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9.11 - 33. Chapter 33
August 24, 2001
I walked back toward my room in a really shitty mood. In fact, I was so down I detoured and headed out to the gazebo. I usually had good luck with them, I thought, and made myself chuckle for the first time since I got back from my ride with Pedro. Then I thought of all my issues, and that put me right back into a funk.
First of all, I was still sad about leaving Maui, and Kai, and I was sad that Erik left just as I was starting to like him. Two guys who had potential to really make me feel loved were both out of the picture, as far as I was concerned. Kai would talk to me on the phone, but he didn’t like it much and I could tell that he was already moving on with his life. He’d talked about surfing with some dudes he’d just met, and school would be starting for him soon as well, so with each passing day, I was becoming just a memory to him. With Erik, I was even further off his radar. He was up in Oregon, getting settled into the dorms, and probably having a blast, partying and getting laid. I found that I wasn’t jealous that he was getting laid, I was jealous that he was getting laid and I wasn’t.
On top of that, I was feeling pretty embattled. I had Kyle, Marie, and Ferris plotting to give me dick warts, and telling everyone at school that I already had them. I wasn’t exactly a pariah yet, but it was going to be a pretty unpleasant time for a while. John’s comment to me about not going to the parties this weekend was innocent on the surface, but when I thought about it, there was a lot more meaning there. He was telling me that if I went out now, I’d be laughed at, and made fun of, at least behind my back. I guess that wasn’t a huge deal, since it’s not like I was trying to be the king of the school, or any shit like that. I just did my own thing, and pretty much got along with people. That got me invited to the good parties, and made school pretty enjoyable. But if everyone hated me, or didn’t like me, those invites would dry up, and I’d find myself with a lot more time on my hands. Did that really matter to me? It was hard to say. It didn’t matter right now, but it might later on.
And just when I’m dealing with all of this crap at school, my father decides to unload all of his bullshit on me, and threatens my independence, which was a threat to me at my very core. My relationship with him was like the biggest roller coaster around. One minute we’re the tightest ever, the next minute I hated his guts. Fighting these battles with him just wore me out. I tried to see a pattern, thinking back over the past few years, and as I did, it seemed that the closer I got to him, the more likely we were to blow apart. It was like we were magnets that drew ourselves together, only to explode when we actually got close.
Grand said Dad wouldn’t serve me papers on Monday, but I wouldn’t put it past him. If he did that, we’d be over. I knew I wouldn’t be able to forgive him for that, at least not for a long time. In addition to all of this other shit, I’d find myself in a protracted legal battle, and based on the way my emancipation had gone down, where the only reason it did was because my dad went in and backed me up, it was probably easy for him to have it taken away. Only it wasn’t even that part of it that was the worst. If he did that, took me to court, then my mother would be involved again. She and I were doing alright, but she was annoyed that I’d gotten my freedom without her approval, and she might just decide that it was a better idea for me to lose it.
I walked back to my room, dragging my feet, all but moping. I’d been doing so well, and then my life had turned to shit. And the thing that really bugged me the most is that it’s not something I did. It was all these other people, pulling strings and manipulating me to get what they wanted. I opened my door morosely and closed it, then scanned my room, noticing that there was something different about it. It took me a few seconds to realize there was a present on my bed. It’s not everyday someone left a present on my bed, not even when I’d been really good in it, I thought, making myself chuckle. I went over and picked it up. The tag on the front just had ‘For: Will’ written on it.
I tore off the paper and opened the box, and pulled out a dildo that was still wrapped up, along with a card. I read the card and started laughing my ass off:
Will,
This is the maximum approved sex toy for males aged 15. As discussed, it is eight inches long, one inch in diameter, and has only mild vibration.
LOL,
Pop.
I laughed so hard I was almost hysterical, then I laughed some more. I put both the card and the dildo back in the box and left them on the bed, then wandered over to the other hall to see if Robbie was still awake. I didn’t hear snoring or moaning, so I knocked softly. “Come on in,” he said. I opened the door and walked in, smiling at him. He was sitting on the bed with his laptop out, probably working. “You got my present?”
“That was fucking hilarious,” I said, and went over to the bed and climbed in next to him.
“I figured you could use a laugh,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said sincerely. “What are you working on?”
“Just some financials on some of the movies we’re looking at,” he said. “Want me to explain it?” He asked me that like he didn’t think there’s any way I’d want him to.
“Yeah,” I said, slightly surprising him. They were numbers, and I liked numbers. He went through this thing he called a pro-forma, showing me how they estimated revenues, and the budget, and then calculated the IRR, which told what kind of return they expected to get. “Looks pretty easy,” I said. “You just pick the one with the highest IRR.”
