Just Like Home(47)
“I’m really sorry, Dad,” she says. She means it. She knows she did something wrong, something really wrong, both because everyone seems so upset and because whatever she did, Brandon hated her for it. Even if it was only for that afternoon. He’d hated her.
“Vee,” her father replies, “you don’t have a thing to apologize for. I’m proud of you for telling him ‘no.’” He looks down at her with warm respect. “And I’m proud of you for lying to your mom.”
For a moment, Vera is certain that she has forgotten what words mean. Then, she decides that she’s misheard. It’s the only explanation. “What?”
Her father fidgets with his own fingers, clasping and unclasping his hands. “The thing is, Vee—your mom, she wouldn’t understand. She thinks that boys like Brandon are perfectly normal.” He shakes his head slowly, his chin tucked down into his chest. “There’s some things she doesn’t want me to tell you about that kind of stuff. Some things she doesn’t think you’re ready for. But, Vee”—he’s saying her name so much, it’s twisting a slow tangle into her belly—“I’ve let you down. I should have talked to you about this sooner. I’ve failed you, and I’m sorry.”
Vera is at a complete loss for words. Her father is apologizing to her.
He isn’t mad.
He thinks he’s the one who’s in trouble.
“It’s okay,” she says, because she’s so relieved and because she doesn’t really understand what he’s apologizing for, anyway.
“No.” He’s still clasping and unclasping his hands, gripping his own fingers hard enough to turn the knuckles white. “No, it’s not okay. I’ve let you—I’ve sent you out into the world without the knowledge you need to protect yourself.” He bends forward to pick up her fish, which looks dull now that it’s not thrashing around anymore. He plucks at the fishing line that extends from its mouth to Vera’s stick. “You see, Vee. It’s men. Boys are one thing, but men are another. And I’m sorry to say that it sounds like your little friend Brandon is becoming a man.” The fishing line digs into the meat of his hand as he winds it around and around his fingers, the same way it’s wound around and around Vera’s stick.
Vera doesn’t quite understand. “What does that mean?” she asks. “What’s going to happen to him?”
“Well.” Her father makes a small wet sound, deep in his throat, and pulls the fishing line tighter around his hand. His skin is starting to go pink between the places where the line is creasing the flesh, and his voice is taking on a rhythmic quality, like he’s reading out of a book he’s already read a hundred times. “Boys are just like girls, in almost every way. But men … men are demons, Vee.” He tugs hard on the line, and the fish twitches in a way that doesn’t give Vera the thrill that she got when it was fighting to live. “You can tell because they’re filled with a, with a foulness, a kind of grease, that makes them evil. It turns them into monsters. It’s a dark, sticky, rancid oil and, and it’s in men’s bones and in their bellies, and it, it, it corrupts. Do you understand?”
This feels exactly like learning how to multiply fractions. Vera knows that she’s supposed to be able to grasp this—she can tell that it isn’t a hard or complex concept, and her father seems to know all about it already. She feels ashamed of being confused. “I think so,” she says slowly, because it’s only kind of a lie and it covers her embarrassment. “Only … how does the grease get into them?”
He shakes his head and yanks on the line again, and the fish jerks again, and there’s a soft sound from inside of it, like the thread of a seam popping. “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe God puts it there to punish them for being what they are. Maybe it’s just that they’re made wrong. All I know is, Vee, men are just filled up with it. It’s what they have instead of blood, and instead of guts. They just have the grease in them, dirtying their souls up, rotting and ruining them.”
Something about this snags at Vera. She frowns. “But you’re a man, Dad. And you’re not corrupted.”
A sudden, bright smile splits her father’s face. She can see all his teeth, even the ones in the back. “Thanks, Vee,” he says. “Thanks. I’m glad you can tell. See, I get rid of mine.”
“How?”
His smile softens a little. “I have a system. I save the other men. I keep them from turning into monsters. When they start to go bad, I help them.” He looks down at Vera and something about the way he’s looking at her makes her feel sad, even though he’s smiling.
“How do you save them?” she whispers.
He winks. “That’s for me to know, and it’s not anything you ever need to worry about. Because you’re never going to fill up with that muck, and you’re never going to let a man get his filth anywhere near you. Right?”
Vera studies her shoes again. They’re saturated with creekbed mud, completely ruined, unsaveable. She supposes that her father is trying to keep the same thing from happening to her soul. “Right,” she says.
“Attagirl.” Her father gives one more sharp tug on the line. The fish jerks hard, and then the hook is out. There’s still half of a worm on it, and a large hunk of red flesh that looks to have come from somewhere deep in the middle of the trout’s belly. He tosses the pole, hook and all, into the brush beside the creek, and holds the vacant-eyed fish out to Vera by its lip. “Now, let’s get this fish home and clean him up for dinner. What do you say?”