MAIN CHARACTER 👆🏾
COLE💕
My mind was reeling out of control when Dad led Mom and me out of the police station. I had known it was coming, but on top of everything else, this was just too much to deal with. I was mad as hell and I was more scared than I'd ever been in my life; scared for Khalil, scared of any of those guys dying, scared of doing jail time or going to prison for it all, scared of what my mom would do, scared of everyone I knew finding out what had happened and all about Khalil and me, and scared of things I hadn't even thought of yet. I was confused, unsure of everything-- and then we walked out the door of HPD to be mobbed by reporters.
Could this nightmare get any more insane?
My knees were so rubbery I was afraid I looked drunk when I walked. I had to concentrate on every step I took. I felt my face go flush and my ears burned. I had never in my life imagined that I would be the object of news cameras and I had no clue how to deal with it. I just wanted to disappear. My adrenaline was pumping almost as fast as it had last night when I jumped up into that pickup. They were firing questions at me from every direction at once and every question went straight to my gut, adding to the twisting, knotting sensation of my empty stomach eating itself. If it hadn't have been empty, I'm sure I would have thrown up.
Khalil was lying in a hospital bed, in who knows what condition, and my whole life was now unraveling in front of cameras, up close and personal for all of metropolitan Houston to witness. It was just supposed to have been a fun night out.
"Did you really fight three at one time and is it true they had weapons but you fought with your bare hands?"
"What will you do if Steven Castilar dies? Do you have anything to say to his parents?"
"Which gay nightclub were you leaving from?"
"How long have you been a homosexual?"
"Are you and Khalil Dresden homosexual lovers? Is that why you tried to killed those boys after they attacked him?"
I guess none of them realized that if I had actually intended to kill them, they would be dead; but it didn't seem like a good time to point that out.
They kept firing questions at me and asking my parents about their jobs. When I saw Mom and Dad ducking the questions about NASA and car dealerships, it struck me that my being gay somehow just might end up having an effect on their positions after all, and I felt even worse. At least we didn't have to answer any of their questions.
I just kept my eyes trained on my mom's heels until I heard Dave's voice cutting through the noise, instantly refocusing me. After that tense moment when my dad agreed to go see Khalil, I kinda blanked out until we got in the car. The news crews didn't follow us that far, as they all stopped to pose and give their wrap-up for the anchor desk. The second the doors were closed, Mom was already telling Dad to just drive us straight home. I opened my door and stepped back out.
"What are you doing?! Get back in here!" Mom snapped her fingers as she glared back at me from the front passenger seat.
"I'm going to the hospital," I stated bluntly. "If you're not, then I'll find a way." I vaguely recalled being told my car was impounded as evidence and it would be several days at least before I could get it back. I would take a cab.
She glared at me for a moment then rolled her eyes. "Ok, goddammit! We'll go to the damn hospital."
We rode in deafening silence, each of us stewing in our own thoughts. I have no idea why Dad chose not to take the freeway. Every stoplight took all fucking day long to change and every car in front of us seemed to be driving five miles an hour. It was the longest ride of my life. My palms were sweaty and my heart just never quite slowed down to a normal rate. Each thunderous beat echoed in my head, making it impossible to concentrate on much of anything.
The images just kept swirling around; of Khalil collapsing, the blood, holding his limp body in my arms and that bottomless feeling of hopelessness.
Running after the pickup and diving in, feeling the white-hot rage consuming me; the look of terror in that last guy's eyes before I jerked him down and started in on him, like I was avenging every senseless act of brutality ever committed-- by being brutal myself.
Staring down the barrel of the gun pointed right between my eyes with the cop's finger on the trigger while his other hand steadied it, knowing that with the slight flex of a finger, even an accidental twitch, it would all be over.
Getting handcuffed and read my rights in front of all those people. Being fingerprinted and questioned, then sitting in a jail cell with all those criminals. Talking to my freaked out Dad on the phone, then trying to calmly tell the whole story to Dan Strickland. Getting blasted by Mom in front of the entire HPD and hitting right back with a boldness I never thought I had in me. Having news cameras and reporters grilling us like I'd only ever seen on TV... Everything just completely overwhelmed me.
