Lawn Boy(19)

When I got home, things were as expected. Freddy and Nate on the couch. Mom in the kitchen, smoking cigarettes.

“Boy, shut that door, you lettin’ the heat in,” said Freddy.

I shut the door all right. I shut it good. I proceeded straight to the bathroom and locked the door, where I nearly put my fist through the wall.

“What the hell, boy?” Freddy shouted.

“Let me handle this, Freddy,” my mom said.

I heard the back steps creak as Freddy walked out to the shed. Mom was soon at the door, jiggling the knob.

“Honey, is everything okay?”

“I’m just taking a shower, I’m fine.”

“Why is the door locked?”

“Privacy, please! Jesus Christ, I’m twenty-two years old, can’t I lock the door?”

I heard the ice cubes in her tumbler slosh as she went away. I turned on the shower, and like an idiot, I broke down and sobbed as quietly as I could. And it wasn’t all about Remy, either, but a cumulative depression. The depression of experience. The futility of knowing I was stuck on a hamster wheel, and it would always be the same. Whatever I did, things were not going to get better. I’d always be living on this lousy street or some other lousy street. My mailbox would always be crooked and full of bills I couldn’t afford to pay. I’d always be broke.

Even if I could get Remy and somehow keep her, I’d only be dooming her. Maybe I could convince her to squirt out a few kids in a moment of weakness, and doom them, too. The futility of accepting that I couldn’t physically afford to plan ahead, I couldn’t even afford to look that direction.

Look, I’m not gonna lie. I was feeling sorry for myself. But beneath the self-pity seethed an anger, raw and abiding, hot and blind, an anger getting harder to suppress by the day. It just needed placing, needed focus, needed a voice.

“Mike,” Mom said, again outside the bathroom door. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Go away,” I said.





You’re Just You After he moved out, I saw my old man once, maybe twice a year, until he disappeared completely when I was eleven. My mom must have known he was about to go AWOL, because she called Victor on the phone one Sunday morning after church, and though I wasn’t meant to, I heard her side of the conversation from my place in the living room, where I was reading an illustrated Bible aloud to Nate.


“Yes, I heard, Victor,” came my mom’s voice from the kitchen. “Of course you are, Victor, that’s what you’ve been doing all along, which is why you’re going to come over here, and . . . no, it is your responsibility . . . this has nothing to do with—Victor, Victor, you listen to me . . . no, no, you listen to me . . . he’s eleven years old . . . he hardly even knows you. He’s confused, you owe him some kind of an explanation for why you just—I don’t care what you think is best for you, you’re gonna do this, or—oh, no, no, no . . . why, Victor? Why? Because he’s just a boy. Because you haven’t been there to—wait, me? Me? Are you kidding? I’m the one who—oh, no you don’t . . . well then, how about I call my old friend Bud Ellingson, you know, your boss, and tell him how you and your girlfriend borrowed his—oh, no? How about I tell him about all the times—oh, you don’t think so? You don’t think I could get your butt fi—oh, really? Just watch me . . . you’re damn right, I’m serious . . . that’s right, Victor . . . now you’re getting the picture . . . yes, that’s right.”

What can I tell you about myself at eleven? I was awkward, insecure, mired in doubt about myself and the world around me. I was quiet, thoughtful, mostly afraid to ask questions, though very curious by nature. I was privy to more adult information than I cared to have access to. Given the choice, eleven-year-old Mike Mu?oz would have just as soon been invisible than to have to confront uncertainty on a daily basis. He didn’t like conflict. He didn’t like excitement. As much as he loved books, he lived in mortal fear of real-life drama.

The day after my mom called to berate my dad, he picked me up in his dented green pickup truck and drove me unceremoniously out to McDonald’s by the junction, where instead of going inside, we ordered drive-thru, then parked in the lot facing the street, across from the auto-parts store.

I couldn’t wait to get that hot cheeseburger in my mouth. The whole cab smelled like french fries. But my stomach was in knots, because I knew something was coming.

“Look, Nate,” my dad said before we’d even unwrapped our food.

“I’m Mike.”

“Right. Look, I don’t want you to feel like anything was your fault—me leaving and the rest of it. It’s not your fault I couldn’t deal with you or your brother or your mom, that’s on me. You guys were probably fine, hell, I don’t know, you were kids. I just didn’t want you, okay? You’re not what I signed on for. And that’s not your fault.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Good,” said my dad. “See, no shame in not being wanted. It’s not like being unwanted.”

“It isn’t?”

“Of course not. There’s an old saying, but I don’t remember it. It has to do with being what you want to be, not what . . . anyway, I can’t remember. You didn’t do anything wrong, that’s the point here, and your mom wants you to remember that. You couldn’t help it. You’re just you.”