The Original Gay Porn Community - Free Gay Movies and Photos, Gay Porn Site Reviews and Adult Gay Forums

  • Welcome To Just Us Boys - The World's Largest Gay Message Board Community

    In order to comply with recent US Supreme Court rulings regarding adult content, we will be making changes in the future to require that you log into your account to view adult content on the site.
    If you do not have an account, please register.
    REGISTER HERE - 100% FREE / We Will Never Sell Your Info

    To register, turn off your VPN; you can re-enable the VPN after registration. You must maintain an active email address on your account: disposable email addresses cannot be used to register.

The Hidden Lives of Virgins
“I THINK WE SHOULD GO SEE YOUR AUNT,” Vaughan said when they got back to the house.
“What for?” Tina said.
“Well, because she reads Tarot cards and everything. I mean, Meghan sees stuff, doesn’t she?”
“Meghan O’Muil is a quack,” Madeleine said.
“Well, still,” said Vaughan. “She might know something. I think we should go see her.”
“When?” said Tina.
“What are you doing now?”
Tina pulled a hand through her hair in an imitation of boredom.
“They’re still up,” Mackenzie said. “They never go to bed.”
“Well, shit,” Tina murmured.
Reaching Windham Street required walking down Michael one block short of the train tracks and the old factory. A car whizzed by and Vaughan said, “That’s Bone McArthur’s Mustang.”
The taillights of the car pulsed red for a second, and then were gone.
“Um hum,” said Tina, “and I’d recognize that tousled hair streaming out of it anywhere.”
“It was Ashley,” Mackenzie said.
“You think she’ll fuck him?” Madeleine asked.
“Did you even have to ask?”

They headed south to a street of little wood and stone houses, set off by deep yards where few cars passed on a Friday night, and one or two cats meowed inoffensively as they made their way down the block. 1120 Windham was a two story wooden house with a small front porch and blue shutters. Ivy grew up it, and the door was never locked.
Inside, Frank Sinatra was playing from the kitchen, which meant that now Grandma had command of the stereo. The four young people threaded their way through the living room and dining room, down the main corridor to the kitchen where the three sisters were sitting. Meghan, reading tea leaves; Ida smoking cigarettes and Ally tracing abstract figures across a notepad and muttering, “I did it my way...”
The three sisters looked up at them, and Ida said, “Of all the places in Jamnia for teenagers to come on a Friday night...”
“You picked the most interesting.” Meghan smiled.
“That was what I was just about to say,” Alice agreed, and slipped on her black rimmed spectacles, blinking owlishly.
“What brings you all here?” Ida stood up. “Who wants something to drink?”
“Maybe later, Grandma,” Tina waved it off. “We came because we had a question for Aunt Meghan.”
“I love the way they call me Aunt and not Great-Aunt,” Meghan said, sitting up straighter.
“We went to the abandoned factory near the tracks.”
Meghan nodded. This was not news.
“And when we got there boxes started dropping and all this, and we heard noises,” Tina took out her cigarettes, still distraught by the memory. “And then we heard this roaring- ”
“Like a lion,” Madeleine jumped in.
Alice clapped her thigh and laughed.
“No, I’m serious,” Madeleine said.
Tina continued, “And then this fire shot out.”
“And that,” Vaughan said smoothly, “is when we decided it was best to leave.”
“And you thought,” Meghan smiled slowly, and sipped from her ginseng, “that I... being a medium and all... could tell you what it was?” She raised an eyebrow.
The teenagers looked at her.
“Except for this one,” Meghan gestured to Madeleine, “who thinks I’m a quack.”
“I—” Madeleine opened her mouth to protest. Meghan waved it off.
“I am a quack,” she said. “Most of the time. But there are some things I don’t have to be Nostradamus to tell you. Like, I can tell Tina that her twin’s getting laid right now because that’s what Ashley’s like. I could tell Kevin, if he ever came over here, that he’ll lose the game tomorrow. That’s what his team is like. And I can tell you what was going on in the factory.”
Tina’s eyes lit up. So did Madeleine’s.
Meghan smiled gently.
“I should have remembered when you said you were going. But… things slip from an old mind. All that wonderful noise and sight and sound,” she said. “Was nothing more than little Luke Madeary.”
“Luke Madeary!” Vaughan and Tina said at the same time.
Meghan looked at Ida, and then she and Ally looked at each other.
“Luke...” Tina began, “Madeary... lives in an abandoned factory?”
Meghan and Alice nodded.
“But how?” Mackenzie said. “I mean....” and then he shook his head.
“That, my dears,” Meghan said, “is a very long story.”


v i.

IAN CANE WAS IN A STATE of confusion. When he woke up he could hear Portishead whining away on his CD player. Presently, he blinked and realized that his head was on the floor, and he was bent over with his hands around his still stiff dick.
“Oh, shit,” Ian muttered, lifting himself. His room smelled sour with old weed, and as he lifted himself up from the floor, and looking around he saw beer cans and a glass ashtray with burnt out roaches. The room was cool from the early morning chill of the air coming through the open windows.
He realized he must have fallen asleep right after coming. His head was throbbing now and he had to piss. Ian looked at the clock. It was only about 6:30. No one would be awake in the house on a Saturday morning.
Ian stood up with a grunt and turned off the CD player, then opened his door and went down the hall for the restroom. He pissed and took two Excedrin. When he came back to his room he locked the door and stripped naked, then climbed into bed. Nuzzling the pillow he muttered, and was surprised by how raw his voice sounded, “This would make one hell of a story.”
But then he realized he had no one to tell it too.
Sleep. Sleep until...
“Shit!” Ian shook himself from sleeping, played with the alarm clock for a moment. There was a home football game today at twelve. Which meant band was at nine. Which meant he had to take the car and drive into town at eight, which meant about an hour more to turn off the world.
“I hate my life,” Ian grumbled, and punched his pillow before burying his face in it.


ASHLEY FOSTER STRETCHED ACROSS THE BED, reaching, and on finding nothing she opened her eyes and moaned.
Bone’s broad backside was on the other side of the room. She watched him rummaging slowly through his drawers, his brown hair sticking up. She knew his bottom lip was thrust out in that perpetual pout. His brow would be furrowed.
“Bone,” Ashley moaned.
He turned around slowly. Everything about him was deliberate and studied. She was right. His big lips were pouting. His brow was beetled. He was not unattractive. He wasn’t Rodder. But he definitely wasn’t ugly.
“What time is it?” she said, reclining on one elbow, thinking about covering her breasts, then deciding she didn’t care.
“Almost seven.”
“Almost... Almost seven!” she started. Then why the hell be awake!
As if reading her mind, he said, “There’s a game today, Ash. You know that. We gotta be at the field house by eight.”
“Shit,” she said.
“That means you gotta get dressed too.”
“And go?”
This whole having to sneak in and out of the big house on 10th Street was not to her liking.
“You can’t be here when Mom wakes up,” Bone said. “You’ll leave with me. You might as well shower.”
“And what if they catch me in the second shower?” Ashley demanded.
Bone raised an eyebrow and said, “Why’d you be in the second shower?”
“Because you’ll be in the—” Ashley began, and then shut up.
Bone’s cock, massive and red tipped, swelled and began rising out of the tangle of dark hair under his belly. She was, Ashley admitted to herself, a slut. She’d hear her mother prudishly go on about how sex wasn’t that great and penises weren’t attractive, but Aileen must have been full of shit or how else would she have been only fifteen when she’d gotten pregnant the first time? Or have had four more kids after Ashley and her bitch of a twin?
Ashley loved the cock. She loved Bone’s. It stood up, called to her. She got up out of bed and followed.
He said, “We can go down the hall buck. No one’s up yet.”
Ashley smiled and said, “I wouldn’t say no one’s up.”

“Are you awake?” Vaughan asked Mackenzie.
“Yes,” his friend said beside him.
“Oh.” For no apparent reason, both boys laughed in the bed.
“I want to go back to sleep,” Mackenzie said.
“Why don’t you? Oh,” Vaughan remembered. “You got band.”
“That’s right.”
“Another good reason not to join,” Vaughan said.
“Do you plan to join anything before we graduate?” Mackenzie asked him, still looking at the ceiling.
“Not if I can help it. But you know what I wanted to do?”
“Hum?”
“Steal a car.”
“Vaughan!” Mackenzie turned around.
“Dude, ease up. Plus, your breath! I didn’t say I stole a car. I said I wanted to. Chill out.”
“I would chill out, but with you ‘I want’ always means ‘I will.’” Mackenzie lay back deeper in bed, pulling the covers under his chin. After all, the school was only across the field. “I can’t believe you’re so wild this year.”
“I can’t believe you’re gay.”
“Well...” Mackenzie didn’t know what else to say.
“I mean, you’re a Republican and everything.”
“You know Rich Tafel?”
“The gay senator?”
“He’s a Congressman. And he’s a Republican.”
“Whatever- ” Vaughan said. “You’ve got a poster of him on your wall.”
“I have dreams about him,” Mackenzie confessed.
Now it was Vaughan’s turn to be impressed. Vaughan turned around and looked at his friend. Mackenzie turned toward Vaughan, his blond hair hanging in his face as the other boy traced circles on his pillowcase. “I don’t know what’s weirder to tell you, that I get hard thinking about guys or that I get hard.”
“I don’t know what’s harder to hear.”
“I’m serious, Vaughan.”
“Me too. You’ve always been such an altar boy. It’s... I don’t think it’s you being a homosexual that’s odd. It’s you being sexual... At all.”
“What about you?” Mackenzie looked at his friend.
“What about me?”
“Do you.... think about anyone?”
Vaughan was quiet, then he said. “You’re going to think this is stupid...”
“Vaughan, I just said I want to sleep with Rich Tafel... It can’t get any stupider than that.”
“I think about the story of Saint Clare a lot. I think about Saints a lot. The way other people think about sex. And... the way girls think about their wedding day. I think about me—all barefoot. And you know the Floating Franciscan?”
“He’s a myth.”
“He’s real.”
“Yeah,” Mackenzie said. “But you never see him around anymore. And he doesn’t float.”
“We don’t know that,” Vaughan said, “but I think about him. I want... I don’t ever want to be married. Or ever be with anyone.” Vaughan turned away. “And now I’m finished.”
“You want to be a priest,” Mackenzie whispered. “I think that’s cool. I wanted to be a priest, but lately I... I want to sleep with guys more.”
“I don’t want to be a priest,” Vaughan said. “I want to be a saint.”
Mackenzie paused over this.
“I think... I think I don’t want to be a saint or anything,” Vaughan amended. “But I feel like I have no choice. Like it’s going to happen. The way you didn’t wake up and say you wanted to be gay. It just happened. But it’s you and you like it. You do like it don’t you?”
Mackenzie shrugged. “I guess. I... wanted to tell you. A while ago. A few years back.”
“What? A few years?”
“It didn’t just happen yesterday,” Mackenzie told him. “I’ve been feeling this way for a long time. I used to ask God- - ‘Please Jesus! Make me stop being gay!’
“You know the whole Linus Roache Fan Club thing?”
“You’ve got a thing for Linus Roache.”
“Yes,” Mackenzie said. “Ever since I saw him and Robert Carlisle in Priest. I kept on wishing I was Robert Carlisle. I couldn’t get that movie out of my head for a week. Shit, Vaughan!” Mackenzie sat up in bed and looked at his open hands, “It feels so good to tell you this. All of this. Finally.”
“Well,” Vaughan said, sitting up also. “Have you told anyone else?”
Mackenzie shook his head.
“You gotta tell Tina.”
“I was hoping you’d let it slip out for me.”
“No,” Vaughan shook his head. “That won’t work. You gotta tell her yourself. I let it slip out to Dad, though.”
Mackenzie looked horrified.
“But you know Dad won’t say anything.” Vaughan said, “As long as we’re talking: Who else?”
“Whaddo you mean who else?”
“Do you think about?”
“Rodder,” Mackenzie confessed.
“Madeleine’s?”
Mackenzie grinned and nodded.
“And Mr. Stearne the drama teacher.”
“Good, cause he might take you up on the offer.”
“I’m not offering, goof. And he’s not gay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty positive. And.… I’ve thought about Bone McArthur.”
“Oh, my God, Mackenzie Foster... You’re fired!”





v i i

It felt good to swing your hair around and be sexy in short, short clothes, make yourself the subject of long, longing fantasies with a swish of your pom poms, put your hands in your thick blond hair and then swing your head around winsomely at the head of the cheerleaders. Had her mother done this? Had her mother been picked up once by other cheerleaders, and put on the top of a triangle? Had her mother ever led the girls of Jamnia High School in a slow march toward the crowd, with red and white pom poms like weapons or like sex toys jabbing in and out, a half wicked smile on her face?
She would never admit she loved the band. She loved the beating of the drums. She loved hearing John Calhoun growl out directions, “Left! Right! Left! Right! Leeeeft!” the directions to the marching band that no one in the bleachers would hear. She loved the blare of the trumpets.

