.

"Oskar von Reuenthal, sit up straight!”

Reuenthal decided not to grace Mr O’Donahue with a response. He was too tired for this, goddammit. The lab surface his face was laid atop reeked of rubbing alcohol, and he swallowed down a gag. He probably shouldn’t have tried to drink Bittenfeld under the table last night, but with a challenge like that, he wasn’t going to back down without a fight.

Through the haze of his hangover he could make out Mr O’Donahue going on about acids and bases. Reuenthal sighed. The only thing chemistry was good for was when the class was allowed to conduct experiments, and even then, it was only because his lab partner was Yang Wen-li. Unfortunately they had double chemistry that day, the first half of which would always be a lecture.

Speaking of Yang, he turned his head to the side to look up at him. To the untrained observer, Yang appeared attentive; chin resting on one hand, his eyes following Mr O’Donahue as he walked around in front of the whiteboard. However, if you looked at Yang closely, you would notice the slight downturned shape of his mouth, the spot of drool at the corner threatening to fall, and the broad line that his pen had drawn across his notes. Yang Wen-li had really perfected the art of napping in class with his eyes open.

“Oskar, perhaps you would find the next part of this lesson more interesting. This morning's experiment will focus on titration, a quantitative technique we will employ in order to determine the concentration of an unknown acid or base.”

Irritation flickered across Reuenthal’s mind. He never made a secret of his full name being Oskar von Reuenthal, but always introduced himself as Reuenthal. The rest of his teachers had acceded to his request to be referred to only by his last name - O’Donahue was the only teacher who remained obstinate.

Reuenthal yawned audibly as Mr O’Donahue wrote the word “TITRATION” on the board in large, floppy letters. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Mr O’Donahue turned around and pointed his marker at the first part of the word.

"Unlike what Oskar might imagine, titration is not what he might do if he were a judge at the Miss Universe competition."

The class erupted in laughter. Reuenthal winced at the noise, sat up, stretched, and grinned. "That's where you're wrong, Mr O'Dondons. I'm as gay as they come."

Reuenthal set his head back down on the lab counter again amidst murmurs from his classmates.

Well, that was that. He hadn't quite meant to come out in front of the entire class, but his hungover brain apparently had other ideas. The rational part of his brain nagged that this would not be the last that he was going to hear of this, that he would be subjected to the high school rumour mill for at least the next month, but the hungover part of his brain couldn’t care less. He couldn’t wait to dig into a nice plate of spinach and lentil curry with rice at the school canteen. It wasn’t as if the whole idea of being gossiped about was new to him anyway.

Yang frowned down at him. “You shouldn’t call him that, you know.”

Reuenthal looked up, meeting Yang’s eyes. “What?”

“His name is Mr O’Donahue, not… what you said."Reuenthal cracked his neck. “It’s his fault for not bothering to remember that I prefer Reuenthal. He doesn’t want to remember my name, I won’t bother to remember his. What kind of a name is Oskar, anyway."

Inexplicably to Reuenthal, Yang frowned even deeper. Something that wasn’t last night’s alcohol stirred inside Reuenthal. O’Donahue was just another dumb teacher. What did Yang care about O’Donahue?

Yang worried his lip with his teeth, making it redder than it was before. “Besides, didn’t you announce last month that you were bi?"

“I’m a teenager, Yang. More than anyone, I’m allowed to not know who I am. I’m a beautiful work in progress. Don’t question it.”

Yang shrugged and turned his eyes back to his notes, as a dumbfounded Mr O’Donahue found his words and began his lecture again.

—

Lunch wasn’t much better. First of all, Yang went scurrying off in the opposite direction after chemistry. Secondly, to Reuenthal’s annoyance, Bittenfeld would not stop talking about last night, and third, to make matters even worse, Mittermeyer, who couldn’t be at the party because of his football tournament, was lapping it all up. There was some mercy in the fact that the loudest of the group – Bittenfeld, Mittermeyer, and Mecklinger - were over at the four-seater next to him.

He pushed his half-eaten plate to the side, slammed his rucksack a little harder than usual down on the table, and pretended to sleep.

