Bird came down

[ChrisGibson]

SINCE MANY PARTS OF BOOK OF THE BROKEN ARE BEING WRITTEN AND CORRECTED IN REAL TIME, BOOK OF THE BROKEN WILL RETURN TOMORROW, BUT FOR TONIGHT, LET'S START PART THREE OF BIRD CAME DOWN


P A R T

T H R E E

















N I N E
N I N E





L I K E
A

B R O T H E R










Theme Song: The Son of a Preacher Man, Dusty Springfield

Joey heard the knock at the front door, but he knew his mother would get it, and she did. A few minutes later, when there was a knock at his bedroom door he said come in, and was immediately startled to see Wesley Dnncan standing in his room.
“What are you….?” Joey sat up. “What are you doing here?”
“What were you doing there?” Wesley said, closing the door behind him. “And why were you being such a dick?”
Joey didn’t say anything, and then Wesley said, “Get up and come with me.”
“I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“Stop being a dick and come on,” Wesley said.
Joey wasn’t prepared for any of this, and he didn’t have any coy way to respond so he put down his magazine and said, “I have to get my wallet.”
“No you don’t.”
“Well, then I have to get my phone.”
“Fine,” Wesley said. “Just hurry it up.”

In Wesley’s car, Joey noted that Wesley’s shirt was open so that he could see a little of the hair on his chest, and he wore a choker that looked like a little rosary with a cross hanging over his breast.
“What are you looking at?” Wesley said, his handsome face looking a little less sweet than on their first meeting. Joey noticed he hadn’t shaved.
“I didn’t expect to see you in church today.”
“I didn’t expect to see you either,” Wesley said. Then: “It’s not your church.”
“Your father’s a preacher.”
“My father’s a priest, and I’m probably going to be one too.”
“See, that’s it!”
“What?”
“How can you be…. All holy and shit. All in a white robe and praise God? I feel like everybody’s fucking pretending to be something they aren’t.”
“I’m not pretending to be anything,” Wesley said as he turned on Washington and headed east.
“You’re… pretending to be holy. Or pretending to…”
“I am religious,” Wesley said simply. “I go to church. I believe in God. I am a Christian. What’s your problem with that?”
“My problem is you fucked me on the edge of the river, and then told me to fuck you.”
Wesley laughed harshly and frowned at they came to a red light on Metcalf Boulevard.
“What?”
“Look,” Wesley said, “I get that it would have been better if it had happened in a better place, and I get that I was a little crude and stupid about that, but are you mad because I asked you to have sex with me in a jerky way, and then you saw me in church, or are you mad because I asked you to have sex with me period?”
Joey opened his mouth.
“Because if you’ve got some Catholic or Baptist idea that sex is evil, and men having sex with each other is evil, and I’m a hypocrite because I’m not a eunuch, then that’s bullshit. I love sex, I love Jesus, and I’m not going to let you make me feel bad for that.”
Wesley stared at him so hard that Joey had to remind him the light was green.
Wesley drove on and Joey said, “I… don’t know.”
They drove on a while and then Joey said, “No, I do know.
“It would have made a difference. It would have made a big difference if it had happened in bed. I had just come out of something. You took me out. You were a fucking gentleman and then… you fucked me up. I didn’t think I could say no. It would have made a shit ton of difference if we had gone to your house—”
“My parents are liberal. They aren’t that liberal,” Wesley said, looking ahead at the road.
“Or any place. If you’d been a gentleman about it.”
“Well you should have said that then. No one put a gun to your head.”
“Take me home.”
Wesley frowned while he looked ahead at the road and then he shouted, “Fucccck!”
They kept driving. They couldn’t make a u-turn on this long road, and Wesley said, “I’m doing this all wrong. “
“Are you taking me home?”
“If I tell you I’m sorry, and I messed up, and I’d like us to start over again, will you still go to dinner with me?”
“Yeah,” Joey said. “Sure.”
“Not as enthusiastic as I wanted, but I’ll take it.”

“I don’t even know what we should talk about,” Wesley said. “You know, polite dates where you talk about common interests and….” He shrugged, “stuff like that.”
“I actually haven’t been on a date with anyone but you,” Joey said.
Wesley blinked at him.
“I didn’t say I hadn’t…. with anyone but you,” Joey clarified. “But like… a real date.”
Wes Duncan looked around at the Del Taco and said, “Are you sure this classifies as a real date?”
“It does,” Joey decided, lifting the taco. “I love these fuckers.”
Wesley grinned, tilting his to bite into it.
“I guess I just knew I liked you.”
“I know I like you,” Joey said, “and I know why. But I don’t know why you like me.”
Wesley scrunched up his face. “That’s a terrible thing to say about yourself.”
“No, I just mean… I’m not very smart, and I’m not in college, and I’m not religious. I’m not all the stuff you are.”
“You’re super nice,” Wesley said. “You’re super kind. I just like being around you.”
Joey colored through his sun darkened skin, and hanging his head he muttered, “Thanks.”
“I thought,” Joey began, “and don’t think I’m vain or anything. But I thought it was because I was hot. I mean, just like you saw my body or something.”
“I did see your body,” Wesley clarified. “And I do, and it’s a very nice body by the way, but… it’s more than that. I’m not going to lie, it isn’t always. But with you it is.
“And what about me?” Wesley demanded.
Joey looked up at him.
“What about me? Why would you want to be around me?”
“Oh, well,” Joey gestured to him it. “It goes without saying.”
“No it doesn’t,” Wesley disagreed. “You’d better say it.”
Joey thought a while, and when he still hadn’t come up with a reason, Wesley said, “I swear I’m about to get up and leave you at Del Taco.”
“You’re serious.”
“What?”
“You’re just the first serious, smart guy I’ve been with. The first my age,” Joey corrected. “And you treat me real good and… That’s what I like about you.”

“It’s getting late,” Wesley observed unnecessarily as they headed down Thompson Road.
“I should drop you off.”
“Why?”
“Whaddo you mean?” Wesley said. Then, “I’m tired, aren’t you? And I gotta get ready to head back to Bloomington.”
“Well when are you going there?”
“In two days.”
“Well, that’s two days from now, then,” Joey said. “Right now you’re with me.”
Wesley stopped the car and looked at Joey.
“Are you trying to say you want to spend the night together?”
“I’m trying to say every time I think of what we did on the river, I get… Part of me wants that again.”
“But you said…” Wesley began.
“I know what I said,” Joey told him. “And I know I’m fucked up.”
“And confusing.”
“Yes,” Joey agreed.
“Then what do you…?” Wesley stopped.
Joey had often been seduced, but never been seductive. It took a great deal of effort to put his hand on Wesley’s thigh.
“Well, Joey,” Wesley sounded very scholarly for a moment, “We can’t go to your place, and we can’t go to mine.”
“Not really.”
Wesley bit his lower lip and frowned and then nodded.
“Alright,” he said. “I know. Just… don’t judge, and don’t be unnerved.”


