Read The Late Bloomer for Free Online Page B

mother was away for a day and Dad was watching us. Shit started leaking from Kyle’s diaper as he butt-bounced down the carpeted stairs from the second floor to the living room. Dad had to change Kyle’s diaper and wipe up the mess, probably for the first time in his married life. He shouted at Kyle so much that day that, according to both my mom and dad, Kyle did not talk to my dad for about the next five years.
    As pre-kindergartners, although Kyle is the sweetest kid on the block, he is as clumsy, shy and introverted as I am active, friendly and outgoing. Kyle loves animals. He enjoys catching tadpoles andwatching them grow into frogs, and likes trapping turtles. He’s got a gentle touch with nature; I’d rather play with a ball.
    Growing up, the single greatest thing Kyle and I have in common is our white-blond hair. When I’m four, Kyle, carrying his perpetual hangdog expression, mopes around the neighborhood so quietly that I feel obligated to speak on behalf of the Baker boy most everyone assumes is a deaf-mute.
    â€œWould you like some soup?” our neighbor, Mrs. Parker, asks Kyle one day during a visit. He gives his usual response to strangers’ inquiries: He sucks his thumb and stares down at his untied sneakers.
    Usually, older brothers protect their younger brothers. Standing a little over half his height, though, it is I who looks out for my older brother, mostly because I hate it when people think he’s retarded. “Kyle doesn’t like soup,” I protectively tell Mrs. Parker. “He likes cheese sandwiches.” Mimicking what I had heard Mom explain to other adults, I add, “He’s just shy.”
    My mother tries like hell to turn Kyle into a walking, talking human being like the rest of his extroverted brothers. And Dad? He shows love the only way he really knows how: He makes Kyle play sports.
    First up, baseball. Bigger than the other kids, Kyle initially can slug the ball over the outfield fence and throw harder than anyone. But by the time he turns twelve—when other kids get quicker and more competitive—Kyle, who had earned the nickname “gentle giant,” lags behind and soon quits.
    The same thing happens with hockey. After I begin playing at age eight, Dad signs up Kyle for the beginners’ clinic. While I whiz around the rink, skating and stickhandling circles around opponents, Kyle glides along the boards, ankles bent inward, simply struggling not to crack his tailbone when he crashes to the ice like a sack of bricks. Dad probably thinks that lavishing me with praise will motivate Kyle to get better. It doesn’t. Kyle quits after just one season.
    Kyle stays inside most of the time, reading sci-fi novels, watching
Star Trek
and sketching apocalyptic cartoons in his sketchbook. He’s an earnest, well-behaved kid; yet, soon Dad all but stops paying attention to Kyle.
    While playing in the side yard one afternoon, I overhear my parents arguing in the kitchen.
    â€œLarry,” Mom whispers, “just because he doesn’t like sports doesn’t mean he’s gay. He has different interests than the other kids. He needs your support. Did you ever think that maybe he’s alone up there right now because you’re not with him?”
    The argument ends like most of theirs: Dad lets out a condescending grunt and storms out of the house and peels out of the driveway, leaving behind a fresh scent of burnt rubber and my mother crying at the kitchen table.
    Mom signs Kyle up for private art lessons, which gives him an expressive outlet but further alienates him from my dad, who, of course, says, “Art is for homos.”
    The less attention he gives Kyle, the more Kris, the baby of the family, and I receive. It’s not exactly a shock that by age fifteen Kyle becomes a stoner (following in the freak footsteps of elders Kevin and Keith) and wants nothing to do with Dad and everything to do with enjoying the