There were few events Aaron loathed more than the Saturday each fall when he carted his family to the Texas Renaissance Festival. It had the awful inevitability of tax day mingled with the quiet embarrassment, since he turned forty, of a prostate exam. Every year around mid-September the Warner house trilled with terrible British accents as Lacy and Julian mentally prepared for the outing, swapping “cheerio”s and “pass the sowlt”s and the occasional random “g’day, mate.” Aaron remained mute to these provocations. “Speak English,” he would say when he hit his limit, “no, American English,” until his wife and son stopped bothering him altogether and treated him like the third wheel and driver on their Renaissance date.
But this year was different. The day arrived and Aaron felt good. When he steered the family minivan out of Royalwood, not a thing could spoil his mood. Not the accents, or Lacy’s big peasant blouse, not the loud plan of attack she and Julian were brainstorming over a preordered map of the festival grounds. None of it could drag him down because this year he had Crystal on the brain.
It didn’t strike Aaron as ironic, while he drove, that the route to the festival was the same one he took to see his girlfriend. If that’s what Crystal was. Mistress, side piece—he didn’t talk about her to anyone, so he’d never put her into words. Aaron pretended he was heading to her place as they passed the Hot Biscuit Diner and other familiar sites on 99, and the pretending made him smile. He knew a point would come when he had to turn the van toward the festival, while his heart would keep fluttering up I-45 to her. But he trusted in the image of Crystal at the fridge in zebra panties to keep him at attention the whole day through.
“And what would you like to see?” Lacy asked. She had stopped gabbing with Julian in the back seat and turned to face Aaron. “At the RenFest?”
“Y’all are the experts,” he replied. “Don’t want to mess up the plans.”
“We have plenty of time,” she said with a soft hint of resignation. She patted his hand on the gearshift. “So?”
Aaron nodded. Sometimes his wife touched him and it felt like a hand reaching from a crypt or raw meat. He never winced or pulled away, just nodded, and it usually helped. There was a deep-dish pizza Aaron ate at the festival every year that he hadn’t found anywhere else, despite some looking. “Lunch,” he said. “When do y’all want to eat?”
Lacy sighed. “Twelve. One. I don’t know.” She shut her eyes and conjured an epic silence, as though the day was pre-ruined courtesy of Aaron. “The court jesters!” she cried, and whirled around to the back seat. “We forgot the comedy show.”
“Omigod,” Julian chirped in his girliest tweenage voice. “This changes everything.”
Aaron nodded at the road ahead.
The festival grounds always impressed Aaron. Gray stucco walls with muscular turrets, a real-looking drawbridge out front, the pine-scented acres inside done up like an old village with dirt paths and thatched-roof cottages—it was truly something to look at. And for a moment as he neared the entrance, the majesty of its construction distracted Aaron from the loser freaks they were about to encounter in droves.
“This way!” Lacy cried, and the Warners plunged into the dense human river flowing through the grounds. It was the usual mix. Grown-up drama club rejects decked out in costume, kids in black with pierced noses and mascara, leering for maximum effect as they passed, a few Asian tourists taking pictures. Through the moving bodies Aaron monitored Julian going in and out of sight ahead of him. On the drive over Lacy instructed them to watch for her Wonder Woman hand fan if they lost visual contact, and Aaron saw it shoot up over the crowd and gesture at the sign of a cottage, THY KINGDOM’S CLAY.
He followed Julian into the dim cottage. It was packed with fairies, gnomes, and other ceramic doodads, and a crystal ball in the middle where Aaron saw his distorted reflection come and go. Lacy was ogling something in a display case by the counter. Right away Aaron knew the drill. The festival had shows and food, but it was really a shopping mall in the woods, and every year the same Lacy who brought a Ziploc of coupons to Safeway would splurge on a big-ticket item—a giant bubble wand or the dulcimer she strummed once at Christmas. But no purchase could ever be consummated without the husband-wife dance first. Oh, she couldn’t possibly buy it, she would say for the whole shop to hear, until Aaron insisted she had to and he was going to buy it for her, which she always refused just sharply enough to remind Aaron he wasn’t much of a contributor to their household, before she bought it herself.
