My Best Man by Andy Schell (unputdownable books .txt) 📗

“No,” I said, “I’d rather date her brother Chip.” It wasn’t true. Chip was kind of goofy looking and his jeans fit too low on his ass for him to be gay, but it got the point across.

My mother knew the moment I said it that I was serious, and she quickly retracted. “With a little makeup, that Amy could be a lovely girl.”

But it was too late. And with only a little further discussion, in which Winston was quite silent, my father as well, I explained that I was gay and I didn’t see any sense in lying about it and politely declined to see the therapist my mother recommended who’d done wonders convincing the Westholt’s daughter that she didn’t want to be a longshoreman and hopefully life would go on.

And just when I thought I would get out of my confession alive, my father rose from his chair and slammed his fist down so hard he broke two wineglasses, and decreed, “We are the Fords, goddamn it. The Kansas Fords! We’re the most powerful oil-and-gas family, not to mention majority landholders, in the state of Kansas, and we will not be taken down by teenage faggotry,” which I thought was a magnificent use of the word, and he assured me that, if I was going to live a gay life, then I would live a miserable anonymous gay life. And so I did. I stayed in my room most of the time and wrote anonymous poetry and daydreamed about my anonymous invented relationship with the tennis player Guillermo Vilas.

I could call my brother. But do I really want to speak to him? Forget it. He’s so fucking smug since the reading of the will. It was just like when I was ten years old and he was twelve and my father called a family meeting to inform me that I would not be allowed to attend summer camp in Colorado, as Winston would, since I’d thoughtlessly ruined my mother’s brand-new white Berber carpet in the living room with my greasy cowboy boots. I’ll never know how he crammed his feet into them or where he got the grease that was smeared into the soles. I only know that he trudged around the whole room until it was completely defiled, then cheerfully turned me in for the crime. He sat there, the chosen son, the good son, barely containing himself, as Father decreed I would stay home for the summer, not even allowed to ride my beloved horse. And

he sat there, almost fourteen years later, barely containing himself, as our family attorney, Sam Johnson, spelled it out, the one condition upon which my financial future depends. I think Winston knew all along .I think Dad told him about the stipulation before he died that he stood to inherit my part of the trust if I’m not married by my twenty-fourth birthday. “Legally married,” Sam Johnson stressed, looking at me, “for a continuing period of ten years.” Winston knows I’ve been up on my soapbox since the age of seventeen, and that I’m too openly gay to sell out for the money, even if my little share is multiple millions. He’ spractically salivating at the thought of autumn ushering in my next birthday. I don’t want to speak to him. Now or then.

My mother. I’ll call my mom and let her know I’m hospitalized, and when she asks me what for, I’ll just make something up. As long as I keep it light and breezy she won’t care. A wart removal. Liposuction. In-patient pedicure. Something she can relate to. She’s great at cheering people up under those circumstances. I turn to grab the phone and notice the flowers at my side. Somebody knows I’m here. As I twist and lift the card from the bouquet, my lower abdomen stings. I reach down and feel the stitches. I lift the sheets and look at the scar; it’s big enough to call five inches. God, what happened to me? The note reads:

Darling,

Out with the old, and in with the newt So happy you’re in good hands.t Your “special nurse” assures me there’s no need to fly down, but if you say the word I’ll be there.t

Love,

Morn

Nurse Carbonada told my mother not to come? What the hell is going on?

“Hey, Bubba!” Amity sings, gliding into my room, flowers in one hand, a bottle of champagne in the other.

“Amity,” I say, surprised. “How did you know I was here?” She smiles, setting the stargazers down and fluffing them out. She puts the bottle of champagne next to them and turns the label toward me. It’s decent bubbly, too decent for a hospital occasion. She sits on the edge of the bed, pulls my paycheck out of her cleavage, and drops it into my hands. “Well, they say whoever brought you here kind of dumped you off. And after your appendix burst, they had to rush you into surgery.” “My appendix. So it wasn’t ” “What?”

I look toward my roommate’ sshadow behind the curtain. “Never mind.”

“Harry, who dropped you off here last night?”

God, she has good instincts. She knows just where to fish. “I just met him yesterday. Some big, tall, lanky guy.”

“Lanky? Darlin’, that’ sc ode for dick the size of a luxury sedan.” She starts laughing while smoothing out the bed covers. “For heaven’s sake, Harry, that lanky guy had nothing to do with it. It was just your little ole vermiform appendix. It doesn’t serve any purpose but to take up space in your life, live off your body, and then at the worst possible time go bad on you. There’re people like that, you know.”

I laugh, and my stitches hurt like hell. “Shit! Don’t make me laugh.” I breathe in, exhale. “Amity, how did you find me?”

“Well, besides your wallet and insurance card, there was the piece of paper in your pocket that had my phone number on it