The church was darkened and somehow, when Wesley lit the candles on either side of the altar, it made the church look darker still. Wesley’s eyes were filled with light. He took Joey by the hand, and kissed him lightly. Hand and hand they went up the aisle to the altar.
“I’ll be right back,” Wesley said.
When he came back he held a bundle under and arm, but Joey asked no questions.
“It’s beautiful,” Joey whispered in the darkness of the sanctuary. “I’ve never been in a church at night.”
Wesley dropped the bundle and it fell noiselessly. They were in the chancel, Joey remembered that’s what you called it, and Wesley’s hand in his was trembling as he led him to the other side of the altar.
“Joey,” he said, almost painfully, and lifted his shirt so only the choker with the cross glinted against his chest.
“I thought…” Joey began. But he was not sure what he had thought.
“We don’t have to,” Wesley said calmly, holding his shirt in his hands. He had a lovely, smooth young chest. The candlelight glinted on his amber hair.
“No,” Joey looked out into the darkness over the altar where the congregation had been that morning. He felt strangely protected by the communion rail. Joey unbuckled Wesley’s shorts and pulled down the underwear that clung to him. He held the other boy’s penis in his hands, cupping his balls, and Wesley’s mouth parted as his cock swelled. Joey undressed himself, and their penises rising up to touch each other, the boys stood naked together.
Joey Flowers leaned forward and kissed Wesley, pulling his face forward. Wesley’s hands were gentle on Joey’s shoulders when he pushed him down into the bundle of blankets and they had little time to unroll them before the two of them lay down, kissing, linking limbs, sighing as, at last, they ran their hands over each other’s bodies.
He had lain on his stomach for Wesley and received him, but in the end he turned around and opened his legs wide, running his hands up and down Wesley’s moist thighs, looking up at his chest while he felt Wes Duncan fucking him, running his hands up and down the sinewy arms of a sprinter, touching his face while Wesley looked down on him in love and, at last, looked up, making a staggering noise while Joey tightened his grip around his thighs. Wesley came, his semen shooting deep, and then trickling out of Joey the same time Joey felt his own orgasm, hot all over his chest and stomach.
In the aftermath, Wesley was still kneeling between his legs, still hard inside of him. Neither of them said a thing in the intense silence of the sanctuary. There was nothing to be said.



MORE IN A FEW DAYS

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Joey and Wesley could be real and honest. Sure, neither of them are perfect but it seems like there is definitely something between them. I wonder how they are going to make it work with Wesley going away? I will have to wait and see. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, and certainly no one in this story is perfect, and perhaps a great deal of time was wasted in silliness on Joey's part, but at least now they are having some type of together.

 

[ChrisGibson]

AND AFTER A FEW NIGHTS' ABSENCE, WE RETURN TO BIRD CAME DOWN. IT IS THE MORNING AFTER JOEY AND WESLEY SPENT THEIR NIGHT TOGETHER



Felix came to the door in a pair of shorts with a burning cigarette dangling from his fingertips.
“What’s up?” he demanded of Joey.
The futon was still undone and rumpled, and clothes were all over the floor.
“Scott’s gone?”
“Scott has a real job,” Felix said, sitting on the edge of the bed and casually ashing on the coffee table. “He was getting dressed while I was asleep.”
“Well, you’re the one I wanted to talk to, anyway.”
“And I wanted to talk to you too,” Felix said. “Had you thought about going to school here? I mean I’m going to teach today. Enrollment is still on.”
“Would you be my professor?”
“God I hope not, we’ve been having sex for months, and while you get an A in that, I’d hate to end up giving you a C in English.”
“I might get an A.”
Felix ignored this and said, “You should at least think about getting back into school. Now you wanted to say?”
“Huh?”
Felix frowned. “You said you wanted to say something to me.”
“Ah, that’s right!” Joey remembered. “It’s about Wesley.”
“Oh, fuck! Not Wesley again. I know it didn’t work out, and you won’t find happiness, and you’re two crazy kids who can’t find your way to each other—”
“We slept together last night.”
“What?”
“He came by my house.”
“And you slept together in your mother’s house.”
“No.”
“In a Motel Six?”
“Would you let me finish?”
Felix shrugged.
“He took me to dinner.”
Felix said nothing, and Joey said, “You’re not going to ask where?”
“You said you wanted me to let you finish.”
“Well,” Joey said, “he took me to Del Taco.”
“That’s… romantic.”
“It was the way he did it. And then we drove around, and finally we just sat there and talked about life. And then he said he should take me home, but I told him I didn’t want him to. I told him….”
When Joey went red, Felix guessed, “You told him you wanted to have sex.”
“In the end Wesley decided the only place we could really be together was in the church. If we got together in Saint Margaret’s.”
“And then you said stop being stupid and you got a hotel room.”
When Joey didn’t speak, Felix said, “You fucked my pastor’s son in our church?”
“He fucked me, really.”
Joey Flower amended.
“We made love in Saint Margaret’s,” Joey said in one rushed breath.
At the look on Felix’s face, Joey said, “Please don’t tell anyone! Seriously. Please. I just told you because… I thought you’d understand more than anyone else. But Wesley would be so embarrassed if anyone else knew and… It wasn’t dirty. I know that doesn’t make any sense, but it wasn’t dirty when it happened. It was… I don’t know. But it wasn’t dirty, and we stayed there all night.”
“Well, it’s surprising,” Felix said, “but it’s not evil. And at least you’re getting along now?”
Joey nodded.
“I think. Yes.”
“Where did you—?” Felix began, “I mean, you didn’t do it on the altar.”
Joey blinked and Felix said, “Holy shit.”
Joey said nothing.
“You fucked on the altar.”
“Well not on the altar, per se. I mean, like people serve communion on it and other things, but… Like we put a blanket down and then it was between the screen and the altar, like where the priest stands.” Joey remembered the word Felix had taught him, smiled and said, “The chancel.”
“Wow.”
“Don’t tell.”
“Well, why’d you tell me?”
“I had to tell someone.”
“Well, now I have to tell someone.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Well, fuck,” Felix said, sitting back down. Then he said, “I have to be at school by eleven to teach my first class. You can hang out here if you want.”
Felix got up and went down the hall to the bathroom, but before he shut the door, he came back out and said, “So this means you and Wesley are together?”
“I’m in love with him!” Joey exalted. “And—can you believe it?—he’s in love with me.”
“Of course I can believe it,” Felix said, as he went back to the bathroom. “You are a deeply lovable person.”




