Unspoken(89)

“I’m full of hot air?”

“You are, but no, you’re huffing and puffing like you want to blow something down.”

“Shit. I think this was a bad decision.”

“Then let’s go home.” Home. Right, home wasn’t Little Oak, Texas. Home was, well, I wasn’t sure where it was, but I figured if I could stick with AM, I’d be okay. An icy hand grabbed me by the balls. After this visit, I might not have her. Not after she saw my old man, my mom, and how I ran from all of this.

“Don’t tempt me.” I clutched the steering wheel a little harder. AM was right. My body felt tighter than a tick on a bull’s balls. If this went on, I’d end up twisted into a pretzel and starting fights with random strangers to let off stress. This was not the way to convince AM I was worth staying the course for.

I unclenched the wheel with one hand and fumbled in my pocket for the challenge coin. Going home, facing my demons, was the only way to look forward.

AM

LITTLE OAK, TEXAS, WAS A TOWN so small that it almost looked fake. I made Bo drive through the middle of town, which was arranged in an actual square, four blocks of storefronts facing a park and a big stone edifice that I assumed was the courthouse. Some jokers had defaced the post office so it read S OS AL ICE, instead of US Postal Service, the missing metal letters lying against the building like discarded noodles from a can of alphabet soup.

“Who’s Alice?”

Bo squinted through the windshield and his lips tipped up in the first smile I’d seen all day. “No idea, but I’m glad to see the grand tradition of punk-assed miscreants is being continued.”

“Does the park have your last name on it?” I pointed out a recently-painted sign proclaiming that the postage-stamp-sized lawn was “Randolph Park.” This time Bo’s response was a bittersweet smile.

“After my Pops,” Bo admitted.

“Big-time stuff, huh?”

“Little oil well.”

“Big enough to get a park named after you.”

“After my grandfather.”

I could tell by Bo’s insistence on credit being given to his grandfather that he considered the elderly man to be the last decent Randolph around. I’d bit my tongue a million times, wanting to ask Bo about why exactly we were going back to his hometown. I only knew he felt it was important and that he wanted me to come. I knew he’d reveal something at some point, and I counseled myself to be patient. We drove aimlessly up and down small streets peppered with equally small houses. Finally, we crested a hill to see a large, stately brick mansion, probably three or four times larger than all the others we had passed, staring down over the town like a disapproving dad. Bo pulled the car over to the side of the road and killed the engine.

“If your father came to Parent’s Day, what would he talk about?” Bo said, not looking away from the house.

“First, he would never come to Parent’s Day for me. But if he did come, with one of his other kids, he’d probably talk about his great times with his fraternity and how successful they all are now. Why, what would your dad talk about?”

“Which coeds he’d like to bone.”

That was kind of a disgusting thought. The idea of leering dads at Parent’s Day, saying how they’d like to test out a newer model than the old car they had at home, was creepier than fuck. I didn’t say this to Bo. He already knew it, I could tell.

“My dad would always ask me what girls I was banging. Who had the sweetest snatch. Which cheerleader put out the most.”

Bo’s recitation was made all the more chilling by the matter-of-fact way he was telling it, as if he were reciting the weather report for the day. “I fucked my way through high school. Slept with the whole goddamned drill team. It was like a challenge for me.”

“All of them?” My voice sounded small, even to my own ears. The self-loathing in Bo’s voice made me ache. I forced myself to sit still and not throw open the door and run away screaming.

“Every last one,” he said grimly. “You want to know how I got my nickname, Bo Peep? Guys from my platoon said its because the girls supposedly follow me around like sheep. I’m not entirely proud of my past. You know why it didn’t matter to me about whether the rumor about you and the lacrosse team was true?”

“Um, no?” I offered tentatively, a bit mortified that he was bringing the issue up.

“It’s because I’ve done everything a thousand times worse. I don’t care if you slept with the whole lacrosse team. Maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. It just didn’t matter.

“Thinking it was some flaw in me that was causing Bobby, my dad, to lose control with Mom, I tried to fashion myself into whatever thing Bobby wanted. The football player. The guy who could get all the pussy. The academic. Whatever. I tried it all until I realized that nothing I did was going to change him. And somehow, he knew. He just knew that hitting me wouldn’t cause me any pain. I wanted it. I goaded him as I got older, and then I learned to shut up when he would hit my mother or burn her with the iron if I didn’t just shut the fuck up. Finally, when I was about fourteen, my dad starting talking about girls in a way that—” Bo paused, searching for the right words. “In a way that wasn’t right, but I thought, maybe if we can bond this way, he’ll get off my mom’s back. I was such a stupid fuck. He drank my stories down. Some I made up, but when I realized that I could lose my mind, forget what was happening around me when I was with someone, I started doing it for myself. Using them. I cut through that dance line like a butter knife through a hot fresh biscuit.