I've kept Matty's secrets, and I've kept them well. Even from the other guys. It's a hell of a job having spiritual communion with a person when you're keeping something from them; when you're {baring} the dirt of your soul but still holding something back. When it's someone else's dirt all over your soul.
Matty got out of Camp Warren months ago, got out and showed up here like a new person. He got up in front of the church and made us all feel less Christ-like because he was so changed, so re-born. So saved. People were crying, for God's sake. And for a while, Matty was a new person. The old kid was gone; the sudden bursts of violence and cruel laughter, the vulgar jokes, the constant flirting with danger. Matty had been like a kid chasing a ball out into traffic and here he was, safe. Careful. Dependable. Scared the crap out of all of us. I had just started to believe it, I mean really believe it, when he came into the soup kitchen one morning and changed things up on me again. I went in early on a Sunday, so early it was still dark and cold even though it was only September. Matty had been out two months by now; a born-again believer for two straight months with no sign of back sliding.
Lawson had let me in through the back way into the kitchen and had gone into his office to do his quiet time. He always locked himself in that office for most of the morning; trusting us to get breakfast started. It wasn't the mechanical difficulty of the job that weeded out the slackers. It was the willingness to do it; the thanklessness of it. Lawson told me to save the eggs for last, said that even the poor don't like rubbery eggs that have been sitting out too long, so I got started with the morning routine the same as always save this one little detail. I started filling up the filters with coffee from the economy-sized cans; smelled like wood chips and dirt but it would satisfy dozens of people today whose craving was for a lot more than caffeine. I was just taking frozen waffles out of the freezer by the dozen when the back door opened again. I had left it open for Matty; I had been expecting him. He and I always did Sunday mornings together.
He stumbled in, a pint bottle of whiskey in his hand like it was nothing. He leaned against the brushed-steel counter and looked at me with a sloppy smile that could have meant anything, then drained the bottle, his cheeks filling up, a grimace coming over his face like he was about to vomit the drink back up. He wiped the tears from his eyes and said, "sausage or bacon, today, Brad?"
Then I, like the dumb ass I am, asked, "Matty, are you supposed to be drinking?"
He chucked the bottle into a large empty trash can and it bounced around the bottom, making a harsh noise that filled up the empty, poorly-lit kitchen, illuminating all of its sharp corners all of a sudden.
"Have you met my dad?"
"Of course I have," I answered. I didn't catch the sarcasm. I was too afraid.
"If anyone was on the fence about becoming a full-time drunk, then he's just the guy to push him right over."
He made a motion with his hand like knocking over a bowling pin or one of those punching dummies that never stay down no matter how hard you swing.
"Mathis, you know what will happen if they catch you doing this. Do you want Lawson to see you like this?"
"Let him see me," he grumbled, "I'm just being myself."
He slung an arm over my shoulder and hooked it around my neck as he drew me in for an embrace. My heart pounded and my hands shook and even then, even with everything I knew, I wanted him to stay close. I wanted to hold him tight and console him and I wasn't even sure what was making him suffer. I wanted to tell him all the truths I had to tell and cancel out the lies. But I didn't. I didn't do any of that.
"Matty, won't they send you back?"
The drunken smile slipped away and he stood up straight, or as best he could, and I regretted asking him. I realized, right then, that I had overstepped. Or maybe worse.
"Back to where, huh?"
He didn't raise his voice. But he scared me like a man with a gun pointed at me.
"Look, Matty..." I tried to backtrack.
"Back to where, Brad? Back to the Camp? Why would they send me back when I'm all healed? No, even better! I'm saved!"
He was coming towards me where I stood with my back against the refrigerator door, the freezer still open and misting into the warm air of the kitchen. I forgot why I had opened it. Matty had to lean against the counter just to stay on his feet but he was still coming, menacing.
"You know what you're talking about? Do you know what you're talking about? Huh? Do you know how they got me into that place?"
"Matty, you don't have to..."
"They waited for me to come home from school, when the whole house was empty. Dad and his friend Vance and some of his hunting buddies. They wait in my room and they have this guy from the place, this ex-linebacker named Delroy. And you know what Delroy says to me?"
Matty stands up straight and sticks out his chest. He crosses his arms and sticks out his chin and does his best impression of a large, black football player.
"He says, 'there's no need to fight, Matty.'"
He drops his caricature and slumps back against the counter. His legs look like they've lost all the bones in them. His face falls like a tragic mask and he's not looking at me anymore. He's re-living. Always re-living.