I seriously thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown any moment. My hands were shaking something fierce and I couldn't stop them even when I clenched my sore fists. Everything was falling apart. My life was racing headlong into oblivion and I knew there was just no stopping this train.
I stared blankly at the back of Mom's head, watching her hair sway back and forth when we turned corners. I would glance at Dad every once in a while, grim, staring intently ahead, his gray suit jacket folded perfectly on the seat beside me.
Sitting within my reach in the front seats, I felt so disconnected from them. I felt like I didn't know these people, really. I knew they didn't really know me. I wondered why I didn't feel sad about that. I thought I should. It just left me feeling empty. I mean, I was bothered by it, but I wasn't sad-- though I sensed that I would be at some point in the future. I was jerked out of my zone when Dad turned into the parking lot over a rough driveway entrance.
I began to sweat in the cool AC of the car as he drove around looking for an open space. Mom pointed one out and he maneuvered into it. I reached for the door handle when he put it in park.
Mom barked, "Leave it running, Larry."
Dad's hand hovered at the key ring for a moment as he looked warily at her out of the corner of his eye. He glanced over his shoulder at me with a strange look. I think it was to signal, 'Get ready.'
I pulled the door handle and as it clicked, Mom rather calmly said, "Wait a minute, Cole."
My heart raced like I'd run a mile. I was almost hyperventilating. I mumbled, "We-- I... need to get in there an' see him."
She turned in her seat and said, "In a minute. Sit over there so I can see you better," pointing to the seat behind Dad.
I reluctantly, with attitude, traded places with Dad's jacket and stared at my left knee.
"Janet, now's not a good..." my dad began.
Paying no attention to the man in the driver seat. She grabbed me by the eyes and spoke as if he'd never said a word.
"You don't want anything more to do with him, Cole." She was now so calm and professional sounding, like she was stating the obvious truth, the only truth worth considering. "He's caused you nothing but trouble. He's potentially ruined all of our lives already. We need to stick together from now on and project a unified, normal family. We'll get past this somehow... as a family, Cole."
I was dumbfounded. This was the last thing I expected to hear from her. I thought she was going to throw me out after the scene at HPD. Everything she was saying was all wrong and I was rejecting it word for word as she said it, but I was so thrown off by this approach that I couldn't find a response, and she apparently took my lack of reaction and blank expression as agreement, since she continued.
"You have to put this 'phase' behind you now. You'll lose everything if you don't. We'll lose everything. That boy would destroy your future, if you let him." She still refused to say his name, and she still put every ounce of 'blame' on Khalil, ignoring that I was the one who beat those guys and refusing to believe that I wanted and loved him.
"I know that's not what you want, Cole. You know how much we love you." She reached between the seats and put her hand on my knee. It scalded my skin through my jeans. "I'll help you get through this, son." In a familiar psychological maneuver, she nodded her head slowly as she talked, with the most sincere look in her eyes. She was projecting vulnerability, telling me I had the power to hurt her but she was counting on me being a good son.
"You have such a bright future ahead of you. This stain on your life will fade away eventually, and I'll help you every step of the way to be strong. I know you've always wanted to do the right thing, Cole. It's going to be rough, with the charges against you and with the media focused on our family like this, but I think it can be defused, I hope." She shuddered and gave me a pleading look, trying to convey to me that if I went against her on all this, she would just die or something.
And what I felt was... insulted.
I saw a lot of cracks in her delivery. I had always known she was a good actress-- and I had seen her give some primo performances-- but when I realized how little effort she had put into coming up with a strategy to use on me, how almost childishly transparent her chosen tack was... I was insulted. She thought I was THAT stupid, THAT easy to manipulate, that she didn't even bother getting more sophisticated with her approach than this. I mean, no doubt that, had she put her skills to work, she could have had me wavering, confused, at least guilty for my feelings, like 'that Sunday morning'. But she wasn't bothering-- and I knew that was some kind of sign; I just didn't know what.
She had made it so crystal clear to me that I was just another ornament in her life, a possession to be managed, brandished along with the other perquisites of her position, the houses, the cars, the boat, the perfect successful husband, the perfect jock son, and that disobedient daughter. Well, everybody has to have flaws. Just like the fake mole she painted on her cheek every day, her flaws were just as planned and scripted out as her smile was.
