ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, no totally new characters, but then this particular volume has had about all the new characters it can handle, aand now we've certainly got old friends doing new things and seeing what changes this brings.
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If I Should Fall
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
FAMILY
Kristin Keillor arrived at the end of September.
I want to thank you, Patti, for putting up with a ridiculous idea,” she said.
“Nonsense,” said Patti, “to your nonsense. It’ll be good to have you here. Especially with Jackie out in Fort Atkins.”
A year ago it would never have seemed good to have Thom’s sister here. She would have been underfoot and out of hand. This time it just seemed right. Patti knew that some people—self included—wondered why the house was so big if it was just for she and Thom and Russell, but it was never just for the three of them. It was the meeting place for both sides of the family, and Kristin was keeping the guest room she and Reese always had.
The ridiculous idea Patti was putting up with? Reese’s family was dead for the most part, and Kristin wanted her child—it was supposed to be son—to be born around family, even if it wouldn’t remain with them. She had been thinking about it a long while now. She wanted her baby born at home. To her surprise, home turned out to be Geshichte Falls, Michigan, and the surrounds.
“I never thought of this as our ancestral home,” Russell said.
“You were thinking West Virginia?” Kristin raised an eyebrow, and her nephew nodded.
“Well, I’m not going off to give birth in a hut over an abandoned coal mine, so that’s definitely out.”
Patti could not imagine giving birth again, not now, not at thirty-eight approaching thirty-nine and Kristin was forty and past it. She thought it would make her sister-in-law finally start to look old, but the roundness in her belly set Kristin to glowing, And her personality was glowing too. She was turning into a beautiful person.
“I wish I’d gotten to know you better,” Thom said to her Monday night after he got back from work.
“Well, we’re not dead yet, Tommy.”
Thom raised an eyebrow, never ever having been called Tommy by his sister in his life.
“I’ve got plenty of life left in me, and I know you’ve got some left in you.”
It heartened Russell to think that a woman nearly three times his own age, could be pregnant and still have plenty of life in her.
Russell laughed at his father and Thom turned to him with furrowed brows.
“I just never imagine you as someone’s Baby Brother,” Russell said.
In the parish house, Denise Mc.Llarchlahn had just finished washing the breakfast dishes for Father Ford and Father Heinz. She was beginning to think she’d never snag the round, bronze haired priest. Denise thought she had seen someone in town, and she had to confirm it. She walked purposely across the harvest gold carpet of the living room, picked up the starkly black telephone and rang her sister.
“Patricia.”
“Denise—you sound like the devil.”
“Speaking of: I thought I saw that bitch.”
“Who?”
“Your sister in law.”
“Kristin? Yes, she’s staying here until she has her baby.”
“They always come back to the nest to spawn.” Denise said ominously.
Father Heinz, toying with a pencil, looked up when he heard that, but then decided it was best to ignore Denise. It was just easier that way.
“So do you wanna come over?” Russell was asking Cody.
“Jackie’ll probably be dragging out all those bluegrass tunes,” Chayne told him. It was Friday night and Cousin Maurice had just passed Chayne the bucket of chicken.
“Now that Kristin’s here, the Lewis’s’ll be feeling their hillbilly roots.”
“That’s why I told Cody to come over,” Russell said, pushing his thick hair out of his face. “He likes all that country music. Bring your guitar.”
“Is Gil coming?”
Gilead shook his head.
“I have to study with Mark Young.”
“Mark Young?” Chayne said.
Gilead nodded.
“They’re study buddies,” Russell grinned.
“Whenever we come to class, Mark leans from his desk, makes a salute and goes, ‘Morning, Study Buddy.’.”
“That’s weird,” Anigel murmured. “I like him.”
“He’s not bad,” Russell agreed.
“No,” Gilead said, feeling like he should add something. “He’s not bad at all.
“And do you all call him Mark Young?” Rob asked. “Like, first name and last name all the time?”
“Why yes, Robert Keyes,” Gilead said. “We do.”
“Your geometry is atrocious,” Russell pronounced, as he erased the from top to bottom the problem Jason had been working on.
“But baby,” Jason said, playing with his hair, “You know I hate math.”
“No one said be a fan of math,” Russell said. “But you should at least try to get it right.”
Jason stopped playing with Russell’s hair and collapsed on the bed beside him, blowing out his cheeks. They were both in their rumpled uniforms and whatever had taken place on this bed or would take place on, now it was covered in notebook paper and math books.
“This,” Russell pointed to the paper, “does not look like trying. It looks like you think that your boyfriend’s going to give you the answer, and frankly I am not smart enough in this department to be that kind of a boyfriend.”
“Did you just call yourself my boyfriend?”
“I don’t know what else I would be,” Russell said.
Jason smiled up at him, but Russell said, “I don’t think you’re getting the impact of what I said—”
“Which is you are my boyfriend,” Jason said up and kissed Russell on the mouth.
“Which is,” Russell said after enjoying the pleasure and pressure of the kiss, “that you are fucked if you don’t at least TRY to learn how to do proofs.”
“Where are you going,” Jason asked as Russell began stuffing his bookbag.
“I told you, I have to home early because we’re having this family thing.”
“Can I come?”
Russell frowned.
“What the f for?”
“So I can meet your family.”
“Why would you—? I’ve never met your family and I’m over here all the time.”
“Well, if you don’t want me to meet them…” Jason turned away coolly and began whistling.
He knew Jason was only pretending to be offended, but he also knew it could turn into real offence eventually and suddenly Jason just looked so good, even rumpled. Even in the early evening in his junky room, Jason Lorry of the full lips and hawk nose, the curly hair and dusky skin was just so goodlooking and still, Russell was in awe of him. There were moments when he pulled away and looked at the present moment in the distance and became awed. He though, this Jason Lorry, whom he had feared and desired from the first day he’d seen him, was his.
So he said, “Well, com’ on then. If you want to hear bad white people singing and eat bad white people food, com’on.”
Jason grinned his black eyes sparkled.
“I think sometimes you forget half of my family is white people making bad food.”
“Are you coming over?” Cody asked his sister.
The pump she was trying to put on should have told her brother no.
“I don’t even know those people,” she said.
“I hardly know them either.”
“But you know Russell. You’ve been to that house. God, it’s huge. I bet they have a bunch of family parties there.”
“Like the one they’re having tonight.”
“Well, I got a hot date with Mr. Meriwether. We’re actually leaving town tonight. I think we’re goign to East Sequoya.”
“Wow, don’t let East Sequoya get to your head.”
There was a knock at the door, Thom, Patti, Kristin and John looked up. Russell, followed by his cousins, rose to answer it. Jackie kept singing as Russell whispered a welcome to Cody.
“Welcome, Cody,” it was Patti who spoke, breaking the spell. Kristin sipped her mug of tea and wished that there was a fire. Or that it was cold enough for a fire.
Cody ducked his head, nodded and waved at everyone.”
“The cat does have you tongue,”: Patti commented. “It’s not like you’ve never been here before.”
“I don’t know,” Cody said, pushing his dark hair back with the same gesture Russell used to push his red hair back. “It just seems a little like I’m horning in. I feel like I just walked into the Partridge family.”
“You can’t be horning in,” Jason said, stepping forward. “I’m here.”
“Hey!” Cody said in his mellow voice and he gave Jason a short embrace. “I haven’t seen you since the….”
“Baby.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a…” a funny look passed over Cody’s face.
“That means something.”
“Does it?” Jason asked.
“Yeah,” Cody said. “I think it does.”
Russ tugged at Russell’s leg and asked, “What’s the Partridge family?”
“It’s a really old show,” said Russell.
“Older than you?”
Russell and Cody turned each other a look, and then he grinned at his cousin and said, pointing to Cody. “Older than him.”
“Then how do you know what it is?”
“I saw it in syndication.”
Russ nodded, as if this contented him, and then he and his brothers made a bee line back to their father.
“You want a sandwich?” Patti asked Cody from her chair across from Jackie.
“Don’t fall for it,” Jason said, darkly.
Cody looked at him while Russell and Jason looked at each other.
But Cody said, “That would be nice, Mrs. Lewis.”
“It sure would be. Why don’t you go in the kitchen and make yourself one? And while you’re at it, make me one too.”
Cody eyed Patti, who showed no sign of joking, and then Russell said, “Welcome to the family. Come on,” and gestured for Cody to follow him while Jason picked a chip off of his plate.
“I hope you don’t think,” said Russell, “that it’s always like this. It’s never like this.”
“Don’t give your family a bad name,” Cody opened the refrigerator and took out the mayonnaise.
“Cold cuts are with the vegetables, cheese is in the butter tray. Don’t ask why.”
While Cody ducked his head and reached into the crisper, Russell took out the pitcher of lemonade. Their shoulders touched and Cody looked at him.
“I still remember,” Cody said.
“Uh…”
“Everything,” Cody’s chocolate eyes looked into him.
“Yeah,” Russell said. “Me too.”
“We haven’t discussed shit.”
“I thought we did. I thought we just decided it wasn’t anything.”
“Oh, it was something,” Cody said.
“Yeah,” Russell said. “Yes. It was.”
They stood looking at each other and Russell had the same thought he always did, how filled out Cody was, how grown up, with his large hands, thick knuckles, what it would feel like to be with him. He shut it down, Whatever they felt, Cody was here now as a friend, and he wanted him that way.
“I’m not trying to give my family a bad name,” Russell said, trying to sound normal again. “I’m just trying not to give you a false impression. Don’t forget mom’s sandwich. She likes potato chips on hers.”
Cody turned a startled look to Russell who tilted his head.
“You thought she was joking,” he surmised. “Didn’t you?”
Russell walked out of the room before Cody could say anything else.
THERE WILL BE NO POSTING TOMORROW NIGHT... OR IF THERE IS, IT WILL BE A SURPRISE FOR ME AS MUCH AS IT IS FOR YOU. WE WILL RETURN WITH MORE ON WEDNESDAY
Kristin Keillor arrived at the end of September.
I want to thank you, Patti, for putting up with a ridiculous idea,” she said.
“Nonsense,” said Patti, “to your nonsense. It’ll be good to have you here. Especially with Jackie out in Fort Atkins.”
A year ago it would never have seemed good to have Thom’s sister here. She would have been underfoot and out of hand. This time it just seemed right. Patti knew that some people—self included—wondered why the house was so big if it was just for she and Thom and Russell, but it was never just for the three of them. It was the meeting place for both sides of the family, and Kristin was keeping the guest room she and Reese always had.
The ridiculous idea Patti was putting up with? Reese’s family was dead for the most part, and Kristin wanted her child—it was supposed to be son—to be born around family, even if it wouldn’t remain with them. She had been thinking about it a long while now. She wanted her baby born at home. To her surprise, home turned out to be Geshichte Falls, Michigan, and the surrounds.
“I never thought of this as our ancestral home,” Russell said.
“You were thinking West Virginia?” Kristin raised an eyebrow, and her nephew nodded.
“Well, I’m not going off to give birth in a hut over an abandoned coal mine, so that’s definitely out.”
Patti could not imagine giving birth again, not now, not at thirty-eight approaching thirty-nine and Kristin was forty and past it. She thought it would make her sister-in-law finally start to look old, but the roundness in her belly set Kristin to glowing, And her personality was glowing too. She was turning into a beautiful person.
“I wish I’d gotten to know you better,” Thom said to her Monday night after he got back from work.
“Well, we’re not dead yet, Tommy.”
Thom raised an eyebrow, never ever having been called Tommy by his sister in his life.
“I’ve got plenty of life left in me, and I know you’ve got some left in you.”
It heartened Russell to think that a woman nearly three times his own age, could be pregnant and still have plenty of life in her.
Russell laughed at his father and Thom turned to him with furrowed brows.
“I just never imagine you as someone’s Baby Brother,” Russell said.
In the parish house, Denise Mc.Llarchlahn had just finished washing the breakfast dishes for Father Ford and Father Heinz. She was beginning to think she’d never snag the round, bronze haired priest. Denise thought she had seen someone in town, and she had to confirm it. She walked purposely across the harvest gold carpet of the living room, picked up the starkly black telephone and rang her sister.
“Patricia.”
“Denise—you sound like the devil.”
“Speaking of: I thought I saw that bitch.”
“Who?”
“Your sister in law.”
“Kristin? Yes, she’s staying here until she has her baby.”
“They always come back to the nest to spawn.” Denise said ominously.
Father Heinz, toying with a pencil, looked up when he heard that, but then decided it was best to ignore Denise. It was just easier that way.
“So do you wanna come over?” Russell was asking Cody.
“Jackie’ll probably be dragging out all those bluegrass tunes,” Chayne told him. It was Friday night and Cousin Maurice had just passed Chayne the bucket of chicken.
“Now that Kristin’s here, the Lewis’s’ll be feeling their hillbilly roots.”
“That’s why I told Cody to come over,” Russell said, pushing his thick hair out of his face. “He likes all that country music. Bring your guitar.”
“Is Gil coming?”
Gilead shook his head.
“I have to study with Mark Young.”
“Mark Young?” Chayne said.
Gilead nodded.
“They’re study buddies,” Russell grinned.
“Whenever we come to class, Mark leans from his desk, makes a salute and goes, ‘Morning, Study Buddy.’.”
“That’s weird,” Anigel murmured. “I like him.”
“He’s not bad,” Russell agreed.
“No,” Gilead said, feeling like he should add something. “He’s not bad at all.
“And do you all call him Mark Young?” Rob asked. “Like, first name and last name all the time?”
“Why yes, Robert Keyes,” Gilead said. “We do.”
“Your geometry is atrocious,” Russell pronounced, as he erased the from top to bottom the problem Jason had been working on.
“But baby,” Jason said, playing with his hair, “You know I hate math.”
“No one said be a fan of math,” Russell said. “But you should at least try to get it right.”
Jason stopped playing with Russell’s hair and collapsed on the bed beside him, blowing out his cheeks. They were both in their rumpled uniforms and whatever had taken place on this bed or would take place on, now it was covered in notebook paper and math books.
“This,” Russell pointed to the paper, “does not look like trying. It looks like you think that your boyfriend’s going to give you the answer, and frankly I am not smart enough in this department to be that kind of a boyfriend.”
“Did you just call yourself my boyfriend?”
“I don’t know what else I would be,” Russell said.
Jason smiled up at him, but Russell said, “I don’t think you’re getting the impact of what I said—”
“Which is you are my boyfriend,” Jason said up and kissed Russell on the mouth.
“Which is,” Russell said after enjoying the pleasure and pressure of the kiss, “that you are fucked if you don’t at least TRY to learn how to do proofs.”
“Where are you going,” Jason asked as Russell began stuffing his bookbag.
“I told you, I have to home early because we’re having this family thing.”
“Can I come?”
Russell frowned.
“What the f for?”
“So I can meet your family.”
“Why would you—? I’ve never met your family and I’m over here all the time.”
“Well, if you don’t want me to meet them…” Jason turned away coolly and began whistling.
He knew Jason was only pretending to be offended, but he also knew it could turn into real offence eventually and suddenly Jason just looked so good, even rumpled. Even in the early evening in his junky room, Jason Lorry of the full lips and hawk nose, the curly hair and dusky skin was just so goodlooking and still, Russell was in awe of him. There were moments when he pulled away and looked at the present moment in the distance and became awed. He though, this Jason Lorry, whom he had feared and desired from the first day he’d seen him, was his.
So he said, “Well, com’ on then. If you want to hear bad white people singing and eat bad white people food, com’on.”
Jason grinned his black eyes sparkled.
“I think sometimes you forget half of my family is white people making bad food.”
“Are you coming over?” Cody asked his sister.
The pump she was trying to put on should have told her brother no.
“I don’t even know those people,” she said.
“I hardly know them either.”
“But you know Russell. You’ve been to that house. God, it’s huge. I bet they have a bunch of family parties there.”
“Like the one they’re having tonight.”
“Well, I got a hot date with Mr. Meriwether. We’re actually leaving town tonight. I think we’re goign to East Sequoya.”
“Wow, don’t let East Sequoya get to your head.”
There was a knock at the door, Thom, Patti, Kristin and John looked up. Russell, followed by his cousins, rose to answer it. Jackie kept singing as Russell whispered a welcome to Cody.
“Welcome, Cody,” it was Patti who spoke, breaking the spell. Kristin sipped her mug of tea and wished that there was a fire. Or that it was cold enough for a fire.
Cody ducked his head, nodded and waved at everyone.”
“The cat does have you tongue,”: Patti commented. “It’s not like you’ve never been here before.”
“I don’t know,” Cody said, pushing his dark hair back with the same gesture Russell used to push his red hair back. “It just seems a little like I’m horning in. I feel like I just walked into the Partridge family.”
“You can’t be horning in,” Jason said, stepping forward. “I’m here.”
