If I Should Fall

[ChrisGibson]

Russell loved his cousin Jimmy. Too much was happening today for him to remember exactly how they were related, but he thought that Jimmy grandmother was his grandfather’s sister. Jimmy smoked and drank and screwed a lot and never treated him like a kid. When he went hunting for Jimmy and the bride’s maid, another cousin, though not one he knew and not one related to Jimmy, he went looking everywhere he shouldn’t, always the right way to find his cousin.
If it has been any other day, Jimmy would have been at the very altar, but the church was filling up, and it was a wedding day, and so Russell found him fucking the bridesmaid in the basement. Jimmy was tall and wiry like a McLlarchlahn, with a long face, serious in its fucking, and a little soul patch and spiky hair and, his trousers about his knees, his jacket neatly hung on a folding chair in the darkened basement reception hall, he was plowing the bridesmaid against the bulletin board, her thighs wrapped about his waist.
“Yeah,” Jimmy encouraged the girl as she whimpered, “Yes, hat’s it, honey, let me hear it.”
As she cried out, he fucked her more, and the louder she was, the harder he fucked her until she began to make hard hit sounds and he slammed into her over and, at last, with a look like he’d been punched, came inside of her, staggering as he ejaculated and she clung to him, moaning.
“That’s a good girl,” Jimmy said, as he lowered her to the floor. “Howbout we both get cleaned up and attend a wedding?”
As she turned to go the women’s room, Jimmy was pulling himself back into his pants when he turned and saw Russell.
Russell had been waiting for the moment Jimmy went into the bathroom to go back up and he was so red now he felt it.
“Russ, you little fucking pervert,” Jimmy said.
“I—”
Jimmy put his finger to his lips.
“You’re that age. I would look too. We’re all perverts. Your time’s probably coming soon. They looking for me?”
Before Russell could answer, Jimmy went into the restroom. Russell, not knowing what else to do, followed him. He was pissing at the urinal, and he flushed and then went to the sink. He cranked the paper towel dispenser and with little care, opened his trousers, wiped himself, and then dried, and zipped himself back up. He was slapping water on his face and smoothing his hair and he said, “You got questions, right?”
“I got…” Russell’s mouth was dry.
“I have so many questions.”
“Great,” Jimmy turned to him. He took out two sticks of gum, one for Russell and one for himself.
“We’ll talk after the wedding. At the reception when all the dull shit is going on.”


When Jaclyn Dara Lewis was fourteen years old, she was the maid of honor at her brother’s wedding. They came down to Indiana, and though Jackie had never really been impressed by Notre Dame, not as much as some were, she was impressed that day. The Church of the Sacred Heart was splendid with flowers and crowded with Lewises, Nespreses, O’Donnells, Brennans, Mc.Llarchlahns and friends from all over the country. The swell of the organ shook the church. Patti had been so beautiful and virginal, all in white, the train of her veil going on forever it seemed, little cousins lifting it, flower girls scattering petals as she made her solemn procession down the aisle and up the steps past the main altar into the Lady Chapel. Chayne and Felice had been in the choir though, at the time, Jackie didn’t know them anymore than she knew Patti’s funny little brother. She knew only a few things. She knew that this was the day she’d fallen in love with Patti whom she still idolized a bit. She knew that she was obsessed with her own little part as maid of honor, she knew how handsome Thom had been—his hair was longer back then—and proud in his black tuxedo waiting for his wife. The choir had filed into the choir seats that faced each other and looked across the small chapel. Jackie had never known anything so wonderful, but she knew she wanted to have this one day, this walk down the aisle, the long walk down the long aisle, to be presented to someone, though back then she had no idea who the someone would be.
Then, years later, Jackie Lewis had sat in Saint Adjeanet’s church and watched John marry some local girl form Fort Atkins. It had been so beautiful and she had been so angry, and she’d wished she was that girl and it had made her angrier still. Now, over the anger, past the longing, Jackie realized that she’d thought that it was possible to have her wish. The beautful man and the beautiful wedding. She had thought, “Now it is possible.”
Now she knew she was wrong.
There was no way to play “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desire”, and so Bubba Goldstein threw back his head and chanted something in Hebrew, something very beautiful she had to admit, as Jackie came up the aisle.
“I suppose we’ll just have to make the best of the hand we’re dealt,” Jackie said after she’d been cried out and drugged out and Patti had told her, “After the dove and flowers and great music, that’s what you have to do every day for the rest of your life, Sister.”
With the exception of Bubba Goldstein, who had to remember to not don his ten gallon hat, the service was Catholic enough. The Eucharist came from the tabernacle, already blessed, Chayne murmured that if they ran out, “We’ll just have to give them bingo pieces. No one’ll tell the difference and those probably taste better anyway.”
They didn’t run out, though.
Bubba Goldstein had done several weddings before, and when he demanded, “Does anyone object to the union of these two?” Kim Bayle stood up, and roared, “I do.”
“Shit!” Jackie swore at the altar, clapping a hand to her mouth.
Then Kim Bayle threw back her head, laughed and said, “Just jokin’, guys!” and kept cackling as Bubba Goldstein concluded the wedding rite and said, “You guys should really be stepping on something. A bowl. Something. Wish I’d brought a bowl with me. Didn’t plan on doing a wedding today. You,” he told John, “may kiss the bride. In fact. I think you’d better.”
“Is this even legitimate?” Jackie whispered to John.
“As legitimate as it’s gonna get,” John told her, and as he kissed her, the choir began to sing overhead.

Love is the sunlight shaped by your splendor,
love is the starbright, born of your hand,
blessing of heaven, graciously given,
radiant with glory,
from your command!

As they were coming out of the church, Jackie and John heard revving engines and rifles popping off.
“What the!” started Jackie.
“Oooooooooooooooooway!”
Jackie looked down and Chip and Finn were at the head of about twenty five motorcycles.
“Had to find a way to say Happy Hitchin’ Day to the best girl I ever had!” Chip shouted up the steps. “This is your seventy-five—well, twenty five—motorcycle entourage!”
Kim came out with the boys and shoved the new bride and groom forward.
John smiled at Jackie and then ran down to the station wagon. John wheeled around to get in the driver’s seat and drove off with the motorcycles behind him.
“What the?” Jackie said, while young Russ cried, “Yay, Dad.”
The entourage headed down Kirkland, then the station wagon turned down Boise and a few seconds later the entourage was heard rumbling up More Street and then before the church again where the station wagon stopped.
“Sorry Jackie,” he said to his mystified wife who was standing eyes wide open beside his ex wife.
“See?” Kim said.
John ran around the station wagon, opened the door, let Jackie in and then ran back around and they took off again, guns shooting the air on Kirkland Street, the train of Jackie’s dress dragging along Kirkland until they disappeared and all that was left was the noise.
At the church doors, legs planted apart and hands folded before him, Rob Keyes was in wraparound shades looking, Russell felt, like a sexy FBI agent, but sniffling.
“Are you crying?” Chayne asked him.
Rob shrugged and squeaked, “Maybe a little.”
“Well,” Chayne sighed to Russell.
Russell Lewis grinned and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Well.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad the wedding went off without a hitch. I look forward to Russell and Jimmy having a talk. Great writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you have a nice Friday and weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

