Chapter Text
I exist in two places. Here, and where you are.
— Margaret Atwood
When he’s six, Patrick goes to his first Sabres game and his father tells him, “These are the greats, son. These men right here. You want to be great? You do whatever it takes.”
“Whatever it takes,” Patrick says. He doesn’t understand what it means.
His father smiles; he sounds happy. “Whatever it takes,” he nods.
Patrick watches LaFontaine glide across the ice, the gold C bright on his jersey. He takes a shot on goal and scores. The arena is loud with shouts and cheers.
Patrick’s eyes never leave him.
*
Patrick’s father almost dies when he’s seven. Shot twice at gunpoint inside the car dealership, the news reports.
At the time, his mom tells him the gunman, Donald Nivens, is a mad man, he’s a psycho and unhinged. Later Patrick will learn his father sold Donald Nivens a used Ford Explorer with faulty brakes. The very car Emily Nivens was driving when she and her two young sons crashed into a Toyota Corolla off the highway near Olympus. They all died instantly.
“Ten years. I hope he dies in that prison cell,” his mom says. She cries and cries and cries.
It’s the last time he’ll remember feeling truly sad for another person.
*
Patrick’s dad comes home in a wheelchair, head stitched and bandaged, mouth slanted. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does, his mouth sounds full of marbles and he’s so, so quiet. He only hugs Patrick with one loose arm.
“When will he be better?” Erica asks.
No one answers.
*
When Patrick’s nine, they have to move out of their house. His mom can’t find work and they can’t afford their bills. They move in with his uncle Neal and eat discount macaroni and hot dogs five days a week.
His mom takes care of Dad, she takes care of his sisters, and she spends most nights waitressing at a diner down the block. They don’t own a car.
Uncle Neal watches them while his mom’s at work. He gives Patrick and his sisters gifts and tells them what great kids they are. He holds his mom’s hand so tight. So tight, Neal says, so she’ll feel safe. He seems nice.
*
They move three more times in the next two years, each time to a smaller place. Most of Patrick’s things are sold for money. He hides his LaFontaine jersey, the one that’s three sizes too big, under the mattress of the bed he shares with Erica, in the room he shares with all of his sisters. She kicks him in his sleep and drools on his pillow. When Neal stays over, she curls around him tight and fidgets restlessly until she passes out.
Jackie and Jess sleep peacefully in the next bed over.
Patrick doesn’t sleep at all.
*
Sometimes, when everyone is out of the living room, Patrick will turn on a hockey game and wheel his dad next to the couch.
“The Sabres are gonna make the playoffs this year,” he says.“You think they’ll win the cup?”
His dad smiles wide, a little string of drool slipping from the corner of his mouth.
“Me too,” Patrick says, throat thick. He wipes his dad’s chin with a tissue.
*
That summer they move into Neal’s apartment.
Neal says, “Don’t touch my things.”
He says, “Don’t get in my way.”
He says, “I’m just trying to help.”
“I…I’ll tell,” Patrick says.
Neal ruffles Patrick’s hair, fingertips digging into his scalp. And then he looks over at Jessica watching TV across the room. His hand tightens.
“Okay,” Patrick says through gritted teeth. It’s hard to breathe.
*
“The next time he comes in here, hide under the bed.”
“But what about you?”
“Don’t worry about me.”
“He’ll come after you.”
“I know.”
*
His teacher asks him, “Patrick, what happened to your face?”
Patrick says, “Nothing.”
“It’s just a scratch,” Patrick says. “Street hockey. I’m so dumb.”
He laughs like broken glass until his teacher looks away.
*
One night Patrick says to his mom, “We should leave.”
He says it over and over again.
“We can’t,” she says. “Uncle Neal helps us. He pays our bills.”
Patrick screams until the neighbors start banging on their shared wall. He screams until his mom pulls him close and presses his face into her neck.
“Please,” he whispers. He scrapes his brittle fingernails into the paper-thin expanse of her arm until his knuckles turn white. “I’ll do anything. I’ll get a job.”
She rubs her hand over his back, up and down. Up and down.
She says, “You’re only fourteen. It’ll be okay, Patrick.”
“Don’t worry,” she says, and then goes to help feed his father his dinner.
*
For Patrick’s fifteenth birthday, they move the girls into their own room so he doesn’t have to share with them anymore.
He starts sneaking out at night after that.
*
Mark owns a dilapidated green Buick and always shares his cigarettes. Patrick meets him while he’s trying to sell a couple of joints to a senior in the parking lot after school.
“How much?”
“Twenty bucks.”
“You should charge him more than that,” Patrick breaks in. “His dad’s loaded.”
“Fuck off, kid, before I beat your pimply ass.”
He shoves at Patrick until he stumbles backwards off the curb. He keeps shoving until Patrick’s on his back on the ground, hovering over him.
Patrick pulls the switchblade he stole from Neal’s dresser out of his pocket, thumbs over the push-button until it snaps open.
He smiles all lips and no teeth. “Touch me again and I’ll carve your fucking eyeballs out of your pimply head, Piss Stain.”
