Poor Man's Son - 14. Chapter 13

July 15, 2000

Claremont, OH

Gathan

     

If I were with my friends and being cocky, I’d tell them that I wasn’t nervous about picking Kristin up at her house. I’d play it off like driving up to that monster Tudor mansion behind the automatic gates was no big deal to me at all. Shit, I was welcome at the mayor’s house, and at JP’s Claremont digs, and I would be staying at Escorial, which was nicer than anything you’d find in Claremont. I’d tell them that, but it would be a lie.

I wiped my hands against my jeans to dry the sweat off of them as I pulled up to the gates. A friendly voice asked me who I was, and as soon as I responded, the gates swung open lazily and I was now free to enter the sacred compound. I drove up the drive, feeling self-conscious in my truck. It was pretty nice for an old truck, but it was still an old truck. I felt like I didn’t belong, like I’d driven into the black neighborhoods of Claremont and all the brothers were staring at me. I was tempted to just keep on going, just drive away, but that would be cowardly, and besides, I wanted to see Kristin.

That threatened to bring on a whole new problem, as I felt my dick stir with thoughts of her and what I hoped to do with her later on. I turned off the ignition as I wrestled to keep my racing mind under control. As I got out of the truck and walked up to the front door, it seemed like everything about this place was designed to intimidate or impress a visitor. Everything was imposing, from the brick walkway and perfectly manicured landscaping to the huge wooden door and the ominous sounding gong that went off when I rang the doorbell. I wondered if that was part of the game, the power trip, to make me ring the bell. I mean, they knew I was here, they buzzed me through the gates. I found myself getting pissed off at that, as if they were playing games with me, and had to control those thoughts quickly.

The door opened steadily and a familiar looking man smiled out at me from inside the house. “Welcome, Gathan,” Chris Hendrickson said. “Come on in. Kristin should be right down.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, as seemed to be consistent with talking to Kristin’s father, and one of the town’s magnates.

“Call me Chris,” he said affably, with the air of a good old boy who had some culture.

“Alright,” I said nervously.

“I read all about your adventure in Dallas,” he said, as he led me into their living room. It was furnished in dark colors and masculine looking leather furniture, again as if it was designed to impress and intimidate. “That was brave of you, jumping in front of a bullet like that.”

“Well, I didn’t really think he’d actually shoot,” I told him with a grin. “I didn’t think he was that smart.”

Hendrickson chuckled at that. “You should have known better than that,” he joked. “That’s one thing those rednecks usually know well: their guns.” There was an uncomfortable pause after he said that, with both of us trying to decide if he’d offended me by talking in such a disparaging way about white trash people. I let it go; I had no desire to have problems with Kristin’s father.

“That’s probably true.”

“So where are you going tonight?”

I wanted to tell him that we were going out to dinner, then back to JP’s house to fuck all night, but that was just my evil side trying to derail me. “I think we’re going to go to dinner, then we’ll probably hang out with some friends.”

“You think?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, then laughed. “That’s right, you are dating my daughter. You can bet that she’ll change the plans.”

“I’ve learned to be pretty flexible, so that won’t bother me,” I told him.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked. He got up and wandered over to their side table where there were a couple of bottles of booze, some mixers, crystal glasses, and an ice bucket. I wondered if this was some sort of test, to see if I would go for the hard stuff.

“A Coke would be great,” I answered. He opened a door in the cabinet that revealed a refrigerator, and brought me a Coke with a glass of ice. “Thanks,” I said, remembering my manners. Would Kristin ever get down here and end this hell?

“So Kristin tells me you’re leaving for college soon. Where are you going?” He had to know this. He was probably just making conversation.

“Stanford.”

“That’s right, I’d heard that. You had some pretty good schools to choose from. It sounds like you chose well.” I wondered how he knew I had good schools to choose from, but ignored it. Either this guy knew everything, or he was good at teasing information out of people.

“Stanford seemed to be the best, especially since Professor Crampton is there. It’s nice to know I have someone who can help me out if I get caught up in the system.” There was bound to be a ton of bureaucracy at Stanford, I reasoned.

