ROOTS 1

Part 4 of: The Lies We Told Each Other

Fandom: Top Gun (Movies), Thunderheart (1992)

INDEX: http://palabraspulsares.blogspot.com/p/the-lies-we-told-each-other-4-roots.html

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Chapter 1: Vanilla Sky

Summary

Sam and Jake turn seventeen. They prepare to leave the San Diego mansion and begin their independent lives. A small mistake by Tom Kazansky threatens to destroy everything he built with Pete and Sarah.
This chapter contains homophobic language.

 

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

They celebrate Sam and Jake's seventeenth birthday at home, but Sarah insists on something fancy, so they order from a new restaurant specializing in seafood. Thanks to careful maneuvering and a lot of planning, Tom, Pete, and Bradley are home that week. The entire family reunites for the first time in more than two years.

"I don't understand what all the fuss is about with Sam and Jake. "Icepop didn't come to my birthday in January," Sean, the younger brother, complains with a pout as he puts the cutlery on the table.

"You turned thirteen, dwarf," mocks Bradley, the eldest. "I'm sure Icepop is happy not to hear your constant complaints now that he's in Arabia."

Sean's green eyes flash with fury, and he sticks his tongue out at him.

"Hey! No fighting," Sarah warns as she arrives with a platter of crab cakes. "Sean, you know well that this birthday is important because Sam and Jake are going away to college in the fall."

"Look at it this way," Sam says mockingly as she puts the salad on the table, "in a few months you'll be the only kid at home and you'll have Iná Sarah all to yourself."

Sean makes a face of sudden horror. The thought of having his mother's undivided attention for the next four years until he, too, goes to USNA seems overwhelming.

"Ah! What I wouldn't give to have Sarah all to myself," -Tom Kazansky wraps his wife's waist from behind and rests his chin on her shoulder with a mischievous smile.

Sean's face goes from fear to disgust.

"Arg, Icepop! You'll give me nightmares. Can't you be more discreet? I thought we had a rule about PDA downstairs."

But Sarah leans against her husband's torso, caresses his cheek with one hand, and smiles at her youngest son with a sly expression.

"I thought so, too, until I surprised you with Sandy last week."

Sean turns red. Sam, Jake, and Bradley burst into laughter.

"What is the reason for so much joy?" -Maverick asks.

His hands are full with a bowl of creamy anchovy soup, which he carefully places on the table.

"Our Sean has turned out to be a Casanova," Tom explains to his partner. "Sarah caught him last week kissing a girl from school on the living room couch. Wonder from whom he got it?"

Mitchell coughs to hide his distress at the question. Sean is his biological son, but that's a secret, plus it's not relevant to this. Yes, he was precocious in sex, but it was not something spontaneous or enjoyable. He's unsure how much his spouses know —or think they know— about his troubled adolescence, but he's sure that Sean's circumstances are not his own.

"I don't know," he says finally. "What were you doing at thirteen, Ice?"

The blonde wrinkles his forehead, thoughtful. When he was thirteen, he was forced to take extra piano and cooking classes in addition to the youth Bible reading circle. His mother swore up and down that those skills would make up for his masculine ways and would still be able to find a husband. Some young soldier wouldn't be home for long and would let his "defects" pass. Additionally, his life schedule was manipulated to try to separate him from his brother Ray. Of course, he can't say any of that to his offspring: Brad, Sam, Jake, and Sean believe he's a perfectly average, cisgender man. In the end, as usual, he uses his brother.

"I was a catcher for the school baseball team. I didn't have time for kisses."

He did his classmate's homework in exchange for alibis to escape to baseball training, and he fell in love with the team's pitcher, who never gave him a glance.

"And you, Iná Sarah, what were you doing when you were thirteen?" -Brad asks as he puts the napkins on the table.

Her eyes lock on the pieces of fabric decorated with marine motifs. Her face turns gray.

"I was a maid in a house in Milwaukee," she says as she quickly leaves her husband's arms and goes to the kitchen.

