Hobbled (2 page)

Danny laughed. “Yeah, that would be pretty funny.” Then he spotted his father glowering down at him and decided maybe he shouldn’t be laughing after all.

Although it was pretty funny.

“As soon as the monitor comes off, your anger management classes will commence.”

“Fucking judge.”

His father chose to ignore that. “It would have been nice if you had at least been smart enough not to slip in the ice and break your own leg after you were finished tearing up the restaurant. That cost another eighteen hundred dollars, as you know.”

“Sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t pay the bills, kid. And speaking of bills, there’s also the matter of forking money over to the State of California for the privilege of keeping you out of jail. That ankle monitor is racking up charges even as we speak. It costs a pretty penny every single day you wear it. So please don’t do anything to
lengthen
your period of house arrest. I don’t think I’d be able to afford it.”

“Sorry,” Danny said again.

“And I don’t think I’d be sitting there insulting the judge, either, if I were you. It’s because of him you’re not sitting in a cell counting off the days by scratching them on the wall with a spoon you stole from the jail cafeteria.”

“Sorry,” Danny said
again.

His dad sighed. “Keep a low profile while I’m gone. Whatever you do, don’t call the cops and get them over here. I’d rather they didn’t know I left you on your own. They might not be too happy about that. If they come by to check on you, try not to say anything about me at all. That way, hopefully, they’ll just think I’m at work. Got it?”

“Sorry. I mean, got it.”

“The judge restricted your phone privileges but you can still use the Internet. I’ve got my laptop with me. If you want to contact me, shoot me an e-mail. As for the phone, I can call you, but you can’t call me. Or anybody else for that matter. Okay?”

“Okay. Sir.”

His father sucked in a deep breath of air, as if he had just swum up from the bottom of the pool in the backyard after having his toe stuck in the drain for five minutes. “Your mother wants you to move back to Indiana and live with her full time as soon as everything is completed to the judge’s satisfaction. I told her you’re an adult and you can do whatever you want.”

He stared at Danny’s face until Danny got the message and decided to be courteous enough to stare back and pay attention. As soon as their eyes connected, his father said, “I’d rather you stayed here, Danny. I want to make sure you know that. I know you weren’t happy living with your mom and that dickhead she married, and only coming here to be with me during the summers. But that was how your custody panned out in the divorce, so we had to put up with it. Well, you’re of age now, Son. You can do anything you want. Anything
legal,
I mean
.
When this house arrest business is all over, you stay here with me from now on in, okay? We’ll find you another job, or maybe get you enrolled in a college where you can learn a trade. We’ll get you squared away, and while you’re doing all that, you can live here at the house. Rent free, till you’re on your feet. Hell, even after you’re on your feet, if you can still stand to be around me by then. What do you say? Is that a deal?”

Danny was touched. He really was. And the last thing he wanted to do was move back to Indiana with the cows and the chickens and his mother, who was a true pain in the ass, and her husband, the fucking farmer, who was
also
a pain in the ass, the putz, and that tiny one-stoplight town where he went to school all the way from first grade through high school graduation.

“Don’t worry, Pop. I’ll stay here. It’s what I’ve wanted all along. And—thanks. I mean, well—thanks. I’ve always wanted to be here with you. I guess you know that.”

Then, as if he were nine years old, Danny added, “I’ll be good from now on. I promise.”

His father looked touched, and he looked relieved on top of it. “I know you will, Danny. And I’m glad you’re staying. Honest.”

He clapped his hands together like people do when they’re about to set off to search for the source of the Nile or something. “Now, then! Don’t forget to feed Frederick.”

They both looked up at Danny’s bookcase by the window where Frederick the cat was eating the cover off of Danny’s childhood edition of
Tom Sawyer
. He had been going back to it periodically for about a week now, gnawing at the binding, tearing through the pages with his claws. Really getting into the story. Danny figured the cat must have a thing for Mark Twain.

“I will, Pop. And I’ll empty his litter box. Don’t worry.”