Just as I thought the whole encounter would never end, Kristin breezed into the room, looking even prettier than she had last night. I didn’t think that was possible. “You look great!” I said, beaming at her. I heard her father chuckle.

“Why thank you,” she said, acting all coquettish. “Are you ready to go?”

“What time will you be home?” Chris Hendrickson asked.

“I’ll probably be home by one, unless I meet up with Taylor and stay over there again,” she said. I kind of blinked at that. I was used to Wally and Clara, where we had pretty rigid curfews.

“Just call and let us know,” Hendrickson said casually. “It was nice to meet you, Gathan.”

“It was nice to meet you too,” I said, shaking hands with him. I led Kristin out to the truck and opened the door for her, determined to show her dad that I had decent manners, then I hopped in and we sped off, as if we were trying to escape from their domain.

“Did you have fun with Daddy?” she teased.

“He’s a nice guy,” I said, then got suspicious. “Did you listen in on our whole conversation, enjoying watching me squirm.”

She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “Just for a little bit. You did really well. He usually devours my dates like a velociraptor.”

“You could have warned me,” I said grumpily, not because she’d done that, but because she reminded me of all the other dates, guys she’d had.

“I wanted to see how fast on your feet you are,” she said. “So where are we going?”

“To that nice Italian restaurant near Dino’s,” I said.

“I love that place!” she said approvingly. “Do we have to go straight there?”

“Why?” I asked.

“I was thinking maybe we could stop by JP’s house first,” she said, and winked at me. She laughed at my huge grin.

“I like the way you think.” I took her to JP’s house and we went up to our room and had good but quick sex, then made it to the restaurant in time for our reservation. The place normally didn’t take them, but I’d called and begged the manager this afternoon.

“So my father wanted to know if you were my boyfriend,” she said after we ordered.

“What did you tell him?” I asked, masking my concern.

“What should I have told him?”

I rolled my eyes. “You tell me what you said, and I’ll tell you if you were right.”

“Didn’t your parents say anything?” she asked. “Or didn’t you tell them you were with me?” That last sentence seemed to upset her.

“I learned manners,” I told her in an overdone Southern accent. “Ladies first.”

She sighed, frustrated that her game and her trap had failed. “I told them we’d only gone out once, and that it was too early to call you my boyfriend.”

“Oh,” I said, pretending to be all sad.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, concerned.

“I told them I was going out to look for rings,” I said straight-faced. She stared at me, shocked, then frowned and pretended to pout when I grinned. Then I stopped messing around and got serious. “I told them that we went out and that I really liked you.”

“What did they say?”

“My pa thinks you have nice tits,” I joked.

“Gathan, be serious,” she chided.

“My ma said you were very pretty and seemed like a nice girl.” That made her smile. “What did your dad say?”

“He said you had a lot of character and a lot of potential.”

“And what did Taylor say?” I knew she’d tell her best friend.

“She’s the one who told me to drag you to JP’s house before dinner.” I felt myself turn bright red as she laughed at me, but I pulled myself together.

“I think Taylor may be my best friend too.”

     

July 15, 2000

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Will

I’d just finished laying out all of my stuff for the morning: an Abercrombie and Fitch polo and shorts, along with some flip-flops. Normally I didn’t wear shit like that, but John did, and when I was up here, I went with the flow. I checked to make sure my passport was in my pocket, and got ready for bed. It was lonely here without John, but he had to go home tonight and get all his own shit together. I kind of chuckled at that, since that meant he’d hang out with his mom while she packed for him.

There was a knock at the door and I got up and opened it, and found my dad there. “I wanted to talk to you about this trip.”

“So talk,” I said, and not in a very friendly way.

“What are you pissed about now?” he demanded.

“You treat me like I’m seven,” I snapped. “We’re out there and Grand has this big announcement to make, and John’s parents are all fine with him sticking around, and you’re sitting there thinking about it, like it’s some big decision.”

“I said you could stay,” he said, frustrated.

