For Rent or For Real

Ted Davis was in his room quickly stuffing a backpack full of clothes. He raised his head and listened as his stepfather’s voice thundered from downstairs and blasted through the closed door of Ted’s bedroom.

“I won’t have a faggot living in my house!”

It brought back memories of the many times the man, shouting obscenities, angered by some misbehavior on Ted’s part, had taken the stairs two at a time to administer his brand of harsh punishment. Ted cringed.

“But Harold!” his mother’s pleading voice followed. “He’s our son!”

“No! He’s not! He’s my stepson. I wouldn’t claim a son that’s a filthy, perverted queer! It’s against nature and God’s law. I will not have an abomination living under my roof and polluting the very air we breathe. As of this night he is not wanted here!”

Ted stopped packing. At least his mother had gotten Harold to agree to let him take a few things with him before he was thrown out on the street.

Ted slumped onto the bed. Dixie, his scruffy rat terrier pup, whined and hopped up on the bed next to him. She didn’t like it when the humans around her shouted.

I should have known better. Damn, what was I thinking? Ted said to himself, pulling the little dog close and burying his face in her wiry fur. Fuck, we belong to a fundamentalist church that supports Westboro for Christ’s sake! Harold even goes to those protests of soldier’s funerals and denounces gays! And I turn around and bring Erik here and we get caught! Why the fuck did I do that?

Ted had brought his best friend, Erik Hendersen, to the house to do homework. His mom and Harold hadn’t been home when he and Erik arrived. During a break from studying up in Ted’s room, they got to talking sex. One thing lead to another and the two had dropped their pants and were lying on the bed jacking each other off, when, without warning, the door had suddenly opened and his stepfather came in. Then all hell broke loose.

Harold bodily threw Erik out of the house, then began pushing Ted around, yelling and screaming at him. His mother had intervened and stopped the assault before anyone could get hurt. Ted tried to explain he wasn’t gay - that he and Erik were just fooling around, but Harold was beyond the point of hearing any excuses, so extreme was his rage.

The loud voices from downstairs continued.

“But he’s just a boy. You can’t throw him out. It’s against the law to abandon a child,” his mother said, still trying to intercede for him.

“He was eighteen last week,” his stepfather yelled. “He’s an adult and I legally don’t have to do another damn thing for him. He made his choice and he chose to follow the devil’s way, to go against God’s law. We have two other sons, my real sons. I will not have him perverting them.”

Ted rose. Dixie looked up at him. Ted glanced around the room, the room that had been his most all his life. It contained pictures from the plays and musicals he’d appeared in and trophies attesting to his modest achievements on the football field and baseball diamond. Was he really going to be permanently exiled? Where would he go? What would he do? Now that his shock at being caught and the confusion of the confrontation had passed, a numbing fear started to creep into his mind. What was it like to live on the street? Where could he go, where would he sleep?

Before Ted could come up with any answers, the door to his room burst open! Harold loomed in the doorway.

“Out!” he said, his face still red with anger, his mouth trembling with rage. “You had plenty of time to get your stuff together!”

“Dad, let me expl—”

“Don’t call me Dad! I ain’t your Dad! I’m sorry I ever adopted you and gave you my name. I said, out!” the man roared. Dixie whined, jumped to the floor, and hid under the bed. Harold pointed to the stairway.

Ted picked up his backpack. “I didn’t have a chance to get my toothbrush,” he said meekly.

“What do you need with a toothbrush? I’m sure you’ll find something vile to put in that perverted, fag mouth of yours! Now get out of here before I throw you out!”

Ted tried to blink back the tears that were threatening, and slid past his stepfather, who still stood in the doorway. He also fought the urge to wrap his arms around Harold and beg the man not to do this. As Ted started down the stairs, a foot caught him in the small of his back and he tumbled to the bottom. His mother screamed and rushed to him.