Mickey - 9. Chapter 9

Long, thick oak tables filled the cavernous room from end to end, almost all of them overflowing with boisterous students. Wood was probably chosen as much for indestructibility as it was for atmosphere. A simple pocketknife could only carve so deep into the dense fiber, preserving the structural integrity of the board but allowing generations of carvers a place in posterity.

Since Mickey hardly knew any of the other players well, he was hoping that Drew would take the empty seat across from him and Andrew. But when the two stragglers came into the main room after getting carded, Dave seemed to make a beeline for Mickey’s end of the table, leaving Drew the only other empty seat at the far end of the bench on the opposite side. The disappointment of not having Drew was compounded by concern over an unpredictable Dave.

Even at the other end of the table, he could tell that Drew looked upset. Mickey had noticed that the two of them had not come in together with the rest of the group and wondered if this had something to do with their unexplained detour. His face was red, and he didn’t give Mickey the usual look and smile that he had come to expect.

Staring down the table, Mickey motioned to him and cocked his head, as if to say, ‘Is something wrong?’ It was like Drew was in a daze, but suddenly woke up and gave Mickey the ‘OK’ sign with his fingers. With memories of Drew's recent crash on the court, he tried to continue the long-distance conversation and find out more, but suddenly Dave interrupted the table.

“Hey, you,” Dave shouted at the waitress, dispensing with any kind of formalities, “we need pitchers over here. Lots of them.”

“One sec, I’ve just got to give someone their check and I’ll be right back,” she replied from the adjacent table as she pulled her check pad from her pocket and scribbled in some numbers.

Dave stood up. “I want it NOW!”

Mickey was taken aback by the scene. And Dave wasn’t even drunk yet! ‘What’s he like when he’s really sloshed,’ he asked himself.

Like a lot of the ‘domestic’ help around the Ivy League school, the waitress was likely one of the legions of students from the local state university who filled service positions in town and absorbed lasting resentments of their entitled peers. She paused for a moment and said, ‘One sec, I’ll be back,’ she replied in a harried and weary voice.

“Just do your best,” Mickey interjected. The remark raised a few eyebrows around the table, but mostly from Dave’s teammates. But he didn’t back down. “It’s not a big rush,” he continued.

“Well, they’re paying,” Dave responded, “so they can put up with shit service. But I’m drinking, so they’d better be quick,” he threatened.

Mickey introduced himself to the guys around him that he didn’t know but spent most of the time speaking to Andrew. Drew was too far away for any hope of decent conversation, though every once in a while, Drew would wave his hand and mouth, “Doing all right?”

More than the distance, however, the biggest obstacle to communication or even just simple enjoyment was Dave himself. He carried on exchanges with nearly everyone at the table, no matter where they were sitting, that were loud and rowdy, not to mention crude, with a gradual increase in volume corresponding to the amount of beer he had consumed.

As Dave got more and more drunk, he badgered Mickey as to why he wasn’t drinking with them. Mickey had pulled a bottle of water from his backpack when the first sat down and was nursing it the entire evening, hoping no one would notice or care. “I just don’t like it,” Mickey responded.

“Maybe you should explain why you DO drink so much,” Drew yelled from the other end of the table after another of his inquiries to Mickey was deflected. Increasingly, he was involving himself in the conversation despite the distance.

“Yeah, we haven’t heard the answer to that one yet,” Andrew added.

"Because drinking is the n…n…normative condition,” he said, slurring his words before taking another swig of beer. “It’s being social, and not drinking with your friends is being antisocial.”

He took another swig of beer and slammed the thick stein onto the table, “Are you being antisocial?” he asked, glaring at Mickey.

Drew’s face suddenly lost its smile as he stared down the table at Dave. The entire table suddenly got quiet.

“I’m here with you and everyone and we played basketball together, I think that’s being social,” Mickey replied. He tried to be calm, but he couldn’t help being uneasy around this guy. The drunken belligerence, the anger, it reminded him of things…

“No! Drinking beer is being social,” Dave shot back. Drew put his hands on the table as if he was going to get up, but still stayed seated, while Mickey just took another drink of water and focused his eyes on the clear plastic bottle.

‘Keep calm,’ he told himself. He thought that he heard the bench squeak at Drew’s end, like someone was getting up.

“You know what?” Dave then said, looking straight at Mickey. “With your face, you kind of remind me of a gay Frankenstein, you know that? And an antisocial one at that. And I don’t like antisocial people.”

