Gap Year - 29. Chapter 29

February 19, 2004

Escorial

Palo Alto, CA

Will

My big objective for this afternoon was to take Psyche on a long ride, and I’d managed to achieve that goal. She’d been so excited to see me she’d been stomping and jumping in her stall just like a puppy. I’d pretty much let her set the pace on this outing, and she was in a mood to run, so she did. She’d been tearing across the open land when I pulled on the reins slightly to suggest she slow down. She complied immediately, and we proceeded first at a trot, then at a walk. She paused to eat some grass, while I let my mind go back to this issue with my father.

I couldn’t believe that he was being such an ass. I hadn’t asked him to drop everything for me, and I didn’t think asking him not to call me at two in the fucking morning was unreasonable, but of course he’d made it into a big issue, just because he didn’t get his way. I felt the anger burn through my body at how he was taking me on this fucking emotional roller coaster ride just because he couldn’t bend me to his will. I shook my head, thinking about how this was so typical of him. That last phrase stopped me in my mental tracks as I thought about things in more detail. Actually, this wasn’t typical of him at all. His typical reaction would have been to be cold to me to let me know he was annoyed, and to specify a time when we could talk so he could attempt to win an argument with me.

Instead, he’d been a complete dick, and hung up on me twice. He hadn’t told me where he was, and he had only thrown out a vague promise to talk to me this weekend. The signs were starting to point to something entirely different, and that removed the rage from my system and changed it to concern. He wasn’t reacting like this to make me pay for refusing to be at his beck and call, he was acting like this to drive me away. Something must really be bothering him for him to proverbially lock himself up in his cave. I decided to call Jake, but he didn’t answer my call either. That alone was suspicious. The only thing that would probably make my father lose it was if he and Jake were fighting, and it was really unusual for Jake to not take my calls.

I prompted Psyche to a walk then a trot as we headed back to Escorial, even as I plotted my next move. I tried to call my father again, but as expected, he didn’t answer. In that case, the only real way to get through to him was to confront him in person. We got back to the stables and the guys working there took Psyche back to her stall. I took a second to get her a carrot, then went back to my room for a quick shower and change of clothes. I wanted to get some insight from Stef, but he and Grand were locked away in their bedroom, so I left them alone and headed to Carruthers & Schluter.

Sand Hill Road was the acknowledged epicenter of Venture Capital funding, as most of the major firms had offices along this pretty boulevard. Most of the buildings were nice, but none was as sleek and elegant as the headquarters of Carruthers & Schluter. They’d bought this building a couple of years ago and Stef had transformed it into a veritable Taj Mahal. I walked past the beautiful fountains that showcased sleek modern marble statues and entered through the front doors into a lobby that managed to be ostentatious and classy at the same time. “Hello Will,” the receptionist said, even as I started to fill out the badge I’d need. “Who are you here to see?”

“My father,” I said with a smile.

“Let me call Grace,” she said a bit nervously.

“Don’t do that,” I insisted. “I’ll go find her. I know my way around.” She almost looked like she was going to argue with me, then nodded instead. I saw her pick up the phone as I was leaving, no doubt to inform Grace.

I found Grace waiting for me outside my father’s office. “Good afternoon, Will,” she said, and we gave each other faux cheek kisses in greeting. Grace had been my father’s assistant for years and was almost an extended family member.

“Hey Grace,” I said in a friendly way. “I stopped by to see if I could bother my father.”

“He’s not here,” she said.

“He’s not here?” I asked, confused. He’d said he was in a meeting, and I’d just assumed that meant he was at work. It made sense that he could have meetings away from the office.

“He’s not in this week,” she said.

“Where’s he at?” I asked.

“He told me that I was to tell anyone who asked that he was out of the office on personal business and couldn’t be disturbed,” she said, as if reading from a script.

“Even me?” I asked, shocked that he’d try to block out his own kids.

“Even you,” she said firmly.

“Do you know where he is?” I asked, drilling into her eyes with mine. I could tell that she knew, she just couldn’t tell me.

“Will…” she began, trying to figure out a way to dissuade me from pushing her because she didn’t want to lie.

