Running for Home - 82. May 7, 2022

May 7, 2022

I’m going to record this as best as I remember it.

We left the School after dinner last night, Bobby, Liam and I, heading for Detroit. We told Liam that we were taking a trip so he could see where I grew up as a kid, not that I was going to try and see my parents. I was going to see them on my own first. If things went well he and Bobby could visit the next day. We didn’t want to disappoint Liam if things didn’t go well. We drove cross-country on I80 for about five hours and then checked into a hotel in DuBois, Pennsylvania. I was tense the entire time.

I had a lot of trouble sleeping, of course. Bobby woke me up from a nightmare, but I’m not sure what it was about. It fled my mind the moment I realized I was safe in his arms. I was still a little exhausted by the time morning arrived, but nothing a large coffee couldn’t fix. At least Bobby was doing the driving this morning. I tried to pass the time by keeping Liam entertained, but there were some periods of downtime while he was reading a book or playing a game on his tablet. My thoughts kept straying to some pretty dark places full of anxiety and fears.

But there was that hope, too. I was clinging to that, to that hope. The hope that somehow, despite everything, my parents could still love me. If I didn’t have that, I’d have asked Bobby to just turn the car around and take us home.

We took I80 west until it met up with I75 in Toledo then headed north. It was a sunny, pleasant day with just a few puffy clouds in the sky. Liam was getting a little impatient as we passed through the sprawl of the Detroit suburbs. He commented on how everything looked a lot more dirty and broken compared to New York when we got off 75 and made our way through downtown. We pulled into our hotel at around 2pm. I helped Bobby get our luggage from the car and get him and Liam settled in our room. There was a Detroit Tigers baseball game starting at 4pm; we had decided Bobby and Liam would go check it out at Comerica Park while I did an initial visit with my parents. Liam had never been to a major league baseball game before, so this would give Bobby a chance to bond with him over something he loved. Even though the Tigers weren’t playing the Red Sox, Bobby’s favourite team, he was sure they would still have a good time with the whole experience. Liam was a little confused that I wasn’t coming with them, but I promised I would be back later.

The trip to Grosse Pointe was excruciating. Traffic sucked, of course. I mean, it’s a Saturday afternoon in Detroit. People were driving in from the suburbs to get to the sports games at Comerica Park, Ford Field and Little Caesar’s Arena, and for some of the shows like at the Fox Theatre. It took me until 3:30 to get there. Pulling up to the house felt… well… strange. It was very, very clear my parents had done well for themselves with that settlement. The neighbourhood was definitely well-to-do. There were no cars in my parents’ driveway but they had a shut two-car garage, so I parked to one side. I got out and walked up to the door, my heart beating out of my chest. I rang the doorbell.

There was no answer.

I was torn, full of mixed feelings and frustration with myself. Why the fuck did I do something as stupid as decide to surprise them? What if they were away for the weekend or on vacation? What if I dragged Bobby and Liam halfway across the country for no fucking reason whatsoever?

I resisted the urge to punch the brick walls of the house to relieve my frustration. What should I do? Should I wait? Should I drive back to the hotel and see if I can catch up with Bobby and Liam at Comerica Park, maybe call my parents’ number and leave a message?

Fuck.

But I wasn’t ready to give up yet. I decided to just stay put for a while. I sat down on the stoop, pulling out my phone to scroll through the news and some social media while I waited. Thank god it was a nice, sunny day.

I was waiting there for about a half-hour when a man came walking up, regarding me with suspicion. Definitely not my father - maybe a neighbour? He asked me what I was doing there, and I told him I was there to see Isaac and Sarah Allerdyce. The man gave me a considering look and then introduced himself as Allan Murdoch, the next-door neighbour. He told me that Isaac works Saturdays but he’s usually home around 4:30pm. But then he dropped a bomb.

Allan told me that my father was a single man. He’d lived next door for eight years and there had never been any woman involved, married to Isaac or otherwise. Isaac was living alone.

My heart sank, and I blinked back tears.

Of course. Of course, my parents would have divorced.

Allan put a hand on my shoulder. I swallowed thickly. He asked me if I was Isaac’s son, since I was the spitting image of him. I nodded and told him I hadn’t seen my parents in a very long time because of family problems. Allan nodded. He wished me good luck, saying he knows Isaac is a lonely man, and then he turned and headed back to his house next door.