“A work of art,” Lacy whispered to Julian, pointing at the case. “Can you take that one out?” she asked the shopkeeper.
“What’re you looking at?” Aaron asked, coming up behind them.
“The dragon’s egg,” Julian said in a hushed voice.
The shopkeeper laid down a purple velvet cloth and set the sculpture on the counter. It was a dark blue-green ceramic egg the size of a football. At one end the shell was cracked, and a terra cotta dragon’s tail and hind leg were pushing out of it, emerging into the world in scaly, taloned glory. Lacy ran her fingertips along the shell and turned the price tag. She flinched. “No,” she murmured, “lovely, but no.” She shook her head and said loudly in the shopkeeper’s direction, “I wish, but there’s just—no—way!”
Julian let out a sigh of support. Aaron knew his cue. But the sunny new Aaron—the one with Crystal on his mind and proverbial fingers—decided it was time for a new move in their money politics.
“Nice egg,” he said, and said no more.
Lacy watched him. Aaron nodded vaguely at it. She waited; he nodded.
“Y’all come back anytime,” said the shopkeeper, bringing the silent standoff to a close. “We’re open till eight.”
Lacy didn’t look at Aaron as she went out the door. And something changed in her browsing after that. The rest of the morning, when she and Julian would have normally plunged into one cottage after another, Lacy glanced absently from the path and barely touched the wares. She didn’t stick her hands in the Merlin and Arthur puppets or tickle the wind chimes into song. By the time they finished their initial loop and reached the food stalls, Lacy seemed preoccupied and restless.
“Over there!” Aaron seized the moment and pointed at an open table and chairs. “Grab those. Let me guess: turkey leg for mom, chicken fingers for Jules?”
“I’ll get lunch,” Lacy objected in surprise.
“Nope,” he said. “Go get those seats. I’ll be back.”
The past few years Lacy always bought lunch, and Aaron liked flipping the script again. He got in line for food, inching up the field of trampled grass and pine needles and squinting to see if it was the same line for beer. This was why Crystal was good for his family, he thought as he waited. He’d had terrible bosses at every job, real bad luck, and he couldn’t deal with them for longer than six months or so before he had to move on. His current boss was no exception—John the Baptist, Lacy nicknamed him, always pushing his megachurch on everybody in HR—but Aaron had kept this job for more than a year, and it was all because of Crystal. If he didn’t have to travel around laying off folks when a Texaco field ran dry, he wouldn’t have an excuse to go see her. So Aaron was providing for his family like never before, paycheck after paycheck, working down his debts, shrinking his affairs to one girl—Crystal, at the fridge—and feeling more alive than he could remember.
“Lunch is served,” he said, arriving at their table. He smiled at Lacy, and as he passed her a weapon-size turkey leg he had a revelation: he was buying her that egg, and there was nothing she could do about it.
When they finished eating, Lacy stacked the food containers and Julian spread out the festival map. “The afternoon joust starts in twenty minutes,” Lacy instructed, tracing her finger along a cartoon path. “This is probably the fastest route from here.”
“You mind heading over solo?” Aaron asked. “Me and Jules have something to do first, but we’ll meet you there.” Lacy and Julian stared across the table at him in blank unison. “It’s a surprise,” he said.
“Allllright,” Lacy eked out with suspicion. She nodded at Julian, whose face had gathered every drop of twelve-year-old outrage within him. “How long do you think it’ll take y’all?”
“Ten, fifteen minutes, tops. Save us seats. Come on, Jules.”
“I’ll be near the front,” Lacy called as Aaron hustled them out of the food court.
“What are we doing?” Julian asked sullenly, slowing down to walk behind Aaron.
“I’m buying your mom that egg she liked. So? How’s school?”
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Can I get something, too?” Julian asked.
“Yeah.”