“Hey!” Cody said in his mellow voice and he gave Jason a short embrace. “I haven’t seen you since the….”
“Baby.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s a…” a funny look passed over Cody’s face.
“That means something.”
“Does it?” Jason asked.
“Yeah,” Cody said. “I think it does.”
Russ tugged at Russell’s leg and asked, “What’s the Partridge family?”
“It’s a really old show,” said Russell.
“Older than you?”
Russell and Cody turned each other a look, and then he grinned at his cousin and said, pointing to Cody. “Older than him.”
“Then how do you know what it is?”
“I saw it in syndication.”
Russ nodded, as if this contented him, and then he and his brothers made a bee line back to their father.
“You want a sandwich?” Patti asked Cody from her chair across from Jackie.
“Don’t fall for it,” Jason said, darkly.
Cody looked at him while Russell and Jason looked at each other.
But Cody said, “That would be nice, Mrs. Lewis.”
“It sure would be. Why don’t you go in the kitchen and make yourself one? And while you’re at it, make me one too.”
Cody eyed Patti, who showed no sign of joking, and then Russell said, “Welcome to the family. Come on,” and gestured for Cody to follow him while Jason picked a chip off of his plate.
“I hope you don’t think,” said Russell, “that it’s always like this. It’s never like this.”
“Don’t give your family a bad name,” Cody opened the refrigerator and took out the mayonnaise.
“Cold cuts are with the vegetables, cheese is in the butter tray. Don’t ask why.”
While Cody ducked his head and reached into the crisper, Russell took out the pitcher of lemonade. Their shoulders touched and Cody looked at him.
“I still remember,” Cody said.
“Uh…”
“Everything,” Cody’s chocolate eyes looked into him.
“Yeah,” Russell said. “Me too.”
“We haven’t discussed shit.”
“I thought we did. I thought we just decided it wasn’t anything.”
“Oh, it was something,” Cody said.
“Yeah,” Russell said. “Yes. It was.”
They stood looking at each other and Russell had the same thought he always did, how filled out Cody was, how grown up, with his large hands, thick knuckles, what it would feel like to be with him. He shut it down, Whatever they felt, Cody was here now as a friend, and he wanted him that way.
“I’m not trying to give my family a bad name,” Russell said, trying to sound normal again. “I’m just trying not to give you a false impression. Don’t forget mom’s sandwich. She likes potato chips on hers.”
Cody turned a startled look to Russell who tilted his head.
“You thought she was joking,” he surmised. “Didn’t you?”
Russell walked out of the room before Cody could say anything else.
THERE WILL BE NO POSTING TOMORROW NIGHT... OR IF THERE IS, IT WILL BE A SURPRISE FOR ME AS MUCH AS IT IS FOR YOU. WE WILL RETURN WITH MORE ON WEDNESDAY
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion and an excellent start to this section of the story! Seems like all the action just about is at Patti, Thom and Russell’s house. Russell having two people he slept with and cares about there at the same time may be awkward. Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Well, this chapter is called Family, and we will once again center on the family with which we started, the Lewis's at 1735 Breckinridge. All the drama is about the Lewis family, what with Kristin and Jackie pregnant and the return of Thom's father, and, of course, Russell with his boyfriend and the boy who is a friend whom he has decided will only be a friend.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT THE ADVENTURE OF THE LEWIS FAMILY CONTINUES
Jackie was finishing an edited version of “You Oughtta Know,” when Cody came out with a plate for himself and one for a very gracious Patti who said, “Here’s a pack of Marlboros for your trouble.”
Cody was staring between this and Jackie’s cover song when Jackie said, “You thought I only did blue grass and hymns?”
John laughed. “My wife’s repertoire is large. Very large indeed.”
“I sing Marilyn Manson to put them to sleep,” Jackie informed Cody soberly, looking over the children. He laughed and she said, “That’s a good sign. Some people don’t know when a joke’s a joke, and we refer to them as idiots.”
“Russell said you were bringing your guitar,” Thom said to Cody.
“Well, I guess I forgot.” Cody bit out of his sandwich.
“I guess you thought you’d get out of singing if you forgot,” Russell corrected his new friend.
“I guess you were wrong,” Jackie elaborated.
“I don’t even know—”Cody began.
“I heard him do a wonderful rendition of ‘Yesterday’”.
You’re a creep, Russell.”
“Yes,” the red head agreed.
“Well, will you sing for us?” Jackie said. “Even if you don’t want to play. If you did want to play, you could use Old Rosalyn,” she held out her guitar.
Before Cody could be indecisive, John, sitting on the floor beside Jackie, began to chant, “Sing! Sing! Sing!” and when his boys joined in, Cody took the plate off his lap, stood up, to small applause, and received Old Rosalyn, fiddling with it for a moment, before he began.
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away...”
When he finished, to applause, Cody said, “It’s a safe enough song. Pretty hard to mess up John Lennon.”
“What about you, Jason?” John asked.
“What about me?” Jason said.
“Don’t you dare,” Patti laughed. “Russell never invites friends over and now he has two. We can’t embarrass them both.”
“And you can’t sing either,” Jackie said to John. “You shouldn’t expect everyone who walks in the house to be able to.”
“But Jason can,” Russell said.
“What?” Jason looked like Russell had just smacked him.
“I’ve heard you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know. The kirtan. Or the bhajan.”
“Oh!” Jason remembered, and blushed. He shook his head looked embarrassed. “No one wants to hear that.”
“I do,” Jackie said, sincerely.
“I do too, actually,” Kristin said. “But no one’s going to make you do something you don’t want to. At least not until you third visit.”
As if answering a challenge, Jason, on the floor beside Russell simply began singing, his tenor voice confident and changing into a Hindi accent:
“Shri Guru Charan Saroj Raj,
Nij manu Mukuru Sudhaari
Barnau Raghubar Bimal Jasu,
Jo Daayeku Phal Chaari
Buddhiheen Tanu Jaanike,
Sumirau Pavan-Kumaar
Bal Buddhi Bidya Dehu Mohi,
Harahu Kales Bikaar
Jai Hanuman Gyaan Gun Sagar
Jai Kapis Teehun Lok Ujagar
Ram Doot Atulit Bal Dhama
Anjani-Putra Pavansut Nama
Mahabir Bikram Bajrangi
Kumati Nivaar Sumati Ke Sangi
Kanchan Baran Biraaj Subesa
Kaanan Kundal Kunchit Kesa.”
He stopped a moment, and then, closing his eyes, lifted his head and sang out:
Jai Jai Jai Hanuman Gosaai!
Kripa Karahun Gurudev Ki Naai
Jo Sat Baar Paath Kar Koi!
Chhootahin Bandi Maha sukh Hoyi
Jo Yeh Padhe Hanuman Chalisa
Hoye Siddhi Saakhi Gaurisa
Tulsidas Sada Harichera
Kije Naath Hridaya Mahn Dera!
Russell was, again amazed. Jason was always pretty, but always underachieving, always hiding something. Now he seemed to burn with it. The room was silent. Patti had an urge to cross herself, which she stopped, but Russell saw her begin. He was surprised Cody had not said: Sacred Net, for something sacred was here.
And like that there was a knock at the door and Thom shook himself. They all did, and there were murmurs of, “Thank you. Thank you Jason.”
As his boyfriend blushed, Russell got up to answer the door.
“Grandma?” he began.
Kathleen Lewis entered the house along with Mason and Abby Devalara who. beside Jackie who asked her friend:
“What’s going on?”
Abby shrugged. “The two old bags just came by my place and said we all had to get together and told me to get in the car.”
“Family!” Kathleen addressed them all, “Mason has something he’d like to say.”
“Thomas,” Mason stepped toward the younger, shorter man. “Might I have your mother’s hand in marriage?”
Thom opened his mouth and out came: “Whaaaaaa?”
“This is probably the nicest date I’ve ever had,” Jill Barnard told Shane, who smiled and said, “Well, we needed to talk things out.”
“Well,” yeah,” Jill caught a bit of cold chocolate about to fall onto her lap.
“Sometimes all a girl wants is a really nice guy to take her out for a Dilly Bar.”
Her mouth was full of ice cream. She chewed deliberately and took in her surroundings. “And I mean, this is no mean Dairy Queen. You went top of the line. We got a fucking Brazier.”
“I almost think you’re not making fun of me.”
“I’m not,” Jill told him.
“I figure that I’ll blow you away with something snazzy when we’re together a while. But for early dates we should stick with something simple. Something that doesn’t say, I’m the big man—”
“Now you owe me some in the back seat!”
When Shane’s eyes flew open at the remark she said, “But that’s how a lot of guys think. Baby, I’m gonna take you out someplace nice. I’m gonna wine and dine you and the price is that I get to screw you. And you’re supposed to nod your head like a dufus and say, ‘Okay.’”
“What was Leon like?”
“You know he was, and we didn’t even actually go out.”
“Well, was I ever like that?”
“You were there. You know how you were.”
“But…. Well, just humor me.”
“Fine,” Jill said. “I will humor you.”
“Thank you.”
“You were always a real nice guy. He is a real nice guy. I just wasn’t really ready for that.”
“You’re a smart girl… woman,” Shane pushed back her hair to touch her cheek. “Person.”
“All three even,” Jill said. “But that was dumb.”
Jill did not remove Shane’s hand.
“I made a mistake,” she said.
“We both made mistakes.”
They looked into each other’s eyes, and then when Jill was sure Shane Meriwether was going to lean in for a kiss, he was back to unaffectedly eating his fries, and she could still feel his fingers on her cheek.
Jill Barnard finished off the Dilly Bar. Part of her wondered if she looked like a pig in front of Shane, the other part said obviously not.
She chewed on and wondered if Cody was having a good time at the Lewises.
“You came on the right night!” John told Cody, throwing an arm over the younger man. “Tonight, we’re having a party!”
“Um... Boones Farm!” Abby effused.
“Only the cheapest for a night like this, honey!” Kathleen said, pouring glasses held out.
“Russell, where’s your glass?” she demanded of her grandson. “He’s sixteen. If he’s old enough to lose his virginity, he’s old enough to drink!”
“Grandma!” Russell shouted protesting innocence though sweat beaded on the top of his head and he felt his heart do a triple thump. He and Cody had exchanged a glance for a moment. Aside from their own relationship, only Cody knew about Jason, and only his dad had heard him say he thought he was gay. What went on three blocks away on with Jason Lorry was a different world from what happened at 1735 Breckinridge.
“I said if you’re old enough—not if you have!” Kathleen said, as her grandson, followed by Cody, went to get a wine glass and found out that only tumblers were clean. While he was returning, Russell was relieved to see his grandmother had taken any attention that might have fallen on him.
Kathleen motioned to Thom and said under her breath, “Who’s the hot brunette with Russell?”
“He’s Russell’s friend, Cody—who’s a third of your age—”
“You don’t have to be snide, Thomas,” his mother made a face at him.
“Well, you are about to be a married woman.”
“I was just thinking,” she said. “How he and Russell look like twins.”
“Here you go, Grandma.”
Kathleen poured Cody and then her grandson a healthy glass. Thom waited until Russell was out of earshot to say, “What are you talking about?”
Kathleen shrugged. “I guess they don’t really look alike. It’s the mannerisms, the way they talk and all that. If Russell weren’t so pale and skinny, he’d look like that.”
“Next you’ll be saying if Gilead Story wasn’t Black, he’d look like Russell too—”
“Well, you know they all look alike to me—”
“Ma—! ”
“I meant teenagers.”
“Well, Cody’s no teenager.”
There was a knock on the door. Suddenly Cody screamed, “Sacred Net!” and fell on the floor. While the family looked between the door and Cody, it was John and Patti who bent to attend him, and Russell who went to answer.
“It was just a spell, Russell,” he heard his father saying from the living room. “Cody’s fine.”
“Well, don’t be rude, Russell,” Patti was saying. “Let whoever it is in.”
Russell stared vacantly in front of him, wishing he could faint too.
“Well, good evening, Russell,” he said.
“Evening,” Russell smiled nervously, and ducked his head: “Grandfather.”
TOMORROW NIGHT WE DROP IN ON MARK YOUNG AND GILEAD.
Jackie was finishing an edited version of “You Oughtta Know,” when Cody came out with a plate for himself and one for a very gracious Patti who said, “Here’s a pack of Marlboros for your trouble.”
Cody was staring between this and Jackie’s cover song when Jackie said, “You thought I only did blue grass and hymns?”
John laughed. “My wife’s repertoire is large. Very large indeed.”
“I sing Marilyn Manson to put them to sleep,” Jackie informed Cody soberly, looking over the children. He laughed and she said, “That’s a good sign. Some people don’t know when a joke’s a joke, and we refer to them as idiots.”
“Russell said you were bringing your guitar,” Thom said to Cody.
“Well, I guess I forgot.” Cody bit out of his sandwich.
“I guess you thought you’d get out of singing if you forgot,” Russell corrected his new friend.
“I guess you were wrong,” Jackie elaborated.
“I don’t even know—”Cody began.
“I heard him do a wonderful rendition of ‘Yesterday’”.
You’re a creep, Russell.”
“Yes,” the red head agreed.
“Well, will you sing for us?” Jackie said. “Even if you don’t want to play. If you did want to play, you could use Old Rosalyn,” she held out her guitar.
Before Cody could be indecisive, John, sitting on the floor beside Jackie, began to chant, “Sing! Sing! Sing!” and when his boys joined in, Cody took the plate off his lap, stood up, to small applause, and received Old Rosalyn, fiddling with it for a moment, before he began.
“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away...”
When he finished, to applause, Cody said, “It’s a safe enough song. Pretty hard to mess up John Lennon.”
“What about you, Jason?” John asked.
“What about me?” Jason said.
“Don’t you dare,” Patti laughed. “Russell never invites friends over and now he has two. We can’t embarrass them both.”
“And you can’t sing either,” Jackie said to John. “You shouldn’t expect everyone who walks in the house to be able to.”
“But Jason can,” Russell said.
“What?” Jason looked like Russell had just smacked him.
“I’ve heard you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know. The kirtan. Or the bhajan.”
“Oh!” Jason remembered, and blushed. He shook his head looked embarrassed. “No one wants to hear that.”
“I do,” Jackie said, sincerely.
“I do too, actually,” Kristin said. “But no one’s going to make you do something you don’t want to. At least not until you third visit.”
As if answering a challenge, Jason, on the floor beside Russell simply began singing, his tenor voice confident and changing into a Hindi accent:
“Shri Guru Charan Saroj Raj,
Nij manu Mukuru Sudhaari
Barnau Raghubar Bimal Jasu,
Jo Daayeku Phal Chaari
Buddhiheen Tanu Jaanike,
Sumirau Pavan-Kumaar
Bal Buddhi Bidya Dehu Mohi,
Harahu Kales Bikaar
Jai Hanuman Gyaan Gun Sagar
Jai Kapis Teehun Lok Ujagar
Ram Doot Atulit Bal Dhama
Anjani-Putra Pavansut Nama
Mahabir Bikram Bajrangi
Kumati Nivaar Sumati Ke Sangi
Kanchan Baran Biraaj Subesa
Kaanan Kundal Kunchit Kesa.”
He stopped a moment, and then, closing his eyes, lifted his head and sang out:
Jai Jai Jai Hanuman Gosaai!
Kripa Karahun Gurudev Ki Naai
Jo Sat Baar Paath Kar Koi!
Chhootahin Bandi Maha sukh Hoyi
Jo Yeh Padhe Hanuman Chalisa
Hoye Siddhi Saakhi Gaurisa
Tulsidas Sada Harichera
Kije Naath Hridaya Mahn Dera!
Russell was, again amazed. Jason was always pretty, but always underachieving, always hiding something. Now he seemed to burn with it. The room was silent. Patti had an urge to cross herself, which she stopped, but Russell saw her begin. He was surprised Cody had not said: Sacred Net, for something sacred was here.
And like that there was a knock at the door and Thom shook himself. They all did, and there were murmurs of, “Thank you. Thank you Jason.”
As his boyfriend blushed, Russell got up to answer the door.
“Grandma?” he began.
Kathleen Lewis entered the house along with Mason and Abby Devalara who. beside Jackie who asked her friend:
“What’s going on?”
Abby shrugged. “The two old bags just came by my place and said we all had to get together and told me to get in the car.”
“Family!” Kathleen addressed them all, “Mason has something he’d like to say.”
“Thomas,” Mason stepped toward the younger, shorter man. “Might I have your mother’s hand in marriage?”
Thom opened his mouth and out came: “Whaaaaaa?”
“This is probably the nicest date I’ve ever had,” Jill Barnard told Shane, who smiled and said, “Well, we needed to talk things out.”
“Well,” yeah,” Jill caught a bit of cold chocolate about to fall onto her lap.