Jake glares at his older brother, who shrugs with confused eyes. The childhoods of their three guardians were not happy. They know it, but they usually do not provoke such violent reactions.

"It's not Bradley's fault, Jake," warns Tom before his son's protective side makes him say or do something that ruins the mood even more. "Sit down," he says before following his wife.

He finds her hunched over the sink, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.

"Sarah," he says softly, letting her know she's not alone.

Since she doesn't reject him, he dares to approach. He stands next to her.

"Can I?"

She nods, and he covers one of his wife's small hands with his large, calloused one.

"What happened?"

She takes a deep breath and wipes her tears with the back of her hand.

"It was the napkins, can you believe it? In that house... they didn't let me use paper napkins because it was an extra expenditure. So, I made a cloth napkin from an old blouse the lady had thrown away. I made decorative trim around the edge and everything… I was so proud. But one day, the lady came into the kitchen while I was eating, recognized the cloth, and accused me of being a thief. They returned me the following week to Social Services with a note about "opportunistic thefts" in the file and without my napkin.

She starts crying again. Tom makes her move away from the sink to wrap her in his arms.

He wants to travel back in time and come back to comfort her.

He wants to be a crime lord and take revenge.

He wants so many things.

He loves this woman in a way he thought impossible - he always considered himself strictly homosexual - and although there were no erotic components in their relationship, they have been companions for eighteen years. They have raised four children shoulder to shoulder.

"It's okay, love," he whispers in her ear. "They can't reach you anymore. You are free now. It's over."

"I don't want to ruin Sam and Jake's birthday," she says between hiccups. Her voice is distorted because it is still stuck to Tom's chest.

"You didn't ruin anything, darling. They know that this family is a constant drama. I'm sure Sean appreciates your meltdown right now."

She doesn't pull away but lets out an incredulous grunt.

"Really?"

"No one remembers anymore that we talked about his romance with Sandy. What did he tell you?"

She smiles despite herself.

"He said I couldn't imagine the damage I had done to the pure root of his secret love. So ridiculous!"

He pulls her away a little so he can look into her eyes. So close, he is amazed, again, that no one notices they share a father -and probably more relatives because Sarah's mother was also from the tribe.

"You must be thirteen years old and have a happy childhood, like the one we gave them. Come on, Mrs. Kazansky!" -he wipes the moisture from her cheeks with his thumbs. "Your tears are unbecoming for the wife of a high-ranking Navy officer and," -he lowers his voice, smiles mischievously- "and for the wife of the craziest pilot in the defense department."

She plays along with the joke.

"I thought my commander was the best pilot?"

Ice pouts and pretends to be offended.

"Don't ruin the moment."

Sarah finally smiles a genuine smile.

"Take me to dinner, Vice Admiral Kazansky."

In the dining room, they separate to their seats: Sarah at the head, with Sam to her left and Sean to her right. Tom sits between Sean and Jake in front of his husband, who is between Sam and Brad. They hold hands for prayer.

"Since it's the sensaku's birthday, it's up to them to say the prayer," Pete announces.

The family closes their eyes and bows their heads.

"We give thanks for the food we have, for the love we have received, and for the health we enjoy," Sam intones.

"We give thanks for the freedom we have. We are the sword, we are the shield, and we are honored by this duty" -Jake continues.

Before the collective response, Ice adds something else.

"And today, especially, we give thanks for the presence of Samantha and Jacob in this family, joys of our hearts."

"Amen," they respond in chorus.

They manage to finish dinner without anyone else having unpleasant memories and without mentioning the presidential campaign.

 

Monday, April 7, 2008

A week later, Jake and Sam arrive home from school before the rest of the family and find envelopes in the mail with the official letterhead of the United States Naval Academy and Oglala Lakota College.

"What if they rejected my application?"

His sister looks at him in disbelief.

"You are the son and grandson of aviators, Jake!"

"I am the grandson of an alleged traitor and the son of the most problematic aviator in the Navy."

"The one they keep calling for all the secret missions that appear." -Sam's tone leaves no doubt about what he thinks of such hypocrisy. The young woman sighs and looks at her own envelope. "Instead, I…"

"What?"

