Sidecar (26 page)

They’d cleared La Guardia and The City by now and were up near Harriman State Park, and when they finally calmed down, Casey looked around him and gasped.

“Joe—Joe, there’s no city. It’s… it’s all hills. And there’s snow—I mean, not that shitty stuff they had on the ground at La Guardia but—”

“Yeah,” Joe said, happy. It was pretty country here. The towns were crowded, but they were also intimate, and the country between them was often rural and rolling. “It’s pretty.”

“Not as pretty as Foresthill,” Casey said loyally, and Joe put his hand on Casey’s knee.

“No,” he said quietly and squeezed. He felt it then, the thing he’d known when he’d given in to Casey so young. Casey would want to see the rest of the world. Joe might want to go sometimes, but Casey… Casey wanted to see it
all.
Joe had listened that night after he’d put Sunshine in Casey’s care, and he’d heard Casey talk about the things he wanted to do or see. Being locked up in Foresthill with Joe was not part of those things.

“Hey,” Peter said like he hadn’t noticed they were having a moment, “since we’re getting close, we actually do need to talk about Cheryl.”

“What about her?” Paul rolled his eyes a lot when he talked. Joe wondered if it was a symptom of working with teenagers.

“You know!” Peter was shaking his head in the mirror and looking at Casey significantly, and it was David who let out the exasperated snort.

“Yeah, Joe? You know how Mom was all excited because Cheryl’s husband is actually a Quaker too? Well it seems he’s been going to the meetings of that branch with the stick up their asses, and she wants to talk you into screwing women instead of Casey.”

Paul laughed and put his hand over his mouth, and Peter got that long-suffering look he used to get when he had to be in charge and the two of them wouldn’t stop fighting—or putting things that moved in Cheryl’s bed.

“Nice, David. Real nice. I can’t believe people let you around children.”

“I can’t believe people let you
have
children,” David sassed—as much as a thirty-eight-year-old man
could
sass. “There should be a law against being too boring for words.”

“In high school it’s called Social Darwinism.” Paul snickered, and then, like they shared the same brain (which Joe had always suspected growing up), Paul and David stopped laughing and sobered.

“Just remember, Joe, we’ve got your back. Mom and Dad got your back. Cheryl and Chris, they’re just two small voices, nattering away in a cave.”

“Jesus, Paul,” David said with admiration, “that was almost poetry.”

“Well,” Paul said, trying to look humble, “I do like to read.”

The brothers busted up again, and the atmosphere in the car lightened, but Joe remembered Cheryl. They should have been best friends—she was only a few years older than he was—but Jeannie had loved him best, and Cheryl? Well, as an adult, he could figure that she’d probably felt left out, but that wasn’t how she’d been as a kid. As a kid, she’d been an insufferable tattletale, like the entire focus of her identity was on being “the good one.” He’d never really thought Cheryl
was
that good, but she sure did seem to know a lot about following rules. Joe had developed an antipathy toward rules after Jeannie died, and so whatever relationship he might have had with his remaining sister seemed to have been doomed from the time he turned seven.

But he put her out of his mind for the rest of the three-hour trip to their little suburb outside of Bethel. He wanted to hear from his brothers, share in their families, and reconnect. He wanted Casey to meet them, and know where he came from, and see that families didn’t always have to mean pain.

And Casey was with him, hanging on their every word, especially when they told stories about their childhood. Joe squirmed a lot because the way his brothers remembered it, he was a hell-raiser, when it hadn’t seemed that way at all.

“It was a perfectly logical thing to do,” Joe said, blushing, and Casey leaned forward so he could look up into Joe’s face.

“Oh my God, you’re blushing!” Casey brought wondering fingertips to Joe’s cheeks, and Joe snatched his hand—but not roughly.

“It wasn’t the way they tell it at all,” Joe protested, and even Peter egged him on.

“Yeah, Josiah, tell us how it really happened?”

“Okay, for starters, I did not
steal
Dad’s car.”

“No?” Paul arched his eyebrows, and Joe soldiered on.

“I told him Cheryl wanted to use it, and he said yes, so that’s why I took it.”

“You were twelve,” Peter said grimly, and Joe turned to Casey a little desperately.