Suddenly he reached with both arm over the table and grabbed Mickey, pulling his face close and screaming at him, “And I don’t like faggots, either!”

“Dave, that’s bullshit!” he heard Andrew say, but it sounded indistinct, distant.

What Mickey felt in his face was the hot, alcoholic breath, and the hands grabbing his shoulders, trying to push him, manhandle him, maybe even hurt someone else. And something snapped.

“Get off me!” he shouted, as he grabbed at Dave’s hands and struggled to pull them off. It looked like a mismatch at first, as Dave was way bigger and stronger, yet Mickey somehow was able to dislodge them.

Instead of retreating, however, Dave aimed his grip for Mickey’s throat. But before he could get his grip, Mickey had pulled back his right hand and aimed powerful punch straight into Dave’s face.

BAM!

Big Dave was knocked on the floor like a felled tree.

Mickey felt like all was quiet for a moment. He saw Drew approaching out of the corner of his eye. But he couldn’t react. His heart was beating hard and was pounding his head. All he could do was to get out of there.

Fast.

He didn’t know where he was going or what he would do, he just pushed his way through the crowd, aiming for the back door that he had entered through, the only exit route that he knew. It was like swimming upstream as he struggled for the door, but turned into a run, then a full-on sprint, once he got outside.

He wanted to burn the emotions out. It was the only thing he could think of doing. Once he cleared the alley, he ran past the main library, the law school, across the green lawns connecting dorms and classrooms, passing what few pedestrians were still out like they were in slow motion.

Wherever! He would just run as fast as he could until he was going to collapse.

With barely any energy left, he found himself on the far edge of the campus and dragged himself over to a stone bench that overlooked the oldest quadrangle of the school, where the freshman stayed, and threw himself onto a stone bench, exhausted.

He almost felt like he was going to throw up, he was so desperate to catch his breath. With his head hanging down, he suddenly heard another breath, just as winded, right behind him.

It was Drew.

Mickey started to get up, but Drew put his hand on his shoulder, as much to stop Mickey from the effort as to support himself.

“Are… you… OK?” Drew was able to push out between his own desperate breathing.

Mickey looked up. “Yeah… I’m OK…”

Neither spoke for a moment as they both panted deeply, trying to recover enough breath to just stay upright let alone have a conversation. It was almost a minute before Mickey finally spoke.

“I’m… sorry about what happened back there, Drew. I…shouldn’t have done that. It was wrong.”

Drew took a deep breath so that he could get out one complete sentence. “You don’t need to apologize, Mickey. Frankly, he deserved it. You really knocked him on his ass.”

As soon as the words got out they both paused again, their deep inhalations the only sound filling the air.

And he was the first to speak again. “Mickey, what happened to you back there? He was an asshole and a dick and deserved what happened to him…” he said, pausing again, but for a much shorter time. “But it was more than that. You looked… terrified.”

“I know it was a bad situation but...” he continued, but Mickey interrupted him with a gesture of his hand.

If seemed like a long time, but Mickey took in another deep breath. But it was an action done more to prepare than to recover. It was like he had a lot to say but needed to stoke up to say it. Once he was prepared, he looked straight ahead.

“My dad was a super smart guy, he really was. What book smarts I might have I got from him. But he had no common sense or judgement, or some other problem, I don’t know, but he couldn’t hold down a job. He could talk for hours about politics, do complicated math problems in his head, all that kind of stuff. Yet ask him to do some task at a certain time, or even just show up, my mom and aunts tell me, and he could never get it done.”

“That left it for her to make a living for us. She was a country girl, and unlike him never went to college. There weren’t many unskilled jobs around, but she did what she could, even cleaned houses. But she really held us together in every way. That fact that she alone made some kind of living for us, and that people around town seemed to like her, somehow got to him. He was jealous.”

“My dad wasn’t a mean guy usually, but when he got drunk it could be bad,” he continued. Mickey had now pulled one leg onto the seat, wrapping his arms around it, almost for security. He hesitated for a moment before continuing.

“One day, in 6th grade, I came home after basketball practice and he was screaming at her, demanding money for booze, which of course she wouldn’t give, even if she had it.”

“But something was different this time. I don’t know what set it off, but he was calling her a whore and a slut and accusing her of all kinds of stuff. It was crazy, he was in some kind of mad rage.”

“Well, it was winter, and the house we were renting had a clunky old furnace that didn’t work half the time, so we had to use the fireplaces. She was the one who kept the flames going and had recently stoked up for the evening.”