I sat there for another good long while, my heart an absolute mess. I knew, I just knew that it was my fault. I drove a stake into their marriage by turning terrorist. Before the beating that sent me into foster care, my parents’ marriage was already on the edge, wasn’t it? They tried to fix things, to fix things for me, but I fucked it all up, didn’t I?

I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn’t notice that a white work van was driving up until it was in the driveway next to my car. The decal on the side said Allerdyce Electric Ltd. My father got out.

My father.

He was looking at me, looking at me in disbelief.

“Johnny?”

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t answer. I nodded.

He ran over to me and pulled me into a tight hug. I burst into tears, sobbing uncontrollably into his shoulder. I felt so safe, so fucking safe all of a sudden. Safe, and loved. I could feel his own wet tears soaking through my shirt as well.

We stayed like that, wrapped in each others arms, for a good couple minutes. He pulled back, and we just looked at each other, the tears slowing. He was just like I remembered him, but with some wrinkles and greying at the temples. We shared the same blonde hair and the same clear blue eyes. He was well built, just like I remembered. I could feel from his embrace his strong arms and that he didn’t have even a hint of a gut. My father was taking care of himself, that much was clear.

“Oh son, I can’t… I can’t believe this is real! Is it really you?”

“Yeah, Dad,” I murmured in response.

He pulled me into a tight hug again. “I can’t even begin to… I’m so glad, so, so very glad to see you, Johnny. I don’t fucking deserve this, but thank you. Thank you for coming.”

“You and mom?” I managed to croak out.

He pulled back, sighing. He swallowed. “Let’s go inside, son. Let’s talk about that inside. Were you waiting long?”

“Just an hour or so. Your neighbour Allan told me you’d be home around now, so I just waited. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’m glad you did.”

He unlocked the front door and we headed inside. It was a beautiful house, clean and organized. No hint of the uncaring disarray that had marred the latter half of my childhood in that trailer park. He led me into the living room and had me sit down on a wingback chair. He walked over to a cabinet and pulled out an album. He came back over and handed it to me, then sat down on the couch.

I opened it, thinking it would just be old photos of us. But it wasn’t. It was my writing, everything that had ever been put in print in a newspaper or magazine. Pages and pages of it, clipped neatly and folded away into this album. More tears began streaking down my cheeks.

“I’m so proud of you, son. I’ve read everything I could get my hands on, your books too. You are so goddamn talented.”

I closed the album and set it on the coffee table in front of me. I closed my eyes. “You can’t possibly be proud of everything I’ve done.”

My father sighed. “Maybe not, but I don’t blame you for it. I understand that it’s not easy being a mutant. You were so young and the whole world must have seemed like it was against you, for you to make those decisions. Getting attacked by the government in the middle of the night would do a number on anyone. But I know I must have contributed to those feelings, too, somehow. I planted the seeds of distrust and anger in you. You know, I lost my entire family over you when they found out you were a mutant after I hurt you and got you taken away. Their goddamned prejudices tore this family apart. They discarded us over it. Not just us, your cousin Joanna too.”

I looked up at him. “You know about that?”

“Your grandad and I got into a fight about mutants when he and your grandma joined the Church of Humanity when you were a kid. I thought they were being ignorant shits, they thought my opinions were just more evidence of how much of a sinful heathen I was. You probably remember that we didn’t go to Thanksgiving or any other family gatherings starting that year. When we found out you were a mutant, too, they completely cut off all contact. Good riddance, but it still hurt. I still keep up with their lives discreetly through some family friends. I heard about Joanna getting kicked out by Aaron and Ruth over her husband and son a few years ago.”

“Did you read the recent stuff in the Times? About the attack in Boston?”

“Yeah, you’re caring for a son of your own now, you and your partner. Sounds like you went through a harrowing experience, both with that Purifier militia and with the police.”

I nodded. “It sucked, but nothing I can’t handle. Liam’s not really our son, not yet. Maybe someday he will look at Bobby and me as his parents, but he’s old enough that his mother will always be number one. We kept things vague about Liam’s identity in the papers to protect him, but you should know that he’s Joanna’s son.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“The man Joanna married, the man the Church murdered, he was my partner Bobby’s brother. Fucking bizarre, but Bobby is Liam’s uncle and I’m his second cousin.”