“Sometimes all a girl wants is a really nice guy to take her out for a Dilly Bar.”
Her mouth was full of ice cream. She chewed deliberately and took in her surroundings. “And I mean, this is no mean Dairy Queen. You went top of the line. We got a fucking Brazier.”
“I almost think you’re not making fun of me.”
“I’m not,” Jill told him.
“I figure that I’ll blow you away with something snazzy when we’re together a while. But for early dates we should stick with something simple. Something that doesn’t say, I’m the big man—”
“Now you owe me some in the back seat!”
When Shane’s eyes flew open at the remark she said, “But that’s how a lot of guys think. Baby, I’m gonna take you out someplace nice. I’m gonna wine and dine you and the price is that I get to screw you. And you’re supposed to nod your head like a dufus and say, ‘Okay.’”
“What was Leon like?”
“You know he was, and we didn’t even actually go out.”
“Well, was I ever like that?”
“You were there. You know how you were.”
“But…. Well, just humor me.”
“Fine,” Jill said. “I will humor you.”
“Thank you.”
“You were always a real nice guy. He is a real nice guy. I just wasn’t really ready for that.”
“You’re a smart girl… woman,” Shane pushed back her hair to touch her cheek. “Person.”
“All three even,” Jill said. “But that was dumb.”
Jill did not remove Shane’s hand.
“I made a mistake,” she said.
“We both made mistakes.”
They looked into each other’s eyes, and then when Jill was sure Shane Meriwether was going to lean in for a kiss, he was back to unaffectedly eating his fries, and she could still feel his fingers on her cheek.
Jill Barnard finished off the Dilly Bar. Part of her wondered if she looked like a pig in front of Shane, the other part said obviously not.
She chewed on and wondered if Cody was having a good time at the Lewises.
“You came on the right night!” John told Cody, throwing an arm over the younger man. “Tonight, we’re having a party!”
“Um... Boones Farm!” Abby effused.
“Only the cheapest for a night like this, honey!” Kathleen said, pouring glasses held out.
“Russell, where’s your glass?” she demanded of her grandson. “He’s sixteen. If he’s old enough to lose his virginity, he’s old enough to drink!”
“Grandma!” Russell shouted protesting innocence though sweat beaded on the top of his head and he felt his heart do a triple thump. He and Cody had exchanged a glance for a moment. Aside from their own relationship, only Cody knew about Jason, and only his dad had heard him say he thought he was gay. What went on three blocks away on with Jason Lorry was a different world from what happened at 1735 Breckinridge.
“I said if you’re old enough—not if you have!” Kathleen said, as her grandson, followed by Cody, went to get a wine glass and found out that only tumblers were clean. While he was returning, Russell was relieved to see his grandmother had taken any attention that might have fallen on him.
Kathleen motioned to Thom and said under her breath, “Who’s the hot brunette with Russell?”
“He’s Russell’s friend, Cody—who’s a third of your age—”
“You don’t have to be snide, Thomas,” his mother made a face at him.
“Well, you are about to be a married woman.”
“I was just thinking,” she said. “How he and Russell look like twins.”
“Here you go, Grandma.”
Kathleen poured Cody and then her grandson a healthy glass. Thom waited until Russell was out of earshot to say, “What are you talking about?”
Kathleen shrugged. “I guess they don’t really look alike. It’s the mannerisms, the way they talk and all that. If Russell weren’t so pale and skinny, he’d look like that.”
“Next you’ll be saying if Gilead Story wasn’t Black, he’d look like Russell too—”
“Well, you know they all look alike to me—”
“Ma—! ”
“I meant teenagers.”
“Well, Cody’s no teenager.”
There was a knock on the door. Suddenly Cody screamed, “Sacred Net!” and fell on the floor. While the family looked between the door and Cody, it was John and Patti who bent to attend him, and Russell who went to answer.
“It was just a spell, Russell,” he heard his father saying from the living room. “Cody’s fine.”
“Well, don’t be rude, Russell,” Patti was saying. “Let whoever it is in.”
Russell stared vacantly in front of him, wishing he could faint too.
“Well, good evening, Russell,” he said.
“Evening,” Russell smiled nervously, and ducked his head: “Grandfather.”
TOMORROW NIGHT WE DROP IN ON MARK YOUNG AND GILEAD.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion and the ending had me on the edge of my seat! I am enjoying how things are going and I am very interested to see what happens with Russell’s Grandfather. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
HERE IS THE WEEKEND PORTION, FRIENDS
“If I hear another word with Goth in it, I think I’ll scream,” Mark Young said in a tone that didn’t sound like screaming at all. It sounded like the mellow tone that Mark used whenever speaking.
“Well, we are doing an all year history of the Germans, and so I guess we’re going to be on Goths for a while.”
“But who knew there were so many friggin ones? Ostrogoths, Visigoths… Actually that’s all I can remember right now.”
“Um….” Gilead said, “I think you pretty much covered it. Now, about the Battle of Adrianople—”
Mark held the phone away from him and suddenly let out a scream.
“What the fuck?”
“No more history! No more history! No more history!”
“Well, now you did hit me up to be my study buddy.”
“And buddy,” Mark said, “we’ve studied.”
“What about lit class.”
“We’re going to do fine in it.”
“No, I know we’re going to do fine in it,” Gilead said. “But you don’t get it.”
“I aced the first quiz.”
“That’s just it. You aced it. But you don’t get it. You don’t love it.”
When Mark said nothing, Gilead said, “Are you listening to me?”
“You’re suck a pinhead,” Mark said, laughing.
“I am not—”
“You are,” Mark said in a different, voice, still laughing so that Gilead could almost feel him shaking his head. “But it’s cool.”
Neither one of them said anything and then Mark said:
“That’s why I like you.”
“Because I’m a pinhead.”
“No. Asshole. Because you care about stuff. So, yes, cause you’re a pinhead. I’m good at stuff. I can study to get the grade but you…. You care about things. That’s why people think you and Russell are weird. And Nick Ballantine. You guys think about more than going to college of sports… or. Whatever.”
“I’m not even going to pretend people don’t think I’m weird.”
“Good,” Mark said. “Fuck’em. People don’t think anything about me at all. I’m just there.”
“You’re one of the cool people.”
“That just means not there in the right way.”
“You did run for class president.”
“I lost. I heard people only voted for me cause I had a goatee.”
“It was a nice goatee.”
“Mom made me shave it off.”
“Win some lose some.”
“Yep.”
“Much like the Goths—”
“You better stop, Gilead Story.”
“Consider me stopped.”
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“You ever…. You ever wanna do something?”
“Uh….”
“I know you’re socially awkward and everything—”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to. But like, would you ever want to hang out. Like we could… study at my place?”
“Yes,” Gilead said, because he was tired of saying no to things.
“Yes, we could do that.”
“Are you sure?” Shane asked her.
“What do you mean, am I sure?” she almost laughed. “We went out for years before we started going out again. I’m sure in the hell sure.”
They parked the hearse under the elm on Colum Street.
Crickets never went to sleep. They were giving off tired chirrups from the dark as Jill took his hand.
“See,” she pointed to the little Escort in the driveway, “Mom’s home. You can finally meet her.”
On the porch, under the porch step, Jill pulled Shane forward and he froze.
She looked up at his fair face.
“I’m a little afraid,” he admitted.
Jill laughed softly.
“Oh, Shane,” she said, and kissed him. “Oh, Shane.”
But Jill opened the door anyway, and they went in. The television was blaring in the sparsely appointed living room and Mrs. Barnard was passed out on the couch. A beer was making a ring on the little table in front of her. Her hair was red and tired, her face seamed. Jill was unapologetic for her.
“Ma!” she said, then bawled, “MAAAA!”
“Maybe I should come back—” started Shane.
“Don’t be stupid,” Jill said.
The red haired, pink faced woman balled her eyes and said, “Jilly, what’s going on?”
“This is Shane.”
The woman who was Cody and Jill’s mother sat up and waved. “Hi, honey.”
“Hello, Mrs. Barnard.”
“Mrs. Barnard,” she chuckled at that and raised an eyebrow. “But where is Mr. Barnard?” she asked no one in particular
“Jilly, where the fuck are my cigarettes?”
“Kitchen. Top of the fridge.”
“Why are they there?”
“Cause that’s where you put ‘em.”
Mrs. Barnard looked around and then said, “Oh,” and with no malignancy, Jill remarked, “absent minded bitch.”
Her mother got up, and when she came back into the living room, she was puffing out smoke. “You’re a cute boy, Shane. I hope you can keep up with my Jilly here. She’s a hell of a handful.”
“That she is,” Shane agreed, politically, and Jill leaned into him. “And she’s a very beautiful handful.”
Mrs. Barnard coughed, gagged and spat in the trash can.
“She gets it from me.”
“Doubtless,” Shane said, eyebrow raised, and Julia Barnard raised her head and cackled out a laugh. Shane tried on a smile.
When Jill was walking him out to the porch, her mother commented. “Um... you’re on of those guys who looks as nice walking away as he does coming to you.”
When Shane turned scarlet, Jill told him, “Well, you always said you wanted people to say you had a nice ass.”
“Not your mom.”
“You never specified,” Jill reminded him, “and at least now we’ve gotten through that ordeal.”
“I guess it’s good for every guy to meet his future mother-in-law early on in the game.”
“You’re certainly putting all of your eggs in one basket tonight, aren’t you, Mr. Meriwether?”
He leaned forward and kissed her.
Niall Dwyer was fucking Sonia Cormorant with an exquisite, quiet fierceness. When he bit down on his pillow and groaned while coming, the heel of his hand in her mouth, he turned over and the two of them lay on their backs panting.
Of course no one knew Sonia was here. Her mother and father thought she was at a church meeting. Her family attended Evervirgin. People like that would believe anything.
Naked, Niall padded the floor of his bedroom and went to his chair. He began scrambling for a while. Sonia sat up sensing that her boyfriend was getting angry.
Niall turned to her enraged. She knew from practice there was nothing worse than coming out of good sex into the midst of perplexity.
“What the fuck?” he hissed, hopping onto the bed with the strength of a frog—or of a dancer.
“Did you misplace it again?” Sonia asked banally.
Niall’s beautiful eyes were on fire.
“I didn’t misplace shit. Someone’s coming in here and stealing my weed!”
For a while, Kristin had been turning the old man strange looks, and then he’d realized she really didn’t know who he was. Jackie had set her straight, the pregnant woman, muttering, “I’ll be goddamned.”
“I told you,” Russell told Cody, “it wasn’t always like that. This is what it’s usually like.”
“Goddamnit, she can’t marry him!” R.L. roared.
“And why not?” Kristin demanded for her mother’s sake.
R.L. threw back his head and let out a raucous laugh before saying, “Because the bitch is still married to me!”
Kathleen looked a bit taken aback by this. Mason, who had intended to be gallant, was taken back too and stared at his intended.
“Oh, my God it’s true!” Kathleen realized.
“Muh-THER,” Kristin broke up the word, “You never divorced him?”
“She just got up and left,” R.L. said. “I came around one day, and no one was in the house—”
The little blond woman put her hands on her hips and cried, “Don’t you dare make it look like I left you, you son of a bitch!”
“You did, Katey—”
“Katey—?” Mason started.
“Don’t call me that!”
Mason wasn’t sure who she was talking to.
“To wander all over the place, picking up and walking off for years at a time, and then to be surprised when I finally get up and go. How dare you! And you couldn’t have wondered where I’d gone. It’s not like no one told you!”
“I knew you’d gone to your brother, but I just thought—that probably means she doesn’t want me anymore.”
“Well, you were more than probably right,” Kathleen said. “And it’s nice to know you gave such a damn that you finally bothered to come to Michigan twenty-six years later.”
Cody’s round eyes looked to Russell. “These are your grandparents?”
Russell nodded.
“One hell of a reunion,” Cody said, taking out his cigarettes. He started to hand one to Russell, who shook his head vehemently.
“Mom doesn’t know,” he whispered.
Not thinking about cigarettes at all, but taking the measure of the room, Jason said, “We should go upstairs.”
Russell nodded and gestured for his younger cousins to follow as he heard his grandmother bellowing:
“AND THEN JUST TO WALK UP IN THIS HOUSE FOR THE FIRST TIME—”
“Oooh,” Russ said at the bottom of the stairs.
“Come,” Russell said, sharply. “Now.”
“Katey—” R.L. started, then at the look in his... yes, his wife’s eyes, “Kathleen, this isn’t the first time I’ve been here.”
Kathleen wheeled around to face Thom, her green eyes flashing.
“Don’t bawl out old Tommy,” said R.L. companionably. “The little fellow threw me out, threw a fit and called me all sorts of sons-of-bitches before I left.”
“That’s right, I did,” Thom said darkly.
Thom had not heard his wife, but was responding to the man he did not want to be his father.
“Which leads to the question, Old Man,” Kristin cocked her head coldly, “of why you’re here.”
R.L. sighed and grunted and said, “Because late is better than never.”
Kristin could not be angry at her father. It was a shock to remember he was her father. He looked nothing like the R.L. she had last seen, and been glad to see, departing when she was fourteen.
“If Jaclyn—whom you were never there for—can be compassionate…” Kristin began.
“Aw, Kristin!” Thom looked outraged. Patti put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. When he turned to face her she’d never seen him so angry.
“I don’t believe you,” Thom shouted. He turned to his sisters.
“Kristin, you’re just as bad as Jackie—”
“Thom,” Patti said at the same time her brother said, “Thom, man.”
“No,” Thom shook his head in disgust.
“You said you’d try to be decent—” Jackie reminded him.
“I know what I said , but to walk into my house and make camp after what he did.”
“You can talk to me, Tommy, I’m right here,” his father said.
“No! I don’t want to talk to you! And don’t call me Tommy. Or anything. Go hang out at Jackie’s since you’ve been visiting her for the last month anyway—”
“What?” Kathleen said suddenly.
From where she stood beside her pregnant friend, Abby Devalara said, “Maybe I’d better go.”
“You might as well stay,” Kristin said to her. “Like it or not, you’re about to be part of this family.”
“He’s been in Fort Atkins for how long?” Kathleen began at her daughter, “And you haven’t told me?”
“I didn’t think I could—”
“I don’t think you should have let him in—” began Kathleen.
Then suddenly, Jackie threw back her head and screamed.
Kathleen looked shocked, Patti stood up, Kristin looked at her sister and said, “Well, now honey there’s no need for all that.”
Jackie clutched her large stomach and caught the chair.
John, touched his wife’s hand and his eyes widened as Jackie’s blue eyes bulged.
MORE SOON. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND
“If I hear another word with Goth in it, I think I’ll scream,” Mark Young said in a tone that didn’t sound like screaming at all. It sounded like the mellow tone that Mark used whenever speaking.
“Well, we are doing an all year history of the Germans, and so I guess we’re going to be on Goths for a while.”
“But who knew there were so many friggin ones? Ostrogoths, Visigoths… Actually that’s all I can remember right now.”
“Um….” Gilead said, “I think you pretty much covered it. Now, about the Battle of Adrianople—”
Mark held the phone away from him and suddenly let out a scream.
“What the fuck?”
“No more history! No more history! No more history!”
“Well, now you did hit me up to be my study buddy.”
“And buddy,” Mark said, “we’ve studied.”
“What about lit class.”
“We’re going to do fine in it.”
“No, I know we’re going to do fine in it,” Gilead said. “But you don’t get it.”
“I aced the first quiz.”
“That’s just it. You aced it. But you don’t get it. You don’t love it.”
When Mark said nothing, Gilead said, “Are you listening to me?”
“You’re suck a pinhead,” Mark said, laughing.
“I am not—”
“You are,” Mark said in a different, voice, still laughing so that Gilead could almost feel him shaking his head. “But it’s cool.”
Neither one of them said anything and then Mark said:
“That’s why I like you.”
“Because I’m a pinhead.”
“No. Asshole. Because you care about stuff. So, yes, cause you’re a pinhead. I’m good at stuff. I can study to get the grade but you…. You care about things. That’s why people think you and Russell are weird. And Nick Ballantine. You guys think about more than going to college of sports… or. Whatever.”
“I’m not even going to pretend people don’t think I’m weird.”
“Good,” Mark said. “Fuck’em. People don’t think anything about me at all. I’m just there.”
“You’re one of the cool people.”
“That just means not there in the right way.”
“You did run for class president.”
“I lost. I heard people only voted for me cause I had a goatee.”
“It was a nice goatee.”
“Mom made me shave it off.”
“Win some lose some.”
“Yep.”
“Much like the Goths—”
“You better stop, Gilead Story.”
“Consider me stopped.”
“Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“You ever…. You ever wanna do something?”
“Uh….”
“I know you’re socially awkward and everything—”
“I wouldn’t say that.”