“I got a ninety-five on my algebra test and a hundred on my vocab quiz, and my world history teacher said my poster was the best in the class, and…”
Julian recited his accomplishments like a tubby Energizer bunny while Aaron retraced their steps to the shop. There were things about his son that only allowed Aaron to listen or look for so long—the high voice, the love handles and boy tits, or the way he swung his hips. Still, he didn’t agree with Crystal’s view of things. The last time they met she dropped a bomb on Aaron and said she wanted a baby with him. And when he shook his head at the idea, Crystal unloaded her theory of his family: Lacy holding Aaron hostage in their marriage with the miscarriages, years of Lacy grieving, baby crazy, pregnant again, then the whole thing on repeat until Julian was born, and if Aaron didn’t want a kid with Crystal it was because he was too beat down by Julian not being the kid he wanted—a real red-blooded boy—so why was he closing his mind to the other boy he might have someday?
“Good, Jules,” Aaron interrupted his son’s monologue at no particular juncture. “Sounds like you’re at the top of your game.”
“Well,” Julian informed him, “being valedictorian as a stepping-stone to Harvard is a plan that starts in junior high. Or else it’s simply too late.”
And this was something Crystal didn’t get. His son was the smartest kid Aaron had ever seen, and Julian brought plenty of smart friends home. He had given his son a good school in a good suburb, where a few kids went off to the Ivies every year. Julian was growing up around flower beds and oil money, not panhandle dust and white trash like Aaron, and his son would get out and go even further in life with a mind like his. If the world didn’t fuck him up first. So, yeah, Crystal was sexy and let him be the man he couldn’t be with Lacy, and it was great. But Crystal was a single woman, and before she started demanding babies she had to understand that families are complicated.
“Here we go,” Aaron said. He opened the shop door and guided Julian inside. As they were entering, Aaron noticed a couple watching them strangely from a women’s clothing shop next door—a rough guy with full-sleeve tattoos, and a grizzled Stevie Nicks type smoking a cigarette.
“Hello again!” Aaron called to the shopkeeper.
“I thought I might see you later,” the man said, scratching under his ponytail.
“That’s one irresistible egg,” Aaron smiled and turned on the charm for Julian’s benefit. “How much is it gonna set me back?”
“Birth?” said the shopkeeper.
“What?”
“Birth is the name of the piece. The dragon?”
“That one there.” Aaron pointed at the case.
“Originally three hundred, but I’ll give it to you for two fifty.”
“Let’s do it.” Aaron whipped out his Visa. “Jules?” he called and waved him over. Julian was studying a group of mermaids, but he needed to watch his dad in action: presenting the card, the growl of the carbon-copy machine rolling over it, the signature and gift wrapping. This was learning.
“Sorry,” the shopkeeper said, rummaging under the counter, “I can’t find my machine. One sec.” He disappeared behind a curtain.
Julian sighed dramatically. “I’m going outside.”
“Hang on. He’ll be right back.”
“Mom liked the egg. You’re buying it. Big deal.” Julian rolled his eyes, threw open the door, and sauntered out.
“Hey,” Aaron shouted, “shut that! There’s AC in here.” An infuriating wave hit Aaron, of Julian’s willfulness and all that it triggered. The way his son thrived on Lacy alone, leaving no role for him. The way one glance or word from Julian could twist every good quality of his son’s from a reflection of the father into his negation.
“Found it,” the shopkeeper said, popping out from behind the curtain. “I’ll box this up and get you out of here.”
“You like working these festivals?” Aaron asked.
“I’ve got a studio in Nacogdoches. And the RenFest—it’s good money fast.”
“I don’t know why folks come to these,” Aaron mumbled.
“Make-believe, you know. Go somewhere else. Be somebody else.”
“I guess.” Aaron sighed. He heard a tiny primal sound that his ear alone picked up. Julian in distress. “Stop!” Aaron heard again through the open cottage door. He dashed outside to see his son being mauled by the tattooed guy next door. Julian was covered in pale netting and ribbons as the man grabbed violently at his head. They turned, struggling, and Julian saw Aaron.
“Dad?!” he screeched, his voice as piercing as his infant cry.
“Get off him!” Aaron bellowed, and shoved the man into the path. He grabbed Julian and pulled him against his hip. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
“That faggot was trying on my wife’s veils!” the man yelled back, unrelenting. “Posing in the mirror, blowing kisses like a little bitch.” He aimed a finger at Julian. “Bridal veils. For girls. Not faggots.”