But a glaring, blatant flaw like a gay son could not be tolerated. This must be fixed-- at least cosmetically glossed over. If this 'condition' were deeply buried, not flaunted about in society; if I were to return to the straight and narrow, get married and have kids, then well, every family has their past skeletons, and the whispers behind the back are to be borne with dignity. Did she really assume she could still manipulate me into this mindset as easily as she had all my life?
Okay, I couldn't fault her for a lot of the manipulation in the past. A lot of it was called 'parenting', I guess, and I didn't think I had turned out too bad-- as long as you didn't consider being gay bad. It's just that lately I tended to see every little thing she did as a calculated move. She had always encouraged me to do the right thing, for propriety, for image, not because it was the right thing to do. The few times 'doing the right thing' conflicted with image, she had put much more effort and skill into convincing me her way was the right thing to do even if it felt wrong, because sometimes in life, image (she rarely actually used that word and she had a bunch of substitutes, like 'family', 'obligation', 'happiness', 'position', and so on, that all meant the same thing) trumps integrity. The world according to Janet Manning.
All this raced through my head while I heard and understood every word she said. It startled me, the sudden clarity on so many things that I hadn't had before. I wondered if this was anything like what Khalil had tried to describe, an epiphany or something. But I wasn't like, brimming with confidence or anything; I was still extremely nervous-- hell, scared-- about where this was all going, because I was about to buck her like she'd never been bucked. I knew that what was happening in this car at this moment was a major turning point in my life-- in all of our lives, and the train was screaming down the track in the pitch black tunnel.
'I'm eighteen. I'm an adult now,' I thought this as she talked. 'I can make it on my own if they can't handle this. I know I can. Khalil, me, together. Ben and Lydia are there for us, too. I'm not alone. I'm NOT alone. Be strong. Be a man.'
Then I freaked out as it hit me, 'Ben and Lydia! Oh shit! They probably HATE me now! Oh man, lying to them, what I let happen to Khalil... God, they're bound to hate me now! Look what they've seen me do! First I drive Khalil to almost kill himself, then I almost got him killed last night! That's TWICE they've NEARLY LOST Khalil because of ME! If I'd have just parked the car the right fucking way, it would've been me they got...'
Depression slammed into me like a ton of bricks, and I sank heavily into the backseat as I tried to think it out while Mom talked on, 'Man, the ways I've let them down are unforgivable. How can I even face them? I don't think I could look either of them in the eye now. I've fucked things up so bad... so bad. Ok, ok, so they'll hate me too and I deserve that; so they won't 'be there' for us either. But I know Khalil will still love me. At least I KNOW that, without any doubt... if he recovers.
He WILL recover! He HAS to recover. I'm NOT going to think of that alternative.
We'll make it with or without Ben and Lydia on our side. Maybe, over time, I can gain back their trust. I have to. They mean SO much to me, I just gotta. I'll find a way to prove myself again. I'll beg them to forgive me. I'll do whatever it takes.
Damn, it hurts to even hear the shit Mom is saying about Khalil, talking about him like he's some mangy stray devil-dog who's infecting me or bewitching me.' I was wishing desperately that Ben and Lydia were my parents right about then. Facing them would be nothing compared to dealing with my actual mother right now. 'Stay calm. Don't let her get to you. Try to work this out. She IS your mother. He IS your father...'
Mom was saying, "You should go see him once, right now, as a matter of courtesy, because you have tried to be a friend, a good influence on this boy, but you've come to see that it's not worth it, that he just refuses to even want to be helped."
Was she referring to his being gay?! Like I was supposed to have tried to help him NOT be gay, or that I should now try to tell people that I tried to change him?! I couldn't find words to even express my amazement at her words.
She continued "You did what you could, Cole. Now it's time to leave all that nonsense behind and get on with your life. We have a lot to deal with. When we get home, maybe we can kneel down and pray together that all of those boys live." In my peripheral vision, I saw my dad's eyes go wide at this suggestion, as did mine.