"That Oglala Lakota College prefers students of pure indigenous ancestry. I'm almost white, right? And I have the financial capacity to go somewhere else. I know that it is fair that they give preference to applications from families with limited resources, but… I want so, so much to honor my heritage. I feel like I owe it to iná.

Jake nods. He's not sure why Rachel and his father decided to have him born on the reservation, but he also feels that his status as an Oglala citizen is more of a label than a reality. Since they entered high school, they stopped going to the weekend meetings of the San Diego Sioux community to spend time with their friends. With the lack of practice, his command of Lakota has diminished. Sean has entire conversations in Lakota with Icepop on the phone that they can barely follow.

They exchange nervous glances.

"I have an idea: I will open your letter from the USNA and you, mine from Oglala College, okay?"

"Okay."

They are so happy with their acceptance letters that they call Icepop in Bahrain, Bradley in New Jersey, and Mavdod in Norway right away. To hell with time differences! When Sarah arrives, she finds her children so excited that she can't help but get them in the car to eat pizza.

 

Friday, July 4, 2008

This year, neither Icepop nor Mavdad can be there for the Independence Day barbecue, but at least Bradley has escaped Lakehurst. Uncles Wolfe and Hollywood came from Nevada with their nephew Brigham, who was also accepted into the USNA. Also, Viper and his wife Linda decide they don't want to go to New York to see their children, so they join them.

The patio is packed.

The afternoon falls.

Between the noise of the conversations -this time, there is no way to avoid the presidential campaign- and the music -relatively conventional to not upset the Metcalfs- Jake suddenly finds himself sitting alone at the back of the yard while looking at the rest of his family. In six weeks, he will leave everything behind, and he wants to keep these domestic -almost idyllic- images in his memory so that they accompany him in what he imagines will be a challenging year.

It was already difficult to sing "Happy Birthday" to his father via video conference yesterday. He knows Mavdad would want to take him personally to the USNA like he took Brad to the University of Virginia seven years ago, but he's training aviators in Scandinavia. So far north, you must make the most of the summer months. At least they had the last birthday.

"Can I join you?"

From his position on the ground, Brigham Lennox looks pretty tall, and his smile is overwhelming. The reddish light of twilight highlights the golden tone of his skin. The shadows emphasize his wide cheekbones and square chin. Jake pushes those thoughts away and forces himself to look at the glasses of lemonade.

"If one of those is for me."

The brunette nods and sits cross-legged next to him.

"It seems incredible that it's our turn, right?"

"Do you remember your first 4th of July here? It was the summer before Bradley left for college."

"How to forget it! I had never seen the sea. I have never seen a family like yours. Sean was this size and followed my uncle around, making the airplane noise. Mr. aviator boyfriend, he called him."

Jake laughs at the memory.

"That visit to Valle Moapa was impressive. Are you going to miss it?"

"The town? Nah! I'm going to miss my uncles and the airplanes."

"Urgh, you'll have to live without airplane grease under your nails at least until Thanksgiving. What a torture!"

"I'm sure I'll be busy," he looks at him mockingly. "You're a Mitchell, so I'll have to get you out of trouble."

"May I remind you, that the last time it was a Mitchell who saved your uncle."

"I know. My mother and my siblings pray for your father every day, you know? They give thanks for his actions against communist atheists and ask the Lord to protect him."

Jake doesn't know what to answer. Whenever Brig mentions his mother so casually, he feels something jump inside him. He has always avoided the topic, but today is one of the last times they will see each other before going to the USNA, and he has to clear up his doubts.

"You are not…? Aren't you upset with her?"

Now it's Brig's big brown eyes that look confused.

"Upset? Why?"

"Well, because she separated you from the rest of your family."

"Please, Jake, you sound like one of those TV preachers saying that the Gay Agenda this, and the Anti-Christian Agenda that. My mother is an accountant, and my father is a dentist. What were they going to do with a boy who wanted to fly airplanes since he was three years old? I was the third of six. You don't know what it's like to compete for attention in a family like that. Instead, Uncle Leonard gave me a room to myself."