“What is it you like about sex?” he asked his cousin.
Jimmy looked at him a little shocked.
“Sorry,” Russell said instantly.
“No, Jimmy shook his head and chuckled a little. “It’s just that you kind of shocked me. No one’s ever asked me.”
“Well,” Russell shrugged. “I don’t think that I’ve ever asked anyone.”
Jimmy put a hand on his cousin’s shoulder and said, “We’ll talk out on the porch, like two men.”
The Lewis house and backyard were full of celebrants, but now Russell and Jimmy sat on the stood overlooking Breckinridge. The day was turning to night and James Nespres took out a cigarette for himself, offered another to Russell and lit both of them.
Jimmy said, as he had said earlier, “Well, you are that age.”
His mouth was tight around his cigarette. Jimmy inhaled. Russell was filled with something he thought he was too cynical for: hero worship.
“Well,” Russell shrugged, “I am that age. I mean, if you don’t want to tell me, I won’t ask.”
“No, I mean, I’ll answer any question you have,” Jimmy said, shrugging. “To the best of my ability.”
“I—” Russell started. “I’m not dumb or anything. I know that people have sex but for some reason I thought that it was like only glamorous people or really old people, but lately—and I’m not complaining—everyone around me, well a lot of people around me are... having it. It seems like they’re in the know and I’m not.”
“Lots of people your age are virgins,” said Jimmy, exhaling. “Hell, lots of people my age.”
“I know that,” said Russell. “But you’re not. And … I mean—I feel like I’m missing out on something.”
“Russell, you’re a good looking guy—If you wanted to score-”
“I don’t want to score—”
“You want romance—”
“No,” said Russell. “I want to know. I want to want to score. I want to want to have someone. I want to want to fall in love and I want to want to lose my virginity. I want to be normal. I would like to be like that. I’d like to complain about no girls liking me. I’d like to care. I’d like to say I was going to be in love or that I was going to be laid. I’d like to want to be laid—”
“Russell, it’s not the greatest thing on earth.”
“But I would like to think it is,” said Russell. “For one day I would want to be someone else like you or Jason Lorry—”
“Who?”
“Never mind. Or my dad even. I’m going to be a virgin for the rest of my life.”
“Russell,” Jimmy laughed. “Calm down, Cuz. Lots of guys feel that way when they’re your age?”
“Did you?”
“I wasn’t a virgin anymore when I was your age,” Jimmy said, frankly. “But one day you’ll look back and you’ll think you were just paranoid.”
“No, I won’t,” said Russell.
“Yeah—”
“No,” Russell cut his cousin off, “because I’m…”
“What?’
“I thought I was going to be a priest.”
“Well, you are serious and shit. About religion. That makes sense.”
“But I also think I’m probably gay.”
“Oh,” Jimmy said.
“Oh,” Russell said. “Is that all you can say?”
“Well gay dudes get laid too. My friend, Flipper. He does girls and guys. He’s always getting laid.”
“Oh.”
“Do you even know what being gay is?”
“It.s…. not being straight.”
Jimmy laughed so hard that when he stopped, he started again.
“I mean, Chayne is. And I suspect that… Well, never mind what I suspect. But like, I’ve never see what guys actually do with each other.”
“They got porns and stuff. Tapes. Even on the Internet. You can see it. I’ll send you some.”
Russell was about to say no, or that Jimmy was being silly, but instead he said, “Really?”
“Yeah,” Jimmy said, inhaling so hard the cigarette glowed bright orange in the approaching night.
“Really.”
They were both silent for a moment, and then Russell watched the smoke from his cigarette tendril in the clear space before him.



Soon after, Faye Mathisson returned. She had choice words to say about Ted Weirbach, but when Chayne pointed out that she had essentially done the same thing to Chuck Shrader, she immediately turned to Chuck who had been tongue tied the whole night and said, “Should we get together?” And so they became a couple.
Faye and Chuck would have to live in the world of the long distance relationship, and Chayne imagined he must have been in something like that. Ted called once a week. There was no need for more than once a week. They had been lovers who were just getting to love each other. Chayne privately wondered if what they had was strong enough to warrant being called a long distance relationship, especially when he paid to much attention to the way Robert Keyes always had the coffee ready, or always finished the sentences he started, or always wore those white pants or the baggy jeans that fit his behind but seemed to not wear underwear.
Chayne had thought it was Robert Keyes that kept Ted from his mind, or heart, and that he could turn over a new leaf and lead some type of celibate life. Then, one night, Faye, Shannon and Jewell took him to the Blue Jewel, and on the second margarita, when he was feeling expansive, he saw for the first time in a long time, Cowboy Dan and Cowboy Dan had asked, shyly, “What are you doing after this?”
He’d bought Chayne a shot, and Chayne downed it and felt his whole body flooded with fire.
“You,” he answered.

END OF CHAPTER

 

[CharmedFan28]

Well Russell and Jimmy certainly had an interesting conversation! Seems like Russell is just figuring things out but it was good that he came out to Jimmy. I am glad that Chayne has Cowboy Dan back in his life even if he still misses Ted. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

We all need a Cowboy Dan in our lives! And perhaps we all need a cousin Jimmy too.

 

[ChrisGibson]

FOUR



THIRTY-ONE

























“Unh! Unh! Harder! Now! Now! Baby... Oh, my Gawwwwwwwwwd!”
On her back, Debbie Baynes started to shout. Brad Long prevented it with the gentle penetration of the base of his palm in her mouth while he whispered, “Quiet Baby, Quiet!”
He said it in rhythm, gathering up strength as he fucked her.
They were in his basement. She’d snuck in this morning and said, “Happy Birthday, honey. Do you want your present?”
“What is it?”
“Me,” she said, and offered herself. Which, Brad thought, would have been gallant, would have been neat if she wasn’t always offering herself. He couldn’t complain. He was always taking.
He took this time.
Debbie told him, wrapping her little arms around his long neck, “I want you to be rough.”
He was rough enough. He took her on his hands and knees at seven in the morning and thrust himself into desire, and then into roughness. Roughness and tenderness were always a struggle, but right now there was no struggle because he didn’t want to be tender. Not really. He wanted this fucking, and then he wanted the coming and...
“Are you coming?”
Debbie stroked his head as the orgasm rumbled at the base of his cock.
“Are you coming?” her child voice demanded. “Are you okay?” She stroked him on his sweating head and stroked him while he trembled.
Brad opened his mouth to speak, grunted, shook, gasped like a fish while his body contracted, flailing out, and he let out a little strangled cry then collapsed on her.
“Oh, good boy,” Debbie said. “Oh, happy birthday!”
It filled him with self loathing how, at this moment, when he should have been at his most glorious, but was also at his most vulnerable, she pitied him like this and said stupid things, stroking his damp head. He was all damp. His heart was thumping. Debbie spoke on in her sweetly, vapid voice.
“How’s it feel to be thirty-one?”
Brad was drawing away from her, half swimming away to his side of the bed. His wet dick was shrinking into him.
He looked at Debbie, hair a mess, long face reddened and wet like his must have been.
He realized he hated her.

Brad could hear the water from the bathroom. Debbie was cleaning up. He wanted to clean up too, a little. He should go upstairs and take a shower—which Debbie—who had snuck into his parents’ house—could not do.
He did not say it, or even voice in a complete sentence that he was thirty-one as he looked around his domain. There were, painted in grey darkness, the rafters of the basement, They moved with the pressure of his mother’s feet. There were, behind him as there was across from him, the narrow windows, high and close to the ceiling by which he could see his father’s feet, or the dog’s paws as one of them walked the front yard.
“I’m underground,” said Brad. I’m buried alive.
He assessed the place, two large rooms, unfinished. This room he stayed in which was lower than the other with his large bed and a collection of many dog eared books, and on the opposite end of the great room that little bathroom where Debbie was washing off.
Brad was half tempted to look in the mirror, but he knew what he would see: the face at the end of the lanky, hirsute six feet that was pale nearly to the point of greenness. He’d see the eyes with the rings around them, the black hair and sideburns that made him look grungy, that needed to be cut, the goatee that his mother wished he’d shave.

He was surprised to see Debbie that morning and so early because she’d been over last night. She’d wanted to go on a walk. She liked this neighborhood. She loved the wide winding streets of what had been new thirty years ago, the low lying ranch houses, the trees just beginning to turn into something real. Brad had been here since Conestoga Drive was little more than a freshly baked prefab neighborhood. It meant nothing to him.
“Oh, honey!” she gushed, patting his face off as she reentered the room where Brad was still sitting naked, looking half dazed. “Let’s go on a walk. It’s a beautiful night. Come on. Get dressed!”
It had been a wretched night and the air was filled with cricket song, which annoyed the hell out of Brad, and the air was so thick that Brad thought, if I lean forward, the air will catch me and I’ll just be able to swim through it. But the thought of swimming just made him hotter. The air smelled hot. The lights on Conestoga Drive were out now. There were no sidewalks in Stonybrook subdivision. They walked the gravel.
“This is a nice life,” Debbie said. “I think we should have a house like this.”
“Like that one?” Brad pointed up a driveway posted with globe lanterns.
Debbie smiled with a simplicity that bordered on retardation.
“Yeah,” she said.
“But that’s like the house I live in now.”
“I know.”
“It’s like the house you live in.”
“My house doesn’t have those little gnomes.”
Brad stopped himself from frowning. He caught her hand and they kept walking. It was his fault. Didn’t she realize he was thirty? Past thirty! Didn’t she understand that he had different needs even if he himself didn’t know exactly what those needs were? She was twenty-two. Her whole life was ahead of her. If she took it.
“What do want, Debra?”
“Whaddo you mean?”
“What are you going to do with your life? I mean, what do you want to do?”
She smiled up at him, swung his long arm and said, “Be with you, silly.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Sounds like Brad doesn’t like where his life is or Debbie too much. I hope he ends it for his own sake. That was a interesting start to the chapter and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, Brad is very much in a shitty place and unable to extricate himself.
I'm so sorry we didn't get to talk about it or talk more. I just ended up going to bed. I don't know what the hell happened. I think it was the cold. i just wanted to be under covers.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, we’re back here live in Washington D.C.--
**Applause. Applause

On Voice of the Nation from International Radio. And this hour our subject is Generation X-ers. With me are Bob Mc,Gee, Director of Intergeneration Studies at Brown University, and Alexandra Yarbro, an X-er herself--do you mind the term, Alex?

