Gap Year - 31. Chapter 31

February 19, 2004

Santa Cruz, CA

Will

“I told you, even before we got serious, that I needed my independence,” Jake said defiantly.

“So that means you can just pick up and leave me?” Dad asked. “I can’t see where you being on active military service was part of the deal.”

“No, what I thought would happen is that you would realize how important this was to me, the ability to clear my name, and you’d support me,” Jake said.

“Dude, you both bring baggage to this relationship, didn’t you get how awful this would be for him?” I asked Jake.

“I should have known that when push came to shove, you’d take his side,” Jake accused.

Before I could flay him alive, Grand intervened. “I do not think Will is taking sides, he is just trying to make sure that the issues are clearly disclosed.”

“So in a battle like this, no one wins. It’s a zero-sum game. I go and I win; I stay and he wins,” Jake said, then turned to my father. “I don’t think you understand how important this is to me.”

“And I don’t think you understood how important you were to me,” Dad responded.

“Were?” I asked him. “If he weren’t still important to you, you wouldn’t be acting like this.”

“You’ve made it very clear that we are over,” Jake said bitterly.

“And you know exactly why we are over,” Dad said, with real venom.

“You both may know, but I do not,” Stef intervened smoothly. I loved having him at things like this, because he had limited patience for mystery and beating around the bush.

“We went out on Saturday, for Valentine’s Day,” Dad said to Jake as if he were reading from a journal. “You told me that you needed to make a decision on whether you were going to go back into the army by Monday, so I figured that we’d talk about it. And to be honest, because it was such a romantic date and such a nice restaurant, I got my hopes up that you’d stay here with me.”

“I never led you on,” Jake objected. “Shit, we’ve been fighting about this for a month.” That explained why they hadn’t made it to Australia, and it also explained my father’s shitty moods.

“I didn’t say that you did, I said that my hopes were up. We had a really nice dinner, we talked about things we wanted to do together, talked about our dreams, and then right before dessert, you told me that you’d decided to go and that you had to leave at the end of the month,” Dad said. I could see where he was coming from. It was probably an idyllic evening, and then Jake had dropped the bomb on him, which just made it worse.

“I don’t think it’s fair for you to be mad at me for having a good time with you at dinner,” Jake said. “You forgot to mention that after I told you I was leaving, you told me that if that was the case, we couldn’t be a couple. Basically, you demoted me to a ‘friends that fuck’ status.”

“Your solution was that I’d be chaste and faithful while you went off and fucked half of Central America,” Dad said. “So no, I’m not signing up for that.”

“This time would have been different, and I would have been faithful to you,” Jake said.

“Why?” Grand asked. I think he interjected himself into their conversation because he was curious, and because he wanted them to remember they weren’t alone.

“Because I’ve got a different status, and I don’t have to fuck people to get information,” he said. We stared at him blankly, not getting it. “An army lieutenant or a guy working on a private case isn’t the same as an army major with links to the CIA.”

“I didn’t know that,” Dad said, confused.

“Because you don’t listen either,” Jake snapped. “Or maybe you heard me, but you didn’t trust me to do that.”

“Would you trust Jake to be on this mission and to be faithful to you?” Stef asked Dad.

“I wouldn’t now,” Dad said, his mood swinging back to anger. Our collective steely glances calmed him down. “I’m not sure about before.”

“What happened to change things?” Grand asked.

“After our nice dinner turned to shit, we decided that all commitments were off, and basically went our separate ways,” Dad said.

“I think it was a little more intense than you make it sound, since they actually asked us to leave the restaurant,” Jake said. That must have been a pretty disruptive conversation. Even a nice restaurant would have thought long and hard before evicting Brad Schluter.

“It had the same ending,” Dad snapped. “I went back to the condo for a bit, then got bored and decided to go out. I went to that leather bar, the one you told me you’d gone to back in the day. I got there, checked things out, then found you in the back, blowing one guy while another one fisted you.” No wonder he was so fucked up.

“Not even…” I started to say, then shut up.

“…Robbie did that,” Dad said, finishing my sentence. Dad had always had that deal with Robbie, that he wouldn’t let anyone else fist him. It seems that he did that so even if Robbie fucked around with another dude, it wouldn’t be so bad because they had one thing that was special, that they only did with each other.