"But, didn't you miss them? You were ten years old, and suddenly alone in the Nevada desert with a guy you had never met."

"Miss what, exactly?" -Brig smacks his lips. "Do you know why my name is Brigham, Jake?"

"No."

"After Brigham Young, the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We are Christian, Joseph, Brigham, Johanna, Wilford, and Lorenza. Named after our Lord and the first five presidents of the Mormon church. My father was thirty when he married, and my mother was sixteen. She was Sam's age when she had my older brother - and he pauses to let the idea sink in.

Jake looks for his sister in the yard. She is sitting next to Linda Metcalf, gesticulating exaggeratedly as she explains something to her. They both smile. The mere idea that a thirty-year-old man, like a school teacher or one of Icepop's assistants, would touch her...

"Were they at least in love?"

He suddenly feels embarrassed to question how Leonard Wolfe, a gay aviator, with his sister Mary Lennox, a devout Mormon, and his nephew Brigham Lennox, a future USNA student, deal with their family drama.

Brig takes a sip of his lemonade and shakes his head.

"I don't know. There, things are different. Love is different. I thought my father was a great guy because he let his wife finish her degree and earn her own money. Now I think it was that or go bankrupt. Six mouths to feed is easy to say, but..." -he sighs. "The thing is that my mother is a good Mormon, and she believes that homosexuality is wrong, but also that you can't leave your family adrift. Uncle Wolfe did not stop being her brother because he went to live in sin with another man. By the same logic, if I had inherited Leonard's desire to fly, it was only fair that he eased her burden and took me in. So my mother didn't get rid of me, Jake. She gave me the chance to reach my true potential."

The blonde takes another sip of his lemonade and looks at the soil, his lips pressed together. Brig can still see the doubt in his friend's eyes. He puts a hand on his shoulder.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

"My mother left me when I was less than a month old," the other nods; he knows about it, vaguely. "When I met you that July 4, they told me you were spending the summer in Moapa. I never thought that... that you would leave your family behind to stay with them permanently. The idea of leaving my brothers is…" -he shakes his head. "How could you?"

"Ah! I'm not going to tell you that it was easy. My world had an order; it was repressive and closed, but it was all I knew. Suddenly, there were no prayers before each meal. I could watch TV and listen to the radio without restrictions. They took me to the town library and let me choose what to read. I was scared of so much freedom! But Leonard and Rick talked to me all the time. They wanted to be my parents. For the first time in my life, I felt like I was someone's priority. That's why I decided to stay in Nevada."

And he shuts up. He can't tell that he also stayed because of the promise that they would visit again the big house in San Diego where the cutest boy in the world lived. He knows Jake is straight, and that's okay. Spending his first ten years in a house with five other siblings where there was never enough money taught him that you can't always have what you want. At least in the USNA, they will be together, and he will be able to veto any candidate for future Mrs. Mitchell.

They will be like Iceman and Maverick because Jake, he knows, is destined for greatness.

Sean's shrill voice brings them out of their reflections.

"It's starting! It's starting!" -the boy shouts, pointing to the sky while jumping.

He brushes their shoulders.

"Let's go see the fireworks."

 

Friday, August 1, 2008

"It's not what I wanted, but it's the best I could get," Maverick apologizes for the umpteenth time to his son.

Jake just smiles. His father has given him a leather aviator jacket lined with soft brown cotton identical to the outer skin. He looks back and forth in front of the large bathroom mirror. Happy.

"It's perfect, Mavdad."

"It's ideal for the Maryland climate," Iceman states from the door. "You're going to break hearts, son."

Jake smiles sheepishly. Icepop keeps making jokes about his future sexual progress at USNA. It seems that Mavdad was a Casanova in college. Another thing in which they are not alike.

He had three sex talks when he was thirteen: one at school, dry, and only for boys. Another was at home, where Sarah took the lead as a nurse with practical exercises on how to put on condoms. The last one, with his therapist, focused on the idea of consent and how to spot red flags in relationships.

