Then it’s that Friday night or the next one. Uncle Paul and I are in his Audi. We’re in rush hour traffic, looking for I-55.
Just as he’d walked in our house for dinner, Holly called on Janie Clarkson’s phone. The Clarksons’ Lexus had broken down on the shoulder of an access road. Both girls were screaming.
Mom handed the phone to Uncle Paul. “Have you called the automobile club?” he asked.
“Have we?” said Holly.
“Certainly not,” Janie said. “My dad can never know we took the car, and he won’t if we get it back in time tonight.”
“Tell me what’s wrong with it,” Uncle Paul said.
“It was going,” Holly said. “Then it stopped.”
Could it be out of gas? Uncle Paul told them to stay in the car, lock the doors, and wait till we got there. We took a can of gas, and Dad stayed behind to cook dinner.
Now Uncle Paul and I were starting and stopping in the traffic. It was the calm before we found Janie Clarkson and Holly. It was great. I was in no hurry.
“Uncle Paul,” I said. “Can I have this car in three years for my sixteenth birthday?”
“It’ll be four and a half years before you’re sixteen,” he said, “and no.”
“Shall we talk about cars and the Cubs?”
“We can if you want to.”
“How’s Mr. McLeod?”
“I think he’s good. He has another year of course work on his degree. He has to rewrite the report on his student teaching. Apparently it reads like science fiction.”
“That’d be us,” I said. “What else? About Mr. McLeod?”
“The last I heard he was applying for part-time work on a road crew for the county. And this may be his weekend for the National Guard. He’s got a lot going on.”
“So you don’t see much of him?”
“I don’t see him at all, Archer. And you know something? I think it’s just as well.”
“How come?”
“I don’t know how to explain it.”
“Because I’m eleven?”
“No. It’s just that he and I aren’t compatible. I mean, I keep in shape. I watch what I eat. I go to the gym. But he runs seven miles before daylight and then goes to work on a road crew.
“You know what he’s saving his money for?”
“A better car?”
“No, he wants to compete in a decathlon. He’s saving up for the Gay Games in Paris.”
Paris. I pictured Mr. McLeod sprinting under the Eiffel Tower, someplace like that. Look at him go.
“A decathlon is two days of knocking yourself out. It’s javelin. It’s shot put. It’s pole vault and long jump. It’s a half marathon. It’s gymnastics—the bar, the horse. It’s volleyball. Ten events. It’s exhausting. You see where I’m going with this?”
“Not too well,” I said. “We know he’s a jock.”
“He’s twenty-six. I’m thirty-four. He’s a kid. I’m an old man. Just naming the decathlon events put a couple years on me and gave me a shin splint.”
“Do you have to compete to be compatible?” I asked.
“Don’t confuse me, Archer. And stop growing up. Just be a kid.”
We were seeing I-55 signs now. It was getting darker. The world was taillight red.
“It’s just not workable,” Uncle Paul said. “Ed’s going to be starting a teaching job next fall, and where? He doesn’t know. It could be anywhere. Who’s not going to hire him? And sooner or later his Guard unit’s going to be deployed. He’s got places to go, and I’m already where I’m going. We’re in different places, Archer.”
“Okay,” I said, “but—”
“No, wait. There’s the Lexus,” Uncle Paul said. “Let me finish. You need to know. Ed McLeod and I could be friends someday. Good friends maybe. But that’s all. We’ve decided, so it’s a little difficult for me to be around him. We’ve backed off. We’ve moved on.”
I didn’t know what to think. Should I tell Uncle Paul that you can wait too long and then all the good ones are gone? Then I decided, no, I’d hold off till I could come up with something myself.
Now we’d eased in behind the Lexus. It was pulled up somewhere at the edge of nowhere. And yes, they were out of gas.
“Where had you been?” Uncle Paul asked them.
“Like Peoria,” said Janie Clarkson.
“You were visiting Bradley University?”
“Well, that was the plan,” Janie said.
“But we couldn’t find it,” Holly said.
We followed them home. Janie Clarkson’s turn signal was on the whole time. Blinky-red-and-I’m-about-to-turn-left all the way to the off-ramp.
Then in the dark Uncle Paul said, “You’re growing up, Archer.”
“Not fast enough,” I said. “The voice. Other stuff. Where is it?”
“It’ll get here,” Uncle Paul said.
“So will Christmas, but I’d like some now.”
“I remember the waiting,” he said.
“No, you were born six-foot-four with stubble,” I said, “in those shoes.”
“Oh, right,” Uncle Paul said. “I forgot.”
After a mile of watching the Lexus turn signal, he said, “There’s more to growing up than the voice and the other stuff.”
“Mom thinks I’m making some progress,” I said. “She says I’ll be playing bridge pretty soon. Probably in a foursome with Little Lord Calthorpe. But then she also said she found me under a cabbage leaf, so go figure.”
“You’re learning to listen,” Uncle Paul said. “That’s more than a start.”
“And the trouble with listening is you hear stuff you wish you hadn’t,” I said.
“That’s the price you pay,” said Uncle Paul.
I wasn’t totally ready to move on from talking about Mr. McLeod. I was trying to work this out in my head.
“When you were twenty-six, Uncle Paul, did you date a lot of guys?”
“Yes, indeedy,” he said.
“Were you, like, in love with any of them?”
“I tried to be, but no,” he said. “That’s why this hits me so hard now.”
“Because of love?” I said. It was dark.
“Yes,” he said.
“Then how can you and Mr. McLeod ever just be friends?”
“Don’t confuse me, Archer.”
“Okay then, just one more question, but it’s easy. When did you decide to be gay, Uncle Paul?”
“Being gay isn’t a decision. How you live your life is a decision.”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “Right.”