“Are you just getting in?” Laud asked his brother.
Coming to the table, Wesley refused to answer, but poured himself orange juice and looked over his notes.
“Cause I don’t think you came home last night,” Laud continued.
“Leave your brother alone,” their mother said. Laura Duncan was a nervous looking woman with shoulder length blond hair and, ignoring her, Laud continued to harass his brother.
“You went to find that Joey, so I suppose everything turned out fine.”
“Everything,” Wesley said, “was fine.”
“You spilled coffee on my breakfast.”
“Sorry about that.”
“I bet you aren’t.”
“Things went brilliantly,” Wesley said, looking directly at his mother, “And after I get finished working on this part of my thesis about Julian of Norwich I’m going to meet Joey for lunch.”
“The boy from church yesterday?” his mother frowned.
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s good. What school does he go to?”
“At the moment,” Wesley admitted, “he doesn’t go to any school. He doesn’t really like it.”
“Well maybe you can help him in that direction.”
“Can you imagine,” Laud said in mock horror, “one of the Duncan boys coming home with an uneducated boyfriend?”
His mother frowned at him, but Nathan continued, “Screw Wesley being gay, Wesley can bring home as many boys as he wants as long as they’re Ivy League.”
“Are you about finished with breakfast?” Laura asked while Wesley frowned at his brother.
Laud frowned and ate around the coffee splash on his eggs.
“Say,” Laud began after a moment.
“I really thought you were done talking,” Wesley told him.
“I just wanted to know what you were writing about Julian?”
“I was writing about her cat.”
“You mean her pussy.”
Laura pressed her lips together, stood up and pushed her chair into the table.
“Sure, Nate.”
“How do you know she has a cat? A pussy—”
“Laud!”
“But,” he continued, ignoring his mother, “how do you know about her cat?”
“In icons she always has a cat.”
“So you don’t know that she had a cat.”
“It’s assumed.”
“Why?”
“Because when you became an anchorite, and she was an anchorite, they would carry you in on a litter—”
“A kitty litter?”
“Shut up, dummy. They would carry you in on a bier.”
“I thought you said a litter.”
“Forget the litter.”
“Forgotten,” Laud said.
“And then they would lock you in for the rest of your life. You would just have one window to look into the church, and another one to empty your slop.”
“Gross.”
“And a cat. For vermin.”
“What did the cat eat?”
“The cat ate the vermin.”
“Is that all she fed the cat?”
“I don’t know, Laud, I wasn’t there.”
“Well…”
“Well,” Wesley repeated, hoping Laud was finally finished.
But he wasn’t.
“So they carried the anchorite in on a bier?”
“Yeah, Laud.”
“Well, then, the cat?”
“What about the cat?”
“Did they carry it in on a litter box?”
“I hate you, Laud.”
Laud was about to reply when Wesley’s phone rang, and touching it, he said, “Hello?”
“Wes?”
Wesley immediately took it off speakerphone and said, “Joey?”
“Is it your lover?” Laud asked him and Wesley negligently hit him in the back of the head, rising and going to the next room.
“Hey?” Wesley whispered, leaning against the wall in the hallway. “What’s up? I know we’re doing lunch, but I was wondering if you wanted to get together tonight or something?”
“I would,” Joey said, “but before we talk about that, what do you think about me going to school?”
“I don’t think much of you not going to school,” Wesley said flatly.
“Oh, that’s right. I guess you wouldn’t.”
“Look,” Wesley said, “you need an education. Do you just want to be a maintenance man for the rest of your life?”
Joey was deadly silent, and Wesley said, “I didn’t mean that. I meant—”
“I know what you meant, Wes. And maybe I do want to be a maintenance man. Someone has to be. We can’t all play polo.”
“I don’t play polo.”
“Or whatever you do. All I asked is do you think I should go to school?”
“And all I said was yes.”
“Alright.”
“Now,” Wesley shoved his hands in the pockets of shorts, and crooked the phone to his ear, “Do you still want to go out or do you think I’m a snob?”
“I don’t want to fight with you.”
“Good. I’ll be around at twelve—”
“But you are a snob.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Joey confided in Felix about him and Wesley. I think it’s good that Joey wants to go to school. Things with him and Wesley seem to be going well! Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, it is good.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CONCLUSION OF: LIKE A BROTHER




“So, I’m glad to meet you,” Felix began. “And I just had the strangest feeling. I was waiting for someone to start class, and then realized this was my class and I have to start it.”
A few of the students looked older than him. Some were black and some white, some looked fresh out of high school and some looked old to life at a very young age, but there was laughter around the room, and then Felix said, “You can call me Mr. Owens, Professor Owens or just Felix. Whatever floats you. And this is English 111.”
A Black girl in the front put her hand in the air and asked, “Is there an English 110?”
“I don’t think there is,” Felix confessed, “And I don’t know how the hell they number these classes.”
He hadn’t expected that to be funny, but it was, and Felix said over the laughter, “No, I don’t. I really don’t. And I notice that a lot of this class is done over computer. Which just pisses me off because this is not a computer class. It is English and… What’s the first thing we should do?”
“We should have a party!”
“What’s your name?” Felix asked the girl with the long micro braids.
“Shenerika.”
“Shenerika, that is precisely what we will not do. The first thing we will do is go to the library. So get your bags and we’re going down.”
“Sounds great, sir.” A lanky boy decided, pounding his fist in his palm.
“Uh…” Felix began. “I’m glad.
“This is my first day here,” Felix said as they headed down the carpeted hall, and to the staircase. “So I’m going to need some guidance. I can’t remember where the library is.”
“If you get lost,” the lanky boy said, “we’ll lead you, sir.”
When Felix headed down the stairs, he was shocked and pleased by the sound of thirty people coming down the stairs after him. He stopped, turned around, and they stopped too. He looked up at them, many much taller, all different faces, and he smiled.
“Well… that really is something.”
And then he said, “Come on.”
They came down into the main lobby and made a turn toward the glass doors of a library which was filled with computers. A man stood behind a desk looking upset while they entered the library and followed Felix to....
“The magazines?” Felix raised an eyebrow. He hooked a finger and called Shenerika to him.
“Do you see any books in here?”
Shenerika hooked a braid around a finger and frowning said, “I don’t think this is a book kind of library.”
“Um,” Felix murmured, then said, “Well…. What the fuck kind of library is it?
“Come on folks!” he shouted, “Follow me back up.”
As Felix left, and the thirty followed after him, the librarian behind the desk frowned at them all and Felix refrained from flipping him a bird.