“If everything is fair game, why was that a problem?” Jake demanded.

“Jake, you know why this was a big deal to me, and so does everyone else here. It was like a redline that you crossed, and it made everything we had cheap and meaningless,” Dad said.

“Did Jake understand why that was such an issue for you, and had you laid that out clearly to him?” Stef asked.

“I had,” Dad said. Jake looked briefly at me, then opted not to argue about it. He’d told me when they were dating that he would know my father loved him when he fisted him. He couldn’t wiggle out of that one.

There was one thing that didn’t add up, though, and I decided to ask Dad about it. “Why did you go to the leather bar?”

“I needed to get out and it was convenient,” Dad lied.

“Right,” I said, calling him on his bullshit. “You don’t go to those places, that is most definitely not your scene.” I paused, waiting for him to say something but he didn’t. He wasn’t all that comfortable at normal gay bars, much less a leather bar. “Even if you did, why would you have just wandered into the backroom where dudes were being fisted?” He still said nothing. “So basically, you went there because that’s where you thought Jake would be, and you were trying to bust him.”

“That doesn’t change the facts of what he did,” Dad objected.

“No, but it makes you both look pretty fucking twisted if Jake goes off to do something he knows will piss you off, and you track him down just so you can catch him,” I said, shaking my head at what idiots they are.

“And when you caught me, you walked up to me, pushed the dude I was blowing out of the way, and told me that I was dead to you, and that you never wanted to see me again,” Jake said. It was easy to see both the outrage and sadness in his expression.

“After the way you betrayed me, I thought that was a reasonable request,” Dad said in a pretty nasty way. “And that freed you up so you could pull a train every night.”

“Like you were celibate,” Jake sneered at him.

“How would you know whether he was or he was not?” Stef asked. Of course, he’d get more involved in the conversation when it was about sex.

“Because I saw him the next night at that theater on Nob Hill,” Jake said, raising an accusatory eyebrow.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Dad said snidely. “You were letting some nasty dude fuck you, while I was there for the show.”

“You were there for the show?” I challenged, then started laughing. He was making it sound like it was a theater production and not a strip club.

“The dancers there are really hot, and you can get them to give you private dances,” Dad said. It was cute that he was a little embarrassed talking about this.

“So Jake was whoring around in the cheap seats, while you were in the luxury box paying an escort?” I asked. “I guess that’s better,” I said with a tone that made it obvious that it wasn’t.

“Whatever,” Dad said flippantly, then seemed to fall deep in thought. He emerged from his mental coma about 15 seconds later. When he did, his eyes focused on mine like lasers. “I lied to you.”

“About what?” I demanded a little bit too aggressively, but in this case, I’d read him wrong. He was approaching me delicately, asking me in his own way not to rip him apart over it. “Go on,” I said in a more encouraging way.

“I told you that this was the first time I’d done meth. That’s not technically true. While that was the first time I did it, I’ve been doing it since Sunday,” he said.

“No wonder this has fucked you up,” I said. His symptoms seemed pretty extreme for a one-night extravaganza. He ignored me and continued with his stream of consciousness.

“I hooked up with the dancer. We just blew each other, but he told me he wanted me to fuck him. He’d been fun so far, and seemed like he’d be a good fuck, so I invited him over to the condo. He got there and he was so happy and energetic while I was so miserable it was a complete buzzkill. I was about to give him some money and send him away, but he picked up on the fact that my mind was completely fucked up and told me he could make me feel good, make me forget all my pain.”

He wiped away a tear, and my heart went out to him. “It’s alright Dad.”

“He pulled out his pipe, and I was going to say no, but I was hurting so bad that I decided nothing could be worse than that,” he said, then stared at me, desperately trying to get me to understand. “You saw how bad I was after 9-11. It was like that, and I was ready to do anything to make is stop hurting.”

“It was that bad?” I asked him. We were all shocked by that, but probably none of us more than Jake. That told us all that in Dad’s mind, Jake was just as important, and possibly more important to him than Robbie had been.