BUMP BUMP BA BUMP
BA BUM BA BUM


“Yeah!”

BUMP BUM BA BUMP
BA BUM BA BUMP!

To Ashley it did not matter if the team was losing to Saint Xavier. For most of the game it was all about what Rodder was doing out on the field, or what Bone was trying to accomplish. It might have been about teachers who had once been students cheering for the team, and all the time never expecting them to win.
But right now it was all about her.

BUMP BUM BA BUMP
BA BUM BA BUMP

And in response the crowd roared:

“YEAH!”

“WHERE’S ROD GONE?” Kevin Foster demanded.
“He’s been crazy all morning,” Dice said from the bench. “He’ll be back.”
“He better be back,” Kevin turned away and muttered to himself. “He’s the only one of you worthless motherfuckers who might turn this game around.”
Roderigo Luis Gonzales had run off the field in uniform, and was passing under the bleachers, looking for Madeleine. When he found her feet—he’d know her feet anywhere—he wanted to hoot. Instead he did a little victory dance, and then ran to his car to find the Igloo cooler.

“And so,” Claudia Daniels was telling her cousin and her friend, “Hakim comes to me talking this shit about ‘Baby, when you gon give me some?’ and I told him, ‘Back off niggah, I ain’t given you shit!’ My daddy’s a Methodist minister and Mama was a good Catholic.’ I told him- ”
“You had virtue,” Tina said, ashing her cigarette.
“Exactly.” Claudia wrapped a microbraid around her finger. “So now he’s still hanging on, but I don’t know how long he can last because deep inside I think he believes I’m gon break down and give him some. You know? Only I’m not. And he comes telling me, ‘Baby, when we make love it’s gon be raspberries and cherries and whipped cream and chocolate all over the place.’ I said, ‘Like shit! This ain’t no Dairy Queen.’
“No, Madeleine, I’m serious,” Claudia said when her cousin started to laugh, “You got to be strong, be able to tell a man, ‘No.’”
Madeleine privately thought that if she had someone like Hakim Woodsome, she’d have no difficulty being strong and telling him no. This made her smile all the more. She touched the edge of her long black hair and made a note to share this thought with Tina at about the same time she felt a tug on her foot, and stopped herself from screaming.
Madeleine Fitzgerald looked down below her, while the trumpets of the band were still blaring, and Mackenzie was leading the brass section in forming the face of the Jamnia Wildcat.
Under her, grinning idiotically, was Roderigo Gonzales lifting up a bouquet of roses.
“Rod!” Madeleine got down on her knees on the metal bleachers.
“Madeleine!” Claudia called, not knowing what had happened.
“Shut up, girl!” Madeleine said.
Tina merely smiled down, and made it a point not to ash on Rodder.
“These are for you,” Rod said, smiling up at her.
Carefully, Madeleine reached down and pulled up the roses saying, “Tina, help, they’re stuck.”
As Tina helped Madeleine bring up the roses she said to Rod, “Awesome move, man. Roses!”
Which surprised Rod, because he’d always thought Tina hated him.
“There’s a little card,” Rodder told her.
Madeleine turned the bouquet around, found the card and took it out.
“Will you be my 29th?” she read, furrowing her brow.
“I wanted to say Valentine, but it’s not February. It’s September twenty-eighth and so... You know?”
Madeleine nodded and smiled dumbly.
“I gotta go back now,” Rodder said. “But... I wanted to give that to you. And, can I come by the house tonight?”
“Yeah. Rod, I love— ”
“I gotta go,” he told her, disappearing into the darkness under the bleachers. “I’ll be by tonight.”
That was the last she heard.
“I guess now that means we have to root for Jamnia?” Claudia guessed.
“Yes,” Madeleine said, trying not to smile too much. “It does.”
Tina adjusted the rosary around her neck and commented, “Who says romance is dead?”

“I KNOW THAT’S RIGHT,” IAN Cane said, poking him in the back, and grinning merrily.
Mackenzie thought that the other boy had such a nice smile, and it was such a rare smile, that he hated to say, “Know what’s right?” but Ian kept on looking at him, waiting for an answer, and so he had to say it.
“Your tee shirt,” Ian said. At the look on Mackenzie’s face, Ian said, “Do you dress in the dark?”
Mackenzie reddened, and said, “Actually, yes.”
“Your tee shirt says,” Ian moved behind him. Mackenzie could feel the older boy’s breath on his neck as Ian’s finger moved along his back, between his shoulder blades, down to the small.
“BAND ISN’T FOR SISSIES.”
Mackenzie laughed now and said, “Well, it isn’t.”
After the half time show, the band was always excused. They stepped out of the heavy, ridiculous uniforms and stretched their legs in band pants and sweaty tee shirts, hair havocked by the tall hats they had worn. Mackenzie had never been aware of how silly he looked in band pants until right now.
Ian didn’t look stupid.
“I’d like to see the football team march around in all this crap,” Ian said. “And wear a big old hat that looks like an eye shadow brush with feathers coming out of it. No, I’m serious,” he said when Mackenzie tried to laugh. “And do you think they can make a wildcat?” Ian shook his head. “I don’t think so.”
It was weird and dizzying to have all at once this much attention from Ian Cane.
“I don’t see you around much,” Mackenzie said, realizing he’d better talk.
“After band?” Ian shrugged. “I figure eight to ten hours of my day, five days a week... And then the whole football game thing is all Jamnia High School gets from me.”
“You don’t live in the city, do you?”
Ian shook his head. “Lawrence County Limits,” he said. “Outside of town. Almost town. You know they’d make me pay taxes to go here?”
“What?”
“Um hum,” Ian nodded, took out his cigarettes, offered one to Mackenzie. Mackenzie shook his head.
“So I’ve got my residence listed as my Aunt Race’s house,” Ian muttered. His lips closed around the cigarette.
“Race Cane?” said Mackenzie. Then: “I guess she would be your aunt.”
“How you know her?”
Mackenzie looked embarrassed.
“C’ mon?” Ian’s eyes lit up.
Mackenzie shrugged, “I was gonna say that one of my aunts sells...” Mackenzie mouthed the word, “weed.”
“Ally O’Muil is your aunt!” Ian cried.
Now Mackenzie looked surprised.
“Yeah,” Mackenzie nodded.
“My aunt doesn’t get high,” Ian told Mackenzie. “Her worthless ass ex-boyfriend used to. He still comes around her house sometimes. She’d get it for him. And now she sells it to him cause she figures... might as well make a profit. She doesn’t know I know shit like that. But yeah....” said Ian.
“And sometimes you take it from her?” Mackenzie guessed.
“Goddamn, you’re no dummy,” Ian marveled.
Ian just kept smiling at him. Mackenzie waited for the older boy to touch him again, and he wasn’t satisfied until Ian’s hand landed on his shoulder and stayed there companionably.

MORE TOMORROW
 
Lots going on as usual! This is a great story! I am glad Vaughan and Mackenzie are being so honest with each other now. I look forward to reading whatever happens next. Excellent writing and I hope you are having a nice night!
 
Well, the day was a little rough and somewhat irritating for a while, but that did clear up after a time. I'm so glad you're enjoying the story. You have no idea how happy that makes me. Mackenzie is letting out a lot after keeping stuff in. I know you said Vaughan was your favorite, but I'm curious who you would rate two and three.
 
Okay, I love to hear that. I feel like Kenzie should always be 2, but 3 is a toss up. I love Madeleine.
 
TONIGHT, A MUSICAL IS IN THE MAKING AT JAMNIA HIGH. MR. STEARNE AND MR. RAFFERTY TRY TO KEEP A SECRET. MADELEINE GETS ROMANCE AND TINA GETS CULINARY, AND THEN FEELS LIKE A DUMBASS


Madeleine was sitting between Tina and Claudia on the abandoned back steps of the high school, when Mick Rafferty and Mr. Stearne passed them.
“Great game wasn’t it?” Mick Rafferty said.
Madeleine nodded, remembered herself, and said, “Sure was, Mr. Rafferty.”
“Something turned Rodder around after half time,” he said while Madeleine clutched the flowers to her and wondered if Rafferty knew anything. How could he?
“Yeah, well, at least we have some chance of a victory this year, now,” said Stearne, “but I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“Who cares as long as the basketball team takes home the championship?” Mr. Rafferty joked back.
Tina was about to say, “Who cares at all?” when instead she said, “Mr. Rafferty, what do you know about Luke Madeary?”
Mick Rafferty looked taken a back, and then he said, “Luke... You know Luke. Long, dark hair, moody expression.”
“Sort of looks like your long lost cousin, Ms. Foster,” Mr. Stearne commented, pushing up his glasses.
“Ha,” Tina replied dryly. “I know who he is. But....”
“What?” Mick Rafferty suddenly looked very guarded.
“Do you know where he lives?” said Tina.
Both teachers looked at her, and then at Madeleine.
“You do? Don’t you?” Madeleine said.
Tina cocked her head, waiting for an answer.
Mick Rafferty looked to George Stearne, the shorter man with his goatee and glasses turned business like to Tina, and said, “We have to go now. It’s getting late.”
“Are you up past your bed time?” Madeleine asked, and Tina cackled. The sky might have been cloudy, but it was scarcely three in the afternoon.
“And, by the way,” Stearne went on, ignoring her questions, “you are Jaqueline Finney’s understudy for the role of Magnolia Hawkes. I’m counting on you, Tina. That is a big job, believe it or not. And Madeleine did get the part of Julie. Just thought you should know.” He eyed both of them carefully. Then he said, “I believe you two are up to it.”
Then the teachers were gone.
Madeleine and Tina were embracing and carrying on, and when they separated, Madeleine said, “You know he told us that to take our attention from Luke?”
By now the two men were specks on the other side of the parking lot, Stearne getting into the driver’s side of his Celica, Rafferty taking the passenger seat.
“I know,” Tina admitted, still grinning from ear to ear. “And he knows we know. Bastard.”
“Maddy!” Claudia stood up, pointing.
The other girls stood up.
From off the field Rodder was coming, muddy, and grinning, his blue bandanna ragged around his head, helmet swinging from his hands.
“Maddy!” he shouted.
Before she could shout back he swung her around and crushed her to him. Then they separated.
“Now we’re both a mess,” he said a little forlorn.
“It’ll come out,” Madeleine shrugged. “It’s only jeans and a tee shirt. Come over tonight, Rod.”
“I’ll be there with bells on.”
“I don’t give a damn about the bells,” said Madeleine. “Just be there.”