He was surprised when class was over. He had never suspected that he could fill fifty minutes, let alone that they could fly by so soon.
“Some of you are staying for my next class and someone else is joining me. El—Professor Anderson will be here. Some of you will be in his speech class, and he’s going to get to=”
As the students were leaving, some stopped, murmuring, “Excuse me, sir. Excuse me.”
Elias came in, making Felix feel much less professional.
“Shirt and tie?”
“I was a little too ambitious,” Elias murmured.
“You don’t have to be here for ten minutes.” Felix looked up at the clock. “Fifteen minutes really.”
Elias shrugged. “Nothing else to do.”
“I went to show my kids the library.”
Elias cackled. “That was a very short trip, wasn’t it?”
“If I had a sense of shame,” Felix admitted, “I would have been embarrassed.”







“Well, I never thought to have a Duncan in my apartment,” Felix said when Wesley got up to use the restroom.
“Actually,” he added as his spatula prodded the shrimp in the skillet, “I never expected to have more than four adult people in this studio again.”
“Do you know what he said?” Joey demanded as he neared the stove, and then interrupted himself. “That smells delicious.”
“Because it is delicious, now back away.” Felix tipped the skillet over a bowl and emptied it out with all the butter sauce, and then began to put the shrimp back in the skillet to sear them.
As the shrimp sizzled, Felix said, “Now what did he say?”
“When I asked if I should go to school he got really snotty and said, ‘Do you want to be a maintenance man for the rest of your life?’”
Felix, silent, looked at Scott, and Scott looked at him.
Felix turned the shrimp over and said, “Scott, check the rice.”
“You think he’s right?” Joey said while the toilet flushed.
“Of course I think he’s right,” Felix said.
“But you would never have said it… the way he said it.”
They shut up as Wesley entered, and he clasped his hands declaring, “Um hum hum. That smells great.”
“Of course it does,” Felix said, “I made it. Now Wesley, would you get the plates? They’re right over Joey’s head. And Joey, get glasses for the drinks. By the way, Scott, can you be free on Friday night?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“We’ve been invited to dinner. By my new friend Elias, who teaches with me. Our first couple’s dinner.”
Felix turned to Joey. “You can be there too.”
“I leave town tomorrow,” Wesley said.
“No matter,” said Felix, “This time around I believe three will not make a crowd.”





That night, when Joey and Wesley were gone, Felix said, “I suppose you have to leave too.”
“My boys are waiting for me.”
“And you have to go up to Fort Atkins tomorrow.”
Felix let it hang, and then Scott said, “Don’t ask me if you can go. I don’t want you there.”
“I couldn’t go if I wanted to,” Felix said. “I’m a working man.
“But I wish I could go.”
Felix studied the table top and then he said, “I wish it wasn’t happening at all.”
“Oh, I’m glad it is,” Scott said fervently. “I want to get that bitch out of my life.”
“Are you sure you want to take the kids with you, then? To see that bitch?”
Scott laughed here and said, “Ah, but Felix, that bitch is their mother.”




He caught Joey’s hair in his hands and pulled his face into his chest, wrapping his thighs around him and running his hands up and down his back.
“Almost,” Joey panted, thrusting again, his face in Wesley’s shoulder, “there.”
Wesley ran his hands down the boy’s sweating back, and pulled Joey in. He closed his eyes and clenched his teeth feeling Joey fuck him, feeling Joey deep inside of him.
“I’m gonna come…” Joey warned him.
Wesley had already come against his belly a few minutes earlier and now, with the last few thrusts, Joey made a staggering noise and moaned, “Oh—fuck—” as, pulling back from Wesley, he came, body buckling, his damp head in Wesley’s arms.
The two of them lay side by side on the pallet, looking around the empty house his brother would move into in a few days.
When Joey had finally caught his breath, he turned on his side, reached up, and took the wet cloth from the kitchen island, wiping the semen from his stomach while Wesley got up and went into the bathroom. Joey waited for the water to finish running and said, “You make me feel kind of dumb.”
Panting, Wesley came out, raised a finger and then put it down.
“I don’t mean to. I never mean to. Maybe I’m the dumb one. I keep fucking things up.”
“No,” Joey decided. “I think I feel that way because I am that way, and I feel dumb around so many people. Maybe college is the way.”
“You could give it a try. See how you feel. I mean, I like it.”
Joey shrugged. “I just want to be happy.”
“And, Joey, I just want you to be happy,” Wesley said. “That’s seriously the only thing I care about. I’m sorry for being a dunce”
Joey ran a hand over Wesley’s chest.
“I love looking at you,” Wesley said.
“I don’t know why.”
“You’re amazing.”
“I’m not.”
“If you go to school you’ll meet all these hot guys, and I’ll get jealous cause they’ll all see how amazing you are, too.”
“I never feel like I’m enough,” Joey said.
“Neither do I,” Wesley admitted. “Isn’t that funny? Because if we weren’t good enough, neither one of us would be here.”
They both lay down on the pallet in the semi darkness.
Suddenly Joey turned around, threw Wesley down and straddled him.
“And now…” Wesley began, “What are you going to do?”
Joey reached under him and took Wesley in his hands, stroking him.
“Maybe ride the hell out of you?” Joey said, and Wesley immediately went hard. “If we’ve got time.”
“As long as I’m home before five a.m.” Wesley kissed him hard.
Joey laughed, and as he did they both gasped, for he had just begun to pull Wesley into him. “We’ve got all the time in the world.”
And then Joey’s mouth opened into a small O, and his eyes went round as he pulled Wesley deeper into him. As he rode Wesley, the preacher’s son’s eyes rolled back in his head, and his mouth opened in a silent exclamation of exultation.


MORE NEXT WEEK

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great conclusion to this part of the story! I am glad Felix’s first class went well. I am also glad Joey and Wesley are getting along. Who knows what will happen though when Wesley leaves and if Joey goes to school. I will have to wait and see. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon. I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, well, there is the conclusion of part two

 

[ChrisGibson]

AND SO WE BEGIN CHAPTER TEN



T E N
T E N





B E E N
H E R E

B E F O R E




Theme Song: Mother Nature’s Son (Sheryl Crow Version)

