The Lights in Room 42

[ChrisGibson]

Chapter Six















“It looks smaller,” Doug declared. They were all thinking it as they stood in an old hallway, and out of some of the rooms came boys, while small groups of other boys walked past them

“Shouldn’t they be in class?” Swann wondered.

“Is it just me?” Joe whispered, “or are they smaller?”

“They’re not smaller than you,” Doug said, grinning at Joe, who frowned at him comically, and Swann wondered how well they knew each other.

“This way, guys,” Peter pointed down the hall and up the steps. “That’s the way to our old lair.”

“You all had an old lair?” Sal wondered.

Sal had always been a day student. It was Joe who had come to live at school junior year, tired of his parents.

“They did,” Joe said.

Sal followed after, feeling too tall, hunched over, his hands jammed in the pockets of his trousers.

“I feel awkward,” he confessed,

Jill, noticing all the boys looking at her declared, “I feel sexy.”

It was at this declaration that Pete made a noise and Swann, reaching the top of the steps said, “Uncle Abbot!”

Even in canvas pants and a white tee shirt, Eutropius Prynne looked like himself and he said, “Gentlemen, it’s good to see you even if this is not where I expected to see you.”

“We…” Pete began.

“Came tp the funeral of someone you barely know out of a sense of school solidarity mixed with guilt,” Prynne said, “and having arrived here thought it was better to go look at your old rooms than sit in the chapel?”

“That is pretty much….” Peter began.

“Exactly the truth,” Swann said.

“Mr. Portis,” Abbott Prynne announced, “and Mr. Merrin, and I believe Joseph as well.”

“Hey, Father,” Joe waved shyly.

“Well, this is not a place you are supposed to be,” Abbot Prynne said, “and the place I’m supposed to be is downstairs putting on vestments, so look around for a few minutes, try not to make the students feel awkward about seeing you old men here, and then get your asses down to the chapel. We’re starting soon.”

“Father Reed won’t mind us up here?” Pete said.

“Father Reed was much closer to Garrett than I was. He and some others went to the funeral home to meet Garrett’s family and come back with the casket. Casket,” Prynne shook his head. “It’s not a word that sits well with me.”

Suddenly he embraced Peter and then Swann. And he embraced all of them even Chuck and Jill.

“Life is a precious thing,” he said, looking up at them as he prepared to go down the hall they had come up. “It’s good for us all to be here.”



Ave verum corpus, natum

de Maria Virgine,

vere passum, immolatum

in cruce pro homine

cuius latus perforatum

fluxit aqua et sanguine:

esto nobis prægustatum

in mortis examine



“It feels different,” Doug whispered to Swann as they sat in a pew in the back of the church.

“Well, this much is the same,” Swann said, “us in the back, everything at the front. But yes, it feels different.”

The church was crowded after all, and Swann remembered that this was a school with seven years worth of students, so it wasn’t just people from his class, and there were even students here now who were in this chapel. There were, of course, family, but Swann didn’t know whom. What he saw was, grim enough, a deeply polished oaken casket piled with white flowers, and Abbot Prynne, in black robes, was swinging a smoking brass censor all around it. Funerals were always so strange because the individuality and even the death of one was wiped out, and in place of the person was the strange and impenetrable box, the casket, the jewelry box bearing the jewel. Garrett was there. Garrett was in there. Garrett they hardly knew with his not quite chin and his mouth open in a half smile, his sweeping forlock of blond hair, except none of that could have survived the… injury. Except Garrett was NOT there. Something was there in place of Garrett. Something not Garrett was there.



O Iesu dulcis, O Iesu pie,

O Iesu, fili Mariae.

Miserere mei. Amen



This was the song they sang on Good Friday, after the Cross had been lifted, after the passion had been heard and everyone had sang, “Behold, behold the wood of the Cross.” This was the one before Communion, as it was right now, where you thought about the dead Jesus on Mary’s lap, the dead body in her hands. How heavy it must have been all that Jesus, and none of him alive, all that Jesus and nothing but meat, not like this light Jesus, this Jesus in bread and wine that you could so easily hold in your hands in not in your mind.

But really, Swann did not have to think about that Jesus and that Mary, he had only to think about his own father and grandmother and how, in the end, there had been nothing left. But Dad had been light as ashes. All of his scorn, all of his reproaches, his lack of tenderness burnt and then ground down to phosphorus. His mother never purchased a vasc. Dad just sat in a black box in his old office for two years.

“It is different, Doug,” Swann said. He would explain it all later. They were about to stand up

“The lord be with you

“And also with you.”

“Lift up your hearts.”

“We lift them up to the Lord…”



This was not the time to remember the past or to reflect on its unsavory moments. When he’d arrived at Saint Francis and saw a small crowd of other Black kids, he’d run right to them and spent a long time covering up the hurt of their rejection. They smelled wealth on him. They smelled whiteness. Those first days were hard before he found his own crowd, when he was called Uncle Tom even while kids who looked like him were doing everything thy could to be liked by the white kids, and taking every turn to humiliate him. It did not do to think on it much now. There had been Black kids at his old school, in his neighborhood back home, but he would understand and he would explain later, that there was a certain class of black person who sent their kids to Catholic school because a good private school was out of reach and they thought their baby was too good for public. Though in time he gained their respect, and in years to come Black friends from the lower grades, Swann never felt like he was really one of them, became a true part of them. He wasn’t, not really.

There were the names of friends, Chuck, Vince, Varlon, Corey, but four out of the already small cast of brown characters at Saint Francis was a sorry number. As he looked around the crowded chapel, Swann sought old enemies: Tate Howard, Lee Darrington, Jay Crockett, their white lackeys, Max Jenkins, Aaron Ellis. But they weren’t here today

They took communion and Swann thought, well I should do this more often. He had gone the week before with Peter, but he hardly went to Mass on his own. During the reception in the school cafeteria, he stood with Doug, remember Max Jenkinds, Lee and the others.

“It wasn’t so much that they were awful,” Doug said, “but that their awfulness gave the white kids permission to be awful to us. And there were plenty,” his eyes roved the room, “of awful white kids.”

Swann only nodded.

“You and your friends shielded me from most of that.” Doug said.

“Until we left.”

“Until you left. And then things took a turn.”

“Yes,” Swann remember. “But in the end you got your revenge.”

Doug suddenly cackled and clapped his hands together, smiling at his cousin.

“I really fucking did, didn’t I?”

“You’re Douglass Merrin,” Swann said. “I don’t think I ever had to shield you from anything. You’d survive the flood.”

Doug laughed and murmured over his punch, “or at least a trash compactor.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Well I’m glad all of them went to the funeral despite how little or how much they knew Garrett. The funeral service was written well and movingly. Thanks for sharing this great portion and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Swann didn’t particularly want to mingle, but he was hungry, and this was not about him. He reminded himself of that. This wasn’t even like one of those neutral things where it wasnt about anybody. This was a funeral. So he got in the line for a sandwich and when somebody said, “Excuse me,” Swann prepared to apologize, sure he had stepped in line ahead of them.

“You’re Swann Portis, aren’t you?” the man asked.