“Only after they did.” I just glared at him for a minute. “I’m done with this crap.”

“With what crap?”

“You embarrassed the shit out of me,” I told him, remembering not to yell, but still talking loudly. “Everyone’s watching you and wondering why you don’t have any confidence in me. They figure that either I’m a complete idiot, or you are.”

“I didn’t come in here to argue about this. This is stupid,” he snapped. “Not everything is about you. I knew something was wrong with Grand, and I was preoccupied.”

“If you knew something was wrong, then having me stick around should have been a no-brainer.” My phone rang but I hit the button to ignore it. “How would you feel if there was some big deal going down and you were left out and didn’t know what was happening?”

“I guess that depends on whether it involved me or not,” he said.

“Are you kidding me?” I demanded. “I don’t want to talk to you if you’re going to just lie to me.”

“I’m not lying to you.”

“Dad, everyone knows that you hate it when people keep secrets from you. You have to know everything. I don’t even want to be around you. When you finally notice that I’m around, you treat me like a kid, and then when I call you on it, you lie to me.”

“Your grandfather has cancer and you’re giving me shit for taking a few seconds to decide to let you stick around?” he asked me, throwing the guilt card out there.

“This is bullshit,” I said, and walked toward the door.

“You’re not going anywhere!” he shouted.

“Oh yeah?” I challenged. “Watch me.” I opened the door and stormed out, slamming it behind me. I ran through the halls and out the back, past the patio, and out to where the trail wandered off. That was the way to the pot plants. There was a bench there, so I sat there and looked out at the Bay Area, at the twinkling lights.

I’d have to put up with their crap for four more years. Unless I moved up here, I thought to myself. It wasn’t like I was trying to dodge normal rules; I just wanted them to quit treating me like I was still in elementary school. It seemed like since last year, the older I got, the more they regressed. I was starting to wonder what good it was, trying so hard to do the right thing. I mean, if I was going to have to put up with their attitudes, why worry about grades? Why not roll on X with my friends? Why not drink like a fish?

Some guys weren’t as lucky as I was, they had to worry about their futures, but I really didn’t have to. I could be a total loser and still be just fine. I could barely graduate from high school, go to some third-rate school for college, and it really wouldn’t make any difference at all. I still had all kinds of career options, and if I wanted to do nothing, I could do that too. Maybe I’d just blow off all my responsibilities and roam around, finding the hottest guys to hook up with.

I stayed outside for a long time, just looking at the lights and thinking, trying to figure a way out of this gilded cage I was in. The truth of the matter was that until I was 18, it was going to be tough to get away from my parents. All I could really do was make their lives so unpleasant they’d leave me alone. I’d tried things the other way, tried being the good son, and that didn’t seem to be working. Instead, it looked like rebellion was the only way to get through to them.

I saw someone walking out back and I stayed still, hoping they wouldn’t see me, but there was enough light, and this bench was a logical place for me to be, so I wasn’t too surprised when the figure headed right for me. And I knew that walk well enough to know that it was my dad. He sat down on the bench next to me and didn’t say anything at first.

“I always thought this was the best place to just go and think,” he finally said.

“It’s almost perfect, except there’s no ocean,” I said. I knew he’d be smiling at that.

“You and I used to be so close,” he said. “I miss you, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

That just blew me away. I wasn’t expecting that at all. I was expecting him to come out here and tell me how things were going to be. It was at times like this, when he was willing to listen and actually communicate, that I remembered how much I loved him, and how important he was to me. “I miss you too,” I said honestly.

“So how can we do better?”

“I was sitting out here, thinking that the next four years of my life were going to be a living hell,” I told him honestly. “I’m not willing to let you and Mom run my life. I’ve tried to be a good son, I’ve done what I was supposed to do, but it’s not working. I think that unless I just say ‘fuck the world’ and totally rebel, I’m not going to get anywhere with either of you.”

“That’s just going to create more problems,” he said.

“How would it be worse for me?” I asked. “You’d dictate what I did every minute of the day. I’d have no say in what I did, and I’d be treated like I was in second grade. That’s what you’re trying to do anyway. I might as well spend my afternoons doing Special K and hanging out down at the pier.”