My father nodded, considering. “Well, I guess it’s good that he’s still with family, then.”

“Yeah. If you want, you can meet them. Bobby and Liam.”

“I would love that son. Did they come up with you, or did you make the drive yourself?”

“They are here, Dad. They are just at a Tiger’s game right now. I wanted… Well, in case things didn’t go well, I didn’t want them to be here. Not right away.”

“I can understand that. After everything I put you through, I can understand that.”

“I was worried you would hate me for what I did while I was with the Brotherhood. But I had to hope… I mean, you tried to get me back. You and mom, you tried to change, to do better so we could be a family again. I’m sorry I ran away with Magneto before we got the chance to reunite. I didn’t know anything about what was going on. I don’t know why Professor Xavier never told me anything.”

My father sighed. “We didn’t want to get your hopes up if things weren’t going to work out. I guess that was our fault, too. Maybe we should have been more insistent on getting a chance to at least speak with you over the phone. But we were so worried you wouldn’t want anything to do with us, not after what we put you through. Charles told us you had a lot of anger.”

I nodded. “It’s hard to really know exactly how I would have reacted back then. Fuck, it doesn’t matter. Not now. I know now that you and mom turned your lives around to try and get us to be a family again. You made mistakes, but I’ve made my own share of mistakes too. Mistakes that were way worse than anything you did to me.”

“It’s all in the past, son. If you really feel the way you’ve written in all those articles, if your views really have changed since you got out of jail, it’s good enough for me. You’ve done a lot of work towards changing the discourse about mutants. But how did you find out about what your mother and I tried to do to get you back?”

“I’m working at Xavier’s now, as an English and Writing teacher. My boss, Emma Frost, she handed me this dossier on my birthday last month. It was full of my records, including everything about your attempt to get me back. I… I’m sorry I didn’t contact you sooner. I just…”

“It doesn’t matter, Johnny. You’re here now,” he affirmed, but then he deflated a little, letting out a deep sigh. “I just wish your mother was here too.”

I nodded. “So you divorced?”

He shook his head. “No, no we didn’t. I don’t know why, but we never divorced. But she’s gone, been gone for a long time. After you left the School with Magneto, it was hard on us. You know about the lawsuit?”

“Yeah. I’m glad you got a settlement. Looking back, I don’t understand why Xavier didn’t try to hunt us down and drag me back to the School kicking and screaming.”

“He told us that he wouldn’t be able to convince you to come back, that you were set on Magneto’s path.”

I sighed. “He was right, but I wish he’d at least tried. If they’d kept me out of the Brotherhood, so much would be different, so much would be…” I trailed off, shaking my head.

“You haven’t forgiven yourself for that part of your life, have you?”

“No. I’m atoning for it, but I haven’t forgiven myself for the mistakes I made. I did so much damage, killed so many people…”

“I forgive you, son. It may not mean much to you, but I do.”

I swallowed thickly, my eyes threatening to spill more tears again. “It means more than you’ll ever know.”

He nodded. “Anyway, Johnny, after the government finally caught up with you and you were put in jail, we tried to visit. We tried, but they wouldn’t let us - something about you being a terrorist supposedly made it too dangerous for anyone to have visitation access to you. We tried to sue for access, but it went nowhere. It broke your mother. She told me she needed a vacation, needed to go home, but she didn’t want me coming with her. She flew down to Oz, but she never came back. Told me not to come for her. That she loved me, but she couldn’t live with me right now. It’s been fourteen years, and she hasn’t come back.”

“Jesus, Dad. And you’ve been alone in this house since then?”

He nodded. “Don’t feel sorry for me, son. This is the mess I wrought by failing as a father and as a husband. Besides, it hasn’t been as-”

“Honey, I’m home!” a man’s voice called out from the entryway, interrupting my father. “Did you bring home a twink for us to share, or should I leave you alone to have some fun?”

The man stopped dead as he entered the doorway to the living room, his expression changing from one of amusement to confusion. My father looked mortified.

Wait, wait! I knew who that was!

“Uncle Mike?”

