Are You Sitting Down?, Page 9

  I should have gone to stay with Clare, but I agreed to Travis and Martin’s plan instead. Besides, they had the keys to my car, and I’d need their help moving out of my apartment when I came back home. As soon as I got back to Ruby Dregs, I was definitely going to find a new place to live. There was no way I could stay in my old place after what had happened there with Lind.

  It’d been six weeks since then. No twelve-step programs. No Alcoholics Anonymous. At Travis’s place, he didn’t preach to me one bit. He even took me out to a night club after a few nights in Memphis. He bought me a couple of drinks and drove us home afterwards. After a week, he gave me my keys and told me to be safe driving home; he was letting me go all on my own. He drove up a week later and he and Martin helped me move into an apartment across town.

  I don’t know why none of them, not even Mom, said anything scolding to me since the phone call with Mom the day I ran away. It’s as if they were finally treating me like an adult. It almost worried me. I expected the finger pointing and ranting from them, at least from Mom.

  “Why is everyone pretending nothing happened?” I asked out loud at the dinner table that night. Mom had offered to fix a meal for us after a long day of moving my stuff.

  “We’re not pretending,” Martin said.

  “No one has said anything about all of this,” I said.

  “What do you want us to say?” Mom asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve been building myself up for a long counseling session from all three of you, an hour of ‘I told you so,’ especially from you Mom.”

  “We’re tired of all that,” Mom said.

  “What?”

  “Sebastian, we’ve wasted our breath trying to talk to you. Telling you to stop drinking and stop running around with the wrong crowd has been a waste of time. It’s time you took responsibility for your own actions,” Mom said.

  “I didn’t kill that girl.”

  “I didn’t say you did. But that girl was a drug addict you’d been dating for some time. Both of you were drunk and sniffing cocaine. I’m not saying it doesn’t matter that she died that night, but you were passed out on the floor. You were practically knocking on death’s door yourself.”

  “I’m okay—”

  “You’re okay now, and I’m thankful for it. But what about the next time? You’re not a cat, Sebastian. You don’t have nine lives, so I don’t know why you constantly toy with the one you do have. As soon as the cops dismissed you from the charges, what did you do? You went to a bar and right back to your old habits.”

  “Okay, fine. Whatever.”

  The slap across my cheek came from nowhere, a motherly reflex as if she were killing a fly in the kitchen in mid-air. It stung my face and brought uncontrollable tears to my face.

  “Whatever? Is that how you feel about your life? Whatever! If that’s how you feel, then why in the hell do you sit here at my table and ask why we haven’t said anything? You don’t listen to us, so we’re all tired of talking!”

  That was the first time I can remember ever hearing my mother swear.

  “I’m outta here,” I said slamming my chair back and getting up from the table.

  For effect, I threw my tea glass on the floor. Walking toward the front door, I heard the shattered glass settling behind me. I felt a hard grip on the back of my shirt and knew it was one of my brothers. Martin spun me around to face him and then slammed me against the door. As if in slow motion, I tried to raise my arms to block him. His fist moved in the realness of time and landed across my face where Mom had slapped me. I fell to the corner of the threshold and buried my face in my knees.

  “Martin!” Mother cried, still standing next to the table.

  “Don’t ever disrespect this house or disrespect her like that. She’s your mother!” he screamed down at me.

  It was anger I’d never seen before, not even in Dad. Martin left out the back door. Travis came over to help me up, but I jerked away from him. With my burning face buried beneath my arms, I sat there in embarrassment and shame. I could hear Mom sweeping up the broken glass. I don’t know how long I sat there like that.

  I don’t know why I still didn’t listen to any of them. After that, I kept drinking. I kept smoking. I occasionally snorted a line at a party if it was offered to me. But every sip of alcohol, every joint I rolled, every grain of white powder sucked up into my nostril after that day was infected with guilt. My Mom’s words echoed in my ears when there was a beer bottle in my hand. Her face formed in the smoke I exhaled, but she wasn’t saying “I told you so.” She was just looking at me and weeping.

