Summary — When Tom hesitantly becomes the guardian of his younger brother’s teenage son he has no premonition of the relationship that will develop between the two of them and the changes in his lifestyle that it will bring.
Back when I was in high school, I was one of the nerdy kids — not good at sports — okay looking, but nothing special — grades okay but nothing that would get me a scholarship at a good college. So in an attempt to do something that would get some of the better-looking girls to give me at least a second look, I joined a band. And promptly found out that I didn’t have any aptitude for music. But what I did find was that I had an aptitude for working with the guys who could read and play the music, but didn’t know squat about all those electronic “things” that made their music sound good. So I hung out with a couple of the local bands and whenever they needed help getting set up for a gig, a problem with a soundboard fixed, an RCA-to-XLR adapter, or some monitor speakers scrounged up — I was the go-to guy. Never did get any of the better-looking girls to give me a second look, but at least I was having fun.
And by the time I graduated from high school, the word had gotten around to the traveling bands that whenever they came to town, I was one of the best locals to hire to set up and run their soundboard for them.
When I graduated from high school and was thinking about going on to college, or maybe just the local community college, I was having so much fun setting up and running sound systems for bands that I just put off any further education for a year, and then a second year, and then for a third year. And finally, after another six or seven years, I was now operating a small business with several vans full of sound and stage equipment that I rented out, and 5–10 part-time employees depending on the season and was having a ball.
If my life was working out pretty well, my younger brother was another story. Marshall was seven years younger than I was and when you’re a teenager a seven-year difference is, like, forever, so Marshall did his thing and I did my thing — and the two of us really had very little to do with each other. Other than the age difference, another reason for that was that Marshall’s “thing” involved drugs. He’d started occasionally smoking a little pot, graduated to the harder stuff in high school, and I’d heard rumors that he’d moved up to deal.
Along the way, he’d managed to get his girlfriend pregnant and when he finally gave up on ever graduating high school and dropped out when he was eighteen, he had a pretty good drug habit and a 3-year-old kid. I never tried to keep in touch with him but every so often my mother would pass on some news about him — his latest arrest, his latest try at rehab, six months in the county jail for dealing, whatever. So I was kind of like, “Marshall, I’m sorry that you fucked up your life but there’s not much that I can do to help you.”
On a happier note, by then I’d met Keri. Keri was several years younger than I was and was a pretty good singer with one of the traveling bands. I’d gotten to know her when the band she performed with passed through town and we had started, like, “Hi Keri, glad to see you back in town,” and, “Thanks Tom, and can you give me a mic that doesn’t make it sound like I’m gargling this time?” But we progressed from friendly banter to going out for an occasional beer, and I found myself looking forward to her visits. Eventually, we started having sex and then when she’d be in town for more than a day or so she’d stay at my apartment instead of at a motel with the rest of the band.
Now Keri wasn’t, like, you know, knock-out beautiful or anything, but she had this bubbly, cheerful personality. I’m 5' 9" and Keri was about 6" shorter than me. But where I’m sort of lean she’s got this lush body with all the right curves in the right places — not, like, fat or even chubby but just soft and very female and great to be in bed with. One of my friends, after a pitcher or two of beer, described her as “built for comfort,” and I guess that described her pretty well.
When her band broke up and she needed a place to stay for a couple of days, it just seemed natural that she’d move in with me. A couple of days turned into a couple of weeks, and then a couple of months, and then a couple of years. My business was doing pretty well and I had bought a small building to hold all the sound and stage equipment that I rented out and had two full-time employees to manage the work crews that set up and ran the equipment, and Keri was the office manager that kept everything running smoothly. We had even branched out and set up a small recording studio down the block that was getting so busy that we had to expand it several times and hire a full-time manager just for that. So life was good.
At least life was good for me. I was having a ball with my music businesses and was making a few bucks, actually more than a few to be accurate, and Keri was running the office and socking most of the
profits away in various investments — most of which I didn’t understand.