“This wasn’t that big a deal back then—not out in the country,” he said. “We knew kids who were driving all the time—it’s not like California right now, okay?”

Casey laughed a little, indulgently. “I’m not going to go out and commit a crime, Joe. Finish the story!”

“Okay, what you didn’t know was that they were going to use those rabbits for food—”

“Those rabbits belonged to the Wilsons!” Paul protested. “They could have used them for underwear! That still doesn’t explain—”

“But their son, Barry—you remember him?”

“Yeah.” Paul nodded. “I remember.”

“Well, he’d raised them from hand. He’d
bottle
-fed them. So he comes to me, all upset about how his pet bunnies are going to end up on a spit that night, and I… well, I did lie to Dad, but I got use of the car, and
that’s
why I stole the rabbits.”

Casey looked at him curiously. “Okay, I get that. But the rest of it?”

Joe shrugged. “Well, I managed to get the hutch into the car and even managed to clean out the car, but I couldn’t keep the hutch next to the house, because it was filthy. So I pulled the rabbits out and put them in the bathtub so I could hose off the hutch and put it down in the basement, where it’s nice and warm, right?”

“And you put the rabbits in the bathtub,” Casey giggled, “about ten minutes before—”

They finished together. “Cheryl took a bath.”

Joe nodded. “The dumb thing was, she thought I’d done it on purpose—because that bathroom led straight to her room, and suddenly the little fuckers were
everywhere
,
eating her clothes, shitting on her bed, eating her homework… oh God. She was
not
going to forgive me for that!”

Paul and David were still laughing, but they did sober enough for Paul to say, “She had it out for you from the very beginning. I swear, if Jeannie hadn’t been there when you were born, she would have smothered you with a pillow.”

Joe shrugged. “She was jealous. I mean, I loved that Jeannie loved me, but… it must have been pretty lonely, you know?”

“Not with a bed full of rabbits,” Casey cracked gently, and the conversation went on.

When they finally arrived at the three-story, two-wing house that had been Joe’s childhood home, Casey seemed… incredibly permanent, somehow. He was so very attached to Joe’s family now. He knew their stories, he knew some of their secrets—Joe could almost believe that Casey would keep him forever and ever.

For the remainder of the trip, Joe managed to persuade himself that he could trust in this, trust in Casey, trust in the two of them. It was sort of a Christmas gift to himself.

J
OE
’
S
mother and father seemed to have shrunk in the last six years. They’d grown smaller and grayer, and Joe tried not to be dismayed when he had to hunch over to hug Celia Daniels. Her hair was cut short—had been since he was small—and very practically, above her ears, and it had grown a little sparser in the intervening years. But her arms were still strong around his shoulders, and her smile when she turned to Casey was nothing short of luminous.

His mother always glowed like that. He was relieved to see that, at least, hadn’t changed. Griffin Daniels was a little shorter as well, but his chest was still broad; his shoulders might have hunched a little, but his eyes were still fine and brown and sharp under frightening eyebrows, ready to attack like vultures. Joe hugged him, and didn’t feel any difference from his usual hug. There were no uncomfortable looks at Casey or back to Joe again. There was only the same steady, honest affection Joe had grown up with, and Casey’s hand snaked into Joe’s and clenched tight as Joe made introductions.

“Was your drive in all right?” Mom asked, and Casey suddenly spoke up.

“It was beautiful,” he said reverently. “I can see why Joe sort of hides up in the hills in California. If he grew up used to all this, he probably needs it!”

Celia laughed, and Joe blushed a little. “I’m glad you love it,” she said softly. “We were really sorry to see Josiah move, but it’s nice that he’s found something not too far from his roots.”

“I like roots,” Joe mumbled, and Casey slid that arm around his waist and squeezed.

“Good,” Casey said dryly. “Because they seem to have grown you into a hella big tree!”

There was general laughter all around, and then Joe and Casey got to put their luggage in their room.

“We get our own room?” Casey asked excitedly as they tromped up the stairway.

Joe’s expression grew pained. “Don’t expect to be having sex in it,” he warned. “My parents’ house. I mean, uhm….”

Casey grimaced. “No, wasn’t planning on it. I’m just glad we got it—it’s like, official grown-up stuff!”