“NOW WHY DIDN’T WE ANSWER her question?” George Stearne demanded, chalking his cue and rounding the billiard table. He took a swig from his beer.
` “About what?” Mick Rafferty stood on the other side of the table, waiting for the shorter man to hit the ball.
George leaned across the pool table and did so.
“Two in the side pocket,” George Stearne grinned, and looked up.
“I hate it when you brag.”
“About Luke Madeary,” Stearne said, swigging from his beer again.

On the jukebox in the crowded Tsalagi you could hear them singing.

Walk right in!
Sit right down!
Daddy let your mind roll on!

“I don’t know,” Mick licked his lips.
“Man, it’s your turn,” George said.
Mick seemed a little dazed, and then he shook his head and nodded. After Mick had managed to knock the cue ball into the hole and George Stearne, with a curious look of half pity, half duty more than gloating, began to methodically knock all of the other colored balls into their pockets, Mick said, “I didn’t think he’d want other people knowing he... You know...”
“Lives in a factory,” George said dryly, knocking the last ball into its pocket. He stood up straight, looking very much like a school teacher and said, “Mick, my friend, let me remind you that we shouldn’t know he lives in a factory. He should be in foster care. And when he turns eighteen he’s just going to be homeless and probably a felon.”
“A fel—”
“Mick, it’s gotta be a felony to just move into an abandoned factory. It’s gotta be.”
“What are you saying?” Mick Rafferty lifted the mug to his lips. The beer was warm and thick, half bitter-sour, half sweet in his mouth.
The little man in his glasses and goatee shrugged. “Maybe this shouldn’t just be your little secret. I think that’s what I’m saying. What does he eat?”
Mick looked astounded.
“I hadn’t thought about that.”
“His clothes, what he eats and....” George Stearne lifted his beer mug, but didn’t drink from it. “I like Tina Foster. She’s a... she’s got spunk. She’ll go far with it. Far out of Jamnia.”

She’s heading for the cheatin’ side of town...
You can’t hide your lyin’ eyes!

The Eagles warned.

“I think we could have told her and Madeleine is all.”
“Geo, that’s just great,” Mick said.
“Well, if you want Luke to have help, but you want it to be secret help, that’s the only thing I can think of. Get two people who know how to keep a secret.”

The doors swung open, and the patrons of the Tsalagi erupted into cheers. Then the old men with grey hair, plaid shirts and eagle noses roses up.
“What’s this?” George Stearne said.
“Oh, it’s Kevin and Aileen... Dressed up, too.”
“Kevin!” Alfred Crow, old and fat as ever, called from his bar stool, “We smell a championship this year in Jamnia!”
“Let’s hold on and see!” Kevin called back. He was in dress slacks and a white shirt. He wrapped an arm around Aileen. She had on a summer dress, pale blue with white blossoms. But above their heads, George Stearne heard thunder.
“She used to be so gorgeous,” Mick said as Kevin bent to kiss his wife, and Aileen whispered something to him.
“Used to be?” George raised an eyebrow. “She still is. And that after six kids.”
“She’s still nice to look at,” Mick acknowledged. “But Ashley....”
George Stearne’s eyes lit up, and then narrowed suspiciously all in one moment.
“What?” Mick said.
“Exactly. What?” George replied. “You’ve been going on about Ashley for a while now.”
“Can’t a man dream?”
George shook his head and said, “You can do whatever you want, but it’s not always that wise.”
“I’m just saying Ash Foster is—”
“And it’s not always that wise,” George continued, “because half the time when a man starts dreaming, he starts scheming. Then it’s all over. You better watch yourself, man.”
“You’re nuts,” Mick said.
“No, I’m not,” his friend told him. “You’re young. You’re single. You want an adventure. You’re checking out cute students. You’ve got all the symptoms. You’re ready for an affair.”
Mick soured at that. He didn’t like the taste of his beer.
“You’ve got all the same symptoms,” Mick said. “Are you ready for an affair? Or maybe you’ve had one, and that’s how you got so wise?”
“I’m gonna get another beer. You want another beer?” said George Stearne.
“You had one?” Mick went on. “You been with a student?”
For a moment George Stearne—who was always in control—looked completely pissed off. Then he looked like himself again and he said, “I’m not dignifying that with an answer,” and taking the two mugs, went back to the bar.

“SHE CAME OVER TALKING ABOUT a family inheritance and telling me she wanted this and wanted that,” Cedric said.
“When?” said Ralph.
“When you and Ida went to the football game,” Cedric clarified. “Louise was up here telling me she wanted four thousand dollars toward a new car and that she knew Mama—who has been dead for a decade—left me some money. And that’s when I told her... Well,” said Cedric, “I told her a great deal, and I don’t think she’ll be back anytime soon.
“Ida,” he told, his friend, “you don’t know how lucky you are to have sisters you can live with.”
Ida disagreed.
“You don’t know how lucky you are not to have to live with your sister.”
Madeleine came down the stairs, and her father looked her up and down.
“That’s a cute outfit. How ‘bout you run upstairs and put the rest of it on?”
“Daddy!”
“I’m serious, Madeleine.”
“This is the outfit.”
“Then you ought to find another.”
“Everyone’s dressing like this.”
“Be a trendsetter. Go upstairs and put some clothes on.”
Madeleine made a point of sulking and hanging her shoulders, and then plodded up the stairs.
“She’s like her mother and her grandmother combined,” Cedric said, shaking his head. “And that’s dangerous.”
“Your mother,” Ralph said, ashing his cigarette and nodding with fond remembrance.
Cedric only shook his head.
The doorbell rang from the front of the house, and he called out, “Vaughan, where are you? Vaughan! Vaughan!” The doorbell rang again. Cedric heaved himself up out of the chair. “I’ll get it my damned self.”
He went down the corridor that a spare room, the library and the first story bathroom hung from, and then into the large, empty living room. On the other side of the door Cedric could see Rodder Gonzales standing with his hands in his jeans pockets, though when the boy saw the much shorter man, he took them out and stood at attention.
“Roderigo.”
“Mr. Fitzgerald.”
“Come on in. Don’t be strange.” He never said, Don’t be a stranger. “We’re all in the kitchen.”
Rodder nodded and shut the door behind him, following Cedric.
“Madeleine’s upstairs changing,” Cedric told Rodder, thinking it was a shame because even if she wore a nun’s habit, the boy would probably have it off of her by midnight. The most difficult thing to deal with as a parent was not that your children had sex, but that you could not stop them.
“You wanna drink?” he asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Sit, Rod,” he told the boy who was standing stiff as a board at the doorway while the three old adults drank around the table.
Ida patted a space for him and scooted over.
Cedric pulled down a glass. Ida opened the bottle of Old Grandad, and a shot of amber splashed into the glass. She pushed it toward him.
Rodder looked shocked, and then he looked to Mr. Fitzgerald, who took the bottle, poured himself and Ralph a shot, shrugged and downed the Scotch.
The others followed. The boy did the same, his eyes rolling back in his head.
“Oh, my- ” he gasped.
Ida patted him kindly on the back.
“You’re a shot virgin,” she said, smiling.
“At least you didn’t spit it out,” Cedric said. He inhaled the last of his cigarette. The tip glowed bright red.
“Don’t a shot of Old Grandad make that cigarette taste just right?” he said to Ralph.
`I’ve done a shot with my priest, Rodder was thinking, my girlfriend’s dad and the grandmother of the girl I spent the summer screwing. This is too weird.
What was more, when Rodder looked around the table he was sure that the three older people smiling at him were thinking the same thing.
When Madeleine came downstairs, Cedric said, “That’s much better.”
“I look like a Mormon,” Madeleine said.
“You’re a pretty hot Mormon,” Rodder said, and then turned red, looking at his elders.
All Cedric said was, “Be home by midnight, or you’ll both be pumpkins!”

FOR OVER THREE YEARS NOW, what Martina Foster would tell no one, not even Madeleine, was how her imagination had been taken up with Luke Madeary. She would have dyed her hair black a long time ago if not for Luke Madeary. His hair was not black, but it was very dark and it hung almost to his shoulders. It had flecks of gold in it, and it was because she knew details like this, like how his hair was not brown so much as a dark, glittering copper, that she kept him to herself. She kept how he sat down in the back of each class to herself, how his jeans never fit too much, but just right, and how he managed to be alone even among the loners. She kept how he talked to no one when he lit his Marlboros and sat smoking on the back porch of the school all to herself.
Tina kept his eyes to herself.
Once, long ago, when she had been blond, she had longed for nothing more than to be partnered up with Luke Madeary. It was the awkward year she was taking chemistry from her father, and somehow she’d let it slip that she was curious about Luke. Then she’d been partnered with Luke, and through most of the experiment they’d worked calmly, in low, professional voices, not looking at each other. Then he’d lifted his eyes to her and said, “Pass the sodium chloride, please,” and for that moment she thought she’d die.
She tried to replay what his eyes looked like to her. It had been almost two years. That was the first and last time they’d had eye contact. She’d played it well. She had been able to pass the sodium chloride.
Now, as she was leaving western civ, and Luke had gone out three people ahead of her, Mr. Rafferty called, “Martina. May I have a word with you?”
Tina raised an eyebrow and came forward, books to her chest.
Rafferty waited until the last person, Laneisha Douglas, had left the room, and then he said, “Luke does live in the factory. He lives in the little bridge that goes over Michael Street.”
“But why?”
“That’s a long story, and I don’t exactly know the answer,” Mick Rafferty said. “But... That’s the answer to your question.”
“Mr. Rafferty, why are you telling me this?”
“You asked.”
“I know I asked,” she said, “but you had no plans on telling me. Now you are. Why?”
Mick thought for a second, and then said, “He has no friends, really. He has… We don’t know how he eats or cares for himself.”
“We— ”
“Mr. Stearne.”
Tina raised an eyebrow. “He would be at the bottom of this.”
“He’s not at the bottom of it,” Mick smiled. “But he knows about Luke, and he thought that what Luke could benefit from—”
“Benefit from?”
“Benefit from,” Mick nodded, “were some people who could help him out who... weren’t going to turn him in to the law.”
“And you think I’m one of those people?”
Her teacher smiled.
“Tina, you are a law unto yourself.”
Tina shrugged and raised an eyebrow. “I gotta go to play rehearsal, but I’ll take that... statement in the spirit it was intended.”
“I knew you would.”

Ian was slower than ever getting out of school today, and when he finally had packed everything into his bag the halls were almost completely empty.
“Hey Kenzie!” he said, seeing the other boy go down the hall toward the auditorium.
“Ian!” Mackenzie immediately wondered if he sounded too happy.
“You’d think we’d be the first out of the building,” Ian joked.
“Yeah,” Mackenzie nodded. “Vaughan didn’t waste any time.”
“Where is he?”
“Home,” Mackenzie said, “Like I said, he didn’t waste any time. I gotta get to play practice, though.”
“Um?” Ian looked interested, which was cool because the moment Mackenzie had said something about play practice he’d been completely embarrassed.
“I’m in the musical this fall.”
“Really, what is it?”
“Uh... Showboat.”
“Showboat?” Ian said, nodding as if it were a subject for deep consideration.
Mackenzie grinned and said: “You’ve never seen it.”
“I’ve never heard of it,” Ian confessed. “I’m a complete moron.”
Mackenzie shook his head. “I’ve never acted. It’s just... for a… Something new.”
“A lark.”
“Uh?”
“A lark. My mom says when you do something new, for kicks, it’s a lark.”
“Oh, well then.... Yeah. A lark.” Mackenzie didn’t know what else to say, so he said, “You should come.”
Ian looked a little surprised, which made Mackenzie want to suck the words back into his mouth, and then the spiky haired boy said, “Maybe I will.”

