Regrets and Regression

Marty sat at a park bench as the snow drifted down landing in his slick black hair. It was a cold January day, and he had failed to dress accordingly. In his hand there was a crinkled up bus ticket, and a note from stranger, he had yet to read. Black skinny jeans against the wet bench were uncomfortable, and he shifted his weight moving his backpack strap to his other red flanneled shoulder. His eyes were uncharacteristically watery as he lifted his frigid hands up to blow warm air into them.

He was going to Allegheny County Jail in Pittsburgh, a few hours from his home, to meet his father for the first time in his 21 years of life. He crunched the letter closer in his large hand, letting the still stiff edge poke painfully into his palm. He didn't want to go; he'd told his mother he wouldn't go, but his social worker had insisted he at least visit. Marty's dad apparently had big news, big enough news to summon his son. Waiting for the bus Marty feared the worst, worried his dad had done something awful, and he was being called in to see his father before his father was executed. But Pennsylvania hadn't had any executions since the 90s, even if it was technically legal; a fact you only bothered to learn when your father was a criminal in prison. No, Marty was worried about nothing.

The bus pulled up and he begrudgingly boarded, slinging an overnight bag on his shoulder. He was going to stay in Pittsburgh for the night so he could prolong describing the events to his mother. Besides, it was late afternoon, and by the time he finished with his dad it would be way too late to take the bus back home. Buses made Marty depressed, he wasn't sure why, they just did. Maybe it was the strange collection of people all stuffed together for an hour before scattering back to their depressive lives. Maybe it was the smell of unwashed bodies that always seemed to arise after a certain amount of time on board. Maybe, and most probably, it was that his bus rides always ended up in the exact same place.

The ride was excruciating, for just being a few hours, but Marty's mind was racing around his head, and his black sneaker bounced up and down with nervous energy. He played lightly with a ring on his finger; a claddagh-- which reminded him of Vincent, a red headed Irish boy. Marty hadn't ever been to Ireland, he wasn't even Irish, but something about the ring seemed to hold the calls of a simpler life in the countryside, one Marty would never have.

Why did Marty wear a claddagh? He wasn't really sure. His father had married an Irish woman after Marty's Italian mother and it was a gift. At the time Marty felt as if the woman was trying to erase his mother and her culture, but with age he'd come to appreciate the sentiment of belonging, or at least the feeling of wearing rings on his fingers, which made him feel awfully tough.

Vincent clawed at his mind again, Vincent and Lucas along with him. Freaking out at them hadn't been the right thing to do. In fact, it'd been the exact wrong thing to do, but he'd done it all the same. He regretted it, but more he regretted that despite his best efforts the two boys had ended up together. It was like watching all the pieces of a plan come together and realizing it's a different plan from the one he'd thought he'd had.

Maybe it was for the best, Lucas and Vincent. Maybe they'd make it, but it still bothered Marty to think about.

Left to his own devices, Marty had no choice but to consider the logic of his own choices. Why had he cared so much? Vincent had never really given him a reason to believe he'd never like Lucas, or that it was all useless. Much to the contrary, Vincent had demonstrated a very sincere attachment to the boy. That angered Marty even more than if he'd just wanted Lucas for money.

Marty cared... cared more than he was ever willing to admit. Vincent had been as kind as possible to him, helping with his sister, and in that time he'd developed something of an attachment to the boy as well, which just made him hate him all the more. Marty and Vincent were not friends, but he figured there were several universes where they could be, or even should be.

Marty and Lucas were never meant to be friends. Lucas was a golden boy, and Marty... well Marty was trouble. Nobody wanted more trouble because everyone already had more than enough of their own. Still, Marty had watched Lucas throughout middle school, watched him throughout high school.. seen his highs... his lows... his middles. And Marty, despite his best efforts grew to like and respect the golden boy. It certainly couldn't have been easy for Lucas, and still he remained. Marty admired that... Marty admired the boy's appearance. And when Lucas went to college, Marty befriended him... perhaps hoping that someday, someway it might develop into more.

