The Thunder in His Head

  Copyright

  Published by

  Harmony Ink Press

  382 NE 191st Street #88329

  Miami, FL 33179-3899, USA

  publisher@harmonyinkpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Thunder in His Head

  Copyright © 2012 by Gene Gant

  Cover Art by Anne Cain annecain.art@gmail.com

  Cover Design by Mara McKennen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 382 NE 191st Street #88329, Miami, FL 33179-3899, USA

  publisher@harmonyinkpress.com

  ISBN: 978-1-61372-572-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  First Edition

  May 2012

  eBook edition available

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61372-573-3

  Dedication

  For Carl.

  For Patrick.

  And for Billy Ray.

  You know why.

  One

  I STOPPED at the curb and grabbed the mail from the box. Bills for Mom. Preemptive child support check from Dad. Hey, my learner’s permit. And my report card.

  The afternoon was sunny and quiet. Most of the people on our street were older, empty nesters, and you hardly ever saw them outside. I walked up the drive and came in through the kitchen door. There were hot dogs and French fries baking on a cookie sheet in the oven. Mom was either tired or in a lousy mood. I plopped my backpack on the table and ripped open the neat, square envelope from school, which was addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Manning. Bs in World History and Geometry, As in everything else. No heart attacks there for the folks.

  “Kyle?”

  “Yeah, Mom.”

  I heard the lid on the washer bang shut, followed by the hiss of rushing water. Mom emerged from the laundry room. She was wearing pink sweats and barefoot. Lousy mood, definitely. “How was your day?” she asked, frowning at the torn envelope in my hand. She hated it when I opened her mail, especially when it was about me.

  “My day was all right. Are you okay?”

  She seemed surprised by the question. “I’m fine. Are you flunking anything?” She held out her hand.

  I gave up the report card. “Nope. My learner’s permit finally came. Can we go driving after dinner?”

  “Oh, God, no. My nerves are shot. Call your dad and get him to go with you.”

  “Can’t stand to see me run anybody down, huh?”

  Mom ignored that one, focusing her attention on my grades. Her long black hair was still tied up in the crisp bun she’d worn to work. She got a pen from the side pouch on my backpack and applied the required parental signature to the report card. She tucked the card into my backpack, along with the pen, so I could turn it in to my homeroom teacher tomorrow.

  I could smell the fries. They were starting to burn. I got a towel and pulled the cookie sheet out of the oven. “Want me to fix you up a hot dog?”

  “No, thanks.” Without another word, she took a huge bowl of freshly assembled spinach, tomato, and mushroom salad from the fridge. Using tongs, she began dumping mounds of veggies onto her plate. I washed my hands at the sink. Mom is usually all smiles and chatter when I get home from school. Something at work might have stressed her out today—she’s a columnist with the Commercial Appeal, the Memphis newspaper, and she’s always up against some deadline—but I suspected my dad had done something to upset her. They’d been separated a whole year, they were all lawyered up for the coming divorce, and they fought more now than they did when they were living together. There was no point in asking what was bothering her. Mom never talked to me about the problems between her and Dad.

  I grabbed three of the six hot dogs Mom had baked, slapped them onto buns, and pasted them with mustard and relish. As I reached for the fries, Mom dumped a big heap of salad on my plate. Nice to know she wasn’t too depressed to foist veggies off on me.

  “Get your pack off the table.” She poured olive oil and lemon juice over her salad.

  I put my backpack on the floor. At the stove, I sprinkled a handful of overcooked fries over my salad and then topped everything off with ketchup. I snagged a can of Sprite from the fridge. Mom shook her head, so I put the Sprite back and got bottled waters for us both.

  We sat down in our usual spots, facing each other across the table. Mom looked right through me as she ate, her mind on another planet.

  I was starting on hotdog number three when somebody rapped on the back door. I turned and saw Mom’s boyfriend, Reece Simmons, waving at us through the glass.