“Mr. Mueller.”

“It’s really just Max,” he said.

“Alright… Max.” Swann helped himself to a ham sandwich and some chips.

“I actually thought you were… Doug Merrin is your cousin, I believe?”

“He is.”

“Ah,” the dark haired man said.

“You probably don’t remember,” Max who had taken a sandwich for himself, but declined the chips, said, reaching for a lemonade and handing another one to Swann, “I was the choir director when you went here.”

“Yes,” Swann said, “and the director now.”

“Right?” Max laughed nervously and the two of them got out of the area where the line was developing.

“You were in my choir for a week or so. And then you left.”

“That is true,” Swann said. “The truth is I couldn’t do it.”

“It’s a shame you think that, because I remember you carrying a tune, and I think you could have done it.”

“Oh, no,” Swann said, “it’s not that. It’s the way I was. I was hugely depressed for a while. I barely made it through school.”

Max Mueller’s handsome face changed. It was strange because he looked just the same as he had back then. Back then was only seven years ago, Swann supposed.

“I wish I had known,” Max said.

“No one knew,” said Swann. “I don’t think I’d ever been that sad in my life. I joined choir thinking it would make me feel better, but it just made me sadder. I really should have been on someone’s couch at the time.

Max nodded, then said, “Well what about these days?”

Swann had always wondered what it would be like to meet his teachers later in life. Some of them weren’t that much older. Max, for instance, must have been fresh out of school when they were there. He had to have been about twenty four when Swann was a fifteen year old Freshmen.

“Would you be free to talk?” he asked.

Nine years. That would make him about thirty now.

“I can’t really talk long,” Swann said. “I’m with friends. I didn’t come alone.”

“Oh,” Max Mueller said. Then with a swiftness that astounded Swann, he said, “Well then what about some other time? What about later this week?”

“Later for us to …. Talk?”

“Sure,” Max shrugged.

“Alright then,” Swann said, “let me give you my number.”

“You wouldn’t be free tonight, would you?”

Swann examined Max Mueller. They were about a height. He dressed a little too old, like he was aiming for forty though he was thirty and he had curly brown hair, almost tight curls. Swann wondered what it would be like to take his hand through them, and then stopped himself

“No, today and tonight I am with my friends, and I came with Pete Agalathagos.”

“Mr. Agalathagos,” Max murmured, looking over to where Pete was talking to his cousins and Harry Proestos.

“He has turned out well.”

“Yes he has.”

“You all have.”

“He’s in the Army. He’s iiving in Indy.”

“Well, are you living in Indy?”

“I’m not. I’m at Saint Damian’s.”

“College.”

“No gas station.”

Max looked at him.

“Yes, the college,” Swann said, and Max laughed.

“You’re going to be a smart ass.”

“Yes.” Swann said. “Mostly likely.”

“Well,” Max said, clearing his throat and adjusting his tie, “Saint Damian’s isn’t very far, and I wouldn’t mind paying a visit.”

“Oh?” Swann raised an eyebrow.

“Now that we’re both adults, I’m sure we’d have lots to discuss.”

Swann nodded.

“We just might.”

And as Max Mueller wrote his name and number on the back of a napkin and handed it to Swann before tipping his imaginary hat in salute, and heading toward a circle of faculty.



“Was Mr. Mueller hitting on you?” Doug wondered when Swann found him standing with Jill and Chuck.

“Max,” Swann said.

“Um hum.”

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?” Doug shrugged.

“Anyway, I’m coming back with you for the night.”

“That’ll be great.”

“Is Pete staying with you?”

“Tonight? Probably.”

“Probably?”

“Yes.”

“Pete and Max Mueller!”

“Don’t start.”

“No,” Doug raised a hand. “I respect it.

“Besides, Pete is going to be gone in the morning. And then you can have all the Max Mueller you want.”

“Would you stop–” Swann swatted his cousin on the head.

“Look, I don’t know about Pete, and I definitely dont know about Max Mueller. The man says he wants to talk and go out for pizza. Or something. And I didn’t discourage him.”

“Exactly!” Doug snapped his fingers. “You didn’t discourage him.”

“Well, it’s not like Pete’s the only person you’ve been with,” Jill said prosaic.

“You can do what you want,” Duck said. “I’m just saying–”

“Speaking of,” Swann interrupted, turning the large metal ring over and over on his finger, “Max said he thought I was you.”

“Oh?”

“Oh, indeed. And… You and Joe Stanley?”

“Joe Stanley?” Jill said.

“Whatabouthim?” Doug said, not taking his eyes from the road.

“I didn’t know you all were friends.”

“Yes,” Doug said, “We’re friends.”

“No, no, no, no fuck you,” Swann said. “If you’re going ask me all about Pete and Max Mueller, you’ve got to tell me something”.

“I told you,” Doug said, “Joe and I were friends. Joe looks like he’s with Sal and I am finished with this discussion.”

“Well,” Swann murmured.

“Well,” Duck returned after a moment.

Jill Jill and Chuck looked to each other, and Chuck told Swann, “Your cousin’s even better than you at shutting a discussion down.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! It seems like everyone is interested in Swann. I am very interested to see what happens next. I guess I’ll have to wait and see. Excellent writing!

 

[ChrisGibson]

That was a great portion! It seems like everyone is interested in Swann. I am very interested to see what happens next. I guess I’ll have to wait and see. Excellent writing!

Yes, Swann is garnering a lot of interest and what happens will be.... interesting.

 

[ChrisGibson]

“Doug?”

“Doug?”

“Duck?”

“Goose.”

Sal laughed, “See what I did there. But seriously, I saw how you looked when Duck showed up. And he’s gonna be there tonight when we all get home.”

“Yes, probably.”

“I thought you all were going to be something. I know how you felt about him.”

“I guess it’s sort of like Pete and Swann. We went different places.”

Then Joe said, “I for real thought I wouldn’t see him again.”

“And now you’re going to see him again tonight. You all didn’t really get to talk at he funeral.”

“You’re awfully invested in my feelings for Douglass Merrin. Are you getting tired of me?” Joe smiled.

“You’re my best friend, and you know that. No matter what else we’re best friends. But I want you to be happy. And I know the way you were with him. I know you all were real close and then things didn’t even fall apart. You all just kind of…. Well, we went to college. You went separate ways. But now your ways aren’t separate, and it just seems like it’s a real fucking shame that Garrett’s gone, but it’s brought us all together, and since we’re back together, we should make it all work. It’s like a gift. We’re friends with Swann, finally, you see Duck again, even Pete is back. I just believe that we shouldn’t waste a gift, and… look, there’s Harold’s Chicken shack.”

“I should get chicken for Duck,” Joe said. “I will get him chicken.”

“Not a bad idea,” Sal said.

“Birds eating birds,” Joe commented.

Sal grunted a laugh.

They swung into the parking lot in Barlow, the neighborhood north of the mall, and when they wnetered, Sal laughed and Joe followed his pointing finger.

Swann and Duck and Pete and Jill and Chuck were all in line

“Great minds think a like.”