He wondered what Yang was up to. Probably having lunch with Schönkopf and the rest of that group, he supposed. He sighed. That was not a good memory. He’d gone to Schönkopf’s house during the holidays once, gotten into a huge fight about who was going to top who, and ended up waking up Schönkopf’s grandfather, who was less than impressed and kicked Reuenthal out of the house.

Of course, locked doors were no match for Reuenthal, who simply swung his way up the window ledge to Schönkopf’s room again. Eventually it ended up being more of a consensual silent wrestling match than actual sex, to the point that Reuenthal’s father actually deigned to lay his eyes on him for longer than a split second when Reuenthal came home the next morning, sporting an impressive black eye and covered in scratches and bruises.

Reuenthal was yanked out of his reverie by the loud thud of a glass placed near his temple. He groaned and turned his head, ready to fix whoever was responsible with his worst glare, but before he could, he felt a large hand on his back.

“Drink some water,” said Mittermeyer, shimmying into the seat next to Reuenthal. “You’re warm. Have you had painkillers?”

“No,” Reuenthal mumbled, leaning closer and digging his head into Mittermeyer’s warm shoulder.

“Good. If you’re dumb enough to even try to best Bittenfeld at his own game, you probably deserve some suffering.”

Reuenthal whined.

“Only so you won’t try it again. Come on, finish the glass. I promise you’ll feel better if you do.”

Reuenthal continued to whine, digging his head deeper into Mittermeyer. His best friend always smelt of orange-scented detergent and clothes that were dried outside in the sunlight, rather than clothes that were simply tumbled in a machine. But Mittermeyer only had eyes for Eva from class 10B, Reuenthal reminded himself. Besides, Mittermeyer was his best friend, and oh so painfully straight. He sighed. Why did god have to curse him with perpetual horniness?

Mittermeyer popped two painkillers out of a blister pack he had pulled out of his own bag, and dropped them into the glass of water in front of them.

“Here, those were my last two painkillers. Painkillers that I keep specifically for you, I'll add. Now you have to drink the entire glass within the next minute, otherwise it’ll dissolve and turn into a nasty…”

“Fine, fine, I’ll drink it.”

Reuenthal grabbed the glass and chugged everything down in one go. “There.”

They both sighed at the same time. Reuenthal looked up. This particular part of the canteen overlooked the outdoor amphitheatre, where some seniors were putting on a lunchtime strings concert.

“Reu, we’ve got to talk about this, you know.”

Reuenthal pretended to be fascinated by the strings performance. It was from some kind of arrangement of an orchestral piece. In some minor key, he supposed, based on the way it sounded. He thought his grandmother maybe used to listen to it when she was alive and living in their house, but he wasn’t too sure. He wasn’t much of an expert on classical music.

Mittermeyer sighed. That flare of irritation rose up inside Reuenthal again. He wasn’t sure what was worse, Yang frowning, or Mittermeyer sighing.

“You can’t just announce in the middle of chemistry class that you’re gay. And you can’t just spend the day lying around and nursing your hangover in the middle of the week.”

Reuenthal rubbed at his face. How had Mittermeyer heard about this already? Mittermeyer didn’t even take Chemistry.

“What’s wrong with coming out of the closet, Mitter? You wouldn’t know, you straight people don’t have to go around announcing that you’re straight just so that people will know who you are.”

“You know that’s not what I mean. Just three and a half weeks ago you announced to every single 10th grader in study hall that you’re bisexual. And with all the rumours about you sleeping around, what are people going to think?”

Reuenthal coughed out an ugly laugh. “Who cares what people think? Let them think I’m a sexually confused slut. What difference does it make?”

Mittermeyer sighed again. Reuenthal felt a sudden urge to punch the table in front of him, but dug his nails into his palm instead using what little self-control he could muster.

“Fine. The other thing, Reu. I know we’re dumb teenagers with too much time and pocket money on our hands, but you really need to stop with the drinking. What is this, the third time you’ve come into school hungover?”

“Fourth."

“Look man, I’m going to be frank with you, all right? Don’t get mad. But I thought someone with your kind of family background would stay away from alcohol.”

“Don’t start on this, Mitterm-“

“I’m not done, Reuenthal, I’m not done. You gotta know that there’s a limit to the amount of shit you can pull off and get away with because you’re lucky, or because people give you a second chance because you’re a teenager. You’re not dumb. You know all the teachers have their eyes on you, especially the housemasters. Do you really want to go back and live with your dad?”