“Here’s where it gets tougher,” he said. “What if our budget on this picture is off by five percent?” he asked. He changed some of the numbers around to reflect that. The IRR at the bottom of the page plummeted.
“What good are your numbers if you’re just going to second guess them?” I asked.
“I’m not second-guessing them, I’m refining them. That’s what I’m doing now,” he said. “I’m reading the reports on these flicks, then looking at who’s directing them, and adapting them based on what I know about the director and his history, and the actors he’s got working on the deal.” He spent some time showing me how some of the directors were always over budget, and then factored that in. I must have sat there with him for well over an hour, watching him work with spreadsheets. “I probably bored you.”
“Dude, that was really interesting,” I told him. “You’re a pretty analytical guy, but I didn’t think you had things set up like this.”
“I got this set up after that nightmare with Carson,” he said. “Before that, we made decisions largely by the seat of our pants. I wanted a better way to look at things. We’ve been working on this for a while, and every time we do, we make little changes, to make us better.”
“That’s pretty impressive,” I said.
“Mention that at the next board meeting,” he said, “if I still have a job.”
“Dude, no one is going to fire you over this shit,” I said. “This has nothing to do with the company, and has nothing to do with your judgment.”
“Sometimes it bothers me that they have that to hang over my head,” he said. “I mean, almost all CEOs have to answer to a board and to shareholders, but not all of them have to answer for their business plus how they conduct their family life.”
“It’s a pretty big tradeoff,” I said. “I guess you could break off and do this on your own.”
“Last year, when all that shit happened, I wasn’t in a position to do that,” he said. “I didn’t have the money or the resources to fund my own projects. So I started saving my cash, building up assets, and I’ve done a good job of that. If things go well, like I think they will, me leaving the company and doing this on my own is ultimately going to be possible.”
“Dude, are you going to do that?” I asked him, really worried. That would really piss off Dad and Stef.
“That’s not my plan, but I don’t want to be in a situation where I don’t have any choice but to back down. I want to know that if I need to be independent, to be my own man, that I can do it.”
“You want to be in control of your own life, and your own destiny,” I said. “That’s what I’m dealing with.”
“That’s why it’s pretty easy for me to understand where you’re coming from,” he said. “For me, I have to have the reserves available so if your father and Stef come at me over some bullshit thing that I know is wrong, I can tell them to fuck off, and if they fire me, I can land on my feet. For you, you want to know that if your father tries to tell you what to do and you don’t agree, you can tell him to fuck off.”
“All you need is lots of money. I won’t really have any insurance against him for three more years,” I said.
“When your father thinks about you, and dealing with you, he doesn’t think about the real you, and who you are, he thinks about this kid who’s not quite fifteen. He plays out these scenarios in his mind, and decides on what the best decision is, and then goes for it. It’s like me looking at our pro-formas and not factoring in who the director and actors are.”
“I hope he isn’t that stupid when it comes to business,” I grumbled, getting a snaugh from Robbie.
“He’s better at business because extreme emotions aren’t involved. I think that’s a toxic mix for him. When he keeps the personal shit out of a business deal, he’s brilliant, as smart as Stef. When he lets that cloud his judgment, he’s vulnerable.”
“So what are you saying?” I was a bottom line kind of guy.
“When you don’t talk to him, and cut him off, that’s when he can go off into his cave and build this different Will who will bend to his wishes. When you engage with him, he doesn’t do that shit,” Robbie said.
“I’m seeing it differently. I’m seeing that when I’m tight with him, and really open up to him, that’s when I’m most vulnerable, and that’s when he usually decides to lose it on me. I think that it’s not about me telling him or not telling him shit, it’s about me doing one or the other,” I told him.
“You mean about you being consistent,” he mused. “Maybe that’s right.”
“So how do I get the independence you’re working on?”
He sighed. “I think that in the end, neither one of us is going to have to use our nuclear option. For me, I have an escape hatch with the cash, for you it’s even easier. He just has to remember that he can’t really control you. I think you explained that to him tonight. You’ll probably have to do that again.”
“I can’t handle this kind of extreme bullshit from him,” I said, and sounded as pissed off as I was. “I have enough crap to deal with, without putting up with his drama.”
“I think that’s a lot less painful than writing him off,” he said calmly. “You willing to do that?”