  You’d have thought Mom was a model in a toothpaste ad, the way her face lit up. I got up to let the guy in, but she brushed past me so fast I lost my balance and had to sit down again. “Hey, don’t mind Inviso Boy here,” I called after her, irritated. She ignored that, too, as she practically yanked the door open.

  “Hey, you.” Hopefully, the sunlight wouldn’t hit her teeth. It would blind poor Reece.

  Reece grinned right back at her. “Lela, hi.”

  I studied the mustard stain on my napkin to keep from seeing them kiss.

  “What’re you doing here?” Mom asked when she surfaced for air.

  “I just dropped Ty and Jami at their mom’s. Thought I’d stop by and surprise you.”

  “Well. I’m surprised.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Hey, Reece.”

  “Hey there, Kyle.” Reece had a nice, mellow voice. It went well with his nice, mellow personality. Put that together with his tall, hard body and his square-jawed, handsome face, and it was easy to understand why Mom was crazy for him. “Ty just made the basketball team. Did you know that?”

  “Yeah, I heard. That’s cool.” I got up and reached for the hot dogs. “Want a dog and fries?”

  “No, thanks.” Reece shot me a smile before sliding an arm around Mom’s waist. “I was actually thinking that I might take this pretty lady out for dinner.”

  “Oh.” My face dropped.

  Reece noticed and got the wrong impression. “You’re welcome to come too….”

  “That’s okay, thanks. I’m kind of stuffed.”

  He turned back to Mom, trying not to look relieved. “Sounds like it’s you and me, then.”

  Mom forced a smile. “I suppose.”

  “Hey.” Reece frowned at her. “Is something wrong?”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder. “It’s nothing, really. It’s just….” She gave me a look, as if just remembering I was in the room. Then she took Reece’s hand and started pulling him toward the hallway. “Come on down while I change into something decent. We can talk on the way to wherever you’re taking me.” She flicked another look my way, this time over her shoulder. “Kyle, clean up the kitchen. And make sure you do your homework.”

  “Okay, Mom. See ya, Reece.”

  He flashed a smile. “Bye, Kyle.”

  I watched them disappear down the hall. Reece was forty-one. I knew that because it was my first question to him when Mom introduced us four months ago. Mom had looked as if she wanted to strangle me for asking, but I was curious. Reece didn’t exactly look middle-aged, and I didn’t want my forty-year-old mom running around with some dude barely old enough to be my big brother.

  I go
t up, shoved the rest of Mom’s salad and my hot dog down the disposal, and started clearing the table. Reece was nice enough, but having him around was majorly weird. Even though I’d known for almost a year now that Mom and Dad’s marriage was over, it still felt wrong to see them cuddling other people (Dad had a girlfriend). It also bugged the hell out of me that Mom talked so easily with Reece about problems in her life that she would never discuss with me. I felt guilty for getting pissed with her, but that was hardly the worst part of this crazy situation. Of all the guys I could be hot for, why’d I have to get a big-time crush on my mom’s boyfriend?

  WHEN Dad moved out—or, to put it more accurately, when Mom kicked Dad out—he rented a town house only four blocks away. I used to think he did that to keep close to Mom, that it meant they would eventually get back together again. It turned out the real reason he took the town house was that apartments got more expensive the deeper you went into the suburbs, and Dad was… “thrifty.” Quote, unquote.

  After Mom left with Reece and I’d finished the dishes, I exchanged my school uniform for a pair of sweats, locked up the house, and walked over to Dad’s. I called both his cell and his landline, getting voice mail on each. Not a good sign. Last time that happened, I waltzed in on Dad getting busy on the living room floor with his girlfriend. There are some things I’d just as soon not know about the two of them, so when I got to Dad’s place this afternoon, I rang the bell three times, waiting a decent interval in between. Cautiously, I unlocked the door and let myself in.

