“Quentin, hello! It’s just me! Am I disturbing you?”
My hand moved & the chain latch was off. & Dad filled the doorway staring & breathless from the stairs. When R__ P__’s professor-goatee went from glossy brown to gray filings he shaved it off out of pride but there is the shadow of the goatee on his face still. That edge in his voice. “Son?”
The two of us the same height if I stood up straight which is hard & lifted my head to confront him. Asked how I was like always, & I said. & how was he, & things at home? & Mom & Grandma send their love. Yes & Junie. All wondering why I didn’t call & didn’t drop by & worrying (you know how women are!) maybe I’m sick. & DAD’S EYES darting as I had known they would fixing on the one thing. A pause & then asking, “That locker, that’s new isn’t it?” & a pause. &, “What’s in that that requires a lock, son?”
I turned to see the five-foot metal locker leaning in the corner. Between the bed & the bathroom. Like I had not seen it before & was myself surprised.
“Just some gym things, Dad,” I said. I said at once. “Jogging shoes, socks. Towels & stuff like that.”
Dad asked, so reasonable, “But why does it require a lock?”
It was a combination lock like for a high school locker. I had memorized the combination & thrown the slip of paper away.
I was saying, “A lock came with it, Dad. From the Salvation Army. It was a real bargain at $12. It’s a part of it. It’s a way of getting the full use of the locker, I suppose.”
“You wouldn’t need to use it, though. Why would you?”
Distinguished Professor, Mt. Vernon State University. Dual appointments in Physics & Philosophy. Senior fellow of the Michigan State Institute for Advanced Research.
DAD’S EYES behind his shiny glasses. Looking at me like when I was two years old & squatting on the bathroom floor shitting & when I was five years old playing with my baby dick & when I was seven years old & my T-shirt splotched with another kid’s nosebleed & when I was eleven home from the pool where my friend Barry drowned & most fierce DAD’S EYES when I was twelve years old that time Dad charged upstairs with the Body Builder magazines shaking in his hand. “Son? Son?”
“W-What?” I stammered. “I’m listening.”
Dad was frowning. Fifty-seven years old with hairy black nostrils widening & pinching. “Why would ‘gym things’ require a special lock, son? Why would ‘gym things’ emit such a smell?”
It came to me: Dad thinks I am drinking again & taking drugs again, is that it? & indulging in unclean habits again risking my health?
Of BUNNYGLOVES what could Dad know? Could he know?
Between the bedsprings & the skinny mattress was the fish-gutting knife & the ice pick & the .38 nickel Smith & Wesson pistol but I was paralyzed & could not make a sudden move to protect myself. Staring at my hands which were trembling just slightly as if the building was vibrating from beneath. I did wonder, Could I strangle Dad? But he would resist, he would put up a struggle, and he is strong. & in a struggle we would be so close. I was staring at my hands as if I had never seen them before, like learning my name is Q__ P__ & that is who I am, & there is nobody else for me to be, the fingers were stubby like a kid’s & the knuckles scraped & the nails with queer milky half-moons uneven & broken & edged with grime. How many times I had scrubbed my hands with the gray soap from Ace & cleaned under the nails with a knifeblade & yet it had all come back.
& then the answer came to me.
I said, “—I bet I know what it is, Dad. A dead rat.”
“A dead rat?”
“Or a mouse. Maybe mice.”
“There are dead mice in here?”
Had he been thinking maybe food, spoiled food. Oh shit.
Rapping on the locker with his knuckles. The locker was painted army-green & badly scratched & wobbled when he struck it. Dad’s corduroy face creased with disgust.
I said, “I k-know it’s not the way I was brought up, Dad, or Junie. I’m sorry.”
“Quentin, how long has it been like this in this room?”
“Not long, Dad. A day or two.”
“Aren’t you bothered by the smell yourself?”
“I’m going to do some cleaning this weekend, Dad.”
“You’ve been sleeping right here beside this locker, this smell, & you’re not bothered?”
“I am bothered, Dad. I just don’t get uptight about it.”
“It’s very disturbing to me, son, that you might be lying to me.”
“Well, I don’t mean to lie, Dad. I just don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I’m asking why this locker is padlocked, and why it smells. You know what I’m asking.”
“Apart from the mice, Dad,” I said, “—I don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Your mother is worried about you, and I’m worried about you,” Dad said, “—not just your future, but right now. What is your life right now, Quentin? How would you describe it?”
“My life ‘right now’—?”
“Are you working at that box company?”
“Sure. Only today’s a day off.”
“What were you doing in here when I knocked on the door?”
“Taking a nap.”
“A nap? At this time of day? With this—smell? Son, what has happened to you?”
I shook my head. I was looking at the floor but not seeing it.
If he looks in the bathroom, I thought, I’m fucked. The tub I didn’t have time to scrub. The shower curtain so stained & speckled. BUNNYGLOVES’ underwear wadded and soaked with blood & the pubic hairs I’d scraped off on the floor.
“Son? I’m talking to you. How do you explain yourself?”
“Well,” I said, “—apart from the mice, I don’t see what’s the problem.”
It went on like that. DAD’S MOUTH shaped certain words emerging like balloons & my mouth shaped certain words & it was familiar to me & there was a comfort in that. For finally Dad gives up for he does not want to know & wipes his face with a handkerchief & says, “Quentin, the main reason I dropped by is—how would you like to come home with me for dinner tonight? Your mom has made banana-custard pie,” & I said, “Thanks, Dad, but I’m not hungry I guess. I’ve already eaten.”
12
Twelve years old & in seventh grade & now I was wearing glasses & long-armed & skinny & hair sprouting under my arms & at my groin & their eyes sliding onto me & even the teachers & in gym class I refused to go through the shower refused to go naked moving through them & their cocks glistening & scratching their chests, bellies & some of them so muscular, so good-looking & laughing like apes not guessing except if seeing me & my eyes I couldn’t keep still darting & swimming among them like minnows if seeing me they knew & their faces would harden with disgust QUEER QUEER QUENTIN’S QUEER & that time Dad charged upstairs to get me where I was doing homework in my room & yanked me by the arm & downstairs & into the garage & showed me the Body Builder magazines & the naked Ken-doll from the playground I’d brought back hidden behind stacks of old newspapers & he’d found his face splotched & furious & at that time Dad did wear a goatee like Dr. M__ K__’s & this too livid with outrage. Twisting the magazines in his hands like wringing a chicken’s neck to spare himself the sight of the covers & the drawings somebody had done on them in fluorescent-red felt-pen ink. Nor the insides with more such drawings on centerfold models of male muscle-bodies & the young guy who looked like Barry might’ve been in a few years & many pounds heavier & a shiny pink upright banana lifting from his groin & parts of certain photos scissored out. This is sick Quentin Dad’s mouth worked, panted, this is disgusting I never never want to see anything like this again in my life. We won’t tell your mother starting to say more but his voice gave out.