“If he takes me to court and tries to revoke my emancipation, I will write him off,” I said firmly. “And if he tried to make me live with him again, well, let’s put it this way. He’d spend a lot of time shopping.” Robbie actually laughed at that, which was pretty cool, since I’d referred back to the time when I’d run away and trashed their room and their cars, and that he could laugh showed me that he really was over that.
“I think he’d rather work something out with you.”
“I feel like I have to negotiate a new treaty with him all the fucking time, and I’m not going to do that,” I said, a little too obstinately. “I think that he’s just going to have to learn to let me live my life.”
“If I fund this movie,” he said, gesturing at the screen, “I take a risk. I could lose a lot of money on it, but if I don’t fund it, and someone else does, and they make shitloads of dough, I look like an idiot, and my reputation suffers,” he said. I didn’t really realize what a pressure cooker his job must be, because he didn’t have to make the right call on just the deals he backed, he had to make the right call on all the big deals, period. “If you tell your father to go fuck himself, you run the risk that he’ll go to court. If you work with him, you run the risk that he’ll try and dominate your life.”
“Right now, I’m keeping him as much out of my business as possible. He hasn’t earned the right to even ask for anything else; what with the way he handled that crap with Mom, and the way he acted tonight.” I paused, and sighed. “He’s just like Marie. He fucks up, and he doesn’t even have the decency to say he’s sorry.”
“His pride gets in the way,” Robbie said. “He’s always been really proud. When I’ve pissed him off the most, it’s when I’ve hit him there.”
“You know, you may be right, but that’s just too goddamn bad. He needs to climb off his pedestal and answer for his mistakes,” I said firmly.
“Let’s hope he does,” Robbie said. I was pretty surprised that he didn’t disagree with me. “There’s one more thing I want you to think about.”
“What?”
“You’ve been pretty provocative this summer,” he said. “I get where you’re coming from, but it even looked to me like you were poking him in the eye.”
“How did I do that?” I challenged.
“Buying that house without talking to anyone,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “You weren’t trying to annoy him?” I said nothing. “And putting in a sex room?”
“You’re accusing me of testing him?” I demanded. This time he said nothing. “He thinks that things are about him, when they’re not about him at all. I’m not going to live my life worried about whether he approves of what I’m doing. Does that seem reasonable?”
“I’m not saying you should do that, I’m just giving you something to think about.”
“Then I will,” I pledged. “Would you mind passing a message along to him for me?”
“What?” he asked nervously.
“The way he treated me in Hawaii was shit, and it was a total asshole move for him to mention anything about that room to Mom. He hasn’t shown me, or told me, that he’s sorry about that. So until he can sincerely apologize to me, can show me that he really understands how wrong he was so that I think there’s a chance in hell that he won’t do that again, I’m not talking to him.” He stared at me, waiting for me to finish. “Last semester in school we studied the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, and how they had to have these pre-conditions before they’d even talk. That’s my pre-condition.”
“I’ll pass that on if I have a chance,” he said.
“Thanks.”
He yawned just then. “I have an early tee time.”
“I’ll let you get some sleep,” I said, taking the not-so-subtle hint. “Thanks for the gift, and for cheering me up.”
“You’re welcome,” he said, and gave me a hug, a big one, where he just absorbed and enveloped me. I felt totally safe and loved. It was really nice.
“Maybe I’ll go use it, and really cheer myself up,” I said, winking at him, and making him laugh. I headed back to my room and did just that, with exactly those results.
August 25, 2001
I was in my study, trying to focus on something besides my dysfunctional family, when a knock on my door interrupted me. “Enter,” I called, and looked up to see Will walking in.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked. I had been expecting him to come see me today, since he’d mentioned it, but I hadn’t expected him to arrive so early.
“Of course,” I said. I got up from my desk and took a seat in one of the chairs, with him taking the other one. It was a gesture I used on campus as well, to remove the power differential of the desk, and to indicate that he had my full attention.
“School was weird on Friday, but I’m worried that on Monday, when Marie gets there, it will really be bad.”
“What happened on Friday?”
“Someone taped pictures of a penis with genital warts on it on my locker at school,” I said. “It happened three times. The first time, I threw them away, and the other times, I gave them to one of the assistant principals, a nice dude named Mr. Sessions.”
“Do you know who put them there?”
“The first one got there before I even got to my locker, so it had to be someone who knew about the locker assignments early. Sessions checked the list and there were four people who knew. Ferris was one of them,” he said.
“That’s interesting,” I said, indicating that it was circumstantial evidence, but not overwhelming proof.