“He’s a kid!” Aaron shouted. People had gathered and were watching. Whose side they were on Aaron couldn’t tell. He grabbed Julian by the arm and tore off down the path.
It took Lacy the rest of the weekend to decide where to put the egg in the house. Her first instinct was somewhere private, to protect it, so she set it on the mantel of the faux fireplace across from their bed. She tried the top of her dresser and other places in the bedroom. She would leave the egg in a spot and go do chores, to cleanse her eye palate, and each time she returned she got the same joyful rush as when she first discovered it. The moment she saw it in the shop she had a flashback to reading the Dragonriders books as a teen—the memory of young Lessa approaching her hatchling, and the bond that forms between rider and dragon, a lifelong telepathic bond that will save humankind. It was during one of these dragon reveries, while Lacy did laundry, that she changed her mind about the egg. It couldn’t be kept private. It had to be in the living room on the coffee table, where guests could be inspired by its magic. And on Sunday night, in a ceremony of one, she put it there for good.
Other thoughts crept into Lacy’s head as the week wore on. More than once at school, while lecturing a drowsy classroom on covalent bonds, she found herself playing back snippets from the RenFest. Something had been off about Aaron, in the shop and at lunch. It wasn’t like Lacy didn’t want a husband who provided; she’d been cursing his financial failures since they married. But after getting cheated on and sponged off of for so many years, Lacy at least knew where she stood when she was the one buying things. Was the egg about Aaron’s pride in having his own money, or was he feeling guilty about some new woman? She couldn’t say. In her head she repeated the mantra that kept her pride half-intact: she was strong, could handle anything for Julian’s sake, but the day Aaron hurt their son? The end.
Aaron was still acting weird when he sat down to dinner later that week. He barely gave Lacy their usual show-peck and didn’t look Julian’s way at all. He talked rapid-fire nonsense about work when Lacy asked how his day was, only stopping to breathe after he spilled a pile of Hamburger Helper on the table. “I was thinking,” he said, slower, while Lacy rounded up the mess in a paper towel. “It was nice being outdoors last weekend, wasn’t it?”
“Weather was good,” Lacy called from the trash can.
“How about a camp for Jules?”
“Like summer camp?” Julian perked up. “There’s a high school debate camp at Baylor that accepts middle schoolers, and it’s kinda sorta expensive but totally—”
“Not summer,” Aaron corrected. “We don’t have to wait till summer. A getaway camp on long weekends. Fresh air. Columbus Day weekend, maybe?”
“But with his activities?” Lacy sat down and rubbed her eyes to think. “Speech and debate Fridays, symphonic band and—do you have piano that Monday, Jules? On the holiday?”
“Well,” Aaron said, louder. He reached into his briefcase and produced a pamphlet with a gold cross on the cover. “I saw this and thought it might be nice.”
“What is that?” Lacy snatched it from him.
“What kind of camp?” Julian asked cautiously.
“It’s a Christian camp,” Aaron began, “where they teach young men Christian—”
“Where did you get this?” Lacy asked. She could feel Julian’s stare on her.
“Someone at work.”
“Did John the Baptist give you this?”
“He did,” Aaron said with intensifying diction. “John, my boss, thought Julian might enjoy it there.”
“Why was your boss thinking anything about—” But before Lacy could finish, disturbing scenarios flooded her mind. She folded the pamphlet in half and pocketed it. “We’ll talk later,” she said softly to Aaron.
“Let’s read the materials,” he persisted. “We’re all here.”
“Later.” She put a smile on for Julian. “Tell us more about this Baylor camp!”
“It’s six weeks,” he mumbled. But it was too late. Lacy watched her son’s eyes lose their sharpness and his neck wilt forward. “I’m full,” he said to no one. “May I be excused?”
“Sure, sweetie,” she said. “Clear your plate.” She could tell Aaron was itching to talk, but she refused to look at him until she heard Julian’s door close.
“I think you’re overreacting, Lacy.”
“I’ll talk to you,” she said with quiet purpose, “in the bedroom, when I’m done cleaning up the kitchen.”