“I didn’t feel like caf food,” Swann said, “and we were passing Harold’s and it just seemed–”

“I just followed you all,” Pete shrugged.

“I thought of the honey sauce,” Duck said. And then he told Joe. “I thought of us. I thought if he has any sense he’ll swing in here.”

Joe nodded and Swann again saw what passed between his cousin and Joe. He prided himself on knowing a lot, but this was something he knew nothing of until today.

Why’s it your business, a voice said in his head.

“My problem is knowing what I want. I always have such a hard time deciding.”

“If it’s a bunch of us we could put it on one card,’ Pete suggested.

“That’s confusing things,” Jill shook her head. “But I’ll tell you what,” she turned to Swann. “If we chip in on the twenty four piece–”

“Then nobody needs to get anything else,” Doug said.

“You,” Jill told him, “are not thinking like a college student.”

“Yeah, we’re going to sit on this chicken for a while,” Swann said. “We can get the twenty four piece and Chuck, can you get the bag of biscuits and the tub of beans and rice?”

“Do we want fries?” he asked.

“Do you want fries?” Swann asked him.

“Not really.”

“Then no.”

“Do they always buy food like this?” Sal looked at Pete.

Pete shrugged.

“I’ve never seen them in action.”

“Yes,” Doug said. Then he said, “I’ll order four fried chicken sandwiches, and why don’t you order four too? And you and Sal can order a three piece and a four piece. All of these come with drinks and we mix and match when we get back.”

“That’s complicated, Duck.”

“It isn’t,” Doug said to Joe.

“It’s either complicated or its genius.”



“Well actually,” Chuck said, crawling into the backseat with a chicken breast, “we’ll mix and match what’s left when we get home.”

“Don’t eat everything,” Jill said, taking out a hot, crispy drumstick as Doug pulled out of the parking lot and headed down Kedzie. “And thank you so much. I was tired of driving and I wanted a little something.”

“I’m glad we got fries in the end,” Swann said, cramming a fry into his mouth.





“The drive is shorter with food in your belly,” Chuck commented as theirs was the first car that rolled onto campus. They were all wiping their mouths and their fingers to hide the evidence of eating, and the car was filled with the crunchy, buttery smells of fried chicken, beans and biscuits. When they came back into Dwenger Hall, Trisha and Katey said, “Do we smell chicken?” and because they knew it was a shitty thing to invite yourself to a feast and bring nothing, Trisha said, “I got vodka and a bottle of wine, and Katey said, “I have half a bag of weed and a pecan pie.”

Sal and Joe knew what it was like to hang out with their friends from the soccer dorm, but boys didn’t know about supplying much more than booze. This organized feasting where half the food was laid out on a beach on the floor of Swann’s room and the other half in their room, doors open, with people passing between one and the other and shouting across the hallway was new, and because no one was left out, no one minded the cross talk

“Are you glad you came?” Swann asked Peter.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Because this is all very college and young peoply and not like the Army at all.”

“It’s a little like the Army,” Pete said, grinning. “But mostly its like being back at Saint Francis.”

“Yeah,” Swann realized. “Yeah, I see that now.”

“The only thing I wonder,” Pete whispered, wrapping a discreet arm around Swann’s waist, “is how long will it be till we have some time to ourselves.”

This was something Swann had actually put out of his mind when his cousin arrived. After all, it seemed more than apparent that Doug planned to stay with him, and they hadn’t kept company in a while.

Everything his cousin was thinking, Doug had foreseen, and if no one else had, he saw Pete’s hand go around Swann’s waist.

“We need to figure our sleeping arrangements,” he said, putting down his beer.

Before anyone could say anything, he said, “Chuck, do you greatly mind if I crash with you?”

“I don’t mind at all, but you do know there’s a whole spare room on the first floor?”

“On our floor.” Katey said.

“Yeah. It was Pam’s but they never got anyone in there,”

“Then it’s locked.”

“No it isn’t,” Chuck shook his head. “Last year me and Jill had a copies of the key made.”

“Isn’t that completely illegal,” Sal said, “and aren’t there signs on the keys that say don’t replicate?”

“And yet you be surprised how many key makers seem not to care about those signs,” Jim tapped his forehead.

“Well, then,” Jill stood up and stretched, “I suppose it’s time to wrap this party up and let good children go to bed.”

“Do you know,” Sal began, “I completely forgot this day started with us going to a funeral?”

“And yet,” Doug noted, “you and Pete are the only ones still wearing your funeral clothes.”

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE END OF CHAPTER SIX
The chicken was primarily split up between Chuck and Swann, and Swann didn’t complain. Chuck murmured something about white people being afraid of food, and Swann believed he was right. He’d had two aunts, the Godmothers and every holiday they came to his grandmother’s house with foil and containers and then, after eating a huge meal, they made sure to take as much food as they could. White people never did this. They always hung around the food, never wanting to be the first to reach for it, never wanting to be the person who suggested it was time to eat, never wanted to take the leftovers. Swann and Chuck took the leftovers.

Doug yawned and said, “Yawl, is there a place I can shower?”

“Yes,” said Swann, “The shower room.”

“I’ll show you,” Joe said rising, and Sal left as well and, at last, Pete and Swann were alone.

“I need to open a window,” Swann said. “This place smells like chicken, biscuits and too many people.”

They lay on the twin beds, tired and too warm from the day, not needing to touch and waiting for Doug to return. He knocked politely and was in pj pants and a tee shirt, and said, “I just wanted you all to know I’m headed to bed.”

“Thank you cousin,”

“Brunch tomorrow?”

“Absolutely. I’m not going to class”

“I didn’t think you were. Goodnight, Peter.”

“Night, Duck.”

The shorthand of family was excellent, Doug having just told him the bathroom was clear, that no one was coming back to this room, that he had the morning with Pete, that whatever there was to discuss could be discussed over lunch, late in the day.

“I need a shower,” Pete said.

Swann got them towels. They stripped in the silent night and went to the men’s shower room. Swann had never thought how nice it was, the flagstone floor, the brown walls, the yellow light, how quiet it was, and the little dividing door to where the stalls and the urinals were. Wrapping his towel about his waist, Swann went to the stalls to relieve himself, but Pete hung his towel on one of the showers and naked and magnificent, stood and peed in the urinal, hit the flusher and went back to the showers. Swann remembered the first time a man had pissed in front of him after sex, how strangely sexy it felt to hear him, to see his naked body, legs apart, doing what? Making his mark, claiming his territory? Swann didn’t have a lot of shame, but he wasn’t the sort of person who marched about a shower room naked. He wrapped himself in his towel and made his way to Peter’s shower, the only one running, and there he washed Peter before he washed himself, scrubbed his back and shoulders, washed his lean chest while Peter closed his eyes, went down to wash this thighs and his sex, and on his knees, with rivulets of water running past him, he took up Peter’s penis, long and tapered, dark ivory, and took it into his mouth. Sucking cock was like kissing. He could explain the pleasure of fucking, but the pleasure of this, of swallowing Peter, of holding the length of him, licking up and down, sucking, sucking further, massaging, the attention paid to balls and taint, to fingers slipped in ass, he could not explain. It lasted until Peter lifted him off of his knees and turned him around scrubbing him with care, tenderly washing Swann, shoulders, back, balls and ass, kneeling now to kiss the hills of his ass, to insert his tongue, to lick and tug in those secret places.