That afternoon Cedric was playing piano and Vaughan was singing along when suddenly the boy stopped and Cedric looked up.
“Look!” Vaughan hissed, and Cedric joined him at the large window over the porch. The father pushed back the lace curtain and the two of them pressed their faces to the glass.
Rodder Gonzales’s red Probe was sitting before the house on Michael Street, and Rodder had climbed out and opened the passenger seat for Madeleine. He was talking to her. He kissed her hand.
The tall girl walked up the steps to the porch. Rodder was waiting for her to go inside.
As she opened the door, father and son rushed back to their former seats, but when Madeleine came in they were both looking up at her.
“What?” Madeleine said.
Cedric began playing piano and Vaughan started singing:

Strangers in the night!
doobie doobie do!


That night Tina said, “Will everyone be out of the kitchen by about seven-thirty?”
“Why?” asked her mother, passing the breadsticks to Lindsay.
“Because I’m cooking.”
“What for?” Ross demanded.
“Because,” Tina stared down her younger brother who thought he was so much the shit since he’d started playing football, “I love to cook.”
“Since when?” Kevin said, and his daughter turned such a look on him that he immediately shut up.
“Yes, Tina,” Aileen said. “We can be out of the kitchen by seven-thirty, but I need you to help clear the table and load the washer.”
Tina shrugged, “I do that every night. You must have me confused with the fat sow over there.”
Ashley, looking bored and munching on a drumstick, suddenly sent her twin a nasty look.
“You’re a bit—”
“None of that, Ash!” Kevin said.
“She started it.”
“Apologize to your sister,” Kevin said, bored.
“I’m sorry…” Tina began.
“That’s better— ”
“That you’re such a fat cow,” her twin finished.
Lindsay, who was not wild about Tina, but absolutely hated Ashley, threw back her head and laughed while Ryan, looking more and more like Kevin, sat back in his chair and smiled secretively. Mackenzie said nothing, and Ross took the remote control and turned the television up.
“Mother!” Ashley cried.
“Both of you!” Aileen said. “And Tina’s right. You don’t help out around her.”
“At least I don’t wear the Virgin Mary around my neck and smoke myself out of existence,” Ashley muttered.
Tina only smirked, and kicked her twin under the table.
“You bitch!” Ashley cried.
“Ash!” Kevin shouted.
Tina rose up from the table with her plate and said, “I’m going out on the front porch to have a puff.”

SHE CUT CLASS THE NEXT day. George Stearne was in the middle of teaching calculus when he looked out of the window of his classroom and saw Tina Foster walking across the parking lot toward her old red LTD.
Tina climbed in and drove to the house on Logan Street. Mother had gone to work a while ago. Tina figured that if she was going to do anything good for Luke Madeary she’d better drop by while he wasn’t... she mused over the word as she drove back to the train tracks... home.
It only took her a second to screw up the nerve to go inside of the buildings. It was daylight now, and she told herself that there really hadn’t been any ghosts. It had been Luke—who was at school. Besides, if she stood out here and smoked a cigarette not only were the police bound to show up and demand what the hell she was doing, she would lose her nerve. So she screwed up her nerve, picked up the heavy picnic basket and headed inside.
By daylight it was easier to see the empty warehouse space, the long balconies where once upon a time supervisors must have come out to from their offices to make sure they saw what was going on. She saw a freight elevator, but did not trust it, so found a long stair that led to the second and then the third floor. The steps were metal grating, and they rang as she went up them. Her feet hurt, and her arms were tired with the weight of the basket after the second story. Still she took another story before she arrived in a large, concrete floored place that overlooked the town. Out of the dirty window she could look east and see Michael Street shooting all the way until the Fitzgerald’s large white Victorian, and Jamnia High School were train set miniatures.
Which reminded her to drop off the food and get back to school. She wasn’t trying to be a truant. She turned, and ahead of her was the ramp that led to the bridge over Michael Street where Luke must live. She crossed feeling the whole thing shake under her as she walked, for a brief moment picturing herself falling through the floor and crashing to her death on Michael Street below. From below she heard the low approaching roar of a train. It was the same train noise she had fallen asleep to her whole life.
Near the end of the ramp-bridge there was a burlap curtain and, for a moment, Tina hesitated to push it back, knowing this must be Luke’s domain.
“If I leave it right here...” Even though she was whispering her voice seemed loud. “He’ll get it.”
So she left it.
Heading back the way she’d come Tina suddenly shouted as a sandy colored dog, raced at her, barking.
“Chill out!” she shouted at a loss.
The dog cocked its head in amazement, stopped in mid-bark, and hung its head. Then it walked past her, and sniffed at the basket.
“And leave it alone. It’s not yours,” Tina told it.
The dog regarded Tina in disbelief. This human was crazy.
“At least it’s not yours yet.”
The dog made to sniff at it again.
“What did I say?” Tina demanded.
Raising an eyebrow, and moaning a little, the dog turned its head from the basket, and pushed past the curtain.
“That’s what I thought,” Tina muttered.
She walked the way she’d come, backwards as much as possible thinking, “With my luck, the damn dog’ll rush me from behind and tear my throat out.”

The Jamnia Wildcats had won their fourth consecutive game to the amazement of all, and Kevin Foster had even gone down to Our Lady of Jamnia to light candles in thanksgiving. Mick Rafferty measured out that it had been a month since he’d checked on Luke Madeary. He only sniffed into the boy’s business once a month because more would drive Luke crazy. In fact, Luke didn’t appreciate this interruption now. It had been a complete accident that Mick had learned where Luke lived. Two years ago, when Rafferty’d had Luke for homeroom, Luke had forged his mother’s signature on his grade card, and Rafferty was sure of this. He’d asked for Luke’s phone number to call home. It had turned out to be a sex phone line. Finally, Mick had gotten up, driven to the address Luke had penned as his house number and, after passing the factory many times, realized that it was the address.
Mick had visited the factory in daylight hours, and in determination. So he had found Luke, not behind the burlap, but sitting on the balcony overlooking the old loading dock, smoking a cigarette.
So now he knew Luke’s business.
“Luke,” he called after western civ. Tina had looked up for a second as she was slipping her bag over her shoulder, but only a second, and then she’d walked off, heading for play practice.
“Yes, Mr. Rafferty,” Luke pushed back his hair and came forward.
“I wanted to say that.... If you would like to come over for dinner tonight…”
“Mr. Rafferty, I’m fine.”
“Am I a bad cook?”
Luke cracked a grin and took a hand through his hair.
“No, sir, you’re a chef magnifique!”
“Hardly that.”
“But, I’m fine, really.” Luke was about to turn around when he said, “In fact, if you must know, I’ve been eating really well for about a month now.”
Mr. Rafferty raised an eyebrow.
“A Good Samaritan’s been taking care of me,” Luke said.

“MISS FOSTER, SO NICE of you to turn up!” Tina heard Stearne calling across the auditorium as she entered. He had made a megaphone of his hands. George Stearne was such a short, mean little so and so that Tina admitted being razzed by him turned her on a little.
She smiled, and bowed with a flip of the hand, answering insolence for insolence.
“And a great actress too,” Stearne told the other members of the cast.
“I had to talk to another teacher,” Tina said, letting her bag fall in the middle of the center aisle, and then coming up the steps onto the stage. Madeleine turned around and looked at her questioningly.
“Your buddy, Mr. Rafferty.”
“Well, that’s almost a good excuse, Foster,” Stearne said, stroking his goatee. He turned around and told everyone else, “Now that she’s here, I can make my announcement.”
Tina looked at Madeleine.
“Hopefully Miss Foster can handle being on time from now on because Jacqueline Finney will not be playing Wynona, and we sincerely hope that her understudy can carry it off.” Stearne turned to her.
Tina could not move. Madeleine ribbed her in the shoulder.
“Understudy,” she said. “Tina, that’s you!”


Tina, Mackenzie, and Madeleine were walking down the empty hall, and out of the school singing, badly, “Old Man River” when she heard someone call out “Foster!” and turned around to see Luke Madeary smoking a cigarette in his usual corner.
“No, not you!” he dismissed Mackenzie.
Tina went up, and when Madeleine was about to follow, she waved her to stay at the bottom of the steps.
“Yeah,” Tina said, summoning up all her cool.
Luke did not look at her yet, he blew a gush of smoke out of his nostrils and the wind carried it away.
“I wanted to say thanks,” he said.
“Um?”
“For all the meals.”
Tina found herself lying.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
` “Well,” Luke said indifferently, suddenly thrusting into her with his eyes while he gave a crooked grin, “Whoever is sending all the food my way... Thank you.”
Disconcerted, Tina smirked and nodded. Later that night she would play the scene of her smirking like a jack o’ lantern and nodding like a dufus over and over again while she sat in her attic room, and she would say, “I’m such a dumbass... I’m such a dumbass....”

MORE THURSDAY NIGHT
 
Sorry for the late comment, long day again. Luke is a really intriguing character. I am glad Tina has secretly been helping him. I look forward to reading whatever happens next in this great story! Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days!
 
Good question. This was the story that made me want to do Rossford because I did want a series, but this will not be a series. It is, however, a very, very long novel and it will be divided in two with an interruption for other things. Over the years I have written a lot of pages about what happens after and around this book, but never successfully given it a sequel. It is, however, connected to other stories and you'll see that as it goes on. In the end, this story's run should be something like the Old, the Beasts and the Blood. I am, by the way, thinking of a new story about Lewis Dunharrow when he was a teenager and begins to practice magic for the first time, and I think that will be the next story in that series. How does that sound?
 
Here is the weekend portion! Hope you have an excellent weekend. I certainly plan to.


WEEKEND PORTION

THE CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER TWO AND THE END OF PART ONE


v i i i

The lights went out in the theatre and Cedric whispered to Ida, “Who is Tina playing?”
“Magnolia Hawkes.”
“What play is this anyway?”
“Madeleine’s one of the stars, Ced!”
“I know but...” he shrugged. “Most of the time I’m attentive, but sometimes I just nod my head and say, ‘Yes, baby, when she gets to chattering.”
“It’s Showboat,” Ida said.
“I thought it was Macbeth,” Cedric said. “Her getting the lead and all.”
“It’s not type cast,” Ida said.
Rodder Gonzales plopped down in the seat beside them.
“Hey, Mr. Fitzgerald.”
“Rodder.”
“This is gonna be a blast,” Rodder said. “Maddy’s great. I hear her at practice everyday.”
“I hear her at practice every night,” Cedric muttered.
“Wanna do shots later on?” Ida leaned over Cedric to Rodder.
Rodder and Cedric looked at her incredulously.
The older woman winked at him. “Com’on, whadda y’say?”
Cedric looked at Rodder. Dumbly, he nodded his head.



The music was beginning. Mr. Stearne said, “You alright, Foster?”
“If I don’t trip over this dress or get sucked under by one of these hoops I’ll be fine.”

The curtain lifted, and as Tina prepared to step out she couldn’t see anything but darkness ahead and the lights above. She was moving into performance mode, and then someone shouted from the darkness below:
“Give ’em hell, Teanie!”
Tina turned around and looked at Mr. Stearne.
He raised an eyebrow.
“My aunts,” she explained. “Are you sure I can’t smoke on stage?”
Stearne just shook his head sadly and said, “Give ‘em hell, Teanie.”

Kevin Foster had been caressing his wife’s neck for some time, and for some time she had been swatting his hand away. She was having, what he had come to term over the years, “one of those nights”.
“It’s not high school,” she said.
“Yes it is,” he corrected her.
“Not for us. Stop.”
“What’s wrong with you?”
“I have a headache.”
“Do you always have a headache?”
Aileen removed her husband’s hand.
“Only when you touch me.”
Beside her sat Ryan. He stared up at her.
“What?” she said.