“I’ll help,” he said, rising with his plate. “Pass me that bowl over—”
“I don’t need your help.”
Lacy went to the sink and rinsed the dishes, on edge until she heard the creak of the bed and Aaron flipping on the TV. The faucet wouldn’t get hot enough, or maybe she needed it to scald her out of the fog enveloping her mind. What to say to Aaron? She didn’t believe in enemies, but she was living with one. A man who could think of sending their baby to the woods to be changed? Did Aaron think it was easy for her? How many hours had she tried to reason like a scientist about the evolutionary basis for homosexuality, supplemental caregivers for the clan and so on? Or all the times she held her tongue and didn’t talk about Jules being a father someday, so he wouldn’t feel pressured or abnormal? But in the end she didn’t need Darwin to justify what her heart knew. Julian was growing before their eyes, the rarest light in a terrible world, and while she breathed no one would put out his candle.
Lacy waited in the bedroom doorway, thumbs tucked in the waistband of her sweatpants, until Aaron noticed and muted the TV. “I know about those camps,” she said, shutting the door behind her. “Don’t pretend you don’t.”
“We always said we wanted to expose Julian to ideas, right?” Aaron sat up and leaned toward her at a supportive angle. “Here we could expose him to—”
“I have something to say.” She steadied her voice and looked him square in the face. “I used to believe you loved him enough to put aside fitting in and people’s opinions, for what he needed. But I was wrong about you—”
“Fitting in? He could’ve killed him, Lacy! Get off your high horse.”
“What are you talking about? Killed who?”
“At the festival,” Aaron muttered. “A guy grabbed Julian and shook him—”
“Someone touched Jules?”
“I didn’t want to have to tell you.”
“Who? Why?”
“He tried on this girls’ head thing and the shop guy ripped it off him.”
“Where were you?” Lacy charged toward the bed. “You left him alone?”
“He walked out while I was paying.”
“And you weren’t planning on telling me? Was he hurt? Julian?” she called.
“Leave him be.”
“You said you got in a fight and that’s why he was quiet the rest of the day.”
“We did. Before that.”
“Before our son was attacked? Anything else you left out, Aaron? Why was he alone?”
“I wasn’t there. Neither were you. We can’t be there every minute every day.” He rose from the bed and dropped his voice. “You didn’t see that scumbag call Julian a faggot while the crowd watched. He wanted to kill him. I saw it in his eyes. He’s not the only one out there like that. We’ve got to toughen up Julian, or else…”
She hid her face in her hands.
“Lace,” he said softly.
“Not that camp.”
“Are you hearing a word I’m saying?”
“That’s a different way of killing him.”
“What then? What’s in your bag of ideas?”
“He’s not going anywhere.” She shook her head grimly. “It’s not happening.”
“Fine.” Aaron gave an angry shrug. “Sports. He could use some exercise. He’s been getting a little…” He looked her body up and down and finished the thought.
“Fine.” Her eyes watered at his ludicrous timing. “He likes swimming.”
“Football.”
“No. Too dangerous.”
“He needs a real team sport. He needs to be around other boys, not—”
“Me?” she said.
“Those band girls he’s always running around with.”
“And me.”
“Well. You think it helps with the movies you take him to see?”
“What movies?”
“The, the AIDS—Philadelphia?”
“That’s Tom Hanks,” she cried. “So this is my fault?”
“I’m not saying it’s anybody’s fault.”
“Because there’s nothing wrong with Julian. Is there.” She waited. Aaron stared at the floor. “Is there,” she repeated.
“Soccer. It’s safer than football. A lot of running. It’ll be good for him.”
“Soccer?” Lacy took a breath, but the teacher who never blinked at the crudest behavior from her sophomores suddenly found she had nothing to say. She watched him, the father of her son, before going into the bathroom. She locked the door, and ran the faucet, and cried.
Lacy couldn’t sleep that night. Neither could Aaron, apparently, and it was past one before his snoring picked up behind her. She got metaphysical like she did lying awake in the dark, asking the big questions. How had she done it for twenty-odd years? How does anybody sleep beside a liar? By living separate lives, she figured, with their backs to each other and the focus somewhere else.