“What were you supposed to say if Stef asked?” That actually made her sigh in an exasperated way.

“You’re not Stef,” she said, smiling to try and make it a bit humorous.

“If you want, I can call him, and have him call you, then he can tell me what you told him,” I said. “Or you can just tell me.”

“I’m supposed to tell Stef to call him for details,” she said. “I’m really sorry.”

“He’s acting really strangely, and I’m worried about him,” I said to her earnestly.

“He has been acting strangely,” she agreed, showing me that she was worried about him as well.

“I’m worried about him,” I told her again, and waited for her to respond.

She sighed. “I can’t tell you where he is,” she concluded, telling me that despite our mutual fears, she wasn’t going to breach his confidence.

“Can you tell me where he isn’t?” I asked coyly.

“He’s not in Mongolia,” she said, making me chuckle.

“Is he in the City?” I asked. “Is he out of the country?”

“Will, I really can’t tell you,” she insisted.

“I don’t want to have to travel all over the place looking for him,” I said in frustration. She just stared at me, hoping I’d leave and do just that.

“You’re putting me in a tough position,” she said. “I made a promise to your father, and you’re asking me to break it.”

“I can see that, and I feel bad that you’re in this situation,” I said. “But I’m not the one who put you there, he did. So here’s the deal. I’ll let you off the hook for now, but if I can’t track him down by this time tomorrow, I’m going to expect you to help me out.”

“My answer will be the same tomorrow as it is today,” she said defiantly.

“That may be true, but you won’t be giving the same answer to me, you’ll be giving it to Stef and Luke,” I said, leaving that threat hanging, then lightened things up just a bit. “So we’ll both have to hope I’m smart enough to guess where he’s at.”

“I’m banking on your brain,” she said. I nodded and left her and the company behind, and strolled back to my car, thinking of where he might be. The first thing I needed to know was if he was still in the general area.

I called the FBO and spoke to Kent, this dude who put together all of our travel plans. He was an interesting dude: when he talked, he seemed like a 40-year-old burnout, but at the same time he was super organized and efficient. “Hey Will,” he said, his hard-core Southern California nasal accent permeating those two words. “What do you need?”

“I was planning to fly down to LA later on and I wanted to use my father’s plane,” I said.

“No way,” he said. “I’d have to get his OK for you to do that.” My father was such a control freak, it figures he’d set up those kinds of restrictions on his Gulfstream.

“Dude, I know that,” I said, almost aping his accent. “I’m going to call him and get his OK, but I just wanted to know if it was there and if it would be ready if he says alright.”

“Absolutely,” he said. “I just have to notify the pilots.”

“Alright, well don’t do anything unless you hear back from me,” I said, and ended our call. I got to my car and sat in the front seat and tried to think about where he’d be. He wasn’t into road tripping, so he wouldn’t have driven somewhere that was too far away. And if he didn’t drive somewhere, and since his plane hadn’t flown him anywhere, he had to be somewhere around the Bay Area.

But where in the Bay Area? The logical place for him to be was in San Francisco and that made me revisit all my previous hypotheses. Maybe I’d gotten it wrong. Maybe he and Jake were fine, and Jake had to be up in the City for some reason. Maybe they decided to spend a romantic week up there in the condo. They’d be able to enjoy the City when they weren’t working, and the condo would make it seem like they were in an urban cocoon when they didn’t want to hassle with the crowds.

I convinced myself that was where he was, so I buckled my seat belt and got organized to leave. I turned the key to fire up the ignition, enjoying the rumbling sound of the Ferrari’s powerful motor. This car was so much fun to drive. It was hard to have a bad time behind the wheel, and it was especially fun on mountain roads like Highway 17, the highway we took to Santa Cruz. I froze as those last two words seared through my system, even though I had backed halfway out of the parking space. With a new resolve, I finished backing up, put the Ferrari into gear, and headed west to Interstate 280.