WHEN MACKENZIE LEFT THE stage, and Madeleine came back, leaning over the prow as she looked into the river and sang “Can’t Help Loving That Man of Mine”, Ashley muttered, “I don’t know what’s so special about her,” and Kevin murmured, “Shut up, Ash.”
Suddenly Ryan screamed, “Shit goddamn!”
Lindsay, beside Ashley said, “No hiding Fosters tonight.”

Mackenzie could not believe all the people clapping him and the other casts members on the back as they came off stage and headed out of the auditorium.
“You were great.”
“Fantastic!”
“Didn’t know you had it in you!”
Ahead of him, Mackenzie heard Madeleine scream as Rodder lifted her up, twirled her around and kissed her.
Vaughan suddenly stood before him, smiled brightly before he hugged his friend.
“Was I good?” Mackenzie said.
“You know you were a great Ravenal. Considering you ended up playing your big sister’s husband. Everyone’s saying so.”
“Yeah, but I expect you to tell the truth.”
“Truthfully: you were great as Gaylord. No pun intended. Where’s your sister?”
Suddenly Mackenzie’s mouth opened, he looked around and said, “I don’t know.”
“Well, sit tight. Or stand tight,” Vaughan said. “I’m gonna go get her. Some guy’s looking for her.”
“A guy,” Mackenzie said, “is looking for my sister?”
“I’ll be right back,” Vaughan told him, and was gone.
Mackenzie tried to stand still in the midst of the noise, the roaring crowd, the people up in his face suddenly shaking his hand hard, saying, “You were great.” “You’ve got a real talent, young man.” He felt a jab on his back, turned around, and suddenly Ian Cane was smiling in his face.
“You said I should come,” Ian said to the surprised Mackenzie. “So I did. You were really good. You’re good,” Ian told him.
“You’re really good too,” Mackenzie blurted out.
“What?” Ian cocked his head. Mackenzie wanted to laugh. He wanted to say something clever. He wanted to watch Ian’s face, which had been almost hostile for over a year, smile, contort into grins.
Instead he said: “I dunno,” and shook his head.
“Look,” Ian said. “This is my cousin, Roy.”
“Hey,” Mackenzie felt an uprush that Ian wanted him to meet his cousin.
“This is my friend, Mackenzie,” Ian said, and the words my friend buzzed around in Mackenzie’s ears. He told himself, “Don’t make too much of it,” and shook Roy’s hand.
“I see you a lot at school,” Mackenzie said.
“Yeah,” was all Roy could think to say.
“Look, we gotta go,” said Ian. “It’s past this kid’s bed time.” He jabbed Roy in the side. “You need a ride or something, Kenzie?”
“No,” Mackenzie said before he could think.
“I’ll see you in school then,” replied Ian, then he and Roy were swallowed up in the crowd.
Mackenzie stood out of time for a moment. He wanted to bite back his words: “Sure, a ride would be great. Let’s go!
When Vaughan came back he said, “Your sister’s hiding. She insists on waiting until everyone’s gone. And everyone is shouting about her. They all want to see Magnolia Hawkes.”
Vaughan stopped and, wrinkling his forehead, looked a his friend.
“What’s up?”
“I fucked up!” Mackenzie moaned.

MARTINA FOSTER THOUGHT SHE HAD been backstage for about a half an hour. Once Vaughan had come back, and then later Madeleine with Rodder.
“You really were good,” Rodder told her, and offered a rare smile before turning around and leaving.
When the crowd had finally died, and Tina heard the boom of the lights being shut off, she stood up and began stuffing her day clothes into a gym bag. She made for the back of the auditorium, her ball gown swishing about her.
As soon as she opened the door to the parking lot she screamed when a voice said, “I was wondering if you’d ever come out.”
“Oh, my God...” Tina murmured turning around.
“Catch a breath and chill out,” Luke Madeary told her.
“What are you...?”
“I was just waiting so I could say you were good.”
“You came to the play?”
He nodded. He was in an old bomber jacket and a cigarette glowed from his right hand. He ashed on the ground.
“Well...” she said. “Thanks.”
The moon was round and the sky was very black tonight. It was warm, and past the parking lot was a field, and then Davidson Street with its split levels half buried behind a knoll.
Tina was getting ready to go toward her car when she said, “Do you... Would you like to take a walk?”
Luke cocked his head, and Tina wanted to laugh, because for once she’d caught him off guard.
“Yeah,” he said. “Yes... Let’s go.”

THE WHOLE RIDE HOME AILEEN AND Kevin bitched at each other, and Ryan looked moodily out of the window while Ross just stared ahead. Lindsay had given perfunctory congratulations, and Ashley was not with them, having split the moment the play ended.
So Mackenzie tried to tell himself that really nothing special would have happened if he’d gone home with Ian. Ian would have driven. They would have talked a little and that was about that. But Mackenzie wanted to spend time with Ian Cane. Get to know him. He pictured Ian sitting around the house with him and Vaughan, laughing and smiling, giving them that smile. Would Vaughan be jealous? Now, why should he be? Mackenzie did not even think of Vaughan in the same way he thought of Ian.
Aileen stopped fighting long enough to turn the full force of motherly affection on her oldest son and say, “You were wonderful out there tonight, Kenzie.”
Kevin added, as an after thought, “Yeah, buddy,” and reached back to play slug his son in the shoulder.
For some reason Mackenzie suddenly felt sorry for his father.
Upstairs in his room he told himself as he opened the window and stripped to his briefs that he was too tired to go out. He had thought about running over to Vaughan’s, maybe making his way to his grandmother’s. He wondered what had happened to Tina.
Mackenzie lay in the bed, under the sheet running his hands over his chest and stomach. He brought his fingers back up to his chest and ran one over his right nipple over and over again, thrilling at how hard it grew. He began to pinch and caress his nipples, to lay in the dark, running his hands over his body. A thin line of hair went out like silk from his navel and spread into his briefs. He reached into the end table and without looking pushed his hand down on the pump and squeezed lotion into his palms. Vaughan had teased him for this, discovering exactly what it was for.
“You even masturbate neatly.”
With one hand Mackenzie pulled down his underwear, letting the hand move over the soft skin of the side of his ass, the dimple of the left cheek, letting it move to stroke the soft hair and to cup the ass. He stuck his finger between the tight cleft and then lifted his hand to his face. It smelled like the earth. He put his hand back there and he slipped it into the moist-mossy place between his legs, he cupped his balls. He felt himself growing larger. He began to stroke.
Ashley was probably with Bone right now. They were probably in a shower. Her legs were wrapped around his massive waist. Her hands were raking his hairy ass. It was firm to her. It felt good. She was watching his face set in a rictus of concentration. He was turning red and pumping into her quicker and quicker. She had to bite her lip. He had to bite his lip as he moved faster and faster. But then He was Bone and he could feel his bone getting harder and harder. The bed was creaking more and more urgently. The shower disappeared until there was no place and there was certainly no Ashley. Ian Cane was clinging to him.
“No,” Mackenzie muttered and tried to change the image to Bone or Rodder Gonzales. He tried to imagine he was Rodder, doing it to himself. He formed the image as he pumped quicker and quicker, but the image wouldn’t maintain. It was Ian, and sometimes he was Ian doing it to himself, and sometimes Ian was doing it to him and Ian was brutal. Ian was sweating in the bed with him, going to town. He looked holy like the statues of saints in church. Eyes closed in deep concentration, hips lifting, lifting, thrusting, thrusting.
And then the picture faded and Mackenzie shouted and was afraid someone would come into the room as he flooded his hands.

“SO THIS IS WHAT’S BEHIND THE Curtain,” Tina said.
“I can’t believe you’ve never been behind the curtain,” Luke said, coming in after her while the burlap fell behind him.
“It isn’t my house,” Tina said. “I was just here to make the food drop offs.”
“Well, welcome to the house,” said Luke.
Tina heard, ahead of them, a rapid tapping and soon, through another curtain across from them burst the mutt.
“You again,” she said.
The dog yelped.
“Shush, Old Coconut,” Luke said, and the dog came to him, wagging her tail, and panting while he stroked her head.
“Old Coconut?”
“It’s better than Old Yeller,” Luke shrugged.
“Who am I to refute your wisdom?” Tina sat down on a crate.
“That’s right,” Luke said. “Have a seat. I’m so rude. Do you want something to drink?”
Tina looked at him in amazement.
“Coca-Cola, apple juice. Milk. Water’s my personal favorite. I got a little....” his eyes changed. A half wicked, half silly smile crossed his lips. “I got a better idea. You hold on right there, girlie.”
Luke slipped off his jacket. The tee shirt he wore under it was snug, and as he walked back behind the next curtain, she saw that his walk was rangy, his arms long. His jeans fit and were tucked into work boots.
I’m falling for a sexy bum,” she thought, and thanked God that she had changed out of the ball gown and stuffed it in her car before they’d started their long walk. I’m so stupid,” Tina said to herself, the whole time hoping she looked good, wondering if she should go blond again.
Tina looked around. The curtain before and behind her made this one room. The high window to her right must look over Michael Street and up it for some distance, past the high school. This might be like high rise living. There were crates covered in old blankets, even a few expensive damask curtains. The place was made for company. And there was a faded old imitation Persian rug on the floor. In the center was a rusty trunk with candles and school books on it, and there were other crates with candles, some tall, some short and fat, some with scents, some without. White, yellow, red, some in brassy holders. There were photographs, but Tina didn’t look at them closely. She thought this would be nosey and—at the same time—had the sense that Luke would appreciate this about her.
Luke reappeared holding a small glass out toward her, one for him.
“My apologies for not taking you back to show off the rest of the house,” he said. “And to Old Coconut, for not letting you partake in the festivities,” he gestured to the glass.
Tina took the proffered glass, and sniffed.
“Goddamn.”
“Too much for you?” Luke raised an eyebrow.
She met him stare for stare.
“No, I was just thinking I didn’t know anyone but my grandma drank this shit!”

“SLAM IT! SLAM IT! SLAM IT!” Cedric cried, and while Rodder chugged the last of the whiskey, the priest, the grandmother and the middle-aged father roared, “Drink! Drink! Drink!”
“Ahhh shit!” Rodder cried. He had broken out into a sweat after the last shot.
“Can’t go on!” he rasped.
“It doesn’t matter,” Cedric said, taking out a cigarette. “You’re staying here tonight. You can’t drive and it’s no way any of us is driving you.”
Madeleine was coming down the back stair. “You alright, Rod?”
Cedric pushed a beer his daughter’s way.
“This is one hell of a celebration, Daddy.”
Cedric winked at Madeleine. “I aim to please.”
“Can I have a beer?” Vaughan said.
“Yes,” Cedric told him. “But don’t let your dad find out.”
All of a sudden Rodder burst out laughing and clapping his hands.
“Oh, my God!” he cried. “I’m such a dork.”
“That’s it, baby,” Madeleine pulled the shot glass away from him. “You’ve had enough.”