“Well… he grabbed a hot poker that she had just put back on the mantel and said, 'I’m tired of putting up with your shit!'”

Mickey paused for a moment and rubbed his forehead.

“Are you doing OK?” Drew asked. Mickey only reacted with a weak nod of his head and continued.

“My brother Nate was really small then and was hanging onto her crying and screaming. All I could do was to try to protect her and I ran and stood in front of them. ‘Leave them alone!’ I told him.”

“The look in his eyes, there was rage and hate. I don’t know where it came from, his frustrations, some phobia, I don’t know. But that look, and the smell of alcohol on his breath, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it.”

Mickey paused again and rubbed his eyes with his hand. There was a short, almost imperceptible moan, but then it was quiet again.

Reaching over and putting his hand on Mickey’s leg, Drew said, “You don’t need to go on, Mickey. It’s OK.”

He gently tapped the top of Drew’s hand with his finger. “I… um just need a sec.” he said before taking deep breath and continuing his story.

“'Get out of my way!' he yelled, and he went to hit my mom. I saw it coming and pushed her away. But I couldn’t move away quickly enough to get out of the way, and he hit me in the face with the hot poker.

“I guess he was so stunned he just froze for a moment, but the poker was still on my face. I think I yelled, I can’t exactly remember. I know I tried to move but the poker just rolled down my face then dropped to the ground.

It was kind of a blur after that. I remember my mom and brother holding me, then an ambulance then…”

Drew gently squeezed his leg.

“My dad ran into their bedroom and shut the door. After they took me to the hospital, they didn’t tell me for a week that he had used a knife to…um…“He was silent, and Drew didn’t press him to speak.

“With half my face being messed up, it was kind of hard. I had therapy and plastic surgery to do what they could, and I still have some things to do.”

“I hated it that people looked at me, I just wanted to be normal, but I guess that would never happen again,” he continued. “When I went back to school, some of the kids were OK, but a lot of them weren’t. I think that I scared everyone,” he said. He raised his head to the sky and just slowly exhaled.

“After that, I kind of just buried myself in school,” he continued. “It was lucky that I had a knack for it. My mom encouraged me a lot, which helped. Later, my eighth-grade teacher was Mrs. Glynn, who was married to a local doctor. They didn’t have any kids, so she and her husband kind of took an interest in me.

“Dr. Glynn had gone to Middlefield, and she and he planted the seed that I should maybe consider going away to a boarding school. They said I had great potential and could really benefit from the education and experience.”

“I hardly even knew what boarding school was. But I did know that it would cost a lot of money, which we certainly didn’t have. Not to mention that I’d never been away from home, not even out of Ohio.”

“But they were persistent. My mom was originally skeptical, both for family and for cost reasons, of course. But Dr. Glynn couldn’t say enough good things about how it helped him grow and mature, and how the resources of the school were way beyond the local schools, on and on and on.”

“I think my mom responded to his reasoning, but what she eventually also saw was that it was a chance for me to have a fresh start. People would still look at… um… my face, but they didn’t know the history, my family, all the baggage that we had in our town. Even then, however, she saw it as a pipe dream and tried not to get her hopes too high.

“We had to drive like 30 miles to take the boarding school entrance test, and I was pretty nervous. But I did good enough to get accepted.”

“And get a scholarship! How well did you do?” Drew asked, smiling.

"Well, I did OK, considering that I went to a public school in a relatively poor district.”

“Can I ask what you scored? You must have done really well.”

“Um… 800 on everything but math. There was some stuff there I had never had, so I had to figure it out as I went through the test,” Mickey responded.

“And how did you do on that?” Drew asked again.

“780.”

Drew smiled, “That still knocks it out of the park,” he responded. Mickey was still in the 99th percentile.

For the first time since they started talking, Mickey gave a faint smile. It was weak, but it was there.

“Anyway, I don’t know Dr. Glynn’s role in my acceptance and if he paid them off or what, but I got a full ride, everything. Even transportation and clothes. My mom was ecstatic. Nate less so. But I promised him that I would call every night and that he would follow me there, without knowing how difficult that could be. But, in the end, he did just that.”

“How did it go for you there?” Drew asked.

“I was so shy when I arrived, especially about my face, the first semester was really tough. But I have to say, they really figured me out. They had a counselor work with me about talking in front of groups and not being ashamed or embarrassed. By the end of my time there I really enjoyed giving chapel talks when I had the chance. I’m still nervous each time I get in front of a new group, but once I get started I can actually enjoy it now

“I thought you were a natural when I met you in that first class. You were great!” Drew enthused.