“I noticed that people were snickering at me behind my back, and one guy was giving me shit, calling me the wartmonster. So that’s the big news. Someone is spreading rumors around about me, saying that I have genital warts,” he said. He didn’t seem overly upset about it, more annoyed than anything.
“My experience is that rumors in high school are common, but that was a long time ago. Usually they die off and are of no consequence. I sense there is a more important reason you are worried about them,” I told him. I was wondering if he’d think I was being dismissive of his issues, but he seemed to take things in the vein that I meant them.
“I’m worried about how involved Marie is in this stuff,” he said. “Erik told me that she told him about Kyle and me, but I think you already know that. When Kyle told Erik that he got the warts from me, Ferris was there with him, backing him up.” I managed to hide how disturbed that statement made me. “Yesterday, when I called and talked to Erik about this, and grilled him about it, he said it seemed like they were trying to piss him off again, to make him mad enough at me to come after me again.”
My eyes narrowed. “They were trying to encourage him to assault you again?”
“Kyle told Erik, with Ferris there, that Kyle and I were still having sex until I went to Hawaii, and that’s why I went over there, to get over Kyle, after Kyle had dumped me.”
“I did not think that Kyle dumped you,” I said.
“He didn’t, I broke it off with him after Erik kicked my ass, that very night, and didn’t sleep with him then either. But that’s not what they told Erik,” he said.
“I am unclear as to their motivation,” I said, confused.
“Kyle made it sound like I had all but stalked him, and told Erik that basically while I was an asshole, I was a good fuck, and that he should fuck me and figure out why Kyle kept sleeping with me,” he said.
“Why would Kyle want Erik to sleep with you?” I asked, still not following him.
“Kyle told Erik that if he slept with me, since I’m the one that gave Kyle the warts, he wouldn’t have to worry about protecting me from them.”
I stared at him, absolutely stunned and horrified. “Ferris, Kyle, and maybe Marie were implying that Erik should have unprotected sex with you so he could give you genital warts?”
“That’s the theory I’m working with,” he said sadly. “John gave me one more interesting piece of information.”
“I cannot imagine what it would be,” I said, worried about what else these people may come up with.
“Kyle was evidently having sex with Ferris,” he said.
“Did Kyle get HPV from Ferris?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What are you planning to do about this?” I asked.
“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted. “I don’t really have enough evidence to prove anything, but I’m pretty sure what happened.”
I smiled at him, and at what a good scientist he was becoming. He was unwilling to jump to conclusions without sufficient data. “So you cannot really call them out directly, at least for trying to infect you, because you don’t have proof,” I summarized. “But you do have a reasonable idea that Marie, Kyle, and Ferris had these conversations with Erik, and that Ferris put those pictures on your locker.”
“Exactly,” he said.
“I am not sure if the school can or will do much to Ferris,” I told him.
“I’m not really worried about Ferris,” he told me. “The dude’s a little bitch. I’m worried about Marie.”
“She has certainly not treated you like a family member,” I told him, hiding how much her behavior saddened me. She had violated so many principles that were important, but this was truly reprehensible. Plotting with other people against a family member was really horrendous, especially when the reasons for doing so were so petty.
“If things don’t get worse, I can probably ignore them,” he said. “But if they do, I’m going to have to go after her.”
“And that’s why you came to see me,” I concluded.
He sighed. “It sucks dealing with this shit at school, and it pisses me off, but if I have to go head to head with Marie, that’s going to be ugly.”
I nodded, understanding what was going on with him now. Family was very important to Will, and he was worried about starting the equivalent of a civil war. “Where is John in all this?”
“John promised me that he had my back, and I believe him,” Will said firmly.
“Would you be willing to have a conversation about this with your aunt?” I asked him.
“I don’t know about that,” he said nervously.
“Would you mind if I had a conversation with her about it?”
“I’m worried that I’ll end up looking like an idiot,” he said. “I can’t prove much, and if Aunt Claire goes back to Marie, Marie will just say that Erik was lying. And she can call Ferris in to lie for her. Then I end up looking like a pathetic piece of shit that’s a big snitch.”
“Then I will not talk to her,” I said, even though I felt like my hands were tied.
“If you want to talk to her, go ahead,” he said resignedly. “I mean, at least the pictures on my locker are true.”
“What are your plans for today?”
“I’m going to call John and see what he’s up to, maybe go for a ride and work out. I don’t know if I’ll go out or not,” he said.
“What are you going to do about your father?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I’m not going to do anything. The ball is really in his court. I mean, if he serves me with a summons, then I’ll deal with it.” I could tell that his stress levels about the situation with Brad were very high, even though he tried to pretend that he was calm.