“Fuck no, I-“

“Let me tell you something, Reu. You might not be a day student, but they can send you back to your dad and make you a day student if they don’t think you have the responsibility and the discipline to be a boarder. Right now there’s rumours flying left and right about you sleeping with people, about you leaving used condoms on the AstroTurf on top of the Music block, about you spray painting dicks onto the principal’s car…  the list goes on, man.”

“That wasn’t m-”

“Not even remotely the point here. The point is that you’ve become the name that people associate with shit like this. And your grades having been steadily dropping for the past 6 months. It doesn’t look good, Reu.”

It was Reuenthal’s turn to sigh. “Are you my mother, Mittermeyer?”

“No, and you haven’t got one, Reu, so I’m just trying to help.”

“That was a low blow, even for you.”

“Think about it, all right? You know I can help you with Math. Yang can help you with History. Bittenfeld… maybe Bittenfeld’s a bit of a dumbass, we all know that, but at least we’ve also got smart friends like Mecklinger, Lutz, and Wahlen who can help you pull up your grades.”

“Grades aren’t everything Mittermeyer, I’m not a number-“

“I said think about it. I’ve gotta go to Phys Ed early, Mr Menken wants me to help set up the lane dividers in the pool.”

“Teacher’s pet. Speaking of, did Ms Chen set you up to having this talk with me?"

"Definitely not."

"You've always been terrible at lying, Mittermeyer."

“See you later, Reu.”

—

Reuenthal looked up at the skies above him. His window at the boarding house faced a small forest, which allowed him to see some stars that weren’t always visible from other parts of the school. After positioning himself using the three stars of Orion’s belt - Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka, he spotted Rigel, Betelgeuse, Bellatrix, and Saiph.

The boarding house windows were constructed so that there was a ledge sticking out of the window - presumably to stop students from dropping things from their windows, but Reuenthal liked to climb onto this ledge to watch the stars. Plus, there was always the thrill of being one slip, one false step away from falling off the edge.

His lessons after lunch had been - better than he could have hoped for, he supposed. Nobody was sticking Reuenthal’s head down the toilet or cutting up his textbooks, but he also didn’t really have anyone. He’d had German class, where Herr Tümmers allowed him to simply sit at the back of the classroom as long as he did what he was told, and Drama class, where he and Wahlen were in charge of working the sound for a production they were rehearsing.

As he was a native German speaker they’d placed him in the Advanced German class, where the rest of his classmates were quiet and studious, and liked to pretend that the weirdo with the baggy trousers didn’t exist. Of course, Wahlen didn’t speak unless it was absolutely necessary, and drama class was one of the rare classes where Reuenthal felt a responsibility to do well, as such a major part of the performance depended on him.

It was the staring and whispering during study hall that had done it for him, and he’d packed up his laptop and books and made his way back to his room, Ms Ferranti’s yelling be damned.

“Reuenthal?”

Reuenthal startled and grabbed hold of the window ledge, looking inside the dimly lit dorm room.

“Yang? What are you doing here?”

Yang had been hovering at Reuenthal’s doorway – which he had forgotten to lock, that was his own damned fault – but was now in the middle of Reuenthal’s room, his hands held out in front of his chest as if he was trying to placate a scared animal.

“Reuenthal? You’d better come down from there.”

Reuenthal laughed and hopped down. “Come on Yang, relax. What’s up?”

“I realised in my rush to go to my next class that I’d taken two copies of the chemistry homework. It must be yours, so… I came to pass it to you.”

“Oh.” Reuenthal took the piece of paper from Yang’s hands, glancing down at it with mild disinterest. He set it on his desk, which was overflowing with worksheets and textbooks. He sat down on his bed, and gestured for Yang to do the same.

“Oh, um, it’s okay. I have a lot of homework to do, so…”

“Dude. Just… relax. Don’t leave so soon.”

Yang sighed and perched awkwardly at Reuenthal’s chair, eyeing the massive cushion on Reuenthal’s bed. Reuenthal noticed, and threw the cushion at him.

“Are you feeling better?” Yang asked.

