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Chapter Seven


Kevin

“Holy mother of a moulting penguin’s balls!” Nick screamed. He was doubled over, pressed as far back against the barn as he could get, the blast of water having hit him directly in the stomach. You’d think he’d been shot or something the way he was going on. I mean yeah the water was cold, but it wasn’t that cold.

“Stand up and take it like a man,” I scolded him.

In reply, he scraped another handful of the horse shit from his stomach and flung it in my direction, missing by a wide margin because he was too busy scrambling in a lame attempt to get away from the water stream. “It’s fuckin’ cold!” he yelled.

Caroline kept spraying him as he teetered and danced around in front of the barn until most of the shit had come off, and the minute she turned off the spray, he made a run for the house. “Take your dirty clothes off on the porch before you go in!” I shouted after him. Most of the shit was off him but he was still tracking water that wasn’t exactly beautiful in scent or color, and I didn’t much feel life Swiffering every surface of the house to get rid of the scent.

Instead of waiting for the porch, though, he started pulling them off as he ran across the yard, dropping his t-shirt a few feet from the cars and running out of his pants on his way up the porch steps, disappearing into the house in nothing but boxer-briefs.

Hopefully those, at least, would stay put until he got to the bathroom, I thought.

“Well, there’s an experience in the art of Nick for you,” I said, laughing, “He is absolutely insane, huh? You know… maybe Lauren dodged a bullet with him running away and all,” I joked, and I turned around, smiling widely at her. I’d expected her to be smiling, too, when I faced her, but her face had melted into a serious expression. I’d said the wrong thing. I knew it the moment I looked at her. The smile dropped off my face, too. She quickly turned away and started rolling up the hose. “Ain’tcha gonna hose me down, too?” I asked, trying to keep a cheerful tone to my voice.

Caroline looked up. She thought about it a second, then lifted the hose nozzle and aimed. She fired the hardest jet stream of water directly into my chest. The blast really was as cold as Nick had been acting, and more than that it stung on the highest jet setting, like being hit by a pressure washer. I jumped back, “Hey, hey!” I yelled. The look on her face wasn’t playful, it was vengeful.

She turned the hose away and threw the coil onto the ground, not bothering to put it back up on it’s hook, and walked away across the lawn.

I rubbed my stomach where the water had stung and couldn’t help but think she probably had been wishing she was shooting me with something a lot stronger than ice cold water.

“Where are you going?” I called after her.

“Dodging a bullet,” she yelled.

I watched her walk away, mostly because I didn’t know what to say to her still just yet. I sighed as she disappeared into the trees on the path headed up to the river. For just a couple minutes, during Nick’s distress, it had felt normal to be around Caroline. I’d forgotten how much fun we used to have, before things got polluted by broken hearts and dreams too big for the town we’d grown in. The sound of our laughter mixed up in the rafters of that old barn had been so familiar and nostalgic, like rewinding the clocks to a time when things had simpler answers.

I walked over and got Nick’s shirt and jeans and gingerly took his cell phone out of the pocket. He’d been in such a rush for the shower that he hadn’t even bothered to get it out before shedding his pants. The screen lit up as I pulled it out, and I slid my thumb across the lock button to make sure it came to life and hadn’t been damaged by the shit and water. When the screen opened, I saw his open text message screen with Lauren. I didn’t mean to look at it, but that’s the screen the phone was on… and my eyes unwillingly scanned the words displayed. I’m not gonna lie, my heart ached a little at the realization that Lauren, who’d been stood up at the altar, had replied to him so nicely, and here I was, with Caroline pissed at me for a stupid remark and I still hadn’t heard back from Kristin.

I shoved Nick’s phone into my own pocket for safe keeping and tossed his clothes over the fence next to the barn and turned the hose on them, washing away what remained of the mess. I felt frustrated and I was kinda taking it out on Nick’s clothes with the hose, hitting them as hard as Caroline had hit me, if not harder. It wasn’t fair that Nick could apologize within days of his misdemeanor and it could take years before I could even think about getting the same words out of my mouth. It wasn’t fair that Nick could get a response and not just any response, but “it’ll be okay” - so quickly and I could try to patch up the burning bridge between Kristin and I and not even get a response. Even a negative response would’ve been better than anything.