We really were alike in so many ways, he and I. When I had to deal with something traumatic, something that was really a big deal, I instinctively found myself craving the presence of the ocean. Even if I couldn’t surf, or even if I couldn’t get in the water, just having it there was like a huge balm, a force that helped me think and feel better. He was exactly the same way, so if he was still in the Bay Area and he was hiding himself away, he’d head for the coast. He could have picked a hotel instead, but he wouldn’t have wanted to hassle with that. He would have gone to a place that was easy and familiar. He was in Santa Cruz. I was sure of it.

I blew down I-280 and hoped that I’d manage to get ahead of the evening traffic. I thought about what a good choice Santa Cruz was for him if he wanted to be isolated. Stef and Grand went there infrequently, and Grandmaman almost never made the drive to the beach. Claire and Jack went there once in a while, as did Marie and John, but they’d never go there in February. If he’d wanted a place to escape to, a place where he wouldn’t be bothered, the house in Santa Cruz was a good choice. It was very unlikely anyone but me would show up to disturb his solitude.

I downshifted as I merged into traffic on Highway 17, glad that I’d made it this far without getting stuck in the evening rush. It would have been nice if it had been warm enough to put the top down, but it was only in the 50s, and it was really windy. I made good time until I got to Lexington Reservoir, and then traffic forced me into that all-too-familiar stop and go pattern. I reviewed my thoughts and while I was doing that, I freaked myself out. Suddenly his behavior made so much sense. Since I was the only person who would likely bug him in Santa Cruz, he’d tried to piss me off, and thus drive me away. I wondered how long he'd been freaking out, and if the phone call I’d gotten in New York was part of that plan. I was sure the call today was. As soon as he found out I was home, he lashed out at me to get me to stay away from him. I had no idea what was causing him all the stress I assumed he had, but whatever it was had to be a really big deal for him to act like this.

The traffic was almost at a stop, which was so frustrating, since I was pretty sure I’d solved this mystery, and instead of being pissed at him I was now really worried about him. I almost panicked, then calmed myself down before I got so freaked out that I ended up running into someone. Inch by inch the Ferrari moved forward until finally we rounded a bend and found a wreck blocking the right lane. Traffic slowed because of the lane closure and because people were going slow to gawk at the damaged vehicles. It looked like a pickup and a Honda Civic had gotten into a battle, and the Honda had gotten the worst of it. I laughed to myself at how I’d been so annoyed by the other people who went slower to look, and then I did the same thing.

Once I was past the accident, the traffic was thin, and I could crank the Ferrari and really enjoy the road, using every bit of its precision handling to seemingly fly along the highway. I didn’t worry too much about tickets because I assumed that the cops were all busy with the wreck. When I got to Scotts Valley, I called ahead to the Round Table in Santa Cruz and ordered pizzas. I was hungry, and I assumed that he would be too.

When I got to Santa Cruz, I went into a grocery store to grab a few things, then swung by Round Table to collect my order. That whole detour had only delayed me about half an hour. Now armed with my resolution that he was in Santa Cruz, along with my rations, I headed north on PCH until I got to our gates. My transponder prompted them to open up for me, allowing me to zip through them and head down the drive to the house, where I saw an old Nissan Pathfinder parked off to the side, which was strange. I shrugged internally, figuring that maybe it was someone here doing some work around the place. I started to worry that I’d completely guessed wrong and that Dad wasn’t here, but when I hit the button to the garage door, I sighed with relief when I saw his Porsche parked there. I’d found him.

I was tempted to rush out to the point and check out the waves, but surfing for me would probably have to wait until tomorrow. Besides, I was hungry and had shit to unload. I grabbed the pizzas and walked into the house. I was going to shout and see if anyone answered, but the place felt weird, so I kept quiet. Maybe he was surfing, I reasoned. But if that was the case, whose Nissan was that, and where was that dude?

I put the pizzas on the counter and looked at the kitchen, which was trashed. It looked like someone had been trying to make food and had only succeeded in making a mess. I shivered and saw that the temperature was turned way down, so I jacked up the heat and started exploring, unsure as to what I would find. I went to the bedroom that he normally used and the door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open and it was so dark it was almost blacked out. I flipped on the light and took in the scene in front of me. There was a young dude, one who actually looked a little bit like Dustin, the asshole in New York. He was sprawled on his stomach completely naked, with his legs spread enough to show off his cute pucker. My father was on his side with his back to this dude. “Turn off the fucking light,” the dude moaned. They were both completely out of it. I looked on the nightstand and there was a pipe there. I picked it up, looked at it, smelled it, and got really pissed. They’d been doing Tina. Guess Dad had decided to party and play. The danger of that drug, and memories of what had happened to Pat, the dude who was my guard when I was younger, just hyper charged my anger. The thought of my father as a circuit boy was enough to overwhelm all of my restraints.