“Yeah, Mittermeyer forced a glass of water and some painkillers down my throat during lunch. That helped.”

“I should probably have thought of that.”

Reuenthal laid down on his bed with a soft thump and sighed. “Look, just because we went to the same kindergarten eleven years ago and just because I tried to help you that one time when you pissed your pants, doesn’t mean you have to look out for me now, okay?”

Yang turned a brilliant crimson and Reuenthal had to stifle a snigger.

“I’d been trying to wipe that from my memory.”

“It was funny, though, right? I can’t believe we thought we would get away with that. Do you remember how we got caught? I was caught red-handed carrying a bucket full of swimming pool water that I was going to use to wash you and your pee-soaked pants. The teacher followed me to find you sobbing half-naked behind the classroom block.”

“Please stop.”

“Wouldn’t you absolutely kill to go back to way back then, though?”

“...yeah. I guess I would.”

A heavy but warm silence fell between them. There were some footsteps and voices from the corridor outside, but a door closed, and there was silence again. Yang glanced at the clock that hung above every dorm room door. It was fifteen minutes to lights out.

Reuenthal cleared his throat.“I wonder though, if ten years down the line, we would just be thinking the same thing. That it’ll always just be… everything looking better in retrospect and wishing you were where you were ten years ago. And it that’s how it’ll always be, then… why keep trying, y’know?”

“Don’t be so negative.”

“Where do you think you’ll be in ten years?”

Yang squeezed at Reuenthal’s cushion. “Well, at that point, I hope I’ve finished my doctorate in history, or at least close to finishing it. I want to be a history professor at university, and just… write books about history and teach people about history, I guess. That and sleep a lot, you know. I could always do with more sleep.”

They snickered, and Reuenthal felt a little bit lighter. “I can imagine you being a kickass historian. You’d be a bestselling author, and your books would probably get made into movies and all.”

Yang laughed out loud, and it was a golden sound, full of light. “I don’t think they make movies out of history books. But maybe a documentary.”

“Well yeah, that. And I’d watch every last one of them.”

“You’d have to, because I’d send you DVDs of every last one.”

“They probably won’t even have DVDs in the future, right. I mean, the hot new thing is YouTube, but I’m sure they would have something like cable television, but on the internet, you know? Maybe you’ll get your own channel one day and be like, Yang Wen-li the History Guy.”

Yang smiled. A career in the limelight was far from what he had in mind, but he appreciated his friend’s enthusiasm.

“Maybe. But how about you, Reuenthal? Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

Reuenthal ran a hand through his hair. “Honestly? I don’t see myself being alive in 10 years.”

Yang frowned.

“Okay, fine. I don’t know… I’m good with my hands, I guess? Maybe something to do with the theatre, like what I do in Drama class. Lights, sound, makeup, costuming, that sort of thing.”

“Living up to the gay stereotype, I see.”

Reuenthal stared at Yang.

“Too soon?”

Reuenthal threw his head back and laughed. “Yang, you don’t joke like this often, but when you do, it’s amazing.”

The two of them drifted off into a comfortable silence again. Yang looked at the chemistry homework on Reuenthal’s desk, picked up a pen, and began to write some explanatory notes on the margins. He figured Reuenthal would struggle to do most of the questions if he had not been properly paying attention in class, which Yang suspected was the case.

By the time Yang had written notes for all of the questions, Reuenthal had fallen asleep, snoring softly in his bed. Yang smiled to himself and gently placed a blanket over Reuenthal.

Reuenthal looked so untroubled like this, with his eyes closed, mouth slightly open, and laying on his side. Yang brushed his knuckles against the softness of Reuenthal’s cheek and returned to his own room.

10 17 Reasons Why My Dad Is Crying

By Felix Reuenthal-Mittermeyer

My dad cries A LOT, though not in public. I sometimes pretend not to see because I think he gets embarrassed.

Julian taught me how to crochet acrylic tea towels for dad’s café. Julian, Uncle Yang, Uncle Walter, Aunt Frederica, and I made dad 20 of them together for the café’s anniversary. They all have brown and blue stripes, just like the colour of dad’s eyes. (Julian says I can just call him Julian because he is not as old as Uncle Yang. Uncle Yang says this is rude, but Mrs Wahlen says it’s important to respect people’s wishes, especially when it is about how they want to be called.) (The ones that Uncle Yang made are a little lopsided and he was sad about it, but we told him it’s the thought that counts.) (Julian and Uncle Walter made the nicest looking ones.)