Anything is better than nothing. Caroline’s words echoed in my head.

I finished spraying down his clothes and threw the hose back where Caroline had left it and went in the house, hauling the soaking wet clothes with me.

I could hear the shower running upstairs through the pipes and I threw Nick’s clothes into the washing machine with enough detergent to clean an army’s worth of clothes and sat down in the living room, staring up at the family portrait over the mantel. I stared into my father’s eyes in the picture and felt the muscles in my throat tighten. I sighed. He’d know the answer to this if he was here, I told myself.

Sometimes, I thought, maybe we build up the people who have passed away too much, alter them, make them more godlike in our minds than they’d really been. Kind of like how my anger had altered Kristin in my mind, my father’s absence had altered him, too. In reality, he probably would’ve been just as clueless how to fix the situation as I was. But whenever I had a problem, I always wondered what my father would’ve said for advice because I was convinced somewhere inside myself that he would know exactly how to fix everything and anything that would go wrong.

Sometimes, I felt like that’s what I tried to live up to, too. I had to be able to answer everything, especially for the people who looked up to me, like Nick and my sons, for example. That’s why we were here in Kentucky, after all, wasn’t it? Because it was what I felt like my Dad would’ve done for me if I’d been in Nick’s shoes.

But maybe it wasn’t the right answer after all. Maybe my Dad wouldn’t have had the answers any better than I did these days.

In fact, it seemed Nick had the answers better for himself than I did. He’d apologized after all, and he was doing a lot better at fixing his screw ups than I’d ever done.

And honestly, maybe he was right -- the key was me saying sorry.

But saying sorry is just so hard when you’re a prideful person and I will be the very first to admit that’s what I am and always have been.

I sighed.

“Keeeeevin?”

I looked up. Nick was standing by the railing of the second floor in front of the bathroom door, which was billowing out steam from the hot shower, looking down at me, a towel wrapped around his waist and an expression on his face somewhere between sheepish and pleading.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I only packed one pair of pants,” he said.

I stared up at him. “Who the hell only packs one pair of pants?” I asked.

Nick shrugged. The towel started to slip and he quickly grabbed hold of it. I covered my eyes just in case. “Kev… you know me, I’m stupid at packing.” His voice was a whimper.

“I’ll find something,” I said. “Just get back in the bathroom before you end up flashing me with your junk please?”

“I need pants, Kev,” he whined. “And underwear. I have underwear, though, it’s in my room.”

“Your jeans are in the wash getting clean,” I said.

“Dawg, they ain’t gonna get clean!” Nick sounded horrified, “They were saturated with horse poo, Kev, I can’t wear those again! That’s disgusting!”

“That’s what laundry soap is for,” I explained. I really wished he’d go back in the bathroom so I could uncover my eyes again. “Nick please just go in the bathroom ‘til I can find something for you to wear, please, and we’ll talk about it once you’re properly covered?”

Nick made a noise that was like being strangled and I heard the door close behind him.

I lowered my hand from shielding my eyes and grumbled as I went upstairs to his room.

He wasn’t lying in saying that he’d only packed one pair of pants. In fact, he had only packed like three t-shirts, too. The duffel bag was full of unopened packages of underwear and electronic devices; plugs, cords, and extra gaming paddles. I stared at the plethora of pure crap he’d packed and shook my head. “Seriously?” I muttered, digging past the Gameboy, the PSP and the XBOX console in the bag, “You have three gaming systems and one pair of pants? Seriously?”

Finally I gave up and, carrying one of the unopened packages of boxer-briefs, I went back to my room and unzipped my own duffel bag. Nick was no where near the same pant size as me, his hips were way too wide for that, so I dug out an oversized pair of sweatpants that were fairly new and headed to the bathroom door. I knocked. He opened the door and his head stuck out.

“Hi,” he said.

“Seriously? One pair of pants but six packages of underwear and three gaming systems?” I said.

“I told you, I thought I’d be able to go home to get more if I needed’em,” he whined.