But in the last year or so it seemed like something had changed in our relationship. Keri didn’t seem as happy as before and was less inclined to go along with me when I’d go out with one of the bands to party after their performance. It all came to a head one evening when we decided to get off by ourselves for a weekend and checked into a suite in a nice hotel up in the mountains. The second night we were there we decided to hit a fancy restaurant and splurge on a nice dinner and that’s when we each had a bottle of wine. Later that evening when we were back in our suite she brought up the subject of us getting married and starting a family.
If it hadn’t been for the wine I would probably have handled it better but I guess I said a bunch of things about marriage and kids that I shouldn’t have and Keri suddenly got very quiet. In bed that night she just rolled up in a blanket on her side of the bed and ignored me. The drive back to town wasn’t much better with her just sitting there in the car, not saying anything, and staring out the window at the passing scenery. Back in our apartment, she began to silently unpack my things for me and I ran down to the office to check on a couple of upcoming jobs. There were a few problems and by the time I got back to the apartment, it was early evening.
The apartment felt different when I walked in, quiet and sort of empty. Keri wasn’t there and neither were some of her clothes. I found an envelope addressed to me on the bed and it contained what I was afraid it would contain — a note saying that Keri had moved out. Oh, she was nice about it, and wished me the best, but “…. we’re very different people, Tom, and I need to find someone who wants the same things out of life that I do.” No address where I could reach her, and no answer when I called her cell phone — she was gone.
The next couple of months were tough. I drank too much and slept with too many of the groupies following the bands — but none of that made me miss Keri less. So I threw myself into my businesses, getting way more involved in the day-to-day management that Keri had previously taken care of — and was really surprised at how profitable the businesses were and the value of the investments that Keri had poured the profits into. Now, I wasn’t rich or anything but I realized that I had enough money to move out of the apartment that I had shared with Keri — and away from the memories of her that filled the apartment. So I decided to move some of my money from one type of investment to another, I bought a house!
Ever watch those house-hunting shows on TV where the couple starts out with a budget that they can’t exceed? And the nice agent that they’re working with just keeps showing them houses that are, “ just a little above your budget but I just want you to get an idea of what a few more dollars will get you.” And of course, the nice young couple, like, totally blows their budget and gets a place that’s bigger, fancier, and way more expensive than they ever planned on. The same thing happened to me.
So now I own a place up in one of the canyons outside of town with a great view of the city spread out below, a big swimming pool, three bedrooms, a huge kitchen, a big stone fireplace with a pair of
antlers hung over it in the living area, lots of privacy from my neighbors and a huge mortgage. Packing up and moving was kind of tough because Keri had left behind a lot of clothes and personal items when
she moved out and I just didn’t have the heart to dispose of them so I had them packed up and stored in one of the bedrooms in the new house.
Now, I hadn’t really had any contact with my younger brother Marshall for many years, almost thirteen in fact, the last time being around the time when Marshall was eighteen and had just dropped out of high school.
Occasionally Mom would let me know what was happening with my younger brother — never anything good, of course. So I wasn’t too surprised when she told me several weeks ago that Marshall had finally used up his last “get out of jail” ticket and had been sentenced to 27 years in state prison for a drug deal gone bad where he’d shot and killed another dealer. Near the end of the conversation, she mentioned that she and Dad were going to ask the court to let Erik come and live with them. “Erik?” I asked, “Who’s Erik?”
“Oh you know,” she replied, “Marshall’s son Erik. He’s nineteen now and with Marshall in jail, Social Services needs to put him in a foster home till he’s twenty. So we’re going to take him in with us.”
“Uh, yeah, whatever,” I replied, just glad that Marshall’s problems didn’t have anything to do with me.
At least till I got another call from Mom a month after that. It turned out that the court had denied Mom and Dad’s petition to become Erik’s guardians. Something about the fact that my parents were in their seventies, Dad was beginning to show signs of dementia, and Erik was considered a “troubled youth” — whatever that meant. “But Social Services told the court that they wouldn’t have any objection to you becoming Erik’s guardian, you being a stable adult and all that,” she said.
