Part 16 (1/2)
I nodded because yeah, I certainly would.
”But I don't just want you to get into my pants,” he said. ”I want you to get into my life.”
I frowned, not sure what to make of that.
Noah, who had finished eating, looked up.
Can we go to G-a-m-e S-t-o-p?
We can look, but we don't have any money today, I signed, wiping more tomato sauce off his chin I signed, wiping more tomato sauce off his chin.
Just one game?
We'll see.
Can I play in the arcade?
There was a game arcade in the corner of the cafeteria next to where we sat. He always spent some time there after we ate.
”For just a little bit,” I said. I fished out four quarters and handed them to him.
He quickly found himself an arcade game, careful to position himself so that I could see him.
”You must think I'm really shallow,” Jackson said. ”I'm not looking for somebody to go to nice restaurants with, although there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not looking for anybody at all, as far as that goes. I wasn't looking, but I found you. And I want to know you. I want to know all about you. I want to be part of your life. You make me laugh. You make me h.o.r.n.y. You make me think maybe I could spend my life with someone like you. You make me think about things like getting married and settling down and maybe being a father myself, or at least a stepfather. I had never thought about what it would be like to be a father, to have a kid around the house. But that's the kind of stuff I want. Traditional, boring stuff like getting married and being true to one person the rest of my life. It's not just s.e.x, although I have to admit that I want you in the worst way and I'm getting a little tired of you playing hard to get.”
”I'm not playing hard to get,” I said. ”I'm just being honest.”
”Well, so am I,” he said. ”I want you.”
”So how does the marrying thing work?” I asked.
”I suppose if we dated for a while and decided that the chemistry was right, we might want to move on to the next level and make a commitment.”
”That's a scary word.”
”I don't think so. Not with the right person.”
”And who would the right person be?”
”He'd have to be s.e.xy,” Jackson said straight off. ”He'd have to have smoldering eyes and a smoldering sensuality about him.”
”You like that word. Smoldering Smoldering.”
”It's a good word. It doesn't get much better than smoldering. And smoldering smoldering is not the same as is not the same as hot, hot, which which implies a certain superficiality, a good-looking man who doesn't have much underneath the hood. You're a good-looking man, but you've got a lot under the hood.” implies a certain superficiality, a good-looking man who doesn't have much underneath the hood. You're a good-looking man, but you've got a lot under the hood.”
”So you'll be looking underneath my hood?”
”Of course. I might have to apply a bit of lube to get under the hood. You know how that is.”
”I seem to recall something about that.”
”I give as good as I get, which I think is an important point. I like to mix it up, keep it interesting. You can never have too many s.e.x toys, I've been told.”
”I thought you weren't going to talk that way in front of the children.”
”You bring out the beast in me.”
”I hope so,” I said.
”So what is all this talk about being a bad parent? If you're such a bad parent, where the h.e.l.l is his mother?”
”She's a meth head,” I said. ”I was into it, too, for a while, until she got pregnant and I realized I was going to be a father. I tried to get her to stop, but she wouldn't. After Noah was born, she hit the road and took up with a new boyfriend who ran a meth lab down in Monroe County. Got busted several times and was eventually sent up the river for shake and bake.”
”What's that?” he asked.
”It's a way to make crystal meth. You put it in a soda bottle, shake up the ingredients, let it sit in a cool, dark place for half an hour. Shake and bake, they call it. Popular down here. If you're out driving around in the country and you see empty soda bottles by the side of the road, that's probably what it is. People dump them after they use them.”
”She got sent to jail for that?”
”She spent five years at Central. She's been gone Noah's whole life, in one way or another. She just got out.”
”Does she want custody now? Is that what's bothering you?”
I laughed.
”Is that funny?” he asked.
”She doesn't want anything to do with him.”
”That's horrible.”
”We went down to Pearl the other day for her release. I thought maybe if she saw him... maybe she'd change her mind... maybe she'd see how great he is, how much fun he is... but she just got into her boyfriend's car and drove off and left us standing there.”
”And you're you're the one who's the bad parent?” the one who's the bad parent?”
”I'm not a bad parent,” I said. ”I don't know what it is. When my nephews and my niece were born, everyone was right there, supporting them, helping them, saying yeah, it's so awesome, pa.s.s out the cigars, let's celebrate, we made a baby, we pa.s.sed on our genes, we did our duty. But n.o.body pa.s.sed out cigars when my baby was born. n.o.body even came to the hospital except my mother. It was two weeks before my brother Billy and his wife came to the hospital to see Noah in the incubator.”
I paused, remembering that visit with a certain bitterness.
Jackson put his hand on mine, said nothing.
”Everything about my nephews and my niece was a big deal,” I said. ”The first tooth. The first word. Getting baptized. Going to school. The clothes they wore. What kind of Christmas they had. Summer camps. Everything was always a huge frikkin' deal with everyone jumping in there to support them. Including me, by the way. I was at the hospital when each of them was born. I went to the baby showers. I bought them presents. I doted on those kids. The whole 'family values' thing. Family down here is huge, you know. But because I'm a gay man, somehow my child doesn't count. He's not really 'family.' Somehow he's not really my son. People feel sorry for him. My family will buy him presents and stuff, but there's always this feeling of being obligated to do it so that he doesn't feel left out. It's just not the same. On top of that, he's deaf and they don't know sign language, so it's hard to communicate. Now, if one of my nephews or my niece was deaf, I'd learn sign language, no problem. I'd do it because I love them and I want to be part of their lives.”
”None of them learned to sign?”
I shook my head. ”They feel sorry for him.”
”You're not responsible for how other people feel.”
”Don't give me that psychobabble bullc.r.a.p!” I snapped. ”I'm trying to explain to you what it's like when people feel sorry for your child because you're his parent. Not some normal, wonderful heteros.e.xual super-parent, but a f.a.g. A moral disgrace. An intrinsically disordered, limp-wristed pansy boy who likes taking it up the chuff. They feel sorry sorry for him. Do you understand that?” for him. Do you understand that?”