“You don’t even wear underwear half the time,” I said, holding out the package and the sweatpants.

Nick took them, “I do… sometimes... Lauren thinks they’re sexy.” He paused, looking down at the stuff I’d handed him. “Where’d you get these?” he asked, meaning the sweatpants.

“They’re mine,” I replied.

Nick made a face, “But --”

“It’s them or wait another like twenty minutes for your jeans,” I said, “The wash cycle is almost over and then they’ve got to go through the dryer.”

“I can’t wear those,” Nick whined, “They’ve been shittified.”

I gestured at the sweats, “Then you gotta wear those ‘til we can get you downtown to get some pants,” I replied.

Nick frowned, “But your balls have been in these pants.”

“That is usually where I keep my balls, yes,” I replied.

Nick made a face, “But… my balls will be where your balls have been.” He paused. “We’ll be like balls brothers.”

“Nick your balls have been lots of places other people’s balls have been,” I said. “Just go put them on and we’ll go downtown and get you new pants, okay?” He sighed and ducked back into the bathroom and I went back downstairs.

In the laundry room, I moved Nick’s clothes from the washer to the dryer. Even though he said now that he wouldn’t wear them, I couldn’t help but hope he was just being dramatic. I couldn’t believe he’d really just throw away what looked like a pretty expensive pair of jeans, considering they’d been washed and now smelled like Tide and not even a hint of horse shit remained on them. I was just starting the dryer when I heard the front door open.

I stepped out into the kitchen to find Caroline bent down under the sink, searching for something. I hesitated, torn between running back into the laundry room and hiding out ‘til I’d heard her leave or announcing myself. I almost bolted, but then I realized I needed to stop running away from her. I needed to at least try to make things better.

“Hey,” I said.

She turned around, looking up at me. She looked like she might’ve been regretting storming off earlier, but didn’t want to say so. She was holding a box of nails. She held them up, “Just getting some stuff. I’m fixing the dock up at the north end of the river.”

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked.

I had a lot of memories on that old dock. My father had taught me how to fish there, and there’d been one day Caroline and I had skinny-dipped off the end of it. The thought of the dock being ruined hurt my heart a little bit, like a monument being torn down.

“Some of the boards are loose is all,” she answered, and I felt a little better, letting out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d held. “That’s where I went earlier… and I got all the way up there, realized I didn’t bring the stuff I needed to fix it. I mean the wood’s out there already, I just needed the nails. And a hammer.” She held up the nails and gestured at a hammer that hung from her belt as she stood up and dusted her knees off.

“It’s important to have the right tools for the job,” I said, nodding. My father had told me that once. He’d been taking me to get my tux for the prom, talking about the corsage and the need for the cumberband and all that, though, not actual tools, and the job we’d been talking about was making a romantic evening for Caroline. I took a deep breath.

There were just too many memories, I thought.

“I’m gonna get back out there, it looks like it might rain, I wanna get it done before it does. I still gotta get Portia’s stall mucked out - cos, yeah, Nick wasn’t exactly a huge help there, no offense to him, or anything...” Caroline turned and started to walk out again.

“I’m impressed you got him to go anywhere near the horses in the first place,” I said. “He’s not fond of them. He panics and usually they panic, so he’s convinced they’re trying to kill him.”

Caroline chuckled, “Well, Portia’s trained for equine autism therapy, so she knew how to handle a nervous visitor.”

“Wow,” I said. “That’s awesome.”

“She’s an awesome horse,” Caroline replied. “Anyway.” She shook the nails and started toward the door.

I watched her back retreating and I felt the words surge up through my stomach in a fit of camaraderie. “Caroline,” I said, “I’m sorry.”

She stopped at the door. She didn’t turn around, didn’t look. She just stopped and stared down at the box of nails. “For what?” she asked.

“Making you wait,” I said.

Caroline still didn’t turn around. I watched her shoulders move as she breathed a little unsteadily, though. She stayed there until the breath steadied, and then she hurried out the door without answering my apology.