“THIS IS MY GRANDMOTHER’S WHISKEY?”
“Only sort of,” Luke sat back, rolling a joint. He lit it, inhaled until the tip glowed red, passed it to Tina, but she shook her head.
“Very admirable,” Luke said through clenched jaws, holding the smoke in, letting it leak out of his nose.
“And I guess you got that from my aunt.”
“Again… Kinda sorta,” he nodded, and inhaled again.
Tina watched the candlelight flow on the plains of his face, make shadows under his eyes, make Luke’s eyes glow like coals. She was haunted by the way the smoke tendriled out of his nose, and how the light turned his eyes golden.
“They said they knew you,” Tina said.
“They knew my mom,” Luke said. He shrugged. “And me. I don’t pay for this,” he lifted up the smoldering joint. “It’s a gift. My mom was friends with Meghan Berghen, your aunt. I was friends with Kirk.”
“My cousin.”
“We were junior burnouts together,” Luke chuckled dumbly. He offered the joint again. She had the strongest feeling she should say no, and so she did. But if he offered again, she’d have to say yes. She was attracted to the heavy burning smell people said was nasty. She was attracted to how the smoke rolled heavily out of Luke’s mouth and nose, by his voice and the candlelight.
“But my mom and Meg were grown-up burnouts almost. When Mom left there was no money, no way to take care of me. The state wanted to come after me. They had me for a while. Would have put me in foster homes. And I guess...” he inhaled again. His eyes took in a far off look. Luke sat against the crates with his legs wide apart. “I guess I could have lived with other people. But I wanted to be on my own. And so...” he spread his hands out.
“Does it ever get lonely?” Tina said.
Luke nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. But everybody’s lonely... Right?”
Suddenly Luke turned to her and smiled.
“And see, I’m drinking your grandma’s liquor. I’m smoking your Aunt Ally’s weed. I used to know your Aunt Meg. Here I am with you, wanting to kiss you real bad,” the shock must have shown on Tina’s face. “The way I think you wanna kiss me. You must be part of my jati. I bet you are.”
“Yeah,” Tina said ignoring the basic fact that she didn’t know what the hell a jati was. Suddenly, Luke took one fierce drag until the roach burnt bright red. And then Luke came toward Tina, placing his mouth over hers, suddenly filling her mouth with his tongue and the marijuana smoke. She almost coughed, but she never did. She was filled. Luke Madeary’s tongue in her mouth, Ally’s pungent smoke in her nose, the darkness, the candlelight, the rush, the flood in her groin, the feel of that soft copper hair, softer than hers, the strength of his neck.
They parted. She wasn’t sure who pulled away first. Tina was sure it was about time to go home though that was the last thing she wanted to do. Smoke was still in her nostrils.
“Yeah,” Luke said, sitting back. “You’re part of my...” he shook his head. He didn’t appear to be high. “We’re part of a jati.”


There were no two ways about, she’d have to go the Aunts and as soon as possible. In fact, after the Sunday matinee performance, when Madeleine and Rodder asked Tina if she wanted to hang with them, she said she could only do so for about an hour.
In the house on Windham Street she told the ladies her problem. Meghan was doing her nails, and a can of Pringles stood open before her. Alice was sketching in a notebook as Tina opened the refrigerator to pull out an old juice container filled with water. Alice said, “Shake it first.”
Tina raised an eyebrow.
“You know if you don’t shake liquids first they taste all watery.”
Tina couldn’t tell if her aunt was serious or not, but she shook the water anyway, and then drank straight from the container.
“So, hon,” Meghan said. “Basically your problem is that you still want to look like the bride of Satan... only now Satan’s wife has to have sex appeal.”
“Yes,” Tina smiled. “That’s exactly how I’d put it.”
Meghan smiled and kept buffing. “That’s why I’m your aunt. Hold on, hon. I think I got just the right idea. Ally, I’ll need your help.”
“Sure thing.”
“And we’ll need to see what Ida thinks of it when she gets in.”
“Definitely,” Alice said, doodling on. “Definitely.”

“VAUGHAN, WE’RE GONNA BE LATE for class,” Mackenzie said.
Vaughan, finishing up his cigarette smiled up at Mackenzie. The high sun reflected back on the Black boy’s shades.
“I’m not going,” he said. “And neither should you.”
“Vaughan, you can’t skip school.”
“But I can,” he disagreed. “And I will.”
“Why would we skip? Where else would we go in Jamnia?”
“To the library, to the mall, to your grandma’s. To my dad’s, to your cousins’...” Vaughan shook his head and slapped his knee. He was wearing the shiny black polyester pants, and black work shoes. “But we’re not. I’m not.”
“Vaughan, quit fucking around.”
Vaughan took off his glasses and looked at his friend.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk like that.”
Mackenzie flushed.
“I mean, we gotta get to class.”
“I told you: I’m not going.”
“Fine.”
Vaughan said: “What’s wrong with you? One play under your belt and you think you’re president or something.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Mackenzie said. “I’m tired of saving you.”
Vaughan waited until Mackenzie had gone back into the school, and then he muttered, “Ass,” and got up. He crossed the parking lot and looked for Bone McArthur’s red Mustang. There were new whitewalls. Vaughan looked behind him, but there were no windows on this side of the school. It just looked like two large department store boxes lain over each other and covered in brick. He took the key out of his pocket.
The moment the devil had entered his head with the whole scheme was two weeks ago. He was sure he could pull it off somehow. Between hanging around for play practice and living across the field from the school, Vaughan had easily been able to get into the locker room during football practice, find Bone’s jeans, take out his car keys, and make a wax model. Living in a town one’s whole life with as many crooked connections as the Fitzgeralds had, it was no problem at all to have a key made. This necessitated hanging out with the cousins on Crawford Street, something of which neither his father or any of the immediate family approved. But Vaughan approved of it. They were all right with him.
So he was in the car quickly, and remembered that if he obeyed the laws there was no reason he should be stopped, and no reason at all that a cop should find out that he was either driving a stolen vehicle or unlicensed to drive any vehicle at all.
The car, unfortunately, smelled too much like Bone and, Vaughan guessed, probably Ashley. He was startled by the power of it when he turned the key in the ignition. It was so trashy, too. If he owned a Mustang convertible, he would have kept it clean.
Vaughan did not dare to drive down Michael Street, though there was no way his father would have guessed he was in the car. This thing was so much bigger than him. It unnerved him. He would have to be very careful. He couldn’t drive past the school either, or Bone might see his car disappearing. Instead he turned south out of the parking lot into the little block of split levels. If he continued a block or so down Lakeview he could turn southwest. He would be on Carmel Road for a few blocks. He paid very close attention to how he was driving, what direction he was moving in. Then he shot north, north until he hit Michael. Vaughan made a liberating turn west and drove at fifty-five across the train tracks, under the factory. Then he kept driving, wanting to accelerate, not daring. Never missing a green light, watching the small shops of Michael Street and the reccurring little post WWII houses go past, the car jumping over the cracked and faded macadam. Block after block. He passed Logan. If you shot down there you’d find the Fosters’ house all plum colored and peaceful looking set back in trees. He passed Fourth and Sixth Street, and then he crossed the country road, and finally the road rose up and he crossed the Lion River, leaving the state of Ohio altogether, landing on the other side in Canaan, Indiana.


WHEN TINA AND MADELEINE GREETED Mackenzie in the hallway before the cafeteria, the first thing they asked him was, “Where’s Vaughan?”
“He decided to ditch school,” Mackenzie said, trying to force all the disapproval he could into the statement.
“Good for him!” Tina said, looking prettier than ever. For a brief second, Mackenzie hated the only sibling he liked.
All during lunch, Mackenzie scanned the cafeteria for Ian, and when Tina asked what was up he said, “Nothing.”
“Is that why you’re red?” she teased. “Some girl? I know why I’m scanning. Where the hell is Luke Madeary? I need him to know how sexy I am.”
“Sounds like he already knows,” Madeleine murmured.
The conversation of his sister and Vaughan’s sister faded as Mackenzie realized he hadn’t told Tina. He wasn’t trying to keep anything from her. It just hadn’t seemed vital. He needed to tell her sooner or later.
But how many people do I tell? And who will care? What does it really mean? Maybe I should have sex first.
And having sex made him think of Ian, and this immediately made him ashamed.

On the way to geology, Mackenzie almost passed Ian by, afraid the other boy might see something in his eyes. But after Saturday he couldn’t stand sabotaging another chance with Ian, so he came up to the spiky haired boy who was pulling books out of his locker.
“I didn’t see you at lunch,” Mackenzie said, adding a smile and bouncing on his toes to take away whatever obsession might linger in the phrase.
“I couldn’t. I was trying to do French. I don’t get it.”
“You have Decker for that class?”
Ian nodded. “How are you doing?”
Mackenzie was a little embarrassed to say he had an A. He tacked on, “Vaughan has an A in everything,” wondering where his friend was.
“Could you please help me?” Ian said, closing his locker. “I mean, like as soon as possible?”
“Sure,” Mackenzie found himself saying. “You wanna.... come to my house?” Casual, sound casual! “This afternoon, after school or something.”
“Yeah,” Ian nodded. “That’d be great.”
Mackenzie turned on his heel and headed for class, trying not to run. Yes, it would be great.




Tina came to take the last of her things from the auditorium after school. It was really too bad she thought. She’d grown to enjoy being here over the last month and a half. She was nosing around behind stage when Mr. Stearne showed up and said, “Who died and made you presentable?”
Tina smiled, making sure not to look too pleased to see Mr. Stearne. It was their game.
“You’re in love, I suppose,” he told her.
She reddened.
“I hope it’s love for the theatre,” he said. “We ah... do the next play in less than a month. I really hope you come to tryouts. You’ve got a special talent. Even if I razz you.”
This was high praise from Mr. Stearne who seemed to live for nothing but razzing everyone.
“Thank you, sir,” she said.
“Only I was thinking of doing Frankenstein, and you don’t look like his bride anymore.”
Tina was in her grandmother’s black slacks from the sixties, and an old green turtleneck. Three necklaces still hung from around her neck, but the rosary was in her pocket. Turquoise and hemp bracelets Alice had brought back from New Mexico hung on her wrists and her skin had a touch of blush, just lipstick rubbed into her cheeks. Tina’s hair was the color of tea. She looked nothing like a bitter hag, and nothing like Ashley.
“I mean that,” Stearne found himself taking a chance. “You’re a very special girl... Woman, Martina.”
“Sir, please stop or you’ll say something so nice neither one of us will believe it’s you.”
Suddenly George Stearne laughed, and Tina realized he was only about twenty-four years old. That had seemed so old, but really, he could be Cedric Fitzgerald’s child. He wasn’t old at all.
“Mr. Stearne?” Tina said, scooping the last of her things into her book bag. “A friend of mine... he said this word.”
“Alright?”
“Jati,” she said. “What in the world is a jati?”
At first George Stearne looked confused, then he laughed again and said, “Hold on. I do know this. It’s Hindu. The Hindus believed... Still do, I guess—in reincarnation. Now you know how you meet certain people and you just seem to click with them? Or there are certain groups of folks you just always seem tied to?”
Tina nodded.
“Well the Hindus believe that when you’re reincarnated you get reincarnated with the same group. They’re like you’re spiritual family slash friend group. That’s why it seems like you’ve known some people forever... Because you have. You’re connected to them and you grow with them and you cannot progress without them. And that’s your jati.”
Tina nodded and then said, “Thanks sir.”
She had turned to leave, and was going past the curtain, back to the stage when she turned around.
“Sir?”
“Yes, Martina?”
“Do you believe in that? You know, jatis?”
Stearne smiled and took off his glasses to play with them. Then he slipped them back on.
“It sure would be nice,” he said. “Wouldn’t it?”

“IT’S LATE,” IAN SAID, ROLLING off of Mackenzie’s bed. The other boy was in an easy chair that had come from the Colonel’s house, his knees pulled to his chest.
“I don’t think we even really got any studying done,” Mackenzie said, looking dismally at the French book. “All we did was talk.”
“That’s alright,” Ian said, rising from the bed. “Can I admit something, Mackenzie?”
Mackenzie nodded.
“I’ve kinda been wanting to hang out with you.”
“What?”
“Just see what it would be like. I thought you’d be cool. I don’t have a lot of friends and all and.… I mean... I really did need help with French, I mean, I still really need help in French, but I’m just saying it’s cool... Hanging out and all.”
“Yeah,” Mackenzie said. Then: “You can come back!”
“I will,” Ian promised with a grin, and then the phone rang. When no one else in the house answered after four rings, Mackenzie rolled his eyes and picked up the phone.
“Hello?”
“Kenzie?” A very soothing voice was on the other end of the phone.
“Vaughan?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you home?”
“No.… Not exactly. I know you said you were tired of saving me and everything, but— ”
“Vaughan, I’m sorry about this morning. I’m full of shit. Now tell me where you are.”