  No matter how much I drank or smoked, this time the guilt wasn’t going away.

  Travis

  I held the door open for Sebastian, watching him walk up the drive. He was holding a stack of red envelopes, probably Christmas cards for each of us. He was never one to shop for personalized gifts.

  “Hey, little brother,” I said to him as he walked in.

  I expected him to ignore me. I had not seen him since that day Martin hit him a few months ago right here in the doorway.

  “Hey there. Merry Christmas,” Sebastian said handing me an envelope with my name scribbled on it in his scratchy penmanship.

  “Thanks,” I said taking it from him as he stepped inside. “Yours is under the tree.”

  “Hey, sweetie,” Mom chimed.

  There was a much different vibe in the air today than when I’d last been in the same room with Sebastian and Mom. Maybe it was just because of the holiday. I sometimes felt like I was kept in the dark with my family, mainly because I was the only one who had moved away from this town. Although I came back and visited regularly and spoke to Mom on the phone on the weekends, if anything happened in between no one made it a habit to let me know. Being gay probably aided in making me the black sheep. Today, Sebastian’s demeanor told me I’d missed out on something. My Mom’s next words confirmed it.

  “How is school going?” she asked him.

  “School?” I said.

  “Sebastian enrolled in night classes,” she said.

  “When did this happen?” I asked looking back and forth from Mom to Sebastian.

  “A few weeks ago,” Sebastian said with a shy grin.

  “What are you going to school for?” I asked.

  “Massage therapy.”

  “Are you still working at Zero’s?”

  “No, the manager wouldn’t let me come back after what happened. I’m waiting tables again.”

  “In a bar?”

  “In a restaurant down on the court square.”

  “Wow, that’s great! I’m proud of you,” I said.

  “Hey, Sebastian, if you need someone to practice massages on, keep me in mind,” Clare spoke up from the sofa.

  “Will do, Sis,” he said walking over to her and giving her a light squeeze on the shoulder. He took Jake from her and held him up in the air to say hello.

  “How’s my little nephew doing?” Sebastian said playfully.

  Although I’d just found out his good news, I was happy for Sebastian being enrolled in classes. We’ve all had our hardships the past few years, but Clare and Sebastian had provided quite a few gray hairs for Mom and Dad since high school. Now that Clare was a mother and Sebastian was in school, I think their course in life was finally leading them in a mature direction.

  Sometimes I wondered if they thought we were boring. Martin, Ellen, and I had all gone to college and established lives for ourselves after that. For the most part, we stayed out of trouble and all landed steady jobs.

  Although Clare and Sebastian probably thought of me as a stiff, I certainly wasn’t without sin. It’d been years seen I’d gone home drunk with a stranger after a night of partying. I could count on one hand the number of times that actually happened and have fingers left over.

  Clare still played with dolls and Sebastian collected model cars back when I was living the life they are now. I think it was easier back when I was growing up, although
that hasn’t been but a decade (or two) ago.

  No matter how reckless their lives had seemed, I can’t help but be a little jealous of what they have experienced so far. I never drank a drop of alcohol before I was legally old enough, and I’ve still never smoked anything, not even a cigarette to this day. Both of them had done much more than that before they were eighteen. To them, I was probably boring.

  With work hours to clock and bills to pay, the rest of life quickly slips away from you. No reason it was a never ending party for Sebastian. Clare was too young to have a baby when she did, but she chose to catch up with the rest of us who’d entered that fuzzy part of being where we think we finally have everything figured out. Maybe she always looked depressed because she was still clinging to those good old days, debating on whether or not to admit she was growing old like the rest of us.