“You don’t have to. But like, would you ever want to hang out. Like we could… study at my place?”
“Yes,” Gilead said, because he was tired of saying no to things.
“Yes, we could do that.”
“Are you sure?” Shane asked her.
“What do you mean, am I sure?” she almost laughed. “We went out for years before we started going out again. I’m sure in the hell sure.”
They parked the hearse under the elm on Colum Street.
Crickets never went to sleep. They were giving off tired chirrups from the dark as Jill took his hand.
“See,” she pointed to the little Escort in the driveway, “Mom’s home. You can finally meet her.”
On the porch, under the porch step, Jill pulled Shane forward and he froze.
She looked up at his fair face.
“I’m a little afraid,” he admitted.
Jill laughed softly.
“Oh, Shane,” she said, and kissed him. “Oh, Shane.”
But Jill opened the door anyway, and they went in. The television was blaring in the sparsely appointed living room and Mrs. Barnard was passed out on the couch. A beer was making a ring on the little table in front of her. Her hair was red and tired, her face seamed. Jill was unapologetic for her.
“Ma!” she said, then bawled, “MAAAA!”
“Maybe I should come back—” started Shane.
“Don’t be stupid,” Jill said.
The red haired, pink faced woman balled her eyes and said, “Jilly, what’s going on?”
“This is Shane.”
The woman who was Cody and Jill’s mother sat up and waved. “Hi, honey.”
“Hello, Mrs. Barnard.”
“Mrs. Barnard,” she chuckled at that and raised an eyebrow. “But where is Mr. Barnard?” she asked no one in particular
“Jilly, where the fuck are my cigarettes?”
“Kitchen. Top of the fridge.”
“Why are they there?”
“Cause that’s where you put ‘em.”
Mrs. Barnard looked around and then said, “Oh,” and with no malignancy, Jill remarked, “absent minded bitch.”
Her mother got up, and when she came back into the living room, she was puffing out smoke. “You’re a cute boy, Shane. I hope you can keep up with my Jilly here. She’s a hell of a handful.”
“That she is,” Shane agreed, politically, and Jill leaned into him. “And she’s a very beautiful handful.”
Mrs. Barnard coughed, gagged and spat in the trash can.
“She gets it from me.”
“Doubtless,” Shane said, eyebrow raised, and Julia Barnard raised her head and cackled out a laugh. Shane tried on a smile.
When Jill was walking him out to the porch, her mother commented. “Um... you’re on of those guys who looks as nice walking away as he does coming to you.”
When Shane turned scarlet, Jill told him, “Well, you always said you wanted people to say you had a nice ass.”
“Not your mom.”
“You never specified,” Jill reminded him, “and at least now we’ve gotten through that ordeal.”
“I guess it’s good for every guy to meet his future mother-in-law early on in the game.”
“You’re certainly putting all of your eggs in one basket tonight, aren’t you, Mr. Meriwether?”
He leaned forward and kissed her.
Niall Dwyer was fucking Sonia Cormorant with an exquisite, quiet fierceness. When he bit down on his pillow and groaned while coming, the heel of his hand in her mouth, he turned over and the two of them lay on their backs panting.
Of course no one knew Sonia was here. Her mother and father thought she was at a church meeting. Her family attended Evervirgin. People like that would believe anything.
Naked, Niall padded the floor of his bedroom and went to his chair. He began scrambling for a while. Sonia sat up sensing that her boyfriend was getting angry.
Niall turned to her enraged. She knew from practice there was nothing worse than coming out of good sex into the midst of perplexity.
“What the fuck?” he hissed, hopping onto the bed with the strength of a frog—or of a dancer.
“Did you misplace it again?” Sonia asked banally.
Niall’s beautiful eyes were on fire.
“I didn’t misplace shit. Someone’s coming in here and stealing my weed!”
For a while, Kristin had been turning the old man strange looks, and then he’d realized she really didn’t know who he was. Jackie had set her straight, the pregnant woman, muttering, “I’ll be goddamned.”
“I told you,” Russell told Cody, “it wasn’t always like that. This is what it’s usually like.”
“Goddamnit, she can’t marry him!” R.L. roared.
“And why not?” Kristin demanded for her mother’s sake.
R.L. threw back his head and let out a raucous laugh before saying, “Because the bitch is still married to me!”
Kathleen looked a bit taken aback by this. Mason, who had intended to be gallant, was taken back too and stared at his intended.
“Oh, my God it’s true!” Kathleen realized.
“Muh-THER,” Kristin broke up the word, “You never divorced him?”
“She just got up and left,” R.L. said. “I came around one day, and no one was in the house—”
The little blond woman put her hands on her hips and cried, “Don’t you dare make it look like I left you, you son of a bitch!”
“You did, Katey—”
“Katey—?” Mason started.
“Don’t call me that!”
Mason wasn’t sure who she was talking to.
“To wander all over the place, picking up and walking off for years at a time, and then to be surprised when I finally get up and go. How dare you! And you couldn’t have wondered where I’d gone. It’s not like no one told you!”
“I knew you’d gone to your brother, but I just thought—that probably means she doesn’t want me anymore.”
“Well, you were more than probably right,” Kathleen said. “And it’s nice to know you gave such a damn that you finally bothered to come to Michigan twenty-six years later.”
Cody’s round eyes looked to Russell. “These are your grandparents?”
Russell nodded.
“One hell of a reunion,” Cody said, taking out his cigarettes. He started to hand one to Russell, who shook his head vehemently.
“Mom doesn’t know,” he whispered.
Not thinking about cigarettes at all, but taking the measure of the room, Jason said, “We should go upstairs.”
Russell nodded and gestured for his younger cousins to follow as he heard his grandmother bellowing:
“AND THEN JUST TO WALK UP IN THIS HOUSE FOR THE FIRST TIME—”
“Oooh,” Russ said at the bottom of the stairs.
“Come,” Russell said, sharply. “Now.”
“Katey—” R.L. started, then at the look in his... yes, his wife’s eyes, “Kathleen, this isn’t the first time I’ve been here.”
Kathleen wheeled around to face Thom, her green eyes flashing.
“Don’t bawl out old Tommy,” said R.L. companionably. “The little fellow threw me out, threw a fit and called me all sorts of sons-of-bitches before I left.”
“That’s right, I did,” Thom said darkly.
Thom had not heard his wife, but was responding to the man he did not want to be his father.
“Which leads to the question, Old Man,” Kristin cocked her head coldly, “of why you’re here.”
R.L. sighed and grunted and said, “Because late is better than never.”
Kristin could not be angry at her father. It was a shock to remember he was her father. He looked nothing like the R.L. she had last seen, and been glad to see, departing when she was fourteen.
“If Jaclyn—whom you were never there for—can be compassionate…” Kristin began.
“Aw, Kristin!” Thom looked outraged. Patti put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. When he turned to face her she’d never seen him so angry.
“I don’t believe you,” Thom shouted. He turned to his sisters.
“Kristin, you’re just as bad as Jackie—”
“Thom,” Patti said at the same time her brother said, “Thom, man.”
“No,” Thom shook his head in disgust.
“You said you’d try to be decent—” Jackie reminded him.
“I know what I said , but to walk into my house and make camp after what he did.”
“You can talk to me, Tommy, I’m right here,” his father said.
“No! I don’t want to talk to you! And don’t call me Tommy. Or anything. Go hang out at Jackie’s since you’ve been visiting her for the last month anyway—”
“What?” Kathleen said suddenly.
From where she stood beside her pregnant friend, Abby Devalara said, “Maybe I’d better go.”
“You might as well stay,” Kristin said to her. “Like it or not, you’re about to be part of this family.”
“He’s been in Fort Atkins for how long?” Kathleen began at her daughter, “And you haven’t told me?”
“I didn’t think I could—”
“I don’t think you should have let him in—” began Kathleen.
Then suddenly, Jackie threw back her head and screamed.
Kathleen looked shocked, Patti stood up, Kristin looked at her sister and said, “Well, now honey there’s no need for all that.”
Jackie clutched her large stomach and caught the chair.
John, touched his wife’s hand and his eyes widened as Jackie’s blue eyes bulged.
MORE SOON. HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was an excellent portion! I am glad Kathleen stood up for herself. Thom’s Father has a lot of nerve to blame her for what happened. Gilead and Mark are cute. I hope Jackie is ok, it doesn’t sound good. Great writing and I look forward to reading more in a few days!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I had to go and look over the story myself. It's been a few busy days. I love this part of the story and there's so much going on, a ton of Lewis drama, the quiet drama of Mark and Gilead becoming friends and then the background f Jill and Shane and Niall and Sonia. You worried for Jackie, but Jackie's going to be fine.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
AMENDS CONTINUED...
“I don’t believe you,” Thom shouted. He turned to his sisters.
“Kristin, you’re just as bad as Jackie—”
“Thom,” Patti said at the same time her brother said, “Thom, man.”
“No,” Thom shook his head in disgust.
“You said you’d try to be decent—” Jackie reminded him.
“I know what I said , but to walk into my house and make camp after what he did.”
“You can talk to me, Tommy, I’m right here,” his father said.
“No! I don’t want to talk to you! And don’t call me Tommy. Or anything. Go hang out at Jackie’s since you’ve been visiting her for the last month anyway—”
“What?” Kathleen said suddenly.
From where she stood beside her pregnant friend, Abby Devalara said, “Maybe I’d better go.”
“You might as well stay,” Kristin said to her. “Like it or not, you’re about to be part of this family.”
“He’s been in Fort Atkins for how long?” Kathleen began at her daughter, “And you haven’t told me?”
“I didn’t think I could—”
“I don’t think you should have let him in—” began Kathleen.
Then suddenly, Jackie threw back her head and screamed.
Kathleen looked shocked, Patti stood up, Kristin looked at her sister and said, “Well, now honey there’s no need for all that.”
Jackie clutched her large stomach and caught the chair.
John, touched his wife’s hand and his eyes widened as Jackie’s blue eyes bulged.
A few minutes later, Jason, Cody and Russell, who was trying to amuse Russ, Frankie and Tommy heard rustling and noise downstairs, a little shouting. They looked at each other, slightly panicked. There was a knock on the door and then Patti came in and said, “We’ll be leaving for a spell. If you could watch the kids it would be really helpful.”
In the Kandzierski apartment, Felice was doing her familial duty.
“Girl, this weave is fierce,” LaVelle told her sister-in-law.
“Ain’t it though,” Felice grinned.
Sharon came in the kitchen and said, “Felice, the phone for you.”
Felice looked puzzled, took the phone and then hung up and said in her foghorn voice, “Shit!”
“What?” LaVelle looked puzzled.
“It’s a good thing I just finished your hair, LaVelle,” Felice shouted going down the hall to get her jacket from Sharon’s room. “Jackie’s having her baby now.”
Shane and Jill sat on the porch. In the last half hour, only two cars had rolled by Colum Street.
Mostly he would kiss her, and then kiss her again, and then they’d sit close, their thighs touching. Shane settled for mauling her with his mouth. He wanted to make love to her. It had been a long time since he’d made love to anyone. But he didn’t suggest it because while they kissed, and occasionally talked, and he took up strands of her hair and smelled how sweet it was, Shane realized he hadn’t ever really made love to a girl. Jill would, in a way, be the first.
“My dad was—is Max Barnard,” Jill said. “I don’t know what the hell happened to him.”
“Did you ever know him?”
“Not really,” Jill shook her head. “I know about him. He got my mom pregnant with Cody when she was about fifteen. He was really young too, so they didn’t marry. You’d never know how young Mom was by looking at her. Would you?”
Shane didn’t answer and jill commented to herself that this was very wise of him.
“Then I came along a few years later. He stuck around for a long time. He had dreams and stuff, I know. I remember him always trying to go to night school, and trying to make Mom do the same. I remember even though I could have only been five.”
“Then, one night, I had come home from kindergarten—and I’m sure of that. They had this big fight and he called her a liar and said all these things about, “How can I trust you about anything, now?” And I wondered if that meant Mom was having an affair... but that wasn’t her style.... So he went upstairs. It was a different house. This one belonged to my grandparents. He packed his stuff, and walked out the door. He didn’t even look at me.”
“Weren’t you angry?”
“I was hurt,” she said frankly. “I thought I’d done something wrong. I didn’t know what. I spent a year asking Mom what I’d done with her crying and carrying on and telling me I hadn’t done anything. Then I began to assume that she was the one who had done something.
“I got angry later on,” Jill said reflectively. “And maybe somewhere inside I still am. I would bank on that. But it’s deep down, and I can’t find it right now. And I can’t be angry right now. Not when I’m with you.”
Thom came into Russell’s room and looked guiltily at the three boys.
“Kids, go downstairs,” he told John’s children, and rolling off the bed, the boys did so without asking questions.
“And, Russ, shut the door.
Russ turned around and said, “Uncle Tommy, will you take us to Syndication?”
“What?” Thom raised an eyebrow.
“It’s where Russell saw the Partridge Family.”
Russ looked up at his namesake. “Isn’t it?”
Russell did not try to explain it. Thom said he would later. Russ nodded and the boys went downstairs.
“They told me I couldn’t come,” Thom said. He had never taken off his day clothing, and he reached into the breast pocket of his white shirt and took out his Marlboros, which was a sign for Cody and Russell to do the same.
“Do you mind?” Cody said to Jason.
“Actually, do you mind being here?” Thom asked. “We tied up your whole night and sort of held you hostage. You could have been gone a long time ago.”
“No,” Jason said. “And Russell’s my friend. I smoke all the time.”
He took one of Russell’s cigarettes, lit it, inhaled and his eyes widened as his cheeks ballooned.
“Just cough,” Thom advised him, and Jason did.
“It’s an acquired habit, and there’s really no need for you to acquire it,” Thom told Jason, and took the cigarette from the boy and began to smoke it himself.
“I can’t get it together around him,” Thom said. “I wish I could. It’s just like this demon takes over. I’m so angry around the son-of-a-bitch, and I know I’ve got to get better.”
“Mr. Lewis—Thom,” Cody amended, the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. “I know how you feel. If I saw Max Barnard, I don’t think I’d be too much better to him.”
“Your Dad?” Russell assumed.
“Yup. I haven’t seen him since I was eight,” Cody explained.
“One day me and Jill were coming home from school, and we walk in the house and Mom’s crying—which I’ve never seen her do. And Dad’s yelling at her and calling her a lying whore. I though maybe she’d been having an affair. We were living in East Sequoya back then. So he goes upstairs, gets his stuff and he yells at me. He shakes his finger and says, ‘You’re no goddamned son of mine.’”
Thom let his cigarette burn. Unconsciously his eyes had widened and his mouth hung slack. He was white. So was Russell. Neither one of them dared interrupt.
“And then he walked out,” Cody went on. He inhaled. As if on cue they all did, and exhaled a cloud together. “Privately... I think he wanted to leave for a long time and was just asking for an excuse. Jill cried for a straight year. She thought she’d done something wrong. I just kept telling her: he’s a bastard. I think she finally believed me.”
Russell puffed on the last of his cigarette, crushed it out.
“How’d you get here?” he asked.
“Geschichte Falls?” Cody said. “My family comes from here. Mom’s side. They always come back... Mom’s parents got divorced when she was really young, and she went with her mom down to the state line. Niles, I think. That’s where she met my dad. Then they moved to East Sequoya, but when Max Barnard left, Mom moved back in with her father... my grandfather. Who’s dead. And we live in his house.”
“Do you have any other family?” Thom asked Cody, and Cody shook his head.
“Well,” Russell said what Thom had wanted to, but thought would sound too impulsive coming from him, “you’ve got us now.”
IN THE END THOM LEWIS said to hell with it, and told Cody and Russell to get in the car with the kids.
“Are you sure?” Russell was asking as they all piled into Cody’s truck, the boys in the bed, Russell between his father and his friend.
“I’m absolutely sure,” Thom said.
“I’m not going to miss my baby sister giving me a nephew. Or a niece.”
“Russell,” Jason said, “do you realize—”
“That this is the second birth in a year the three of us have been at together?” Cody finished.
Jason nodded.
Russell sat between Jason and Cody, both of their thighs rubbing against him. For a moment he turned to see Cody’s Adam’s apple, swallowing as he drove. He could smell the cigarette and the faint cologne on him and the strength of his thighs through the jeans and on the other side he felt Jason’s leg against his, smelled the cedar of his clothes, the spearmint of his gum. Russell felt his penis getting firm, squeezed his thighs together, went hot and flushed.
MORE TOMORROW
“I don’t believe you,” Thom shouted. He turned to his sisters.
“Kristin, you’re just as bad as Jackie—”
“Thom,” Patti said at the same time her brother said, “Thom, man.”
“No,” Thom shook his head in disgust.
“You said you’d try to be decent—” Jackie reminded him.