The steel cord of the pay phone was wrapped around Vaughan’s wrist as he sat on the passenger door of the convertible with its dead engine. He threw back his head, and laughed, “You’ll never believe this shit.”
Above him a green sign read in white letters, FORT WAYNE, INDIANA WELCOMES YOU.

The boys raced down the stairs. Mackenzie passed his mother, shouting, “We’ll be back in about three hours!”
“Wha?” Aileen started.
“Goo’bye, Mrs. Foster!” Ian shouted hurtling after Mackenzie.
“What was that?” he said to Mackenzie as he opened the door for the other boy and then hopped into the driver’s seat of his car, plugging the key into the ignition.
Breathing heavily, Mackenzie answered, “With my mom... the key is... run out the door as soon as possible... while shouting out something... vague... that way— ”
“There’s no time for her to ask questions,” Ian finished with a grin. He pulled out of the driveway onto Logan Street. The setting sun was falling golden through the trees.
“Are you sure you wanna do this?” Mackenzie asked.
“Oh, were you gonna take your car?” Ian raised an eyebrow, and then tapped the other boy on the shoulder, and sped down the street.

That night when Vaughan came through the door of the house on Michael Street the only thing Cedric said was: “Fort Wayne?”
“I’d never been,” Vaughan answered.
“Yes you have,” Cedric told him as Ian and Mackenzie entered the house behind him. Tina and Madeleine were in the kitchen with Luke, and they all turned to look up at Vaughan, vaguely proud.
“And in Bone’s car?” Madeleine said.
“I removed all my fingerprints,” Vaughan told her. “You all are the only ones who’ll know how it got there.”
“My lips are sealed,” Luke said.
“This is—” Tina gestured.
“Luke Madeary,” Vaughan reached out and shook Luke’s hand. In answer to the question on Luke’s face, Vaughan said, “I stay awake. And this is Ian Cane, our new compatriot.” Vaughan threw an arm over the other boy and Mackenzie marveled at how easy it was for Vaughan. Even when Vaughan had thought he was an outcast it was so easy for him to just walk up to other guys and befriend them.
“And when have I been to Fort Wayne?” he said to his father.
“Remember when you were five and you wanted to go to London cause you kept hearing about it and I told you I had a show to do in Chicago, but you insisted and finally I decided to do the play in London?”
“Yeah.”
“That was Fort Wayne.”
“Oh, my...” Vaughan stopped.
“Well for God’s sake Vaughan, you were five. I had a job to do. And see, you’ve managed to forget all the details like... we were only there for a day. Like, I drove there. Things like that fade out with children. I was old enough when you came around to know that,” Cedric explained, handing Vaughan the ham sandwich he’d just made him.
Madeleine sat back and laughed her head off until Cedric said, “Remember our trip to Paris?”
Madeleine stopped laughing.
“Daddy?” she pleaded.
“Columbus,” he told her.
“Congratulations, kid. Childhood is over.

ME AND VAUGHAN AND MADELEINE AND EVERYONE WILL SEE YOU AGAIN ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WEEKEND
 
Wow lots going on and I am still really enjoying this story! I may have to read this portion a few times to process everything. Vaughan is still my favourite character but there are a lot of interesting other ones too! Great writing and have a fantastic weekend!
 
Well, yes, you probably should reread it. After all, that’s the reason you get a hugh chunk on Thursday night (my time) so that you can have it for Friday too when I don’t post. There is a lot going on in the next section and it will all feed in to the next part so, why not refresh yourself on it? I am curious, who are the new characters holding your interest?
 
Well, there is much more to come with Ian and Tina, and I think you're going to fall in love with them. Just wait. There a few others you might not even like at all, and you're going to learn a lot more about them too.
 



P A R T

T W O



CRAWFORD STREET
RULE











I beheld her, beautiful as a dove, rising above the waterbrooks;
and her raiment was filled with perfume beyond all price.
Even as the springtime was she girded with rosebuds and lilies of the valley...

- Willan Healey


C H A P T E R

T H R E E


SINCE CHILDHOOD, MACKENZIE HAS MADE fun of me for using big words and reading all the time. For just being plain strange. It’s not a bad funmaking. He just shakes his head or rushes up and hugs me and calls me a nut. And I am. I am.
But so is he.
I wonder if I’m not the least nutty. In Catholic school they always said I was obsessed. I was obsessed with God was the problem, that and the fact that I had read the Bible cover to cover, King James and then Saint Joseph’s by the time I was twelve and could quote back chapter and verse.
But it seems that if we are not obsessed about God we end up being obsessed about something much sillier. Everyone picks a devotion sooner or later and I think most of them are unworthy.
My father will never marry again. He told me once and never again—Cedric Fitzgerald is not a man to repeat himself— that he was going to be a monk once. He had turned himself into the monastery and was chanting the psalms one day. It was one of them talking about manna falling from the sky. Now Dad is a poet, and a good one, and after the office they were singing he prayed, “Lord, if this is not your will, then let your will fall from the sky.” And at that moment, my mother, who was visiting the monastery, slipped and fell through the sunroof onto my father’s head.
They were engaged by the end of the day.
People always asked if he would ever marry again and he always said no. I never asked. I could never conceive of Cedric being married to anyone. My mother died the day I was born, and so I couldn’t even conceive of Cedric with her. I’d never seen them together except in wedding photographs. And they’d been married a long time before me or Maddy came along, so the Cedric in the wedding photo is a lot younger than the one I know anything about.
One day I was home sick from school, and he had come back from daily Mass. The light was hitting the black beads of his rosary that dangled from the work pants he always wore. He had just made me breakfast, and I was looking at his left hand, looking at the gold band.
“You see this ring?” he said.
I nodded. “It’s your wedding ring.”
“People think I wear it because I haven’t let your mother go,” he said. He shook his head and smiled gently. Sometimes he can be gentle. “But she is gone and I had to let her go immediately. Do you want to know the truth, son?”
I waited, a piece of toast in my hand, my mouth half open.
“Eat your toast,” he instructed, and spoke on.
That was when he told me about the monastery and meeting Mother, and then he said, “I returned from the funeral and I was in my room, all in black, and Aileen Foster and your grandmother were looking after you and Maddy. I was about to twist the ring off when I stopped, and I looked at myself, black as a monk and I decided I would never marry another woman, but that I would do what I originally intended. In away. I would be alone.”
“So that’s Jesus’s ring?”
My father smiled, surprised, and said, “Yes… I suppose it is.”
I watched the sun glint off of it, and it was that moment that I knew there was a God.
I had said that thing about reading a lot, and I guess that was to lead to this, how I once read a comment where a man said the moment he knew there was a God he could never conceive of not living for him.
Neither could I, though I didn’t know how to tell anybody. It was like I knew what was meant for me the same terrible way Kenzie must have known what was meant for him. That’s why I understand him, how he feels. I never told anybody, but I started to read saints’ lives. Not the silly stories, but the stories about real saints. I could understand Clare of Assisi chopping her hair off, putting a crown of thorns on her head and walking barefoot, sleeping on wooden boards. I could get people—for the love of Jesus—locking themselves away from the world to be with no one but him. After all, in school I fell in love with Jesus. I didn’t know how you could not wish to give him... everything.
So it was most Christians I didn’t understand. As soon as you know there is a God, how can’t you be a fanatic? And these are the words I can write, but that I cannot say, that I don’t know how. As soon as you know, how can you be content just to go to religious meetings, or pray once a day or go to church maybe once a week? I don’t get other Christians.
Unless.... Maybe they just don’t know yet.

.
Slipping on his jacket, Cedric went out to the porch, and then ran back in the house shouting: “Ralph! Ralph!”
“I’m coming!” Ralph came out of the bathroom.
Cedric tugged his friend out of the living room.
“I didn’t lock the— ”
Cedric brought the priest to the porch. “Look,” he said in a tone of wonder.
Down the middle of Michael Street, barefoot as ever, in a brown robe dusty with travel and a rope tied about his narrow waist, grey bearded, tonsured and peaceful, came the Wandering Franciscan.

“I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD,” Ralph cried, as they entered Our Lady of Jamnia.
“Me too.”
“I haven’t seen him since high school,” Ralph was telling Cedric as they genuflected, and dipped their fingers in the holy water. They sat down in the back pew, waiting.
“I saw him after Marilyn’s funeral,” Cedric said.
“Really?”
Cedric nodded, and turning toward his friend so that for a moment his eyes were obscured by the glare of light on his glasses, added, “He floated then.”
“He did not.”
“I swear before God he did,” Cedric said.
Ralph looked at his friend, swallowed, and then nodded.
They heard a thump behind them, but turned around to see that it was only Dick Morissey coming in to pray for a bit. And then they heard the side door open. A stream of eastern light went across the terrazzo floor of the old church.
“Here she is,” Ralph muttered.
They heard the light rustling of her robe. The woman came in all in white, white veil on her head, a blue belt tied about her waist. A rosary was dangling from her hands. She stood before the altar, bowed, and then walked up the steps to the sanctuary, turned, and looked at them with hands outstretched.
A few seconds later, Dick Morissey with his wooden Medjugorje rosary crossed the church to whisper to Ralph, “Father, she’s been doing that for days now. It’s giving us the creeps.”
Cedric looked at Ralph. His old friend got up, and walked up the aisle to look up at the woman.
She was a not unpretty young woman. Wisps of dark hair came from under her veil. She had large Irish features. When the priest looked up at her, she looked down eagerly.
“Excuse me... Miss?” he said to her.
She waited.
“Who are you?”
She smiled beatifically and said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”
Ralph took in a deep breath, and trying to smile back said, “Oh,” and then turned around to sit down.


Tina was already late for class, so when she heard someone call, “Ms. Foster,” she knew she was in trouble.
It was Mr. Stearne though.
“Sir?” she said. He was living up to his name, looking stern as ever.
“Auditions for Barefoot in the Park are this Tuesday,” he told her. “I hope you’ll be there.”
“Oh,” said Tina, caught up short again by her usually prickly teacher. “Thank you, sir.”
“No problem,” Mr. Stearne said. He raised an eyebrow. Tina waited for him to speak.
“I assume you’re late for class, again?”
Tina nodded.
“Then I don’t know why on earth you’re standing here staring at me. Go.”
Tina turned and headed for calculus, strangely comforted by the return of the fascist Mr. Stearne that she had come to know, if not love, in the course of the last two years.

“He turns me on,” Madeleine said, finishing her milk.
“What?” Tina turned to her, outraged.
Beside Vaughan and across from Mackenzie, Ian sniggered.
“What?” Madeleine said.
“For God’s sake, it’s Stearne.” Tina told her. “It’s like saying you get turned on by my dad.”
“Your dad’s not bad looking,” Madeleine said. “But Stearne’s our age.”
“He is not,” Roy protested.
“He may not be your age,” Madeleine told the weedy boy. “But he’s only twenty-four.”
“Is that all?” Vaughan said.
“That’s right,” Tina cocked her head. “It’s just that... He’s a teacher, we’re students, and he’s so...”
“Stern?” Madeleine suggested, and they both laughed.
“Can you imagine having sex with him?” Madeleine asked. She set her brow and pouted her lips, “Harder, Ms. Foster. Now move counter clockwise, Ms. Foster. Please, Ms. Foster, you’re not emoting enough.”
“Please stop!” Tina said putting a hand up.
Suddenly Luke was on one end of the table, and Rodder on the other with their trays.
“Really,” Vaughan murmured with a smile, “Please stop.”
“Can a lowly serf like me sit with you all?” Luke asked. Rodder didn’t ask, he just pulled over a chair and sat beside Madeleine.
“Just this once,” Tina told Luke, feeling a little guilty for having kissed him, yet actually being turned on by the idea of Mr. Stearne saying, “Harder, Ms. Foster. Harder.”