  We all couldn’t wait to get out from under our parents’ wings back then. We wanted a car and a credit card, and our own place. When I received my first credit card bill in the mail, or maybe it was the bill for the car loan, or when I wrote that first check to pay the rent, I knew there was no going back. After twelve years of school and four years of college, was this what I’d been waiting for? Justin was my answer to that question.

  In all the ten years we’d spent together, I never knew loneliness the way I do now. It’s the kind of feeling that makes your throat sore from swallowing or coughing too hard during the night, that constant nagging at your insides during the day when you know you are about to come down with something. It’s always there, in the back of your mind, and all you can do is get through your day and wait for the worst to come. I doubt they’d ever been in love, but I wondered what kind of loneliness Sebastian and Clare felt.

  Just then, the door bell rang. Mom rushed to answer it.

  “Trick or Treat!” Robbie and Rachel yelled when Mom opened the door.

  “Trick or treat? Where are your costumes? There’s no Halloween candy here,” Mom said, teasing them.

  “Mama, we fooled Granny,” Robbie said, turning to Ellen who was walking up behind them.

  “Granny, I have a gift for you,” Rachel said

  “You do?”

  Rachel pulled a can of cranberry sauce out from under her coat and presented it to her with a flourish.

  “Thank you, sweetie. It’s what I always wanted,” Mom said, playing along by taking it from her and clutching it to her heart.

  She knelt to hug both of them. They kissed her on the cheek.

  “Merry Christmas, Granny,” Robbie and Rachel both chimed as they pulled away from her and peeked around her to see who was inside.

  “Merry Christmas to you too. Go inside and say hello to Uncle Travis, Uncle Sebastian, and Aunt Clare.”

  “Hi, Mom,” Ellen said.

  “How are you?” Mom asked, hugging her neck.

  “I’m good,” Ellen said with a smile.

  After hugging Robbie and Rachel, I stood behind Mom to greet Ellen. It was good to see her smile. I’m sure it came easier to her these days. Mom, Sebastian, and me all accompanied Ellen to her car to help her bring in their things.

  “Where’s Mark?” Sebastian asked outside.

  I hit him on the shoulder to get him to shut up.

  “What did I do?” he asked.

  “I thought you would have told everyone by now,” Ellen said to Mom.

  “Tell me what?” Sebastian asked.

  “Mark isn’t coming this year,” Ellen said.

  “Shit, who am I supposed to watch football with?” Sebastian said.

  “Don’t look at me,” I replied.

  “You can watch football with Martin. Are you and the kids staying the night?” Mom asked Ellen, changing the subject.

  “Yeah, our bags are in the trunk. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Of course, everyone can stay as long as they like,” Mom said.

  Who could blame Sebastian for asking about Mark? He had not been here long enough for Mom to tell him. I had never been really close to Mark since I didn’t live here, but I knew that both Sebastian and Martin considered him to be a close friend. I had always found him to be a bumbling heterosexual idiot. I imagined he blamed himself for what happened to Ellen. If he had not lost his job at the factory, she would have never gone back to work and been subjected to the horrible things that judge did to her.

  Mark was a narrow minded guy who’d never known a day outside of this town. He’d been born and raised here, gone to work here, raised his own family here, and he’d die here. When his glory days of being the quarterback and prom king were over, he was lost. An assembly line factory job was the only option for someone who didn’t want to go to college or join the armed forces. His arrogant haughtiness kept Ellen at home to raise the two kids, but broke his pride when he lost his job and was no longer the bread winner.

  Landing a job at the funeral home should have been a metaphor for the end of the road for him. I figured any job that required him to do more than punch a button or turn a key was going to be a challenge. Steady work would not keep his family from falling apart though. While Mark thought he was picking up the pieces, and Ellen thought she could help him out by going back to work, the mirror they’d been looking into shattered all over again.