The man’s brown eyes widened. “Little Johnny? Is that you?”

“It’s him alright,” my father grumbled, blushing beet red.

It was my uncle - well, not my real uncle. Michael Rodriguez. My father’s best friend. Well, former best friend? They had a falling out at some point after my father had lost his job at the parts factory, when our lives slid downhill, but it looked like they had made amends.

More than amends.

“Well, shit. I just… shit.”

My dad ran a hand through his hair. “Mike, I’m sorry but maybe tonight’s not such a good time. I’ll call you later, okay? I need to spend some time with my son.”

“Yeah, yeah you do. I… well, sorry Johnny. It’s good to see you. We’ll… well, we’ll talk some time, okay?”

“Sounds good, Uncle Mike,” I said, my mind reeling a little bit.

“Okay, Isaac, Johnny. I’ll… I’ll see myself out. See you later.”

He turned and left. When we heard the front door shut, my father let out a deep breath.

“Son, I’m… well, I don’t really know what to say…” My father mumbled, looking down at his hands.

“A twink? To share? So you aren’t straight?” I asked for confirmation.

“No. Well, not gay either. Been bi my whole life. Even before… well, your Uncle Mike and I…”

“You and he have been together since you were kids, haven’t you?”

My father nodded, not looking at me.

“Did you cheat on Mom with him?”

My father’s eyes widened, looking at me with shock. “No, I never! I mean, she knew about us right from the beginning so… I mean, she kind of…”

I frowned. “Wait, Mom knew you were sleeping with Uncle Mike and she was okay with it?”

My father took a deep breath. “Look, son, you were too young to really understand, but your Mom and Mike and I… well, we were a bit unconventional. Mostly. It was just yet another thing your grandparents disagreed with me on when they started figuring things out. They never liked me being friends with Mike when we were younger, and always were trying to find ways of keeping us apart until we were old enough that it didn’t matter and we were able to sneak around. I tried too hard for far too long to keep your grandparents happy, and it never worked. Regardless, your uncle Mike has always been a bit of a free spirit. He was kind of the third wheel in my relationship with your mother, but your mother was perfectly happy with that. She loved us both, deeply. Mike has always lived a bit of a bachelor’s life, doing what he wanted, but back then he was basically with both of us too… kinda the best of both worlds for him, I guess. I mean, it was a threesome between all of us on that ski vacation that got the whole thing started back in the day, anyway so…”

Pieces started to fall into place in my mind. Uncle Mike had always seemed to just be around when I was a little kid. I remember him staying over at the house a lot, back when we still had one. I never questioned it. Never thought anything of it. I never saw him sleeping anywhere but the guest room, but he and my parents must have just been careful about not having me see him in my parents’ room together with them, not in any sexual way.

I looked over at my dad, smiling softly. “So I get the gay gene from your side, then?”

Dad looked up at me. Looked me in the eyes. He left out a breath he had been holding and chuckled. He raised a hand up to his greying blond hair and ran it through it. “Well, son, I guess so. You’re okay with this?”

I nodded. “If anything, it makes me respect you more, for trying to balance having a poly relationship with trying to give me a normal childhood. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Well, we were worried about the consequences for you in school, with the family and other things… Maybe it was foolish. We loved you like nothing else, your Uncle Mike too.”

“So you and he made amends? I remember you having a big fight after we lost the house.”

Dad squeezed his eyes shut. “Yeah, we have. That fight is the thing in my life that I regret the most, after hurting you so badly and breaking up our family. If I hadn’t been so stubborn and proud, and let him help us out more till I got back on my feet… We were arguing about it, and I said some pretty stupid things. About how he didn’t know what it was like to try and be the sole provider for a wife and child, about a lot of things. I hurt him, hurt him so bad. He loved us all, wanted our relationship to be something more than I was letting it be, but I was too afraid of the consequences, of losing the rest of my family over it… But everything went to hell with them anyway and I lost him. Lost him for a long time.”

“How did you reconcile?”

