November 3rd, 2016

Kinsky, California, USA

All The King’s Men

Aaron woke up yawning in his bed. It was a weekend, and he was consciously thankful not to be woken by a ringing alarm. He stumbled out, covering his mostly naked body in a cotton robe, and walked out into the hallway.

In the living room was an older, slightly overweight black woman who was stuck in a yoga pose. She had dyed curly red hair and her eyes were glued to a small TV which played a video of the woman she was following. As Aaron walked past, she spoke up, her eyes not leaving the screen.

“Are you going to Rose’s today?”

Aaron shimmied his slippers down over to the fridge, opening its door. “No, she’s hanging out with some friends. I’m gonna play basketball with the guys instead.”

The woman transitioned into a different pose. “Well, when am I gonna see Bonny again?”

“Tomorrow. She’ll be here for three days, if that’s okay.”

The woman gave a big, bellowing laugh. “Oh, I’ll take care of that lil dog anytime! You don’t even gotta ask, hun.”

Aaron closed the fridge, a chocolate donut hanging out his mouth and a bottle of Starbucks cold brew in his hand. “Where’s dad at?” He asked.

“Over by the car. Was fixin’ somethin’. I don’t know what.”

Aaron waved his hand as he walked towards the front door. “Alright, thanks. I’m headed out for today, be back around five.”

“Okay, love you baby!”

“Love you too, mom.”

Aaron only took a few steps out the door before he found his father. The man was wrenching something under the hood, but when he heard the footsteps approaching he got up and wiped his forehead. His father was bald, with a graying beard. He smiled at the young teen as he approached.

“Hey there, lad. Need the car?”

Aaron looked at the truck. “Yeah, if that’s alright.”

“You’re in luck. Just fixed the thing up — had some rattling so I tightened the bolts. You want me to drive you?”

“Oh, uh… well, thanks, but I don’t really want to interrupt anything you’re doing-”

“You don’t need to worry about that at all! My schedule is open for today. Come, hop in.”

Before Aaron could react with anything else, his father was already in the driver seat with the car turned on. Aaron sighed and got in on the other side.

It was a relatively short drive to the Kinsky Park basketball courts. After they parked, Aaron’s father turned towards his son. He put his hand in a fist, and laid it across his chest.

“Now, make sure you do good on the McNamara name!” Aaron’s father spoke with heated passion. Aaron used almost all of his willpower to stop himself from cringing, then did a similar — although weaker — motion across his chest.

“Yeah, yeah. Got it.”

“I know you will. Have fun, lad. I love you.”

“Love you too, dad.”

Aaron quickly got out of the car and made a brisk walk as far as possible from the truck. When the car drove away, he entered the court with the others he recognized.

…

Of those in attendance at the basketball court, only three were worth mentioning: Aaron, Cole, and Isaac. The others were mostly members of Kinksy High’s basketball team. Predictably, the team consisting of the two non-basketball players were handily defeated.

Later in the day, while the group began to pack and go their separate ways, Isaac walked up to Cole.

“Hey, you live pretty close by, right?” 

Cole turned around to see the quarterback standing over him. “Yeah, I was gonna walk.”

“I’m pretty close too. Wanna walk together?”

Cole shrugged his shoulders. “Sure, why not?”

Isaac and Cole walked down the sidewalk and crossed the street to the long open road that led to their respective houses. After a few minutes had passed in silence, Isaac spoke up.

“You know, I’m not sure if now’s a great time to talk about this… but, um… has Kat mentioned me at all?”

Cole looked up to the sky in thought, then shook his head. “Nope. Still nothing.”

“I mean, I’m over the whole thing, you know. And like, I’m good with however she wants to move on. I just want to make sure I didn’t leave with a bad impression, you know? I want to make sure she doesn’t think I’m some sort of bad person. Because it’s true, I mean, that I… that I do have some problems, in um…”

“…In dealing with women?”

Isaac turned to face him. “Yikes. It’s really that obvious, huh?”

