“Charley?”
He turns around in his chair and looks down toward the base of the door in my direction and once seeing me begins to grin softly. For his grin is different from that of Michael’s. For Michael’s grin has some sort of a twist to it, like he knows something I don’t. It makes me wonder if I’ll ever beat him . . .
Charley motions for me to come to him and I do, pushing myself up and off the side of the door frame. I step over his letterman jacket tossed carelessly on the ground, and carefully around his video games that he just bought, and CDs from his friend’s house that he promised to give back two weeks ago but still sit here on the floor every day.
I reach him, sitting in his swivel chair at his desk that I love to sit in when he’s not here and act like him. But mostly I swing around and stare up at the ceiling, one that I can finally call my own.
I’ve never met anyone like Charley. He’s a pretty big guy. About six foot five and muscular, but not too buff like the wrestler guys me and Michael watch on TV. He’s more slender and his eyes have a way of calming you. He never seems to let anyone cry too much, but then he always lets you mourn and grieve to relief. And the way his arms hold you, you’d think nothing in the world could harm you. That everything in the world is at peace, and that love truly does exist, and that nightmares are nothing but silly little puppies who bark but stir no one.
His skin is like mine, a soft and delicate caramel; and it feels me with pride because we are truly related. I never thought in a million years I’d have people to call my own. It’s as if being alone killed a lot of things in me . . . a lot of desires.
He looks down at me and grins, and I look up at him in return and smile weakly. In that moment I wanted to tell him things that I never would have dreamed of telling. Never would have dared. Because the way he looked at me, I began to believe in things—people, expressions . . . I look down slowly and pull on my sleeves and drag them down my arm and cup them in a tight ball in my hands so he won’t see. So no one would see what, what . . . So subtle and so smooth. It was like second nature, no longer a game. Just daily routine . . . routine.
“What’s up lil man!?” He reached down and picked me up off my feet and placed me in his lap, hugging me closely and tightly, and kissing me on my cheek. It felt good for a second to be held . . . and kissed . . . held and kissed.
He brought both his arms around me and rested his chin on the top of my head, and from there peered down on his notebook paper. “Babe you already know what the business is.” I turned and looked up at him smiling softly. That was what Charley said all the time about everything. ‘You know what the business is.’
“What are you working on Charley?” He held me tighter to him, locking me into him with his left hand and picking up his pen with his right.
“An English paper. Writing about how this dude argues.” I looked at the paper and saw only a paragraph written. He was always never focused, but in some way he always managed to get things done . . .
“You better get writing!” I said leaning back into him . . . slowly beginning to become alive again.
He pressed his face against mine and hugged me tighter.
“You say I better get writing lil man?” I nodded and laughed as he tickled me. Then I turned around in his lap and ran my hands through his hair, and then over his eyes . . . slowly, as though things—he weren’t real.
“I wanna go to your game Charley.” Charley kissed me on my cheek and ran his hands through my hair.
“Then come lil man! Ask momma to bring yah.”
And that’s when it hit, a sharp pang in my chest, maybe where my heart should have been, and I sort of lost my breath in that instance. I swallowed hard and looked down at my hands that still, though I had run my hands through his hair were clenched and tight as if I were ready to fight . . . fight if I could.
“Lil man?” I looked up at him. “We play tomorrow at Cowboy Stadium! Now ain’t that something?” I nodded my head soberly and let my eyes drop to his paper.
“Your daddy coming to see you?” He turned my face toward him and stared at me for a long time.
“Our daddy is coming to see us. You hear me? He loves you too.” I stared at Charley a long time wanting to tell him that notions like that only existed in fairytales, but my brothers were all dreamers—boys . . . they had never seen life in all its entirety. And so I nodded when his eyes wouldn’t move . . . for his sake.
“Ok . . . I like him . . .” Charley rearranged me in his lap and held me closer to him, bending his head down to kiss me again.
“And he loves you. Just like all of us.” I nodded my head and stared at my sleeves, for that’s all I could see . . . that’s all I could see nowadays.
“Will you ask Mommy to take me?” I asked earnestly, looking up at Charley, all through his eyes—maybe in search of that sweet soul, a soul so abnormal.
Charley picked up his pen and wrote something on his paper, in which my eyes followed his every movement. He was something supernatural to me like my own daddy. I’d never met such affectionate men . . .
“Of course lil man! I want you to come. You gonna play football like me right?” I shrugged at him sheepishly. I didn’t like sports.
“Maybe.” I sat back in his chest, the only place I really felt safe, and sighed deeply and stared at his hand as he wrote and wrote for a long time. Then I looked up at him, in such an earnest way I probably shouldn’t have. In order to protect myself from hurt yah know. But he causes me to dream in some ways, I suppose I overdosed . . .
“Can I sleep in your room tonight Charley?” He looked down at me and frowned.
“Lil man you got your own room bud. Plus your bedtime is way earlier than mine and momma would never allow that.” I swallowed so hard on that, that I nearly choked, and my tears so hidden in me almost spilled over. My head fell and I don’t think it ever rose. I tried to breathe and play the game that my mother had taught me to play, but it was as though I couldn’t play no more. I was tired. Tired of dress up. Tired of play.
I slid off of his lap and walked toward the door, and he asked me what was wrong and I just said I was tired, which I was—I wasn’t lying. And I walked through the dark house and to my room, looking over my shoulder wearily, but what could that ever do . . . what did that ever do? I entered into my room and shut the door, and cursed at it in my mind for it had not a lock. What door doesn’t have a lock? And I crawled onto my bed and cuddled against myself. The only one who knew. And braced myself for him, whenever he would come. But I was too tired to be scared, and too scarred to really feel. So I looked out the window wearily and stared my mother would come back to me . . .
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