Did Marty like Lucas? Even he wasn't sure. There's were days he did and days he didn't. Days he hated him more than anything and days where Lucas dominated his thoughts. He didn't want him to be with Vincent, regardless of whether or not it made him happy. Was that love? Marty wasn't completely sure that he knew what love even was. He'd never felt it, so how could he possibly be expected to detect it?

The pain that hurt the worst was the look on Lucas' face. A million fights, a thousand arguments, and a hundred sly comments couldn't compare to utter disappointment with Marty written across his face, and Marty was not a stranger to disappointment. Marty regretted raising a fuss, even if he couldn't regret what he'd chosen to make a fuss about. Lucas didn't deserve that.

Marty's bus passed by a man asleep on a park bench covered in snow.

Who was to say that Lucas deserved anything? Lucas was nothing more than just another spoiled little rich boy, ruining everything to get the one thing he arbitrarily decided he just needed to have. How could Marty feel bad for Lucas? Lucas had more money than Marty could even fathom. The boy had his own apartment while Marty was slumming it in a trailer park, and yet Marty still felt bad for him. Yet Marty still was meant to feel bad for ruining his perfect wealthy little privileged life.

Maybe Marty didn't like Lucas at all. Maybe he just wanted a taste, needed a piece. Maybe he had grown up a poor boy, coveting the belongings of a friend so much he grew to misconstrue the feelings to be romantic. Marty was poor--he had nothing-- raised to find and scrounge for every meal handed on a silver platter. Maybe Marty wanted Lucas as a means to an end, a means to survival.

Marty stopped himself, letting his black hair flop onto the chilled window, breath fogging on the glass. That wasn't true, and he knew it. Marty knew Lucas had an awful home life and more than his fair share of mental problems. His mother always said that sayings like "more money more problems" were just things rich people said to prevent those they abuse from rising against them. To cast doubt on their lavish lifestyle. Marty fun he didn't believe that. Lucas had everything handed to him.. and yet he and Marty were in the same spot, lusting after someone oblivious.. only Lucas had the courage to get out. Courage not wealth... wealth had done nothing but screw up Lucas' home life.. and Marty and his mother had grown very close over the years.

Lucas was the Bob Sheldon to Marty's Dally Winston. And Dally and Bob didn't get to end up together. They got something far worse, far more painful. Marty knew he had to stop pushing, to just let go.

When Lucas had interacted with Vincent it had been clear, crystal clear, that he was hopelessly in love with him, and that stabbed at Marty's heart like a dagger. He also told Marty that Vincent could never like him back, and Marty wanted desperately to believe it was true. To be pissed at Vincent for throwing Lucas away, but that wasn't true. It was a skewed perception of reality. That's why on the day of the big party Marty  drove Vincent and Lucas home, he'd wanted to verify, and if possible drive a wedge between the boys. Marty had known all along.

Then, Vincent confessed he too cared for Lucas.. Marty wanted to think in another life he would have just let go, but he didn't. That wasn't what happened. Marty had dug in, he was already too far gone. Vincent just agitated I'm more. The boy was genuine and there was a part of Marty which liked him, and the only served to enrage him all the more. Those feelings had messed with his head and rotted out his brain to mush, until he couldn't even make decisions anymore. Marty shook his empty head, and groaned.

Marty had become one of the depressive tenants of the bus, part of the concealed blob of despair, by the time they pulled up to the dreary bus stop he was bound for. Marty was out of things to think about anyways. He stumbled off the bus like one of the drunken members who would overtake it within a few hours, and began his short walk. The bus stop was specifically for the prison, so it wasn't long to go. Still, it was cold. A dead empty kind of cold.