I was, like, “What the fuck? You want me to be responsible for some screwed-up nineteen-year-old kid?” (Well, I didn’t say that to Mom, but I thought it.) So we had a long conversation with me refusing to have anything to do with Erik and her crying, and me refusing again, and her crying some more, and me finally agreeing that Erik could come to live with me — just for a year till he was twenty. After we hung up I thought, “Oh great! I’m going to have some teenage problem kid around the house!” Little did I know!
Guess I should have expected it, but I was still a bit surprised when I received a call from a lady at Social Services — they needed to come out and inspect my house! After a short discussion with her on the phone (“Oh, but you can understand how we must protect our little kiddies by making sure they’re placed in a safe environment”) I agreed. (I restrained from asking, “Little kiddies? You’re asking me to care for some baby goats?
I thought we were talking about my nephew?”) So anyway, about 30 minutes late for her appointment, my doorbell rang and I opened it to find a short and grossly obese young woman wearing a strange-looking dress that bulged amazingly in places, a white pasty face with a spray of pimples across her forehead, lank tangled greasy hair that really needed shampoo, and breath that hinted that she was on a garlic diet. But I let her in and followed her as she waddled from room to room, amazed that one so short could have an ass so wide.
She asked a lot of questions and took lots of pictures of the bathroom (but no other room), and among other things, measured the height above the floor of all the light switches (“Mustn’t let the little kiddies hurt their backs by stretching?” I thought to myself). Finally, she said that of course she’d have to write up her report and have it reviewed but she thought that I’d be approved to act as my nephew’s guardian (all the while scowling, grimacing, and licking her fat lips as if it pained her to give my good news), and waddled off to wedge herself into her tiny car, leaving behind greasy fingerprints on everything she touched and the lasting aroma of garlic hanging in the air.
I did get approved, and so several weeks later the doorbell rang mid-morning and I opened the front door of my house to find the fat lady from Social Services standing on my doorstep with a slight teenage boy standing sort of hunched over behind her. Other than that my brother had fathered a kid and named it Erik I really know nothing about my nephew — never met him before, no photographs, nothing — so I wasn’t sure what to expect when I met him except that when he followed the fat lady into my house and I could get a better look at him, he was nothing like I’d imagined he might be. With a name like Erik, I’d assumed maybe a big muscular teen with red curly hair or something like that. What followed the fat lady as she waddled into my house was actually a slim youth, maybe 5' 7" or so.
Actually, “slim” wasn’t right; he was downright skinny with a narrow waist and a rather pinched underweight face. I immediately realized that his mother must have been oriental as Erik had vivid deep black almond-shaped eyes, a triangular face, a small nose, full lips, high cheekbones, and a shaggy mop of long black hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed for a long time. As he drew closer, I noticed that he also smelled — kind of a funny musty smell, like when you toss a damp towel in a corner and then pick it up several days later.
He didn’t say anything but shyly extended his hand, to shake mine and I noticed his long slender fingers as I took his limp hand in mine, not quite knowing whether to shake it, hug him, or whatever. The embarrassing moment was broken by a cloud of garlic breath from the Social Services lady as she announced, “Well, I’ll leave the two of you to get acquainted. Didn’t have a chance to eat breakfast this morning and I’m dying to tackle a big plate of pancakes. I’ll check back with you two every so often” and she turned and waddled out the door, leaving Erik and myself to “get acquainted.”
An embarrassed silence followed for several moments as Erik and I just stood there — I was examining him and he was turning his head to look at as much of my house as you could see from the entrance. In addition to his slight build, I now noticed the several-sizes-too-large stained T- shirt (advertising a popular boy band) that he was wearing, a pair of baggy, ragged, and torn jeans, and a pair of sneakers that were in the process of falling apart. I broke the silence with, “Okay, why don’t I show you around the place and which bedroom will be yours.”
“I get my own bedroom?”
His question surprised me a little so I just responded, “Uh, yeah, sure” as I led him through the living area and toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. As we passed through the living area and he saw the pool outside and the view of the city below I could see his eyes grow wide with surprise although he didn’t say anything. Finally, we reached his bedroom and I opened the door saying, “This’ll be your bedroom. The sliding door opens onto the patio and the pool area. The bathroom is off to the right there. You can get your things unpacked and I’ll go see what’s in the refrigerator that we can warm up for lunch. Sound okay to you?” He just nodded.