All of this left him exhausted and a little disgusted.

To top it off, Bradley gave him a book on non-penetrative sex for his fifteenth birthday. With lots of images and graphics!

Sam and Sean found it hilarious. Jake decided to study it like any technical manual.

From what he understands of social interactions, sex is the second best source of distraction after alcohol. Plus, sometimes, it helps to scale up socially. But he doesn't want distractions in the USNA and hopes he won't have to use his body to advance in the Navy.

Why would he have sex then?

But he doesn't say anything about that to his family. Men are supposed to have a wild libido at seventeen. Jake won't give them any more reasons to worry.

"By the way, I also have an overdue gift to deliver," Ice informs and hands a manila envelope to Maverick. "Happy Birthday."

Jake approaches, curious. The envelope has a dedication in Ice's elegant cursive handwriting, “Something new to do, now that the chicks have flown from the nest,” followed by the signatures of the Kazanskys.

Pete opens it with trembling fingers, suspecting what it is about. They have discussed this a couple of times about preparing ahead of time. He takes out the documents and smiles. He really wants to kiss his husband, and the bastard looks at him with proud eyes. Ice enjoys pushing him to the limit. Test his resistance. It's only two in the afternoon, and hopefully, they'll go to bed by ten at night. Although...  Maybe they can have a quickie before dinner, right?

"What is it?" -Jake asks.

"Property documents," he forces himself to say calmly. "Ice and Sarah gift me a hangar."

"It's to the north, near the Skunk Works, in the middle of the desert," explains Kazansky.

Mitchell swallows dryly. Is it his imagination, or did Tom almost purr that last detail? He can't get an erection while their son is right there! But to imagine that they are alone, with no one within several kilometers around...

"I don't understand." -Jake looks at them with half-closed eyes and a frown.

"They gave me a project, son. Something to do now that you guys flew the nest."

"Oh." -the boy still doesn't seem very convinced. "Okay." -and he goes to his room.

Ice watches him leave with some trepidation. Maybe giving Pete the gift in front of Jake wasn't a good idea? But he doesn't have time to ponder the matter: Pete goes to the door of "his" room to put away the documents. Before entering, he gives him a smoldering look. He hurries towards his own room.

They have yet to visit the hangar, and it's already giving them benefits! Best investment EVER!

At dinner time, Jake is still taciturn. The conversation mainly falls on Sarah and Sam, who shopped for all the new clothes the girl will need in South Dakota. Sean also shares things from his summer camp. Pete focused on his youngest son's achievements, doesn't notice that Jake barely participates. Ice does notice. His son looks at him and Sarah intensely as if they were parts of a puzzle he wants to decipher.

He'd seen that expression before, and it never brought anything good.

Will today be when their bubble finally bursts?

The definitive evidence that something is wrong comes when the boy says.

"I'll help you wash the dishes, Mavdad."

Sam raises her eyebrows, amazed. It's her turn, and her sensaku hates washing dishes. But Samantha Kazansky is a pragmatic person. If her brother wants to take an extra shift in the kitchen to spend more time with Mavdad, why stop him?

She goes upstairs to brush her teeth and put the new stuff in order.

In the kitchen, Pete prepares the soap and puts on his apron and gloves. Jake does the same. They start with the glasses: he lathers, his son rinses. It is easy for them to find a stable rhythm. He waits until the knives are on the drainboard before starting the conversation.

"Will you tell me what's bothering you?"

The boy twists his lips, reluctant.

"I only have four days of leave, son. I don't know when I'll be back home or if I'll meet you before next summer."

"You will come back? Home, I say."

"Of course, I'll come home. Where else?"

"You could go to your new hangar."

Pete raises his eyebrows in surprise.

"To the hangar? Right now, I don't even know if it has running water. Why would I go there instead of returning home?"

"Because that's what Ice and Sarah want, right? That you finally leave."