Almost they didn’t leave the shower. Almost it was hard to remember this was the very same day as the funeral. When they stepped out, Swann didn’t think about not having a towel or the sensitive way he felt about his own body. His body was Peter’s body and Peter was magnificent. Taking Swann’s hand he opened the door and walked down the hall nude, his body wet and golden in the low light of the hall. He opened the door to Swann’s room and locked it behind him. Swann was filled with that anticipation that made his body shutter as if he were nothing but a mouth watering. He didn’t want any pretense, any niceness. All of their lives until now, this whole day was a pretense. He reached back to see Peter’s eyes almost full, his mouth a little open, his cock, long, at attention like an antenna. He moved the twin bed to the window so that whatever noise he made didn’t go to the hallway. He didn’t turn the light out. This was the furthest dorm from campus. There was no one to see, or if there was then lucky someone, and Swann crawled onto the bed.

He opened his drawer and took out the lube. He poured it on his hands and swiped his ass then massaged Peter’s stiffening cock. He took his jar off poppers and handed them to Pete whose eyes widened as he sniffed, and then Swann inhaled, feeling himself melt as he pressed his ass back into Peter, and as they fit themselves together, Pete, gasping, pressed deep inside him and trembling, their two bodies, now joined, took up the slowly increasing rhythm of sex.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent end to the chapter! It seems like everyone is fast becoming a good group of friends. I wasn’t surprised that Swann and Pete ended up together again. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

That was an excellent end to the chapter! It seems like everyone is fast becoming a good group of friends. I wasn’t surprised that Swann and Pete ended up together again. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

I'm glad you enjoyed the story. They are all coming together, aren't they? And no, I don't think Swann and Pete were a surprise at all.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Chapter Seven





























Junior year, Joe Stanley moved into the dormitories of Saint Francis.

He’d always thought the boarding students were strange, but all through sophomore year, and especially during the summer, he;d began to envy people who didn’t have to go home. He was tired of his mother and his father and the fighting that never stopped, and he found himself in Abbot Prynne’s office a few months into junior. The black and white habited abbot lit a cigarette and, inhaling, asked Joseph what he needed.

“I want to live on campus,”

“Have you talked to your parents?”

Joe had the feeling Prynne was just asking because it was good form.

“They can’t afford it. I mean, they can barely afford to send me here now. Say, how much is it to go here if you’re a boarding student?”

Prynne shrugged.

“You already said you can’t afford it, so why ask?”

“I hate my home. I can’t stand it. I can’t be around my parents anymore. All they do is drink and fight. Half the time I stay with Sal.”

“Salvador Goode?”

“Yeah. Yes, Father.”

And then Joe had said, “Really, I just wish they’d get a divorce.”

Prynne nodded sagely over this and, like a black dragon, blew smoke from his nose, then said, “Why don’t you go to class for now and I’ll get back to you.. Give me two days. I’ll see what I can do.”

Joe stood up and nodded manfully.

“Thank you, Father,” he said, and left.

Prynne thought that three days was too long for a boy and a week was an eternity. What would he do? He couldn’t very well just give the boy free room and board, that was how they made their money. And if everybody came asking for a room and he gave it to them… but then every body wouldn’t come, that was the problem with that logic, and of course the other problem was that Christ had never been logical. Jesus would never have said, “Well, now I just can’t give everyone bread and a fish. He would have made bread, In fact he did. Prynne wanted to talk to his brothers about this, but of course if he told them, then he would be bound by their votes and their decisions and some were not as inspired by Christ as Prynne felt they should be. And then there would be the pity they felt for a boy who didn’t want pity, but help. Prynne would have to charge something, or figure out some sort of scholarship.

Joe was no scholar. He was a mediocre student on the best of days. He was, however, an excellent soccer player, and so, Prynne and Brother Herculean sat up drinking coffee and smoking that night and somewhere before the Office of Vigils created the Pat Ackerman Scholarship and decided it was work a thousand dollars.

“We could make it more!” Herulean suggested.

“We couldn’t,” Prynne aid, sensibly. “Catholics are cheap. That would be unbelievable.’

“It leaves a gap.”

“Tell Joe’s parents and give him a job in the library.”

Joseph Stanley was more elated than Eutropuus Prynne had ever seen the boy, and that afternoon he talked with Mrs. Stanley.

“I know he wants to leave,” she said over the phone, crying.

“I understand. His sister’s gone and there’s never any peace here. Half the time he’s with Sal, It would be good for him.”

She seemed exhausted and sad Eutropius Prynne was glad he’d never married or had children, He wished he could comfort her and hoped one day, on the other side of things, she could have some peace.

But for the moment there was peace for Joe, and Sal and some of his soccer friends moved him into a room at the end of the Freshmen wing, and it was in this elated state that Douglass Merrin found him.



“Oh hey,” was the first thing Joe said to Douglass Merrin.

Doug liked the look of Joe. He liked Joe’s smile more than he had liked anything he had seen all that day, so he just said, “I’m Duck–Douglass–and I didnt know if you needed help or anything. I mean, I thought you were new, but you’re not new. I’ve seen you. You’re like a junior.”

“I am a junior,” Joe said. And he introduced himself, and he introduced Sal and he said, “I think I’m all helped out, but why don’t you hang around a bit.”

It wasn’t too much longer before Sal said, “I told my mom I’d be home by six. I’m gonna catch it if I don’t head out now,” and he and the others drifted out, and then Joe looked at Doug and said, “Is it Duck or Douglass?”

“It’s whatever you want,” Doug said Then he said, “Well, I mean, it’s both. So… I mean, most people call me both.”

“Well,” Joe titled his head and stroked his chin, “I can’t decide which one you are to me, so maybe I’ll just call you both too. Hey, uh, I’m glad to be here, but a little bit nervous about it. Would you like to go to dinner with me? I mean, that’s if you don’t have anyone else.”

Doug thought of his cousin, of Pete and the others. But Joe was the first person he’d met on his own.

He said, “Yeah, I’d like that.”



This had been one hell of a day, far longer than Douglass Merrin had planned. His Uncle Donald had once said, “You have the ability to change the fate of the world by just one move, but generally, Doug did not experience that to be true. In this moment he did. His uncle also said, “You can be a great power if you wish, plant yourself in the right spot, you are like the Magician’s card in the tarot deck.”

Well, now Doug rarely felt that either. But this morning, instead of staying home and living his life as he usually did, he got up, put on a suit and drove to Garrett Myer’s funeral with an overwhelming sense that he had to be there, and he had seen Joe almost immediately, Joe with, of all things, his cousin. So he was meant to be here, he knew that now, and he had thought he’d never see Joe or for that matter Saint Francic again, and now, after a very big chicken dinner, here he was, in this little room that didn’t smell, apparently was kept up, and had a few blankets and a window open to the stretch of green going out to the highway. He watched the yellow lights of a semi drive down the road by while it gave a low and mournful squawk in the black night.