Cole considered softening the blow, but couldn’t think of a way to handle it. “Yeah. Yeah it is.”

Isaac shook his head. “You know how it is. Us guys, we live in our own bubble. We see the world we want to see. And sometimes… well, most of the time, that’s not a great way of doing things. But I’m trying to get better. Could you let her know that? That I’m trying to get better?”

“If it comes up, sure.”

“Yeah, yeah. Make it natural. I just want to make sure she doesn’t have a bad last impression on me, you know?”

Cole was mostly passively listening, having gone through a similar conversation with Isaac many times before. Yet something on the horizon caused him to stumble back into reality. Out of the clearing of the forest, the road led them to a bridge. It was a bridge that Cole had driven across many times before, but never walked. There was something about this bridge that, today in particular, stuck out at him.

He walked up to the center of the bridge and gripped the railing. He looked down. For some reason the bridge was much taller than he had ever assumed it to be. At its bottom was a small, unoccupied lake. Despite his distance, he felt that he could see his reflection peering back at him from the surface of the gentle waves. 

“Don’t look down too long, you’ll get vertigo.”

Cole snapped out of it, and turned back towards Isaac. Isaac smiled, putting his arms on the railing and leaning forward.

“I pass this bridge all the time on my weekday runs. It’s a nice, quiet place. You just look out beyond and see nothing but trees and water and rocks. Not a whole lot of people use this bridge, since the road leads to a dead end. So you’re kind of… just separated from the outside world. I usually stop and take a rest here, if I’m feeling it.”

Cole leaned up against the railing himself, listening to the birds chirp and feeling the wind blow. After a few moments of silence, Isaac spoke once more.

“You know, I’ve been thinking a lot. About what happened.”

“About you and Kat?”

“No, about you and Maria. The Anita thing, I mean.”

Cole was pulled back into uneasiness. Isaac continued.

“Now, I know I was never really close to Anita, or to Maria, really. But sometimes shit happens that just… it reminds you about how little control you have over the world. Listen, it doesn’t take a PhD to figure out that the Anita stuff is fishy. That someone drove her to do that. And it doesn’t take a PhD to realize that you two have been going around trying to make sense of it all. I’ve been trying to make sense of it too, in my own way. I realize that, if I had control of the world… no one would ever hurt that little girl. I could name a few people I might hurt, but not that little girl. Not any little girls, really. But I don’t have control of the world. And those things still happen.”

Isaac’s hands began to squeeze the railing. He looked down, frustrated, at the crusted paint on the metal.

“I only have control of the aftermath. The reaction to it all. And I swear to you, Cole, if we ever found out who did it… I’d kill him.”

Cole began to sweat. He looked at Isaac with wide eyes. Isaac turned back towards him.

“You’d think that’s the right thing to do, right? To get justice?”

“Well, I mean… I don’t… revenge is something that sounds good on paper, right? But there’s other ways to get justice. Better ways, that don’t answer evil and violence with evil and violence.”

Isaac sighed. His grasp loosened on the railing. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry I freaked you out for a second.”

“No, it’s okay. Sometimes I get… sometimes I get upset about it too. I have to remind myself that there’s a better method of doing things.”

Isaac continued walking across the bridge. Cole followed next to him. 

“You know,” Isaac continued. “You’re kinda like the ego to my id. Or whatever it’s called. You remember that, from Psych?”

Cole shook his head. “I don’t take Psych.”

Isaac scratched the back of his head. “And I failed that test. So I guess we’re both clueless.”

Cole chuckled, as he began to ease up once more. The rest of the walk was uneventful, as they made their way back home.

…

A few hours later, Isaac was home on his laptop, ignoring the homework a few feet in front of him. His eyes left the screen when he heard the doorbell ring. His father wasn’t home, but he was expecting a visitor.

He walked downstairs and opened the door. In front of him was a familiar team member.

“Yo, Maurice,” Isaac widened the door for his entrance. “Come on in. You want a drink?”