--No, Kevin.

**Laugh.

Well, Bob, exactly what is Generation X?

Kevin, it’s that group of people right after the baby boomers. Their reach is wide, anywhere from the late sixties... would you say 1965, Alex?

That’s the extreme end. Way before my time!

Up until about 1977, 78?

Yeah, it’s a lot of people shocked by that. My sister thinks she’s Generation X. Had to tell her, sorry, Sis.

What is she?

Kevin, the question for us is what are we?

Well that’s a good question. What typifies this generation?

Usually, a since of loss, of drifting, there’s no direction. Some people think there’s no ambition. That’s not true. It’s not that there’s no hope. There’s a lot of disillusionment.

Well, ah. We’re going to take a few callers from the disgruntled generation. Hello? Hello?

Hey, Kevin!

Hello.

My Name’s Brad, and I come from Michigan. That’s me! I’m thirty one. I live at home with my parents in their basement. I can’t seem to find any meaning in my life...






“Did we miss the turn?” Shane Meriwether demanded.
“I think we were supposed to take Old Route 30,” Nehru said, turning the map over and pushing up his glasses.
In the seats behind them, Leon Dixon, said, “I just saw a sign that said Route 30... when he hit the bypass.”
“Did it say Old 30?” Nehru turned around.
There’s a difference?” Leon asked him.
“That would be why,” Nehru explained in the slow voice he used for some white people, “one route is called 30 and the other one’s called Old 30.”
“Fuck it,” said Shane, taking a hand through his blond hair, “I’m turning back.”
“No!” shouted Brad, leaning in front of Debbie. “Look, the sign said Saint Joseph—twelve miles!”
“And isn’t that the church we saw last year?” Debbie said. “I think we know where we are.”
Shane sighed and kept driving.
“I think you’re full of shit,” Robin Childress wrapped a long, black braid around her caramel colored finger.
Shane sighed deeper and raised an eyebrow to Nehru who said, “I’m sure we’re in the right direction.”
From the hatchback Hale Weathertop shouted, “Are we there yet?”
Except for Robin, who turned him a murderous look, they all rode through southern Michigan in silence.
“Oh, thank God,” Brad said when familiar buildings started popping up and the road grew a little narrower. “We are in Saint Joseph.”
Banners hung across the street with red letters exclaiming, “Welcome to the Venetian Festival.”
“I wonder if it’ll suck this year?” Nehru said.
“As much as it does every year,” Shane told him as they made a right turn, away from the street that led down to the beach, past the bank, into the parking lot. On the house tops people were sitting, laughing and drinking. The streets were filled with folks walking to the beach or back to their cars.
Shane got the minivan parked in the bank’s parking lot, and they tumbled, cramped and stumbling, onto the blacktop. Brad reached into the pocket of his white shorts and pulled out his Marlboro’s.
“What kind?” Robin held out her hand.
“Menthols,” he said, lips clenched around the cigarette he lit. Robin made a face and drew back her hand. Brad inhaled, exhaled.
“Oh, honey, it’s such a bad habit,” said Debbie.
“It helps me deal with stress,” said Brad as he began walking at the head of the group, shaking out his long legs.
“What stress?” Debbie inquired.
Robin and Nehru rolled their eyes at each other and all Shane said was, “Ironic, isn’t it?”
“Is that Chayne and Russell?” Nehru wondered.
“Chayne! Russell!”
He called before the rest of them understood what he was saying.”
As they were going up the street, headed to the wide avenue thye would cross to reach the beach, Russell Lewis’s red head and the white fedora of Chayne Kandzierski were coming toward them. Not far beyond, her black hair swinging, her skin golden in a tank top came the tall figure of Anigel Reyes beside Rob Keyes, the goodlooking guy who even now wore linen pants and a linen shirt and bright smile under wraparound shades.
“Nehru?” Chayne said.
They all greeted each other and Anigel said, “Go at your own peril. It’s crowded as fuck down there. We’re headed to New Union.”
“Crowded,” Rob added, “and once you get down there you lose the energy to make the trip back up, so you just stand on the beach between all those people and sort of lose the will to live.”
“Howabout we get to New Union soon as possible,” Chayne said, “And find that will again.”
After they parted someone shouted down and Nehru shouted up, waving.
“Wanna beer?” a white guy in a tank top asked.
“Thanks.”
Nehru threw up his hands and caught the beer tossed down.
“Happy Fourth!” Nehru shouted up.
“You too, man.”
“I’m such a swinger,” Nehru said.
“What?” Brad demanded.
“I’m such a swinger. You know, a real swinging guy.”
“That…” Brad began, “is not what that word means.”
“It’s what it means to me,” Nehru said, cracking open the beer and yelping, then laughing, as some of it foamed up his nose before he drank.
“That Rob guy looks a lot like you,” Nehru said.
“Cute ass, compact built,” Robin assessed.
“Spiky blond hair. If he has blue eyes under those shades you all would be twins.”
The group crossed the wide street with about twelve or so others and a bicycle. There was a two block walk down a cobble stone street full of shops with things no one could afford before they reached the beach.
Leon said, “Hey, did you know I got laid last night?”
“No,” said Robin. “but I know men lie a lot.”
“I got laid,” Leon insisted. “I took this girl home and fucked her in my Impala last night. She was hot as hell. But a little stupid.”
Against his desire to pretend he didn’t care, Hale said, “Did you meet her at the wedding you DJ-ed?”
“Un hunh. Red hair, nice tan, brown eyes. Nice ass. Kind of a bitch, though. She was a bridesmaid.”
“At Tara Daniel’s wedding?” Hale said.
“Um hum. Her name was.... I think her name was Jill. She lives on Colum.”
“You fucked Jill Barnard?” Shane turned on Leon.
“Yeah, that’s her name.”
Shane smiled fiercely. “You’re full of shit. I don’t believe you.”
“It’s a small world,” Nehru noted.
“It’s a small town,” Brad said darkly.
“Brad got laid last night too!” Debbie announced proudly.
Brad, who had been giving his attention to Nehru, suddenly blushed and his younger friend saw the taller man’s eyes widen a little.
“For his birthday,” Debbie announced.
Nehru was embarrassed for his friend who just kept walking with a fixed expression—or lack of expression—through the crowd.
Brad turned to Nehru and murmured, “Can I talk to you later?”
“About what?” said Nehru, smiling vapidly.