“Um… thanks. It really was fun, but I wouldn't have been able to do that if the counselor at Middlefield hadn’t spent all that time with me.”

“I need to pay them back,” Mickey said, raising his head, and for the first time, looking at Drew. “I need to do something for Middlefield, for Mrs. Glynn and Dr. Glynn. My mom, Nate…” then he looked away again.

“After I graduate, I might need to go to New York to do corporate law for a couple years to save up some money, but I want to move back home and take care of my mom. Everybody here wants to live in New York or LA, Chicago, San Francisco. But me…” he paused.

“…I just want to go home,” he continued, softly. It was quiet for a few moments as they both seemed to let Mickey’s talking sink in.

“By the way, could I ask you a favor?”

“Of course, anything,” Drew quickly answered.

"It’s a lot, um…”

“Anything, Mickey. Just ask.” Drew said, moving slightly closer.

“Could you not drink around me? I don’t mean that you should never drink, my mom even drinks beer, and so does Nate. But don’t do it around me, OK? When I smell beer on someone’s breath, it reminds me and… and you, you know, you’re my… friend.”

The answer was instant. “Mickey, I promise that you’ll never smell alcohol on my breath again. Ever,” he replied. He was looking at Mickey, who almost seemed too embarrassed to look back at him.

Like earlier, he almost spoke in a whisper. “Thank you.”

"By the way, Mickey, could I ask you a personal question?”

The inquiry made him nervous, but he just automatically said, “Sure.”

“Do you have anyone… special… in your life, I mean, someone you can talk to about this stuff?” It was the one time in the evening that Drew himself sounded nervous or hesitant and his delivery was very awkward.

It almost felt like a cue for him to finally say something to Drew, but he wasn’t exactly sure of what he was getting at and resisted the temptation. But he was glad that he could at least be very honest with the answer.

“Except for my brother, Nate, no. I don’t. They could solve my public speaking problem at Middlefield, but no one can do much about that part of my life,” he said with another slight smile.

“What do you mean?” Drew asked.

“I’m obviously not the cutest guy in the room, that’s clear, especially in the gay world, where looks seem to count for so much. But I’ve tried to keep in good shape, work out and all that. I think I’ve got a decent body, but…” He paused again, and didn’t continue.

“But what?” Drew asked.

“I went out with one guy, umm… I won’t go into the gory details,” he said, trying not to be graphic with Drew, “But I guess… well, I like to kiss, I think it’s great, I like it as a way of people expressing… stuff… or whatever… anyway, there was one guy, his name was Ray, I dated him in college, he was a couple years older. I was kind of flattered that someone would actually pay attention to me,” Mickey said, his voice getting a bit more fervor in it.

“He liked to sleep together and all. But he wouldn’t really look directly at me, it was always sort of askew. And he… um… he wouldn’t kiss me very much, hardly at all. I think I was initially in denial, and it took me a while to realize that he was just using me.”

Unconsciously, Drew’s free hand was balling into a fist.

“I thought that having a decent body would be enough for a relationship, that working out would make me attractive to guys. That they would like me.”

“Mickey, you of all people know better than that. If someone likes you it’s not conditional on your body or looks,” Drew said.

“I know, I know,” Mickey responded, resignation in his voice. “I guess that I just felt helpless, and still do a little bit. But now I just workout to be healthy and don’t try to dress to look sexy, I just try to wear clothes that feel good and don’t show too much skin. I feel really good physically, and maybe for the right guy the body will be a bonus, I guess.”

Drew didn’t say much the whole time, he just let Mickey talk. But there was no question about whether he was paying attention. Every time Mickey looked up, Drew’s eyes were on him.

They talked for another half hour, until Mickey almost couldn’t speak any more, he was so exhausted.

“You’re getting pretty, tired, pal,” Drew finally said, “Think you need to call it a night? I’ll walk you home.”

Leaning back on the bench and stretching his arms, Mickey replied, “Yeah, maybe we should get going. It is getting late.”

Then his head quickly looked around. “Oh shit! I forgot my backpack, we need to…”

“No worries, I told Andrew to pick yours up along with mine. I knew that I wouldn’t have a chance to catch you if I had too much weight,” he said with a chuckle.

Mickey gave him a small smile and got up off the bench.

“Um, thanks so much for listening to me, Drew. I talked the whole time, I hardly give you a chance to get a word in.”

“I was glad to listen, and really feel good that you trusted me, Mickey. I really do.”

