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When he was a child, he had heard it a million times: how much he looked like his father, how similar they were. Their dark hair and eyes, their stature. The way they would smirk at things. The way they committed to telling a joke. The quiet understandings they had with people.
Thomas took a then 7-year-old Angus to the printing company where he worked one day. He showed him around, demonstrating the presses he used and explaining how his job worked. The older secretary, whose name he had forgotten, pinched his cheeks until they turned red.
“Well, what did you think, dear? Do you think you’d like to be like your father one day?”
He used to feel so proud when people asked him those questions. That they could see a man like his father in him already.
The questions, the comments, really any mention of his father, stopped by the time he was 15. It was as if he never existed. The man who tethered him to the ground, that towered above him, that kneeled before him, had disappeared. So he, too, began to disappear, just like his father. No one dared to say anything; few could notice it anyway, but Angus resembled this new and troubled side of his father just as much.
His mother knew. She saw that same anger and sadness, that same agitated look in his eyes. Try as she might, the face of her once beloved son, her baby, morphed into a nightmarish reflection of that creature she once joined in holy matrimony on a rainy June day.
There needed to be distance between them, time apart, is what Stanley told her on the day she had her first blowout fight with Angus. It seemed cruel then, it still does now, but the part of her that could feel guilty for such a thing died when she became Judy Clotfelter.
Angus could hardly blame her. Any rage he felt towards her would always deflate into a deep and oozing guilt. It sat in his stomach so long that it had made a home there. Funny thing was, when that feeling got a little quieter, it wasn’t because of his shrink, or his new family, it was his crotchety ancient civilizations teacher.
"You are not your father."
Angus had heard that many times before, but coming from the whiskeyed lips of Mr. Hunham, it finally stuck. It sounded like a fact when he said it, as if he knew all things past, present, and future. That he was sure of it.
He liked the way that Mr. Hunham spoke to him. The adults who knew about his home life would speak to him as though he were an idiot. The adults who didn’t know just assumed he was one. Mr. Hunham, at both points, knew he was smart. He still treated him like a kid, sure, but like a kid with a bright future ahead of him.
Some follow the paths set forth by their fathers, for some, it’s the only ones they’ll ever know. For Angus, that path was to the rubber room. His stepfather’s, an office in some building that he never bothered to learn the name of didn’t sound much better. So when he stood in a liquor store in the South Side of Boston with his teacher, and was told that Barton’s finest never finished college due to committing near vehicular manslaughter, Angus began to think about his path a little differently.
When his mother had first brought Stanley home to meet him, it felt like she was trying to sell him on it, but he knew she had already made up her mind. He didn’t even bother to entertain her. It should have felt right. He wanted her to be happy. He’s a normal guy, successful, handsome. He brought the first smile to her face that he had seen in years.
But that was just it. He was perfect. His mother had found perfection in him, something she would never see again in her own son. He knew that she would find perfection in Stanley’s son, too, and whenever that happened, no one would see anything in him anymore. He would belong to no one.
Then came that fateful winter. 1970. Angus’ second time being a junior, and his first time being alone. It would also be the only time.
None of them was sure, least of all him, how it came to be. A grieving cafeteria lady, a curmudgeonly history teacher, and a discarded boy. It was like a twisted nativity scene, and yet, it was the best Christmas he ever had.
Mr. Hunham and Ms. Lamb, or Paul and Mary, as he got to know them later, were the greatest gifts he received that year. They were broken, they were lonely, and they were perfect.
His mother couldn’t bear to look him in the eye. Mary would look into them to find a glimpse of another discarded boy, her own.
His stepfather would tell him that he needed to become a man, become a functioning member of society. Paul would tell him to be his own man before going on to remind him that the Latin societas extended beyond the corporate American machine.
His mother began to forget things about him as they spent more and more time apart: foods, bands, and movies he liked. Mary knew to have a plate of brownies ready when Angus would come to watch his favorite show, Laugh-In, with her and Danny.
His stepfather always told him to hold in his anger, to not be so belligerent, especially towards those who were above him. Paul would say “fuck them” in between sips of a double Jim Beam.
His mother didn’t ask him what he wanted to do in life anymore; she was too scared. Mary sat down with him and read through as many college pamphlets and informational packets as they could get their hands on.
His stepfather would always correct people; he was his stepfather. He could never take responsibility for someone like him. Paul, the few times he had pretended to be Angus’ father, uncle, whatever they told people, would always wear a proud smile. It never faded, even after they would drop the ruse.
In the winter before he graduated from Barton, his father had been found dead in a corner of the hospital he had been moved to. He had taken his own life, what little was left of it anyway.
His mother and stepfather said no more than a few words. They buried Thomas on a cold and bright January day without much of a memorial. The drive from Barton to the cemetery was longer than the service, and as soon as they were there, they turned back around.
The Clotfelters did not visit again, but a few days later, on an even colder day after it had snowed, that twisted nativity scene once again came together. Paul and Mary stood by as Angus got to have the visit he had wanted when they went to Boston. He could visit the man who raised him, whom people admired, whom he admired. Not the hollowed-out shell he sat across from the year before.
He left a particularly festive, red and silver snow globe by the newly engraved granite stone. He had seen it in the window of a gift store in town when they were walking back to the car from lunch.
“Don’t even think about pilfering that one, Mr. Tully.” Paul softly shook his head and laughed before handing him a wad of cash to buy it.
As soon as he stood back up from the crunchy, snow-covered ground, he just about fell into Mary’s arms.
“Please tell me… I’m not doomed… I’m not him…” He sniffled as he planted his face into her shoulder.
“Oh, honey." She patted the snow-dampened curls on his head.
"You’re gonna be alright. You’re Angus Tully. The one and only.”
For the first time in his life, someone stood in front of Angus and his father and only saw him.