“I know what I said , but to walk into my house and make camp after what he did.”
“You can talk to me, Tommy, I’m right here,” his father said.
“No! I don’t want to talk to you! And don’t call me Tommy. Or anything. Go hang out at Jackie’s since you’ve been visiting her for the last month anyway—”
“What?” Kathleen said suddenly.
From where she stood beside her pregnant friend, Abby Devalara said, “Maybe I’d better go.”
“You might as well stay,” Kristin said to her. “Like it or not, you’re about to be part of this family.”
“He’s been in Fort Atkins for how long?” Kathleen began at her daughter, “And you haven’t told me?”
“I didn’t think I could—”
“I don’t think you should have let him in—” began Kathleen.
Then suddenly, Jackie threw back her head and screamed.
Kathleen looked shocked, Patti stood up, Kristin looked at her sister and said, “Well, now honey there’s no need for all that.”
Jackie clutched her large stomach and caught the chair.
John, touched his wife’s hand and his eyes widened as Jackie’s blue eyes bulged.
A few minutes later, Jason, Cody and Russell, who was trying to amuse Russ, Frankie and Tommy heard rustling and noise downstairs, a little shouting. They looked at each other, slightly panicked. There was a knock on the door and then Patti came in and said, “We’ll be leaving for a spell. If you could watch the kids it would be really helpful.”
In the Kandzierski apartment, Felice was doing her familial duty.
“Girl, this weave is fierce,” LaVelle told her sister-in-law.
“Ain’t it though,” Felice grinned.
Sharon came in the kitchen and said, “Felice, the phone for you.”
Felice looked puzzled, took the phone and then hung up and said in her foghorn voice, “Shit!”
“What?” LaVelle looked puzzled.
“It’s a good thing I just finished your hair, LaVelle,” Felice shouted going down the hall to get her jacket from Sharon’s room. “Jackie’s having her baby now.”
Shane and Jill sat on the porch. In the last half hour, only two cars had rolled by Colum Street.
Mostly he would kiss her, and then kiss her again, and then they’d sit close, their thighs touching. Shane settled for mauling her with his mouth. He wanted to make love to her. It had been a long time since he’d made love to anyone. But he didn’t suggest it because while they kissed, and occasionally talked, and he took up strands of her hair and smelled how sweet it was, Shane realized he hadn’t ever really made love to a girl. Jill would, in a way, be the first.
“My dad was—is Max Barnard,” Jill said. “I don’t know what the hell happened to him.”
“Did you ever know him?”
“Not really,” Jill shook her head. “I know about him. He got my mom pregnant with Cody when she was about fifteen. He was really young too, so they didn’t marry. You’d never know how young Mom was by looking at her. Would you?”
Shane didn’t answer and jill commented to herself that this was very wise of him.
“Then I came along a few years later. He stuck around for a long time. He had dreams and stuff, I know. I remember him always trying to go to night school, and trying to make Mom do the same. I remember even though I could have only been five.”
“Then, one night, I had come home from kindergarten—and I’m sure of that. They had this big fight and he called her a liar and said all these things about, “How can I trust you about anything, now?” And I wondered if that meant Mom was having an affair... but that wasn’t her style.... So he went upstairs. It was a different house. This one belonged to my grandparents. He packed his stuff, and walked out the door. He didn’t even look at me.”
“Weren’t you angry?”
“I was hurt,” she said frankly. “I thought I’d done something wrong. I didn’t know what. I spent a year asking Mom what I’d done with her crying and carrying on and telling me I hadn’t done anything. Then I began to assume that she was the one who had done something.
“I got angry later on,” Jill said reflectively. “And maybe somewhere inside I still am. I would bank on that. But it’s deep down, and I can’t find it right now. And I can’t be angry right now. Not when I’m with you.”
Thom came into Russell’s room and looked guiltily at the three boys.
“Kids, go downstairs,” he told John’s children, and rolling off the bed, the boys did so without asking questions.
“And, Russ, shut the door.
Russ turned around and said, “Uncle Tommy, will you take us to Syndication?”
“What?” Thom raised an eyebrow.
“It’s where Russell saw the Partridge Family.”
Russ looked up at his namesake. “Isn’t it?”
Russell did not try to explain it. Thom said he would later. Russ nodded and the boys went downstairs.
“They told me I couldn’t come,” Thom said. He had never taken off his day clothing, and he reached into the breast pocket of his white shirt and took out his Marlboros, which was a sign for Cody and Russell to do the same.
“Do you mind?” Cody said to Jason.
“Actually, do you mind being here?” Thom asked. “We tied up your whole night and sort of held you hostage. You could have been gone a long time ago.”
“No,” Jason said. “And Russell’s my friend. I smoke all the time.”
He took one of Russell’s cigarettes, lit it, inhaled and his eyes widened as his cheeks ballooned.
“Just cough,” Thom advised him, and Jason did.
“It’s an acquired habit, and there’s really no need for you to acquire it,” Thom told Jason, and took the cigarette from the boy and began to smoke it himself.
“I can’t get it together around him,” Thom said. “I wish I could. It’s just like this demon takes over. I’m so angry around the son-of-a-bitch, and I know I’ve got to get better.”
“Mr. Lewis—Thom,” Cody amended, the cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. “I know how you feel. If I saw Max Barnard, I don’t think I’d be too much better to him.”
“Your Dad?” Russell assumed.
“Yup. I haven’t seen him since I was eight,” Cody explained.
“One day me and Jill were coming home from school, and we walk in the house and Mom’s crying—which I’ve never seen her do. And Dad’s yelling at her and calling her a lying whore. I though maybe she’d been having an affair. We were living in East Sequoya back then. So he goes upstairs, gets his stuff and he yells at me. He shakes his finger and says, ‘You’re no goddamned son of mine.’”
Thom let his cigarette burn. Unconsciously his eyes had widened and his mouth hung slack. He was white. So was Russell. Neither one of them dared interrupt.
“And then he walked out,” Cody went on. He inhaled. As if on cue they all did, and exhaled a cloud together. “Privately... I think he wanted to leave for a long time and was just asking for an excuse. Jill cried for a straight year. She thought she’d done something wrong. I just kept telling her: he’s a bastard. I think she finally believed me.”
Russell puffed on the last of his cigarette, crushed it out.
“How’d you get here?” he asked.
“Geschichte Falls?” Cody said. “My family comes from here. Mom’s side. They always come back... Mom’s parents got divorced when she was really young, and she went with her mom down to the state line. Niles, I think. That’s where she met my dad. Then they moved to East Sequoya, but when Max Barnard left, Mom moved back in with her father... my grandfather. Who’s dead. And we live in his house.”
“Do you have any other family?” Thom asked Cody, and Cody shook his head.
“Well,” Russell said what Thom had wanted to, but thought would sound too impulsive coming from him, “you’ve got us now.”
IN THE END THOM LEWIS said to hell with it, and told Cody and Russell to get in the car with the kids.
“Are you sure?” Russell was asking as they all piled into Cody’s truck, the boys in the bed, Russell between his father and his friend.
“I’m absolutely sure,” Thom said.
“I’m not going to miss my baby sister giving me a nephew. Or a niece.”
“Russell,” Jason said, “do you realize—”
“That this is the second birth in a year the three of us have been at together?” Cody finished.
Jason nodded.
Russell sat between Jason and Cody, both of their thighs rubbing against him. For a moment he turned to see Cody’s Adam’s apple, swallowing as he drove. He could smell the cigarette and the faint cologne on him and the strength of his thighs through the jeans and on the other side he felt Jason’s leg against his, smelled the cedar of his clothes, the spearmint of his gum. Russell felt his penis getting firm, squeezed his thighs together, went hot and flushed.
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! Lots going on with the birth and Thom’s Dad. I hope Jackie and the baby are ok. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow. I hope you are having a nice weekend!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Russell's penis sure is stiff tonight.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
As they stepped out of the car laughing, Cody carrying Frankie, Thom carrying Tommy and Russell telling Russ that he was old enough to walk for himself no matter how cold and late it was.
“Sacred Net?” Russell asked his Cody, who only nodded.
Thom went up to the desk, and a few seconds later was led to the fourth floor, where no one seemed surprised to see him. There was no seen, no talking anyone down. Everyone acted as if he should have shown up a long time ago. Cody and the children were no surprise either.
The birth was not a quick one. Walking the fluorescent lit halls, Kristin—belly the size of a beach ball, confessed to her brother, “I’m worried.”
“About Jackie?”
“No, about me, ass!” Kristin snapped, herself again. “I got pregnant four weeks before she did. And no baby.”
“Well, you’re a little older—”
“Try ten years, Thom.”
“Well, more like twelve—” Thom began and stopped as his sister flashed him a dangerous look.
That’s why I’m worried,” she said, “This is the baby me and Reese have wanted for twenty years, and if we loose it...”
“Kristin stop!” Thom took his older sister by the shoulder and spoke directly to her for the first time. She turned her wide hazel eyes to him.
“Nothing is going to happen to your baby. You’ll be just fine. I’ve waited too long to have nephews. Mom’s waited to long too have other grandchildren. You’re going to have a fine, healthy baby, so shut the fuck up and sit down—alright?”
The two of them looked at each other, and then Thom grinned and Kristin laughed and touched her brother’s cheek.
“Ah, Thom,” she said. “You’re something else.”
Then she said, “Go talk to R.L.”
As it turned out, R.L. found Thom. His son was sitting at the Finallay Parkway entrance watched an eighteen wheeler trawl up the road in the predawn darkness.
“I came to you, and I don’t know what to say,” R.L. said, at last.
Thom sucked on the cigarette, exhaled out of the side of his mouth, but did not look up.
“I don’t know what to say, either. I wish you’d just stayed dead.”
“I was never dead.”
“I wished you were, though. That way it wouldn’t have been like you left me. It would have been like you didn’t have a choice. I used to blame Mom for moving away, maybe you’d come back. But I didn’t really like it when you were around anyway.”
“Tommy—”
“I told you about that.”
“Thomas, I came to try to make things right. I came to see you.”
“Why?”
R.L. sat down beside him.
“Because you’re my son, Thomas.”:
“You’re son was twelve! I—am almost forty. I’ve been with Patti for twenty years. I’ve got a son who’s older than I was when you left.”
“You don’t seem forty—and actually, you’re thirty eight. Just turned it in June—”
“Shut up,” Thom said, dully, flicking the cigarette away. “I hate you—”
“June 6th,” R.L. went on.
“You make me feel like I’m twelve,” Thom looked at him.
“I can’t grow up when you’re around. You make me feel like the kid you abandoned.”
“My little Tommy never opened his mouth to me. He was always quiet and kept things to himself. I’d say that’s changed.”
“I was scared of you. I was scared you’d hit. Or be loud. Or just be ... even drunker than you always were. And how dare you call me your little anything! You had so many kids you didn’t notice me. That’s why you could get up and leave me—”
“I never thought of it as leaving you—”
“Because you never THOUGHT OF ME!!!”
Thom’s scream was so loud, he scared himself—but only for a second. He got up off his feet and looked down at the old man.
“You never thought of leaving me, because you weren’t thinking about me. You never even saw me. I wish you had left me! I wish you had… said something nasty to me on the way out the door. You fought with Kristin all the time. Finn wasn’t born yet. Jackie was a cute little girl. But you didn’t even think of me. I didn’t matter enough. That’s what pisses me off. You never left me! Because I never mattered.”
“Thom, that’s not true.”
“You don’t give a SHIT about me!” Thom told him. “You never did. I have known that... all my life. And that is why I hate you.”
:”Class President of Our Lady of Mercy High School, 1975, Prom King ‘77,” R.L. said. Then, “Merit Scholarship to Notre Dame. 100th in his graduating class—not that high up, but not bad by any stretch of the imagination. Even... Employee of the month four times when you worked at Denny’s.”
` Another truck roared by. For a second, Thom turned his head to see it, then turned back to the old man, as if R.L. was speaking another language.
R.L. went on.
“Thomas Russell Lewis to wed Patricia Janna Mc.Llarchlahn at 2 P.M. in the Church of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame, Indiana. Pastor— ”
“What are you talking about—” Thom stopped him.
“Your life,” R.L. said simply. “Thomas, there isn’t a thing you’ve done—at least publicly—that I don’t know about.
“I stayed away because I knew if I came back I would just mess everything up. I stayed away until I couldn’t stay away any longer. Thomas.... Tommy... Thom.”
The sky was grey as they sat in the carpeted waiting room. To Kathleen it looked like the parlor of a modern retirement home.
The first cars racing to work came down Finnalay Parkway.
“So,” Kathleen asked her husband, “what did you do all those years?”
R.L. shrugged. Neither one of them looked at each other.
“Nothin’ worth mentioning.”
“You were gone for over a quarter of a century, and you haven’t done anything worth mentioning.”
Kathleen smiled, tired, and a laugh came out. “R.L., that’s a goddamned shame.”
“You know what else is a goddamned shame?”
Now she looked up at him.
“That I couldn’t be a good husband. Now that’s a shame for starters. But I was going to say it’s a goddamned shame that it looks like Finn’s going to stay with that Meg Rice woman.”
Kathleen was so tired she could only raise an eyebrow in shock.
“How in the hell do you know Finn? I was barely pregnant with him when I came here.”
“That’s how I know him. He didn’t remember me. So he couldn’t feel bad about me. He tracked me down. Finn was quite a surprise. Katey, I didn’t even know about him. He doesn’t really know his ass from a hole in the ground, but he’s got a good heart, somewhere beneath all the acid trips. He’s not like Thom.”
“No,” Kathleen agreed. “And I suggest you don’t let on to Thom—or any of your other children, that you’ve had a running correspondence with your youngest child for… how long?”
“About eight years.”
Kathleen’s eyes flew open.
“A friend helped him find me. When he left home, where do you think he went?”
“On the road.”
“He did go on the road, but Katey, even Jack Kerouac had to stop in Denver. He came to me. Whenever he was gone for a long time. Or didn’t want to come back here, he found me. Finn told me that it might be time for me to come home, that Jackie was pregnant and so was Kristin and that Thom had almost gotten a divorce...”
As R.L. rambled on, Kathleen began to realize that she and the rest of the family had just always assumed Finn was spacing out, that Finn had no idea of what the hell was going on. On the surface, Thom had always been close mouthed and all smiles and everyone knew he was a closed book. But no one ever bothered to think that Finn was a closed book as well. He was a book no one had really bothered to open.
“You sure do look good, Katey.”
“Yeah,” she nodded unpretentiously. “I know. I’d like that divorce R.L. I don’t want to have to live in sin with Mason.”
“Forty-one, forty-two years....” R.L. nodded his head. “That’s not a bad record for a marriage at all.”
“Even if you weren’t here most of the time?”
“I’ve seen a lot of marriages, Katey O’Donnell, and I think the secret to our success as a couple is that I haven’t been around for the last twenty-six years. If you think about, I’m sure you enjoyed me more after I left.”
“Is that why you left so often?” she asked in discovery.
R.L. did not answer.
A male nurse came out followed by Russell and Cody, both of them pushing the wings of their hair out of their faces as they jogged to R.L. and Kathleen.
“Mr. and Mrs. Lewis,” said the blond young man in his black rimmed spectacles, “You all have a very, very beautiful, healthy granddaughter. Come and see.”
Kristin, Patti and Felice were all standing together, looking into the nursery at the tiny sleeping creature newly named Kathleen Patricia Mc.Llarchlahn.
Patti, hair and body frazzled, yawned.
“Whenever I see a baby,” Kristin began, touching her stomach, and then she stopped.
Felice concluded, “You wonder if yours’ll be as ugly?”
Kristin looked shocked, but Patti laughed.
“Girl, it’s true,” Felice said. “when we all come, we’re all ugly. Don’t worry. it takes a few days for the cute to settle in.”
“For some of us it never does,” Denise said.
Patti snorted a laugh and asked her sister, “You remembered to call Mom and Dad, right?”
“I’m not completely useless,” Denise said.
“I know—” Patti began.
“I’ll call them now,” Denise said, turning to walk toward the pay phone.
“Damnit, Denise!” John said.
“Let Denise be Denise,” Patti, tugged her brother’s shirt sleeve.
“Ah, God,” she sighed, “They grow so fast. You alright Kristin?”
“Yeah, I just need to go to the bathroom. Excuse me ladies.”
Hands on her stomach, Kristin went daintily into the ladies restroom down the hall.
“That’s a brave woman. I can’t imagine getting a baby for my fortieth birthday present.”
“There’s still time,” Patti teased.
“Bitch, shut your mouth,” Felice dismissed it, “You know, Jaclyn was pretty good. Except for the time she grabbed Doctor Sheidler by the throat and said, ‘Give me some drugs now you sadistic Nazi bastard’, she handled herself with complete decorum.”