“I want to guess that the reason you look like a deer in the headlights is because you’ve never seen three men living together,” Dylan Mesda said, pushing a beer into Felix’s hand and grinning, “But I sense that isn’t it.”
Felix blinked at him.
“I sense you are a man of the world,” Dylan went on in an animated fashion. “This is what Elias has told me.”
Felix laughed and said, “I’m so sorry. I’m shitty conversation.”
Dylan shook his head.
“Don’t you worry about it, brother. I’ve had a lot of stuff on my mind so I can tell you’ve got stuff on your mind too”
“I told you he had stuff on his mind,” Elias shouted from the kitchen.
“And then that too.”
Dylan was dark haired and blue eyed like Elias, and he was also compactly built and not very tall, about as tall as Felix. But he and Elias did not look alike. Later on the writing part of Felix would try to tell the differences, but right now he drank the beer and made a face
“That’s cider.”
“Angry Orchard,” Dylan said. “Do you not like?”
“I like it very much. I just wasn’t paying attention.”
“Do you know,” Dylan folded his hands together, and stuck his lips out so that Felix wasn’t entirely sure if he was serious or not, “I’m a great listener?”
“Do you know,” began a voice that came from a tall, lanky figure on the sofa, “that everyone doesn’t want to talk, and some people just like to be left alone.”
He was a brunette too, but his hair was more chocolate in color, and he was so much taller than the other two he could not possibly be mistaken for them. He had to be at least six four, and when Felix looked at him Dylan said, “Yes, one of Lance’s arms is almost as big as Eli’s thigh.”
Lance Bishop rose from the sofa in one grasshopper like movement, and Felix was surprised to note that after his height snuck up on one, it was followed by his build. He reached out a hand, and it swallowed Felix while he grinned affably and said, “You know you can get away from Dr. Dylan and sit by me, and I won’t bother you a bit.”
“I’m just trying to be helpful,” Dylan said, following them to the sofa.
“You could be helpful by actually helping me cook!” Elias cried from the kitchen. Then he said, walking into the living room, “You all could, in fact. Except for you, Felix. You’re a guest. Sit down.”
“Well, I don’t want to just sit down. Besides,” he turned to Dylan, “something is bothering me.”
“You don’t have to be a doctor to see that,” Dylan said.
“Good,” Lance reminded him, “because you are, in fact, not a doctor.”
“Not yet.”
“Dylan’s studying to be a shrink,” Lance informed Felix.
“I figure there’s enough crazy in me to help other people,” Dylan said.
“I’m just going to ask,” Lance said, “since we all know about it: how’s Scott’s trial?”
“I don’t know,” Felix said. “And I don’t know when he’ll be back.
“He thinks he’s losing.”

“Well the whole poking holes in condoms thing is evil,” Dylan decided, “and I think she doesn’t really want the kids. I think she just wants to ruin Scott’s world.”
“That’s what I think too,” Lance snapped his fingers and then remembered, “even though we don’t actually know him. Or her.”
“Who knows why mothers do things?” Elias said, passing the garlic bread as if it really did not matter why mothers did things. “The only one of us at this table with a normal mother is Lance. Maybe Felix,” Elias nodded to him. “After all, I don’t know your mother.”
“She is most abnormal, I assure you,” Felix said.
“Abnormal is your mother buying frozen semen from a Black man she meets at the grocery store, getting herself pregnant with it and then deciding she doesn’t want to keep the baby and giving it away to said Black man.”
“Who the fuck would do that?” Felix demanded. But suddenly Lance raised his long arm and began pointing down at Dylan’s head.
“You’re joking, right?”
“No,” Dylan said. “See, Lance’s parents are ordinary straight people, but me and Elias are second generation gays. My dads were a couple and they split up, but then they got together for a little while and one of my dads—the one who is Black—stole my other dad’s semen and sold it to my natural mother. My only mother I guess.”
“I don’t quite believe this.”
“There’s more,” Elias said, and encouraged Dylan to continue.
“There is more,” Dylan said. “She had me, and kept me for a while, but then decided she couldn’t do it, so she gave me to my biological father who then took me to the man who had given my mom his jizz—”
“The Black one, his ex. Are you following?” Elias said.
Felix nodded.
“And asked him to adopt me. Which he did, and he’s the only mother I know.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“No, my dad—”
“He means Fenn. His adopted dad,” Lance interrupted.
“Yes,” Dylan said. “He didn’t tell me until I was fifteen and my life was a real freak show.”
“That is the most bizarre story I’ve ever heard.”
“But wait,” Elias said with a merry smile. “There’s more.”
“Yes,” Dylan lifted a finger. “My mother actually got pregnant with twins, but she froze one embryo. After she gave me away she thought she’d have that one, only she repeated the same cycle with him.”
“So you have a brother?”
“He is my baby… twin.”
“That’s so fucking freaky.”
Dylan smiled with the satisfaction of a well told story.
“He’s a genius musician. His name is Thackeray.”
“And your mom?” Felix asked. “What about her?”
“She died,” Dylan said. “It was on her deathbed I learned about Thack.”
Felix wanted to say, “I’m so sorry,” but he didn’t think that was appropriate. As funny as the story was, he was sorry about that whole mess his new friend had gone through.
“My story is pretty tame,” Elias said. “My dads had a surrogate. With one’s semen they made my twin brother Bennett and with the other’s they made me so that the two of us would be related and each of our dads have a biological kid. Interesting but tame. And we have a little brother named Matthew, and none of that happened with him. But he’s more like me than Bennett and more like Dylan’s brother Thackeray than all of us. Other than that, we’re pretty tame.”
“Except that Elias’s dad used to be a porn star,” Lance threw in.
“What?” Felix said, almost choking on his beer.


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great to see more of some old friends in this portion! I am enjoying reading about their interactions with Felix. The concept of three men living together seems to surprise him but hey it works for them. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, I invented Dylan and Elias and Lance so they aren't shocking to me, and a lot isn't shocking to me, but of course, it would be surprising to Felix. As of yet I've seen a lot of arrangements up close and in person, but I've never met an actual three way relationship so yeah, it is pretty shocking. It would be dishonest to portray Felix as unsurprised.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT SOME DEEP CHANGES OCCUR


When Felix and Dylan were sitting on the porch, Dylan lifted a cider to his lips and drank and then looked over the city beneath them and said, “I don’t think I could ever leave the Midwest for long. I love this time of the year, where the summer is getting ready to turn into fall. But it’s still summer and it’s still warm, and everyone still thinks everything is going to happen for them.
“And for some of them it will.”
“I’m very sorry,” Felix said suddenly.
“About what?”
“When you said you had lost your mother I wanted to say I was sorry, but I didn’t feel right about saying it, and now I don’t feel right about not saying it.”
“Look, Felix. You never met my mother—”
“I know,” Felix said, lifting a hand, “and I suppose what you are about to say is that you don’t mourn her. But I’m sorry for the whole thing, really. Sorry you didn’t have a mother you could mourn. Sorry for that.”
“When I was ten she came back for me,” Dylan said. “She made me promise she would be my little secret. My parents didn’t know she was around. Eileen would buy me things, and I would come to her in the park. After a while my Dads found out. Fenn—you remind me a lot of him—threatened to kill her if she tried to steal me. But she didn’t. She just disappeared one day. And you have to understand, though I had never seen her until I was ten, I loved my mother. I really did. And I loved being with her. And when she disappeared that second time it really ruined me. I didn’t know how much it did at the time, but it did, and all the love from my parents, all the love from Fenn who was more of a mother to me than anything, couldn’t cure what she did.”
“Depression?”
“No,” Dylan said. “Not really. And not drugs and not bad grades. But at an earlier age than I wish was true, my crutch was sex. That was my thing. I really, really liked it. And then I really, really needed it. I put myself in a lot of dangerous places, and I was smart enough to know I was doing it because of my mother, but I just couldn’t tell exactly what the connection was. Now I think I just wanted to touch and be touched, and I think I wanted to be an adult. I think I wanted to be bulletproof.”
“And that’s why you’re going to be doctor?”
“Uh huh. I think it’s the same thing with Elias. He still can’t understand why his mother left him, and it’s just a shitty horrible feeling and I’m past it now. I mean you can’t camp down on that forever. But I remember how I felt and the things I did and more than that I remember how I made other people feel and, I would do anything to get other folks out of that situation, so that’s why I do what I do.
“And why do you do what you do?” Dylan suddenly asked Felix.
“Uh,” Felix shrugged. “Because I need a job, and when you go to graduate school forever, this is the only thing you’re equipped to do.”
“You’re a fucking liar,” Dylan said, smiling at him
“I’m not. I applied for a bunch of jobs cause I needed money, and these fuckers hired me.”
“But I hear you’re fucking on fire. I hear it’s your gift!”
“From Elias?”
“Yeah, and also from this lanky kid in one of your classes. I came to pick Eli up the other day and he told me.”
“Well, well.”
“Yeah,” Dylan patted him on the shoulder. “Well, well.”