"He called me Matty. Can you believe that?"
"That sucks," I said.
I was gripping the handle of the freezer door like it would keep me on my feet. I was watching the darkened hallway that lead to Lawson's office and praying that he wouldn't overhear what was going on, that he wouldn't come out and find Matty like this. How careless Matty could be with his fate, just tossing it into the air for whomever to catch it that happened to be close by.
"You should be careful," he said. He actually pointed at me when he said it, "or they'll throw you in there, too. Guys like us...couple of misfits."
"What are you talking about?"
Matty laughed, then quieted his own laughter. He leaned in close enough for me to smell the whiskey, for me to breathe it in like the powerful perfume that it was. It almost made me retch.
"Come on, man," he said with a wink, "your secret's safe with me. You know I don't care what people do in the privacy of their own bedrooms."
Then he patted me on the shoulder and started back out towards the back door. He could barely walk. He leaned on the door and gave me one last look on his way out.
"Tell Lawson you haven't seen me, okay?"
Then he fished the bottle back out of the trash can and left. I got back to making the waffles.
Now it has been over a day since the video was shown and I all I can think about is that Sunday morning. It is Sunday morning now, barely seven-thirty and I am doing the same damn thing I was doing then. I am taking bricks of frozen waffles out of the freezer and pre-heating the ovens and making the coffee and turning on the burners on the stove. I am trying not to think about Matty but I can't think of anything else. Except maybe Rodney, the way he looked at me that night right before he made a run for it. I had looked around the room for the other guys and most of them were looking at their parents, at their shoes, staring with transfixed horror at the screen. But Rodney had been looking straight at me. Looking at me like he knew something about me. I am thinking about Matty and that look. It is exactly what I am thinking about when I open the back door to take out last night's trash and I find Rodney there. And Jared. And Alex. I downplay my surprise and greet him with little to no enthusiasm. I do not pretend that I am happy to see him or that I am worried. But my heart is a fish being microwaved.
"What are you doing here?"
By now I am backing into the kitchen, afraid to take my eyes off of him. I am obviously wanting to go back inside where it's warm; I obviously don't care about whatever it is that these clowns find important enough to stand in the cold for at this hour of the morning. Whatever it is, it's got nothing to do with me. But Rodney is following me, and before I know it he is halfway inside, like he owns the place, like we're old friends, my house is his house and all that.
"Hey, do you have a minute to talk? I mean, are you real busy?"
If I were to shut the door now it would be on his face and as much as I want to, I keep walking backwards. I let him in. The alley with the Dumpsters in it is like a wind tunnel and at this time of the year it's unpleasant, to say the least.
"Well yeah," I answer, "we're short-handed today. Matty's normally here..."
"Don't worry man, it won't take a second," Rodney says, gesturing towards the alley behind him.
I can see Alex and Jared sharing a cigarette, fidgeting in the cold, their faces pale except for their red noses. They are watching me, threatening me without a word. I consider for a moment, going to get Lawson, just yelling his name like a drowning person to a rescue boat. I don't care what kind of a chicken that makes me. I've told Lawson everything. He knows everything there is to know.
"You want me to come out there?" I ask him.
Rodney nods, "I don't want to get in the way and my hands aren't clean," he says.
So I put my coat back on. It's still cold from when I took it off, and I go outside, propping the door open with a brick that sit outside for that very purpose. Matty put it there months ago so he could take smoke breaks more easily. I amp up my visible impatience, as if I am in a hurry to get back to work. But really I just feel my life slipping away, more and more every moment I have to spend with these jackasses. Rodney gets right to it.
"We think we can get Rusty and Nathan to change their minds about the trip."
I had been pushing that out of my mind as well; the relief that came with knowing it had been cancelled, that the anxiety was gone and in its place there was only guilt. I was still wrestling with that, with the fact that I cared not a bit about the fucking trip. Not really.
"Oh yeah?" I actually laugh in disbelief, "how? Please don't get my hopes up."
Jared steps in, handing the stump of a cigarette off to Rodney, who recedes back towards Alex to smoke, to let Jared do the talking. Jared says if we can get Matty to apologize or even take the blame, if we can get him to admit that he planted it just to ruin everything, then maybe we can get the pastors to change their minds.
"And why would that make any difference? You're still on it, drinking and screwing."