“I’ll be an ear if you ever need me, too, Drew,” he replied.

“I know. And you’ll get your chance someday. I’m sure of it.” he said, then seemed to catch himself and suddenly stopped.

It was a perplexing comment. Mickey didn’t understand exactly what it meant, but he gave a smile to Drew that let him know he’d be there.

“Anyway, I should let you go, it really is late,” Mickey said. “No need to walk me home, Drew, I’ll be OK.”

“When I said that I’d walk you home I wasn’t asking permission. I told you what I was going to do. You’ve had a really tough day and there is no way that you should walk home by yourself. So I’m going with you.”

Mickey just gazed at him and stood there. After collecting his thoughts, he finally just said, “That would be great.”

                                 ***

After they reached Mickey’s house they both stood in front for moment, but neither spoke. Drew had his hands in his pockets, as Mickey faced him. They were still on the main sidewalk, near the big tree where the small walkway led off to the side door entry.

"Hey, Drew, one thing,” Mickey started, his voice only slightly weary from the long evening. “I was out of line when I asked you to not drink around me. You can do anything you want, I’ll be OK, no problem. I guess I was just kind of tired and all…”

Drew interrupted him. “It made me feel really spe… good that you asked me,” he said.

Mickey thought that he started to say ‘special’ but changed in midsentence.

After being the calming force almost all evening, Drew now seemed to be very nervous. Mickey wasn’t sure what was happening. He thought that maybe he talked too much, told Drew too much, overwhelmed him. For the first time since he ran from the bar he actually felt a chill, and was about to apologize again for what had happened back at the bar.

Suddenly, with no warning or words, Drew pulled him into a hug.

His powerful arms wrapped completely around him, enveloping Mickey in a warmth that he’d not ever experienced before. It was such a surprise that he was at first tentative, but then returned the embrace with equal strength. It almost seemed like Drew was looking for comfort and warmth as much as he was, and Drew’s grip became, if anything, firmer.

Besides the obvious pleasure, Mickey said to himself, ‘wow, this boy is solid!’ He felt like a rock, and not just metaphorically.

The most stunning moment, however happened when he started to release the hug. Instead of just stepping away, he seemed to intentionally drag his cheek across the wounded side of Mickey’s face. Mickey was so surprised he could hardly believe what had just happened.

As he finally pulled away, he noticed that Drew’s hands were trembling. In fact it looked like his whole body was shaking.

“What’s the matter, Drew? You’re shaking,” he asked, with as much sympathy as he could put into his voice.

Drew swallowed hard, and didn’t answer for a moment. He then said something that sounded like ‘It’s too dangerous,’ or something like that.

“I didn’t hear, what did you say?” Mickey responded, his fatigue gone and all his senses trying to tune into Drew.

He swallowed again. His mouth was clearly dry, but he still able to say, “I need to go now and take care of Daisy, but I want to see you walk into the house and that you get inside.”

“Do you want to come inside and rest for sec before you go back?”

It looked like Drew was trying to control his breath and paused before answering. “Not tonight, Mickey, but thank you. I’m… uh… fine, but I need to see you get inside before I leave.”

“I’ll do it under one condition,” Mickey responded. “That is, you need to call me when YOU get home so that I know that you’re OK. If I don’t hear from you in the next half hour then I’m going to go looking for you.”

"And to makes sure that you aren’t faking it, you need to send me a selfie with you holding Daisy’s right paw.”

Drew chuckled. “You don’t trust me, do you?”

“More than anyone, I trust you, Drew. That’s why you need to go straight home.”

       ***

As Mrs. O'Donnell went to take out the garbage later than night, she noticed something odd about the overflowing recycling bin next door. The occupant, Drew Patterson, son of the notorious Patterson family, would have the occasional party and there would be some extra rubbish, and that’s what it looked like.

But the strange thing was that there had been no party tonight, at least no party that made any noise. And since Drew’s living room and hers were separated by only a few feet, any extra noise wouldn’t have escaped her attention.

Curious, she stuck her head over the fence and realized that the pile consisted exclusively of empty bottles of alcohol, including beer, wine, and even a few empty bottles of whiskey. All sorts of stuff. Way more than any one person could drink.

As returned to the back of her house, she happened to glance up at Drew’s kitchen window and could see the profile of someone inside standing at the sink. With a bottle in each hand, he was pouring the libations down the drain. Until, suddenly, he weakly set them down on the counter, put his head in his hands, and sobbed.