What was with women not responding to me when I struggled to tell them things that were inside my heart? I wondered, and I kicked the cupboard doors closed because Caroline had left them opened and I leaned, even more frustrated than before, against the counter. “God damn,” I muttered.

I reached in my pocket and pulled out my cellphone and hurriedly typed, I just want you to know that I miss you and I want to come home soon and I need you to tell me that’s okay, I’m going crazy without you. I hit send before I could stop myself by second-guessing the choice. And I set the phone down on the counter. I closed my eyes, leaning my forehead against the tile.

She wasn’t gonna reply, I didn’t know why I’d even bothered sending it.

I no longer got the thought out than the phone vibrated.

I looked up, shocked.

You can come home anytime you want.

I stared at the words in disbelief, my heart accelerating. My throat felt tight, and breath kind of escaped out of my lungs for a second. I could go home anytime I wanted? I’d wanted nothing more since the moment I’d left, the moment the door has closed behind me. It’d been a stupid fight, one I couldn’t even remember the details of, one that wasn’t worth all this wreckage and heartache we had now. And all this time all I’d had to do was ask and she’d have let me come home? Just like that?

Fuck this healing time, fuck all of this. Being in Kentucky hadn’t done a damn thing for anybody. It’d screwed with Caroline’s head and Nick was having a horrible time and I was feeling like shit. There wasn’t anything keeping us there. I could go home, and by the sounds of all his whining of missing Lauren, Nick should go home because I’d given him basically the worst advice ever by not making him go through with the ceremony, and Caroline would be free to go back to her old life without having to deal with me and Nick being around annoying her and disturbing the peace she no doubt had when she was alone up here.

So I started to type - I started to say I’d be on my way tonight and I couldn’t wait to see Max and Mason and how much I’d missed Kristin, and I got like halfway through typing all that when another message popped up.

Nick I love you and what happened this week doesn’t change that. We can talk this through and we’ll be okay. Please, baby, just come home.

“What?” I mumbled and I stared at the screen.

Then I remembered I’d had both my own phone and Nick’s phone in my pocket. I’d texted my message to Lauren, not to Kristin.

No wonder I’d gotten a reply.

There was a creak on the stairs and I quickly deleted the whole conversation, what I’d said, what she’d said, everything. I dropped the phone quickly before Nick came in the room a moment later, wearing my sweatpants, walking funny, like he was trying to keep the fabric from touching him. He had on one of the other t-shirts from his bag, and his hair was stickin’ up, still wet from the shower. “I’m ready,” he said.

My heart was still pounding like crazy. I couldn’t get my head around what happened exactly. So I pushed it out of my mind because that was all there was to do. I’d do the damage control later, once I could stand to think about what I’d done, what had been said. And worse, I had to figure out how to tell Nick what I’d done.

Everything I touched I broke and was having to come up with some way to fix it. I felt like the list of problems that needed resolving were piling up around me like the Great Wall of god damn China.

“Okay,” I answered Nick, and I pushed myself away from the counter and away from my thoughts of all the problems I had, “Let’s go.” I grabbed the keys to the car and led the way out onto the porch. Caroline was already all the way across the property, headed up the trail to the river again, and I sighed as I watched her disappear into the woods for the second time as I climbed into the car, Nick gingerly arranging his legs as he pulled the buckle across his chest in the passenger seat. “Here’s your phone,” I said, pushing it into his hand, “It was in your jeans pocket, I pulled it out just before it went in the wash.”

“Thanks,” he answered, and he tucked it into his pocket.

He was so trusting he didn’t even look at it.

I wanted to tell him he should probably stop trusting me for anything. I was a tornado and I was leaving a path of pure destruction in my wake. He’d be better off without my advice.




Every bump we went over on the way down the hill into town made Nick groan like he was in deep pain. You’d never guess the way he was acting that the worst thing that was happening to him was the fact that some cotton fabric was touching his thighs. He whimpered and grabbed at the fabric. “I feel way too close to you right now,” he mumbled.

“Your dick has been far worse places than in my pants,” I answered.

“Don’t word it like that,” Nick whined.

I snickered.

Teasing Nick was a great distraction from all the noise that was in my head, and he was an easy target at the moment.

