“What is it?”
“Carry our glasses and the scotch up to the balcony. I’ll join you in a minute.”
And that’s where Matt was sitting, a few minutes later—on the balcony—tumbler of scotch in his hand, admiring the waxing gibbous moon, when William joined him—and offered him a cigar!
“Fathers are curious creatures,” William said, sitting. He crossed his legs primly. “Mine has never suffered from the delusion that I would bat on the same team as he. Truth be told, he probably never envisioned me as any kind of batter. More a catcher, you know?”
Matt was too shocked by the cigars to pay much attention to anything else. He sat there stunned, holding his—as yet unlit one—remembering Celeste’s admonition. “Smoke the cigar,” she had said.
William lit his cigar, puffing until the end glowed red and a tendril of smoke snaked upward. “Still, fathers being fathers, mine has tried to impart the wisdom he’s gleaned from a career in business, which, again, is probably as wasted on me as batting practice would be.”
Uh-huh. Matt felt the scotch tugging at his sobriety, felt his thoughts skidding sideways, finding a familiar groove: Fathers, their gay sons, and bats…
William leaned over and lit Matt’s cigar, coaching him through the initial puffs, explaining that one shouldn’t inhale as with cigarettes.
Matt took a puff. The smoke smelled of oak leaves in the fall, soggy piles of them, sweet with decay.
“Drinking scotch? Thank my father. When I was thirteen, he introduced me to the stuff. Said it’s good for impressing some people, intimidating others. He also said it would put hair on my balls, which horrified me, because they were already a topiary nightmare.”
“That’s what this is about?” Matt asked. “Intimidating me?” Part of him had wondered why William was drinking scotch. Everyone in the GM knew that William’s drink of choice was bourbon, neat—same as his idol, Tallulah Bankhead.
William shook his head. “Like anyone could ever intimidate you, dahling. You’re fearless. Besides, I didn’t know you were coming. I was just feeling sorry for myself and trying to channel my father’s wisdom, you know?”
Matt did not know. Could not imagine it. Matthew Griffith, Sr.’s idea of wisdom was summed up in the phrase he had engraved below the mounted baseball bat: “REAL MEN STEP UP TO THE PLATE.” They step up and swing. They keep swinging ‘til the other guy is down and begging for mercy. They swing some more just for good measure.
No one outside of Matt’s family—and the youth pastor, of course—knew about the bat. Matt had told the GM about his rape, but nothing more. Adam didn’t even know that much…
William puffed. “My father told me to always keep a couple of cigars handy, that it’s impossible to share a smoke with a guy and stay mad at him. I guess I’m hoping that’s true.”
“So why didn’t you break out the cigars weeks ago?”
“Weeks ago, dahling, I was livid with you.”
“For accidentally telling Molly about the GM clubhouse?
“That, plus you can be infuriatingly smug. It’s a bit much for us mere mortals.”
Matt ventured another sip of scotch, which, this time, dispensed with the soft kisses and went straight to the face slap. “No one’s ever called me smug before.”
William swirled his tumbler, took a sip and winced. “This really is nasty stuff,” he said. “Maybe smug was the wrong word. Self-assured on steroids? Is that better? Tell me one other freshman who would take on an entire college administration just to get a lady’s job back? Who would call a special meeting of the GM and announce an elaborate plan to take down the presidentof the SGA?”
Matt didn’t think of himself as being self-assured. He’d failed the ultimate test of character when he’d buckled to his father’s demands and taken the bat—and swung. He’d been haunted by the memory ever since.
The rape did not define him; that night in the park did.
All of his heroic bluster since—standing up for Paul, fighting to get Debbie re-hired, taking down Colton—all of it had been a pathetic attempt to redeem himself. And still he was lost, forever back in that park holding a bloody bat.
William puffed and sipped, sipped and puffed. “I am sorry, you know.”
“I know,” Matt said. He stared at the glowing embers of his cigar, remembered the bonfire he’d made of that fucking bat. Smiled at the memory of his father’s rage when he’d discovered the crime…
“Oh Matthew!” Matt’s mom had exclaimed, addressing her husband, “Give it a rest! The boy is never going to play baseball! He’s….”
Her voice had trailed off as she searched for the right words. Then: “He’s a soccer player, and I’m going to his next game whether you like it or not!”
Matt’s heart had swelled! Nora Griffith—his mom—had openly defied her husband for the first time in their long marriage—and had affirmed her knowledge that her son was gay and that she loved him. True, she had not used those exact words, had retreated into euphemism, but Matt had known what she meant all the same.
It hadn’t been the unconditional love that every gay boy craved, but it had been a start.
