Chapter 7: The Consequences
Matt made his way home in the cool evening air, waving bye to Will. There were a lot of thoughts in his head. A lot of those thoughts were Franklin, and then a bunch more were about Wendy and being Wendy and if he wasn’t being Wendy, then who would he even want to be? He knew for a fact that being Matt was miserable as fuck and also that his parents were about to drive that point home with their usual subtlety and care.
“Ah, Matthew. You’re home.” His father sat at the kitchen table the way he usually did, legs splayed slightly as he leaned back. Someone had once told him that a man’s home was his kingdom and he had taken it, if not to heart, then at least to the wifebeater covering it. “Your mother and I need to talk to you.” He was holding a glass of orange juice like it was forty year old Scotch and he was a gangster in a bad movie.
As was her duty, Matt’s mom stood two feet behind her husband diligently and, much more importantly to Duncan, quietly. She nodded like he had just said something deep and profound. Matt did his best not to sneer. Sneering was not appreciated in the Porter household, even if his parents certainly did a lot of stuff worth sneering about. He even managed not to roll his eyes. “If this is about the Lee thing, then I want it on the record that h—“
“You crossed a line, Son.” His father took a sip of the juice. “And it’s not about the Lee boy. Honestly, if you just got into fights with bigger kids, I’d respect it,” said the man who had not stood up to a single person his entire life after graduating high school as a professional bully. “But no, we know why, and your mother and I can’t sit by and let you go down this path any more than we already have.”
“Respectfully, Sir,” Matt said, doing everything within his power to sound like there was even a shred of respect in there, “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.” Duncan slammed a hand down on the table. Duncan Porter was not a particularly imposing man, but as his forties had come and gone, taking his hairline with it, he had put on a certain amount of mass. He also seemed to have an instinctual sense of how to move it with purpose and threat.
“Bull-Shit, Matty.” He took another sip of his orange juice. A single drop ran down the graying stubble and clung for dear life to his chin. Matt tried not to stare. “We know what you’ve been up to.” Wait. Did he know about the coin? Why was he being so calm about things if he was? Or had he gotten something in his head again?
“I really don’t know what y—”
“Franklin Watts, Matthew!” his father bellowed. The drop of orange juice fell dramatically and landed on the tank top, joining several others like an orange necklace. Matt didn’t notice this time. “That’s twice now you’ve been seen with him after school! At first I thought, good! Star player, might be a good influence on my kid, maybe give him some training, but then I thought, you know, I feel like my Matthew, he’s so eager to prove he’s been doing better, he would have mentioned it, right?”
“That’s right,” Linda said. Matt looked at her almost with pity. He wondered who his mom would even be if it wasn’t for his dad. On the other hand, she was absolutely making shit worse for him and if she could just leave, that would be great. Take Dad with you.
“So then I sat down and really thought about it, and just around that time a report from school came that you assaulted the Lee boy,” Duncan continued.
“I thought this wasn’t about—”
“So we talked to his parents while you were mysteriously gone after school, and apparently he told them he’d seen the two of you getting really cozy with each other at the construction site,” he said. His hand was shaking slightly. “So now, what I’m not sure of is if he was the faggot and he got you and Billy Teague into it, or if Teague got you both into it, because you sure as shit didn’t get it from me!” He slammed the table again. He looked like he should have a mustache only because it felt like it ought to be quivering now. “And the whole fucking town is going to look down on us if they found out you turned the star high school player into some kind of sissy!“
“Franklin's not a sissy,” Matt said, keeping his voice level. “If anything, he’s—”
“You can’t even say his fucking name without blushing like a fucking schoolgirl!” he shouted. He stood up and the kitchen chair shot backwards, slamming into Linda’s leg. She yelped and jumped back. “Quiet!” Duncan yelled, thinking his wife was just surprised, and bulldozed over to his son, grabbing him by his collar. “I thought we raised you better than this, boy.”
In that moment, between his father standing up and coming over to him, Matt felt fear. He thought he’d felt fear before. He had tripped once while running and that brief moment of weightlessness had been really scary. He had gotten into fights with people who he knew he couldn’t win against. He’d forgotten to study for a test once.
This was not that. This was a more primal thing. Something ugly and coiling that had crawled up his spine and grabbed his brain in a vice. This was not fear. This was Fear. For the first time in his life, Matt looked someone in the eyes and thought, without exaggerating or being unrealistic, that he was going to die. He was convinced that his father would beat him until he stopped moving. Linda would stand there, looking concerned and unmoving as his cries became muffled until they stopped and then his breathing did too, and then Duncan’s friend at the sheriff’s office would rule it an accident and the whole town would forget him over the next five years.
