The Bad Decisions Playlist (14 page)

I ponder that cryptic gem as I ride my motorcycle to the day's lawn-mowing venue, and I ponder it while I'm cutting grass, and I'm still pondering it when Todd casually pushes me off a hillock into a waist-deep decorative pond.
Huh,
I ponder as I flounder to the surface and get my feet under me and then sink gently up to my ankles into the soft muck, I wonder what sorts of reasons Todd has for acting the way he does.

Then at the end of the day I find out.

∗  ∗  ∗

I find out because I forgot my Minnesota Twins ball cap on a rock by the pond. I left it there to dry after I splorched out of the water. I didn't mind the rest of my clothes being wet​—​it was a hot day and it actually felt pretty good. Or so I kept telling myself, while also cycling through several different fantasies about how I was going to extract my revenge against Todd Malloy. Leading contender: I'm giving a show in front of 10,000 people, and for some reason Todd is there in the front row​—​something to do with him winning a surprise concert from a radio station or whatever​—​and I see him and I stop the concert (which he's actually enjoying despite himself) and tell everyone, “See this guy? He is an awful person. SHAME HIM.” And they do, all 10,000 of them, jeering at him, and HOW DO YOU FEEL NOW, TODD MALLOY?!

I finished the day, my shoes still squelchy, and loaded my mower on the trailer, gave Kent his high-five (“Right on, bro!”), and realized that my cap was still on a rock about thirty miles from where I was. So I walked back across the lawn, dodging the swarms of early-evening gnats that hovered in pulsating clumps at head height, and retrieved my cap.

I took my time walking back toward the office building, a ten-story reflective glass cube surrounded by lawns and woods and mucky decorative ponds. The employees had apparently left for the day, the front parking lot entirely empty. Kent was gone. Todd and Brad appeared to be as well.

When I got closer, I started hearing voices. One voice, really​—​a man's voice, angry, shouting. It was hard to tell where the ruckus was coming from, but it seemed to be from somewhere behind the building. Why was a grown man standing somewhere behind this deserted office building on a Thursday evening, shouting?

Ten seconds ago, I got to the corner of the building and peeked around it. There was a rear parking lot, just three or four cars parked here and there out toward the perimeter.

There was another car, a dark-blue SUV, more or less in the center of the lot, parked at an angle so that it partially covered about four parking spaces. The driver-side door of the SUV was open, the engine running.

In front of the car was Todd Malloy. In front of Todd Malloy was a man who looked like a larger and even meaner version of Todd Malloy, a man who had to be Todd's father. And now everything makes sense.

It's his yelling I heard and am hearing right now. He's crowding Todd like a drill sergeant, face an inch from Todd's, screaming at him, alpha-dogging him, just like I've seen Todd do to other kids. Todd's doing the thing where you turn your head left and right and backpedal, trying to get away from his father without looking like he's running away, and his father is unloading on him, screaming abuse, and it's stomach-churning terrifying.

“YOU'RE GONNA BE A SMART-ASS TO
ME?
HUH??!!”

It's all stuff like that. I'm frozen in place. I shouldn't be watching this, but I can't stop. I hate Todd Malloy, hate him, but I'm getting nothing out of this, only a sense of fear and nausea. Todd is helpless, a little boy, completely drained of all his power, and I feel sorry for him, ashamed to see him brought this low.

Then it happens. His father is bellowing at him, forcing him backwards, and Todd brings up his hands defensively and sort of places them on his father's chest​—​not pushing, too scared to put any energy in the gesture​—​and his father bats his arms away violently, the noise a loud clap. This sparks a reaction in Todd, a burst of anger and aggression that blooms onto his face, his posture changing, fists clenching, and there's a primal moment where his father recognizes the challenge and
WHAM
he punches Todd straight on in the face.

Holy crap.

Todd's knees buckle and he staggers backwards, hands coming up to his face, and already there is blood pouring down his chin as he catches a heel on the asphalt and goes down hard on his ass. I'm jelly legged too, my chest heaving, heart thump thump thumping, and I flinch as Todd's dad slams the door of the SUV shut and screeches away.

Todd is still sitting in the middle of the lot, holding his nose and sobbing. He tries to get up, but he's too wobbly, and he sits down, then tries it again, and again. When he tries it a fourth time, getting into a sort of a football-lineman position before tumbling forward onto his face, I start walking over to him, not even sure why.

He's still trying to get to his feet when I reach him.

“Stay down,” I say. “Don't try to get up.”

Like I know what I'm talking about. I've never had to deal with someone who maybe just got a concussion from his massive dad. Now Todd is in a sitting position, knees up, one hand over his nose. His eyes are glassy, and I'm not sure he's totally aware that I'm next to him. I stand there for what seems like five minutes, unsure of what to do​—​Put a hand on his shoulder? Call 911? Police? Fire? Ambulance? The principal?​—​and Todd stares straight ahead, holding his nose. Then, still not looking at me, he raises a bloody hand up toward me and slurs, “Help me up.”

He nearly pulls me to the ground as he labors to get to his feet, grabbing my wrist with his free hand, me leaning away and taking two staggering steps back to counterbalance his weight. When he's finally up, I have to keep him from pitching forward, then steady him once, then again, until he waves me off with a limp hand and stands there, breathing in and out five or six times like he has to remind himself to do it. He wipes at his nose and looks at the blood. Only then does he look up at me, and the heavy locked gate to Todd Malloy is open for just a moment, a moment where we sort of acknowledge each other, where his eyes say,
So now you know.
Then he drops his gaze and turns away.

“I gotta get home,” he says. He takes a few uncertain steps in a random direction, then stops and looks around like a person trying to get his bearings in the middle of a forest.

“Maybe you should go to a doctor or something,” I say.

He shakes his head.