There was a knock on the door, and Doug didn’t think before opening it. Joe stood there. Joe wasn’t short. They always said that because he was always right next to Sal, and he usually had that goofy look on his face. Doug wasn’t sure who reached for whom first, but they stood in the doorway embracing, holding, eyes closed and rocking back and forth in sheer joy.

“You feel like a little trip?” Joe said.

“Are you skipping class tomorrow? Because it’s got to be past midnight.”

“Hell yeah, I am,” Joe said.

“Then let’s go.”



“Why did you come here?”

“Because my parents sent me,” Doug said.

And then he said, “And because my cousin is here. Swann. Do you know him?”

“A little,” said Joe.

“And because I hate high school.”

“What?”

“The whole thing seemed like a bad idea,” Doug said over dinner, “So I just went with the worst, a high school in a castle that you had to live in.”

Doug chewed over his food thoughtfully, and said, “You know this actually isn’t half bad.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Joe who was shoveling mouthfuls.

Joe had been surprised to see that several of the older kids already knew Doug, and they were at their own table. None of them came to sit with him or Joe, and Joe saw folks that he knew, but no one had come to sit with them either. There were a few tables like that, where only two people were eating, and Joe made a note of it and wondered why.

“Privacy,” Doug shrugged. “We’re all together all the time. Maybe sometimes people just respect each other’s privacy. Like they said, see, there’s Doug having dinner with someone. Why don’t we let them have a conversation. That’s what I like about this place.”

“I’d never thought of it that way,” Joe said. “It’s not really like that during the day.”

“Those are day rules,” Doug said. “I think that’s what I like best about this place. The day rules and the night rules. It’s like a whole different place.”

And then Doug said, “Well, maybe not a whole different place. Maybe just a slightly different place.”

There was a plate of bread between them and cold pats of butter.

“This could stand to be heated,” Doug noted, and he got up and did the heating in the microwave. Swann was there and he said, “What’s Joe Stanley doing here?”

“He lives here now. You could have come over.”

“I don’t like it when I’m crowded, and I don’t like to crowd other people,” Swann said.

The microwave dinged, and he opened it, taking out a dinner roll.

“It’s all yours, cuz.”

A moment later, Doug returned with hot bread and Joe smiled up at him.

“Thanks. Next time it’ll be my turn.”

While Doug spread butter on his bread, Joe marveled, “Gosh, this is so much better hot.”

“Well,” Doug said, equally pleased by the bread at the same time he was surprised to see someone so evidently happy about it, “Yeah.

“But why are you here? I mean, I thought you lived n town.”

“If I tell you can you keep a–” Joe stopped himself. “It’s because I hate living with my family. I feel a little guilty for leaving Mom behind, but I feel happy tonight, and I haven’t felt that way in a while. I feel free. You know?”

Joe wiped his hands over on the paper napkin and he said, “What time is curfew?”

“9:30 for Freshmen and sophomores and 11:00 for everyone else.”

“You wanna go on a drive?”

“You have your own car?”

“I have sort of my own car.”

Driving meant freedom, and Doug wanted to feel free. He wanted to be as free as Joe looked, so he said, “Yeah!”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent start to the chapter! It was very interesting and sad to learn about Joe’s childhood. I am glad he has friends to support him. Doug seems like a nice guy. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

That was an excellent start to the chapter! It was very interesting and sad to learn about Joe’s childhood. I am glad he has friends to support him. Doug seems like a nice guy. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

A lot of Joe's life has been hidden until now, so I'm glad I could sort of introduce him to you.

 

[ChrisGibson]

WEEKEND PORTION
It was still warm then like it was at this time of year, and this was the first time Doug met Sal, They picked him up and they all went to the ice cream place for one of the last times that year. Doug remembers what it was like to be in the presence of two very close people who had never let anyone in but where letting him in. He remembered how he felt approved of by Sal, like Joe wanted Sal to meet him, and it mattered that he met his old friend’s approval. That was the first of many drives. When they had left the school the sky was dusky blue with orange, telling of the night about to come. It felt to Doug like half his time with Joe was spent in a car under the wide sky.



The morning of Doug’s eighteenth birthday there had been a tap on his window, and he’d opened it to see Joe, and pulled his friend through.

“Happy birthday, friend,” Joe said. “Now help me with this.”

Joe had reached down and pulled up a cake, and Doug said, “You made this?”

“Heck, no, I didn’t make it. My mom made it, though. Let’s get some forks and some coffee and dig in.”

Senior year had been the loneliest. He’d made friends with the older kids, and though he survived junior year, this had been the year where he’d just wanted to be gone. He didn’t know if he’d make it through the upcoming senior year and Joe said, digging his fork into chocolate cake, “Well, then why don’t you just fuck senior year?”

“I can’t.”

“You could.”

When they had eaten a third of the cake Joe said, “I got a surprise for you, Duck.”

“You already surprised me.”

“I’m taking you to the beach. To see the sunrise.”

They left at barely five in the morning, stopping at the Burger king drive thru for Croissan'wiches and orange juice, and Doug always envied people who knew roads. Cars and driving were still a mystery to him. Windows rolled down, and The Smashing Pumpkins playing, Joe drove into the darkness on country roads leading to highways, and at last the the blue sky began to turn deep blue with the hints of day. It was perfectly grey and cool and silent when they came into New Buffalo, passing the closed shops and riding over one bridge and then another, past marina hotels and to the very parking lot that brought thm to the beach. At barely six it was only them and a few gulls, Lake Michigan was perfectly flat under the wide white sky which would soon be dominated by a not yet risen sun and the water stretched on and on like silver grey satin. The coast was like an immense thing that had not yet been turned on, but still slept,

“How strange,” Doug said, taking off his shoes and stepping into the cool water, feeling the grains of sand dissolve under his feet.

“It’s like I’m on a tremendous sound stage, or like its the beginning of the world and I’m waiting for everything to happen. Everything is still perfect. Nothing has happened yet, and part of me hopes nothing ever will.”



“Do you still wish nothing would happen?” Joe asked him the morning after the funeral. Outside the windows, every bead of dew on every branch seemed perfectly placed by God. The air was just right, smelled of green grass and a little of apples. There was no need to close the window.

Had nineteen year old Joe been serious when he said, “Fuck senior year?” Yes, Doug thought, he’d been serious with the earnestness of a nineteen year old who hadn’t seen enough to understand consequence. But at the time Doug was seventeen, and on the lip of Lake Michigan, and the world was just starting and so he decided right then that he would leave Saint Francis and not come back.

“It doesn’t matter what I wished,” Doug said that morning after they had returned from driving around five counties and having an early breakfast. “things did happen. Many of them. And now I’m ready for more.”