Ever since Bonnie coaxed her back to teaching and got her the job at the high school, Lacy’s world had grown. She was a cool no-BS teacher, one who kids came back to visit. And the kids? From around the world now—India and China and Korea—because the suburb was changing. She listened to their histories, asking how they got from there to Texas, and tried to make them believe they could do anything. The way Bonnie told her that her own life had a next chapter. At times it struck Lacy that the new kids were mostly the “good immigrants”—as their principal said—not the Hispanic or black ones filling up crumbling schools a half hour south on 59, and Lacy suspected larger forces at work. But she tried to do good where she was. Like last week, when she had enough of the chatter in the teachers’ lounge—“Why do the Mexicans need algebra to push a lawnmower?”—and Kim Powter from Math said, “Isn’t it funny how black kids have fancy names like presidents, like Jefferson?” Lacy smiled and replied, “So you think Thomas Jefferson didn’t have black kids?” And sure Kim was still trash-talking Lacy, and Bonnie had to run damage control, but Lacy hadn’t felt so alive in years. Grown. Standing her ground. A farm girl who learned right and wrong in church and then became an atheist. That’s how she slept at night, worried over lesson plans but sensing the fullness of her life, too.
Aaron’s snoring crested. Lacy thought of Lorena Bobbitt on the talk shows, the respect she had for that nighttime snip—unthinkable, yet so simple. Bonnie had given her the number for a lawyer years ago, when Lacy broke down and talked about Aaron’s affairs. She dreamed of calling it sometimes. Some nights she dreamed of the Mexican man who came to their house when she was a girl, and her mom let him in, and in the dream she married a man with black hair. Lacy kept the lawyer’s card tucked away in her purse but never called. Because every time divorce crossed her mind, her mother’s voice echoed after it, and though their bond was dead before her mom was, she could hear her from the grave saying, What did you expect from a man if you let yourself go like that?
The next morning, when Julian saw his mom and dad smiling at him from the kitchen table, it was like that episode from The Twilight Zone where the boy’s parents get replaced by droids that talk like real people but aren’t. His mom slid two extra Eggo waffles on his plate, and as soon as he sat down his dad gave a speech about the wonders of sports, and some guy Pelé, and how he—Julian—would be trying out for the soccer team in a few weeks. He looked at his mom to make sense of the bizarro things coming out of his dad’s mouth, but she nodded and smiled like a robot.
“And,” his dad finished, “to get ready for tryouts, we’re building a soccer goal in the backyard this weekend, so you can practice.”
“Oh,” his mom said, scrunching her face, “we didn’t, uhhh—”
“A little project,” he mumbled. “PVC, miter saw, easy. So”—he gave Julian a serious look—“you’re making your first trip to Home Depot with your dad tomorrow.”
His mom returned to nodding. Don’t I get a vote? Julian wanted to shout. To not waste my life kicking some stupid ball around a field? But he didn’t. He thought of the pamphlet at dinner the night before, and the muffled sounds coming from his parents’ bedroom afterward, and he knew he didn’t get a vote.
For the rest of the day Julian mused over the possibility that he might die and not have to go with his dad to the hardware store. Not an imagine-your-own-death thing, more of a not-existing thing, his body dissolving from family photos like he never was and the world moving on without him. But when he opened his eyes to a gray light on Saturday morning, reality sank in like an iron blanket.
“Jules,” his dad called from the other side of his bedroom door. “Leaving in ten. We’ll get a men’s breakfast on the road.”
It wasn’t the first time Julian had been bribed with a McMuffin. Hash browns, chalupas, Jack in the Box egg rolls: if his dad got stuck taking Julian somewhere on a weekend, there was usually a drive-through involved. But the “men’s” part was new, and the word struck dread in his heart. For as long as Julian could remember, his dad’s whole being made him uncomfortable—the connection to his mom’s sadness, the way the two of them fought—but he’d never felt afraid of his dad until he brought home the Christian pamphlet. Julian had heard of those camps. His best friend’s older sister at the high school had a friend who was friends with a guy, Nathan, who sucked dick on the bike trail, or that was the rumor, and he got sent to a camp and never came back to Royalwood. Where he was now no one seemed to know.