The man places the plate he was lathering carefully in the bottom of the sink, afraid of dropping it because of the sudden shaking of his hands. How can a gesture as sweet as Ice's be so misunderstood? He does the breathing exercises he learned nine years ago from Dr. Poole.

"Son, Ice, and Sarah don't want me to go anywhere. I promise you."

He grabs the plate and hands it to Jake, who rinses it with blunt gestures.

"Sure. And that's why they give you a property four hours from here, just before your second child goes to university. Come on, dad! I know you're used to justifying them, but this is too much."

"I'm not justifying them," he insists. "This house is getting empty, Jake. In four years, Sean will be leaving for the USNA, and no amount of bike rebuilding or backyard exercise obstacle line development will be able to entertain me. You know me, I always need something new to do. Ice and I are aviators. The only thing we are interested in, besides our kids, are airplanes. Now tell me, where are the planes kept?"

The boy pauses.

"In hangars?"

"Exactly."

"You say they bought you a hangar so you and Ice can play mechanics in your free time?"

"Yeah."

Jake bursts out laughing.

"That's ridiculous. First, the plane is missing. Second, Ice wants to be an admiral. He's not going to get dirty with you when he could be making connections to get promoted. Third, and most importantly, that sounds so, so gay that Sarah, no matter how much she trusts you two, won´t allow it, on principle."

"I didn't think you cared so much about what looks gay or not."

His father's cold tone makes Jake sober right away.

"No, no, wait. I don't... I'm not a homophobe, okay? But we are a military family, and DADT rules our lives. It is one thing that we live here because of the generosity of Icepop and Sarah…"

"We don't live here for charity!" -he interrupts, exasperated. "This is our house. We are Family. Why is it so difficult for you to accept it?"

"Uh, I don't know," Jake replies sarcastically. "Maybe because I don't have a mother. My therapist says I have "abandonment issues" because you separated me from her when I was a newborn."

"There we go, it all comes back to Rachel."

"No, this time you made me mention Rachel. I'm just saying that the mere idea of you and Ice spending time alone in the middle of the desert is super gay. So gay, Dad, that the glorious Vice Admiral Kazansy, known for his cold and calculating character, would never do it. Because he has plans, big plans for himself and his family." -he takes off his rubber gloves with sharp gestures- "So get over it, Dad. In that hangar, you will be alone."

Pete doesn't turn around. From the sound of hurried footsteps on the gallery and the stairs, he knows that his son went to the second floor, probably to his room. He keeps cleaning the kitchen slowly. He wants to give himself time to regain his calm. He can't go up there and ruin Ice and Sarah's night.

"That could have turned out better."

The pot crash against the steel bottom of the sink is the perfect echo for his racing heart.

"Oh God!" -he turns to his husband, leaning on the frame of the entrance to the stairs that lead to the solarium. "Since when have you been there?"

Ice shrugs and walks into the kitchen.

"Our son thinks I'm Stan Kowalsky, and you're Blanche DuBois. But instead of a bus ticket, I bought you a building."

"More or less."

"He is right."

"About what?"

"It does sound super gay when you said aloud. We going alone into the desert. Even more so after that movie… the one about the cowboys with the boy from "Ten Things I Hate About You."

"Brokeback Mountain?"

"That one. He used to tell the wife that they were going fishing, remember?"

"Yes, I remember."

The kitchen is spotless. Maverick no longer has any excuses to avoid looking at his husband in the face. He turns, leans against the sink, and crosses his arms over his chest.

"So he's right? Will you send me to the desert alone to earn you a couple of stars?"

"Do not be ridiculous!" -Tom replies with an offended tone. "We will take Sarah, as appropriate."

"Oh!" -Pete allows himself a minimal smile. "You are a sexist pig, Kazansky. You will bring your wife to cook for us?"

"Well, I definitely can't expect you to cook wherever we go. Come on," -he extends a hand- "let's go to sleep."

Mav intertwines their fingers and rests his head on his husband's shoulder.

"Take me to bed, Vice Admiral Kazansky."

 

INDEX: http://palabraspulsares.blogspot.com/p/the-lies-we-told-each-other-4-roots.html