The next morning was one of those so comfortable and so perfect Swann couldn’t tell what day it was and could barely remember his name. The sun coming through the window beat down on his head and his back and he felt Pete’s hands clasped around his waist, the other young man’s leg entangled with his thigh. They had slept like that on their stomachs, and as the morning began they shifted together into more movements of love. They stayed with each other that morning. Swann made coffee and smoked cigarettes and Pete brought his own cigar and the room filled with heavy and light smoke then when they wished they made love again and then again. It was almost time to leave when Swann lay on his back and held a pillow to his mouth, biting it as Peter’s head snaked between his legs, mouth working him, fingers playing him like a guitar. Swann buried his hands in Peter’s light brown hair and opened his eyes now and again to treasure his beautiful body. Peter worked him expertly, and when he came, they both beheld the translucent arc rise into the air, jut, jut, stutter and fall.



After Peter left, Swann did what he often did after sex, lie down in exhausted pleasure until he rose to light a cigarette while he savored the feelings pulsing through his flesh. Most men got up from sex and moved to the next thing, never remembering, never savoring, afraid of desire. Swann contemplated his sex, slowly smoking, and would have sat and smoked longer, but there was a knock on the door. He slipped on his robe knowing he would look exactly like what he was, someone who had been having sex since last night. The part of of him that cared hoped it wasn’t Sal or Joe on the other side of the door, but it was Doug, and his cousin was smiling at him, knowing exactly what had happened.

Doug took the cigarette from Swann’s hand, took a drag from it and returned it.

“What’s Pete like?

“Excellent.”

“I thought he would be,” Doug said.

“He’s on his way back to Indy now.”

“I bet you’re both sore.”

“No comment.”

“What about Chris, though?”

“Huh?”

“No, huh,” Doug threw a wadded sock at Swann.

“What about Chris Navarro?”

“Chris Navarro is in Lafayette, and I am here.”

“I thought you all—”

“He didn’t even come to the funeral,” Swann said.

“It’s not like it was your funeral, what’s that matter? You’ve got Pete, and the music teacher and I know you don’t take either one of them seriously.”

“You know it?”

“Because you keep looking at Sal Goode.”

“I am not!”

“You are,” Doug said, “Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone else sees it.”

“I deny.”

“Do what the fuck you want, but what about Chris Navarro?”

“I’m going to change the subject.”

“Fine,” Doug said. “Doesn’t stop an issue from being an issue.”

Swann frowned and Doug sat down on the bed and said, “Before you tell me how sore Pete made you, and we break into what’s left of the chicken, first things first.”

“Yes?” Swann said slowly.

“I’m tired of being lazy and drifting.”

“Okay?”

“I’m going to school. I’ve decided. Next semester.”

“That’s great.”

“Here,” Douglass Merrin said. “I’m coming here.”

 

[ChrisGibson]

Swann wasn’t sure, but thought that there were some people who had the Internet in their rooms. He was not one of them. He was late to the game on everything. Some people were carrying phones with them and of course there had always been beepers, but he was a stranger to all of that. It was only last year that he’d left the world of word processing behind and received, from his Uncle Donald and Aunt Pam, his first computer. To Swann Portis, E Mail was a strange a country.
Doug had been gone three days when Swann had received a letter, and Swann never got letters. At the corner the address was of one the name of one Max Mueller and at first he didn’t know who the hell that was, and then he realized it was Max Mueller, the music teacher from Saint Francis. Jill had been with him and said, “What?” when she saw the frown on his face, but he only shook his head, shoved the letter deep into his pocket, and then resolved to read it when he got back to his room.
Dwenger Hall was the very last hall on campus, double winged, each wing with a bay window at the center going up all three floors, and a great porch that faced away from the rest of the campus and looked across the great green field, past the fountain to the highway. Swann entered through one of the back doors and headed up to his room on the third floor where he sat in the window seat and methodically opened the letter with the keys he wore around his neck.



Dear Mr. Portis,

Mr Portis? That did seem like something a choir teacher would say.

Dear Mr. Portis,
I treasured our meeting the other day at the sad event of Garrett Kerner’s celebration of life, and I would very much like to know you better, so when you get the chance, please feel free to write or give me a call. I am an avid fan of email, and have left my address at the bottom of this letter.

Yours,
Max


Against his will he thought of Chris Navarro, his aureole of curly golden hair that reminded Swann of a white boy from the 1970’s, his quietness, his long tall body that would fold into a window while he talked. Chris was not here. Max was online.
This overly formal former teacher of his was something interesting, so he promised as soon as classes were over, he would go to the computer lab and write this man back. He wasn’t at ease with calling, not just yet.
In Shakespeare, Swann and Jill watched the disaster of Joe and Sal trying something new. As soon as class started, Joe threw up his hand and said, “I loved this story.”
Swann looked back at him.
“Mr…” Dr. Garrity looked at him a moment, and then, unused to him volunteering anything, said, “Mr. Stanley.”
“Yes!”
“And why did you love the story? When you said story you meant book, right?”
“Yes, absolutely. It was so….”
“Invigorating,” Sal whispered
“Invigorating. And the part where… the woman—”
“The woman?” Dr. Garrity said.
“Yes, Kim. The woman the book is all about.”
Jill snorted and Swann kicked her lightly.
“You mean the little boy Kim,” Dr. Garrity said.
Dr Garrity always gave you the benefit of the doubt.
“Cause Kim’s a boy,” Joe said in a voice that managed to sound like a question and a statement at the same time.
“Yes, Mr. Stanley, Kim is a boy in India.”
“I like how it’s a book about a person of color,” Sal announced, nodding widely and rubbing his hands together.
Dr Garrity looked troubled and then it was Jill who flatly said, “Kim is white. It’s during the time of the British Raj.”
Swann could see that what Sal wanted to ask was: “What the hell is the British Raj?” but instead, smile plastered to his face, he said, “Ohhhhhhhh.”
“I appreciate your enthusiasm boys” Dr. Garrity said, “but perhaps you might read a little more carefully.”
Joe and Sal looked at each other, faces going pink to red and Swann turned around, smiled, and mouthed the word:
“Amateurs.”



Dr Mr. Miller

Dear Max

Max,
Thank you for your letter. I emailed you because I thought it would get to you quicker than writing

Which left out that he could have called but chose not to.

I hope you are well. Things are pretty much the same here. I am very flattered by your message and look forward to hearing from you soon,
Swann






























“So how do you all do that?” Joe demanded, throwing his tray down beside them at lunch.
“Do what?” Chuck said, but Swann said, “Well, for starters, we actually do familiarize ourselves with the material. You can’t just make shit up.”
“Except sometimes you can,” Jill said.
“Sometimes you do,” Swann admitted.
“And then you just never back down.”







Swann dipped back into the computer lab before afternoon classes, saying he was just doing his duty and was surprised to see a response.







Mr. Portis,

I am so glad you wrote me promptly.

Could I interest you in dinner sometime soon?

Eagerly awaiting your answer,



Max





Well that was a surprise! Swann sat down





If going to call you Max, then you have to stop calling me Mr. Portis. Yes, we should go to dinner. I am not close by. When are you thinking?



Swann waited a while, but it was time to go to class, so he was about to sign out of his computer when a new message popped up.



Next Wednesday, SWANN. I can be there by 7?



Not wanting to see this computer lab for the rest of the day, Swann wrote back



Yes.



And then he left his phone number saying he was only able to talk between 7 and 9 on weekdays.