“Best thing about Home Depot?” his dad said when he pulled out of the Burger King drive-through. “The men. Not just employees. Customers. Experienced guys, getting their hands on the right tools. Because the pride you get from building something? A soccer goal? It’s like building a house, putting a roof over your head—you wait and see.”
“But you didn’t,” Julian said, nibbling a tater tot. “We’re not building a house.”
“It’s metaphorical. You can learn a lot from guys at Home Depot.”
“Like what?”
“Like what?” His dad chuckled and shook his head at such a silly question. Then he frowned. “Like how to be a guy.”
“Who taught them?” Julian sat up with a quizzical look. “If they teach other guys how to be guys, who taught them how? How’d they get to be the ones to—”
“So?” his dad barked. “How’s school?”
In the upturn of his voice, Julian heard it was time to speak his dad’s language, talk in numbers and percentages, forget anything he might actually be thinking because his dad only half listened anyways, and tell him the praise people piled on his son that day. Normally Julian played along so his dad would leave him alone. But driving to Home Depot, Julian thought of what the man at the RenFest had called him and wondered if his dad thought he was a faggot too. “What do you care?” Julian snapped.
His dad didn’t say anything. He cleared his throat and flipped on the radio and fiddled until he found Kenny Rogers. And for the rest of the ride, Julian tried to ignore the excruciating sight of his dad mouthing the words to “The Gambler.”
“Look for a gentleman in an orange vest,” his dad said when they parked. “They work here.” Through the sliding doors they crossed from the heavy Gulf air into AC land. Julian had been to the local True Value with his mom, but this place was different: aisles thirty feet high, with heavy things that could crash on you, tools and metal bits everywhere to cut or snag you if you weren’t looking, men with guts pushing carts around like zombies in the blue-white light. He followed his dad to Plumbing and helped him stack PVC onto a dolly. “Now,” his dad said, “where’s netting?” He strolled to the end of the aisle and squinted. “Hold down the fort, Jules.”
“Where are you going?”
“Watch our stuff. Be right back.”
Julian sat on the edge of the dolly and ran through his to-do list for debate club: research on universal health care, memorize a new oratory about the evils of date rape, and—
“Shut the fuck up!” A voice jolted him from his thinking. Two redneck guys came around the corner, grinning. One of them smacked the other on the head. They strutted down the aisle in baggy jeans and a cloud of tobacco stink. The smacker gave Julian a hard stare as he passed and pulled up the sleeves of his thermal, revealing forearms covered in tattoos.
Julian held his breath until they were gone, but when he let it out he found he couldn’t breathe. His pulse raced. He could see the shop at the RenFest again, where he’d tried on the veil. He was always so careful not to act like a girl, or stare at boys or try to hold one and be held. But that day he made one slip. He’d just seen a rerun of Princess Di’s wedding with his mom, and when he found the veil at the shop he felt a million miles from school and life. Until the shopkeeper’s tattooed arms came down on him, yanking his hair and twisting his neck, and too late he knew the moment had come. He would die. He had announced himself to the terror that was everywhere, and it had come for the faggot.
“Jules?” His dad was shaking his shoulders. Julian looked around. He was in Home Depot, on the floor by the dolly with his knees pulled to his chin. “What’s the matter?” his dad pressed. “What happened?”
“Nothing,” he sputtered. He tried to stop crying, but when he noticed a guy in an orange vest waiting awkwardly behind his dad, the tears started raining harder.
“Come on.” His dad helped him to his feet. “Let’s get out of here.” His dad struck up a conversation with the Home Depot guy and steered the dolly out of the aisle. Julian followed, watching his dad through blurry eyes. He told Julian he was special once. His dad said it one time, and not about grades. They were in the car driving home from a party one night, where his dad drank liquor, and he told Julian he was smart and that he came from both of them—his mom and dad. It wasn’t that long ago. But when his dad stopped and turned in Home Depot to see his son lagging behind, it was only shame and disappointment Julian read on his face.
