The Kiss Principle (Hazardverse: Sidetracks)

18

I dropped meetings and canceled appointments and lied my ass off. Somehow, I limped to the weekend.

Saturday morning, I was half-awake as I made coffee and fixed Igz’s bottle and realized that, somehow, she’d already wet herself. I started toward the living room with Igz in one arm and, in my other hand, a mug for myself and a bottle for her. Then I remembered the diaper bag was in the kitchen, and I was all out of hands. Somebody else, some genius (meaning, somebody who’d gotten more than four hours of sleep at a stretch) might have thought of putting Igz down, putting the coffee and bottle down, and then getting the diaper bag. Instead, I put my foot inside it and dragged it along with us.

When I stepped into the living room, Augustus was there.

I stared.

He stared.

It wasn’t a dream, because in my dreams, he wasn’t such a fucking wiener. He stood there in a pair of slides, a pair of jersey taint-tickler shorts that made it painfully clear Augustus had been cheated in the dick department by his fuck-up of a father, and a tank top that said Daddy Said So. It showed the silhouette of a face that was mostly a beard. He looked like a man, broad shoulders, lean muscle, even some stubble on his jaw. He looked like a walking, talking public service announcement for mandatory vasectomies.

“Is that a baby?” he asked. “Why is your foot inside that bag?”

I started to cry.

It only lasted a moment, and then I had myself under control again. But the horror on Augustus’s face told me I hadn’t been fast enough. I tried to wipe my cheeks and couldn’t because I was holding everything in the fucking house. Somehow I managed to say, “Of course it’s a fucking baby. What the fuck did you think it was? Get your ass over here and help me.”

Aside from his addiction to daddy dick, he was a decent kid. He ought to be; I’d brought him up that way. He took the mug and the bottle, and he offered to take Igz, but I shook my head. I did kick the diaper bag off my foot, and he carried it over to the sofa. I sat, and Augustus sat, and he was staring at Igz and staring at me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?”

The confusion and concern on his face evaporated. “Surprising you.”

“No shit.”

“Hi, Fer.”

I grunted.

“I missed you. Did you miss me?”

“Interesting philosophical question: can you miss an outbreak of genital warts?”

He reached out to touch Igz, and then he stopped and looked at me.

“She’s not a fucking museum exhibit. Igz, this is Augustus. He’s the reason I’m so screwed up, and he’s also the reason you will never be allowed to date. Ever. Under any circumstances. Augustus, this is Isabela, but we call her Igz.”

I couldn’t read the expression on Augustus’s face. He reached out and gently took one of Igz’s fists and pumped it lightly. “Nice to meet you, Igz.”

I had to blink rapidly again.

“Can I hold her?”

“Let me change her first.”

Augustus, of course, sat there and watched and did nothing as I changed Igz. After getting her dressed again, I handed her to Augustus.

“You have to hold her—”

“I know,” he said.

And, to my surprise, he did. He held her perfectly, her head supported, her body fitting neatly into the crook of his arm. I had another of those moments where I felt like I was seeing a stranger: this man with ridiculously developed biceps and zero body fat where I kept expecting to see Augustus, who had once gotten his hand stuck inside a jar of M I honestly don’t know what I’d do if I had to tell her she looked like a giant, gaping anus because she got that from her daddy.”

“Fer, I’m serious, you can’t talk like that around a baby.”

“Are you kidding me? She swears like a sailor. You should hear her let rip.”

Augustus was silent for a long time, studying Igz, bouncing her lightly. When he spoke, his voice was painfully neutral. “Where’s Chuy?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Oh my God,” he said again. More of a whisper, this time. He swallowed and looked up. “Fer, you’ve been doing this all on your own? God, I’m so sorry. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because if I told you, you’d be out here, when you’re supposed to be working and building your agency and making lots of money to keep Daddy in Botox.”

“You know he doesn’t do Botox.”

“Don’t think I missed that fucking tank top. I’m burning it before you leave.”

“I swear to God I told Theo you were going to say that. I even recorded it. I’ll play it for you later.”

“Where is your pet dinosaur?”

“He couldn’t take off work.” Augustus cooed as he ran his hand over Igz’s head, and because she’s completely heartless and treacherous and has absolutely zero loyalty, she smiled at him. “He said I should come by myself. Believe it or not, he didn’t even turn on the tracking app on my phone.”

“He has a tracking app on your phone?”

Augustus looked at me.

I subsided into the couch, muttering, “I knew it was a joke.”

“This,” Augustus said in a baby voice to Igz, “is why we’re going to have to take you to Missouri. To get you away from all the crazy.”