“It was that bad,” he said. “So I smoked with him and it was really a rush, and like he promised, I didn’t feel the pain, I was happy, almost euphoric. And the sex was unbelievable. The only problem was that when it wore off, I got tired and crabby, and a little paranoid, and then the sadness would come back even worse. It was overwhelming. That’s when I decided to come down here. I could surf, and I thought that might distract me enough that I could crash and recover.”

“But that didn’t happen,” Jake said. “You wanted more.”

“Yes,” Dad said. “So I went downtown and that’s where I met Danny. I bought enough for us to party through the weekend. I figured that on Sunday I’d sleep and sober up and face the new week.”

“That’s why you were so upset,” I concluded. “When I threw him out, he took all your Tina with him.”

“That’s why,” Dad said. “So now I’m sitting here, trying to think rationally and not lash out at all of you like a complete asshole, while inside I just want to find that pipe and go back to that happy place.”

“The problem is that narcotics will temporarily ease your pain, but they only make the problem worse,” Grand said unnecessarily.

“I know that,” Dad snapped at him, lashing out just like he’d told us he didn’t want to.

Things had gotten really tense and depressing so I decided to insert a pause. “Anyone need a drink?” I took their orders and played bartender for about ten minutes, then sat back down.

“Thank you,” Grand said, with his typical politeness, which prompted similar sentiments from everyone else. When that was over, the room went silent again.

“That dude is the only one who fisted me,” Jake said, seemingly out of the blue. “I knew you’d come looking for me, and I did that to drive you away.”

“You got what you wanted,” Dad said bitterly.

“I thought that it would be easier for you when I was gone if you had washed your hands of me. I thought that way you wouldn’t worry about me, and that maybe you’d forget about me,” Jake said. So in his own bizarre way, he was trying to make this better for my father by making him hate Jake. These two were sometimes clueless on reading each other. Shit, my high school friends weren’t even this big of idiots.

“So you basically knew that your decision would end your relationship?” Grand asked.

“We’d talked about me leaving so much and we’d gotten nowhere. There didn’t seem to be a way to compromise. So yeah, I pretty much knew that would end things,” Jake said.

“I think the fact that you accomplished your goal is a very good thing,” Grand observed.

“I completely agree with you,” Stef said. I didn’t say anything, primarily because I was pretty surprised that they’d both come out with such a firm and final judgment.

“Why is this a good thing?” Dad asked.

“Because you have equated the fact that you are attracted to each other and good together sexually to mean that you are also well-matched in a relationship,” Stef said. “In reality, neither one of you is able to compromise, and neither one of you is focused on the relationship or each other once you leave your bed. Or sling.”

“That was my read on it as well,” Grand said. “You do not start out with the approach that being together makes you happy, and that the relationship must be preserved and prioritized above your own feelings and desires.”

“You’re saying they’re both too selfish to be together?” I asked Grand, distilling his broad statement down to something short and to the point. That usually irritated him, and it did so this time.

“Yes,” Grand quipped in annoyance.

“I can see that,” I said. It was hilarious that both Dad and Jake were furious at being labeled as basically self-absorbed assholes. “I think the thing that strikes me is how both of you just gave up so easily. You didn’t fight at all.”

“Trust me, we fought about this a lot,” Jake said in a frustrated tone.

“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “You fought with each other, but you didn’t fight to save your relationship.”

“How exactly were we supposed to do that?” Dad asked. “It’s not like there’s a way for both of us to be happy with this.”

“You know, you both have shrinks you talk to. Isn’t what you have worth talking to someone? You couldn’t have gone to a marriage counselor? Didn’t you go out and threaten and browbeat JJ until he went back into counseling? And you two can’t at least see if that would help?” I asked.

“As Will noted, you did not see hope, and you were so arrogant that you thought no one else could help you where you could not see a solution,” Stef said.

“I get it. There was no win-win here,” Dad said, infuriating Stef. That was one of Stef’s key buzzphrases; he thought it was profound and got offended when people teased him about it.

“You are correct,” Stef said acidly. “I see only losers.” It was hilarious to watch Jake and my father, both of whom were super-competitive, get all pissed off at being called losers.

