What a Kid

When I saw my son for the first time, I was at a loss for words. That didn’t stop my brain from giving it a shot anyway. 

“What a kid!” The words came out of me forcefully, like a bullet out of a gun, looking for any way out. What I had said in no way reflected the swarming mix of emotions I was feeling. This one kid was the production of my lifetime. I had lost everything I had ever cared about in exchange for him. I took him into my arms and cradled him with more care than I thought I was capable of. 

The midwife looked at me over her surgical mask. “What are you gonna call him?”

“Well Sophie wanted to name her Elizabeth, but she’s not here to…” I felt a lump coming up my throat and pushed past it.

“Seeing as how we aren’t looking at a her anymore— ”

“Eli?”

“Yeah. I think that fits.”

***

It had been hard on both of us, and god knows we hadn’t always gotten along, but since Eli had turned sixteen it was like something was different. I think he’d begun to see me as a person instead of just his dad. I didn’t have to bug him about chores anymore, or remind him to do his homework; he treated it all like it was—a part of life. I was hugely impressed by this. I hadn’t seen my parents like that until it was too late. 

But I also knew that it was born of the hardships we had faced; no mom to grow up with, hardly any money to live off of. He already had a job at a department store because I needed him to. This was, somewhat, what I had hoped for him. To be shaped by his experiences, to become a kind and respectful young man, who could shoulder responsibility for himself and others. But my boy didn’t smile as much as before. No longer would he fall into a pile of laughter on the floor when we watched his favorite shows like he did just a few years before. Sometimes I wondered if it was because he then understood what we had lost.

It hurt me to see him shut his emotions down for my sake, so he could help me support the both of us. But he wouldn’t have to for much longer. I had had my nose to the grindstone for the past sixteen years for this singular purpose. In my time with Eli I had gone from factory worker, to supervisor, all the way up to regional manager. The pay raise would be enough to support the both of us, and Eli could start saving for college. He had this incredible talent for art that I could hardly understand, it was like he could spill his mental state out onto paper or canvas or even just a napkin. Now he could cut back on shifts at his job and practice art as much as he wanted. I was telling him all this in the dull light of our kitchenette over some greasy grilled cheese when he suddenly cut me off. 

“Dad, art is a really competitive thing to make a living off of.”

A silence hung in the air.

  “Don’t get me wrong, I'm glad you think I could do it, but I really don’t feel the same way.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. I had felt so sure that he would want to pursue his art with the way he lit up when he was drawing. I felt like I had let him down. Did I understand my son at all?

“And that’s ok. I’m sorry. I made an assumption.”

We both went back to our grilled cheeses for a bit. I could tell I was probably red in the face. Looking back up, I broke the silence. “Do you know what you do want to go to school for? I promise I’ll help you with whatever it is.”

Eli had a bite that he finished chewing, and he smiled that smile I missed so much. “Thank you, Dad. I really don’t know what I could commit to that much though. I promise I’ll let you know whenever I figure it out.”

That was an enormous relief for me. We don’t have to understand each other all the time. We can talk things through and they’ll work out okay. That weekend I took him to a convention for his favorite show, Chicago Beat. 

***

Seeing my son do the things he loved was what kept me going. For the last two years my job had slowly become more and more soul-crushing—waves of layoffs that I had become the face of haunted me at night. I had always been a people pleaser but here I was wrecking the lives of human beings I could only have one conversation with before sending them spiraling below the poverty line. But I wasn’t done yet; I couldn’t stop until Eli’s future was secure.

I was at Eli’s football game—the last in his senior year— with a friend from work, Henderson Jackson. Henderson and I had bonded over the guilt we felt from the dealings of our company, and since had become much closer than colleagues, spending much of our off-time together. I had a surprise influx of time to myself when Eli had joined football the year prior. I remember the warm look Henderson gave me when he spotted me in the bleachers on that surprisingly cold spring night. 

“Hey proud dad, you might wanna tone it down. I can see it all over your face.”

He was right, Eli had been carrying the team all night, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Okay Mr. Two-Last-Names, gimme that popcorn and maybe I’ll be too busy chowing down to embarrass you.” 

He sat down next to me and punched me in the arm with good humor. “Ouch, another names joke. Look, it’s not my fault that my two handsome fathers, Hender, and Jack, decided to give birth to the most beautiful child yet created, and name him after both of them.”