“No, no, it’s alright.” Maurice wiped his shoes on the floor mat, then gently placed them next to the door — a ritual that Isaac found bizarre, seeing that neither him nor his father ever did it.

“Hey, I’m… I’m real sorry about the last minute nature of all this. It’s just, kinda… I don’t know, I don’t have a great excuse.”

Isaac closed the door. “Nah man, it’s alright. Knowing you, it’s gotta be pretty serious. What’s goin’ on?”

Maurice took a few steps toward a dinner table not that far from the entrance. His hand grasped the rim of one of its chairs and he looked down to the tiled floor. 

“I… um…” 

In truth Maurice had rehearsed this many times before, perhaps not with Isaac in mind but otherwise still prepared. Yet, in a moment like this, rehearsal falls apart. 

“Well… you’re the first person who’s going to know this, but… Rodrigo and I are in a relationship.”

Isaac looked confused at first. However, within a few moments, his face began to change. His lips began to curl upwards, and his eyes began to widen. His nose scrunched up, and he began to show the whites of his teeth. Eventually, he couldn’t hold it in anymore. He laughed.

“Ha! Oh, man. I feel like such a dumbass. This entire time, I’m going around, wondering — who’s Maurice into? Is he trying to get in this girl? Is he trying to get in that girl? What’s his game plan? And all this time — all this entire time — I never, not once, considered that you’d be gay. And with Rod, too? Damn, you motherfuckers blindsided me. Congrats, though!”

Maurice looked up from the tile, and at Isaac’s face. Part of him was relieved about the boy’s warm response, but another part was annoyed by his informality.

“The reason I’m telling you, Isaac, is because I’m worried about Haa. And the other guys. I mean, you know all them. You know how they act. What am I gonna do if they find out?”

Isaac crossed his arms. “Well, Rus obviously isn’t going to care. He’s Christian, but he’s not that Christian. And the other boys I’ll whip up into shape, if they try anything.”

“Well, I guess I’m… mostly concerned about Coach.”

Isaac thought for a moment. It was true that Coach Haa was the person to be most feared. It was also true that he had said things in the past that seemed to give a rather negative opinion on homosexuality. And yet, the biggest thing Maurice had going for him was football. Even Isaac knew that. So what was the best response? How could Isaac control the world, and not just react to it?

“I’ve got it. Hold on, give me a second.”

Isaac walked up the stairs while Maurice stood and watched. A few moments later the boy came back down, with a jersey in his hand.

“When you get a chance at practice, tell him the truth. If he tells you to hand in your jersey, then give him this-” 

He tossed the jersey to Maurice, who looked down at it. Emblazoned on its back was the number 11, and in large print the name BRODERICK.

“-because if you’re off the team, then I’m off, too.”

Maurice was speechless. “Isaac, I… thank you, this… this is…”

“Common sense.” Isaac put his hands in his pockets. “I don’t deserve an award for it. It’s just what’s supposed to be done.”

Maurice looked up, and nodded. He swung the jersey carefully over his shoulder.

“Well, you wanna stay for a bit? We could hang out on the porch.”

“No, sorry. Sounds good, but… my mom’s gonna be wondering where I am if I’m gone too long.”

“Oh, yeah. What’s your plan for your mom, anyway?”

Maurice walked to the door, putting his shoes back on. “I don’t think she’ll find out. At least, not until it’s too late. She doesn’t really connect too much to the outside world, and it’s not like any of you will tell her.”

Isaac smiled. “Oh, don’t worry. She’s already been on my blacklist. Not gonna hear it from me.”

Maurice put his hand on the door knob. “Alright then. Thanks, Isaac.”

“No problem. Just make sure not to get that thing dirty, alright?”

Maurice looked back to the jersey on his shoulder. “O-oh, yeah, of course. I’ll make sure to clean it up before I give it back to you.”

Isaac chuckled. “I’m kidding! You’re like an OCD freak compared to me. I’m not worried.”

Maurice turned towards him, and smiled. The two said their goodbyes, and Isaac walked back up the stairs.