“I think at this point, the two of you should try to work to a point where you can be amicable,” Grand said. “If your animosity continues at this level, it will only cause you both harm.”

“Carrying a grudge only hurts the person carrying it,” I paraphrased. Grand gave me a foul look. “What? Isn’t that what you were saying?” He didn’t say anything. In fact, no one said anything. Minutes passed in silence, as we all digested what we’d just learned.

My father suddenly stood up, a look of resolve in his eyes. We all focused on him as he walked over and went to sit on the couch next to me so he was relatively close to Jake. I moved over to give him room. “I heard what you said. I’m sorry if I didn’t hear you before.”

Jake smiled weakly. “Ditto.”

“Will was right. I didn’t mean it when I said I wanted you completely out of my life. I don’t want to hate you,” he said sincerely.

“I agree with you completely,” Jake said, his smile a little bigger. “See, we can get along and agree about some things.”

“Some things,” Dad said a little ominously. “Can you stick around tonight so we can talk more in the morning?”

“I can do that,” Jake said, then looked concerned. “You’re tired?”

“Yeah, and I’m not thinking as clearly as I want to,” Dad said, shaking his head in frustration. “I’m not sure if I can sleep, but I need to.”

Jake pulled the pills he’d brought out of his pocket. “I brought these for you. It’s Modafinil. I used it when I was coming off meth.” Dad didn’t seem surprised about that, so Jake must have already shared that with him. “It will help you sleep, and if you’re like me, it may help you with some of the cravings, both for more meth and for more food.”

“Thanks,” Dad said.

“Those may be expired, but I think they’ll still work. If they do, you’ll need to get a new prescription,” Jake said, babbling a bit because he didn’t know what else to say.

“I can probably get a doctor to give me one,” he joked. He stood up and looked at all of us. “Thanks for helping us talk about this. I need to try and get some sleep and see if I can make better sense out of this in the morning.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, since I’d been the one most involved in forcing him to stick around and because I’d summoned everyone else.

“After traveling all day, I think it is not a bad idea to make it an early night,” Stef augmented. Dad vanished back to his room, while Stef and Grand went back to theirs. Grand made a point to guide Jake to the room designated for him. After they’d all left, I sighed and relaxed back into the soft leather couch.

My peace was interrupted when Tom walked in. “I’ll clean up that room,” Tom said, gesturing to where Dad’s wet bed was.

“Thanks,” I said, and patted him on the shoulder in an appreciative way. I walked around the house to make sure everything was locked up, and moved my Ferrari so it wasn’t blocking Dad anymore. Just when I’d decided my work was done, the driver came back. Tom went out and helped him unload the shit-ton of food he’d gotten while I put it away. I snagged a bag of Doritos and sequestered them away in my room, then came back out to the kitchen to make sure that everything was cleaned up.

“Will you need me anymore?” the driver asked. He must be new because I hadn’t met him yet. He had a pronounced Latino accent.

“I am sorry. I didn’t even introduce myself,” I said in Spanish, getting a smile from him in return. “I’m Will.”

“Juan,” he replied, continuing our conversation in Spanish. He wasn’t very attractive, but he was professional.

After that, I answered his question. “I honestly don’t know. I can find you a room here, or you can probably head back,” I said. He looked confused, probably because he didn’t want to be the one to make that decision. “Here, help yourself to some food, and I’ll be right back.”

I went up and knocked on Stef and Grand’s door, then since it was unlocked, I went ahead and entered. It was hilarious that Tom was already in bed with them. I had to work hard not to giggle. “Juan wants to know if he should stick around or head back?”

“He can go back,” Stef said. “We can always summon him back when we are ready to go if there are no alternative ways to get back.”

“Got it,” I said. They probably heard me laughing after I left, but that was too bad. I told Juan the plan and gave him $50 to grab something to eat besides snacks on the way home. I was about to go back to my room when I changed my mind. Everyone was in bed so it was very peaceful. This room had tons of windows, so I could see the trees blowing from the strong winds, while the fire and couch made it seem very warm and cozy. I set up my laptop, went out to do a couple of hits from my dugout, then came back in and collapsed on the couch. I’d just started going through emails when my father came into the room. “Can’t sleep?”