I grabbed the dude’s clothes and took them out to the front room, rummaging through them to make sure he hadn’t planned to steal anything. It was a good thing I did, since I found my father’s Rolex, the one he inherited from Robbie, in his pocket. That made me even more angry. I went back in and pinched his ass hard. “What the fuck?” he mumbled.

I leaned in so I was speaking into his ear and raised my volume enough that it must have sounded like I was fucking yelling. “Get your ass up, and get the fuck out of here, or the next thing you know there will be cops all over here searching you for the rest of your T.”

“I’ll wake him up and he’ll make you fucking disappear,” he said, gesturing at my father.

“You are fucking with the wrong dude,” I said, and pulled out my phone.

“Fine,” he said, and tried to get up. I held out my hand and pulled him up, trying not to notice how handsome he was, and how his nice big dick flopped around. “I need my fucking clothes.”

“They’re in the kitchen,” I said, then waited until we got to that room to go on. “What the fuck did you do?”

He put on his pants and frowned when he noticed the Rolex was gone. “I met that dude downtown. He was up for a good time.”

“So you got him wasted on T?” I demanded.

“Fuck yeah,” he said, staring at me like I was an idiot. “You never done that?”

“No,” I said.

“It’s like the best sex you’ll ever have. You feel no pain, you’re happier than you’ve ever been, and all you want to do is fuck. And when you fuck, you can fucking last forever, or at least he could. I’m so fucking sore I don’t know if I can sit down,” he said. “So you can be all pissed off about it, but it was one of the best experiences of my life, and I think he had a good time too.”

“Whatever,” I said, mellowing a bit. It wasn’t like me to bust someone’s balls about their drug choices. I’d save that for my father.

“He was all sad and mopey before, so it was nice to see him get all happy and be a fucking stud,” he said. “Guess I should go.” He made to leave, but I stopped him.

“Wait,” I said. “Did you guys use condoms?”

“Dude, I was focused on the dick in my ass, so I don’t know if he did or he didn’t, but it’s not like there’s a fucking waterfall flowing down my taint, so I’m guessing he was safe,” he said. I took out my wallet and pulled out a bunch of cash.

“Here,” I said, handing it to him.

“I’m not a whore,” he objected, even as he took the cash and put it in his pocket.

“Take this, and in exchange, if you ever see him again, you go nowhere near him,” I said. He was going to argue, but instead he shrugged and walked out the door. I made sure he was gone, locked the door behind him, and went back to the kitchen.

The pizza was cold by now, so I heated the oven and put it in, and while it was cooking, I cleaned up the kitchen and the great room. Now that I knew the deal, the mess made much more sense. They’d probably fucked on damn near every surface in these rooms. I sat at the counter and started eating pizza, trying to grapple with this whole situation. Based on how Dad was now, I must have talked to him when he was coming down from his high. No wonder he was grumpy and argumentative. In any event, one question was answered: he was definitely having problems with Jake if he was picking up tweaked out twinks and fucking them.

Whatever happened between Dad and Jake was obviously causing him a lot of pain, and I felt bad about that, but the bullshit way he’d been dealing with me mitigated that just a bit. And I was really pissed that he’d go and pick up this dude, smoke some meth, and fuck him for God knows how long. He had the nerve to give me attitude about being hammered after a night on the town, while he was here doing T? I got up and grabbed a bucket, filled it halfway full of ice and the rest with water, and went back into his room. He had rolled over so he was laying on his other side in the middle of the bed, and I took the bucket and dumped it on him.

“Fuck!” he screamed, even as he looked up to see who had thrown ice water on him. His eyes registered alarm when he saw it was me. “Jesus Christ! What the fuck did you do that for?”