So I’m in the kitchen, trying to remember what I liked to eat back when I was a teenager, finding that most of those things I didn’t have, and wishing that I’d given more thought to getting ready before the fat lady and Erik showed up this morning. I finally settled on potato chips, microwave pizza, and some ice cream sundae cups I remembered that I had in the freezer. Lunch, such as it was, prepared, I went to Erick’s bedroom, tapped on the door, and receiving no response opened the door and entered the room to find him sprawled on the bed sound asleep. Relaxed in sleep he appeared even more slight and thin and I was beginning to wonder what sort of life he had led with my younger brother. I approached the bed, gently shook his shoulder to wake him, and was surprised when he snapped awake and jerked away from me with a look of fear on his face. He saw the look on my face and said, “Uh, sorry, you just sort of, surprised me.”
“No problem. There’s some food ready if you’re hungry.”
Man, hungry didn’t describe him as he gulped down everything in front of he and I had to drag out some leftover potato salad and half of an apple pie from the refrigerator before he was satisfied. As he sat at the countertop I noticed that he leaned forward, sort of hunched over as he had been when he entered my house and I was wondering if he just had bad posture.
“Best meal I’ve had in a long time,” he said as he polished off the last of the apple pie.
“Just leftovers.”
“My Dad wasn’t big on keeping food in the apartment — just drugs.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that, so I paused for a moment and then asked, “You need any help unpacking? The bedroom’s yours so you can rearrange things if you want. And you’ve got the run of the house although it is about a 5-mile hike to get down into the city from here and I’m usually working six days a week.”
“I’m good. Looking forward to relaxing and not worrying about the fights and guns.”
Man, I knew that my younger brother had been into dealing drugs, but what kind of a life had this kid been living? So I dodged that comment as well. “Kind of hot this afternoon. Pool’s there if you want to try it out.”
“Never learned to swim. It got a shallow end?”
I assured him that it did and he seemed like he might give it a try, so I went off to the small office in my bedroom to work on getting out some invoices to my customers while Erik used the pool.
I was a little nervous about Erik being alone in the pool, him not being able to swim and all that, but my office had a window looking out into the pool area so I could keep an eye on him if he did decide to use the pool. I’d been working my way through a pile of paperwork when I noticed movement outside and looked up to see Erik come out onto the patio from his bedroom. Talk about ratty clothes! His “bathing suit” looked like it was made from pair of men’s work pants, worn almost to the point of falling apart, cut off at the knees, and held up by a cord through the belt loops that bunched the worn material in folds around his slim waist. He was also wearing what looked like an old sweatshirt, arms torn off, the fabric worn thin, and, again several sizes too large for him.
Erik looked around as if to see whether anyone might be observing him. The heat-reflecting film on the windows in my house gave them a mirror-like appearance from the outside so he didn’t see me watching him as he gingerly slid down into the shallow end of the pool. After a minute or so he got used to the water and began playing like a little kid, splashing, swimming underwater, floating on his back, hanging onto the wall of the pool, and kicking with his feet to send sprays of water up into the air. Once it was wet I noticed that his shaggy hair was longer than I had thought as it formed thick wet bangs on either side of his face and hung down at least six or seven inches below his shoulders.
There was also something else that I wasn’t quite sure about the fabric of his sweatshirt seemed bunched up on his chest in an odd way.
Once I was sure that Erik would stay safely in the shallow end of the pool I turned back to my paperwork and ignored him for what must have been an hour or so, turning my attention back to him only when I noticed that he seemed about to dry off and go back into his bedroom. He looked around briefly to again see whether he was being observed, pulled off the wet sweatshirt that he had been wearing, and began to dry off his hair with one of the pool towels. With Erik’s back to me and without his sweatshirt I was surprised to see how really skinny he was I could easily make out his individual ribs under his skin. After several minutes of drying his long hair, he turned and began to walk toward the sliding door that led to his bedroom, allowing me a view of his side profile and then the front of his chest, and I was shocked to see that Erik had breasts!
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