Cruel World(5)

James blinked and brought the drink to his lips, pouring the whisky down his throat with a toss of his head. Quinn sat in the chair on the opposite side of the desk and perched there, watching his father.

“I told the driver to just keep going. We had a huge cooler full of ice and bottled water in the back of the truck and there was probably enough money in my wallet to feed her and her village for a week, but I told him to drive.”

Thunder rumbled over the house and heavier rain pattered against the office window.

“Why?” Quinn asked. His father was a different man in the low light, not a dashing movie star but a haggard, weary soldier with dead eyes.

“Because of who I was then. That girl and the man on the side of the road might as well have been in another universe, that’s how distant I felt from them. They were dirty and starving and wounded, and I was none of those. I was riding in an air-conditioned truck with personal security and a soft bed to sleep in that night. I was rich and unconcerned with the world outside of my own. Those two people were part of that outside world that was so different I couldn’t relate to them. I got a sick feeling seeing them there, but it was the wrong kind of sick feeling. I felt sick at the thought of getting involved, of helping them, or leaving my comfortable world that I lived in. Being indifferent was easier. Forgetting was easier.” James set the empty glass down on the desk and reached for the whisky decanter. His hand rested on the crystal stopper, but he didn’t pour himself another drink. “At least I thought it was.”

He glanced up and watched Quinn for a long second before looking away.

“That is the world that’s waiting outside of these walls, son. That’s what it has to offer. There’s millions of people out there that are just like the person I used to be, who don’t think past their first impressions and don’t have the empathy to see who you really are. You’ll be shunned based on how you look by people that can’t relate, that don’t know how or care.”

“You can’t say that. Not everyone is like that; they can’t be,” Quinn said. His mouth was parched, and his heart knocked against his breastbone.

“I saw it, Quinn. I was one of them. They’re the people that do what I did every day. They’re the ones that appear normal but hide hate and resentment below the surface. They’re the ones that produce and read things like this.”

James opened a drawer in the desk and scooped out several magazines. They were outdated but in good shape as if they’d been laid in the drawer years ago, untouched until that moment. He tossed them onto the desk and they spread out, fanning away from one another so that Quinn could see the covers.

They were entertainment magazines, the kind he’d seen on television over the years. They chronicled the lives of celebrities: their work, their children, even their clothing choices in such detail that it was as if they were reporting on rare, endangered species of a rainforest rather than actors and actresses living on a California coast. The magazines were all similar in the fact that their central pictures, sandwiched between miracle weight loss diet claims and the latest fashion faux pas, were of his father and himself as a young child. His father was carrying him in a bundle, hugging him close to his chest. James was youthful and even more handsome than he was now. The distinguished gray at his temples was a lush black, and even with the harried look in his eyes, they still shone with confidence and purpose on the glossy cover. Quinn could see only a portion of his own face in the picture, but it was a miniature version of how he appeared now. The child’s features in the photo were uneven and slanted to one side, the bones already growing askew of proper balance. His brow was enlarged and one eye was shut, caught in mid-blink.

The headline over the picture read, World’s sexiest man has ugliest child.

Quinn studied them each for a moment, letting his eyes run over the words, the various photos. He reached out to touch one of them and let his hand hover before drawing it back.

“It’s just words,” he said.

“It’s not. It’s opinions, people’s thoughts, true feelings. These reporters loved taking pictures of me, telling the public what I was doing, who I was dating, what I was wearing. But the moment they saw you, they moved in like buzzards. I tried to continue normally, determined not to let what they were saying about you bother me. But it did. I loved you so much that when they began to close in on you with cameras and horrible words and disgust in their eyes, I couldn’t take it. I brought you here and hid you away and swore never to return or let them say another unkind thing about you.”