Shane rolled up his white trousers, and taking off his sandals, stepped into the water’s edge and began walking along the sand.
“You did not fuck Jill Barnard,:” he insisted to Leon.
“Yes. I did.” Leon said.
“I don’t believe you.”
They were both whispering, which was just as well, because they had to thread their way through children and sandcastles.
“No you didn’t,” Shane grew a little shrill and took his hands through his hair.
Leon opened his mouth and then started to crow.
“What?” Shane said fiercely.
“Oh, my God!” shouted Leon.
Shane’s blue eyes burned on his friend.
“Hey guys,” Leon shouted, running ahead where Brad and Debbie were walking hand and hand. In a clump before everyone else, Robin, Hale and Nehru were strolling.
“Guys, Shane fucked Jill Barnard too!”
“Shut up!” Shane ran ahead to hit Leon, but Nehru reached back and knocked Leon on the side of his head first.
“Could you shout that out on a beach full of hillbillies and their children a little louder!” he hissed.
Leon blinked and tilted his head like a struck puppy. Then he said, “Nehru, you think all white people are hillbillies.”
Looking from Nehru Alexander, to the people on the beach, Brad reflected that his friend might not be wrong.
Leon looked like a dog who had been struck on the nose, then undeterred he went on to Shane.
They all walked along the beach, Shane, sullenly slouching behind them. No one asked Shane if he was okay. It would just upset him more.
Leon did a cartwheel. Robin and then Hale began to explore other parts of the beach. Nehru strolled alone, watching a sea gull dive for the water, and then just miss it and veer back into the air.
Brad came up behind him with Debbie and Brad said, “Baby, can I talk to Nehru alone?”
Debbie looked offended.
“It’s guy talk, baby? Between men? Alright?”
Against his will, he was afraid he had hurt her.
“Go talk to Robin. She’ll be glad to hear from you,” Brad told her, and Nehru had to stifle a laugh. “We’ll be back in a moment.”
Debbie went off, and Nehru and Brad stood watching before Brad took out a cigarette and lit it.
“Well, the stress just left, so why are you smoking?” said Nehru.
“Com’on, leave her alone.”
“She’s what you wanted to talk about, right? I mean, I know that when people say guy talk, women’s talk, Black talk, what they mean is ‘We’re talking about you. Please go away right now so we can do it properly.’”
Brad watched Debbie go smaller as she dwindled toward Robin’s end of the beach, then turned around, and kicking the waves, he and Nehru started to walk along the shore.
After a while, Brad and Nehru stopped. Behind them Nehru could hear the young and the not so young screaming. He wriggled his toes and sank them in the soft silt of the sand. Sometimes the water was dirty. A dead fish might float to shore. And it wasn’t always fish. Little plastic liquor bottles, articles of clothing, condoms and things best not guessed at came to his toes too. Right here, in this little patch before the sandbar, the water that washed in was clear, and Nehru could see his gold brown feet through the water, sinking into the grains of red and black and brown that made the sand. Brad’s larger white feet sank in too, and the older man wriggled his toes and let the sand filter through them.
“Have you ever been to the ocean, Nehru?”
“Not yet. You?”
Brad shook his head.
“Sometimes I pretend this is the ocean,” Nehru looked out. The sky was clearly blue, the horizon filled with gold, the sun setting red into the water. “You can’t see the end of Lake Michigan either.”
“I’m thirty-one,” said Brad.
“I know this,” Nehru replied.
“What do you think about it?”
“I don’t think anything about it.”
“What about Debbie. About me and her?”
“You know what I think about Debra,” Nehru said, folding his long brown arms behind his white tee-shirted back. “You’ve always known.”
“You think I’m too old for her.”
“Brad, why are you asking me?”
Neither one of them was looking at the other.
“You know you’re too old for her.”
“She’s the same age you are. She’s older than you.”
“You’re not fucking me. If you were happy with her, you wouldn’t ask me all these questions.”
“I just want to hear you say I should have quit her a long time ago.”
“I just said it.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Well, if you didn’t hear it implied, I’m not saying it outright. That’s on you.”


MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

Sorry for the delayed reading, I got busy. That was a great portion! It seems like Brad is waking up to what he really wants. I hope he can find some happiness as it seems he is at a pretty low point. I am enjoying seeing the older and newer characters interacting. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, sleep is sleep and busy is busy and I had gone to bed myself. I'm only up not because today is grocery day and I hope to be back in bed soon to get rhe last of my sleep. What you said is very observant. Brad is waking up, but now we'll wee what he does about it.

 

[ChrisGibson]

It was Sunday afternoon, and they were in Nehru’s kitchen on Meredith Street.
“I called earlier,” said Brad, “but you weren’t at home.”
“I was at Saint Celestine’s. It’s Sunday. Some of us still believe in God.”
“Hey, I believe in God. I don’t know about Jesus and I definitely don’t give a shit about Rome. But I believe in God, so there.”
“So,” Nehru went on, nonplussed, “that’s where I was. What happened after we got back from the beach and went our separate ways?”
“Let’s see. Shane almost beat up Leon. We stopped him, but now I don’t know if we should have.”
“Did Shane really have sex with that whoever girl?”
Brad shrugged. “Shane’s close mouthed about his sex life.”
“They say the ones that talk the least about it...” Nehru started, trailed off, drank from his water bottle.
“Then I got back to the house with Debbie.... We had sex.”
“Naturally.”
“Whaddo you mean naturally?”
Again, Nehru ignored the question. “And then what?”
“And then we broke up.”
Brad drummed on the table top. He raised one eyebrow, then lowered it, then raised the other like a bored dog.
“She cried, you know?”
“I thought she would. But, how do you feel?... Now that she’s gone.”
“A little bit bad.”
“But a great bit relieved,” Nehru guessed.
“Nehru, what do you want out of life?”
“That’s a strange question.”
“It’s not that strange.”
“Well, it kind of put me on the spot.”
Brad said, “You put me on the spot on an hourly basis.”
“True,” Nehru allowed. It was a while before he spoke.
“I guess I always thought that it was a day by day thing. That... that you just don’t plan life and say I want one thing, But that you take it each day and you do... what you have to do.”
“Well, when you’re thirty, what do you picture for your life?”
“That’s not fair.”
“Why not?”
“Cause I’m so grateful I made it to twenty-two. I can’t see that far.”
“It’s not that far off.”
“Yes and no.”
“Do you want to be living in your mom’s basement when you’re my age?”
“Com’on Brad.”
“With a group of friends who are all a bunch of morons?”
“Thanks.”
“You know I don’t mean you. And a girlfriend who’s a moron too. Who’s too young for you. When I was in college I thought I wanted to get my Masters. And I did. And I thought I wanted to do all this great stuff and be respectable and maybe teach and it’s all stupid, Nehru. It’s all worthless. It’s like I was so ambitious at one point I wanted to have this and this and that. And now this and that just feels… not worth it. There’s no place for us.”
“Us?”
“Yes,” Brad said. “We’re the same thing, you know. You’ll turn out better. You won’t live in a basement, but you’re gonna look around and see that this is all just a bunch of bullshit. I wanna get somewhere. You know? And I’m not getting any younger. When I was twenty it was cool to bitch like this and dream like this. but I’m thirty-one and there’s no time any more. I hate my life.”
Nehru sat there silent. Anything he said would be the wrong thing.
“I’m sorry,” Brad said at last, staring at the wall behind his friend.
“For what?”
“For whining. For going ballistic.”
“I think you’re not saying anything that’s not on everyone’s mind,” Nehru said.
“Do you... ever feel that way sometimes?”
Nehru nodded.
“There’s got to be something better. Something’s got to mean something. Everyone’s walking around smiling, pretending they’re so happy,” said Brad.
“Some of them aren’t pretending.”
“I kind of hope that’s true,” Brad said. “And then I sort of hope it isn’t.
“I know that it isn’t. For a lot of people. Even at the beach you could tell. I can tell. But you can tell…that something’s wrong. If you talk to people, if you talk to friends long enough, you’ll all agree. You’ll all have seen it. If you look at people a little harder you’ll see it. And... And I’m not going to live with it—whatever it is. I’m gonna get happy,”
Then Brad laughed.
“I just don’t know how to get there. I wonder what a priest would say,” Brad laughed.
“I don’t,” Nehru said. “They don’t know what the hell is going on either.”

Brad was lying on his back listening to depressing music. It had been so warm this whole July. It was warm tonight, even in this basement where he lay on his back staring at the rafters and watching the tendrils and clouds of smoke from the menthol cigarette, watching the uneven cone at its tip burn rust orange. He took two last puffs before stubbing out the cigarette, and began to play air guitar as the music grew more angry and less sad. Then the phone rang. Brad reached over, turned down the stereo and answered.
“Hello?”
It was too late for anyone to be calling.
“Bradley?” it was a small voice that sounded a little desperate.
“Debbie?”
There were a few snuffles to prove that she was in real pain, and then. “Yes,” in an even smaller voice.
“What’s up, Debra?”
“I need to come over. I need to see you.”
“Debbie, honey. It’s late.”
“Please, Brad. You used to love me.”
“I still do,” he lied. He wondered if he ever had loved her. On the other side of the phone, as if she’d heard his doubt, Debbie began sobbing loudly.
“Okay,” he said. “Come on over. The basement door’ll be open, alright?”
She sobbed again.
“Alright,” she cried.