“No,” he said, frustrated. “I was hoping those pills Jake gave me would work, but I still can’t get to sleep and I’m still hungry,” he grumbled.

“You’re in luck,” I told him. “We got more food.” I forced my tired ass to get up and whip up something to eat. I ended up making macaroni and cheese and was fortunate that the directions on the box weren’t too complicated.

“What are your plans for the next week?” he asked me as we sat in the great room, enjoying our pasta feast.

“I can stick around here for a while, but then I’m heading down to Malibu,” I told him. “I was planning to go on Wednesday and stay over the weekend. There are two big parties I’m going to.”

“Parties?” he asked.

“Friday night is a blowout at Darius’s frat house, while Saturday is a big birthday party for Trevor Buck,” I said.

“I forgot you know the Buck kids,” he said, probably forcing his mind back to the days when he lived in LA.

“I know them,” I confirmed. “I know Travis the best, because I hung out with him in school.” We’d been tight in elementary and middle school. “Taylor’s a year older than me, so I didn’t hang out with her that much but I’ve talked to her more lately. She’s dating Zach.”

“But it’s Trevor’s party,” Dad said, more of a question.

I rolled my eyes. “It’s not like a kid’s birthday party where you have to know the kid really well or you won’t get invited. I know Trevor, mostly because he and Darius are friends.”

“You ever meet their father, Curtis?” he asked.

“No,” I said, cautiously.

Dad laughed. “You think I’m a control freak, wait until you meet him.”

“Terrific,” I said with dread, even though Curtis Buck’s control issues should have no impact on my life.

“You probably don't want to even be around me, but I’d kind of like to spend some time surfing, either here or in LA, if you’re up for that,” he said cautiously. I was going to give him a lecture on how his key focus needed to be making sure he was over his meth craving, but decided to leave that alone for now.

“I’m up for that,” I said with a smile.

“You probably think I’m the biggest idiot in the world,” he said despondently.

“I do,” I said, annoying him by agreeing with him. “I was so happy for you and Jake, because it seemed like you’d finally found a soul mate. I just don’t get how you can toss that away. That kind of love is what most people dream about, what most people long for, but for the two of you, it was inconsequential.”

“I just couldn’t see myself handling him being gone in Mexico for a year,” Dad said.

“So that was worth losing him completely?” I asked. “You two made this an all or nothing deal, where a compromise was worth giving up something beautiful. I don’t think I’ll ever understand that.”

“What if he vanishes to Mexico and gets killed?” Dad challenged. “I don’t think I can handle that. I really don’t.”

“And it’s better now? You still won’t be upset if he dies?” I asked. He gave me a dirty look for being right. “Only now, you don’t have him coming home to look forward to. You guys have turned your beautiful thing to shit. He won’t be able to rely on you when he’s gone, and you won’t be able to talk to him as much as you want to. And when he comes home, he won’t be coming home to you, he’ll be coming home a single man.”

“You think I completely fucked this up,” he said.

“I do,” I agreed, not giving an inch.

“You think I should just tell him that I still love him, I still want to be his partner, and that if he wants to rejoin the Army, I’m behind him one hundred percent?” he asked outraged, as if that was inconceivable.

“I think that’s exactly what you should do,” I said. He shook his head. “Do you remember when Matt found out you slept with Wade, and then he kicked your ass?”

“Yes,” he said, irritated that I’d bring that up.

“And do you remember when he told you and Wade you could still keep on fucking, that it would be OK with him?” I asked. His mind started reeling as he thought about that.

“You’re saying that if I give Jake my blessing and quit fighting with him, he may change his mind?” Dad asked. That’s exactly what I was saying, since I had to put this whole thing in a Machiavellian context for him to understand it.

“Yes.”

We were sitting there in silence, gazing at the fire, when Jake came into the room. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked Dad.

“No,” Dad said, shaking his head in frustration.

“When I went through that, even better than the drugs was having someone to hold on to me, having their physical presence calm and reassure me,” Jake said to Dad. “I know that I’m not your favorite person, but I will do that for you if you want me to.”

Dad smiled at him, and he smiled back. “Thanks. I’d like that.” I rolled my eyes at their backs as they walked down the hallway together.