Seth says, "Please don't think for one minute that I could just stab you in your sleep.”
And in the phone, my father shouts, "You just try it, mister. I've got a gun here and I'll keep it loaded and next to me day and night." He says, "We're through letting you torture us." He says, "We're proud to be the parents of a dead gay son."
And Seth yells, "Please, just put the phone down."
And I go, "Aht! Oahk!"
But my father hangs up.
My inventory of people who can save me is down to just me. Not my best friend. Or my old boyfriend. Not the doctors or the nuns. Maybe the police, but not yet. It isn't time to wrap this whole mess into a neat legal package and get on with my less-than life. Hideous and invisible forever and picking up pieces.
Things are still all messy and up in the air, but I'm not ready to settle them. My comfort zone was getting bigger by the minute. My threshold for drama was bumping out. It was time to keep pushing the envelope. It felt like I could do anything, and I was only getting started.
My rifle was loaded, and I had my first hostage.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jump way back to the last time I ever went home to see my parents. It was my last birthday before the accident. What with Shane still being dead, I wasn't expecting presents. I'm not expecting a cake. This last time, I go home just to see them, my folks. This is when I still have a mouth so I'm not so stymied by the idea of blowing out candles.
The house, the brown living room sofa and reclining chairs, everything is the same except my father's put big Xs of duct tape across the inside of all the windows. Mom's car isn't in the driveway where they usually park it. The car's locked in the garage. There's a big deadbolt I don't remember being on the front door. On the front gate is a big "Beware of Dog" sign and a smaller sign for a home security system.
When I first get home, Mom waves me inside fast and says, "Stay back from the windows, Bump. Hate crimes are up sixty- seven percent this year over last year."
She says, "After it gets dark at night, try and not let your shadow fall across the blinds so it can be seen from outside."
She cooks dinner by flashlight. When I open the oven or the fridge, she panics fast, body blocking me to one side and closing whatever I open.
"It's the bright light inside," she says. "Anti-gay violence is up over one hundred percent in the last five years."
My father comes home and parks his car a half block away. His keys rattle against the outside of the new dead-bolt while Mom stands frozen in the kitchen doorway, holding me back. The keys stop, and my father knocks, three fast knocks, then two slow ones.
"That's his knock," Mom says, "but look through the peephole, anyway."
My father comes in, looking back over his shoulder to the dark street, watching. A car passes, and he says, "Romeo Tango Foxtrot six seven four. Quick, write it down."
My mother writes this on the pad by the phone. "Make?" she says. "Model?"
"Mercury, blue," my father says. "Sable.”
Mom says, "It's on the record."
I say maybe they're overreacting some.
And my father says, "Don't marginalize our oppression."
Jump to what a big mistake this was, coming home. Jump to how Shane should see this, how weird our folks are being. My father turns off the lamp I turned on in the living room. The drapes on the picture window are shut and pinned together in the middle. They know all the furniture in the dark, but me, I stumble against every chair and end table. I knock a candy dish to the floor, smash, and my mother screams and drops to the kitchen linoleum.
My father comes up from where he's crouched behind the sofa and says, "You'll have to cut your mother some slack. We're expecting to get hate-crimed any day soon."
From the kitchen, Mom yells, "Was it a rock? Is anything on fire?"
And my father yells, "Don't press the panic button, Leslie. The next false alarm, and we have to start paying for them."
Now I know why they put a headlight on some kinds of vacuum cleaners. First, I'm picking up broken glass in the pitch dark. Then I'm asking my father for bandages. I just stand in one place, keeping my cut hand raised above my heart, and wait. My father comes out of the dark with alcohol and bandages.
"This is a war we're fighting," he says, "all of us in pee- flag.”
P.F.L.A.G. Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. I know. I know. I know. Thank you, Shane. I say, "You shouldn't even be in PFLAG. Your gay son is dead, so he doesn't count anymore." This sounds pretty hurtful, but I'm bleeding here. I say, "Sorry."
The bandages are tight and the alcohol stings in the dark, and my father says, "The Wilsons put a PFLAG sign in their yard. Two nights later, someone drove right through their lawn, ruined everything."
My folks don't have any PFLAG signs.
"We took ours down," my father says. "Your mother has a PFLAG bumper sticker, so we keep her car in the garage. Us taking pride in your brother has put us right on the front lines."
Out of the dark, my mother says, "Don't forget the Bradfords. They got a burning bag of dog feces on their front porch. It could've burned their whole house down with them sleeping in bed, all because they hung a rainbow PFLAG wind sock in their backyard." Mom says, "Not even their front yard, in their backyard."
"Hate," my father says, "is all around us, Bump. Do you know that?"
My mom says, "Come on, troops. It's chow time."
Dinner is some casserole from the PFLAG cookbook. It's good, but God only knows what it looks like. Twice, I knock over my glass in the dark. I sprinkle salt in my lap. Any time I say a word, my folks shush me. My mom says, "Did you hear something? Did that come from outside?”
In a whisper, I ask if they remember what tomorrow is. Just to see if they remember, what with all the tension. It's not as if I'm expecting a cake with candles and a present.
"Tomorrow," my dad says. "Of course, we know. That's why we're nervous as cats."
"We wanted to talk to you about tomorrow," my mom says. "We know how upset you are about your brother still, and we think it would be good for you if you'd march with our group in the parade."
Jump to another weird sick disappointment just coming over the horizon.
Jump to me getting swept up in their big compensation, their big penance for all those years ago, my father yelling, "We don't know what kind of filthy diseases you're bringing into this house, mister, but you can just find another place to sleep, tonight."
They called this tough love.
This is the same dinner table where Mom told Shane, "Doctor Peterson's office called today." To me she said, "You can go to your room and read, young lady."
I could've gone to the moon and still heard all the yelling. Shane and my folks were in the dining room, me, I was behind my bedroom door. My clothes, most of my school clothes were outside on the clothesline. Inside, my father said, "It's not strep throat you've got, mister, and we'd like to know where you've been and what you've been up to.”
"Drugs," my mom said, "we could deal with."
Shane never said a word. His face still shiny and creased with scars.
"Teenage pregnancy," my mom said, "we could deal with."
Not one word.
"Doctor Peterson," she said. "He said there's just about only one way you could get the disease the way you have it, but I told him, no, not our child, not you, Shane."
My father said, "We called Coach Ludlow, and he said you dropped basketball two months ago."
"You'll need to go down to the county health department, tomorrow," my mom said.
"Tonight," my father said. "We want you out of here."
Our father.
These same people being so good and kind and caring and involved, these same people finding identity and personal fulfillment in the fight on the front lines for equality and personal dignity and equal rights for their dead son, these are the same people I hear yelling through my bedroom door.