I turned onto the main street and drove down to the little strip mall that made up Irvine’s business district. In it, there was a Family Dollar that should probably have been condemned years ago, a Save-A-Lot, a place called Tobacco Shed, and an itty bitty clothing store with a dilapidated old sign broadcasting that it was Honchell’s Clothing & Shoes for Men and Boys. Honchell’s was the go-to place for work clothes and had been there for over thirty years back when I was a kid, so I guess close to fifty if not more by now. My father had taken all of us here regularly to get jeans and t-shirts for working around the camp. It wasn’t what Nick was used to, I knew, but it would get him through until we could get him to a real mall with real department stores. It’d get him out of my sweatpants, at least.

Nick stared at the strip mall as I came to a stop and cut the engine.

He looked at me, then back at the strip mall. “Kevin?”

“This is Honchell’s,” I said. “They have pants.” I pushed open the car door.

Nick looked at the strip mall again, and, again, back to me. “Kevin, you’re joking right? You’re taking me to like a Macy’s or something now, right? A Belk, even?”

I have to admit, the place did look a little… what’s the word? Scary, I guess… especially for those who had never been there before. The display window still had stuff left over from Christmas up, cotton fiber “snow” with a sun-bleached Santa lawn light. There was a weathered neon construction paper sign, too, with the handwritten notice that they’d recently restocked the XXXL Duck Dynasty t-shirts. But Honchell’s wasn’t as bad as it looked.

Like I said, my dad had taken all three of us boys there all our lives.

Every pair of pants I’d ever owned until I moved to Orlando had come from Honchell’s. Except my tuxedo for prom. That we’d driven up to Lexington to get.

I got out of the car and started across the parking lot. It took Nick a few minutes, I guess, to decide I really wasn’t kidding before he climbed out and trotted after me across the lot. There were a lot of people in the Family Dollar side of the lot and a couple around the Tobacco Shed, but it looked like we’d be the only ones in Honchell’s. Nick looked around as we got to the curb and I pulled open the door. The little bell dinged just like it always had when I was a kid and Nick followed me into the interior of the store.

I’m not gonna lie, it was a lot more run down than it’d been twenty-two years ago. But that made sense as the sole employee of Honchell’s also happened to be it’s owner, an old man who was even older now, who everyone called Uncle Devon. He probably couldn’t move enough to clean the place the way he used to and the result was a very yard sale feeling to the place, which was basically a series of tables stacked high with work clothes like Carhardt and Wrangler jeans and Hanes t-shirts and work boots. There was a display of belt buckles in the glass case under the register behind which sat Uncle Devon himself on a little bar stool lined with a heating pad and a couple cushions, reading a worn copy of The Shining.

“Kevin Richardson!” he said, looking up over the book, his eyes milky with age and voice shaky. He struggled to his feet, abandoning his roost, and wobbled around the counter to give me a hug. “You’ve gotten taller.” It was more like he’d gotten shorter. I patted his back, which felt a lot rounder than it had in the past, and he hacked a couple times as dust was kicked up around us. Nick hung back, looking around, his face somewhere between traumatized and humored.

“You’re exactly as I remember you, Uncle Devon,” I said.

“Are y’all related?” Nick asked from behind me.

“No,” I answered.

“Oh.” He looked confused, but he didn’t ask any other questions.

“We’ve missed you ‘round these parts,” Uncle Devon said, oblivious to Nick’s question. His shaking hand patted my arm. “I’ve seen you on the TV. We have some Backstreet Boys t-shirts over there by the Duck Dynasty.” He pointed. Sure enough, there was a selection of old Backstreet t-shirts from the Millennium era and older.

I felt bad that in all the times I’d come to my mother’s house I’d avoided coming to visit Uncle Devon. Honchell’s was one of those places whose very existence reminded me of my father. I’d hardly ever come here without him in all the years I’d lived in Irvine and the last time I’d come in had been to buy a belt when my old one had broken on the way to the funeral.

I looked around the store. “Not a thing has changed,” I said.

“Most fossilized things don’t change,” Nick whispered.