Patti knew that Jackie couldn’t have a baby and not leave the hospital unaffected. She remembered the stories told about her own temper when she’d given birth to Russell. She remembered people saying, you forgot all about the pain. You didn’t. It was the worst in the world in the worst place imaginable. She remembered how small and ugly the baby in her arms had been and how she’d said, “I pushed and pushed for this?” But then he took her breast and she knew it was more than worth it. And it seemed so long ago now. Sometimes she saw the tall young man with the long red hair and the sharp green eyes, and when he was bent over his guitar, pushing the hair out his face, or praying in church she did see the baby. But mostly she saw someone else completely. Without resentment, more with marvel, she saw a stranger, and it was so odd that she had given birth to a stranger. someone who was his own person and had a million different faces that had little or nothing to do with her.
She decided not to talk to him about the half empty pack of Marlboros he had accidentally left on his bed—which she now realized could not have been Thom’s.
At the point of this resolution, Patti heard a wail from the bathroom, and Felice’s eyes flew wide and round in her very brown face.
“Was that Kris—?” started Felice.
“PAT-I I I I I I I I ! ! !” the two women heard Kristin cry, and went to the restroom to get her.
“That old bitch would upstage me by shooting her kid out on the same day,” Jackie murmured with no true rancor. The nurse had brought baby Kathleen to her, and wearily she took her breast out and gave it to the girl. Kristin was in for a very long day.
“We called Reese,” Thom said from the doorway. “He’s on his way.”
“A regular family reunion,” R.L. remarked.
MORE TOMORROW NIGHT
“Sacred Net?” Russell asked his Cody, who only nodded.
Thom went up to the desk, and a few seconds later was led to the fourth floor, where no one seemed surprised to see him. There was no seen, no talking anyone down. Everyone acted as if he should have shown up a long time ago. Cody and the children were no surprise either.
The birth was not a quick one. Walking the fluorescent lit halls, Kristin—belly the size of a beach ball, confessed to her brother, “I’m worried.”
“About Jackie?”
“No, about me, ass!” Kristin snapped, herself again. “I got pregnant four weeks before she did. And no baby.”
“Well, you’re a little older—”
“Try ten years, Thom.”
“Well, more like twelve—” Thom began and stopped as his sister flashed him a dangerous look.
That’s why I’m worried,” she said, “This is the baby me and Reese have wanted for twenty years, and if we loose it...”
“Kristin stop!” Thom took his older sister by the shoulder and spoke directly to her for the first time. She turned her wide hazel eyes to him.
“Nothing is going to happen to your baby. You’ll be just fine. I’ve waited too long to have nephews. Mom’s waited to long too have other grandchildren. You’re going to have a fine, healthy baby, so shut the fuck up and sit down—alright?”
The two of them looked at each other, and then Thom grinned and Kristin laughed and touched her brother’s cheek.
“Ah, Thom,” she said. “You’re something else.”
Then she said, “Go talk to R.L.”
As it turned out, R.L. found Thom. His son was sitting at the Finallay Parkway entrance watched an eighteen wheeler trawl up the road in the predawn darkness.
“I came to you, and I don’t know what to say,” R.L. said, at last.
Thom sucked on the cigarette, exhaled out of the side of his mouth, but did not look up.
“I don’t know what to say, either. I wish you’d just stayed dead.”
“I was never dead.”
“I wished you were, though. That way it wouldn’t have been like you left me. It would have been like you didn’t have a choice. I used to blame Mom for moving away, maybe you’d come back. But I didn’t really like it when you were around anyway.”
“Tommy—”
“I told you about that.”
“Thomas, I came to try to make things right. I came to see you.”
“Why?”
R.L. sat down beside him.
“Because you’re my son, Thomas.”:
“You’re son was twelve! I—am almost forty. I’ve been with Patti for twenty years. I’ve got a son who’s older than I was when you left.”
“You don’t seem forty—and actually, you’re thirty eight. Just turned it in June—”
“Shut up,” Thom said, dully, flicking the cigarette away. “I hate you—”
“June 6th,” R.L. went on.
“You make me feel like I’m twelve,” Thom looked at him.
“I can’t grow up when you’re around. You make me feel like the kid you abandoned.”
“My little Tommy never opened his mouth to me. He was always quiet and kept things to himself. I’d say that’s changed.”
“I was scared of you. I was scared you’d hit. Or be loud. Or just be ... even drunker than you always were. And how dare you call me your little anything! You had so many kids you didn’t notice me. That’s why you could get up and leave me—”
“I never thought of it as leaving you—”
“Because you never THOUGHT OF ME!!!”
Thom’s scream was so loud, he scared himself—but only for a second. He got up off his feet and looked down at the old man.
“You never thought of leaving me, because you weren’t thinking about me. You never even saw me. I wish you had left me! I wish you had… said something nasty to me on the way out the door. You fought with Kristin all the time. Finn wasn’t born yet. Jackie was a cute little girl. But you didn’t even think of me. I didn’t matter enough. That’s what pisses me off. You never left me! Because I never mattered.”
“Thom, that’s not true.”
“You don’t give a SHIT about me!” Thom told him. “You never did. I have known that... all my life. And that is why I hate you.”
:”Class President of Our Lady of Mercy High School, 1975, Prom King ‘77,” R.L. said. Then, “Merit Scholarship to Notre Dame. 100th in his graduating class—not that high up, but not bad by any stretch of the imagination. Even... Employee of the month four times when you worked at Denny’s.”
` Another truck roared by. For a second, Thom turned his head to see it, then turned back to the old man, as if R.L. was speaking another language.
R.L. went on.
“Thomas Russell Lewis to wed Patricia Janna Mc.Llarchlahn at 2 P.M. in the Church of the Sacred Heart, Notre Dame, Indiana. Pastor— ”
“What are you talking about—” Thom stopped him.
“Your life,” R.L. said simply. “Thomas, there isn’t a thing you’ve done—at least publicly—that I don’t know about.
“I stayed away because I knew if I came back I would just mess everything up. I stayed away until I couldn’t stay away any longer. Thomas.... Tommy... Thom.”
The sky was grey as they sat in the carpeted waiting room. To Kathleen it looked like the parlor of a modern retirement home.
The first cars racing to work came down Finnalay Parkway.
“So,” Kathleen asked her husband, “what did you do all those years?”
R.L. shrugged. Neither one of them looked at each other.
“Nothin’ worth mentioning.”
“You were gone for over a quarter of a century, and you haven’t done anything worth mentioning.”
Kathleen smiled, tired, and a laugh came out. “R.L., that’s a goddamned shame.”
“You know what else is a goddamned shame?”
Now she looked up at him.
“That I couldn’t be a good husband. Now that’s a shame for starters. But I was going to say it’s a goddamned shame that it looks like Finn’s going to stay with that Meg Rice woman.”
Kathleen was so tired she could only raise an eyebrow in shock.
“How in the hell do you know Finn? I was barely pregnant with him when I came here.”
“That’s how I know him. He didn’t remember me. So he couldn’t feel bad about me. He tracked me down. Finn was quite a surprise. Katey, I didn’t even know about him. He doesn’t really know his ass from a hole in the ground, but he’s got a good heart, somewhere beneath all the acid trips. He’s not like Thom.”
“No,” Kathleen agreed. “And I suggest you don’t let on to Thom—or any of your other children, that you’ve had a running correspondence with your youngest child for… how long?”
“About eight years.”
Kathleen’s eyes flew open.
“A friend helped him find me. When he left home, where do you think he went?”
“On the road.”
“He did go on the road, but Katey, even Jack Kerouac had to stop in Denver. He came to me. Whenever he was gone for a long time. Or didn’t want to come back here, he found me. Finn told me that it might be time for me to come home, that Jackie was pregnant and so was Kristin and that Thom had almost gotten a divorce...”
As R.L. rambled on, Kathleen began to realize that she and the rest of the family had just always assumed Finn was spacing out, that Finn had no idea of what the hell was going on. On the surface, Thom had always been close mouthed and all smiles and everyone knew he was a closed book. But no one ever bothered to think that Finn was a closed book as well. He was a book no one had really bothered to open.
“You sure do look good, Katey.”
“Yeah,” she nodded unpretentiously. “I know. I’d like that divorce R.L. I don’t want to have to live in sin with Mason.”
“Forty-one, forty-two years....” R.L. nodded his head. “That’s not a bad record for a marriage at all.”
“Even if you weren’t here most of the time?”
“I’ve seen a lot of marriages, Katey O’Donnell, and I think the secret to our success as a couple is that I haven’t been around for the last twenty-six years. If you think about, I’m sure you enjoyed me more after I left.”
“Is that why you left so often?” she asked in discovery.
R.L. did not answer.
A male nurse came out followed by Russell and Cody, both of them pushing the wings of their hair out of their faces as they jogged to R.L. and Kathleen.
“Mr. and Mrs. Lewis,” said the blond young man in his black rimmed spectacles, “You all have a very, very beautiful, healthy granddaughter. Come and see.”
Kristin, Patti and Felice were all standing together, looking into the nursery at the tiny sleeping creature newly named Kathleen Patricia Mc.Llarchlahn.
Patti, hair and body frazzled, yawned.
“Whenever I see a baby,” Kristin began, touching her stomach, and then she stopped.
Felice concluded, “You wonder if yours’ll be as ugly?”
Kristin looked shocked, but Patti laughed.
“Girl, it’s true,” Felice said. “when we all come, we’re all ugly. Don’t worry. it takes a few days for the cute to settle in.”
“For some of us it never does,” Denise said.
Patti snorted a laugh and asked her sister, “You remembered to call Mom and Dad, right?”
“I’m not completely useless,” Denise said.
“I know—” Patti began.
“I’ll call them now,” Denise said, turning to walk toward the pay phone.
“Damnit, Denise!” John said.
“Let Denise be Denise,” Patti, tugged her brother’s shirt sleeve.
“Ah, God,” she sighed, “They grow so fast. You alright Kristin?”
“Yeah, I just need to go to the bathroom. Excuse me ladies.”
Hands on her stomach, Kristin went daintily into the ladies restroom down the hall.
“That’s a brave woman. I can’t imagine getting a baby for my fortieth birthday present.”
“There’s still time,” Patti teased.
“Bitch, shut your mouth,” Felice dismissed it, “You know, Jaclyn was pretty good. Except for the time she grabbed Doctor Sheidler by the throat and said, ‘Give me some drugs now you sadistic Nazi bastard’, she handled herself with complete decorum.”
Patti knew that Jackie couldn’t have a baby and not leave the hospital unaffected. She remembered the stories told about her own temper when she’d given birth to Russell. She remembered people saying, you forgot all about the pain. You didn’t. It was the worst in the world in the worst place imaginable. She remembered how small and ugly the baby in her arms had been and how she’d said, “I pushed and pushed for this?” But then he took her breast and she knew it was more than worth it. And it seemed so long ago now. Sometimes she saw the tall young man with the long red hair and the sharp green eyes, and when he was bent over his guitar, pushing the hair out his face, or praying in church she did see the baby. But mostly she saw someone else completely. Without resentment, more with marvel, she saw a stranger, and it was so odd that she had given birth to a stranger. someone who was his own person and had a million different faces that had little or nothing to do with her.
She decided not to talk to him about the half empty pack of Marlboros he had accidentally left on his bed—which she now realized could not have been Thom’s.
At the point of this resolution, Patti heard a wail from the bathroom, and Felice’s eyes flew wide and round in her very brown face.
“Was that Kris—?” started Felice.
“PAT-I I I I I I I I ! ! !” the two women heard Kristin cry, and went to the restroom to get her.
“That old bitch would upstage me by shooting her kid out on the same day,” Jackie murmured with no true rancor. The nurse had brought baby Kathleen to her, and wearily she took her breast out and gave it to the girl. Kristin was in for a very long day.
“We called Reese,” Thom said from the doorway. “He’s on his way.”
“A regular family reunion,” R.L. remarked.
MORE TOMORROW NIGHT
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
I am glad Jackie had the baby safely and now Kristen’s is coming! It was good R.L. And Thom had a talk. I don’t know what will happen with them but at least they are talking. Great writing and I look forward to reading more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT WE END OUT BABY BIRTHING CHAPTER WITH A WHOLE SET OF NEW HAPPENINGS
“That old bitch would upstage me by shooting her kid out on the same day,” Jackie murmured with no true rancor. The nurse had brought baby Kathleen to her, and wearily she took her breast out and gave it to the girl. Kristin was in for a very long day.
“We called Reese,” Thom said from the doorway. “He’s on his way.”
“A regular family reunion,” R.L. remarked.
“I better be getting home,” Cody said.
“And I need to go to school,” Russell said.
“Did you really just say,” Patti asked her son, “that you needed to go to school?”
“That’s the cue for you and Dad to say, no son, why don’t you just go to bed and rest.”
Patti nodded to herself. “The kids good.”
John sat beside the bed, looking at his child and smiling, feeling proud and completely useless, not really daring to touch her
Suddenly Jackie began to whisper:
Don’t sing love songs
you’ll wake my mother
she’s sleeping here,
right by my siiide...
Then R.L. began, first so quiet his son beside him could not hear him, then loud enough, but not too loud for a hospital:
In her right hand
is a silver dagger
she says that I
can’t be your bride.
Jackie looked up at her father and then down at her child and they both whispered:
“My Daddy was is a handsome devil
he’s got a chain
five miles long
on ev’ry lake
a heart does dangle
another maid
he’s loved and wronged...”
No one was coming home today, not for long. They are all waiting for Kristin’s baby, and he will be there. He will return alone to see his new niece or his new nephew, Today, now, is his time. It is their time because Jason has never been here before, because all times, all the delicious times were in the dark back room of the large house three blocks up the streets. But every time he returns from there, every time he jauntily comes home with his book bag over his shoulder, knowing he looks like a child, is playing the part of a child. He wants this.
Russell Lewis thinks in poetry, thinks in psalms, thinks of Jason. He thinks of him mind and body so overwhelmed he’d give himself to Jason and Cody at the same time, so caught up in desire that whenever he kisses Jason’s mouth he thinks of Cody and knows if was Cody he would see Jason, feel Jason.
Russell wants this to happen in his room, high on the balconied second floor of 1735 Breckinridge with windows on three sides of the immense room and the sun shining on them. Even when Jason is worried, he is not. He locks the door, sets him on the bed, pulls down his trousers, still the school trousers though, Jason being Jason he’s cleaned, he’s changed, he’s thick when Russell takes him in his mouth, when Russell’s sighs to hear Jason sigh, to feel his mouth slightly fucked, to feel Jason’s hands in his hair, his body slackening, relaxing, at home in Russell’s mouth, his ass kneaded by Russell’s hands.
They rise half tired to undressed and come together on the bed. They are young, fire always arises. Together they weave through frustration, joy, lust, desire, take the fire path that ends in sweat and gasping, in trails of semen splayed across rumbled bedspreads and hot boy skin.
He has longed for this moment, when in the heat of full sun, after hard lovemaking, he had Jason lay naked and played out together, brown limbs and white limbs like a lovely half asleep spider, a little wet, a little sprayed with semen, the sun shining on his ass as, drowsily, his thighs move with Jason, and they kiss.
In the darkness, Cody grips the pillow and demands right here what he has longed for but cannot have. His own hair, falling in his face, he pictures as red hair, the penis, pulsing as it pushes in him, he imagines as Russell’s the same time he imagines himself as Russell, slowly and thoroughly being fucked, the bed like a slow moving raft on the water.
Shoulders bunching together, mouth on throat, faces pressed together, bodies pressed together, feet stretched out together, Cody arches his ass, pushes back to the pushing, fucks as he is fucked.
“Is that good?... Is that good?”
“Yes,” Cody gasps. “God, yes.”
Online last night they found each other, and they have found their way to this empty apartment over the Noble Red.
“Don’t stop fucking me,” Cody demands.
Gathering up speed, so that Cody begins to cry out in satisfaction, Brad Long rises up on the flats of his hands. In rhythm to his fucking he vows: “I won’t! I won’t. I won’t”
When Nehru Alexander got to the house on Curtain Street, his cousin Gilead was already there.
“Don’t you have school?” Nehru said witheringly.
Gilead, in black slacks and blazer, looked up from the sofa and said, “Don’t you?”
Nehru did not answer, but went into the kitchen.
“Could everyone end up at my house today?” Chayne asked as Nehru began rifling through the pantry.
“Everyone?”
“Russell’s passed out upstairs in his room. He was at the hospital all night.”
Nehru raised an eyebrow.
“His aunt gave birth.”
“Which one?”
“Both of them.”
“On the same—”
Chayne nodded before Nehru got the rest of the sentence out of his mouth.
“Well, shit,” muttered Nehru and left the room.