“I ran into him at another old high school friend’s wedding. They sat us together because they remembered we were best friends. They didn’t know we’d fallen out. He looked… well, he looked as damn handsome as ever. It was awkward at first, but we got talking and… well, eventually we went for a walk outside and I apologized to him, apologized for everything. I kept going, on and on with this self-flagellation, and suddenly he grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me. Kissed me so deeply. It brought everything back, everything we had and everything I’d lost and I cried like a baby. We’ve been together ever since, going on about ten years now.”

I nodded. “The neighbour doesn’t know about him, though?”

“Who, Allan? Well… I guess he just knows Mike as my best friend. If we ever… well, if Mike were to move in, then maybe I’d have…” my father trailed off, sighing.

“You wish he would move in?”

“I don’t know, Johnny. I do, but I also want him to live the kind of life he wants to live.”

“Have you ever asked him?”

“Well, no, but-”

“Maybe you should. Maybe he’s just waiting for you to ask,” I pointed out.

“Maybe,” my father conceded.

He was about to say something else, but my phone pinged. It was Bobby’s ringtone, so I pulled my phone out and had a look. He was wondering how I was doing, of course.

“Is that your partner, Bobby?” my father asked.

I looked up at him, taken by surprise. “How’d you know?”

My dad smiled softly. “Your face changed when you saw who it was. It’s a look I’m glad to see. You really love him, don’t you?”

I nodded. “More than anything. Bobby and I were best friends and roommates in high school, before I ran away with Magneto. I was in love with him, but I was scared and in the closet. He was an oblivious late bloomer and he had an all too pretty and vulnerable girlfriend that took up his time. The unrequited love, or what I thought was unrequited love, anyway, it killed me. Took me to a pretty dark place, on top of everything else. Part of the reason I left with Magneto was to get away from him. It was killing me to be around him every day when I just knew I could never have him, when I had to watch him have the kinds of things I wanted with him with someone else.

“Anyway… after I left, he felt completely betrayed. He was so deep in the closet that he didn’t really understand what the root of his feelings were - that he loved me, too. We fought each other a few times, him as an X-man and me with the Brotherhood. I almost killed him once during the Alcatraz incident, but he managed to beat me and knocked me unconscious before I fucked up in the worst way I could have ever fucked up. He hated me for a long time, and I hated him too. At least, we both convinced ourselves we hated each other. In reality, it was the opposite.

“When I started working at the School again in August, he also happened to rejoin the staff there after some time away being a big shot accountant for a firm in New York. We had a rough start, but eventually we got over ourselves and our friendship blossomed again. And… well, I kissed him at his New Year’s party, and he kissed me back. We’ve been together since. It hasn’t been all that long at this point, but it also feels like we’ve been together forever. We lived together for four years before I left with Magneto, and now… I dunno. I mean, we’ve learned about how we’ve each changed over the years, but the core of things, what made us such good friends in the first place, the things that made me fall in love with him… Well, everything just fits.”

My father nodded, smiling at me. “I know how that feels. Twice over, really. With your Uncle Mike, and with your mother.”

“Do you mind if I message him for a minute? I just want to let him know things are okay. I know he was really worried about how I was going to handle things if this didn’t go well, but I guess it’s a moot point now.”

“No problem, son. Tell him I say hi, and I’m looking forward to meeting him and Liam.”

I quickly relayed things to Bobby, that my father and I had reconciled but my mother was no longer in the picture. That I was learning things that I didn’t know during my childhood. That I’d be staying here for a while and hoped he and Liam could come back here with me tomorrow since my Dad wanted to meet them. Bobby was happy for me, of course, and texted back a couple of selfies of him and Liam wearing Tigers ball caps and Liam with a big foam tiger claw cheering on the team. It looked like they were having a good time.

I turned and showed the picture to my father. He smiled.

“Bobby’s one handsome man, son. And Liam looks really happy there. I can see the resemblance to Bobby in his face, but he definitely has Allerdyce hair. I guess you and Joanna had the same eyes, too and he’s inherited that as well. If I didn't know better, I would swear he was you boys' son."

"This whole situation still mystifies me, to be honest. How the fuck did Joanna and I fall in love with brothers after leading such divergent lives? How did the cards fall in such a way that Bobby and I would reconcile and be together and be able to take care of Liam when Joanna was in danger and now that she has passed?"

My father nodded. "If I was a religious man like your grandfather, I would probably tell you it was a blessing from God and part of his big plan, but you probably remember I don't really believe in that shit."