  I think Mark pretty much gave up after that. By the time the judge’s soap opera was revealed and their names were in the morning paper, Mark had forgotten how to reach out and touch his wife. I doubt Ellen wanted to be touched. It wasn’t her fault. The touch of any man was the feeling of the judge’s hands crawling on her. She froze up even when I hugged her. She didn’t want it to be that way, but it was like the terror of looking upon a gruesome auto accident. Those images and feelings were burned into her memory and could not be washed away.

  I think he tried to be there for her in the very beginning. He sat beside her and held her hand in court. He cheered when the judge’s sentence was announced, and when Ellen’s reparation check came. He mistakenly felt their story now had a happy ending, and Ellen could somehow magically go back to being a happy house wife since he was working full time again. Mark was impatient though when it came to her healing process. He fell out of love with her.

  Sebastian had wanted to treat Martin and me to lunch the weekend that we helped him move. After a long morning of transporting his belongings across town, he took us to a bistro called Poteet’s where he once worked. It was a sports bar steakhouse type place, with outbursts of yelling at the television and rounds of high fives, adjacent to the shopping mall and the movie theater. The three of us sat at a pub table in the far corner of the restaurant, away from the busy activity surrounding the bar where everyone was watching a baseball game.

  I was tired, but leisurely enjoying just sitting there and people watching while Martin and Sebastian talked. That’s when I noticed Mark sitting at the bar nursing a pitcher of beer. I immediately noticed there were two mugs sitting in front of him, and he wasn’t acting like a tired guy grabbing a cold one after a long day at work. After all it was the middle of the afternoon! He was smiling and seemed joyful, with his eyes glued to the overhead television like everyone else around him. He didn’t notice us. Rather than point him out to Martin and Sebastian, I waited to see who joined him.

  It was not Ellen who returned from the restroom and sat down beside him. It was a young buxom blond who reminded me of a stereotypical cheerleader in a pink fuzzy sweater from some B movie. She giggled and fell into him when she sat down, a bit intoxicated. He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her close, whispering into her ear as she smiled and fluttered her eyes. He filled their beer mugs. I could tell she was rubbing his leg beneath the bar.

  If Sebastian and Martin were not with me, I would have approached him. I still refrained from telling them because I knew they’d run over and knock him off his bar stool. He deserved that, but I kept quiet. My mind refused to believe what I was seeing. This town was so small and although I didn’t know anyone in the bar besides us, chances wer
e half the waitresses had gone to my high school, and half the patrons either worked together, lived next door to one another, or went to school with each other. Everyone in this town knew everyone else, either by face or by name or both.

  Certainly more than half the restaurant knew Mark’s wife if they didn’t know him personally. Her name and picture had graced the pages of the local newspaper for months, pictures of her coming out of the courthouse or getting out of her car at home. So, I couldn’t believe Mark was publicly cheating on Ellen right here in one of the busiest restaurants in town. Maybe no one cared. Maybe everyone minded their own business, or maybe the testosterone filled air made everyone relate to him in some sick way.

  I was frozen in anger as I stared across the bar at him. I imagined Ellen sitting at home with the kids. I wondered what lie he had told her about where he was tonight. How long had this been going on? Staring across the bar at him, I failed to notice right away that Mark caught me looking. The icy and empty look of his eyes snapped me out of my daze. I squinted my eyes at him evilly disappointed. He looked away from me, asking the cheerleader if she was ready to go. He threw some bills on the bar and they left. At the door, he turned and looked back at me one more time. I hoped the expression on my face was enough to let him know he was making a mistake. He was aware. It just took something like this to bring it into focus for him. I wanted him to lie awake at night, worrying over the day I’d tell Ellen what I saw.

  But I’ve never told anyone to this day.

  Martin

  The doctor had diagnosed me with high cholesterol and high blood pressure, and he said I should lose about twenty pounds. That wasn’t exactly the news I was hoping for at my age when I went to have a physical. Marline had done a good job of trying to correct my eating habits. She bought less junk food, fried fewer foods, and made me eat more vegetables. Why did I never listen to my mother back home and finish my spinach or carrots?