Rodney says the trip has been in the works now for two years, almost. The rest of the congregation doesn't know anything, not yet. He says that surely they would rather just fix this whole thing rather than have to explain what happened to a thousand disapproving church members. Rodney says that Matty could take the heat off of the rest of them and forfeit his place on the trip. It'll all go back to normal.
"Matty won't apologize," I say. I forget the part where this has anything to do with me. I forget to mention that this has nothing to do with me. "Are you stoned or something?"
"Oh he will," Rodney says with a grin, "we're going to make him."
They all look so self-assured, self-satisfied, confident like people are when they think things are simple. When they have made up their minds to get what they want and have already decided to do whatever's necessary. Maybe they're just naive. Just young.
"How are you going to do that?"
I am getting worried. I have seen this look on Rodney's face before, the obvious bloodlust.
"We're going to tell everyone he's a drug dealer unless he agrees to apologize."
I actually laugh. I laugh out loud and I have to smother the sound with my hand.
"Come on..."
"You weren't there," Alex cuts in, suddenly involved, "you don't know anything about him you just think you do."
"What are you talking about?"
Rodney says he knows who Matty's connection is, that if they can get to her, they can get to Matty.
"He won't go to Camp Warren this time. He'll go to the state fucking pen!"
My blood is boiling. The collar of my shirt is too tight around my neck and I am burning up inside my clothes. My legs are aching to run, my hands eager to slam the door in their asshole faces.
"You guys are really...so stupid. Don't you understand? He's doing this because you guys put him in Camp Warren in the first place! He was on the video too, do you think he cares what anyone in the church thinks of him? He may as well have said 'fuck you' to the entire congregation!"
It all comes out in a hot rush of air, like something that was trapped in my belly waiting to get out. Rodney drops the cigarette and it rolls, smoldering on the ground. Jared and Alex and Rodney, all of them, are closing in, trapping me between the propped-open door and their animal hunger for Matty's flesh.
"Why are you defending him? Because he's your little boyfriend?"
"Shut up," I choke out, "just shut up."
The blood is rushing to my cheeks, pumping, pumping, revealing everything I am trying to hide. Instinct is kicking in like it does when you're helpless, when all human logic is gone and you feel like a small animal that has wandered into the wrong cave.
"We know he didn't put you in the video for a reason," Rodney says, "he could have put you in there like all the rest of us. No one in the church would even care about the drinking and the smoking and all that if they knew your secret."
"I have to go," I say, "I'm not listening to this."
Rodney grabs my jacket and pushed me back into the wall nearest the door. Alex kicks the brick out of the way and the door slams and I am locked out of the kitchen. I could throw up.
"Am I wrong?" he asks.
"You're fucked," I say. This only earns me another jolt.
"If he cares so much about you, then why did he ruin the trip for you, too? That's got to hurt."
"I understand why he did it," I say, "I already told you. You're not going to convince me to do anything."
"Come on," Rodney says, prodding me again, "it doesn't make you mad? It doesn't piss you off that he did this to you? He ruined everything just to fuck us! Don't you realize he only cares about himself? Huh?"
"Why don't you do it yourself? If you want to make him apologize, just do it yourself. Leave me out of it."
"No, Brad, we need you. We can't have anyone on Matty's side."
"I'm not doing it," I say again. But I can feel the strength of my voice leaving me. I can hear it, and I know they can too.
"Listen, Brad, I'll tell you honestly," Alex cuts in again, "we don't even have to have proof that you and Matty are...well, you know. Just the idea of it..." He grimaces, shudders. "You'll have to leave town! Think of your mother!"
Rodney waves his hands around, telling Alex to calm down, telling me to take a breath. He tells us all to just relax. Just relax.
"Look. Just help us out with this and we'll forget all about it. We'll go on the trip and it'll be great and we'll never have to worry about Matty again."
No one is holding me against the wall now, no one keeping me on my feet. I feel lightheaded. I feel sick.
"He won't do it."
"He will," Rodney says, "we have a back-up plan."
So I listen to the plan. Rodney says they need me to confront Matty of his guilt. He says it's not enough to just make him afraid. Matty doesn't scare easy, we all know that. He would rather go to jail than give in. But not if I'm there. I will beg him to give in, to surrender, to be reasonable. I will beg him to save his own life and tell him that it's not worth all of this, whatever it is he's trying to prove. I will beg him to save himself from the backup plan. And if I cannot convince him, then it won't matter because I will be bound to these monsters by my own guilt, my own complicity.
Even I can admit, it's a good plan.
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