When Felix made to leave, Elias demanded where he was going.
“Walking home. The same way I walked here.”
“But we didn’t know you walked here,” Lance said. “Come round back. I’m getting the truck.”
And so they piled into Lance’s Chevy and Felix wondered about where they came from.
“It’s not that far away,” Lance explained.
“As the crow flies it’s only about eighty miles away.”
“Who says as the crow flies?” Elias mocked Dylan.
“I said it,” Dylan said.
They dropped him off and Elias said, “Next time bring Joey.”
“Wesley drove up here for him, and then he’s going down next weekend to be with Wes.”
“Is he going to do that all the time?” Elias wondered. “Cause that’s a lot of gas.”
“The Flowers family doesn’t seem to mind burning gas.”
“Well, this family does,” Dylan said from between Lance and Elias, “So unless you want to waste this tank, say good night to Felix and let’s stop stalling here.”
“Goodnight, Felix,” Elias and Lance said together in mocking tones, and then they turned to Dylan. Felix entered the courtyard and went to the side door where he stuck in his key. He noted that the black truck did not depart until he was safely in.


In the middle of the night Felix woke with a raging erection and peed in the sink because his dick was too stiff for straight aim in the bowl, and then he came back and lay in bed looking at his penis. He got up, went to the kitchen, brought out the coconut oil, thrust his penis in it, and then suddenly began fucking his mattress until, with a groan, he ejaculated all over his pillow.
He lay there, thighs caught around the pillow, feeling his semen sticking between his stomach and pillow and then, at last, got up to clean himself. He sat on the bed smoking a cigarette and now the phone was ringing on his dresser.
“Really?”
Felix searched for an ashtray, but laid the cigarette on the jar top of the coconut oil and answered:
“Scott?”
“Felix, I need you to get up here right away!”
“Uh...”
“What’s going on?”
“There was a car crash. I’m at the hospital. I’m at Mount Sinai. Jen was driving with the kids, and the car crashed.”
Felix felt all the strength go out of him, and the floor move under his feet.
“You gotta get here. Jen’s dead.”
“I’m on my way.”
He got on the phone to call Joey, and was surprised when Dylan Mesda answered.
“I’m sorry. I got the wrong number.”
“You sound freaked, Felix.”
“I am. A bit. But I have to call Joey.”
“Is there any way I can help?”
“No,” Felix said. Then, “Not at the moment. I mean Scott’s wife was in a car crash and he wants me to come up to Michigan right now.”
“Alright,” Dylan said. “Calm down. How about you call Joey, and I’ll come and get you?”
“Huh?”
“Just sit tight. I’ll take you all up to Michigan.”
It was two in the morning and Felix had woken up to masturbate and was sitting in his apartment finishing off a cigarette and hearing that Scott’s wife was dead. This was no time to refuse a favor.
“Alright,” he said, remembering that Joey had no reliable car, “I’ll do that. We’ll do that. I’ll put some clothes on. Thank you.”
“We’ll be over in twenty minutes.”
Felix went to the bathroom, wiped himself down a second time, and washed his face. He gathered up about three outfits and called Joey on the speakerphone to say, “We’re on our way.”
Dylan messaged to say he was five minutes away and Felix came downstairs with his bag and waited in the courtyard. Soon after, the truck arrived with Lance driving and Dylan in the back.
“Elias is taking your classes tomorrow, so you don’t have to worry about that,” Lance said.
It was another twenty minute drive across the river to the Flowers House, and the whole family came out with Joey.
“We probably shouldn’t go,” Mr. Flowers guessed.
“I want to,” his wife in her housecoat said.
“Mom,” Joey told them, “we’ll all be back here in the morning.”
No one said anything until they hit the toll road and Felix asked Joey how he felt.
Joey took a deep breath and then he said, “Actually I feel like Scott got what he wanted, and he’s going to feel too guilty to be happy. But that bitch is gone and now his kids are his. I’m glad and that makes me feel really evil.”
No one said anything and, at last, Felix sighed and said, “But I was thinking the same thing.”




MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow that was a shock and you were right deep changes did occur. I can’t believe Jen is dead. I feel sad for the kids despite what she was like to others. Hopefully the kids are ok. All of these mothers being gone is very sad. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow! I hope you had a nice Sunday.

 

[ChrisGibson]

They drove all night. When they got to the hospital, Scott was large and wild haired, gangly and frantic, pop-eyed, unshaven, the love of his life, his truest friend, the thing that needed to be comforted. He came to Felix and Joey, bear hugging them. Felix smelled fear and grime and sweat, and the ammonia of the hospital on him.
Scott, ever courteous even this disheveled, introduced himself to Lance and Dylan, and thanked them for bringing Joey and Felix.
“We’re going to take you back home,” Dylan said. “Your folks are waiting for you.”
“Not there,” said Scott. “Not my mother and my father and… Not that... And no one knows what to do with the kids.”
“They’re at the house,” Felix said, “With Matt.”
Dylan told Felix “We’re taking him to your apartment.”
They put Scott in the backseat of the car where he collapsed on his side in a fetal position. But he didn’t fall asleep. They acted as if he was, though. Felix said, “Lance, Dylan, thank you for everything. Thank you for bringing us here.”
“Look,” Dylan said. “Most of my life has been so out of control it just feels good to be a little bit in control. A little bit of something right now. So you are more than welcome.”
They stopped at the house. Felix entered alone, looking around at the emptiness that was Scott’s life with this woman Felix had never known. Matt was half asleep on the couch with the kids.
“Scott’s in the truck, and I’m here for the children,” Felix said.
The young lawyer looked up at him and said, “You’re him.”
Felix took a breath, then replied, “And you are him.”
“Wake up boys,” Matt said, nudging them.
The boys stirred and yawned, knuckling their eyes.
“I have to pee,” Taylor said.
“Where’s mom?” Nathan asked.
“You need to get dressed. You all are going back with your Dad,” Felix said. “He’s waiting for you.”
While the boys nodded and, still sleepy, stumbled to the bathroom, Matt said, “At least I loved him.” Then he said, “I do love him. You know that, right?”
“And he loves you,” Felix said simply.
“Did he tell you…?”
“He told me everything,” Felix said.
Matt nodded.
“Can you do me a favor?” Felix asked.
“Hum?”
“Can you bring the children back. The truck is crowded. Can you take them to Scott’s parents?”
“You…” Matt began, then said, “Yeah. I can do that. I’ll tail you guys. Just give me a minute. Okay?”