Brad got dressed. It really was too hot. How could it be this awful, even in July? He sat in the second room of the basement, in the old beat up barber chair that had belonged to his uncle’s shop. Often, when Debra said she was coming over, he would sit here, looking at the red metal door, waiting for it to open, sometimes fantasizing that he was waiting for a drug lord, some arch nemesis to step through, making a gun sign, licking his lips. This was the chair where he waited for the enemy.
He made a gun out of his hand, closed one eye, aimed at the red door, and fired a few times.
Then Debra came in looking sadder than ever.
“Debbie.”
“Hi, Bradley.”
She sounded so sad it made him sick. No. No. That was the thing. He made himself sick because he was falling for it. She was so little. He wanted to make her feel better.
She came to him, and guiltily he enfolded her in his arms.
“I miss you,” she said. “I love you.”
“Baby, you can’t be like this. It’s not right. You should find someone. You will. I’m not what you want. Not really.”
“Yes, Bradley. I do… Life is...” she sobbed and he stroked her hair. “Life is bad and you’re so smart, you know how to help me get through it.”
“You’ll get through it,” he said holding her tighter.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she said. “I promise I’ll do better.”
“That’s not what it’s about.”
“I’ll do what you want me to. I promise. Just tell me.”
“Baby stop.”
She kissed Brad. She was like a puppy. She kissed his neck and his eyes and his ears and his head and wailed, “I promise.”
“Baby. Stop,” he said. “Baby, stop.” he pleaded. He knew what she was doing, past the promises and the tears that she herself really believed in. He knew how his body was responding. How his heart was unlocking.
“Bradley, I’m sorry,” she breathed into his chest, still weeping. “I’m sorry.”
Her little hand reached into his shorts and her fingers wrapped around his already stiff cock. As she wept, she squeezed him and went to her knees.
“I’ll do better.”


Brad sat up in bed staring blankly at the wall. Beyond the blankness, dully insisting itself, was anger, though Brad could not say exactly with whom he was angry. His clothing was in a pile at the corner of the bed. At the side of the bed Debra was dressing. Her face was dry and pale and showed the first trace of real, grownup sorrow.
She pulled the pink shirt on over her brassiere.
“It really is over isn’t it, Brad?”
Brad looked sullen. He looked guilty, but determined.
He nodded.
Debra nodded. She did not pat him or smile or say anything but, “I’ll let myself out.”
Brad nodded. and pulled his knees to his chest. He heard her footfalls die, and then the red door open and close.
So this is what freedom feels like.

He felt like shit.





The summer of 1999 was, as Gilead had said that morning at Chayne’s house, the hottest, fuggliest summer Russell Lewis had ever known. There was something purifying about it, though, something about pressing through this great fucking heat to enjoy the day, something about the semi sleepless nights where Russell prayed his parents would finally relent and get air conditioning, where the quality of heat sent strange half dreams and tired bodies encountered semi fantasies.
The wind had picked up that night and it was a hot one full of spice.
Ralph said, “You should come back to our place for dinner. Ani’ll be there, I think.”
Ralph meant John and Caroline’s apartment over the store in Little Poland. The days lasted forever and though it was nine o’clock as the crossed the Brigham Street Bridge, the sun had glinted on the broad river making it a sheet of metal.
Anigel was there with her friend Ross Allen who, apparently wa related to Gilead, and this was less of a surprise than it would have been because Princes and Wynns and their relationships were all over the county.
“I go to Saint Alban’s up in Walter.”
That bit did catch Russell.
“Do you know James Nespres?”
“Jimmy?” Ross blinked at Russell. “Jimmy Nespres. Oh, man!”
Ross rolled his eyes and laughed in a way that said he did indeed know Jimmy Nespres.


As the sun was setting, they were in Ralph’s room which smelled better than Russell thought Ralph’s room would and Ralph said, “You can smoke it you want.”
Russell was grateful for that, but did not and Ralph said, “Can I tell you something?”
“Sure,” Russell said, and now he did take out a cigarette because when people asked that question it made him feel nervous and smoking made him feel like a grown up. Ralph passed Russell an old plate with the remains of breakfast to use for an ashtray.
“You like Vanessa?”
“I don’t really know her,” Russell said. “But what I know I like.”
“Good,” Ralph said. “Good.”
He sounded distracted.
“Ralph?”
“We had sex.”
“What?” Russell was unable to not sound surprised.
“Yeah.”
“When?”
“About two nights ago?”
“About?”
“Two nights ago?”
Russell was about to ask where, but that sounded nosey and, besides, he was sitting on Ralph’s bed and he was afraid of the answer.
So he asked, “Well, are you alright.”
Ralph laughed like a shocked and tired older man, like Thom,” Russell thought, and said, “Well, I had sex. I didn’t jump off a mountain.”
Russell tried to laugh, tried to feel alright and sophisticated and shrugged.
“Well… was it nice?”
“It was,” Ralph said.
“It wasn’t what I thought it would be,” he continued. “I’m not exactly sure I know what the means. But…. It was nice. It is nice.”
“Oh,” Russell said.
Because that was not enough to end the discussion on, Russell added, “Good. I’m happy for you Ralph.”

MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad Brad ended things with Debbie. There is no point keeping things going just to keep the other person happy if you aren’t happy yourself. Russell is having some interesting conversations. This story is still keeping me fascinated to see what happens next and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Yes, in addition to Russell now being friends with Ralph, he's also learning about Ralph's sex life and reflecting on his lck of one. Meanwhile Brad is trying to live a more honest life and get to some happiness.

 

[ChrisGibson]

TONIGHT, AS OUR CHAPTER CONCLUDES, TRAGEDY STRIKES OUR LADY OF MERCY, AND WE COME TO KNOW CHRIS KNAPP AND MARK YOUNG A LITTLE BETTER
Russell was not happy for Ralph. He was dizzy and confused and felt like a foolish virgin. He was completely undone by the idea of sex and by how everyone was having it. Weren’t they supposed to wait, and why did he care? He shouldn’t care. Was he jealous of Ralph? Was he….? How did he feel? As he stood under the shower letting the water beat down on him, Russell wished it wasn’t too late to call Gilead, wished that Sharonda wouldn’t pick up the phone and ask who the hell was calling at eleven.

That whole night the warm, shifting wind’s moved over Russell’s naked body, drying him and sending strange dreams. They were not dreams of desire but of foreboding, as if clouds had been building up, and though the air had been hot and moist all night, there were no clouds in the sky that day, but since the evening came he’d had the feeling something was going to happen and when Ralph had told him about Vanessa he had thought, “That was the something,” but now, as he woke and looked at the clock with red digital letters declaring 1:00 he knew that was not it. That was not enough.


At breakfast, where they all sat eating cereal Patti, frizzy haired with a curl plastered to her cheek slapped the table and said, “Damnit, enough.”
Thom, his usually thick and wavy hair plastered flat to his head blinked at her.
“Call them, Goddamnit. We’re getting central air today. It’s ridiculous the damn Armstrongs and Dwyers have it and we have to look like this all day. What’s the point in having a little money if you don’t use it?”
Thom gave no argument. The heat had taken the fight from him.
The phone rang and Russell, in boxers and a tee shirt semi plastered to his chest got up and answered.
“Hello.”
“May I speak to Russell Lewis?”
“Speaking.”
“This is David Tressler, President of the Upper Class Assembly.”
“Alright,” Russell said, feeling stupid and half asleep, thinking about how good air conditioning was going to be. He had forgotten he was now and upper classmen.
“You know our fellow classman, Joseph Smith.”
“Yes,” Russell said, remembering a kid with a big nose that Mrs. O’Neill had often had to say, “Shup up, Joe” to because he always talked through class.
“Joe and a few friends were in a car crash last night.”
This was the something. How would Joe be? What a way to start a new year, and they would in under a month. What about his other friends? What about Mark Young, the guy that Gilead was so fixated on, or vice versa.
“He died this morning,” David continued.
While that phrase wound its way through Russell, David continued, “The family is making plans, and I’ll be back in contact with you, but I want to make sure that as many members of the our upper classes are at the funeral to support them. So far the news is that it will be at Evervirgin…”
“Yes, yes,” Russell said, “Of course, I’ll be there.”



