was married and it was hopeless, but I was a fool. When Isa quivered and leaned against me, I tried not to feel the wisp of her hair on my neck or the prick of her fingernails on my skin. I tried not to sip the scent of bath soap mixed with perspiration on her arms. I did press my fingers against the silver cross on her breastbone, letting my hand touch the swell of her breasts. I massaged the tense spots along her shoulders and neck. I rubbed her forehead and temples. All to calm her, I told myself, not to caress her skin. She needed me.
As she worried and fussed, I excused her childish tone and her dips into born-again language. “With God’s grace,” she whispered, “I’m going to bring Daddy the mercy of Jesus to heal his judgmental nature. When people are tired of being broken and sick, Kevin, they’re ready for the spirit of God.” I knew lots of people who’d come out of recovery clinging to faith—even Patrick had his version. If God could dampen her bipolar swings, I thought, so be it.
It never occurred to me, in the midst of my compassion, that I was the one wracked with self-deception. I was always on the verge of letting her know about my job, but the moment never seemed right. I told myself I could live with Isa without loving her, even while pretending I could love her without showing it.
From those frustrating nights, I felt hungover during the days, and I grew more anxious about being left in the empty house as the day neared for them to drive to Florida. I could cook and care for myself; it wasn’t that. I was worried about keeping myself from relapse, particularly since I didn’t have a job. Each day my freelance work took me to avenues where people were using all the time. The more I spoke with street performers and the homeless, gaining their confidence for the interviews I would need for my articles, the more difficult it became to refuse their offers of nips and tokes. I felt my resolve slipping, so I attended daily N.A. meetings again.
I drafted two articles within ten days of being laid off: one about a sax player who’d lost everything in a fire and another about a seventeen-year-old girl from Indiana who’d run away to Hollywood and couldn’t go back home. I didn’t like either story; they offered only darkness. But I called the editor during that second week and left a message every day for three days, telling him I had the stories he wanted. He never returned my calls. On the fourth day, the afternoon of my twenty-eighth birthday, I called Cameron, the city reporter, who told me the editor wasn’t taking any freelance.
I heard myself thanking him. When I hung up, I threw my cell phone across my room into the wall.
The front doorbell rang. After a moment, it rang again.
“Get the damn door!” Patrick yelled from the kitchen.
“You get it!” Devon called from somewhere else.
Tossing on my bed, I convinced myself I was glad everybody was leaving for Florida the next day. Think of the quiet; I’d have two weeks to decompress from their stupid dramas. I should have moved out months ago, I told myself. What the hell had I been thinking, letting myself get sucked in by Isa’s needs again?
When the noises and smells from the kitchen could no longer be ignored, I resented in advance the cheap birthday card that Isa and the others would give me. The cake. The stupid song. If they remembered my birthday at all.
After a while, the kitchen quieted abruptly; feet shuffled outside my room. Then they banged at my door, laughing. I turned away on the bed, facing the wall, gripping my hands into fists. They came in uninvited, singing “Happy Birthday” out of tune, all except Isa, whose melodic voice I resented all the more. Devon poked my ribs, trying to make me laugh. I gritted my teeth. Ray scampered onto the bed.
“Get up!” Isa said.
I put on my dark glasses and faced them.
Ray hung around my neck, hugging me, bringing out a quick smile despite myself. They laid boxes all over my bed, startling me. I let myself breathe.
“Look at your clothes,” Isa said. “You never buy anything.”
Ray helped me open each box. They made me stand up and try on four shirts, including a seersucker that caught the hairs of my chest.
“Where’d you get the money?” I protested, but they ignored me.
“No more Cowboy Bob,” Devon said. He tugged me down on the bed, and I let them pull off my socks, though I pretended to struggle when they tugged at my jeans. They had me stand in my boxers so I could try on two pairs of baggy shorts that reached below my knees.
“Volcom,” Ray said.
“Sounds like a planet,” I said, though I knew it was surfwear. I couldn’t help smiling.
“Pull them down low,” Devon said, “like this. Show the top of your boxers.”
As if I didn’t know the style.
“I got you some new boxers with little surfer men,” Isa said with a friendly laugh. “But you have to try those on yourself.”
“These shorts are way too big,” I complained.
“They’re perfect,” Isa said.
They showed me how I could fit Charlie, folded, into the wide pockets of the shorts, though he protruded out the top. They had me sit on the bed so they could put sandals on my feet.
“Huaraches,” Ray said.
“They’re Mexican,” Patrick said.
“Warachas,” I said.
“Huaraches,” Ray corrected.
Devon put a cheap straw fedora on my head that was a touch big. I pulled the front brim down to hide my scar, and he lifted it back up, at an angle.
“There,” he said. “That looks better.”
I pulled it back down.
I grew up wearing Western gear in Colorado. I gave it up for army boots and black shirts when I started smoking weed in high school. About two years ago, when Dad bailed me out of jail in San Francisco, he didn’t lecture me about how bad I smelled or how skinny I was. He didn’t ask how I’d sunk so low so fast. We didn’t talk about what drugs I’d used or how long I’d been on the streets. He didn’t know how to talk about that stuff. He called ahead and got me into Channel House in Burbank. When he drove me down from San Francisco, we stopped along the way and he bought new clothes for me: cowboy boots and hat, as if I were still in middle school.
In my cramped room, I turned around in my new clothes and walked a few paces, feeling exposed without my Western boots, my toes unprotected from chair legs. And I missed my Bandit with its stiff Cattleman crown; I hated bumping my head. But my new clothes were cooler and more comfortable. I held up my arms and stamped my feet. I liked the feel.
“He looks like a tourist,” Isa said, laughing.
“We should have gotten you Ray-Bans,” Devon said. “You still look like a geek in those big glasses.”
I smiled. “I don’t know what to say,” I said. “Thank you.”
“And this just came,” Isa said. “It’s from your parents.” Ray helped me open the box. We reached in and pulled away the Styrofoam.
“What the hell is that?” Patrick said.