“I am relatively sure he will not take such a step, but if he does, I have a course of action to propose,” I told him.
“Go on,” he said, but there was relief in his words, so happy was he to have some kind of plan, or even a potential plan.
“I think that if he takes you to court over your emancipation, you should first talk to your attorney and decide what the potential outcome would be if you fought it,” I said.
“That makes sense,” he agreed, since that was pretty much the normal course of action. I hadn't bothered to talk to my attorney about this. That was probably a mistake.
“If he feels that they must appoint a guardian in your situation, I am willing to serve.”
He stared at me, stunned, for a bit, and then a tear ran down his face. “You’d do that for me?”
I smiled. “I would.”
He wiped the tear away and nodded, pausing to get his words together. “I think that I can be my own person, and do just fine. I have been doing just fine, and I think I can keep on doing well. But if that isn’t possible anymore, I would be fine with you as my guardian. In fact, you’re the only one I would be fine with.”
I stood up, and so did he. “Well, then let us see how things play out,” I told him. He nodded, and leaned in to give me a big hug, and I could feel how completely discombobulated he was as he did. Marie and her schemes, and Brad and his schemes, were putting a lot of stress on this young man. “How much of this may I share with Stef?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “He really let me down.”
“He did, but he loves you very much, and in the end, he will figure things out, and do the right thing,” I said, hoping I was right.
“That’s probably true,” he said with a smile. “I’ll leave it to you, on both Stef and Aunt Claire.”
“Enjoy your ride,” I said. He left, and I returned to my desk, where I ruminated over what he had told me. I could understand Will’s apprehension about getting Claire involved, but I was unsure how to proceed without talking to her. I was interrupted once again when Stef knocked on my door.
“I am going out for the day, and I thought I would let you know,” he said to me petulantly as he came in the room.
“Where are you going?” I asked.
“Out,” he said, in a clipped way. He was trying to be dramatic, to demand attention, because he felt guilty. He would get no relief from me, not with this approach.
“Will you be home for dinner?”
“I am not sure,” he said, as if it were a threat.
“That is fine. We will not wait for you, then,” I said simply. I returned to my work, or pretended to.
“Have you spoken to Will yet?” he asked.
“I have,” I told him. “I am amazed at the strength he exhibits, dealing with all of the challenges he is facing at school, and then coming home and having to fight for survival with his family. I would imagine he does not appreciate being cut off at the knees when he is at his most vulnerable.”
“He is very tough,” Stef acknowledged.
“He has to be,” I said.
“Bradley has asked me if I would serve as Will’s co-guardian, if he revokes Will’s emancipation,” Stef said.
“And what did you say?” I asked.
“I told him that was a bad idea, but if that is what it came down to, I would consider it,” he said.
“I think that if Bradley does that, he will lose at least two of his sons, and probably all of them,” I said, knowing that Darius would back Will up, and JJ most likely would as well. “I do not think that he has the support of his partner either.”
“He does not,” Stef said.
“So if you do this, Will is going to see it as you siding with Bradley against him, just as he did last night.” He acted like that was not a big deal. “I do not think you understand how much you have damaged your relationship with him.”
“I have done nothing overt to him,” Stef said. “I have been on the sidelines, watching this develop.”
“Let us approach this discussion with the appropriate level of honesty,” I all but snapped, showing him that he had irritated me. “You have spent hours with Brad, strategizing about this situation, and whining about Will. You have clearly been in Brad’s corner, something all of us see. For you to suddenly declare neutrality, and to claim you are disinterested, is simply not true.”
“That is what he thinks?” Stef demanded, acting as if he were the injured party.
“I do not know what Will thinks,” I said. “That is what I think. I had a lengthy conversation with Will shortly before you came in, and when we were done, I asked him if I could share it with you. Would you like to know what he said?”
Stef almost looked as if he didn’t want to know, but he was too curious for that. “What?”
“He said it was up to me, but that you really let him down,” I said. He stared at me, reeling from that verdict. “I think that once he finds out that you are planning to step in as one of his guardians, your relationship with him will be no better than Bradley’s relationship with him.”
“I am not trying to subjugate him…” Stef began.
“Enjoy your day,” I said, cutting him off. He stared at me and was angry, hurt, and guilty, all at the same time.
“If Tonto were here, she would sit Will down and explain things to him,” Stef said self-righteously.
I laughed at that. “If Tonto were here, she would slap you hard across the face and tell you that you were being a total ass.” His eyes bulged, and he turned on his heel and walked out of the study. He had handled this thing so badly, I was actually glad to see him go.
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