I tried to hit him, but he used Igz like a shield (coward), and he was giggling, and Igz was smiling, and I had to think of something, so I said, “You need some coffee,” and then all I could do was stand at the sink, my knuckles aching as I wrapped my fingers around the stainless-steel apron. I looked at a far-off point of dusty green on the side of the valley. I tried to breathe normally.

I didn’t hear him come into the kitchen; when he touched my back, I flinched.

“Fer,” he asked quietly, “what’s going on?”

I told him. We ended up on the couch, coffees forgotten, and I went through all of it. As much as I could, anyway. I couldn’t tell him about Mom, not all of it. And not everything with Chuy. Not that horrible thunk when Igz had fallen. Not coming home, again, and finding her crying in her swing.

I didn’t tell him about Zé, either. The rational part of my brain knew that Augustus, more than anyone, would be unfazed by the fact that (it turns out) I apparently enjoyed the occasional dick. After all, I’d been the parenting genius who had once told him sexuality was like a buffet, and he ought to try as much as he wanted. He would have been annoyingly excited, of course, and unbearably supportive. He would have listened.

But the part of me that had spent my whole life protecting him with shadows and half-truths and evasions and outright lies, the part of me that had built him a better world to grow up in—that part of me wasn’t ready to tell him. Because even though the rational part of me knew he’d be happy for me, it felt like too much. Like a burden. And, if I were being honest with myself, I’d already cried three times since he got home, and I was sick of feeling vulnerable.

“I knew something was wrong,” Augustus said when I finished. “I knew it. I told Theo the minute I sent you a picture of those sneakers with the Swarovski crystals all over them and you didn’t blow up, I knew something was wrong.”

I barely remembered the message he was talking about—some sort of hideous, crystal-encrusted sneakers he’d pretended to want for Christmas. “I’ve been busy.”

“Yeah, I get that.” He bounced Igz on his knee. “Do you think that manny was stealing from Mom?”

“Jesus Christ, Augustus.”

“What? I’m asking.”

“No. If I had to bet, I’d say that underage micropenis took her shit while they were fighting and then tried to cover for it when they made up again.”

“But the manny could have—”

“It wasn’t Zé.” I tried to bring down the volume of my voice. “Okay?”

“Yeah. Sure, okay.” But he was looking at me differently, and I didn’t know why. “What are you going to do?”

“I’ll be fine, Augustus.”

His smile was silver and darting. “Oh yeah?”

“Yes.”

“Because you had your foot in a diaper bag when I showed up today. And your hair—uh, when was the last time you washed your hair? And you don’t have any food in the refrigerator. And—”

“All right. I get it. I didn’t know you were coming, you ungrateful excuse for a stool sample. If I’d known you were coming, I’d have baked a fucking cake.”

Augustus gave me another of those un-fucking-bearably adult looks and took out his phone. He placed a call and said, “Hey. Yeah, everything’s okay. I made it to the house. I slept a little, yeah. How are you? How’s Lana?” And then the treacherous little weasel cunt said, “I’m going to have to stay out here for a while. Um, everyone’s okay, I guess. Fer squirted out a baby.”

“You little shit,” I breathed.

Augustus grinned, and then he broke up laughing at whatever his pet dinosaur said. When he’d recovered, he said, “It’s a long story; I’ll tell you tonight. Are you going to be okay if I’m here a couple of weeks?”

“He’s not staying for two weeks,” I said loudly. “He’s not staying at all. Period.”

More of that fucking eye-rolling. “I love you too. Hold on, I’ll tell him. Theo says he loves you.”

Theo’s voice sounded tinny—and wry—on the phone’s speaker. “Hi, Fer.”

“If he loves me so much,” I asked, “why doesn’t he get one of those lockable playpens and keep you from—”

“Bye, babe,” Augustus said into the phone. “I love you.”

“—wandering off. You know, the kind people get so their kids can’t escape.”

“That’s called a cage.”

“Exactly, why doesn’t he buy that?”

“Are you going to tell me what’s really going on? Or are we going to spend two agonizing weeks with me trying to worm it out of you?”

I snorted.

“How about four weeks?” Something must have shown on my face because he said, “I work from home, bitch, and Theo’s the most responsible human in the world. Want to make it six?”

“Did you call me bitch?”

“Remember that time I nagged you until you told me all my Christmas presents?”

“That time? It’s every fucking year!”

To hide his grin, he ducked his head and booped Igz on the nose. She was still smiling at him, which tells you something about loyalty and the next generation. “All right. It’s going to be a long eight weeks.”