  The place felt empty. “Dad?” No answer. Dad was a district sales manager for Toyota’s Lexus division. Between his job and his social life, there was no telling when he would get in.

  Dad was a lot neater than I was. His place was spotless, except for my room. I spent every weekend with him, and my bed was still unmade from my last stay. On the floor next to the bed was a plate crusted over from some snack I couldn’t even remember eating. There were dirty clothes in a heap beside the dresser. Dad refused to clean up after me. First thing Friday afternoon, he’d make me tidy up my space. I considered getting the job out of the way now, but that thought went in and out of my head so fast it barely registered. I grabbed the remotes, threw myself on the bed, and picked up where I’d left off with my year-and-a-half-old version of Call of Duty.

  I lost track of time, the way I always do when it comes to video games. When I looked up at the window, I noticed that the sun was setting. I’d been there over an hour, and still no Dad. I tried his cell and got voice mail again. Damn. There was a ton of homework waiting in my backpack, which I hadn’t bothered to haul over to Dad’s with me. I couldn’t hang around here forever.

  Too anxious now to sit still, I shut off the electronics and got my basketball from the closet. There was a small park with a basketball court just down the street. When I stepped out the front door, I spotted Dad’s gray Lexus sports coupe turning into the driveway.

  He grinned big, the way he always does when he sees me. He parked in front of the garage and popped out of the car. “Hey, son.” Decked out in a dark-blue suit, he undid his tie, stripped it from his neck, and unbuttoned his collar as he walked quickly toward the front door. He was, not unexpectedly, in full conversation on his cell phone. “Not a chance, fool. Not a chance in hell. I could be cross-eyed and still whup your behind at eight ball. Hell yes, I can. I’ll meet you at Sam’s anytime you want and prove it. Look, I just made it home and my kid’s here. I’ll catch up with you later.” Smiling, he disconnected the call, snatched the little headset from his ear with one hand, and squeezed my shoulder with the other. “Hey, man. What brings you around? Everything okay?”

  “Couldn’t be better.” Not exactly the truth, but when Dad was in his upbeat, goofy, big-kid mode, it was hard to bring up anything serious. I dug in my back pocket and pulled out the learner’s permit. “Look what I got today.”

  “Hey, great!” He managed to look enthused as he hurried past me, stepping through the door. “Now I don’t have to cringe every time a cop cruises by while you’re behind the wheel.”

  Dad had been giving me driving lessons off and on since I was twelve. But it had been weeks since I’d driven, and I was eager to take somebody’s car out for a spin. There was a practically brand-new Impala at Mom’s place that would be all mine once I was properly licensed. I turned, following Dad back into the town house. “So, can you go driving with me? I asked Mom, but she wussed out on me.”

  “Hey, that’d be a great thing, man, you taking me for a drive. It would be good to kill some time with you.” He headed straight down the hall to his bedroom, pulling off his jacket as he went. “But I’m in kind of a rush here. I’m taking Stephanie out.”

  “On a Tuesday? Nobody dates on a Tuesday.” Except, apparently, high-strung, soon-to-be divorced moms and dads.

  As soon as he entered his bedroom, Dad kicked off his shoes and then stripped off his pants and his light-gray dress shirt. “You know me,” he said. “Always setting trends. I’ve got nothing planned for tomorrow afternoon. If it’s okay with your mom, why don’t I pick you up then for a drive?” He draped the suit neatly on a hanger and hung it in his closet. The shirt went into the hamper. He grabbed jeans and a sweater and quickly started dressing.

  My throat began tightening with anger. I tried not to look pissed. “Tomorrow I’m helping one of my friends clean out her grandma’s garage. I could get out of it, but I sort of promised.” I was surprised and confused at the lie that popped from my mouth. I started bouncing the basketball off my foot.

  Dad plucked the ball out of the air in mid bounce. “Not in the house, okay?” he said with a smile. He handed the ball back and sat on the bed to pull on his loafers. “Why don’t you drive me over to pick up Stephanie? We can drop you off at home on our way out. How does that sound?”