The next day the phone rang, and Mrs. Flowers was glad to hear Felix pick up. She said, “We’ve got the kids and they’re terribly confused. They want to see their dad.”
“Liz, Scott’s in a bad way. I’m confused too. I didn’t know he still loved Jen.”
“I’m sure he didn’t,” Mrs. Flowers confessed after a moment. “I don’t know either. That may be what it’s all about, but...”
“We’re coming to get the boys. Me and Joey.”
“Thank you, Felix.”
“And, Liz?”
“Um hum?”
“About the boys? Who gets custody? How are you all handling that?”
“Oh, Scott gets it. No contest or anything. He’s their father. It’s all been taken care of.”
Felix looked to the sofa where Scott was huddled, incapable of taking care of anything. He wanted to press further, to ask if they’d handled what would happen in the event Scott wouldn’t or couldn’t care for his kids. But he left that alone.

Originally he had thought he would and could teach today, but it had been near eight in the morning when they’d gotten home, and when he woke up it was already eleven. He and Matt went to get the kids, and they didn’t talk much so Felix wondered what Matt thought of him, or if Matt might have even thought himself the object of Felix’s jealousy.
Matt headed back to Michigan after dropping Felix and the boys off, and they took the rickety elevator up to the seventh floor. When he returned to the apartment, the shower was on. Scott came out, dripping, towel wrapped around his waist, his bronze hair plastered to his head as he held a Speed Stick. Looking lost, his gaze traveled from the kids to Felix.
Again he looked at the boys.
“Papa?” Taylor began. “Is Mama going to be alright?”
“Grandma wouldn’t tell us anything,” Nathan added.
“Listen to me,” Scott said, squatting before them. “Your mom’s always going to be with you, alright?”
Taylor nodded, and Nathan looked like he wasn’t entirely sure.
“She’s gone now. She’s gone to heaven.”
“Mama died?” Taylor said.
“She passed,” Scott said. “She’s with Jesus.”
And Felix wondered why the child who loved her could say she was dead, but the man who would have loved to kill her could not say it at all.


“I cannot tell you,” Felix began, spreading the bed sheet across the little bed while Elias caught its edges, “how grateful I am for your help.”
“Well, you’ve got to make a house look like a home for two kids.”
“And they can’t keep staying with their grandparents.”
Felix tossed the comforter across the bed. As Elias straightened it, Felix looked over the room and said, “More should be added. More will be added. But I want this house to actually look something like a home for them.”
“These days, isn’t it true they’re staying at your place more than anywhere else?”
“Yes,” Felix said. “And that’s got to stop. I mean, I’m not that crusty old bachelor from the TV shows who needs kids to open my world up. I live in a studio apartment with no bedroom, and I need to have some space back.”
“You’ll stay with them, right?” Elias said, moving up to place pillows on the bed.
“I suppose I will. I mean of course I will. I think they’ve taken a liking to me.
“Scott just works, and then comes home and crawls into a ball. He feeds the kids. At least that’s true. And then he goes to sleep.”
“He’s exhausted.”
“By what? Not by mourning. She was awful to him.”
“When my Grandfather Anderson’s dog died,” Elias said, “Granddad bursts into tears and cried for three days. Now, he had distanced himself from my dad, my Uncle Matty, my Aunt Claire as well as my grandmother, and one of his children from another marriage died too. But his second wife called and told us that he fell apart over a dog and then my dad says: ‘That’s more crying than he ever did for me.’”
“I feel like what you’re saying is sometimes a dog isn’t just a dog.”
“And sometimes a dead wife you can’t stop mourning isn’t just a dead wife.”
Felix rolled his tongue around the inside of his mouth and, at last, he said, “I need to do something to that kitchen. Could you please help me?”
Elias nodded.
“Where is he staying tonight?” Elias asked as they went downstairs.
“Probably at my place. Huddled in a ball.”
Has anything happened between you two?”
“Like sex?”
“Yes.”
“No,” Felix said. “I wasn’t really expecting it to. I don’t really know what to expect. I’ve known a lot of men, but Scott is really my only love. How do you handle two?”
“On a schedule.”
Felix laughed and then looked at Elias.
“You’re serious.”
“Yes,” Elias nodded. “We have a schedule about who sleeps with whom and when. Or did you imagine a gangbang?”
“I actually didn’t. I really didn’t imagine it at all.”
“Then I guess you’re the type of friend I want to keep.”
“Threesomes are messy.”
“I’m so glad you know that!” Elias said as they began putting food in the cupboards. “But the way it is, there is a very specific schedule for who stays with whom on what night and that means sometimes you are lying next to someone and neither one of you wants to have sex with the other and then when we first got together Lance lived away from me and Dylan, and that was hard, and later on we all lived away from the other two for times and when you’re sleeping alone and they aren’t it’s very difficult to believe in your love or not to get jealous and… I don’t know what I’m saying.”
“That love is difficult.”
“Yes.”
“And commitment is much more than sex?”
“Goddamn, Felix,” Elias said, “you should be my editor.”
“I feel like all of this means I will be sitting across from Scott just looking at him for a while.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion. I am glad the kids are ok physically at least but what a sad death for all of them to go through. Poor Scott, it sounds like he still loved Jen despite how she was to him at the end. I am glad Scott and Felix have support around even if the Matt situation is a bit awkward. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, yes, the whole situation is messy. Scott's feelings are messy and we'll look in more at Scott in a few days. Matt, while someone who makes things less easy for Felix, is probably very necessary for Scott, and at least Felix has Elias, Lance and Dylan. So much going on at this point in our tale.