Obviously he was kidding, he did have two dads but neither of them were named Hender or Jack. It was something we joked about a lot. I had found that I really liked spending time with Henderson but I wasn’t sure if he felt exactly the same way about me. I knew he liked me, but did he like me like… that? I knew that he was gay, or at least interested in men, whatever he had labeled it; did he know that I was? He knew I had a wife before. I started to feel embarrassed about my thoughts. I was a grown-ass man wondering if someone liked me like… that. What the hell.

The crowd exploded around us and pulled me out of my embarrassment. Henderson was cheering louder than I had ever heard before, I tuned back into the game to see what had happened. Eli had happened! He had made the game winning play and was doing a victory dance down on the field. I looked over at Henderson yelling for my son, and I knew.

I took Eli to his favorite diner in town that night after Henderson and I parted ways. I told him he could go celebrate with his friends or teammates but he insisted. I was very relieved as I really didn’t like his friends or his teammates at all, their parents all had views that concerned me greatly but it’s when Eli makes choices like this that I remember why he’s such a shining light in so many lives. It would be selfish of me to keep him to myself. We had just gotten our objectively unhealthy diner-special sandwiches when Eli said he wanted to announce something.

“I know what I’m going to go to school for.”

I was ecstatic but I kept it inside. I knew that my boy would help so many people in his life and I was bursting at the seams just to know how he was going to do it. Eli picked up his milkshake and raised it to toast with mine. I laughed and indulged him.

”I wanna be a cop.”

***

“You gonna finish that?”

“I was—no, you can have it.”

Henderson reached across the table and grabbed my diner-special off its plate. I admired his wedding ring as his hand came in front of my face and momentarily forgot that I had the same exact one. We had been married for six years and I found it easy to forget that sort of thing. 

He eyed me while he finished my sandwich. “You look like something’s bugging you Mr. Two-Last-Names.” 

I smiled at him—that joke never got old, especially now that we had chosen to hyphenate our surnames because we knew it would be funny. He was now Mr. Three-Last-Names to me and I had taken his previous title. 

“You’re right. I miss my son.”

Henderson and I had gone into early retirement. Eli’s school was all taken care of, no loans to pay, no strings attached. I hadn’t seen him since he left the police academy, but I did see him on the news every once in a while as he wages righteous war on the criminals of our city, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch him be a private force for the ruling class of America, even if he did love what he was doing. I did not approve of the police and Eli knew this, but he had assured me that he would be “one of the good ones.” 

I didn’t talk to him about it past that. 

Henderson had finished his sandwich and he reached over to put his wedding ring on mine. “I know. Maybe you’ll see him at one of the rallies this week.”

“God, I hope not. I’m sorry but it would actually be very bad for me to see my cop son at the rally against our old company.”

As former tools for our corporation, Henderson and I had become somewhat prominent in the ongoing movement for corporate change. We had plenty of dirt on our former employers, and we were all too happy to spill it anywhere we could. 

“I suppose you’re right, I’m sorry. That was silly of me.”

“No, it was very sweet of you, I understand what you were going for. That’s what matters.”

I held tighter onto his hand.

Henderson and I were getting ready together on the morning of the first rally when I suddenly collapsed. I was dizzy and burning up. Henderson took my temperature to reveal what we had assumed—I had a fever. He helped me into bed, and I gave him a copy of the statement I had prepared for the rally; he gave me a kiss on the forehead and left the news turned on for me. 

“Look for me out there! I’ll be wearing… this, I guess!” The door shut and I was alone. 

I fell into a deep sleep, but it wasn’t restful, I was haunted by dreams of my beloved son. Dreams where I was at the rally but things went horribly, terribly wrong, and of course there was Eli. Commanding troops to suppress the civilian outrage. I dreamed of things like this often; it wasn’t all that different from what he was usually on the news for. 

I woke up in a cold sweat. My blanket was drenched and so was my shirt. Henderson had left me a glass of orange juice with ice in it, how I like it, but the ice was gone now. It was darker outside too. I looked over to the news. The screen showed a dark plume of smoke coming out of my old workplace. A picture of Henderson flashed into life. My phone rang.

I lunged to grab my phone and picked it up immediately. “Are you ok? What the hell is going on?”