Even twenty years into the future, if anyone dared to ask Marcus Isaac Young how he’d felt that morning, he would have had to cast around for an answer. In months he would understand why people never said anything about death worth hearing, or why they joked about things that were truly awful. No one knew what to say because no one knew what had happened, not really.
There was no reason to be in this hospital bed. One moment he and Joe had been silly, had been what they always were and summer nights were what summer nights were and then, in the next instant this. Life had not been serious at all. There was been no signs it would be serious. And then this.
Only one person would ever dare to ask him how he felt this day, and the answer would be profound. Before real sorrow kicked in, or anything else, while he was too stunned to take things in, he felt profound. Something mighty had fallen on him and his friends, and they were seventeen and stupid. Mark was just a leggy track runner with what he knew were good looks who had never had a deep thought in his life, and now, here came this deep thing.
The doctor was a woman. She was kind and gentle, so gentle it had taken a while for Mark to understand that what she was saying was that Joe was dead.
He had seen movies, and Mark saw himself in this movie. He would be the good looking green eyed boy who sat in the hospital bed and cried.
The doctor was there. His parents were there.
Mom said, “Honey, are you going to be okay?”
The doctor said, “Is there anything I can do for you?”
Dad said nothing.
Mark’s face was stone. His eyes burning. He held his jaw together.
“I’d like to go home,” he said,” looking down at the blanket up to his hips.”
It was the doctor who took the hugh breath everyone wanted to take.
She said, “I’ll get the papers for your discharge.”


Later that afternoon, when it was too hot to do anything, Mark Young stripped his tee shirt, put on his running shorts and shoes, too a towel and jogged out of the house before his parents could say anything. He ran through Sandybrook where maybe people knew what had happened and maybe people didn’t, and he ran up North Westhaven and then down Finallay Parkway until he reached Finnalay Park, empty in this hot day and he continued running the path they had used the summer until, baked by the sun and covered in sweet, his eyes stinking, he stopped on the top of a hill, panting, grasped his knees, then, rising for a breath, threw up his head and screamed.




The funeral was at Saint Mary the Evervirgin. This was his church because his family was well off and lived in a cul de sac. It was familiar to him. Seeing most of his classmates here with him was not. How, after people came to the family people came to him, like a widow, and asked if he was alright, or looked at him from the corners of their eyes, was new and unwelcome.
Mark wore an expensive black suit, white shirt and red tie that was completely different in quality from the shirt and tie and blazer combo he wore to school. He knew he looked like an adult, that he looked handsome. He knew he was goodlooking, but that never really seemed to matter because it never halped him meet the people he wanted to know.
Chris Knapp was there, also looking impressive and they nodded to each other like men. He knew by the look in Chris’s eyes he felt like hell. He would be a pall bearer. It had been decided Mark was too close to the whole thing. He had been in the car wreck. It would be as inappropriate to ask him to carry a coffin as it would be to ask, say, Joe’s mother.
Father Branch, a generally austere Black priest who taught art on the fourth floor and was rarely seen by most students, led the mass and did the sermon. Mark did not remember This was a gentle, but firm man not given over to emotions and so, though Mark did not remember the sermon, he remembered when the priest stopped it to wipe his eyes or catch his breath, unafraid of revealing his own sorrow. Branch was the head of their order. He was not principal of the school, but he did run it, unseen. He was strong enough and old enough to cry in a church full of people. Mark wished he was too.
The communion hymn was All That We Have And All That We Offer. The folk choir of Evervirgin sang it and it was sweet and and high which made it more powerful not less.


All that we have and all that we offer
Comes from a heart both frightened and free.
Take what we bring now and give what we need.
All done in his name.

Some would rely on their power,
Others put trust in their gold.
Some have only their Savior,
Whose faithfulness never grows old.


Father Branch cried as he lifted the chalice and wiped his face as he came down from the altar with the wafers. Mark would never forget that.
After Communion, Mark did not return to his seat, but stepped out to catch his breath. He had seen Cameron Dwyer here. He knew her informally and appreciated it, but now he was surprised to see her talking to Chris Knapp. I mean, Chris was the quarterback, He was popular, and so was Cameron, but…
He went out into the hot sun and only came back when he heard a sort of terrible sobbing. Coming into the vestibule, he saw that Cameron was holding Chris and Chris was bent over weeping into her arms.
They looked at him and Chris was red faced and boylike and Mark felt tears running down his face and he said, quickly, “I wanna be a pallbearer, alright?”
Chris just cried raggedly and nodded his head.
Cameron’s face was wet and she said, “We better get cleaned up. We can’t go back in their looking like this.”
The two young men tried to laugh, but it was crying.
Mark would never forget any of this.

But out of everything that had impressed him that day was what had happened at the beginning, before the mass, when people were still entering. There was that casket, that fucking casket that had the body of a boy in it. That had been open and Mark had wanted to scream at. Most people eyed it and avoided it and then there came Russell Lewis and Gilead Story. Gilead Story. Gilead Story. They were with Ralph Balusik and Jason Lorry and they were less of a surprise. It was a well known fact that Gilead and Russell were antisocial as fuck and hadn’t known Joe at all.
Now they both approached the casket, and like old fashioned Catholics, Gilead, and then Russell went to the kneeler. Gilead had an old Rosary and he prayed on it what must have been a decade of the Rosary, and then, without any kind of shame, he kissed the lid of the casket, rose, and led Russell to where they would sit.
Out of all the memories of that day this was the most precious one, the one Mark turned over and over again, and that would never be forgotten.


TOMORROW: BOOK OF THE BURNING

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a very sad conclusion to the chapter. Any death is a tragedy but someone as young as Joe is especially sad. Great writing and I look forward to Book Of The Burning tomorrow.

 

[ChrisGibson]

This should have actually been its own chapter. I see that now, and in the future it will be a separate chapter. Yes, it was very sad. It's also the beginning of opening a door on a new group of folks.

 

[ChrisGibson]

FIVE

THESE
SIMPLE
ECSTASIES



BRAD LONG WAS, so Marissa estimated, a little over six feet standing, and she hoped he was as young as he looked; applying for a shelving job at the public library and all. He was narrow—the word thin did no justice—and wore old jeans and a weathered white tee shirt that refused to be tucked in. As Marissa sat on the other side of the table reading his application, he sat back, legs wide apart, twiddling the thumbs of his big hands. He was unshaven, had a goatee and short black hair that contrasted with his almost ghostly white skin. His green eyes would have been looking straight into her if she’d let them, if she wasn’t bound on concentrating on his application.
“You’re thirty-one?”
“Just turned it this summer.”
“And you were top of your graduate school class?”
“Um hum.”
“I mean, Wallington isn’t a joke school... and you have a degree in English and philosophy... a Masters in both?”
Marissa looked across the table, back to Brad Long who now had a long finger jammed into his ear and was digging furiously into it with raised eyebrows.
“You started off teaching at Wallington, then quit?”
“It’s not the teaching I disagreed with, it was the whole philosophy of the faculty. They didn’t prize education. You know?”
“Then you were at Rutherford?”
“Not my style.” He dismissed it with a vehement shake of the head, pushing the style away with his hand.
“And a book out.”
“That no one reads.”
“Then why did you put it on your resume?”
“Because it was true.”
Marissa blinked at this.
Clearing his throat, Brad Long clarified, “And it was only one of those college press things?” his voice lifted to make the sentence a question. “I plan on finishing another one. Starting’s not the problem. It’s completion.”
“And you tutor now?”
“Um hum.”
“Who?”
“Whomever—whoever wants it.”
“And then you were working in a furniture store?”
“Right.”
“And a Wendy’s?”
“Yes.”
“And other fast food places and the like.”
“Dime stores.” Then Brad added, “And the like.
“But there were no kids there, not enough time to really talk to people either. I love people. Just to be one on one with them you know?”
Marissa Gregg only answered by saying, “And now you want to make five dollars an hour as a shelver?”
Brad looked back at her with raised eyebrows and wide eyes as if he’d been the one asking the question.
“I mean....” she looked down at the application, “Mr. Long, aren’t you a little old and a little overqualified to be applying for this job?”
He shrugged indifferently, and with equal indifference asked, “Aren’t you a little sexy to be a librarian?”
Marissa Long bristled.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” she told him.
Brad Long looked completely unapologetic, not even mischievous. But he did say. “You’re probably right.”
“Mr. Long, I don’t really see a reason for you doing this when could be teaching—at a college level, writing works of scholarship, giving seminars, putting your talents to a much better use—”
“Have you ever shelved a book?” he asked in a mild voice.
“Well, yes.”
“I bet you shelve them every day, don’t you?”
She nodded.
“And work with kids?”
“It’s part of my job description,” she pushed a bit of hair out of her face.
“And it’s menial to you? I mean, do you really think it means nothing, what you do?”
“It’s—” Marissa began, and then she said, “Mr. Long, do you have any other questions?”
“What time’s your lunch break?”
She looked straight at him, completely bewildered.
“Librarians don’t go to lunch?” he looked incredulous.
“It’s one.”
“That’s forty-five minutes off.”
He stood up now and stretched a little.
“Where’d’ya wanna go?”
“I’m afraid…” she began, “Mr. Long, that’s not acceptable.”
“Well, do I at least get the job?”
Marissa did the specified amount of hemming and hawwing before saying, “Mr. Long, you’ll have to call me tomorrow. But I’ll be honest-” (which was not completely honest at all) “there are four other applicants for this job, so your chances are iffy.”
Brad nodded, said, “Thank you,” offered his hand bravely, and after Marissa had taken it, strode out of the tiny office into the third floor lobby.