My line was to say something like Eight weeks? In eight weeks, you’ll have drained every pecker from here to the Castro . And Augustus would laugh, and I’d pretend to get angrier, and eventually, the question itself would be buried under the drift of our bullshit. But this time, I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

Augustus looked up, and they were my Augustus’s eyes, the one I’d raised. And at the same time, they weren’t. They were more mature. They were…wiser. Wiser, I thought with a hint of manic despair. I’m about to ask the same kid for advice who went through an entire bottle of Jergens the week he discovered jerking off.

The words slipped out of me before I let myself think about them. “Do you think there’s something wrong with me?”

He furrowed his brow. His knee, still bouncing Igz, slowed. His smile was a trembling question mark like he was waiting for the punchline.

“Never mind,” I said.

His smile slipped. “Fer.”

“Like you’d know.” I tried to force my voice toward normalcy. “Good Christ, you’re the one shacked up with a living museum exhibit. They could make some weird porn out of it. ‘The Driest Dick: The Legend of Pharaoh’s Boner.’”

Augustus watched me and then shook his head. “Don’t do that.”

“Something about the Nile and lube.”

“Fer,” he said, and there was so much authority behind it that for a moment, I forgot this was the same kid who’d reeked of Jergens. He stopped bouncing Igz, laid her against his chest, and met my gaze. “I love you. I think you’re wonderful. What do you mean, is there something wrong with you?”

“He said I do this because I want to do it. Mom, I mean. And Chuy. Dealing with their shit. He said I don’t let myself have more. I don’t let myself be happy.” And I’m not happy, I thought. It was the first time I’d expressed that thought to myself so clearly, but there it was. I’m not happy. And I’m lonely. And I want more. I might have even said that to Augustus, but by then, my throat had closed up, and I couldn’t get anything out.

“Fer,” Augustus whispered. “Oh my God.” He scooted over and, even though I tried to elbow him off, gave me a one-armed hug. I didn’t break down crying—thank. fucking. god—but Augustus’s hair did get a little wet.

When he finally released me, I ran both hands over my face and shook my head. “I’m fine,” I said, but my voice was gravelly. “It’s been a lot lately.”

“Of course it’s been a lot. You’ve got to be exhausted.”

“It’s all right. Plenty of people are single parents. I’ll hit my stride.” I found the remote and turned on the TV. I had no idea what I was looking at: apparently a romantic diaper commercial. “Sorry I unloaded on you like that.”

For what might have been the first time since he’d been thirteen and I’d tanned his ass, Augustus took the remote from me.

“Hey,” I said. “Just because the dinosaur let’s you watch Barney —”

He turned off the TV and tucked the remote behind his back. “The TV stays off until we finish this conversation.”

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

I stared at him.

It took about ten seconds before he shrank down, hugging Igz to him. “Uh, please?”

“What the fuck is Pharaoh’s boner letting you get away with?”

“Fer, I want you to talk to me. I’m your brother. I love you. I want you to be happy, and I definitely want to help you after—” His voice got thick, and he stroked Igz’s fuzzy head. “—after you did so much for me. You gave up your whole life for me. I know that; I’m not an idiot.”

“Oh yeah?”

His grin blossomed. “I’m not a total idiot.”

I sighed and rubbed my face again.

His voice was tentative as he said, “I’m not a child anymore. You don’t have to protect me.”

I closed my eyes and saw her again: I’d been thirteen the first time, and she’d used a plastic bag because—the note said—she wanted to be beautiful when they found her. What was beautiful about having plastic stuck to your face, I wanted to know. What was beautiful about your kids finding you like that? I’d told Augustus she was tired from an audition, and I’d let him pick the snacks for his lunch so he’d be too excited to ask questions.

“Who said those things to you?” Augustus asked. “Chuy?”

It was another open door, another opportunity to tell him about Zé. But I nodded.

The silence lasted longer this time. “Do you think he’s right?”

“Do I think he’s right?”

“It’s an important question.”

The old, familiar helplessness welled up in me. “You know Mom has bad days. Every time one of these walking fucksticks disappears, she spirals. And even if she didn’t, she doesn’t even pretend to work anymore. She couldn’t afford an apartment, let alone to keep herself fed. Am I supposed to say, ‘Hey, thanks for giving birth to me, now fuck off and go be a bag lady’?”