Papa came home sad and quiet because there were some people he couldn’t save even though he tried his best. Papa cries when something bad happens to dad, and dad cries when something bad happens to papa. I’ve never seen mama cry.

Dad received a call from my school’s PTA asking whether dad might be able to contribute about 100 cupcakes to the El Facil War Orphans Charity Bake Sale.

Dad cuddled with mama and got his hair caught in one of mama’s dangly necklaces.

Dad cuddled with papa and got his hair caught on the velcro on papa’s uniform.

Alexander came over to our house to play, and said that dad’s hair reminded him of one of Uncle Paul’s dogs, a cocker spaniel.

Papa was clumsy and smashed a bottle of Moët so dad had to make do with beer for his birthday. (I think papa was also crying at the time.)

We watched Moana together.

We watched The Rise of the Guardians together.

Sometimes dad remembers bad things from his old job. Mama says that if he hasn’t locked himself up in his room, the best we can do for him is to be with him and tell him that we love him. But sometimes, the only thing we can do is to give him some space until he feels better.

We had a house party in our backyard, and papa invited all of Uncle Yang’s friends; Julian, Uncle Walter, Uncle Dusty, Aunt Frederica, Uncle Alex, Uncle Olivier, and Uncle Ivan. They came with a carton of party poppers, a trolley full of fireworks, and huge bags of gummy bears.

Mr Bittenfeld called dad and said that I was fighting with girls. He asked dad to come and take me home for the rest of the day. (I don’t fight often. A girl was making fun of Alexander’s dad and I got really angry. I yelled at her and she hit me twice in the face. I didn’t hit her.) Dad came to pick me up in his van. He refused to talk to me, and he was crying the whole time. It was scary and I think he was angry with me. (I explained what happened later and said I was sorry. Dad said I was a good boy but that I shouldn’t get myself into situations like that. I told him I’d do the same thing if it happened again because Alexander is my best friend. He told me to go to bed.)

I told dad that Uncle Paul was really cool.

I told dad that Uncle Paul was so much cooler than him and that I want to go and live with Uncle Paul. (I was upset because he said I couldn’t get a Dalmatian like the one Uncle Paul has.) (I said sorry afterwards and made him a card to say that he is the world’s coolest dad.) (I also made one to say that papa is the world’s coolest papa.) (And another one to say that mama is the world’s coolest mama.) (And another one to say that Uncle Paul is the world’s coolest uncle.) (Dad doesn’t know about that one.) (Please don’t tell him.)

When a customer left after eating only one bite of his signature lemon pie that takes a long time to make, and he had to throw it away.

When the students at the university decided to use his café as a debriefing place for their orientation activity after running around in the sun.

Kaiser Reinhard Cultural Centre Writing Competition

Theme: “Family - What is your family like? What is important in your family?”

Junior Category - Silver Award

Published in the New Odin Chronicle

My Family

By Felix Reuenthal-Mittermeyer

(10 years old)

What is your family like?

Dad always says that we Reuenthal-Mittermeyers get to choose our families.

My family is a little bit different from other families. I have two fathers, one mother, and a mother who gave birth to me. I’ve never met my birth mother before, but that’s okay because she didn’t want me to be a part of her life.

My best friend Alexander once asked me, If you cut your finger while opening a box of Galactic Crunch and yell for your father, do both of your fathers come running? The answer to that is, the blond-haired one is my papa, while the brown-haired one is my dad. My mum gets to be my mum, my mummy, or my mama because she is the only mother I have.

Uncle Paul says that “papa” sounds like the kind of father I love and ask for dogs, while “dad” sounds like I am fed up with my father. But that’s not really true. I love both of my fathers, even if papa is a little bit silly sometimes, and even if dad is a little bit scary.