“You’re too smart to think that would work out well,” he said. “And even if you don’t give a shit about what I think, I’m willing to bet you wouldn’t be willing to disappoint Grand and Stef.”

He was right: if they thought I was a loser, that would be devastating. He was also wrong. He didn’t realize that if he thought I was a loser, it would be even more devastating. “Do I have to turn 18 before you’ll let me grow up?”

“No, but it would be nice if you’d be a little patient with me.”

“You guys didn’t do this to Darius. You’re not doing this to JJ. Why are you doing this to me? Why are you guys smothering me?”

“You say ‘you guys’ and you’re referring to Pop and your mom as well as me. I can’t speak for them, I can only speak for me,” he corrected.

“Alright, that’s fair,” I agreed. “But the question still stands.”

“Because you’re growing up faster than JJ is, or Darius did,” he told me. “You’ve always been mature for your age, but now you’re pushing envelopes that I didn’t expect you to be pushing for a couple of years.”

“Is there some standard format I’m supposed to fit into?” I asked him, but not in a nasty way.

“No, you’re supposed to be you. But if you were as smart and as mature as you think you are, you’d realize that it may take some adapting on my part to handle that.” He nudged me with his shoulder to show that he was partially teasing me.

“It’s hard to do that, and to explain things to you, when you’re not listening.”

“Alright, that’s probably a fair statement,” he said. “I’m not the best listener in the world. I think we both know that.” He could see me nodding, even in the darkness. “Doesn’t it seem reasonable, though, that even for a very mature 14-year-old, I’d ask questions about what you were doing, who you were with, and set some basic boundaries for you?”

Even my friends with the most liberal parents had some rules like that. “I can see your point,” I conceded.

“How easy do you think it is to decide how nosy to be about those things, and about how restrictive to set those rules?” he asked me, but in a way that told me how challenging this was for him.

“Probably not real easy,” I agreed.

“You know what I worry about?” he asked. I shook my head. “I worry that you’ll go do something and get in a situation that you can’t handle, that you’ll get in over your head.”

“I’m going to make mistakes,” I told him. “Isn’t that how you learn?”

“It is,” he said. “But my job is to make sure that you have the freedom to make mistakes, but that those mistakes won’t be too costly. See, that’s what I worry about. I worry that you’re trying so hard to be an adult, that you’ll make an adult mistake, and that I’ll lose you.”

“You won’t lose me,” I told him.

“I feel like I am,” he said, and I was horrified to note how choked up he was when he said that.

“No, you’ve just been pissing me off,” I joked. I could tell he needed more, so I gave him a hug, a big hug. My dad wasn’t one of those guys who were big on physical affection, not like Robbie. That’s why when I hugged him and he hugged me back, really hugged me back, it meant something. It was important.

“So how do we do better?” he asked me again, pulling away from me.

“You know, after Robbie told you that you were a domineering asshole last December,” I joked, “you really changed how you acted toward him and toward Mom.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. Before, you didn’t always listen to them, and you didn’t always consider where they were coming from. Now you do. That’s what I want.”

That freaked him out, as I knew it would, but he needed to get this. Like an idiot, I hadn’t put it all together and figured out that this must have been how Robbie felt back then, and now that I did, I felt pretty sorry for both of them. “What happens when you want to do something and I say ‘no’?” he asked. “Is it always going to be a pitched battle?”

“I’d like to think that if you say ‘no’ to something I want to do, you’ll have a good reason, and that you’ll tell me what it is. And if I don’t agree with it, I’d like to think you’d listen to me.”

“And if I do, and I still say ‘no’, what then?” he asked. Now we were negotiating a deal, just as he did in the business world.

“Then until I’m 18, I have to go along with it,” I said cautiously. “If your reasons are good, why wouldn’t I?”

“I have a favor to ask,” he said.

“What?” I asked nervously.

“I want you to be more patient with me. I may not always get this right. When you get mad and then I get mad, it turns it into a battle and a power-struggle, and then we don’t hear anything, either one of us.”