“Well—”

“And Chuy. He had the fucking gall to look me in the face and tell me he doesn’t want me to do this anymore. What the fuck is that supposed to mean? All these fucking years running after him, getting his stomach pumped, carrying that fucking Narcan everywhere, rushing him to the emergency room, the rehab, the nights driving the worst fucking streets because I had no idea where he was. And now he says don’t bother, he doesn’t want me to do that anymore. Let him die, that’s what he’s saying. It was a good ride while it lasted, leave me the fuck alone so I can load up in some shithole and choke to death on my own vomit!” My throat hurt, and I realized I was yelling. Augustus’s eyes were wide, and he had one hand cupped over Igz’s head, but I couldn’t stop. “You think I don’t wish they’d leave me the fuck alone? Jesus Christ, they ruin everything. Mom’s emergencies. Mom’s breakdowns. She needs to go to Sedona. She needs to go to Santa Barbara. She needs to go to Vail. She needs more fucking pills!” I stood and started to pace. “Every time I try to do something for myself, every time I want something for myself, she finds a way to fuck it up. Or Chuy swoops in again. I finally had a chance to live my life doing what I wanted, and he dropped a fucking baby in my lap like—”

The hurt in Augustus’s eyes made me look away. All I could do was stand there, my chest heaving, my whole body hurting with the force of my shouting. From a long way off, I could hear Igz crying.

Augustus carried her out onto the deck, and the door shut behind them, and I couldn’t hear them anymore.

My eyes burned. My face was hot. I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my cheeks. I held a towel against my face, pressing it there until my knuckles throbbed, fighting a scream. It was like something had come unplugged in me, and now, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop it up again. All my helplessness. All my disappointment. All my rage. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn’t hang the towel up again, so I left it hanging over the side of the sink.

The sound of the deck slider called me back. Augustus was settling Igz in her swing; she’d stopped crying. He straightened, looked at me, and his eyes were still full of pain.

I tried to think of something to say. I’m sorry. I knew I was supposed to say I’m sorry, but I couldn’t even get that far.

And then Augustus hugged me. Not his awkward one-armed hug like he was a seventh-grader trying to cop a feel. He wrapped his arms around me and crushed me to him. He was still shorter than me, but the little wiener had been packing on muscle, probably so he could Tarzan his way from dick to dick out in the homo jungle.

That line of thinking helped me hold it together for about five seconds. And then I burst into sobs.

Augustus held me. I didn’t hold him; he held me. And he rubbed my back. And I wanted to pull myself together, make it all okay again, tell him this was a blip. But those were old instincts, and I was too far gone.

Eventually, I stopped crying, and we ended up at the kitchen table. Augustus brought two beers from the fridge.

“So, you and Theo are day drinkers and swingers,” I said scratchily. “Great role model you’ve got there.”

“Drink your fucking beer,” Augustus said with a grin.

I took a swallow. And then another. I was still hiccupping from the sobs, and my eyes had that sticky itchiness that came after a hard cry.

“I’m sorry,” Augustus said, turning the beer in his hands, “that I messed up your life.”

I snorted, but it was, admittedly, a wet snort. “Give me a fucking break. You’re my baby. You love being my baby. I love that you’re my baby. God, Augustus, I love you so much I would pull off my own skin for you. I didn’t even complain when you turned out to have a raging dick addiction.”

“You did complain, actually. You complained nonstop. You still complain.”

“I love you, even if you are a giant billboard for free boy pussy.” My throat tightened, and my voice thinned. “I have never, not once, wished you weren’t in my life or that a single fucking thing with you had been different. I’m so fucking proud of you. I’m so grateful I get to be your brother.”

Augustus nodded, still looking at his beer. “But you gave up so much—”

“Knock it off. I shouldn’t have said that; that’s not what I meant.”

“But Fer, I think—I think maybe it’s okay for you to feel that way. I mean, I know you love me. And I know how much you’ve done for me. I know you’d do it again if you had to.”

“I wouldn’t buy you that fucking prom ticket again if I’d known you were going to spend the whole night dreaming about going down on your boy Kris.”

Another grin splashed across Augustus’s face. “God, he was cute.”

“That ticket cost a hundred fucking dollars, Augustus, and you didn’t even get laid. You could have dry-humped Kris for free.”

“I think it’s okay for you to be angry. I think it’s good, actually. You can be angry at the universe, or at fate, or at the unfairness of being asked to give up a life you’d built for yourself. You can be angry at Chuy. You can be angry at Mom. You can even be angry at me if you want; I can handle it.”

It was a funny thing, breathing; my body couldn’t seem to remember how to do it.

Neither of us spoke for a while. Augustus set down his bottle, and the glass clicked against the tabletop. “I’ve never heard you talk like that,” he said. “About Mom and Chuy and—” He didn’t say me . Instead, he said, “—everything.”

