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“And besides, he calls me. See, when you take the time to listen to a kid, then they can tell you actually care about them.”
To me, again, “Here, girl. I’ll give you a warning now. Nicky never did quite know how to love someone. Everything had a dollar sign with him, even as a kid, even when he didn’t have shit. And then once he did have money, you think any of it came back to his poor old dad? Not a damn penny. And maybe I wouldn’t be in here if it did. Maybe I wouldn’t have had to hustle my whole damn life.”
“You stole your whole damn life,” Nick shoots back. “That’s why you’re in here. Not because of anything I had to do with it. Or could have done. I could have given you a billion dollars and you’d still be asking for a dollar more.”
The glee disappears from Remy’s face. He sits up, sneering. Nick has apparently hit a sore spot. “I wouldn’t have taken a single dollar of your money,” he spits. “I might have stole but I’m a criminal with some morals. I only stole from the government. You businessmen steal from the common people. You’re worse than scum and the only reason you’re not in here is because you can pay the right people off.”
“You never had a problem paying people off,” Nick says. “And I pay my taxes. I run everything above board. I always have because there is no chance in hell I’m running the risk of ending up anything like you, you old pathetic excuse for a man.”
Remy leans forward, and for a terrible moment I think father and son are about to dive across the table and beat the crap out of each other despite the guards.
But then the old man sits back and laughs. “Ah, I’m sure you think that, boy. But I’ve known you my whole life and I know better. Everything you touch turns to shit. And it’s only a matter of time before this business of yours does too.”
To me, he adds, “And I’d keep that in mind for the rest of the time you’re fucking him. Ain’t no use in getting too attached. He’ll only mess it up.”
We sit side by side in the back of the car, not speaking.
I’d only spoken once the entire time in the prison. I felt like I had been watching a particularly disturbing episode of a reality television show. One where the central characters moved in startlingly high definition and kept trying to drag me into the mud-slinging.
Nick had warned me. Inside I had known. Or at least I thought I had. But how could I really? I’d been raised behind a white picket fence, and it had shielded me from an ugly reality many people face: that there is no law that says you need to love your children.
In the face of this titanic dysfunction, I can’t help but wonder how the hell Nick had ended up so normal.
I keep glancing sideways at him, but every time I do, he’s looking away. As we’d left the prison he had been focused on getting outside as if he were afraid that someone might stop him. Now he stares out the darkened window of his private car. His large hands lie boneless on his lap.
It’s devastating to see him look like this. The powerful, commanding presence that I fell in love with has been sucked out of him.
I can picture what he must have looked like as a child. Being called names, mocked for his reading, his desire to grow up to be anything other than the man he had to live with.
I search for something to say to break the ice. Pity would only be treated with contempt.
So instead, after it’s been a long twenty minutes of driving, I say, “Nick?”
He turns slightly at his name but doesn’t meet my eye.
“Hey,” I say and those deep and beautiful brown eyes meet mine. They’re so similar and yet so completely different from the callous, cruel flints glaring from his father’s skull.
“Yeah?” he asks. He sounds tired more than anything.
I put one hand on his and say, as serious as I can, “It’s okay if you’re gay.”
We stare at each other for a beat.
Then I can’t hold back my laughter, and it only takes my spreading grin for mirth to rip across his features as well. We laugh together, for a long time, way longer than the joke warranted, almost hysterically, one of us only needing to look at the other for the peals to break out again.
Sometimes all you can do is laugh.
Finally we compose ourselves. Nick wipes sweat from his forehead. I dab tears from my eyes.
“My god,” he says, “I never heard the end of that one growing up. He couldn’t comprehend that a straight guy might not give a shit about football or strippers. I almost wish I had been gay, just to piss him off.”
“If you had,” I say, “the women of the world would have been denied a lot.”
“But the men of the world would be thrilled,” he reminds me with a cocky grin.
“Men have enough,” I say. “I’m glad we get you.”
His smile fades until it’s just held in his eyes. The moment has shifted, turned a corner into something else. He’s looking at me like he never wants to tear his eyes away, and I know instantly that I feel the exact same way.