His father stared at Frederick for a moment as if maybe he had never seen a cat digesting Mark Twain before.
Literally
digesting it. Which was probably true. “He’s humping the cat next door, you know. I’m seriously thinking of nailing the pet door shut. Or having his nuts removed. If somebody delivers a paternity suit with Frederick’s name on it, just hold it until I get back. Then we’ll ship Frederick off to your mother. Nuts and all.”

Danny laughed. “Gotcha.”

His father looked uncomfortable again, shuffling his feet and clearing his throat. Finally, he bit the bullet and leaned over Danny to give him a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll be going now. Don’t get up. That was a joke. I mean about getting up. Well, no it wasn’t.
Don’t get up.
I’ll see you in three weeks.”

“Have fun. And don’t worry, Dad. Like I said. I’ll be good. I promise.”

His father nodded, as if he expected no less. He headed for the door, and just before opening it, turned back with a grin, and said, “When I’m back from my trip, maybe you might think about locking your door whenever you get the urge to pleasure yourself.”

“Uh. Pleasure myself?”

His father laughed. “Yeah. In vulgar parlance I believe it’s called pounding the pud. You know. Jerking the jackrabbit. Stroking the lizard. Spanking the monkey. Choking the chicken. Polishing the piccolo. Whatever you want to call it, just don’t beat it to death. You may need it later in life, whether you think you will or not. So lock the door next time. Save us all a lot of embarrassment.”

And now they were both blushing. “Okay, Pop. I’ll try to remember.”

His father nodded, gave him a wink, and eased himself out the door, latching it softly behind him, obviously glad that was over.

Danny just shook his head and grinned.

Spanking the monkey?

D
ANNY
waited until he heard his father’s footsteps descending the stairs. Then he waited until he heard the rattle of the front door as the old man juggled his luggage out onto the porch.
Then
Danny waited until he heard the slamming of the car door out in the driveway. Finally, with bated breath, he waited five seconds longer for the sound of his dad’s car starting up and the sound of his dad’s tires crunching their way down the gravel driveway and out onto the street.

As soon as Danny was hit by that feeling you get when you just
know
you’re the only person left within spitting distance, he peeled the bathrobe off his body like Velcro. It made an audible
schleechking
sound, since it was by now pretty well glued to his skin with fossilized come. Naked, he clumsily struggled to his feet. Just getting out of a chair was a major undertaking, thanks to all the extra hardware he had strapped to his lower legs. He looked down at himself and made a face. “Ick.” The dried come splattered across his body now looked like felt, thanks to the lint from the black bathrobe that was stuck all over it. “Jesus God,” he said.

Ignoring the crutch leaning against the wall because he hated the damn thing, Danny headed to the bathroom, arms akimbo, legs stiff, broken leg thumping, walking like a zombie because he felt so damned
funky.
Once there, he looked at himself in the mirror, said, “Jesus God,” again, and
peeled off two trash bags from the roll now perched by the sink. He slipped his left leg with the cast on it into one bag and his right leg with the ankle monitor strapped to it into the other. Then he secured them both with rubber bands to make them watertight, and clomped his way into the shower like Frankenstein’s monster.

While the water washed all the little dead babies away, he contemplated spending the next three weeks alone. His two best friends,
straight
friends, Spike and Tim, were back in Indiana where he had left them, so Danny was on his own. It was the start of a new life, or supposed to be. This was the summer he had planned to come out. Shed that “virgin” label once and for all. Get laid. Get laid by a
guy.
Come out to himself, out to his family, out to the world. Become the gay man he had always known he was meant to be.

But now, of course, his coming-out party would have to be put on hold for a while. He wouldn’t be able to start a new life or turn over any new leaves for at least six more weeks. He’d have to get out of the house first, and that wouldn’t be happening anytime soon, thanks to this piece of machinery screwed to his ankle and the six-week sentence of house arrest the judge had slapped him with. And the broken leg. He’d have to contend with that. Not that it much mattered. He didn’t figure anyone would want to have sex with him, anyway, as long as he had an anchor strapped to each leg, weighing him down.