Entering the foreboding building, Marty begrudgingly sulked inside. He was not looking forward to seeing his dad, nor finding out what his dad had done. One thing about being in the prison he did enjoy was the hustle. Nobody knew him. Nobody would say, "Oh look that's Martin's boy.. guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." It was a far cry from home, in the heart of suburbia. Marty always figured he'd live in the city when he got older, maybe even move out west to some place like Arizona. The cold bothered him, in a way all his fellow Northerners seemed to be immune to it. Sighing he turned to the large woman working the desk and decided he'd best throw himself to the wolves, and check in.

"Name please." The women sitting at the front desk asked.

"Marty Wailen." He responded.

"How old are you, boy?" She asked, looking him up and down.

"21." He answered truthfully. She sighed pulling out a clipboard full of forms.

"Sign these." She said, "Then bring them back to be and we'll let you in to see inmate 42053." She said without a trace of sympathy. Marty knew she meant no harm by it, but it didn't make him any less uncomfortable. His father was a number. His namesake reduced beneath a name.

Marty rolled his deep chestnut eyes and sat on one of the uncomfortable waiting room chairs. The paperwork wasn't terribly long, and soon he had submitted it, and been taken into a further back room. He was left to wait a minute, and then he was taken into a room with a glass wall, and two phones, as he had seen in the movies. On the other side of the glass sitting in a swivel chair, was a man dressed in an orange jump suit. He had deep chestnut eyes, and black hair that was thinned out on the top. His facial hair was scragly and unruly, and there were grey hairs sticking out in various directions, not following the same loose curls as the untrimmed shinyish black hair. Beneath years of decay Marty saw something that terrified him to his very core; deep down his father looked like him. Marty had feared this, since he looked nothing like his blonde haired blue-eyed mother.

"Hello." Marty said timidly, though he'd never admit his fear. He sat down at the other phone, feeling the discomfort of the guard's stares on his back.

"Hi son." His father said in a raspy broken voice, and Marty flinched at this. This man had no right to use the word son.

"Why did you want to see me?" Marty's composure returned and he used it to wall his vulnerability off deeper down.

"Can't a father just want to meet his child?" His father said, he looked and sounded weak, but Marty was immune to sympathy.

"A father can. You haven't earned the right to call yourself that." Marty spat.

"Marty. I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you, I was sort of tied up." Another excuse.

"You left my mother years before you went to jail." Marty said with an emotionless stare.

"That's true." His father admitted. "How is-"

"Don't ask." Marty stated firmly. "It isn't any of your concern. You're not not my father because you're in jail. You're in jail because you aren't a father. Or at least because you chose not to be one." Marty continued. "Why now? I'm 21. You've been here for 10 years. Why reach out to me now?"

"I'm being transferred to a more heavily guarded facility. I wanted to see you before I go." His father said slowly. The man's courage and willpower was severely wounded by his son's reception of him.

"Why?"

"I.. uh... got into a fight." Marty's father chuckled as if that were funny, but seeing Marty's face he stopped.

"Why?" Marty asked rattling off another one word response.

"It's complicated." His father confessed."It's like a different world in here.

"What did you do?"

"I told you. I got in a f-" His father began before being cut off.

"The first time." Marty said through gritted teeth, his annoyance showing.

"Oh.. uh.. Petty thievery, tax evasion, forgery, normal stuff." His father explained.

"No."

"What?" His father asked with genuine confusion.

"It's not normal stuff. There's nothing normal about the crimes you committed. That's why you're in here, and normal people aren't." Marty scolded.

"I'm sorry." His father replied simply with nothing else to say.

"Sorry doesn't make up for 10 years of absence. Sorry doesn't make up for the people you hurt. Sorry doesn't even begin to cover what you've done." Marty spat standing up getting ready to leave.

"My flight leaves tomorrow." His father stated, and Marty stopped, standing in the doorway. "Tomorrow at noon, if you'd like to say goodbye.. I would like to see you again."

"I wouldn't count on it if I were you." And with that Mart promptly left the station and immediately went to his hotel room.