PRAY TOGETHER???!!! We had never prayed in front of each other, let alone together! I'd never seen my mother pray in my life, aside from the times we went to church for Easter Sunday. I could count those times on one hand, and they were all when I was little.
What bullshit! She wasn't the least bit religious except to 'talk' it when the moment called for it. All she was doing was trying to distract me from responding to her saying I should abandon Khalil, from talking about me being gay, from confronting her.
"We can have Dan tell the press that you feel terrible about what you did under the influence of alcohol, that we are all praying constantly for their complete recovery. If it comes down to it, I could say it to them myself... and I could even offer to counsel their parents or something..." She always toyed with her left earlobe with one colored nail when she plotted, "Hmmm, I think that would look good, even if they refuse."
PRAY TOGETHER?! Yeah, right! Well, while I had sat in that jail cell I had privately prayed that Khalil and all of them live. I definitely did not want anyone to die. But actually kneeling down with Mom and Dad and praying together? It would feel so, so unnatural. She stopped talking when she saw my annoyed smirk. She stared at me, waiting for me to give in. I think she was holding her breath.
I looked down at my hands in my lap and shook my head slightly as I tried to decide how to respond. I told myself, 'This is it, Cole. You already started it at the police station, but this-- THIS is the moment you take charge of your life, become your own man. Do it. Tell her she's full of shit and you're tired of feeling like her ventriloquist dummy, moving your mouth while her words come out and her hand is up your ass.' I smiled a crooked smile and almost chuckled at that thought, feeling a little satisfaction at knowing my smile had to be making her very nervous about my reply, my attitude.
"Ummmm..." I looked up at her expectant expression then glanced at Dad, who had turned to face me as well as he could over the headrest. 'Do I know these people?' I was inclined to start off saying something about how I loved them too... but I couldn't. I knew I had love for them in me, but I felt at that moment that saying it would feel just as fake as her concern for those guys I had beaten. I looked again into my dad's brown eyes, and he stared back with a worried look. He hadn't expressed an opinion either way about my sexuality so far. I hadn't seen any real negativity in his expressions or eyes. I knew he cared, knew he loved me in his way, but I had no idea where I stood now with him.
"Look, Mom..." I faced her again.
"I've..." Knowing what I had to tell her, them, didn't make it any easier. Feeling the distance I felt emotionally from them didn't make it any easier either, like I thought it should. "I hope... I want you to know... I didn't come to... understand this without..." I scrambled for words, trying to appear calm, trying to come up with a way to say it that would make her listen and try to see it from my side. But my frustration came through in my voice, "Mom, I tried like hell to fight this... these feelings. I tried-- I really tried, to see things your way, but..." I glanced at Dad again and his face was impassive. I couldn't read it at all. I spread my hands in a helpless way, "It's just the way it is. It's what I am. I can't fight it. I'm gay."
There, I said it. I said it without hesitation, no stuttering, no shame. I was surprised Mom didn't interrupt me. "It's not... It's not a 'phase', Mom. I'm in love with Khalil. I mean I'm really, deeply, in love with him. I know that's not what you wanna hear. I know you think I'm too young to know for sure I'm gay, and too young to be totally sure I'm in love and all that. You said all those things that morning, but... It's reality. I don't wanna try 'n lie to you anymore. I gotta be honest with you, about me. I know you've gotta know it anyway, after all this."
Since she didn't speak up, I went on. I gestured placatingly, "I know this is not something you ever wanted-- I'm only asking that you try to understand and accept me. I really need your understanding right now, especially with all this goin' on. And... and you know I'm not like the sickos you talked about that day. I'm not a, like, child molester or anything like that-- and neither is Khalil." I paused and looked over at Dad and back to Mom with a plea, "You do know that, don't you? You know I'm still the same person I was before you knew this, right? I'm still Cole, your son... right?" I could hear my voice pleading like I was a little kid, needing that confirmation from her.
I couldn't believe I had gotten all that out without losing it-- and without her interrupting or challenging me on any of it. I was shaking like a leaf.