Roy turned around when Kevin Foster called his name after gym class. He must have done something wrong. No, everything. Gym class was awful. Even someone as nice as Coach Foster couldn’t overlook what a disastrous athlete Roy was turning out to be.
“Can I talk to you a second?” Coach Foster said.
Roy nodded and came forward.
“Are... is high school alright for you?”
“Yessir.”
“And classes? Gym’s not.... too bad?”
“No, sir—Mr. Foster.”
“Good,” Kevin nodded.
Roy waited to be dismissed by his gym teacher. Kevin finally must have realized this. So he told him to go get changed.
“And Roy?”
Roy turned around on his way to the locker room.
“Is there... anything you need?”
“No, Mr. Foster.”
Kevin nodded. “That’s good. Don’t forget to study.”

THAT AFTERNOON CEDRIC DIDN’T FEEL LIKE DOING ANYTHING. The first thing he’d learned about being an artist is that it was like being anything else. It could get old, and always the work required discipline. He’d have to do it when he didn’t feel like it as much as when he did.
But not today.
He was heading out of the house when there was a ring at the doorbell.
“Is this the house of Cedric Fitzgerald?”
“Yes?” he said.
“Package for you.”
The boy, who should have been in school, Cedric thought, handed it to him along with a pen. “Please sign.”
“Cedric Fitzgerald,” the boy said as he handed the package over and took back the notepad. “I’ve heard that name before”.
“I’m the playwright laureate of Ohio. Does that ring a bell?”
The boy looked at him strangely.
“No,” he said at last.
“Please go away,” Cedric told him.


Later Cedric took the Number Two bus west, down Michael, past the school, all the way to where Michael Street crossed the train tracks and became King Highway and the houses distanced themselves from the road. It went south until King’s Highway looked over the large expanse of Lake Cherokee, and then turned north on the state route. He was far out of town, passing Lake Clare and Holy Spirit monastery when he arrived at the cemetery. He passed the Friars’ burial ground and the low length of Holy Spirit to enter through a black metal gated place of shade trees. The leaves were turning colors, the sun shone through them as Cedric found the little stone that read:


MARILYN ALEXANDER FITZGERALD

1950- 1985

Talitha cumi


As Cedric took out his cigarettes he reflected that it was strange to be a widow, keeping peaceful company with the dead.






i i

The first time it crossed Cedric’s mind Marilyn might not always be around was over eighteen years ago. For extra income as well as a little something to do after the last show in New York had flopped, Cedric had taken on the drama class and the English class at Jamnia High School. His friend Greg Stearne had told him about the position, then referred Cedric to the school while he took a bit of vacation.
“Actually,” Margaret Stearne told Cedric the night he and Madeleine had come by the house to visit the family, “he’s going loopy, and the principal told him to rest for a while. Jamnia’s like that.” By this she meant the high school, and not the town. “It will drive you loopy,” Margaret insisted.
Jamnia was a new school. Up until then there had been no high school in town. The white kids had gone to the high school in Uz, to the north, and the Black kids had gone south to Bashan. The Catholics usually crossed the river into Indiana and went to Saint Mary’s or Saint Xavier’s. The rest scrambled to find an identity and send their kids to the right place. All of that changed in a heartbeat when suddenly, across the field from where Cedric and Marilyn lived in the large white house they could barely maintain, the city tore down the old asylum, and built Jamnia High School.
When Cedric began teaching English, he knew it couldn’t last. The school was ugly for one thing, and for another he was tired of splitting up fights between different groups of kids used to being educated in different places and unwilling to get along just yet. Cedric had never cared for school much when he’d been a student, and didn’t care for it now that he was teaching. There were other ways, he was deciding that day, to pay for their lifestyle. He and Marilyn didn’t have to go in for such high living. They had no business living high anyway. And while they wouldn’t sell the house, renting it out wasn’t a bad idea. Whatever, whatever, but get out of this high school business.
Kevin Foster was looking stranger than ever that day. He had turned out to be a smart boy despite Cedric’s doubts. Kevin was the Colonel’s son, and Cedric had never had anything good to say about Colonel Foster. Kevin was a football player, and Cedric had never had anything good to say about that either. But he was smart, very smart and what was far more important; Kevin was good. Most of the time the boy was quiet. If someone said something to him, two or three minutes might pass before he stopped his staring off into space to say, “What’s that?” then grin and nod.
So there were times that Cedric thought he might keep the job just to see what happened to these kids. Margaret Stearne was going to star in the play this year, and before and after practice she would tell him all the school gossip. And then Ida’s daughter was in high school now, the head cheerleader and everything. If Aileen wasn’t as bookish as she was attractive, she might have turn into a vamp. Already she had stolen someone’s man.
That’s where the whole situation with Race Cane came in. Race was not unattractive, but she might as well have been. She had pigtails and glasses and she wasn’t a cheerleader. She was in band like her brother. And Cedric knew all about their personal business because Margaret told him. The Canes, like the Stearnes, had lived on Eleventh Street for years, were Lebanese Catholics, and had probably come over from Beirut on the same boat.
“Kevin quit her,” Margaret said indelicately. “You know what a bastard he must be to do that? He’s the quarterback. Do you know what status she had? And now she’s the mousy girl dropped by the quarterback for that bitch, Aileen Lawry.”
Aileen wasn’t really a bitch. She was just pretty and a cheerleader and it just wasn’t fair that now she should get the guy too. She was also younger than Race. So it was Margaret who felt perfectly satisfied in telling Cedric, “I think she dropped the bomb on Kevin.”
“What are you talking about?” Cedric said. Margaret had come over to the house. Marilyn was getting bigger by the day as Madeleine grew in her body.
“I think she’s knocked up,” Margaret declared.
“That would be horrible,” Marilyn said.
And then Margaret paused and suddenly the senior’s face fell.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “You’re right, Maryl. It would be.”

So Cedric was thinking about all of these things when Principal Croft came into his room and stood at the doorway. Cedric got up and came to the door.
“Cedric,” Croft murmured. “You better go to the hospital. In fact, Nadeen said she wants to give you a ride.”
“What are you–?”
“It’s Marilyn,” Croft said. “She’s hemorrhaging. They think she’ll lose the baby.”

“I’M FINE,” MARILYN DECLARED.
“Except for that whole bleeding all over the floor thing,” Cedric said.
“Well, except for that,” Marilyn nodded. “Honey, hand me my makeup bag.”
“Aren’t you about to go to sleep?”
“As soon as you leave,” Marilyn said.
“Then what’s the point?”
“Because I want to look good for whoever should stroll in here. Now please quit being difficult, Ced, and hand me the damn makeup bag.”
While Marilyn did a rush job blushing her cheeks with streaks of lipstick, she said, “Your mama was here already. I suspect she’ll be at the house to comfort you. I love her, but she was getting on my nerves. I told her, ‘Gladys, you gotta go.’ It’s bad enough my mama’s coming tomorrow.”
“She is?”
“Um, hum,” Marilyn nodded, taking out her compact mirror to check how she was doing and then getting out eyeshadow. “And bringing Daddy too. I can’t remember the last time I saw that son of a bitch. He’ll probably tell me to have an abortion. You know one of the doctors already suggested it.”
“An abortion?” Cedric left his voice neutral. Marilyn nodded.
“I told him I’ve been waiting over thirty years for this baby. It’s no way in hell it’s not coming now—at least not because of me. They just don’t understand. Besides... we’re Catholic. We’d go to hell, and then it wouldn’t matter that having an abortion had saved my life, now would it?”
Cedric relaxed and, docile, shook his head.
“You’re silent as hell, Ced,” Marilyn commented. But she kept on talking.
“However, the doctor looked at me and said, ‘You probably shouldn’t have another baby.’ I laughed in his face. I’m thirty-three on my first child. I certainly wasn’t planning on having another. Hell,” Marilyn clicked the compact shut, “I wasn’t planning on this one.”

WHEN CEDRIC AND RALPH GOT HOME, Gladys was standing in the living room smoking a cigarette, hand on her hip.
“Is Marilyn alright?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Good. Some white boy is walking all around the kitchen looking like a tiger in a cage. He said he needed to see you. I told him you had shit to deal with. But...” Gladys grew quiet, and came up closer to Ralph and Cedric, “I think he has shit to deal with too.”
They followed Cedric to the kitchen where he found little Kevin Foster pacing back and forth. He looked up, the blue eyes sophomore girls went wild about, now themselves wild with worry.
“Mr. Fitzgerald!” he said in his usual, quiet voice that had a hint of a southern accent.
“Kevin?”
“How’s your wife?”
Cedric could tell Kevin was being decent before going on to his own problems.
“She’s good. She’ll be home tomorrow.”
“Good,” Kevin said, nodding manfully. “Sir, I need to talk to you.” His eyes scanned Gladys and the priest. He added, “In private?”
Gladys threw back her head, barked a laugh, reached into the old refrigerator, handed a beer to Ralph, took one for herself and said, “Come on, priest, let’s go to the sittin’ room.”
When they had gone, Cedric gestured for Kevin to sit down, and then he sat down across from him.
“Mr. Fitzgerald,” Kevin said, playing with his hands. “I gotta problem, and I don’t know what to do about it. Well, I do know what to do about it, but I don’t know how.”
Cedric just stared at the miserable boy who was looking at the table. The boy looked up.
“See... I got Aileen in a bit of trouble.”
“She’s pregnant?”
Pricks like porcupine quills were popping out all over Cedric’s face and his arms. This was his best friend’s daughter.
“Yes sir.”
A child was growing inside of Aileen, Ida’s grandson, or granddaughter. And the seed had been planted by this boy right here.
“And the Colonel,” Kevin went on, “my Daddy. He doesn’t want her to have it. He told me that. He told me about my career and my future and said I couldn’t let some Ohio girl screw it up. That’s what he called her, ‘Some Ohio girl!’”
Cedric was about to open his mouth when Kevin went on.
“But I screwed it up, Mr. Fitzgerald. And now my Daddy doesn’t want me to—he wants to give me the money and take Aileen to have.... He doesn’t want Aily to have it.”
Cedric said nothing. He let Kevin ramble on and find his own words. He thought, Twice in one day... Same circumstances and yet.... The complete other side.
“But... we did this, right? And when I was in school... at Our Lady, they told us about responsibility and.… And I’m a Catholic. I mean, really. I’m not good, but I was an altar boy. I know I made mistakes, but I can’t have Aileen kill our baby. I just... but I don’t know what to do.”
Kevin was beside himself with misery.
“So you came to me?”
Kevin stopped, paused, and swallowed.
“So I came to you, sir.”
“Why don’t you eat something, calm yourself, and then go home. I’ll take care of it.”
Kevin looked up at him with so much trust and relief Cedric thought he’d laugh.
“Really?” said Kevin.
Cedric nodded.
He got up to find soup and a pot and called for Gladys.
“Yeah?”
“Mama, help me make some dinner, alright?”
Gladys nodded. She looked at Kevin, “You alright, baby?” she drawled.
He nodded, shyly.
Cedric was glad that Kevin hadn’t asked what he planned to do. Because he had absolutely no idea.


HOPE YOU ENJOYED, AND THERE WILL BE MORE MONDAY NIGHT
 
I did enjoy this portion a lot! It was fascinating to hear about some of the characters pasts. This is a great story full of interesting twists and turns. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you are having a nice weekend.
 
I;m glad you're enjoying it. What did you enjoy learning the most? What was the most interesting?
 
Cedric and Marilyn's history is the most interesting to me and that backstory was what I enjoyed learning the most. Tragic but interesting.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top