In the middle of the afternoon when Nehru Alexander came out to the porch with two beers and sat on one side of Chayne, and passed the beer to Gilead, who had just gotten off the sofa and come down as well, Chayne said nothing. He yawned, but said nothing.
“I’m glad we’re a family,” Nehru said, throwing his arm over his older cousin.
“Yeah,” Chayne agreed. “It ain’t bad.”
Chayne frowned.
“Who the fuck is that?”
A car had parked across the street from them, which no one had taken much note of, until the driver stepped across the street and stood at the walk with his hands jammed in his pockets. He wore khakis with rolled cuffs and a varsity jacket and had dark wavy hair, a longish, not unhandsome face and eyes of no particular color. His mouth smiled impishly, and Nehru said:
“He must go to Our Lady.”
“I’m Mark Young,” Mark Young said as Gilead put his beer down.
“I’m Gilead’s study buddy. Sir, you must be Gilead’s father.”
“The hell I must be. How the fuck old do I look?”
“He’s my cousin,” Gilead said, “and I’m sitting right here, as you can see.”
“I was trying to be respectful,” Mark said, kicking the ground with his boat shoes.
“We’re not going to bite you,” Chayne said. “And we’re not the Royal Family.”
“Well, we are Princes,” Nehru commented, as Chayne ignored this and beckoned Mark forward with a finger.
“Do you always look like that?” Chayne asked him.”
“Like….?”
“Like a cat…. Who just ate a canary?”
“I think,” Gilead said, smiling from behind his beer, “he looks a little like the cat who knocked over the Christmas tree.”
“Uh…” Mark started. Then he spat out, “I just came to ask Gil if he wanted to do anything?”
Before one of his cousins could open their mouths, Gilead said, “What would you like to do?”
He sensed that if anyone else on the porch said anything else, Mark would jump out of his skin.
“I… uh… hadn’t thought about it.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Ralph Balusik. He said you and Russell would be here.”
“Should I get Russell?” Gilead asked.
“You… could.”
“Not,” Chayne said.
“Now, Gil, go get a breath mint and slap some water on your face so can look like a seventeen year old who hasn’t been drinking, and go do whatever teenagers do.”
An hour or so later, when darkness was setting in, Russell Lewis blinked up at the ceiling and murmured, “Holy shit.”
Two cousins born in one day and a weird dream about Cody he was not going into. He had planned to stop over by Jason’s house but hadn’t even called his parents, and to make things weirder, or worse, he had just left Gilead. Not that Gilead was among strangers, but still.
When Jason dropped Russell off back at Chayne's, the house had been alight with early evening and Anigel was on the sofa with a text book on her lap, Rob, pencil behind his ear, lifted it to wave as Russell, and Nehru was in the kitchen with Chayne.
“Where’s Gil?” Russell asked.
“With Mark Young,” Chayne said, not turning from the chicken he was butchering.
“Mark Young?” Russell said.
A smile on his face, Nehru nodded.
“Mark,” he said, “Young.”
MORE TOMORROW
“That old bitch would upstage me by shooting her kid out on the same day,” Jackie murmured with no true rancor. The nurse had brought baby Kathleen to her, and wearily she took her breast out and gave it to the girl. Kristin was in for a very long day.
“We called Reese,” Thom said from the doorway. “He’s on his way.”
“A regular family reunion,” R.L. remarked.
“I better be getting home,” Cody said.
“And I need to go to school,” Russell said.
“Did you really just say,” Patti asked her son, “that you needed to go to school?”
“That’s the cue for you and Dad to say, no son, why don’t you just go to bed and rest.”
Patti nodded to herself. “The kids good.”
John sat beside the bed, looking at his child and smiling, feeling proud and completely useless, not really daring to touch her
Suddenly Jackie began to whisper:
Don’t sing love songs
you’ll wake my mother
she’s sleeping here,
right by my siiide...
Then R.L. began, first so quiet his son beside him could not hear him, then loud enough, but not too loud for a hospital:
In her right hand
is a silver dagger
she says that I
can’t be your bride.
Jackie looked up at her father and then down at her child and they both whispered:
“My Daddy was is a handsome devil
he’s got a chain
five miles long
on ev’ry lake
a heart does dangle
another maid
he’s loved and wronged...”
No one was coming home today, not for long. They are all waiting for Kristin’s baby, and he will be there. He will return alone to see his new niece or his new nephew, Today, now, is his time. It is their time because Jason has never been here before, because all times, all the delicious times were in the dark back room of the large house three blocks up the streets. But every time he returns from there, every time he jauntily comes home with his book bag over his shoulder, knowing he looks like a child, is playing the part of a child. He wants this.
Russell Lewis thinks in poetry, thinks in psalms, thinks of Jason. He thinks of him mind and body so overwhelmed he’d give himself to Jason and Cody at the same time, so caught up in desire that whenever he kisses Jason’s mouth he thinks of Cody and knows if was Cody he would see Jason, feel Jason.
Russell wants this to happen in his room, high on the balconied second floor of 1735 Breckinridge with windows on three sides of the immense room and the sun shining on them. Even when Jason is worried, he is not. He locks the door, sets him on the bed, pulls down his trousers, still the school trousers though, Jason being Jason he’s cleaned, he’s changed, he’s thick when Russell takes him in his mouth, when Russell’s sighs to hear Jason sigh, to feel his mouth slightly fucked, to feel Jason’s hands in his hair, his body slackening, relaxing, at home in Russell’s mouth, his ass kneaded by Russell’s hands.
They rise half tired to undressed and come together on the bed. They are young, fire always arises. Together they weave through frustration, joy, lust, desire, take the fire path that ends in sweat and gasping, in trails of semen splayed across rumbled bedspreads and hot boy skin.
He has longed for this moment, when in the heat of full sun, after hard lovemaking, he had Jason lay naked and played out together, brown limbs and white limbs like a lovely half asleep spider, a little wet, a little sprayed with semen, the sun shining on his ass as, drowsily, his thighs move with Jason, and they kiss.
In the darkness, Cody grips the pillow and demands right here what he has longed for but cannot have. His own hair, falling in his face, he pictures as red hair, the penis, pulsing as it pushes in him, he imagines as Russell’s the same time he imagines himself as Russell, slowly and thoroughly being fucked, the bed like a slow moving raft on the water.
Shoulders bunching together, mouth on throat, faces pressed together, bodies pressed together, feet stretched out together, Cody arches his ass, pushes back to the pushing, fucks as he is fucked.
“Is that good?... Is that good?”
“Yes,” Cody gasps. “God, yes.”
Online last night they found each other, and they have found their way to this empty apartment over the Noble Red.
“Don’t stop fucking me,” Cody demands.
Gathering up speed, so that Cody begins to cry out in satisfaction, Brad Long rises up on the flats of his hands. In rhythm to his fucking he vows: “I won’t! I won’t. I won’t”
When Nehru Alexander got to the house on Curtain Street, his cousin Gilead was already there.
“Don’t you have school?” Nehru said witheringly.
Gilead, in black slacks and blazer, looked up from the sofa and said, “Don’t you?”
Nehru did not answer, but went into the kitchen.
“Could everyone end up at my house today?” Chayne asked as Nehru began rifling through the pantry.
“Everyone?”
“Russell’s passed out upstairs in his room. He was at the hospital all night.”
Nehru raised an eyebrow.
“His aunt gave birth.”
“Which one?”
“Both of them.”
“On the same—”
Chayne nodded before Nehru got the rest of the sentence out of his mouth.
“Well, shit,” muttered Nehru and left the room.
In the middle of the afternoon when Nehru Alexander came out to the porch with two beers and sat on one side of Chayne, and passed the beer to Gilead, who had just gotten off the sofa and come down as well, Chayne said nothing. He yawned, but said nothing.
“I’m glad we’re a family,” Nehru said, throwing his arm over his older cousin.
“Yeah,” Chayne agreed. “It ain’t bad.”
Chayne frowned.
“Who the fuck is that?”
A car had parked across the street from them, which no one had taken much note of, until the driver stepped across the street and stood at the walk with his hands jammed in his pockets. He wore khakis with rolled cuffs and a varsity jacket and had dark wavy hair, a longish, not unhandsome face and eyes of no particular color. His mouth smiled impishly, and Nehru said:
“He must go to Our Lady.”
“I’m Mark Young,” Mark Young said as Gilead put his beer down.
“I’m Gilead’s study buddy. Sir, you must be Gilead’s father.”
“The hell I must be. How the fuck old do I look?”
“He’s my cousin,” Gilead said, “and I’m sitting right here, as you can see.”
“I was trying to be respectful,” Mark said, kicking the ground with his boat shoes.
“We’re not going to bite you,” Chayne said. “And we’re not the Royal Family.”
“Well, we are Princes,” Nehru commented, as Chayne ignored this and beckoned Mark forward with a finger.
“Do you always look like that?” Chayne asked him.”
“Like….?”
“Like a cat…. Who just ate a canary?”
“I think,” Gilead said, smiling from behind his beer, “he looks a little like the cat who knocked over the Christmas tree.”
“Uh…” Mark started. Then he spat out, “I just came to ask Gil if he wanted to do anything?”
Before one of his cousins could open their mouths, Gilead said, “What would you like to do?”
He sensed that if anyone else on the porch said anything else, Mark would jump out of his skin.
“I… uh… hadn’t thought about it.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Ralph Balusik. He said you and Russell would be here.”
“Should I get Russell?” Gilead asked.
“You… could.”
“Not,” Chayne said.
“Now, Gil, go get a breath mint and slap some water on your face so can look like a seventeen year old who hasn’t been drinking, and go do whatever teenagers do.”
An hour or so later, when darkness was setting in, Russell Lewis blinked up at the ceiling and murmured, “Holy shit.”
Two cousins born in one day and a weird dream about Cody he was not going into. He had planned to stop over by Jason’s house but hadn’t even called his parents, and to make things weirder, or worse, he had just left Gilead. Not that Gilead was among strangers, but still.
When Jason dropped Russell off back at Chayne's, the house had been alight with early evening and Anigel was on the sofa with a text book on her lap, Rob, pencil behind his ear, lifted it to wave as Russell, and Nehru was in the kitchen with Chayne.
“Where’s Gil?” Russell asked.
“With Mark Young,” Chayne said, not turning from the chicken he was butchering.
“Mark Young?” Russell said.
A smile on his face, Nehru nodded.
“Mark,” he said, “Young.”
MORE TOMORROW
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CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was an interesting portion! Babies being born and family being together. I don’t know who Russell will choose as he seems to be very into both guys. I look forward to reading what happens. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, it is quite the cliffhanger. Russell very much enjoys Jason, but also can't stop thinking of Cody, and Cody can't stop thinking of him. Meanwhile, Gilead is become closer with Mark Young, and everybody knows it.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
WELL, OH MY GOODNESS, IT HAD TO HAPPEN EVENTUALLY.... WE'RE DOWN TO THE LAST TWO (FAIRLY LONG) CHAPTER OF IF I SHOULD FALL
ENTER... MARK YOUNG
They had talked about doing their own album with their own stuff, and though, for all sorts of reasons, this had stopped, Brad stopped singing all of their original music. It was, to him, a way of saying, no one can have these songs until we decide what to do with them. They’re still ours. We’ll get around to them some time.
He had come to the Noble Red early, and if he’d asked himself why it would have been cause this was the place Nehru was. Even when he wasn’t here, this was the place where he would be. He realized that he’d brought Cody back here the other night because this was the place where he felt Nehru the most. When he was fucking Cody here, he had felt Nehru the most. Nehru had found them the Noble. He was half charm and half confidence. He’d just talked to Gerald the owner and pretty soon Gerald was just telling them to come whenever.
Brad had settled on Eagles’ songs, and unconsciously he was playing:
One of these nights
One of these crazy old nights
We're gonna find out, pretty mama
What turns on your lights
The full moon is calling, the fever is high
And the wicked wind whispers and moans
You got your demons and you got desires
Well, I got a few of my own
When he remembered playing that song and singing it and that Jewish kid, that weird smarmy dude at the bar mitzvah, that Josh, and even as his finger stopped playing, the bell over the door jangled and Nehru walked into the empty Noble Red, coming down the flights of stairs onto the sunken floor.
“One of these nights,” he said.
“Yeah,” Brad said.
“Should we take it from the top. Just us?”
“Sure,” Brad said.
Nehru sung background on Eagles songs, on songs that he did not write or songs that he thought of as, “for white tolks.”
Brad played well, but sang with little heart, and after two verse’s, he said so.
“You really gave it everything,” Nehru said, “at the bar mitzvah. You were basically Don Henley.”
“At the bar mitzvah with Josh?”
Nehru raised an eyebrow.
“Josh?”
“The guy at the door.”
“You wanted to say Jew at the door.”
“Whatever. Him.”
“What about him?” Nehru said.
“I know you fucked him.”
Just like that, without much thought, but with the flat of his hand, Nehru reached out and slapped Brad so hard, the tall man twisted and bent over.
Brad remained like that for some time, and then stood up straight holding the side of his face.
He rubbed his unshaven cheek, and it was red with Nehru’s hand print.
“Why don’t we change the subject,” he said.
“Yes,” Nehru agreed. “I think we should.”
The day Gilead Story put him into a headlock, as Mark Young’s view went spinning backward, and he was held securely in the scowling gaze of such a person was the day something flipped inside of him, and he became quietly obsessed with Gilead Story. He began to eavesdrop on his conversations, to—when passing him in the hallway—laugh loudly at his jokes in the hope that he might be noticed in overhearing conversations and that, what? Gilead might put him in a headlock again?
For a seventeen year old going on eighteen, Mark had a surprising bit of self knowledge and he he saw from the outside, Jason Lorry and Ralph Balusik, making Russell Lewis’s life a misery and he realized: Oh, they’re like me. They want to be put in headlocks too! That moment, Mark had to admit, the moment of being upside down, looking at the ceiling, with this other strange boy so near, was a moment of bliss he played over and over again in his mind.
But unlike Ralph and Jason, whom he didn’t think much of, he would never wish to cause Gilead grief. He just wanted to be near him. He just wanted to know him. He had friends. He was friendly. He could see himself from the outside and know how friendly he looked, how good at being a teenager he was, but—as he had said to Gilead—he sensed that Gilead was someone who cared about things. Wanted things.
Mark wanted a weekend job, a car, and to go to a good college. He had the first two. He also wanted to feel alive. In his school world he felt alive when he was running track and cross country. The rest of his life his friends didn’t really come into, and he sort of wanted that o, someone who would come into the rest of his life. His friend Joe Smith had a little annoying girlfriend who came to watch him run. Mark wanted someone to watch him. Oddly, it came to mind that he wanted the serious, elegant Gilead to watch him.
So when he approached him on the field before the beginning of the year and said, “Let’s be study buddies,” even though his mouth moved before his brain, he was glad it did, and on that first morning of class he had summoned up all the cool in him and said, making a salute: What’s up, Study Buddy.”
This was why, now that Gilead was in his house off on Willow Patch Terrace, in the winding roads of Shadybrook with the sky darkening and snow was falling, Mark was more delighted than he wanted to let on. He did not know he had an impish smile on his face or that his eyes were shining when Gilead said maybe it was time to go home.
“Mom says you should stay for dinner,” Mark said.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Only if you want to.”
Gilead remembered his own mother’s warnings against eating white peoples’ food, but knew Sharonda wasn’t cooking tonight, and would be glad to know he had friends.
“Stay for dinner,” Mark said. “And I’ll make sure you get home. Or like, if you want, we could go to a movie. Or that club out on Parkway. Or… I heard that the gang might be getting together.”
“The gang?”
“You know.” Mark said. “Our gang.”
Gilead had thought that the crowds they ran in were so different there could not be an “our gang”. But Cameron, Linh, Jeremy and Adam made a sort of cross over, especially since Chris Knapp seemed to be halfway dating Cam, and Gilead suddenly felt like he didn’t want to be dull anymore and not know people. He didn’t want to be safe. He didn’t even want to pretend not to like Mark and Mark evidently wanted to be with him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yes. All of that sounds like… Let’s. Unless we get snowed it.”
“Oh,” Mark said in the long, gentle voice of his, turning lazily to look out his living room window, “I doubt that, but if that did happen, it would be you and me together and that would be cool. Wouldn’t it?”
But they didn’t sing. Singing seemed inappropriate. Nehru sat at the piano and Brad played a series of riffs that ended in new riffs. For a moment, Nehru Alexander felt like he wanted to say something, and then he felt like there was nothing to say, and at last,Brad stopped. He set the guitar down and he sat at the piano bench beside Nehru, and Nehru knew that Brad was remembering that first day the same way he was. Brad brought his long fingers down on the piano and the sound filled the room, and then he said, “You should slap me again.”
“No one’s going to slap you,” Nehru said in a low voice.