The saw was nightmare scary. In the years it sat gathering dust in the garage, Julian never paid it any mind. Then they got back from Home Depot, and his dad wiped it down and set it up on the back patio, and the gleam of the circular blade sent a chill down Julian’s spine. He lined up the pipes on the lawn, the way he was told. But when he tried listening to his dad’s instructions for the saw, he couldn’t think. He was going to lose a finger over a soccer goal.
“All right, Jules,” his dad said. “Your turn.”
“You do it.”
“I already did. This last bunch is yours. It’s easy, come on.”
“I’m going in,” Julian mumbled.
“No,” his dad ordered, “you’re cutting pipe.” Julian put on goggles and gloves and approached his fate. His dad set the pipe and turned on the saw. “Go on,” his dad shouted. Gingerly Julian touched pipe to blade. His dad hollered something, but he couldn’t hear over the shrieking noise. The saw made a grinding sound. His dad planted his hands on Julian’s, shoving the pipe clean through, and turned off the saw. Julian retreated to the lawn.
“Good.” His dad examined the mangled edge of the pipe. “Go faster this time.” Beyond his dad, Julian saw his mom watching at the bedroom window. He felt a splash of something on his neck. The rain hovering all day had finally come. Thunder rippled. “Forget it,” his dad said. “Lay the cut pieces inside there. I’ll do the rest.”
By the time his dad finished, Julian was watching TV. Every other channel was news about the Branch Davidians and the survivors soon to stand trial. His dad came in, soaked from the sudden downpour. “All right,” he said, rubbing his head with a towel. “We’re improvising, but we’re finishing. We’ll put it together in here—”
“What are you doing?” His mom appeared. “In the living room? Why not the garage?”
“Because the backyard’s right—We’ll put a few pieces together while it’s raining, and then—Could you leave us men alone?” His dad ignored her until she left. “Grab me two joints, would you, Jules? We’ll do the front frame first, get that screwed tight, then the sides and back.”
Julian handed him the joints and flipped channels. He stopped on his favorite local access preacher, a lady with a waist-long perm and cauliflower bangs. Mr. Koresh had the true faith, she preached, prowling around her blue satin stage. But the Davidians were different. And what does our government do if you’re different? It destroys you.
“Can you help, please?” his dad said, a little huffy. Julian looked up and saw the frame of a soccer goal rising. His dad stood there holding pipes like he was playing Twister, one leg swung around to hold a side piece, shoulder tucked in a joint, an arm lifting up the top, and the far side swinging with every jiggle of his body. “Stand there and steady it,” he ordered, “so I can start screwing it together. And turn off the Bible thumpers.”
“Whatever.” Julian got up and flipped the channel. “Where do you want me to go?” he asked, eyes still locked on the screen.
“The other side,” his dad barked. “Turn it off!” He leaned down to snatch the remote, and the frame buckled. In a strange, relentless slow motion, pipes came loose from joints and tumbled down with a crack, taking out a lamp and coming to rest in pieces on the couch and floor. Julian looked around and noticed a dark thing on the carpet. The dragon’s egg, swept off the coffee table. He knelt down to pick it up, but the dragon’s foot and tail, once hatching from the egg, had snapped off in the impact.
“What happened?” his mom called, hurrying into the living room.
“It…,” his dad began. “Fell.”
Julian held up the egg and foot and tail. His mom stared at the pieces. Before he could think to say anything, she grabbed her purse by the front door and bolted. The minivan revved and pulled away. He turned to his dad, but he was already heading to the garage. The door slammed. The clank of weights on cement vibrated through the house.
Julian sat still on the carpet, until inspiration struck. He ran to the kitchen for superglue. It wasn’t in the craft cabinet, so he tore through the pantry and drawers, all the while thinking of his mom’s face when she left. He’d seen that look before, seen her storm into the bedroom when she and his dad fought, but she’d never gone out the front door. The glue appeared in a tray of pens. Julian ran back to the living room, set the egg on a magazine, and prepped for surgery. He uncapped the crusty tube and squeezed, but nothing came out.
Julian flopped on the couch and listened to the rain. His mind drifted over the past week. And he knew for sure. Something was broken in their family, and it was because of him.