Actually his new life in California had gotten off to a stuttering start, what with the trouble at the restaurant and all, but Danny was determined to turn things around. He’d show his dad. He really would be good from here on in. He had arrived in San Diego barely a month ago, exactly two days after his high school graduation, determined to get as far away from the farm as he could get. It dawned on him that maybe he should consider this six-week period of house arrest as his last good vacation before a lifetime of adulthood drudgery began. He should take advantage of the fact he had nothing to do and be grateful for the fact he had six long weeks to do it in.

Geez, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all. He had waited eighteen years to have sex with a guy. A few more weeks wouldn’t kill him.

Lint-free and come-free, he clumsily clomped out of the shower, dripping and snorting, tugged the wet garbage bags off his legs, and patted himself down with a towel. He dabbed on some deodorant, gave his shoulder-length hair a good headbanging by way of styling it, and headed back to his room, where he pulled on a baggy pair of cargo shorts. He donned them commando because the leg holes of his underwear wouldn’t fit over the cast. Then he slipped a T-shirt over his head. There. Clean and dressed for the day.

Now, then. What to do first? Ah, yes. Eat.

He clomped downstairs like Long John Silver, every other footstep echoing through the house like a gunshot. Fucking cast.

In the kitchen, he rummaged through the freezer until he found two TV dinners that looked promising, peeled off the wrappers, and tossed them in the microwave. He poured himself a tumbler full of milk, drank it down in four seconds flat, then poured himself another. He nibbled cookies while he waited for the dinners to cook. When the microwave beeped, he fished the things out, stripped off the cellophane, slid them onto the kitchen table, and dug right in.

It took him exactly four minutes to consume them both, right down to licking the tray clean like Frederick the cat might have done.

Satisfied for the moment, he moved to the living room, collapsed onto the sofa, and switched on the TV. He surfed his way from Channel 2 all the way back to Channel 2
again
and couldn’t find one damn thing that caught his fancy. It was all daytime crap. Dr. Oz. Ellen. Nate. Judge Judy. (Judge Judy was the
last
thing he wanted to watch. He’d had enough of judges to last him a lifetime.)

He finally switched the TV off, heaved himself up off the sofa, passed through the kitchen to grab a soda and what was left of the bag of cookies, and headed back up the stairs to his room, clunking up the steps one by one. Once there, he threw himself into his recliner, switched on his own TV and settled in with a video game he had been slogging away at for the past couple of weeks. It wasn’t the best game in the world, but it was good enough.

He killed off his character about fifteen times trying to make one simple move and finally gave up. He wasn’t in the mood. He switched off the game, laid the empty cookie bag aside, and stared morosely out his bedroom window until the afternoon sun began to dip behind the houses across the street.

As darkness fell, somewhere in the bowels of the city, someone pulled a lever or flicked a switch or slapped a button and streetlights began popping on all over town. Shortly after that, lights in the houses along Danny’s street began to blink on as the darkness deepened: a kitchen light here, a porch light there. As the city started waking up for the night, portholes were illuminated into lives up and down Walnut Street. Being just about bored silly, Danny decided maybe he would do a little snooping.

He turned off his own bedroom light so no one could see what he was doing and snagged the binoculars off his desk. Since Danny’s room, and the bathroom adjoining it, were actually a remodeled garret, and made up the entirety of the second floor, Danny had windows on three sides. These windows offered him a commanding view of the surrounding area. Positioning himself at the east window first, he scanned the street to see what was happening in the hood.

Not much apparently. Two little kids, one black and one white, were arguing over a basketball in the driveway four houses down. Danny didn’t know why they were bothering. It would be too dark to shoot hoops in a minute anyway. In the house next to the two little kids, a woman was standing over the kitchen sink chopping onions. Danny suspected they were onions by the way the woman was holding her head and squinting her eyes and aiming her face off in another direction as if she was holding her breath. Danny figured she was either chopping onions or dissecting a skunk.

Farther down the street in the same direction he couldn’t see much because of a tree. He moved to a side window and swept the binoculars in the other direction, sliding over the vacant house next door because nothing was happening there, obviously, since the lady who previously owned it had kicked the bucket and the place had been for sale for months, or so Danny’s dad had told him the other night at dinner.