This wasn’t true, he usually didn’t talk on the phone at all, ut he didn’t want to get a call at just anytime. Between 7 and 9 on weekdays was manageable.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great weekend portion! I am enjoying getting to know Doug better. It’s also very interesting what Swann is getting up to with all these guys interested in him. Excellent writing and I look forward to seeing what happens next!

 

[ChrisGibson]

That was a great weekend portion! I am enjoying getting to know Doug better. It’s also very interesting what Swann is getting up to with all these guys interested in him. Excellent writing and I look forward to seeing what happens next!

I'm glad you'r enjoying the story and if you think Swann is getting crazy now, then just wait. And I'm glad you got know Doug a little better--and will continue to do so.

 

[ChrisGibson]

SWANN SPEAKS

The whole reason for calling Pete before the funeral was because I didn’t know how to feel. I like to be the person who knows what to feel. I like to be that modern person who isn’t shocked by anything, but the truth is Joe and Sal shock me. They’re not shocking people either. They’re very ordinary, and that’s the whole business I find shocking. In the last two weeks people we never spoke to start to hang with us every day. They aren’t like Chuck or me or Jeff who is high as a kite most of the time and smokes weed all day and drawls his sentences. They are boys’ boys. They are men. They are in jeans and joggers and cargo shorts and wear hoodies and backwards baseball caps and they smack each other on the back and laugh real loud. They aren’t like boyfriends, and I don’t know how to bring that up. I don’t even know if I should bring it up. It’s none of my fucking business. And who the hell am I anyway to say what someone’s relationships are supposed to look like? I really am a folgy. I really am out of touch. There is something out of touch and behind the times about the elegant witty, winking knowing homosexual. Maybe Joe and Sal are the next things. Boys with girlfriends who are each other’s boyfriends.
But the thing that disturbs m—well, disturb is the wrong word… no, no, it isn’t. Is Doug. Doug doesn’t say much, which is often his way, but he talks about how something was between him and Joe, and if something was between him and Joe, then how is something between Joe and Sal? And if something is between him and Sal, then why did Sal have this girlfriend until last week? And I sound to myself like what I hate to sound like, very Catholic, very parochial, very stupid because I don’t understand, and then on the other hand because it’s none of my business but I want it to be. I’m annoyed by myself. I want to use Jill as a sounding board. I don’t dare.

Sal knocks on the door. Joe is with him. I think of them as the twins even though they don’t really looked alike. They’re always together.
“We were just hanging out,” Joe says, “And we wondered what you were up to.”
Books are all over the floor, and I am on my bed and books, reading the Bagavad Gita and underlining the pages in red pen.
“Have you read this!”
“It’s due tomorrow isn’t it?” says Sal. “I’m trying.”
Sal doesn’t say a lot, so I’m surprised. He usually hangs back and just grins or laughs.
“That’s the thing,” Joe says, “You’re not faking it. You may not read everything but you and Jill like school. You like to read. This shit is fun for you.”
“Guilty as charged.”
“So the con is when you’re pretending you’re not doing it, not the other way around.”
I had never thought of it that way.
“Well,” Hoe continues, “if you can part yourself from the Gita and Indian Studies, then we’re just hanging for a while.”
“Probably,” Sal lifts a finger, “going to The Hub for a burger.”
“Double cheese,” Joe says, “with special sauce.”
“Ick,” Sal makes a face.”
“That is a story, and it is bullshit,” Joe says.
I don’t ask what they’re talking about. Often I’m not curious like I should be.
“Give me an hour,” I say. “I’ll be right over.”

“Give me an hour,” I say. “I’ll be right over.”





Chapter Eight







That first night of junior year, Swann Portis viewed the remains of the gumbo philosophically saying, as he and his cousin packed it into a large plastic dish and Pete stook at the sink cleaning out the pot, “It like knitting or anything else. It’s the process that’s the first thing, and then after that its there to eat and,” Swann patted the lid of the heavy container, “it certainly is there to eat.”

“Most probably for later tonight,” Pete said and when Mike Buren’s eyes lit up, Doug wondered how Mike could stay so small.

“The sun’s still up,” Swann said. “I guess it will be for a while. I’m going to take a nap. You’re welcome to stay or welcome to look around the place, meet your new class mates and join us later.”

Doug was in no mood to sleep, and he wasn’t so much in need of exploring as finding some things out and finding them out quickly as possible. He left the big suite with Mike who said, “I guess we should go back to the Freshmen quarters.”

“I don’t like them,” Doug said. “I don’t like the people and I don’t like that the bathroom stalls have no doors on them. We’re going to nose around here for some rooms.”

“Can you do that?”

“I have a feeling we can do anything if we don’t make too much trouble and we don’t get caught.”

They discovered it was hotter the higher you went up into the old building, but also that the first two floors were full up. The third floor, where his cousin and friends were staying, seemed to have one of two empty rooms, but Chris was scoping them out, and if there were other enterprising upperclassmen, they wouldn’t take to finding two Freshmen squatting in rooms that could be theirs.

It was Mike who found the old infirmary by the East Bathroom.

“It doesn’t lock,” Doug discovered, entering the high ceiling room.

“And it looks like a dorm room.” Mike noted. It was as cool as it could get what with the sun having passed from these large windows a long time ago.

“We’ve been walking all over, and it’s just about right over Swann and everyone.” Doug wiped dust and an old blue bottle away with a napkin he’d had since dinner.

“Beds,” Mike said. “Sink. And do you think that room is where one sick kid could stay cause its one bed.”

Doug moved across the large room and into the adjoining smaller one. There was a bed and then a curtain. He moved it.

“Two beds. Mike, my friend I think we can live in this.”

“At least tomorrow night,” Mike said.

“What’s that?”

“You really wanna spend the rest of the day moving your stuff again?”

Michael Buren was right, Douglass reflected, and became tired just thinking about it.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! I am glad Swann has more friends in his life now. I think it’s good for him. So they found an unused room? I hope they don’t get in trouble. Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days!

 

[ChrisGibson]

At the sudden tolling of bells, Doug Merrin sat up in bed. They weren’t terribly loud, but he wondered how anyone could sleep through them, and they did not stop like the bell that rang once an hour. They continued and he looked to the digital clock.



3 am.



“They’re getting up to pray,” he heard Mike say.

“What the…?”

“They get up to pray at three in the morning,” Mike, who had never gone to bed, and was sitting up under the night light.

Doug sat there while the bells began to die down and then he said, “Should we go see them?”

“We have to be up at seven.”

“They do too,” Doug reasoned.

He was already getting dressed.

He liked that infirmary room they had found, but he had to admit, these newer rooms were nicer and cooler and the windows easier to use. Down the hall there was some noisy asshole, but that was firmly shut down by nine. When they’d gotten back they met Adam Daunhauer and Jeremy, a kid with some awful sort of perm, and a little kid shorter than Mike called John Kern. Apparently Adam and Mike would be at his Latin class in the morning, and they had stayed a while, talking mostly about how they didn’t know why they were here where there were no girls even though the answer was simple. They were here because their parents had made them be here, same as Doug

“We got Mass tomorrow,” John Kern looked on his schedule.

