Her lips quirked to the side. “I know how my boy looks when he talks to that cheating shitheel. I watched that man break him. Only Owen can make Jackson curl in like a pillbug that way. All because Owen couldn’t get over his ex. Goddamn it. I’m gonna go make a pie. Otherwise, I’m going to go take that phone and give that jackass the piece of my mind he so richly deserves.”
She pushed herself out of her seat with force and stomped inside to take out her frustrations on a pie crust. I admit that I have never baked a pie, and know very little about piecraft. That said, I am fairly certain that the angry thumping sounds that came out of her kitchen do not usually belong in the art of pie-making.
Randall huffed a tight sigh that didn’t dissipate any of his rage. I wondered if he might not show Brenda’s restraint, and would go take that phone to tell Owen off. I wondered if I didn’t approve of that.
Instead, Randall said, “When I was young, I got my heart broken a dozen times. Used to think girls were the damn worst. All bitches, just waiting to break your heart, cause drama, and use you until they didn’t need you anymore. ‘Course, then I grew up. Became a man, pulled my head out of my ass, left behind all that childish bullshit about blaming women. Takes two to make a relationship, you know? These days, I know whose fault it was I got my heart broken. With an attitude like that, it was mine.”
I nodded and didn’t interrupt.
“Still. I figured, men don’t do ‘drama’.” He sketched air quotes in front of himself. “Men act like, well, men. Then Jackson got his heart broke by Owen. That was when I realized, men? We’re just the same. Oh, sure, we slap a coat of paint on it, call it something else. Pride. Honor. Masculinity. It’s the same damn thing. It’s drama. We just give it a veneer that lets us try to excuse it as ‘what a man does’.”
Once again, I wondered how a rancher from backwoods Wyoming had sorted out the stupidity society purveyed faster than a decent chunk of the male species. “We call that ‘toxic masculinity’ these days.”
“I call it ‘a bunch of bullshit’. That’s what it is, Bastian. It’s a bunch of bullshit men use to stroke their egos and their dicks, and I’m not having it.” He took a sip of his tea. “So I’m gonna tell you what I’d tell a man, a woman, or someone who doesn’t give enough shits to buy into our fucked-up system of genders – as if gender mattered two gopher turds.”
My father-in-law has never stopped surprising me.
Or intimidating me, on some level, no matter how much I’ve come to love him. He turned to me. “My boy deserves to be happy. He doesn’t just fight for our country, like I used to. He fights for ourwhole damn planet.He has earned someone to love him like he ought to be loved, or at least to respect him enough not to sneak around behind his back.”
The chairs creaked as Randall leaned forward, and my weight shifted back to compensate.
Randall’s gaze pinned me. “So take your genital of choice in hand and do right by him, even if it’s to leave him behind. Or so help me, I will make Arma-fucking-geddon look like a picnic on the beach. You do that, treat him well, and you will always have a family here. You will be our son, and we will rain hellfire and damnation on anyone who wants to hurt you. You hear me, boy?”
I heard him. Loud and clear.
“Yessir,” I said. “I hear you. And I agree. You won’t ever have to worry about me cheating on Jackson.”
“Just what I wanted to hear.” He took another drink of his tea as he leaned back in his chair. “Good talk.”
Yeah. Good talk. Toxic masculinity and threats of the apocalypse. Just your usual Saturday afternoon in rural Wyoming.
* * *
When Jackson strode back to the house wearing a black look, he didn’t want to talk about it. Not when I gently inquired, and not when Brenda, carrying a beaten and battered pie crust in a pan, pressed with more force. I let it go for the day because I knew I had time on my side.
Time, and the magic of a long car ride home. Jackson deserved his space to process the call. He didn’t need me swinging off his nose hairs and demanding information like an insecure child.
We said our goodbyes around noon on Sunday after a breakfast I can only describe as a “baconanza”. We took a few family photos for them to print out and put up on the wall. Brenda and Randall hugged Jackson, then hugged me, and told me to take good care of their son.
Mostly true. Brenda said, “Take good care of my son. Welcome to the family.” Randall said, “Take good care of my son, boy. I like you too much to want to bury you in the backyard.” The sentiment was there, even if each added their own special flare to it.
Again, the car ride worked its magic. The radio station had crackled into static an hour ago, and we’d ridden in silence until we crossed the state line from Wyoming into Colorado when Jackson spoke up.
“He wanted to get back together,” Jackson said.
I knew whohewas. “That’s a bold move. One that’s not going to pay off for him.”
“I don’t even know what he was thinking.” Jackson gripped the steering wheel. “I was a month into a deployment on Mars when Owen realized, ‘Well, shit. My ex doesn’t run off to get shot at on Mars. He’s a freeloading jackoff who won’t get a job and won’t pull his weight, but he’s hot and I love how he’s a damn free spirit. Also, he’s on the planet so I can fuck him.’ Then you know what he did?”
“Fucked him?”
Jackson pointed at me. “Winner, winner, chicken goddamn dinner. Kept on fucking him until Laramie saw Owen at a bar with his ex, making out.”
Laramie saw it. I wondered howthathad happened. Though I was heartened by the fact that Owen hadn’t ended up in anyone’s freezer, no matter how deserving he was of his place next to a rump roast.
“Good thing Laramie saw them,” I said, and kept my thoughts to myself.
“Laramie did me a solid that day. Helped me dodge a bullet. He may be a dick, but he’s a good brother and he’s always got my back.” A proud smile lifted the corner of Jackson’s lips.