I thought about how I’d treated him when he first came into my room tonight, and I could see his point. “That’s fair,” I said. “I’ll do my best. I’m not sure how genetically equipped I am to be patient though.” That made him chuckle. “I have a favor to ask you.”

“What?” he asked, just as nervously.

“It’s a lot easier to do what you want when you ask me instead of telling me. I know that doesn’t make much difference, since I’ll probably have to do it anyway, but I don’t like being ordered around. It bugs me.”

“Deal,” he said, and held out his hand. I pushed it aside and gave him another hug, this one even more meaningful than the one before that.

“So why did you come to see me tonight?” I asked him, realizing that I hadn’t even given him a chance to do that earlier.

“I wanted to meet you and your entourage over in Paris in a few days,” he said. “Robbie wants to go to Claremont, and I figured that I’d fly on to Paris and maybe bring Gathan and his new girlfriend along too.”

“You want to spend time with Grand?” I asked him.

“And with you,” he said.

“I’d like that,” I told him.

     

July 16, 2000

Palo Alto, CA

Will

The plane lifted off from Paly more slowly than normal, but I’d flown enough to know that the main reason for that was because we had a full load. I looked around at the almost-empty plane and noted that it wasn’t people that were weighing us down; it was all the extra fuel.

“I hope you are not too disappointed that John is not with you,” Stef said. It was just the two of us in the plane, and we’d relaxed into the big, comfy chairs for takeoff.

“He’s trying really hard to make the Lacrosse team,” I said. Stef knew that as well as I did, I was just saying it for my own benefit. “This is something he wants to do.”

“It is nice that you are so understanding,” he said. This morning Grand had announced that he’d decided to fly to Paris with my dad, since that way he could stop in Claremont too. That had given John an out, and let him still come to Paris to meet me, but he could delay it long enough to make his match.

“To be honest, I kind of wanted to go with just the two of us anyway,” I told him. Stef was an amazing guy, and I loved spending time with him.

“That is one of the nicest things anyone has said to me!” His huge smile told me how sincere he was, but then it faded. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Sure,” I said nervously.

“I want to ask you to forgive me,” he said.

“You haven’t done anything to me,” I said, brushing that aside.

“I slept with Gathan, and I knew that you had a relationship with him,” he said. “That is wrong on so many different levels.” I was inclined to just blow the whole thing off, but a tear fell down his cheek, and that told me how bothered he was by it. Stef was pretty dramatic, so tears from him were not all that unusual, but I knew him well enough to tell when they were really meaningful, and these were really meaningful. “It has bothered me, weighed on me, and I keep asking myself how I could have done such a thing.”

“Why did you do it?” I asked him, even though I already knew the answer.

“Because I thought I could help him,” he told me.

“And you did.”

“But that is not good enough. It is not acceptable to help him by hurting you.”

“Stef, you didn’t hurt me. It’s OK. Really. I couldn’t do what you did for him, anyway.” He nodded, but wasn’t convinced. “Why does this bother you so much?”

“When your father was young, he was dating a young man named Jake. We went to Claremont for the Festival, and there was some drama that irritated Sam, JP’s partner at the time. Your father and I went for a walk in the woods to get away from the situation, and came upon Sam and Jake having sex.”

“So Sam was like Dad’s stepfather, and he was screwing Dad’s boyfriend?” I asked, putting it all together.

“Yes. And I thought so horribly of Sam for doing that, but here I have done something not too dissimilar.” Now his tears really flowed. I undid my seatbelt and moved over to his chair and gave him a hug.

“Gathan and I are buds. He’s dating a girl now, for Christ’s sake. There’s no commitment there. It’s not the same thing at all.” He looked up at me gratefully. “Besides, we kind of expect that from you.”

He pretended to pout, and that brought his playful persona back. “I have some lines I will not cross.”

“I know,” I teased. “That’s why I’m dating John. I figure he’s safe from your clutches.” He shook his head and laughed, and then we settled down for the long flight to Paris.