I Should Be Laughing: Harry and Wyatt

“I’d forgotten how cold it gets out there.” Harry stood in front of the stove, cradling an enormous ceramic mug of coffee in both hands for warmth. He and Wyatt spent an hour or more on the rock, staring at sea and sky, simply holding hands, without uttering a sound. Those were some of the best times for Harry, when he and Wyatt could be alone, just touching, and didn’t feel the need to fill every space with words; quiet, good times.

“Where’s Renny?”

“Jimmy came by to get her. They drove over to Ukiah to identify your mother’s body—“

“What the hell for?”

“A formality, I guess.” The calmness Wyatt had found in Harry down in the cove had disintegrated. Inside the house, he was kinetic—his arms jittery, fingers twitching—and obviously angry with Jimmy and Renny. Wyatt couldn’t figure out why, what had caused Harry’s fury, so he kept his voice low. “They have to identify the body before it can go to the funeral home.”

“So how come he didn’t ask me?” Harry tossed his coffee into the sink, and then absentmindedly went back to the pot for a refill. “I could have gone.”

“I didn’t know where you were, and Renny was—.”

“You said he came to get her!” Harry roared. “Jimmy came here looking for her!”

“Hey! Don’t bite my head off!” Wyatt barked back. While Harry bounced around the kitchen like a loose ball in a pinball machine, Wyatt stayed in place, against the counter; his legs crossed one over the other, his hands in his pockets. “So, Jimmy came here looking for Renny instead of you…so what?”

“You don’t get it, do you Wyatt?” Once again, he was back at the sink, throwing his coffee down the drain. “I’ve always felt like an outsider in the family. Renny and Jimmy had their friends…my mother had…her booze. I had no one. I didn’t belong here then, and now, when I come back, knowing who I am and where I fit in, Jimmy barely speaks to me and Renny gets so pissed at you…for who knows what…that she stays in her room all night. We’re on the outside, Wyatt. We’re not part of the family and we never will be.”

Outside the storm—Harry raged like an incensed caged beast, circling the butcher-block island—Wyatt remained silent, waiting for Harry to calm down, though he believed it would take longer than normal. This was the first time, Wyatt instantly realized, in his life as a gay man that Harry was face to face with his family. Hiding for years, living so far from home and writing only occasionally, Harry had only dreamt of how smoothly this might be, his coming out, how accepting his family would be since they were all adults. But now that he was out, and home again, the rose colored glasses had been snatched from his face and Harry didn’t like what he saw; not one bit.

“Boo?” Wyatt said softly, using a name he and Harry called one another. He started speaking slowly now that Harry stopped prowling the kitchen like a general inspecting the troops.

“Jimmy’s having a tough time here, too. You aren’t the only one who lost a mother. And, added to that, he stayed here…living just down the road. He probably saw Barbara a couple of times a week. He endured all the things you only…. Wait!” He said before Harry could speak. “Jimmy came up here. He found the body. He made phone calls to a brother and sister he hardly knows. How hard was that for him? His brother who, it turns out, is gay and brings a boyfriend along, and a sister who…well,” he laughed; “she’s a different story.”

“Why do you say that?”

”I’m not sure.” Wyatt hoisted himself onto the counter and leaned his back into the upper cabinets. At home, he and Harry always had their most serious discussions in the kitchen, sitting on counters and hashing out their differences. “I think she feels guilty for running out on her brothers. Last night she got angry because she thought I was painting this picture of her as, I don’t know…the one who got away.”

“Wait wait wait.” Harry laughed, breaking the tension; he crawled atop the counter opposite Wyatt. “If you’re going to paraphrase Garland lyrics by way of explanation, then I need to sit down.”

In exasperation, Wyatt shook his head; like a trainer throwing fish at a killer whale, Harry could toss a joke into any conversation, no matter how intense the topic. Wyatt knew better than to stop talking; he simply smiled at Harry’s wit and went on.

“I think I startled her this morning. I came down the back stairs and she didn’t hear me…”

While continuing to speak, he wondered how much to tell Harry; should he mention what he’d found in the cupboard or not? In the end, he decided to let it go. “She told me I ought to wear a bell if I was going to sneak around and then—

“Hey!” Wyatt said before Harry could respond. “It was funny, Harry.” Then, as he thought about Jimmy again, Wyatt’s features grew as overcast as the sky shrouding the house. “When Jimmy came by, I went to find her. She wasn’t in her room and I heard a noise from the attic. I found her up there with a box—.”

“Her stuff,” Harry said in the exact same tone Jimmy had used earlier. Looking beyond Wyatt, using the window as a view to the past, he saw himself as a boy, lugging that heavy box up the narrow attic stairs, only after he promised his mother not to look inside. “Mother packed it up for her.”

“Well, your mother stuffed the box full of shredded clothes and smashed records, books and pictures sliced up…. She did all that and then left it upstairs with Renny’s name on it like a gift or something. I saw it all, turned into garbage, and I realized that she was right…Renny…when she said she had to leave. God knows what your mother would have done to either one of you if you’d stayed.”

“She would have turned us into Jimmy…angry…lost and afraid.” Harry mumbled while Wyatt nodded, though he believed it would have been far worse.

“Did you notice how lost Jimmy seems?” Wyatt asked. “I don’t know what he was like, as a boy, but he acts like…like he doesn’t know how to act. He wouldn’t even come in the house today until I asked him. It’s his house and he is afraid to come inside…petrified of going upstairs. He's lost, Harry. He has no idea of what to do without his mother and he doesn’t know what to make of you and Renny.”