Early the next morning, Marcia, adorned in beaten gold bangles, hoop earrings, and swirls of micro braids, walked into Marissa’s office.
“It’s a man here to see you,” she told Marissa. “Here for an interview. He asked me about it, but I said he’d better check with you.”
“Alright, Marcia,” Marissa’s voice was tired. For some time she’d felt sapped of strength. “Send him in.”
Out went Marcia. In came Brad Long, a trifle ridiculous looking with his hair combed and polished, a dark blue dress shirt and black slacks too baggy for him.
“I called and called, but there was no answer. Or they said you were busy.”
All these words tumbled from Brad’s mouth in rapid succession.
“Mr...” Marissa made as if she had forgotten his last name.
“Long.” Intentionally or unintentionally, Brad, leaning over Marissa’s desk, made an L, like a child’s gun sign, with his right hand. He helped himself to a seat. “Do I get the job? I even came dressed respectably to show how respectable I can be—”
“Mr. Long—”
“And I’d be good with kids, I mean, shelving in the children’s area and all.”
Once again she was reminding herself to turn from those green eyes, stop looking curiously at that black hair.
Brad sat back and spread his hands out.
“You know what, Mrs. Gregg?”
“It’s Miss. I have never been Mrs.”
“You know what, Miss Gregg, you can’t think I’m not able to do this job.”
“I think it is beneath you. I think this, all of this, is not enough for someone like you.”
“If that’s how you feel,” Brad said, sitting up, “get out. If you feel like writing works of scholarship is what would do it for you, or being a college professor, or performing surgery or dancing topless or standing on your head or whatever is better than this, well then go for it. And get out of here. I know all the grand stuff didn’t work for me is all.”
“And you think this will, Mr. Long?”
“Call me Brad. We’ve got to be the same age.”
“I’m thirty-five.”
He shook his head, and leaning a little nearer to his edge of the table placed his chin in his cupped hands and frowned.
She was offended. She was offended by him calling her sexy yesterday, by frankly walking into her office, asking for a job and acting like he wanted to fuck her.
She stared at him, waiting for this weird man to pull a gun out or scream or spit pea soup. Or anything.
“Thirty-five is too old—” Brad began.
“I beg our pardon—”
“Too old to be stuck in something you don’t like...”
With his pale skin, round, ringed eyes and short black hair he looked like something from a Byzantine mosaic. There was nothing attractive about Brad Long in the common way, but Marissa Gregg was attracted to him. She’d known immediately she couldn’t offer him the job, told him of the poor reasoning involved in him trying to shelve books and read stories to five year olds, and yet had on some level hoped he would convince her otherwise.


“I don’t know why it’s so important to him,” Nehru said from where he lay flipping through an old magazine, sprawled out on the sofa in Chayne’s house. He looked up at them. “Does anyone know what the hell a V-spot is?”
Chayne looked sharply at his young cousin, and then back to Brad.
“Would you like to sit down?”
“No, Chayne,” the tall, pale man waved the question away with one of his large, frantic hands.
“I mean,” Nehru tried to be understanding of his friend this time, “Do you need the money. It’s only five dollars an hour. You could probably get something even part time at Soubirous—”
Brad shot Nehru a look, and Nehru blinked, putting down the magazine and sitting up a little straighter, he said, “Bradley. It’s not the money is it? Brad, what is it?”
Brad’s brows knit, and Rob, from where he sat sorting through Chayne’s mail, thought the man looked rather profound and woebegone.
“I don’t know,” Brad said. “I don’t... Chayne?”
“Yeah?”
“I was about to ask about people from your generation—”
“Until you realize that you’re closer to my age than Nehru’s?”
Brad smiled sadly and said, “Yeah. But I don’t think of it that way. I don’t really think of you as an age. And I’m actually closer in age to Russell’s parents than Russell, aren’t I?”
Because the answer would have been depressing, Chayne said nothing.
“I just… thought I’d have it figured out by now,” he said.
“No one—” Chayne started out, but Brad waved it away.
“I know, no one has it figured out, but some people my age have it figured out to the tune of a wife and kids, a two car garage and a house in the Breckinridge or Keyworthy. I wish I could have it as not figured out as they do. And...they don’t even know they don’t have it figured out. I wish I didn’t know. I keep thinking there’s always something around the corner.”
Brad flopped down on the sofa, his long legs stretching out before him, and he turned with a grimace to Nehru as if to say, “How do you feel about that, buddy?
“Every time I find something it’s not it,” Brad said. “So now here I am looking at a shelving job like it’s the thing that’s around the corner. That’s fucked up.”
“Well,” Chayne hit save on the computer. “Life is fucked up.”
“Should I make grilled cheese,” Rob said incongruously.
Everyone but Chayne looked at him as he put down the mail and explained, “Everything’s better with grilled cheese.”
“Well, now that is true,” Nehru agreed.
Rob went to the kitchen and Chayne, following his protégé turned assistant turned roommate, wondered how, even in jeans and a tee shirt, Rob seemed put together.
“I used to feel just like Brad,” Rob said calmly, opening the refrigerator door.
“I didn’t even know who I was and I was never happy.
“And now,” Chayne took the cheese from him.
“Well now I’m happy more of the time and know who I am half of the time, and I think that’s pretty good.”



MORE TOMORROW

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! It was cool to see a Brad centric portion again! I hope he gets the job as a shelved even if some people think it’s beneath him. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

“I AM SUCH AN IDIOT! Do you know what I told her? Do you know?”
Nehru put down his cup of ice cream and opened his eyes wide to indicate he was paying attention.
“She told me that she didn’t think I was meant for this job. She said it was so unfulfilling, right? Then I told her that if her job didn’t fulfill her she should get out. I told her that, to just get out.”
“Oh my—” Nehru was torn between laughter and absolute shock. Then he realized that he had broken his standard rule by losing his poker face when dealing with others, even—no, especially—friends.
But since he’d broken the rule, already...
“Let me get this straight: you told this woman to quit her job—”
“Because it didn’t fulfill her.”
“Well...” Nehru grew quiet, picked up his ice cream, and resumed licking it, “What you said does make since. In a way... I mean, if she doesn’t like where she’s at, and she’s half the pill she sounds like—”
“She’s not that bad.”
“Sounds like a bitch to me.”
Nehru saw the look on Brad’s face when he said this.
“What, Brad?” said Nehru seeing him.
“Don’t tell me you like her. Please, don’t fuck her. But I’ve interrupted myself. I was going to say that what you said did make since.”
“But what the hell right do I have telling her anything! Look at my life! People I went to school with have wives and good kids—”
“I believe we’ve been through this, already!”
“And we’ll go through it again. They have good jobs and, shit, look at me!”
“And some people who you went to school with are now either dead or in prison or living out of trash cans. It does cut both ways.”
Nehru was twenty-one, and had met Brad at a college function. Chilli Comet Sundae had lost its lead singer, and Nehru was performing with another group when Brad first heard him. By the time Nehru knew that Brad was a decade older, they’d known each other too long for it to matter.
Brad spoke:
“When I got out of high school—”
“Back when I was in third grade—”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Brad made a wry face and with sarcasm, Nehru nodded a ‘you’re welcome’.
“But when I graduated, I didn’t go into college right away because I didn’t want to be like my parents and a lot of the people I knew and just rush right through life until I was in my thirties, looking back and wondering where all the years had gone.”
“But that makes the most sense in the world.”
“So now instead of being in my thirties with a degree and wondering where all the time’s gone, I’m in my thirties living in my parents’ basement with three degrees, still wondering where all the time has gone!
“And you know what else?”
“What?”
“On top of it all, I keep on thinking about that Marissa Gregg—”
“And you want to fuck her.”
Brad looked straight at Nehru, his dark green eyes wide with surprise. Nehru’s brown eyes bore through his glasses straight back at Brad until the older man blushed and drew a hand across his scraggy chin muttering, “Shit!”.