"Right, I remember. I remember you and Grandpa arguing about it, about us not going to church often enough."

"Among the many things your grandfather and I argued about. Are you getting hungry, son? I had a nice steak dinner planned for your uncle and I tonight, so we might as well eat that together if you like. Unless you are vegetarian now, or something."

"Steak sounds wonderful, dad."

"Alright, I'll fire up the grill and maybe you can tell me more about how you've lived since you got out of jail. I want to know more about how you got started writing."

We got up and headed into the kitchen. He pulled two ribeyes out of the fridge, along with a foil tray of mixed veggies he had already prepared.

"Oh, son, where are my manners? Would you like something to drink? I've got some beer, some wine, some Coke, or water?"

I bit my lip, a bit of trepidation creeping up in my stomach. "You still drink?"

My father's eyes widened in realization and deflated a little bit. He closed his eyes, nodding with a bit of a sigh.

"I do, son. Not as much as when you were a kid. I was out of control for years after I lost my job, and you suffered for it. Badly. I am eternally sorry for that. I don't think I will ever be able to forgive myself for letting things get that bad. I cleaned up after I got out of jail, your mother and I both. We were teetotalers for years, but after she left… well, son, I had another dark period. It wasn't as bad as before, I was still able to function and do my job and get by, but… well, I was struggling with finding something to live for. It wasn't until your Uncle Mike came back in the picture that I really got back on my feet. I might have a beer or two with dinner after a tough day now, or when there is something to celebrate, but I don't drink that much anymore. That beer in the fridge was more for your uncle, not me, anyway."

I nodded, swallowing thickly. I wasn't sure exactly what to think about that. There was part of me that really wished he was still abstaining, the part of me that knew how much of a mess of a horrible person he could be while drunk, but maybe that was unreasonable. He wasn't drunk right now. When he hugged me when I first arrived home, he didn't smell of booze. Maybe he was under control, like he said. Maybe that was enough.

"I… I guess I'll have one if you will, dad. A beer."

He looked at me for a minute, assessing. "Johnny, right now I feel like I am damned if I do, damned if I don't. I can understand if you have a hard time trusting me after that admission, but I am not going to lie to you and tell you that I don't drink anymore. It's under control now. I just hope you will give me the chance to prove that to you."

"Alright, dad. Let's have a beer. Together."

He pulled two bottles of Anchor Steam from the fridge and walked over to the kitchen island and retrieved a bottle opener. He popped off the two caps, and handed me one of the beers.

“To making things right again,” I said, my voice breaking.

And suddenly I was in my father’s arms again, crying. He held me again, held on to me a good while longer than we had outside. It was something so simple, and yet it was something only he could give to me, something that I hadn’t realized how much I yearned for.

We drank those beers, yes. And we had our steak dinner. My dad seemed to be quite adept with the grill, and the meat was cooked as perfect as I could imagine, just the way I like it. Fuck, apparently just the way he likes it too. We talked and talked, learning about each other’s lives. He was frank with me about how he’d been living, about his relationship with Uncle Mike, and I told him about my time with Magneto, the days working for Freedom Force, my relationship with Dom, of university, and all the crazy and wonderful shit that had filled my life over the past year. It was comfortable and easy to talk to him, easy in the same way I’d felt when I was younger, before everything went to hell, back when my love for my father was infinite and unconditional and I knew he loved me back exactly the same way.

At ten o’clock, I had to tear myself away and get back to the hotel. I’d already stayed well past Liam’s bedtime and I’d probably be in trouble with him in the morning for that. My father gave me another tight, long hug at the door, and I left him with the promise of returning in the morning with Bobby and Liam in tow. Thank God Bobby and I had taken Monday off so we could spend all of Sunday here, in case this meeting went well.

As I drove back to the hotel, I felt a weight lifted off me. A lightness. Maybe I hadn’t been able to reunite with my mother today, but I had gained so much back. I knew one day of shared tears and stories wasn’t really enough to fix decades of hurt, but it was a damned good start. I was filled with hope for the future, hope for a positive relationship with my father, hope for his involvement in my life going forward. My family was growing, again.

Tomorrow we will see how the old mixes with the new.

Tomorrow.