  Better than nothing. “Cool.”

  WE LET the top down on the car. The carroty light of the setting sun and the cool autumn breeze washed over us. I loved the feel of power that came from being behind the wheel. Dad sat in the front passenger seat with his left arm draped across the back of my seat and his right arm dangling out the window. He never let me dangle my body parts out the window. Dad was very much from the “do as I say, not as I do” school of child rearing.

  Even with my eyes glued to the road, I could tell Dad was staring at me as I drove. Not out of fear that I might do something stupid and crash his car, but just because he was glad to see me. It was like he missed me or something, now that he was out of the house. He’d never once told me that he loved me, but I knew he did. I could see it in the way he looked at me. I could feel it.

  “So,” he said, “anybody hassling you at school? Giving you a hard time about… anything?” He hit me with a variation of that question every other week. It was the closest he could bring himself to discussing the homosexual part of my life.

  “Nah, everything’s cool.” For the most part, it really was.

  Dad reached out and grabbed my shoulder, squeezing hard, as if afraid a hole was going to open up and swallow me right out of the car. I had his love and his worry. What more could I possibly expect from him?

  I WANTED to hate Stephanie Collier, Dad’s girlfriend. She was, after all, the straw that broke the back of my parents’ marriage. The thing is, she’s so dang nice, in a trippy sort of way. And to be fair, she was only one straw; from what I once overheard Mom tell Reece, there were lots of straws.

  I waited behind the wheel while Dad went up to get her. She lived in a small apartment building on the northeastern edge of the city, not too far from the suburban campus of Southwest Community College. She took classes there from time to time, whenever she could scrape up the money to pay for them. She believed debt, including student loans, was a spirit-crushing trap to be avoided the way you’d avoid unprotected sex with convicts. The chick could turn a phrase.

  The second Dad was out of range, I switched the radio from that sleepy smooth jazz satellite channel he favore
d to some hot hip-hop. I drummed the dashboard, bobbing my head to the beat. There were six guys shooting hoops at a goal they’d planted in a corner of the parking lot. They were all about my age, all but one of them shorter than me. A couple of them had some real skill. A couple of them were also kind of cute. I was sorely tempted to amble over and join the game. When playing basketball, I tend to show off (being a damned good ball player, I’m forced to admit), and when I’m around cute dudes, I tend to flirt. Those actions often induce this desire in guys to kick my butt. Having a guy try to kick my butt can be fun. I like to fight.

  “You look like you’re just itching to jump into that game, man.”

  I turned. Dad was back, opening the door and folding the front passenger seat forward. Stephanie was behind him. As he climbed into the backseat, he shifted his eyes from the ball players to me, smiling. “Another time, maybe. Crank her up. And get that crap off my radio.”

  “Hi, Kyle,” Stephanie said with a big grin as she slid into the front passenger seat and tugged the door shut. She was maybe twenty-five, tall for a woman—about five foot ten—with long legs, a butt round as an apple, and breasts for days. Pretty too. None of that did a thing for me, of course, but I could definitely see where a straight dude would be interested.

  “Hey, Steph,” I greeted her as I switched back to the smooth jazz channel. “You look nice.” I liked the blue jeans and pink blouse she wore, and her shoulder-length, honey-colored hair was pulled back in a ponytail from her smooth, brown face.

  “Thank you. You look nice too.” She winked at me. “So,” she said, nodding at the ball players. “Somebody over there get your eye?”

  Stephanie had caught the part of my interest that Dad hadn’t seen—or didn’t want to see. I’d never told her I was gay, and it wasn’t the kind of thing Dad mentioned when he talked to people about me. Somehow, she’d just figured it out at some point after we met, and she never made any big deal about it. Like my size thirteen feet and Marine buzz cut, it was just another part of me to her.