“If only it could all be math,” Cameron Dwyer lamented as Brad closed the literature book..
“Don’t worry, honey,” Bill Dwyer was saying as he came into his living room where Brad was tutoring his daughter. “You’ll get to some excellent school where you’ll be the envy of everyone because you’re one of the five people on campus who’s a math whiz.”
Brad politically he kept his opinions to himself and only said, “Cameron, usually people like you are all about poetry and stories.”
“You mean girls?” she looked up at Brad with a raised eyebrow, as he stood up and pulled his grey sweatshirt over his tee shirt.
“No, I meant smart people.”
Cameron, who was prepared to be surly, suddenly blushed.
The phone rang. Bill jumped to answer it, then said, “It’s for you, Cameron. It’s Russell.”
“Say hi for me,” said Brad.
“It’s a small town,” Bill reflected.
Dena came in and said, “Here’s the check for this week, Bradley,” and then, as he was saying thank you, Bill’s pager rang and he quickly answered.
“Oh, hi,” he said gently. “It’s a colleague,” he informed Dena and Brad, “I’ll take it in the den.”
Dena looked after her husband strangely. Brad felt like he belonged to a whole different generation from the Dwyers. They had it all so together, and yet, this little glimpse of oddness reminded him that they were only a few years older than him.
“Russell wants to know if you all are going to be at the Noble Red on Thursday?” Cameron looked up from the phone, pushing back her golden hair.
“Yeah.”
“Can I come?” she asked.
“Ask your parents,”
For once, Brad did not envy the Dwyers.


Marcia came in smiling the next morning.
“There’s a friend of yours who wants to see you,” she told Marissa who looked up and murmured, “A...”
Marissa didn’t know who it could be, could admit to really having no social life.
“Send her in.”
“Her?” Marcia raised a comic eyebrow, chuckled to herself, and raising a finger to signal her to wait a moment, left.
“Oh, my Go—” Marissa started. It was Brad Long again, this time again in his jeans and tee shirt. “Mr. Long, I told you about the job, that—”
“I came to ask what time your lunch break is.”
She looked straight at him, bewildered.
“Librarians don’t go to lunch?” He’d asked that same question the other day. “Oh, that’s right. It’s one. You already told me.”
When Brad stretched, Marissa was amazed by how tall he was.
“Let’s you and me grab something. Today I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“Today,” Marissa thought about telling him this for a while before deciding on honesty, “I am actually leaving for the day at one.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“Then… what should I say?”
“You should say,” Marissa told him, “that you will be waiting downstairs for me in the reference section.”
He grinned quickly at her and said, “I’ll be waiting downstairs in the reference section.”


“Do you know,” he began as they walked out of the large building into the sunlight of downtown, “that when Constantine built Constantinople it was already ancient? I mean he filled it with stuff from all over the world. Picture an Egyptian obelisk here, and Greek statuary there, and a few Persian lamassu?”
“Lamassu?”
“Lions with bird heads,” he shook his head. “No, they’re Assyrian. Well, they didn’t really have lamassu in Byzantium anyway. I was just using that as an example. I mean, the guy really threw the city together.”
“So, what do you want to eat?” Marissa said. If she had to be with this man, the conversation might as well be stirred to something normal—If not meaningful.
Brad took her to the hot dog stand.
“This is the closest Geschichte Falls can come up with to a street cafe,” he said, escorting Marissa to one of the little tables shaded by red and yellow umbrellas. The hot dogs were loaded with grilled onions and smelled of steamed beef and Chicago, Marissa thought, and she bit into hers and felt a glob of mustard touch her chin, and an onion slithered off of Brad’s dog onto the foil wrapper. He reached over to wipe the mustard from Marissa’s chin. She grinned, and he laughed. Marissa realized that it had been the first time she’d seen him laugh though he seemed to always be happy.
“So, where do you usually eat lunch?” he asked her, sucking on the straw of his Coke.
“Not here,” she grinned, and wiping her mouth, looked around at the other tables.
“I mean, usually I’ll eat in the lounge of the library. Occasionally I’ll get to eat with Marcia when we have the same break.”
“The lounge,” Brad made an exaggerated face, “How nasty.” He picked one of the onions off of her hot dog.
“I know. I’m actually glad you dragged me out of there.
“Brad?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you do?.... When you’re not applying to work at libraries?”
“Primarily? Primarily, I’m with my band.”
“You have a band!”
He guessed the look on her face and grinned knowingly.
“We all need a hobby, don’t we?”
“I don’t have a hobby,” Marissa said reflectively.
“I bet you do.”
“No.” Then, in a tone of wonder, “No.”
“Well,” Brad was wiping his hands off on his jeans.
“It wasn’t much of a band. I didn’t start it. I’m not even responsible for it. A friend of mine is. His sister was lead singer. But then she went to enter the real world. So one night, I’m at this college function, a talent show of sorts. Someone I knew was teaching there, and this student starts singing. Just blows the roof off of everything. So I hear him again. He never does original music, but he really knows how to blow the roof off of everyone else’s. I talk to him about it. He says he can’t write. I show him my lyrics—which I can’t sing.”
“So he’s your new lead singer.”
“He is.”
“How old is he?”
“You have an obsession with age,” Brad said.
“Do I?”
When he didn’t answer, Marissa thought, then said, “Maybe it’s because I’m feeling my own.”
Brad confessed, “I feel mine too.”
They were both quiet before Brad added, “He’s twenty-one. Academic, completely given over to college. Possibly my opposite.”
“Not really,” by now Marissa had finished the hot dog and she was balling up the wrapper which she put into Brad’s outstretched palm.
“What do you mean?” he asked her when he’d returned from the trash drum.
“I mean, that was you, right? Given over to education and all.”
Brad laughed and shook his head. “But I couldn’t sing. I mean, it took me years to become the disrespectable nobody standing before you.”
They left the hot dog stand and walked downtown. It wasn’t a huge downtown, nor was it a busy one. There were card shops and book stores and drug stores and doctors’ offices and only the banks and hotels exceeded six stories.
“You were telling me, earlier,” she said, “how I ought to just quit my job if it didn’t fulfill me. Do what made me happy. The way you did.”
For the first time Brad blushed and he ran his hand over his unshaven face.
“That was out of line.”
“No,” said Marissa quietly. “But seriously, would working in the library make you happy? Would it content you?”
“Marissa, I don’t know. What I know is that the whole time I was growing up I thought I knew exactly what I wanted, and then... thing’s changed. Now the one thing I know is that I don’t have what I want.”
She asked Brad to take her somewhere he knew and he brought her to the fudge shop that was only a block from the library.
“Since the first week I started at the library, I’ve been wanting to come here,” Marissa told Brad when they bought the two blocks of fudge. They were little and heavy and brown, wrapped in slick plastic and Marissa could smell the sweetness through the cellophane.
“How long ago was that?”
“Six years ago.”
“You should have come. See, if you had, then I would have met you sooner,” he told her walking out, to hold the door for her, the bell tingling behind Marissa as she followed him onto the street. “But I’ve met you now after all, so maybe fate is real.”
Marissa began unwrapping her fudge, and as she did, Brad took it from her.
She looked up at him, startled.
“We eat the block together. Like finding the forbidden fruit. You’re Eve and I’m Adam. Only there’s no condemnation and… neither one of us is naked.”
Marissa laughed at the analogy, and then smiled widely, and Brad did too. He peeled a bit of the fudge off and put it to her mouth, then he bit some off himself, lifting his finger.
“Just savor.”
The fudge had a grainy consistency that began to melt into a cocoa sweet mud and the mud melted into her tongue into all of her mouth. Marissa felt, and this sounded foolish, as if she were a part of the sweetness, and of the sun that was red and orange through her eyelids. Only now did she realize she’d been standing on Main Street with her eyes closed, sucking on fudge.
When she opened them it was to Brad who was smiling down at her. His green eyes seemed darker and bluer and deeper like the sea.
“I am convinced,” he said, “that life is composed of a series of these simple ecstasies.”
“What made you ask me to lunch?”
It was a whisper. Marissa believed what Brad said, and did not want to disturb this small life the two of them had just entered.
He started to give her a hooked grin, but when her cheeks reddened, so did his.
He only said, “You’re beautiful.”
Marissa was five-six and blue eyed with curly blond hair and dressed in a floral print. Cute, yes. But no one had called her beautiful in... she couldn’t recall when.
Brad Long’s eyes were not five inches from her. He was all around her.
“Where do you live?” he asked her.
The world was composed of these simple ecstasies.
So she told him.


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