“He wasat school,” Cade’s mother said, her voice full of disgust as she scowled at her husband. “Pay attention!” She turned to her son. “You done with that now? Your room’s rented, but if you want to stay on the couch, you can.” She scowled at the stranger at the table. “If Timmy doesn’t find some cash soon, you can have your room back, because he’s going to get his ass kicked out.”
“I’m working on it,” Timmy muttered, and then he laid his head down on the table, cradled in his arms, as if it were fragile.
“I don’t need a room,” Cade said. “Thanks, though. I need you guys to sign some papers. The school expects my parents to pay for some of my education, and if you don’t, they need you to sort of… say why. Well, not really. We talked about this last year, remember? If you can give me some numbers about how much you make, then I can write them down and you guys can sign, and they’ll help me pay for stuff.”
“Like school welfare,” Cade’s mother said.
Cade didn’t like to think of it that way, but he supposed it was close enough. “Yeah,” he said.
Cade’s father scratched the side of his head, and then his face twisted. “Fuckthe school,” he growled. “They want to know how much I make? They want me tosignsomething, begging them for money so my boy can turn himself into a fucking faggot like them?”
“I’m already a fucking faggot,” Cade said. “I just want to be a fag with a job.” He sighed. “Then I could help you guys out. If I had a good income, you wouldn’t have to worry so much about money.”
“Oh, like you’ve helped us this past year?” his mother asked sarcastically.
“I’ve been in school, not working. But I helped the year before, right? When Iwasworking? Remember how there’d be food in the fridge all the time? And always mix, right? I always made sure there were different juices in there for you.” He’d considered the mix as his mother’s chief source of nutrition, so he’d taken some care to keep it varied. He decidednotto mention the other contributions he’d made. Hewas still trying to forget the party his parents had thrown, eight or nine fellow drunks staggering around the house, one of them finding his way into Cade’s empty bedroom and stealing almost three hundred dollars of hard-earned cash before puking on Cade’s bed and staggering away. Coming home to find that had been a turning point for Cade, but it wasn’t one he could let himself think about right then.
“If I can get this money, I can finish school, and then I’ll have a job and help out.” He’d already decided that once he was out of school and had a job he’d pay for rehab, pay for medical stuff, and maybe get groceries delivered to the house. There was no way he was giving his parents cash, but that was another thing he wouldn’t mention right then.
“When does school finish?” his mother asked, and he could see her coldly calculating personality coming to the surface. Cade was pretty sure he’d gotten his math smarts from his mom, before she’d pickled her brain.
“A few years. It’s a long time, I know. But even if I quit now, I wouldn’t be able to help you out. I’d only be able to get a minimum-wage job, and that wouldn’t be enough for me to have any extra.”
“You had extra before,” his mother said accusingly. “When you lived here. You were working minimum wage, but you had extra money.”
“I wasn’t paying rent. And it wasn’t reallyextramoney.” He remembered how impossible it had been, watching his bank balance stay so close to zero even with all the hours he was working. He’d needed presentable clothes for work, and a bus pass togetto work, and he’d needed to buy food for himself and whomever else in the house happened to eat it, and that had been the end of his meager income. No, there’d been no extra money when he’d been working for minimum wage. Certainly not as much as he’d known he would need if he wanted to make his university dreams into a reality.
“So you only came back because you needed something.” Cade’s father staggered to his feet and headed for the back door. A casual observer might have thought he was leaving the house, but Cade knew the drill. He felt the cool fall air sweep through the open door, heard his father unzip his fly, then the patter of a stream of urine hitting the unraked leaves of the small backyard.
“It’s a really simple form,” Cade said, trying to smile at his mother. “You just need to put a few bits of information down and then sign it. It’ll take five minutes.”
“It’ll cause trouble,” she retorted. “I looked at that thing the last time you wanted us to do it. It wants to know what our income is, and it goes to the federal government! You think they won’t be talking to their friends at the IRS?”
“Who cares if they do? You’ve had to file tax returns before, to get into different programs. They alreadyknowhow much you make, or don’t make, or whatever. It’s not a big deal.”
“That’s how they trap you,” Cade’s father said, staggering back from the doorway. “No. We said it last year and we’re saying it this year. You want to go to school, pretend you’re one of them?” He shook his head and grimaced at his wife. “Like they can’t smell it on him. Like he’lleverfool them.” Looking back at Cade he said, “You want to be a fag, be a fag. You want to be an idiot? Be an idiot. But don’t drag us into your stupid little game. We’re not signing.”
Timmy lifted his head and stared blearily at Cade, then turned to look at his father. “Your kid’s a fag?”
“Shut up,” Cade’s father growled, and Timmy let his head fall down again.
It was what Cade had expected. What he’d been braced for. At least, he’dthoughthe was braced. But apparently he wasn’t, because his legs were shaking and he knew if he spoke his voice would crack. They couldn’t—theywouldn’t—they wouldn’t give him theone thinghe needed in order to get away from all this! One form signed and he could escape back to Purdue, but they didn’twanthim to escape. They wanted to drag him down into their own mess, because that way they’d have evidence of how unfair the world was. It didn’tmatterif you worked your ass off, didn’t matter if you were smart and ambitious, the Man still wouldn’t let you succeed. They wanted Cade to be evidence for the excuses they’d used to justify their own sad lives.
He knew he should calm down and make a better argument. He’d thought about making up some numbers and forging their signatures, but thatwouldbe fraud, like the woman at the financial aid office had already accused him of. This was a federal form, and if it had already been rejected once, they might take an extra close look atit the second time around. He needed it to be legit. He needed his parents to sign.
If they didn’t….
He couldn’t think about that. He spun around and headed for the door. He needed to get out of there until he calmed down.
He was practically running by the time he hit the front door, out of the yard before his eyes had adjusted to the darkness, heading down the street before he’d given any thought to where he was going or what he was going to do when he got there.
He was so stupid. He should have known how his parents would react. Hehadknown. What had he thought was going to be different?
Nothingwas different. Not ever. It would have been cheaper for Cade to go to a local school so he could have lived at home, but he’d known he needed to get away. The ragged little house was like a black hole, sucking in dreams and hopes and shrinking them down until they were invisible. Cade had escaped, and he wouldn’t let himself be dragged back in. If his parents wouldn’t sign? If the government loans didn’t work out?
There were other ways to make money. Less legitimate ways, ways that made Cade’s skin crawl. Ways he’d thought he’d left behind at the same time he’d left his parents’ house.
But if it came down to it? If it was a choice between giving up on his dream or going back to whoring? He knew what he’d do. It was risky, of course. To his body, because whores were attractive targets for all kinds of psychos. To his career, because if he got busted and ended up with a record, it would probably end any chance at a good job with a reputable firm. And to his spirit, because…. He stopped walking and stared at the concrete sidewalk as if it held some sort of answers. Risky to his spirit because he wasn’t sure he could keep himself together if he went back to it. It was a step backward, and he’d committed himself to moving forward. What would it mean tohim, to his willpower, to fail like this?