“Do we have Mass everyday?”

“I think we do,” Mike said. “I’m sure we do.”

“Great, I could use the nap,” Adam said with no trace of irony.

“Do Protestants have to go to Mass?” Kern asked. “It doesn’t seem right.”

“Are you Protestant?” Doug asked him.

“No, but what if I was?”

Jeremy had talked about breaking out of school and going down the road to the girl’s school, but in a way which made Doug think he was all talk, and all of these new friends were in bed now. Now Doug was getting dressed, slipping on sandals and going out into the carpeted hallway. With only a little mumbling, Mike followed.

“If you think about it,” Mike said as they came to the end of the hall and headed down the stairs, “this is a great way to get the lay of the building.”

Doug privately disagreed, but said nothing as they went down the short hall that opened onto the vestituble before the chapel.

The church was more beautiful in the dark and they genuflected, then slid into the seats as, beyond the altar where the light of a hanging lamp fell mostly on a crucifed Jesus’s open arms, men in white robes were lining up into stalls which Doug had not noticed at the school mass today. That mass had seemed like something else. This secrecy in the dark was… real… is the word Doug settled on.

Later Swann would tell him how the chapel went on past the altar and acquaint him with the word retro choir. In every other church Doug had been in there was the altar, and then there was the wall, not this space behind it where monks were gathering at stalls.

When the singing began it was almost a shock.



“Ave verum corpus, natum

de Maria Virgine.

vere passum, immolatum

in cruce pro homine

cuius latus perforatum

fluxit aqua et sanguine:

esto nobis praegustatum

in mortis examine.”



Doug heard his godfather’s voice. Prynne had an amazing voice, beautiful clear, not for making speeches about school spirit, and then, when he had finished his verse, the others came in.










“O Iesu dulcis,

O Iesu pie,

O Iesu, fili Mariae.

Miserere mei.

Amen.”









“Get up,” Katy commands. She does not give Swann an hour.

“We’ve got like one good last night before winter comes.”

He’s had about twenty minutes of reading and feels they could have several great nights before winter comes, but Katy reasons it’s October now and who knows how long it’s going stay warm.

“God I need a cigarette,” Katy declares as they head to the roof.

“What do you know about the special sauce at the Hub?”

“The what?” Katy says. “Oh, that bullshit. I forgot all about that lame ass story.”

“Well, I never heard it.”

On the opposite end of Dwenger Hall from the bathrooms is the great window that opens to the flat topped roof where they smoke, and as Katy climbs out first, she says, “Well, the story goes that once there was a boy who worked in the Hub, and he had this girlfriend and they always fought, and then one day she became the manager and they started fighting again. She was supposed to have graduated last year. She’s supposed to be Antonia Guzman’s sister. Anyway, this bitch fires the guy and so, according to the story, to get back at her he jacks off into all the mayonnaise, and the special sauce is made with the mayonnaise and so…. The special sauce.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“It had me off burgers for a month.”

“There’s not a single part of me that believes it and I’m greedy as fuck, so it will not have me off of burgers.”

The edge of the sky was red and gold and the purple evening was spreading over them. There was just the lightest chill in the air, and the first stars, hard and spiky were coming out. For just a strange second Swann was emotional. Everything was so right and he felt lucky to be there in that moment beside his friends. Trisha was already on the roof, long hair tied into a ponytail, and the three of them sat silently, smoking and drinking coffee from one thermos.

“You’ve got to go through some shit to be in an alright place,” Katy was fond of saying.

Last year Swann only knew her from a distance, but she came to his attention when she drove her Land Rover across the CYO field, crashing into a lamp post Later she told Swann she had been drunk and high and her plan was to drive into Noll Hall where her boyfriend lived, crashing through his room. God had mercy on her. She had been ready to die then, but now wonders how she could have been that ready.

Cal Jenkins, her sometimes boyfriend, had gotten her pregnant. She had gotten an abortion. This was over summer vacation and she’d been rooming with Megan Greer who lived downstairs now. After the abortion the doctor or the nurses or all of them had told her what to do and what not to do and what not to do was not go drinking at the tavern. But this was the year of hating herself and the time when she fell in love with death, and so she’d come home at two in the morning and spent an hour vomiting in the bathroom. The next morning she’d awaken in a pool of her own blood. When Megan had come to her alarmed, Katy said, “I had an abortion yesterday,” and Megan had left, disgusted, not wanting to be contaminated.

Swann had been coming up the stairs and heard her murmuring, “So much blood, so much blood,” and called 911 one immediately at finding Katy three shades paler than usual, trailing red. How calm he had been, the calmness that always took over when horrible things happened. .He went with her to the hospital. This was how they’d met.

They had always gone to the roof, climbing out of the large window at the end of the third story hallway and onto the flat surface of the porch that wrapped around Dwenger Hal. Now Swann threw the last of his cigarette away and started traveling a different way.

“What are you doing, you nut?” Trisha demanded.

“I’ve always been afraid to crawl out of my window onto the roof. I’m crawling back in.”

Standing up and grasping the eaves, Swann moved to the tilted porch top of Dwenger and began walking.

“Is this even a good idea?” Katy wondered.

“Nope,” Trish said, and they followed Swann anyway, looking into the blackened windows and not at the night and the two story drop below.

“Swann’s the heaviest,” Katy said, “so it’s a good thing he’s ahead of us. If he falls then—”

“But wouldn’t it be better if the lightest person went first,” Trish suggested. “That way whoever fell—”

“Let’s nobody fall,” Swann said. Then, “Oh!”

He had been about to lift up his lit window and crawl in when he thanked God a thousand times that he had stopped himself. He was on the wrong side of the building, and this was not his room. Katy took a small breath and Trish made no noise at all. The TV was on in Sal and Joe’s room, and Sal was sitting in an easy chair with his eyes closed and his ball cap falling off his wavy hair, but Joe, in his sweatshirt was kneeling, his head between Sal’s legs moving in circles.

“We… should not be watching this,” Trish said decisively as Sal’s head went back and his long hand went into Joe’s hair, kneaded Joe’s head. They all agreed they shouldn’t be watching, but none of them stopped, and then suddenly Sal shouted, and he looked like he was trying to lift Joe’s head but Joe doubled down and Sal’s hands flaired out like he was sort of giving up while his body buckled and Joe’s head stayed down on him.

As Joe’s head lifted, the three watchers pulled away from the window. They waited a moment, hearts pounding, and then Swann did the closest thing to a leap across the window he dared to do and pointed for the girls to go ahead of him back to the flat roof and safety.

“Do you think they saw you leap across the window?” Katy said.

“It’s dark out here,” Trish said, “and they weren’t looking for a a five foot ten black man leaping across the their window.”

“I’m supposed to be going out with them,” Swann whispered.

“When?”

“Like now. For burgers, At the Hub.”

“That’s gonna be awkward as fuck,” Katy said.

Trish disagreed.

“Only if he orders the special sauce.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a well done portion! It is cool to read more about these characters current lives as well as their pasts. Sounds like Swann got an eyeful lol. I hope the whole special sauce story isn’t true. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!