“Get your ass up,” I snarled at him, and stomped out of the room.

He took about ten minutes to dry off and get dressed, then came out to the kitchen in a full-blown rage. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Looking for you,” I said calmly.

“If I’d wanted you to be here, I would have invited you,” he snarled.

“It’s not your house to invite or uninvite me,” I replied logically, really pissing him off.

“You know, your brothers can take a hint. When I want them to leave me alone, they do it. Why can’t you get that? Why can’t you just leave me the fuck alone?”

“You need to work on your manners,” I said in a patronizing way. “If you don’t behave yourself, I won’t share my pizza with you.” Only then did he stop and inhale, and the smell of the pizza permeated both the kitchen and the great room.

“Pizza sounds good,” he said.

“Yeah, I figured you’d be hungry after spending time strung out on crystal meth,” I said angrily. I grabbed the pizza and all but threw it on the table in front of him. “You have a lot of fucking nerve giving me shit, or attitude about anything.”

“What makes you think I was on crystal meth?” he asked, which just set me free. Instead of admitting it, he’d try to get out of it.

“Were you?” I demanded, cornering him. He was trying to think of a way out if it. “Answer the goddamn question!”

“What makes you think you have the right to ask me that at all?” he demanded. I pulled out my phone and started flipping through my numbers. “What are you doing?”

“You want to know what right I have to ask you that question, so I’m going to get some guidance from Stef and Grand,” I said, and hit him with a smarmy grin.

“Yes, I did crystal meth,” he said, caving to my threat. He focused on eating pizza, probably hoping I’d let that whole thing go.

“You call me and bitch at me for being drunk off my ass, and you’re doing Tina?” I demanded. “Dude, I have not tried that yet, but now I want to.”

“You’re smart enough to make your own decisions,” he said. He didn’t really mean that, but he was smart enough to avoid falling into the trap I’d laid for him. “Where’s Danny?”

“Was that the dude you fucked?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said, even as he ate.

“How long did you do that shit? How long were you two here?” I asked.

“Can’t you answer a simple question?” he demanded, losing patience. I just stared at him, waiting. “I met him yesterday afternoon. He spent the night, then we crashed in the morning.”

“Then this afternoon when I called you, you were dealing with coming off that shit, and decided to take it out on me,” I spat at him.

“Are you going to tell me where Danny is?”

“Why?” I demanded. “Why do you care?”

“Because he was a nice guy, he was a lot of fun, and I wanted to give him some cash,” he said, trying to be sincere, but I could see he was obviously lying. I was in no mood to listen to his bullshit.

“How much meth did you buy?” I asked.

“I didn’t buy any,” he said, getting pissed at me. “He had it with him. But I wanted to give him some cash.”

I picked up his Rolex and threw it at him, and it hit him hard in the shoulder then fell on the ground. “I woke him up, gave him some money, and threw him out. And he was such a nice guy, he had your Rolex in his pocket and would have stolen it if I hadn’t searched his pants first.”

“Oh,” he said. Getting hit by the watch had to hurt, but it was the fact that it had been Robbie’s really bothered him. The symbolism was pretty intense.

“You are so fucking stupid!” I yelled. “How could you be such a fucking idiot! You push everyone who cares about you away, and then you hook up with a sugar baby who was going to roll you!”

“He was fun,” Dad said quietly.

“Did you use condoms with him?” I asked. He said nothing. “God damn it, fucking answer me!” I shouted, at a volume that exceeded anything that was allowed in our houses.

“I used condoms,” he said, but it wasn’t very convincing. He sighed. “I used condoms, but one of them broke. I didn’t realize it at first. When I did, I put another one on.”

“Terrific,” I said, shaking my head. “So first thing on your agenda tomorrow is to get tested.”

“I can do that,” he agreed, totally defeated.

“Clearly you and Jake are having issues,” I said, mellowing now that he was being honest and cooperative. “Otherwise he’d be pretty pissed about this.”

“You going to tell him?” he asked nervously. That pissed me off all over again, because he was trying to get me to make a promise about confidentiality before I even knew what his deal was.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“We’re getting divorced,” he said.