“I just gotta get home.”

“Won't your dad be there?”

“No, he won't come back for a few days now. That's what he does.” He wipes again at the blood. “I just gotta go home.”

He's still standing there.

“Uh . . .” I begin, not believing I'm about to say it. “Do you need a ride?”

∗  ∗  ∗

Which is how I end up with Todd Malloy sitting on the back of my motorcycle as I drive him home. He's hugging me around the waist, either too stunned to be aware of just how weird this whole thing is, or aware enough of how stunned he is to know that he'd better hold on or he's going to be tumbling along the concrete at thirty miles per hour.

He lives in a generic house in west Edina that's only a few blocks from Josephine's. When we pull up to the curb, he has a bit of trouble getting off the seat, then just starts walking across the lawn toward his front door without a word. After a few steps, he stops, though, and turns around. We regard each other for a moment. The customary fierceness is seeping back into his gaze, like he's remembering who he is. I can see it coming:
You better not tell anyone,
he's going to say.

Instead, his voice quiet, he says, “Thanks.”

Then he turns to go inside.

I'm gonna call you up /

I'm gonna call you up so we can talk /

but first I have to finish this letter to you /

and before that there're fifty things / I have to do

“So glad you could join us,” says Rick with a big smile.

Thank you!
my mom is mouthing next to him.
Say thank you!

“Thank you,” I mutter.

She's now mouthing something else and I'm squinting at her, unable to figure out what she wants me to say.

For. Inviting. Me,
she repeats, accompanied by a big round eye glare.

“Thank you for inviting me.”

If Rick notices the whole exchange, he pretends not to.

“Of course,” he says. “Always a pleasure to have you around.”

Oh, shut up and eat your egg-white omelet, Rick.

Sunday brunch with Mom and Rick.
Yayyy.

We're downtown, some place in a converted warehouse with high wood-beamed ceilings and really expensive gluten-free muesli on the menu. I rode my bike here, mumbling some excuse about having to meet Devon later on, but the real reason is that I couldn't stand to be in the car with them.

On Friday, Todd didn't greet me or even look at me when I arrived in the lot of the office park du jour. He had a purple bruise on his left cheek that sort of blended into a shiner. No eye contact when we had our morning meeting and did our “Go team!”

Afterward, Kent monitored us as we pulled the mowers off the trailer and arranged them to be fueled. Then he got a call on his cell and wandered off a ways to chat. I was working alongside Todd and Brad, but still Todd didn't acknowledge my presence or say a word to me. Like nothing had happened the previous day.

Brad acknowledged me, though. “What's up, faggot?” he said, which is about as good as it gets for a morning salutation from him. While we were standing near each other, putting gas in the mowers and weed whips, Brad kept going, telling me to hurry up, give him the stupid gas can already, lobbing lazy insults at me. Todd was silent.

“Dude, gimme the friggin' gas or I'm gonna smack you,” said Brad.

Todd, adding oil to one of the walk-behinds, didn't look up as he said, “Shut up.”

Brad stared at him.

“What?”

“I said, shut up,” said Todd.

“Why?” said Brad.

Now Todd raised his gaze. “Because I friggin' said so.”

Brad looked at him, surprised.

Todd straightened up, glared back. “You got a problem with that?” he said.

Brad blinked at him. “Naw, man. It's cool.”

“Okay, then,” Todd said, and yanked on the cord, firing up the engine, and rolled off. And that was it. Neither he nor Brad have said a single word to me since.

∗  ∗  ∗

“. . .
Mrgle flrgle frmph
pretty great, right?”

Crap.
Rick has been talking to me. They're both looking at me expectantly.

“Yeah . . . great,” I hazard.

Rick laughs. My mom smiles. I cautiously smile.

“You're funny,” says Rick, and I gather I just said something brilliantly ironic. “‘
Great,
'” Rick repeats, imitating my delivery. He glances sideways at my mom. She smiles at him. He smiles back. He looks at me. “You know,” he says, obviously about to introduce a new topic, just as I say, “Excuse me for a second.”

More glances exchanged. “Of course,” Rick says.

“Where you going?” says my mom, suspicious.

“Just the bathroom,” I say, and slide out of the booth.

When I come out of the bathroom I stand there for a minute, looking across the room at my mom and Rick. He's got his arm around her shoulders, his hand massaging her, and I feel the same revulsion as when he touches me. She leans closer. They kiss. I taste semi-digested French toast and bile in the back of my throat.

You think I don't know what they've been working up to saying? You think I don't know they want to get married? I know. I'm not dumb. Okay, yes, at least about that.

Personally, I don't get what they see in each other: he's the World's Least Interesting Man and she's Kooky McKooksville. But that's exactly it, says Devon​—​it's like one of those movies: nerdy boring uptight guy meets free-spirited lady and whodathunkit they balance each other out and love and happiness and roll credits. And I will admit that my mom has been a lot more stable since Rick has been on the scene, and whenever he's with her he always has an expression like he can't believe his luck. So, fine. Maybe they
should
get married. It doesn't bother me in the least. I'm going to be gone in a year anyway.

Oh, BS. Of course it bothers me. I wouldn't be standing here having to reswallow my breakfast if it didn't bother me.

There's a family at a table near me, two young kids with the same curly hair as their father. He's saying something now, entertaining them, and they're both laughing. He seems like a good dad.

Kids can have all sorts of dads. You can have a good dad like that, which I assume is healthy and beneficial. Or you can have a dad who's a plastic politician and uses you as a Barbie doll in his CampaignLand
^TM
playset, which probably isn't so healthy and beneficial. Of course, it's probably healthier and beneficial-ier than having a dad who regularly pounds the crap out of you, like he's beating you on an anvil to gradually deform you into a miniature version of his twisted self.