Nothing in her expression changed as she stared into my eyes. Her face remained frozen in the same look it had when she finished talking-- which at least seemed non-threatening and even understanding. I waited-- holding my breath. We stared into each other's eyes in stark silence in the smoothly idling car. In my peripheral vision, I saw people coming and going around us. The side and rear windows were tinted, so most people couldn't see in. I wasn't about to be the first one to blink or look away. My eyes quickly dried out and burned from the AC vent blowing back in my face from between the front seats. But I wouldn't let myself blink.
I waited. Dad waited. I think nobody breathed. It seemed like forever before even one of her facial muscles moved. Finally, her cheek twitched as she withdrew her hand from my knee. Then a pall of what I could only read as pure disgust washed over her, darkening her face, forcing all the sunlight out of the car. The temperature went sub-zero.
"Get out."
I flinched as if I'd been slapped.
Wow. Two little words. Two little words that said SO much.
"Mo-om..." I pleaded, my voice cracking as my hands spread pleadingly.
"Get out," she repeated, just as coldly, just as calmly. I tried to read her eyes, but they looked cold, emotionless. Only the set of her jaw and tightness of her lips hinted at the core of ice that was her.
I started to pull the door handle and get out of the car, but stopped. She was already turning back to face forward and to the other side a little, completely away from me. "What are you saying, Mom? You saying get out, PERIOD?" I asked, with defiance or a challenge in my tone.
Dad just looked stunned as he stared slack-jawed at her-- but he didn't say a word. She didn't answer me. Fine! Fuck her then! Fine. Just fine.
So I opened the door and the heat gushed in. I put one foot out on the asphalt, but stopped again. I demanded, "Are you telling me to get out of your life? I mean, what are you saying, Mom?" Anger was rising in my voice. I knew what she was saying, but I wanted her to SAY what she meant. She didn't respond, just faced away from me. The pitch of my voice went higher as I talked to her hair, "I'm... You need to... What are you saying, Mom?! I just wanna know. Are you telling me you don't accept me? Are you saying you don't love me anymore, all of a sudden?"
My pitch went even higher, "I just wanna know!" I noted the sob building up in my voice and felt my eyes begin to water and I rejected that I was beginning to feel so hurt and so sad and so lost. I was determined not to let her get to me, not to feel worthless if she didn't love me.
It wasn't working very well. In spite of the emotional distance and all I had realized about how shallow she was, it still hurt so damn much more than I thought it would to be so coldly, brutally rejected by my mother. I was shaking and my voice was very uneven, cracking on practically every other word as I looked to my dad for help.
"So, what, Dad, is this it? Is it that cut and dry?" I pleaded. "What, do I no longer exist for y'all or something now, all of a sudden, because of who I am?" I touched the top of the seat near his headrest, reaching for that connection that I already knew wasn't there. "Is there no discussing this, no working it out?"
His mouth opened and closed, trying to speak, but no words made it out. His eyes darted between Mom and I. He looked a little ashen, unable to jump in. I pleaded to him with a full on sob now in my voice and tears leaking down my cheeks, "It's just over? Eighteen years of raising me to be the person I am-- a good person-- and all that means nothing all of a sudden, just because of who I love? Y'all don't love me anymore? Dad..." I begged his blinking eyes. "You too?"
Dad's eyes just kept darting between Mom and I. He was completely flustered, at a loss for words, and he seemed so... ineffectual, so weak. She had emasculated him so long ago that I didn't know him any other way. Oh, he could be "the Commander" and be loud and authoritative with others, and even with Mom and me, like at the police station, when she let him. But when it came to taking sides when either my sister or I opposed her, he was as spineless as they come, and he showed nothing but frailty now.
He finally managed to speak, stammering, "J-J-Janet... Why don't we talk about this some more? Let's not just cut it off like..."
Mom cut him off with one glacial word, "Drive." Not looking back, she raised the back of her hand to indicate there would be no further discussion and said, yet again, "Get out." But she added to it this time, "You are no longer a member of this family. You are not welcome in our home. Go be with your sickfriend." She loaded the word so heavily it fell of its own weight to the floorboard and shattered in a million judgments.