“Yeah, well.” I shrugged. Somehow, my beer was empty. “I don’t know. I guess it’s been in there for a while.”

“I’m glad you told me.”

I rolled my eyes.

That made him smile, but it faded quickly. “They’re right, you know. I think they’re right.”

“Oh yeah? In your professional opinion, you think they’re right?”

“I don’t think you’re happy, Fer, and you deserve to be happy. I think you feel responsible for everyone. And I think maybe—maybe Chuy’s right. Maybe there’s a part of you that wants things like this because—” He stopped and touched his bottle and dropped his hands in his lap.

“Because what?”

He didn’t look up.

“No, please. Tell me, Augustus. Why do I want my life to be a fucking shitshow? What a profound psychological insight. Please, tell me more.”

“I don’t know, Fer. I think maybe that’s something you could talk to someone about.”

But I could hear myself answering the question—a series of flashbulbs, like my brain had been ready to go. Because your dad told you a man takes care of his family. Because your mom never had time for you, never had time for anyone but herself. Because you were a child the first time you knew she’d tried to kill herself, and you’ve been terrified for thirty years that she’ll get it right.

“Does Mom—” Augustus’s voice was small. He stopped. Started again. “Did she say she was going to do something if you—I don’t know. If you did something different.”

Christ, I thought. The way we talk in this family. Mom’s having a bad day. Did she say she was going to do something? She didn’t have to, I thought. She’s never had to say anything.

I shook my head.

“Because that’s emotional abuse, Fer. Even if she doesn’t say it. That’s manipulative and selfish and—and wrong.”

I shrugged.

“And she can get therapy, medication, a support system that’s not you.” His voice was rising. “She doesn’t have to be so fucking—so fucking self-centered all the time.”

“Easy, tiger.”

But Augustus’s words spilled out faster and harder. “And you can’t fix Chuy, Fer. You know that, right? He told you that. I’m telling you that. Any reasonable person will tell you that. He’s got to take responsibility for himself. And Mom too. You’re a human being, and you deserve dignity and autonomy, and your worth isn’t based on how much you can help those—those two dumbshits who keep choosing over and over again not to help themselves. I am so fucking sick of it, Fer!”

The last words were a whisper-shout that it sounded like he barely managed to control. I stared at Augustus—his chest heaving, his eyes wide, a hint of red in his cheeks. And then I burst out laughing. He started laughing too, sinking back in his seat, hands covering his face.

“I’m sorry,” he kept trying to say through the laughter. “I’m sorry.”

I waved the words away and kept laughing.

When we’d both calmed down, though, he said again, “I’m sorry. I know it’s easy for me to say. I know I’m not you, and I don’t live with this every day, and I don’t know what I’d do if I were you.”

“You’d do something better. You’ve always been smarter.”

He practically glowed. He’d been like that since as long as I could remember. When he’d been sounding out words in that little tent I’d made in the fucking one-bedroom. The way his whole face lit up when I told him he’d done a good job. With his spelling. The first time I’d laughed at one of his stupid videos.

“I want you to talk to someone, Fer. I don’t know if that’s the right thing to say. I hope you’ll talk to someone.”

I grunted.

“About setting boundaries.”

I nodded.

“And self-care.”

“Okay.”

“And about this sense of obligation, and feeling guilty, and recognizing the limits of what you can control, and how important and valuable and wonderful you are as a human being, totally independent of what you do for everyone else.”

“I said okay, dick-drip! Jesus fucking Christ. Why the fuck am I going to pay some fucking therapist when I can sit here and have you yammer at me?”

“And about how you deserve happiness and what you want matters and you should go after the things that you want. There. I’m done. I’m not saying anything else.”

I stared at him for a long time before I said, “For fuck’s sake.”

He grinned.

“Come here.”

“Uh, maybe not.”

“Get your ass over here.”

“I’m good.”

“Augustus! Right fucking now!”

He took a long time coming around the table.

I hugged him. I kissed the side of his head. And then I said, “You smell like somebody used a jockstrap to clean a porn set. After, I mean. All those giant, porn-y loads.”

“I hate you. You are the single weirdest human being who has ever been born.”

Neither of us said anything for a long time. His arms tightened around me, and he whispered, “We’ll figure this out.”

I lifted him off the floor because I knew he hated it, and I kissed the side of his head one more time, and I shook him so he’d know he was still my annoying baby brother who’d probably paid for his last year of college with rim jobs. And I whispered, “Thank you.”