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“You know, a vasectomy. While you were in prison. I was getting all kinds of tail when my first album hit the charts. Swimming in groupies. It was the best choice at the time.”
“No offense, Bubba.” I thought about something Sky said often. “But TMI. Why are you telling me any of this?”
It's not like me and my brother were close. I mean, sure, that shit sucked and all. I had no idea he left Felicia because the kid wasn't his. Was that why he was such a deadbeat dad? But Bubba and I didn’t talk about our lives to one another. I didn’t plan on that changing. Dad dying or not.
“The reason I'm letting you know is because I'm coming clean to Felicia. I just got off the phone with her, and she’ll be at dad’s funeral. I’ll tell her after it, more likely.”
My hand landed on his back as I tried to show the man some sympathy. For once I could commiserate. I didn’t know if Sky’s baby was mine. The fact ate me up inside.
“Good luck, man.”
He wouldn’t drop it. “I figured I better tell you before I tell her.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“Because I took a paternity test that said the kid was mine. And don't tell me that you didn't bump uglies with my wife all those years ago. Because I know all about it.”
“She tell you that?”
“She didn’t just tell me, she rubbed it in my face.”
My whole face crinkled up as I tried to remember back that far. Yes, Felicia and I had a roll in the hay a time or two. Forever ago. Her and Bubba were always on the outs. You don't exactly refuse a superstar when she comes to your clubhouse and starts making advances at you. Married to your brother or not. Plus, he was fucking other women, too, one of my whores, Jackpot. She left Royal Road to marry one of Bubba’s base players. My brother hadn’t given two flying fucks about his wedding vows.
“But you said you had a paternity test. Case closed, brother.”
“Kingpin. Don't be daft. We’re identical twins. One hundred percent of our DNA is the fucking same. And you fucked my wife before she had Little Johnny.”
“Yeah, but like way before, at least a year before that. What are you saying? You're saying that you think I'm the father? Johnny’s father?”
Bubba lifted both shoulders and dropped them. He jerked his neck around showing his aggravation with me.
Hitting me with his hat, he said, “You really are a dumbass. The word was you were sterile. Now the word is you're having a baby with that young thing you just married. What's more likely? That you impregnated Felicia or somebody that had a vasectomy did? Felicia never knew about my vasectomy, and like everyone in Nashville, she thought you were infertile.
Damn, I thought so too. Figured you jerked off so much in prison, you’d depleted your sperm count. She hasn’t heard about your baby, but she will eventually. I think I owe it to the kid to come clean. If there's a possibility that I'm not his deadbeat father, and you are, Little Johnny needs to know the truth.”
I didn’t tell him Sky’s baby might not be mine. It was too embarrassing. “Johnny’s what, five? Since when does a five-year-old need to hear all that?”
“Six.”
When Bubba left Felicia, she moved to Oklahoma and took Little Johnny who was just a newborn with her. It gave Bubba an excuse to not have anything to do with the kid. I’d been a real shit uncle, too, on account of me hating my brother. Yeah, I sent money on the kid’s birthday and on holidays. All thanks to Memphis who’d thought of it. She always wrote out a card and signed my name. That kid would never want for a thing anyway. Felicia was so famous she only went by one name. And she was just as rich. I always wondered why my brother unhitched his wagon from her gravy train.
“Felicia's coming to dad’s funeral. Why? Why don’t you tell her before she takes the trouble?” Did my brother want to cause a scene?
“Dad was Johnny’s granddad. Even if he’s your kid, it doesn't change that fact. It’d be nice if you could come, say a few words, and discuss this with Felicia afterwards.”
“Felicia knows where to find me. Bubba, you know damn well I’m not going to mourn the man who beat me, ruined my life, and left me to rot in prison.”
“Beau. When are you going to grow up and get over that shit?”
“Bubba, for someone who claims to wear my scars, you don’t seem to understand how bad things were for me. You can’t fathom the atrocities I suffered because of that man in there.” I pointed at the door, leading to my dad’s lifeless body. “You don’t know what men do to other men in the slammer.”
“You were raped. So what? Everyone knows that happens in prison.”
I closed my eyes and fought the urge to tell him the first time was that time I’d gone to Juvie instead of him. And it wasn’t another young boy, but a grown man, a fucking guard that abused me. Tell him that he was lucky it hadn’t been him like it should’ve been. He’d committed the crime. Not me. He wouldn't have been able to take it.
It would break a man like him. Tell him how many times it happened since that time, all the time when I’d been only a kid. He acted like I’d just bent over and took a dick up the ass like a goddamn boy scout. I fought. I was beat down. I was abused by cops, not other prisoners who were also teens. When dad wanted me to go back in to get information for him, I couldn’t tell him what I suffered. Doing his bidding, I had that abuse to look forward to when I was arrested again and again. I suffered all that and for what?
At least by the time I went in for good at eighteen, I’d become the abuser. But I sure as hell didn’t rape any men. I’d become dangerous enough and made enough alliances to never be messed with again. Did my cronies abuse other men? Maybe, but they were grown.