I was just stunned. I couldn't move and couldn't think and couldn't respond. I couldn't yell at her, I couldn't cry, I couldn't reason with her. But I had to move, had to physically exit the car, exit my entire life. My father obediently put the car in reverse, but held his foot on the brake. I couldn't believe this was happening, even though I had anticipated and actually expected it.
I kept thinking, 'So this is it?' goosebumps raced over my whole body again and again as everything just felt so... final.
I reached up, wiped a tear from my cheek and looked at the moisture on my finger, much the way I had looked at Khalil's blood on it last night and with at least a small amount of the same disbelief I had then, like it was hard for my mind to accept what it was and why it was there. I looked once more at my dad, who could no longer look me in the eye.
I pitied him, and that realization made me sad on a whole other level. I looked at the back of my mother's head and tried again to stop myself from feeling like I'd just been wiped from existence, scrubbed out without even leaving that stain she had referred to so people might occasionally notice it and remember there once was someone named Cole Lawrence Manning.
My head was pounding so hard I was afraid I might have an aneurism or something. I felt like a trapped animal. I could hardly breathe, and at the same time I got angry. I got enraged. I wanted to SCREAM at her that she had no right to do this to me and she was a cold hearted bitch and she didn't deserve to have me for a son and she would someday regret everything she had said and to hell with her anyway and I would get along just fine without her and I hope she'll be happy in her miserable little world where no one can really love her cuz she's so fucking cold and distant and I hate her and...and...
My shoulders slumped and I lugged my unbearably heavy body out and stood at the open door, clutching the handle in my trembling hand. Dad waited for me close the door and let go, but I just stood there... I guess giving Mom time to relent, to blink.
It didn't happen.
After a long minute, I shut the door and Dad released the brake. I watched my reflection warp and waver as it traveled in the brilliant black sheen of the sleek Mercedes as it backed up and paused.
The harsh sun made the tinted windows like mirrors and I wondered if my dad even looked my way before he abandoned me. The wheels turned and they headed toward the exit. I stood in the parking lot of Ben Taub General Hospital in the middle of Houston, in the middle of over three million people, and felt just so totally alone.
My eyes scanned the parking lot, for what I don't know. People came and went. I just stood there in the noon heat shimmering off the asphalt and cars, unsure if they were out of focus because of the rising vapors or the water in my eyes. I felt... nothing. Nothingness. Emptiness. Mom's words began to drift through my head and I thought again, 'So this is it? Is it that easy? Is it that easy to excommunicate your own son whom you claim to love so much? I wondered.
I did feel something besides just emptiness. I felt... small and vulnerable, scared, like the time I got lost in the huge Sears store in Cleveland when I was five years old at Christmas time. I had cried nonstop until Mom came and got me after they paged her over the store PA system. I remembered how she scolded me in front of all those nice people and refused to comfort me afterwards, telling me I had better learn to follow her and not get lost, because she just might not come back and get me next time. I had clung to her so tightly after that. The fear of her not bothering to come get me terrified me to the core at five. The reality of her throwing me away at eighteen just left me empty.
I couldn't say how long I stood there in a daze. I thought of surprisingly little in that time. I guess I just let the emotions battle it out inside me. I mean, I felt that fear in the pit of my stomach; I felt the loss of everything and everyone I had known all my life, but I also felt relieved. I felt a little bit lighter in a strange way, and that feeling grew until the sound of screeching tires yanked my eyes over to the Emergency room door, a couple hundred feet away.
A guy in his twenties was helping a much older man I guessed to be his dad out of their car. The older man's nose was bleeding and he didn't seem to be able to walk on his own. A woman who had to be his wife yelled, "Hurry! Get in there before it's too late!" just as a couple of hospital staff ran out pushing a gurney to help get him inside.
The woman's words jolted me out of my paralysis. Khalil! All that had just happened, my emptiness, my fear, my sense of loss, the image of my mother's cold eyes-- it all just vanished as my mind bore down on one point of concern: I had to find Khalil, find out how he was, make it all better. As I looked at the automatic sliding door, it seemed like it was a mile away as I was gripped in a sudden blind panic, feeling like I HAD to get through it before it closed, as though somehow I ONLY had this one chance to get inside to my love, to my life, to all that mattered now.