For a second, that’s what it looked like was going to happen. For a second, that was exactly what Duncan wanted to do. He wanted to beat his boy until he Was Right Again, and he knew somewhere in his lizard brain that his boy Wasn’t Right and Was Never Going To Be Right. But then he stopped, like he suddenly remembered something. He shoved Matt into the wall, grabbed his arm, and dragged him to his room.
Matt looked at him, too scared to say anything. His father sat him down on the bed and walked out. Three minutes later, Duncan was back with his toolbox. Unable to move, all Matt could do was watch as his father first drilled the lock on his window shut and then installed a metal plate covering, something that had fallen off the back of the oven the year before.
Duncan left without saying anything. Only Matt’s mother remained, standing in the door to his room. The harsh white light from the hallway circled her. For the time in years, knowing it would be futile, Matt reached out to her, if not physically. “Mom?” he asked. It was almost comical how small his voice was. He hadn’t felt this fragile in years. He hadn’t felt this close to crying in years.
“This is for your own good, Mattie,” she said. “We already called the preacher. He knows some people from out of town. They’re really good with cases like yours.” She sighed, like she’d resigned to throwing out the milk that had gone off. “I’m really sorry it’s come to this, Sweetie, but it’s for the best. You’ll be good as new, and we’ll be able to leave all of this behind us.”
“But… what about school? What about—”
“You’re not going to go to school for a bit, Mattie,” she said. “They’re coming to pick you up tomorrow evening. You’re just going to go away for a while. You’ll be all better when you come back. You’ll see. It’ll be like none of this ever happened.”
“Nothing happened!” Matt said, and his voice finally broke. The tears came quick and rolled down his cheeks as his mother pulled the door closed with all the Christian love she could muster. He didn’t even bother running over to the door. There was a latch on the outside of the door for a reason. A glance at the window told him that wasn’t an option either. Despite how rushed his father had been, he had been thorough. It would take a crowbar or a drill to take the metal plate off.
What could he do? Scream for help? His father would probably come in, and this time he might not get out of it unscathed. So he did the only thing he could think to do, feeling like an idiot child for doing it. Something he remembered from a book he’d read once when he was in grade school.
He reached under his bed and found a small shoebox. There was a small book inside. Didn’t care about that. This was about the other thing he had stored in the box. From when he was a kid, hiding under the covers when he should be asleep. The batteries on the flashlight should be close to dead, but they weren’t dead dead yet. He walked over to his window and, as tears ran down his face and he had to swallow every once a while just to keep himself breathing, started signaling an SOS to the house across the way.
Will didn’t even live in that direction. He just had to hope someone would see it. Someone would say something. Someone would get him out of there. Anyone. Someone might have heard his dad shouting. Anything.
Matt flicked the light on and off, over and over again, until the battery finally gave in and he sagged to the floor. He had given up when he heard the front door open and close. Had someone heard? Only when he heard his father’s voice, loud and angry, did he realize that maybe whoever saw it would talk to his parents first.
The bedroom door flew open and there his dad stood, hands on his hips. “See? He’s fine. I gave him a stern talking to. Didn’t even touch him. Kids these days are just soft.” Behind him stood a man in a police uniform, nodding sagely. He tipped his cap to Duncan.
“I understand, Sir. You get that I had to come check it with you.” He looked into the room. “Son, best not play games like that, you understand? People could think someone’s hurt.” Matt looked at him expressionless and just nodded. The look his father gave him told him that even a single word would be the end of him. There was a voice from behind the officer and he turned around. “It’s okay, honey. Just some boy who got scared of the dark is all.”
Matt looked past the two men and his heart exploded through the roof of the house. Duncan looked too. “Yours?” The officer nodded.
“She is, yeah,” he said. “Our pride and joy.” He turned around again. “Okay, Jacqueline, go back to the house. I’ll be there soon.” He nodded at Duncan again, thumbs in his belt. “Sir, if he’s a problem again, we live just down the street, so don’t hesitate to call, alright?”
“Thank you, Officer Daniels.”
Matt still had the image seared into his retina. In the hallway of his house, wearing her pajamas and looking groggy until she hadn’t, stood Jacket.
Breakout breakout breakout breakout!