“You should,” Brad said. Brad didn’t say that he wanted him to, because this sounded mad. He didn’t say that being touched by Nehru even if it was a slap was the most delightful thing to him. He took Nehru’s hand and put it to his cheek, fitted his fingers to where he still felt the sting.
“I really got you,” Nehru said, looking at the pink on Brad’s face.
“You really did,” Brad said.
He still held Nehru’s hand, but he tilted his face so that now he pressed his lips to his palm. He kissed his palm, deep like he’d kiss his lips and then he kissed all over his hand, slowly, and Nehru slowly caressed his face.
“You’re all I think about, really,” Nehru said, almost conversationally.
“Yeah,” Brad said.
The room was silent and Nehru Alexander understood something, but he had always understood it. It was as if for the world to move he had to move it. He stood up, and he walked away from Brad, down the stage, and he heard Brad rise and follow. They went through the unlocked and darkened kitchen, and past the narrow hall between the pantry and staff bathroom. They went up the inner stairway. On the other side of it was an outer stair, and they came up to a door and Nehru turned it, and then entered the old and unused apartment. Nehru was bringing him to the very place where he and Cody had struggled in the dark. For a moment he wondered, would Nehru know? Would he feel it? Would Brad have to explain it?
But Cody had happened because they had responded to each other’s ad, not knowing who the other was, and then laughing, and then decided they would do this. They both had someone they couldn’t have, and they had both needed comfort. Brad didn’t feel used, and he didn’t feel like he had used Cody. At the time they had no idea how often they would go to each other again, only that they needed each other.
Brad shut the door, and Nehru closed it, and the air was of old closed up things, and they moved to the front which may have been a living room, which was couches and chairs covered like shrouds, and Nehru opened the window to the cold air, and noises of late fall on Kirkland Street were heard and the smells of burning leaf, and he turned, took Brad’s face in his hands and kissed him. He kissed him and his lips were strong and tender and he felt the rough hair of his unshaven face, his unintentional moustache, the wiry soul patch under his lip. He kissed him and tasted mint and cigarettes and the eagerness of Brad’s return kiss. He kissed him and looked at Brad, and Brad said, “Yes.”
Brad felt happy like a boy who had gotten his best friend back. He held Nehru so tightly, and the tightness of embracing became the joining of lovers. They kissed, caressing each other through their shirts, locking blue jeaned thighs, and it was so nice, so secure, better than sex.
Brad’s heart beat so fast. All the feeling in him welled up from his toes, rained down from his head and joined in the unfolding stiffening of his penis. When he kissed Nehru, his dick went so hard it hurt, and that was a pleasure too.
Nehru closed his hands around. Brad’s penis. Brad didn’t seem to know what he was doing at first, but Brad swiftly pulled down his jeans and his cock came out of them, heavy and dark from the coil of black hair. His balls, man’s balls, hung between strong thighs covered in black down and then, before either of them understood it, Nehru was on his knees and Brad was down his throat.
That first time Brad came silently, his great eyes boring into Nehru’s, not allowing him to escape the vision of his orgasm until both closed their eyes. When he opened his eyes he saw the white sky through the last brown leaves, as all of him shot like a jittering rocket out of his cock into Nehru’s mouth.
As afternoon turned to evening, the two of them joined a couole of couches together and made a deep bed. The old stale covers for furniture would make fine bed sheets, and the curtains closed to keep the sun away, today let in the grey light that presaged snow.
Nehru Alexander closed his eyes and bit the pillow, letting the feeling thunder through him. His voice rattled and went to another ululating place, and he grasped Brad’s hands tighter as they grasped his. Brad Long fucked him so hard, so thoroughly, their bodies smacked and the bed sounded like a galloping horse. Noises, curses, escaped from their mouths. Brad’s mouth fell on Nehru’s neck, murmuring this and that into it, kissing him, bruising him, and Nehru reached back to urge him on.
Nehru didn’t want it to ever end, and it felt like it was happening forever, this hammering, this being entered and bruised and made to feel like in a place he didn’t even know existed, and Brad was strong, full of stamina, could go for a very long time. They were both surprised when he screamed and his body lifted up and then fell down, when, whimpering he came inside of Nehru, his voice a broken plea as he came, and came and came.
He rolled from Nehru onto his side, looking himself, bruised and crushed, though Nehru looked neither of the two, his cheeks were red, his face flushed. His caramel skinned glowed. Brad came so deep inside of him, nothing came out of him. Brad’s body was long and red, and he breathed heavily, looking to Nehru, then to the ceiling, and Nehru lay on his side in contentment. Admiring the long body, admiring the penis like a trunk, still half hard, that had penetrated him so.
Bradley Long turned over, lit a cigarette, and then motioned to Nehru, and kissing him, gently mounted him, his hand working Nehru slowly, stroking him, riding him, urging him. On his knees Brad took his friend deeper into him and he turned on his stomach to give what he had gotten, rejoiced in the pummeling as Nehru, filled with that strange ecstasy fucked Brad into the evening, went deeper and deeper into a hot tightness.
But when he came it was the two of them lying face to face, Brad’s face sober, working him until Nehru quaked and moaned in surprise as they both watched him ejaculate, semen the color of lime water in the late autumn light, an arc rising impossibly high, falling, rising, falling, showering them.
A LITTLE MORE TOMORROW
ENTER... MARK YOUNG
They had talked about doing their own album with their own stuff, and though, for all sorts of reasons, this had stopped, Brad stopped singing all of their original music. It was, to him, a way of saying, no one can have these songs until we decide what to do with them. They’re still ours. We’ll get around to them some time.
He had come to the Noble Red early, and if he’d asked himself why it would have been cause this was the place Nehru was. Even when he wasn’t here, this was the place where he would be. He realized that he’d brought Cody back here the other night because this was the place where he felt Nehru the most. When he was fucking Cody here, he had felt Nehru the most. Nehru had found them the Noble. He was half charm and half confidence. He’d just talked to Gerald the owner and pretty soon Gerald was just telling them to come whenever.
Brad had settled on Eagles’ songs, and unconsciously he was playing:
One of these nights
One of these crazy old nights
We're gonna find out, pretty mama
What turns on your lights
The full moon is calling, the fever is high
And the wicked wind whispers and moans
You got your demons and you got desires
Well, I got a few of my own
When he remembered playing that song and singing it and that Jewish kid, that weird smarmy dude at the bar mitzvah, that Josh, and even as his finger stopped playing, the bell over the door jangled and Nehru walked into the empty Noble Red, coming down the flights of stairs onto the sunken floor.
“One of these nights,” he said.
“Yeah,” Brad said.
“Should we take it from the top. Just us?”
“Sure,” Brad said.
Nehru sung background on Eagles songs, on songs that he did not write or songs that he thought of as, “for white tolks.”
Brad played well, but sang with little heart, and after two verse’s, he said so.
“You really gave it everything,” Nehru said, “at the bar mitzvah. You were basically Don Henley.”
“At the bar mitzvah with Josh?”
Nehru raised an eyebrow.
“Josh?”
“The guy at the door.”
“You wanted to say Jew at the door.”
“Whatever. Him.”
“What about him?” Nehru said.
“I know you fucked him.”
Just like that, without much thought, but with the flat of his hand, Nehru reached out and slapped Brad so hard, the tall man twisted and bent over.
Brad remained like that for some time, and then stood up straight holding the side of his face.
He rubbed his unshaven cheek, and it was red with Nehru’s hand print.
“Why don’t we change the subject,” he said.
“Yes,” Nehru agreed. “I think we should.”
The day Gilead Story put him into a headlock, as Mark Young’s view went spinning backward, and he was held securely in the scowling gaze of such a person was the day something flipped inside of him, and he became quietly obsessed with Gilead Story. He began to eavesdrop on his conversations, to—when passing him in the hallway—laugh loudly at his jokes in the hope that he might be noticed in overhearing conversations and that, what? Gilead might put him in a headlock again?
For a seventeen year old going on eighteen, Mark had a surprising bit of self knowledge and he he saw from the outside, Jason Lorry and Ralph Balusik, making Russell Lewis’s life a misery and he realized: Oh, they’re like me. They want to be put in headlocks too! That moment, Mark had to admit, the moment of being upside down, looking at the ceiling, with this other strange boy so near, was a moment of bliss he played over and over again in his mind.
But unlike Ralph and Jason, whom he didn’t think much of, he would never wish to cause Gilead grief. He just wanted to be near him. He just wanted to know him. He had friends. He was friendly. He could see himself from the outside and know how friendly he looked, how good at being a teenager he was, but—as he had said to Gilead—he sensed that Gilead was someone who cared about things. Wanted things.
Mark wanted a weekend job, a car, and to go to a good college. He had the first two. He also wanted to feel alive. In his school world he felt alive when he was running track and cross country. The rest of his life his friends didn’t really come into, and he sort of wanted that o, someone who would come into the rest of his life. His friend Joe Smith had a little annoying girlfriend who came to watch him run. Mark wanted someone to watch him. Oddly, it came to mind that he wanted the serious, elegant Gilead to watch him.
So when he approached him on the field before the beginning of the year and said, “Let’s be study buddies,” even though his mouth moved before his brain, he was glad it did, and on that first morning of class he had summoned up all the cool in him and said, making a salute: What’s up, Study Buddy.”
This was why, now that Gilead was in his house off on Willow Patch Terrace, in the winding roads of Shadybrook with the sky darkening and snow was falling, Mark was more delighted than he wanted to let on. He did not know he had an impish smile on his face or that his eyes were shining when Gilead said maybe it was time to go home.
“Mom says you should stay for dinner,” Mark said.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Only if you want to.”
Gilead remembered his own mother’s warnings against eating white peoples’ food, but knew Sharonda wasn’t cooking tonight, and would be glad to know he had friends.
“Stay for dinner,” Mark said. “And I’ll make sure you get home. Or like, if you want, we could go to a movie. Or that club out on Parkway. Or… I heard that the gang might be getting together.”
“The gang?”
“You know.” Mark said. “Our gang.”
Gilead had thought that the crowds they ran in were so different there could not be an “our gang”. But Cameron, Linh, Jeremy and Adam made a sort of cross over, especially since Chris Knapp seemed to be halfway dating Cam, and Gilead suddenly felt like he didn’t want to be dull anymore and not know people. He didn’t want to be safe. He didn’t even want to pretend not to like Mark and Mark evidently wanted to be with him.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yes. All of that sounds like… Let’s. Unless we get snowed it.”
“Oh,” Mark said in the long, gentle voice of his, turning lazily to look out his living room window, “I doubt that, but if that did happen, it would be you and me together and that would be cool. Wouldn’t it?”
But they didn’t sing. Singing seemed inappropriate. Nehru sat at the piano and Brad played a series of riffs that ended in new riffs. For a moment, Nehru Alexander felt like he wanted to say something, and then he felt like there was nothing to say, and at last,Brad stopped. He set the guitar down and he sat at the piano bench beside Nehru, and Nehru knew that Brad was remembering that first day the same way he was. Brad brought his long fingers down on the piano and the sound filled the room, and then he said, “You should slap me again.”
“No one’s going to slap you,” Nehru said in a low voice.
“You should,” Brad said. Brad didn’t say that he wanted him to, because this sounded mad. He didn’t say that being touched by Nehru even if it was a slap was the most delightful thing to him. He took Nehru’s hand and put it to his cheek, fitted his fingers to where he still felt the sting.
“I really got you,” Nehru said, looking at the pink on Brad’s face.
“You really did,” Brad said.
He still held Nehru’s hand, but he tilted his face so that now he pressed his lips to his palm. He kissed his palm, deep like he’d kiss his lips and then he kissed all over his hand, slowly, and Nehru slowly caressed his face.
“You’re all I think about, really,” Nehru said, almost conversationally.
“Yeah,” Brad said.
The room was silent and Nehru Alexander understood something, but he had always understood it. It was as if for the world to move he had to move it. He stood up, and he walked away from Brad, down the stage, and he heard Brad rise and follow. They went through the unlocked and darkened kitchen, and past the narrow hall between the pantry and staff bathroom. They went up the inner stairway. On the other side of it was an outer stair, and they came up to a door and Nehru turned it, and then entered the old and unused apartment. Nehru was bringing him to the very place where he and Cody had struggled in the dark. For a moment he wondered, would Nehru know? Would he feel it? Would Brad have to explain it?
But Cody had happened because they had responded to each other’s ad, not knowing who the other was, and then laughing, and then decided they would do this. They both had someone they couldn’t have, and they had both needed comfort. Brad didn’t feel used, and he didn’t feel like he had used Cody. At the time they had no idea how often they would go to each other again, only that they needed each other.
Brad shut the door, and Nehru closed it, and the air was of old closed up things, and they moved to the front which may have been a living room, which was couches and chairs covered like shrouds, and Nehru opened the window to the cold air, and noises of late fall on Kirkland Street were heard and the smells of burning leaf, and he turned, took Brad’s face in his hands and kissed him. He kissed him and his lips were strong and tender and he felt the rough hair of his unshaven face, his unintentional moustache, the wiry soul patch under his lip. He kissed him and tasted mint and cigarettes and the eagerness of Brad’s return kiss. He kissed him and looked at Brad, and Brad said, “Yes.”
Brad felt happy like a boy who had gotten his best friend back. He held Nehru so tightly, and the tightness of embracing became the joining of lovers. They kissed, caressing each other through their shirts, locking blue jeaned thighs, and it was so nice, so secure, better than sex.
Brad’s heart beat so fast. All the feeling in him welled up from his toes, rained down from his head and joined in the unfolding stiffening of his penis. When he kissed Nehru, his dick went so hard it hurt, and that was a pleasure too.
Nehru closed his hands around. Brad’s penis. Brad didn’t seem to know what he was doing at first, but Brad swiftly pulled down his jeans and his cock came out of them, heavy and dark from the coil of black hair. His balls, man’s balls, hung between strong thighs covered in black down and then, before either of them understood it, Nehru was on his knees and Brad was down his throat.
That first time Brad came silently, his great eyes boring into Nehru’s, not allowing him to escape the vision of his orgasm until both closed their eyes. When he opened his eyes he saw the white sky through the last brown leaves, as all of him shot like a jittering rocket out of his cock into Nehru’s mouth.
As afternoon turned to evening, the two of them joined a couole of couches together and made a deep bed. The old stale covers for furniture would make fine bed sheets, and the curtains closed to keep the sun away, today let in the grey light that presaged snow.
Nehru Alexander closed his eyes and bit the pillow, letting the feeling thunder through him. His voice rattled and went to another ululating place, and he grasped Brad’s hands tighter as they grasped his. Brad Long fucked him so hard, so thoroughly, their bodies smacked and the bed sounded like a galloping horse. Noises, curses, escaped from their mouths. Brad’s mouth fell on Nehru’s neck, murmuring this and that into it, kissing him, bruising him, and Nehru reached back to urge him on.
Nehru didn’t want it to ever end, and it felt like it was happening forever, this hammering, this being entered and bruised and made to feel like in a place he didn’t even know existed, and Brad was strong, full of stamina, could go for a very long time. They were both surprised when he screamed and his body lifted up and then fell down, when, whimpering he came inside of Nehru, his voice a broken plea as he came, and came and came.
He rolled from Nehru onto his side, looking himself, bruised and crushed, though Nehru looked neither of the two, his cheeks were red, his face flushed. His caramel skinned glowed. Brad came so deep inside of him, nothing came out of him. Brad’s body was long and red, and he breathed heavily, looking to Nehru, then to the ceiling, and Nehru lay on his side in contentment. Admiring the long body, admiring the penis like a trunk, still half hard, that had penetrated him so.
Bradley Long turned over, lit a cigarette, and then motioned to Nehru, and kissing him, gently mounted him, his hand working Nehru slowly, stroking him, riding him, urging him. On his knees Brad took his friend deeper into him and he turned on his stomach to give what he had gotten, rejoiced in the pummeling as Nehru, filled with that strange ecstasy fucked Brad into the evening, went deeper and deeper into a hot tightness.
But when he came it was the two of them lying face to face, Brad’s face sober, working him until Nehru quaked and moaned in surprise as they both watched him ejaculate, semen the color of lime water in the late autumn light, an arc rising impossibly high, falling, rising, falling, showering them.
A LITTLE MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was a great portion! Hearing from Mark’s point of view was cool. I am glad Nehru and Brad found each other again and had a great night of sex. That was a hot section. Excellent writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Oh, Brad and Nehru left me a little "fuh klempt"! It certainly was hot, and what's more, it's not over. I just had posted so much I stopped. There's more of their night to come! I adore Mark, and adored giving his side to things. He's a dear character and the perfect gift to Gilead. We've been following him awhile now, since Joe's death, and now he and Gilead are snowed in and shy.