“Good. I’m glad you’re feeling like an official grown-up, because Cheryl and her family should be back after dinner, and we’re going to have to have our big boy panties on if we’re going to make it through that without strangling her.”

Casey raised his eyebrows. “Ooh… big boy panties. I didn’t know that was your kink!”

Joe blushed, knowing it was visible on his cheeks and forehead and not able to contain it.

“Oh my God!” Casey laughed, putting the last of his underwear in the little dresser in the guest bedroom and then coming within touching distance to look at him closer. “What did I say?”

“No talking about kinky in my mother’s guest room,” Joe muttered, and Casey laughed harder.

“That’s a deal!” he agreed, but then he sobered. “But I’ll try to remember it when we get home.”

Joe was blushing even more, but he was serious about not wanting to talk about kinks in Mom’s house. “Good,” Joe said decisively. “Because there are going to be enough complicated and uncomfortable conversations here as it is.”

Casey cocked his head. “What’s the deal with your sister? Your entire family is….” Casey floundered for words, waving his hands, and the gesture he settled on was the stroking motion of a boy petting a rabbit. “Incredibly gentle,” he finished. “Your brothers—I mean, a pediatrician and a history teacher? It’s like…
Leave it to Beaver
lives!”

Joe narrowed his eyes and chewed on his lower lip. “Yeah, if the Beav grew up and spent his college years up to his bong in dick, tits, and ass, it would be
exactly
like
Leave it to Beaver
.”

Casey gave up all pretense of investigating the room and sat on the blue-and-beige striped comforter and just laughed. “God, you’re an asshole. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong with your sister? Besides the fact that she’s a priss, I mean. Your brothers said something about… I dunno… a branch of your church or something?”

Joe nodded and sat down. “Yeah, it’s a whole religious political thing. My folks try to stay out of it. Part of the whole reason the Quakers came to America back in the frickin’ days of the Mayflower was to get away from the whole religious political bullshit thing. Except….” Joe grunted. “God. I hate this shit.”

“Wait,” Casey said, eyes narrowed. “I actually did get a high school education. Didn’t the Puritans come over here to have freedom of religion?”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Everyone was absolutely free to practice religion, as long as it was
their
religion.” He let some of the tightness of travel seep out of his bones. He put his arm around Casey’s shoulder, and between that wonderful, human warmth (the kid was like a radiator!) and the old-fashioned wrought iron furnace vent on the hardwood floor by the dresser, some of the feeling began to seep back into his toes after their frigid arrival here. God, he’d forgotten how badly the East Coast sucked in the winter. “The Quakers got persecuted a lot. It’s why Philadelphia and Boston are near the ports and a lot of us are way the fuck up here. Anyway, old news. But the idea was simply a community of friends. No proselytizing—”

“What in the hell is that?” Casey was leaning on him heavily, his weight growing limp, and Joe toed off his shoes and bumped the back of Casey’s new waffle-stomper so he could do the same. Casey grunted and bent down, untying the top part so he could kick off the bottom, and Joe answered him.

“Spreading the word. You know, those annoying people that
don’t
show up on
our
doorstep because we live slightly south of Bumfuck, Egypt, and slightly north of Who the Fuck Cares?”

Casey had to laugh. “Yeah, Joe. We got missionaries when I lived in Bakersfield. Just because the Mormon’s gave up on your house without Lynnie doesn’t mean I’m a complete cultural desert.” He started a yawn that went on as he unlaced his second shoe, straightened up, and toed it off, and Joe would have muttered a choice word about then, but the yawn had spread, and now Joe was having himself one too.

Joe gave up and wrapped an arm around Casey’s shoulders, then drew him back on top of the blue-on-blue comforter. There was an afghan at the foot of the bed, handsome and in the same colors but made out of scratchy acrylic yarn. It didn’t matter. Joe reached down and pulled it over both of them, and continued. “Well, the church had sort of a falling-out among itself in the seventies over things just like us.”

“Us? God, that’s so retarded.”

“Isn’t that word bad now?”

“What the hell ever. I don’t get why people really have to give a shit what you and I do together, you know? Not planning to make anyone watch!”

“Thank God for small favors,” Joe muttered. “Anyway, people like my folks are sort of taking the traditional route of ‘leave people alone and treat them decently, and they’ll find God all on their own.’ People like my sister’s husband, I guess—”