When I was six, we went on a family holiday to stay at a mountain lodge that used to belong to my dad’s family, and now belongs to my dad. There was a river next to the lodge, and my papa got a little bit too excited about the swing that was hanging next to the river. He put me in his lap and we swung back and forth, but he put both his arms in the air to cheer and dropped me by accident. I fell in the water, but it was lucky because that was the holiday after we had swimming lessons in school. I did the freestyle all the way back to the shore, and when I told Mr Wahlen, my PE teacher, he said that I was a brave boy.

Dad and mother scolded papa really badly afterwards, and dad said I could have hit my head and died. Papa wasn’t allowed to have dessert, so I got to eat two cups of ice cream instead of one. He can drop me more often it means I can eat lots of ice cream.

Dad can be a bit scary sometimes because he is always a little bit strange after he comes back from work. He brings me cake and he smells really good, but sometimes when he comes home he holds me really tightly and doesn’t say anything. Sometimes when he lets go my hair is wet, and I don’t know why.

Papa and dad always say that mama is the queen of the family and that none of us would survive longer than a week if mama wasn’t around. I agree, because mama and I always have to make sure that papa doesn’t set anything on fire when it’s his turn to cook, and have to remind dad to eat three meals a day. One time, papa tried to microwave an egg. Mama and I refused to clean up after him and he spent an entire afternoon cleaning pieces of burnt egg and egg shells from inside the microwave.

What is important in your family?

The first thing that is very important in my family is that we do our share of the housework. All of my parents work. My mama is a clinical psychologist, which means that she helps people who are sick. My papa is an ambulance driver and EMT (emergency medical technician), which means that although his main job is driving an ambulance, he can also help people if he needs to. Papa is famous for being one of the fastest and safest ambulance drivers, and he saves a lot of people’s lives every day. Dad has his own café, where he makes lots of really good muffins, cakes, and pies. He also makes a yucky brown drink for Uncle Yang but I'm not allowed to have it and I don't like it anyway.

Because we are all really busy, it’s really important to us that we all do our part. We have a housework chart in the living room for every day of the week. My English teacher Mrs Wahlen was really impressed when I told her that I can use a washing machine on my own, but I think it’s easy unless I am washing bedsheets. Those are really big, especially papa and mama’s, and I need to climb up and down the ladder a few times outside to make sure they are lined up straight when I hang them out to dry.

Mama says I should say thank you whenever somebody does something for me, but I don’t really like it when it’s papa’s turn to cook. He is not very good, and everything he makes is either raw or burnt. He is only allowed to cook vegetables because the last time he tried to cook meat, we all got sick. So papa usually just makes a tuna salad, and those are a little bit boring. Don’t tell papa I said that, though.

Another thing that is very important in my family is that we make time for each other. Because we are all really busy people (I have so much homework!) it is easy for us to forget to stop and say I love you. On most days, only three of us can have dinner together because either papa or dad would be out working a night shift. But it is a rule in our house that at least once every week, we sit together, play cards, and share about one thing we learnt that week. Sometimes mama and papa talk about things that are too difficult for me to understand, but I love it when dad shares, because it is usually about a new recipe he has made, and he gets really excited when he talks about that. He also talks about interesting history facts that he heard from Uncle Yang, which is fun. I don’t get to see Uncle Yang very often because I am not allowed to walk to the café on my own, but when I see him he always has cool stories about old people and I really like them.

My parents also say it’s important to make time for friends. About twice a month we have a dinner with our family friends. Last week, we had dinner at Uncle Paul’s place. I know dad doesn’t like Uncle Paul, but papa and mama get mad when dad tries to skip going to Uncle Paul’s place. I think Uncle Paul is really cool, he doesn’t talk a lot but he has the cutest dogs and I get to play with them. Dad always makes me wash my hands two times after we come back from Uncle Paul’s place, but Uncle Paul’s dogs are the cleanest dogs I have ever met. Uncle Paul said that he will get me a dog for my twelfth birthday when I graduate from primary school if mama says it’s okay.

One last thing that is very important in my family is that we talk to each other. Mama and papa scold dad a lot for this because sometimes he just comes home and mopes. I do this too sometimes if I get into a fight with Alexander at school, or if Mr Bittenfeld scolds me, but I always make up with Alexander. Mr Bittenfeld is scary though.

Mama says it is important to talk about our feelings so that I don’t become like dad. I don’t think it’s a bad thing to be like dad, but mama and I both agree that both papa and dad are slobs.