 

[ChrisGibson]

When Felix came home late that afternoon, the sun was slanting into the apartment and Scott had just arrived.
“The kids are with Mom and Dad,” he said. “I told them you needed space. And then of course I came over here to take away your space.”
“Don’t pretend to be apologizing,” Felix said, getting on his knees and untying Scott’s shoe’s, taking one off and then the other.
“Are you hungry?”
“No,” Scott said. “Not yet.”
“Neither am I,” Felix said.
He climbed onto the futon, stretched his arms and legs, and while the sun went down and left them in semi darkness, he sat across from Scott just looking at him.
“I am a gloomy man,” Scott said.
“Utterly.”
“I don’t know why you love me.”
“If you don’t know I won’t tell you. I’ve got no time to stroke your ego.”
Scott smiled weakly.
“I killed Jen.”
“What!”
“I wished it. I really wished it. And then it happened. I’m a fucker.”
“Maybe,” Felix allowed. “But you’re not a witch.”
For a whole hour, as darkness took the little apartment, neither of them got up, and neither one of them said anything.


“The funeral is at Scott’s family’s church,” Felix told Elias over the phone. “I haven’t been to a Catholic church in years.”
“I didn’t know you’d been at all. I thought you were Episcopalian?”
“My sister is an Episcopal priest,” Felix said. “Our father was Episcopal. My mom is Catholic. We were confirmed in the Catholic Church and received into the Episcopal one. Dual membership really, though I’m pretty sure both churches frown upon it.”
“They do gay marriages at your church, right?” Elias said.
“They do, though I don’t think I’d really want to be married there, and I’m pretty sure they don’t do gay three way marriages. They aren’t quite as liberal as they think they are.”
Elias chuckled. “Most liberals aren’t.
“So?”
“Yes?”
“Have you decided if you’ll take Communion?”
“You know what?” Felix said, “the funny thing is I would never think ‘I can’t take Communion because the priest will know I stick dicks in my mouth,’—hell, he probably does too—but I do have this weird fear that I’ll get up there and the priest will say, ‘You’re a Protestant!’ I don’t know. I really don’t know what’s going to happen until I get up there.”
They were both quiet, and then Felix said, “I wonder if I talk about that to distract from the truth.”
“That a woman is dead?”
“That a woman is dead who I wanted to die, who makes things so much easier for Scott by being dead. A woman who took my love away from me, and now I don’t exactly know what’s going to happen in the future. My future.”
“Because of Scott’s kids?”
“I don’t want to be a mother,” Felix said, “and I don’t want to be an asshole either.”






That night when they were eating dinner, Dylan said, “This has been one hell of a week.”
“And not even our hell,” Lance said.
“Right? But we’ve been so in our own little world, trying to make our own little life, and now we’re meeting friends, getting into their lives and I have to say, I like Felix.”
Lance nodded and Elias said, “I like what’s happened to us. I like what we’ve been through. I’m glad we could be part of people’s lives right now.
“Felix said something about kids.”
“About having to raise them?” Lance said. “That would be something, to be free and single and then be strapped with someone else’s kids.”
“Hey!” Dylan interrupted. “Watch yourselves! That’s how my dad got me.”
“It’s not exactly the same,” Elias said, laying his fork down.
“It kind of is,” Dylan told him.
“Fenn wasn’t free and single. He wasn’t even with your dad.”
“Whatever it is,” Elias said. “It would be something. To have a kid.”
“Something I have never allowed myself to think about,” Dylan said, “one: because I wasn’t ready for it, and two: because I didn’t think it would ever happen for us, is how it would be for us if we had children.”
“Us,” Lance said, pointing to his chest.
“See,” Dylan said, “the idea is so outlandish you don’t even let yourself think about it.”
Elias folded his hands together and looked at the two of them, but Lance shook his head.
“That’s not true,” he said. “You don’t know how many times I’ve thought about having a little boy. Sometimes I picture him on like one of those tire swings, or me teaching him how to throw a football and I want it so bad it hurts. You’re wrong, Dylan. I think about it everyday.”



The funeral was at Saint Casimir’s. There, it seemed as if Scott had pulled himself out of the wreck. Felix thought, he is more handsome than before because, for some reason, sadness is beautiful, and some people call it gravitas. It makes you sexier than being happy, and here he is grave and all in black, the pitiful single father at age thirty something with his boys.
The choir sang:
I am the Bread of Life
You who come to me will not hunger
And you who drink of me shall not thirst
No one can come to me
Unless the Father beckons..

Scott was not a pallbearer. He had been at the front, on his family’s side, with the children, overlooking the rose colored coffin of his wife. The casket was closed and Felix couldn’t even remember what Jen looked like. None of this was real. Nothing real could be said at the eulogy. This false sadness was best. Scott chose to say nothing. He did, for the sake of decency, nod his head a few times. On either side of him sat Nathan and Taylor, and then beside Taylor were Matt and Joey.
The other day, when Matt and Joey had come to the house with the furniture, Matt was in a feed cap, unshaven and in flannel, and he looked a little bit high. After they had put up the furniture and Joey was in the restroom, Matt began to cry.
“I’m such an asshole. I shouldn’t have fucked him, Felix. We shouldn’t have. We were doing it while I was doing the divorce and then I knew about you and it was all wrong and I was so jealous and now she’s dead and I’m such an asshole!”
He wept into his hands and then balled his hands into fist and boxed himself in the head.
“I feel like such a shit.”
But here was Matt right now, in an immaculate black suit.
hand on Taylor’s shoulder, red hair styled till it glinted copper.




And I will raise you up!
And I will rai-aissse you up!
And I will rai-aissse you up
On the la-assst day!

They filed out of the church, into the black cars. Scott did not go with Jen’s family. He drove his Land Rover with Nathan and Taylor, Felix and Joey, requesting that Felix sit shotgun while the kids sat between Matt and Joey. In front of Saint Casimir’s, the taillights of the hearse went red, and then they pulled up Archer Avenue. Next came Scott, knowing his parents followed. At the grave side, the priest talked on and on, and in Felix’s memory the priest is talking while the dirt, scrabble, scrabble, thud, thud, hits the lid of the coffin. But he knows this is not so. There might have been one dirt clod, but people are buried in vaults now, a vault that the casket goes into, and then it’s sealed later, so that whoever is in there is protected from the earth, and from the cranes should there ever be a building project here. Returning to earth, ashes to ashes and dust to dust: that is a lie here. So is eternal rest. It’s rest till they dig you up again. Felix thinks: better to evade desecration and costs in the five digits bullshit funerals by a quick trip to the crematorium.
Crematorium.
Jesus Goddamn, picturing his mother or his sister, or his anything in ashes, or not alive fucks with Felix.
He goes back to his preferred memory of “thud, thud” and the priest talking.

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Sounds like Felix has some thinking to do with regards to Scott’s kids and his role in their lives. The whole situation is very messy. No matter how much people wished it I don’t think anyone else is at fault for Jen’s death. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes. Yes. Felix has a lot to think about.