me I should be dropping breadcrumbs.

Paranoia sets in. Maybe I’m the crazy one. Maybe dad set me up and being gay is the reason for my intake. “Have you met Jenny?” I ask. “There is a Jenny here, right?”

“Yeah, she came in last night.”

My suspicion weakens. True, I may be crazy, clutching a stuffed cat in the crisis unit, but this is only a temporary condition. Soon, I’ll be leaving. Jenny may not have it that easy.

“Last stop,” Alex smiles. Unlocking one final door, he announces our destination: the visiting room. Peeking inside, it seems more like a cafeteria. White plastic picnic tables encompass most of the space and muscular male orderlies, dressed in non-threatening white, guard each corner of the room like lunch ladies. “Stay here. Let me check to make sure her last guest left,” Alex says.

Complying, I wait by the entrance of the visiting room, though soon, I grow bored and begin counting the number of high-pitched screams I hear in the facility. One, two, three.

A moment later, Greg French appears. Retired from visiting Jenny, he seems as if he could use a good scream himself.

“Hey Greg,” I say. Mind you, this is our first verbal interaction. Well, not exactly. Technically, he said hi to me last year, slapping a ‘Go Greg!’ sticker on my chest a day before the student government election. I voted for him but only because I liked the way he slapped me. “We haven’t officially met. I’m Tye.” I extend my hand.

A true politico, Greg shakes in a firm, painful manner. “Jenny’s other half. She talks about you.” I see tears in his eyes.

“How is she?”

Caught in the detrimental act of crying in public and simultaneously being a hetero, Greg hastily removes his Clark Kent glasses before answering. Wiping a tear, he pinches the bridge of his nose. “She’s....”

“It’s ok. It’s off the record.”

“Off the record, she’s not doing well.” Placing his glasses back on, he shakes his head in disbelief. “Seeing her like that, it’s tough.”

“She needed to see you. You were right to come.”

Greg nods. “She’s a handful, but I...I love her.”

I’m taken back. Through the years I’ve seen many guys drift through Jenny’s life but none have ever mentioned the term ‘love.’ Such a sad thing should never be spoken of, according to Jenny. Such a word seeps from the sewers of desperation. Who knows? Maybe that means Greg is desperate or that he’s looking for a first lady. Whatever the case, he’s the first guy to put Jenny first. The point is, maybe he’s not that bad.

Returning, Alex points to me. “You’re up,” he says. “You better hurry. She’s tired.”

“Thanks,” I reply.

Greg bids me farewell with another firm shake, and suddenly, it’s just Puddy and me.

I enter the visiting room and residents eye me. Varying in age, some of the residents sit at tables in white bathrobes while others attempt to mimic the everyday street clothes of their visitors. It’s easy to detect the residents though. They wear blue slippers.

It’s hard not to stare. At one table, there is an elderly man shivering in his robe as a younger woman clings to his hand. At the next table, sits an unshaven middle-aged man wearing three shirts and two pairs of jeans who has no visitor at all.

It’s ice-cold and I smell chlorine.

At a table in the corner, I find Jenny sedated and breathing in short, shallow gasps. I can’t tell if she knows who I am. I take a seat beside her but she fails to shift. When I smile, her eyes gaze through me like I’m a mirage, a hallucination or a ghost that glided into the room a short time before Halloween.

“Hey baby,” I say.

She continues to stare through me. Inside, I cringe, releasing tension in the least obvious way – I squeeze Puddy’s paw. “You know, you’re way too cute to be here,” I joke. “Your public misses you.”

Shivering in a brown sweater pulled over a hospital robe, she doesn’t reply so I hold the conversation for both of us. “I just saw Greg,” I say. “He’s the sweetest guy. Well, not sweeter than me, but he’s cool.”

Jenny remains silent: a blonde beauty turned dark and withered like the roots of her tangled hair. Studying her, my resistance wears thin. I surrender. A single tear falls. “I’m sorry. I want to be strong, but I don’t want you here. I want you to come home. The dance is coming up, and I need help with a costume.” Jenny fails to blink. Her mouth falls open and her lips are chapped. “We can have a sleepover too. We’ll watch
Charlie’s Angels
all night. I can be Farrah Fawcett and you can be....”

“I’m Faaa,” she mutters.

“Jenny?”

“I’m Farrah.”

“Baby!” I cheer. “Of course, you can be Farrah! I don’t have the legs for it. What was I thinking?”

Sleepy, her eyes struggle to remain open. “I…wish I…were you.” Huh? Why would you want that? “I’m a slut,” she says. Her eyes close, and her neck goes limp. Collapsing, her head slaps the table.

“Jenny!” I scream.

Alex rushes over. “She’s tired. She needs rest,” he says.

“Bullshit. She’s drugged out of her mind.”

He lifts me to a stance. “Come on. It’s time to go.”

“But I don’t want to go. She needs me!” The remaining residents and visitors turn to witness the skirmish.

“You’re right. She needs a friend like you,” Alex agrees. “But right now, she needs rest.” He nods to another orderly who hurriedly attends to Jenny.

“Can I leave the cat?” I ask.

“Sure,” Alex says. I hand him Puddy.

“Make sure he, you know, sleeps with her.”

“No problem.”

Again, Alex guides me through the maze of locked doors in the unit, but this time we’re headed toward freedom, away from the madness held captive in its core. Distance can’t erase heartache though. My eyes are watery, and each step pierces more, needling me to save the day. How can I? I’m just another male, just another two-balled savage, like Jenny’s father who created this mess. How can I be brave when I’m ashamed to be a man? And after this, how can Jenny trust a man again? And scarier yet, how can I?