I could hear voices in the background of the call, the caller’s voice sent a cold chill down my body. “I’m fine, where are you? You were going to be at the rally today right? I’m sure you know things are going down over here, I just don’t want you to get caught up in anything.” It was Eli.

I hung the phone up. It rang again, this time I checked the caller ID. Henderson.

I cried into the phone. “What is happening out there?”

Henderson sounded like he was jogging somewhere. “Well, someone must have taken matters into their own hands. I promise it wasn’t me, I wouldn’t do that to you, Mr. Two-Last-Names. They do think I did though. Stay home, get better. It’ll all be okay.”

The line went dead. Obviously I didn’t stay home. If he was hiding from the cops I knew exactly where he was going—there was an old abandoned warehouse in the area where I had taken him on our first “official” date. I fought through my fever to get on the train and get to the rally. Nothing was shut down. They were probably still trying to get people home. I staggered off the boarding platform and ran as best as I could to the spot. 

I slowed when I got to the building. There were police all around. I tried to push past them but they were stronger than me, they crashed into me like a wave. 

“Let him through.”

Suddenly Eli’s face was filling my vision.

“What the absolute hell are you doing here dad? This is a bad place to be. There’s a terrorist in there and we’re pretty sure he’s got a hostage. I told you—”

I blubbered at my son. “My husband’s in there!”

Eli looked at me like I had shot him. “You’re married?”

“I—Yes. Yes I am married, you have to let me get in!” I tried to hold his hand but he yanked it away.

“What do you mean your husband is in there? Henderson? The Terrorist? Is that why he has our last name? I was just thinking it was pretty common.”

I tried to catch his gaze. “Please Eli, if you feel like you owe me anything at all, you will let me in. Henderson is innocent. I promise.”

“You never changed your name on Facebook. You hyphenate now?”

I held eye contact with him. I had run out of words to plead with. Eli turned back to me and I saw him in a way I never had before. Unrecognizable, but immutably my son. “I’m coming with you.”

A few moments later my son and I were creeping through the halls of the place I once cherished so much. Why did they think Henderson had a hostage? He didn’t. He couldn’t. 

Eli was inching forward with a trained care that came from years of police work. I tried to follow him as quietly as possible, not because I was afraid of Henderson, but because my son was holding a gun, and he was on edge. 

Eli looked back at me and signaled that Henderson was ahead, I was pretty sure anyway. A combination of my fever and not really being well-versed in police motions muddied the waters.

I whispered to him. “You have to let me talk to him before you do anything.” 

He relented, and I swung around him and the corner. 

I saw Henderson, my beloved, crouched over a body with his hands on it. He was covered in blood. He twisted his head back, and looked at me in utter shock.

“Why are you—it doesn’t matter, get over here, this guy is dying! No one would help him so I took him with me. I think he got shot.”

I started toward him but Eli was in front of me in a flash. “Get back. Now.”

I stared at him with feelings I could never describe. How did we get here? My son, who I had dedicated so much of my life to, standing between me and the second love of my life. I had never been a man who yells, but I was at my absolute limit. 

“Eli, please!” My voice echoed through the empty room. It was like it reached everywhere except where I needed it to. In Eli’s head. 

Eli spoke in the familiar voice of an officer giving orders. “Take your hands off the hostage. Put them behind your head, and get on the ground.”

The hostage? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Eli had heard what Henderson had said but it was like he didn’t care. I yelled again. “Eli, he's helping that man! You have to understand!”

The gun stayed trained on Henderson’s back. 

“I’m giving you a chance, Henderson. Comply and you can prove that this is all a misunderstanding.” 

“Eli, if he takes his hands off that man, he will bleed out! You can’t give just one of them a chance—please put your gun away!”

“One.”

“Eli, please. I am begging you to stop!” I looked over at Henderson and was surprised to see his sight was locked onto me. 

“Two.”

“I love you, Mr. Two-Last-Names.”

He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t let that man die to be with me for the rest of his life. And I did love him even more for it, but it also made me furious in a way that I was deeply ashamed of. I wasn’t in his shoes, so I don’t know for certain, but I would probably have let go of that man to hold onto Henderson.

“Three.”

“No, don’t!” I lunged for Eli but it was too late. 

The shot rang out through the place where I told Henderson I had loved him for the very first time.