Mark laughs. He laughs so hard he chokes. He laughs and waves Patrick over to get in his car. He laughs and offers Patrick a cig and says, “You’re alright, bud. Let’s get out of here.”
*
The next day Patrick gets jumped in the locker room while he’s changing clothes. He’s not sure how many of them are punching him -- only that they’re silent. They rip his clothes and spit in his face until he’s clawing back and kicking one of them in the dick.
Later, Mr. Jacobs will find him huddled on the floor, bloodied and proud.
He gets suspended for a week.
*
Instead of resting at home, Patrick spends his convalescence at Mark’s apartment. He smokes too much weed and watches mindless TV and doesn’t think about school.
“I’m not going back,” Patrick says.
“School?” Mark asks.
Patrick doesn’t answer.
“Home?” Mark asks.
Patrick doesn’t answer.
*
Weeks go by and he doesn’t see his mom or dad. He avoids Neal and barely talks to his sisters.
When he does see them, he asks, “Do you have enough to eat?”
Jessica says, “Yes.”
“Are you safe?”
“Are you?” Erica says. She’s sitting across the room, arms wrapped around her folded legs. She’s wearing a long sleeved sweatshirt. It’s May.
Patrick feels bile rise in his throat. He thinks he might puke.
“Come with me,” he says instead.
“And go where?”
He looks at Erica. He looks at Jessica. He can’t look at Jackie.
*
He quits going to school and starts looking for a job. No one wants to hire a fifteen year old.
He keeps looking.
*
“You need some cash?” Mark asks. “Sell these for me and I’ll give you half.”
“I thought you usually take 70%,” Patrick says, eyeing him skeptically.
“You know you’re my favorite, bud,” Mark grins.
Your favorite what? Patrick wants to ask.
Mark runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it through his curls. Patrick leans into the touch. It feels nice.
*
When his mom finds out, she doesn’t yell, but her face is grim as she says, “You can’t quit school.”
“I can,” he says. “I did.”
“What about your future?”
Patrick laughs. “Your priorities are fucked, Mom.”
“Don’t talk to me like that,” she says. “You can’t live here and not go to school and you can’t talk to me like that, Patrick, I’m your mother.”
Something hot and vicious and sharp cuts its way through Patrick’s chest. It hurts so fiercely he wants to carve himself and everything around him apart.
He clenches his jaw until his head shakes.
“I wish…,” he says.
And then he goes to pack his things.
*
Erica and Jess are crying as he grabs his LaFontaine jersey, the one his father bought him and said: It’s something to grow into, and empties out a backpack. He stuffs an extra pair of jeans, some underwear, three shirts, some socks and his jersey inside.
He kisses each of his sisters on the forehead.
“I love you. I’m sorry,” he says. “I’ll come back.”
He’s not sure even he believes his own lie.
*
There are a few nights spent with various friends from school before their parents start asking too many questions.
One night he sleeps behind the back of a church and another under some bushes in a park before hunger starts to set in.
He goes to Mark.
“There’s nowhere else,” he says, his backpack slung over his right shoulder, eyes on the ceiling.
“You smell like pine cones and dog shit,” Mark says, bored.
“Okay,” Patrick says.
“You’re not sleeping on my furniture until you shower,” he says, easy and goes back to bagging weed.
*
Mark lives in a shithole with cockroaches in his kitchen and mold on his walls. Everything smells of damp clothes and burnt hair.
Patrick sleeps a lot and doesn’t think about his future.
He bags and sells whatever Mark gives him.
On the weekends, people Patrick doesn’t know come over, party, and fall asleep all over the apartment. Patrick fools around with whoever seems interested. He drinks, smokes whatever’s free, and hides what little money he has in a Twinkie box under the floorboards in Mark’s closet. Sometimes he curls up on the floor by Mark’s bed. Sometimes he shares the bed with him, a foot apart and no extra pillow to use.
He’s hungry, but he’s not afraid.
*
When he turns sixteen, Patrick gets drunk and lets Rob or Roy or Rick fuck him over the back of the couch while he squeezes his eyes shut and presses his wet face against a cushion. It doesn’t feel good. But it’s someone touching him. It’s someone touching him without hurting him on purpose. It’s not enough, but it’s fine. It’s fine.
*
When the chasers and junkies don’t want to pay, Patrick talks them down. Or he pulls out Neal’s switchblade.
“Okay night?” Mark will say when Patrick comes home without a bloody lip or a black eye.
He runs from the cops seven times before they finally catch him.
*
The judge says, “This is your first offence. I’m only giving you community service. I don’t want to see you back here again, son.”
His probation officer says, “You need to go back to school, son.”
His mom says nothing.
Patrick stands taller than her now. He looks down at her, at the wrinkles around her eyes and the gray roots of her hair from a bad dye job.
“How are the girls?”
“They’re good. You can come see them, you know.”
No, I can’t, he thinks.
“How’s dad?”
She says, “He misses you. I miss you. You can always come home, Patrick. Please come home.”
With closed eyes and open fists, he turns away.
*
“Touch me,” Patrick says to Mark. He climbs onto Mark’s bed and on top of him.
“Touch me here.”
Mark pulls his hand away before it meets Patrick’s dick.
“Uh, no,” Mark says. “No.”
He pushes Patrick away and gets out of bed.
“Why?” Patrick says, quiet, small.
Mark laughs. It’s not unkind. He slaps Patrick on the shoulder.
“That’s not me, bud. I’m not a fag.”
Mark smiles sweetly and rubs a hand through Patrick’s hair, then exits the room.
It’s cold. His throat burns and he tries to breathe and he tries to move and his legs feel hollow as he stands.
*
Patrick leaves and thinks about never going back. He thinks of leaving and disappearing until no one can find him.
Two days later, he’s caught by the cops, again, and it doesn’t matter.
*
Neal and his sisters are with his mom at the courthouse this time. The judge is talking about misdemeanor charges and being a repeat offender and possible home confinement when Patrick sees Erica. There’s a cut on her bottom lip that’s half-healed and mottled smudges on her neck, makeup smeared over them and half-hidden by her hair.
He screams and doesn’t remember standing in the middle of the district attorney’s speech or hopping over the partition to the public gallery and attacking Neal.
He doesn’t remember shouting, I’ll kill you, and you piece of shit, you fucking sadistic shithole and she’s a child and they’re just kids and not them, not them, not them.
He does remember the bones in his hand cracking. He remembers the feel of flesh curling under his fingernails and warm wet running down his wrists. He remembers the arms that pull him away and the way his sister’s eyes followed him from the room.
*
Juvie teaches him five things.
He learns that he can sleep anywhere.
He learns that chill nestles deep within your bones and never quite thaws.
He learns that not talking is better than saying the wrong thing.
He learns that someone being repeatedly stabbed sounds different from the movies.
He learns that loneliness is not being alone.
*
The day he’s released, his mom comes to pick him up alone. She hugs him and kisses his hair and wipes at her eyes like she’s flitting dust off her face.
She tells him about how Jackie’s doing well in math class, how she got a nice job as a paralegal at a small law firm and that Erica’s reading The Things They Carried to his dad from where Patrick left off.
They’re on the interstate for close to an hour before Patrick finally says, “Where are we going?”
“To Grandpa’s.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where we live now,” she says.
And Neal? he wants to ask.
It’s quiet; the radio is turned down low.
His mom sniffles. She says, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“I know,” he says, but when she reaches for his hand, he slips them into the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, rests his head against the window and watches the road go by.
*
The next day he meets up with Rick, his parole officer, and a woman named Julie.
In her office, she says, “I’m your case worker. I’ll be making unannounced and announced home visits over the next 6 months.”
She says, “Like your P.O. stated, as part of your parole you’ll have to meet with him at least once a week and re-enroll in school. No fighting, no drugs, no drinking, and for the first three months, your curfew will be 6pm. No later.”
She says, “Violation of these rules could result in more time at the Juvenile Department of Corrections. Is that understood?”
“So when you say no drugs, does that include the trafficking of them as well?”
Her lips thin into a string and Patrick laughs.
“No jokes? Alright, that’s cool, but I’m going to hard pass on the school part, thanks.”
She sighs. “This isn’t an option, Mr. Kane. You will enroll and you will attend with regularity or you will return to the system.”
“I’m already in the system.”
He can tell she wants to roll her eyes; instead she takes a long breath and slips papers back into a folder.
“I’m trying to help you. This is an opportunity. Please use it wisely.”
Patrick squints. “Okay, Judy.”
“It’s Julie.”
“Whatever,” he says.
*
His grandpa frowns at him a lot. He tells him to mow the lawn, to do the dishes, to take out the trash, to sweep the driveway, to keep busy and his head down and not make a fuss. When he talks, it’s mostly about hockey.
He sees Patrick wearing his Lafontaine jersey one evening before bed. It’s worn now, the hem fraying at the edges, a stain on the left sleeve, and now tight around the shoulders. He shakes his head.
“You should learn to take better care of your things,” he says, clipped.
Patrick nods, takes it off after he leaves. He folds it up neatly and places it under his pillow.
He doesn’t put it on again.
*
In the morning, Patrick wakes to yelling. They tell him to make his bed and shower and get dressed. They tell him to eat breakfast and do his chores and go to school. He goes to school and they tell him to be quiet and listen and do his homework. After school, they tell him to do his chores and his homework and be quiet and listen. They tell him to stay out of trouble. They tell him to eat dinner. They tell him to go to bed.
They tell him to stay in his place.
And so it goes.
Patrick loses track of the days. Everything’s a fog.
*
On Saturdays or maybe Sundays, he gets a few hours of free time. He watches TV until Erica or Jessica come in and try to fight him for the remote. He’ll nap until it gets too loud, every space filled with too many voices and he doesn’t have anything to say.
He takes walks around the neighborhood filled with people walking their dogs and playing with their kids and there’s nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
*
And then there’s Jonathan.