ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
You will just have to wait and see. More tomorrow night.
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The People in Rossford
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER
TWO
THE FALL OUT CONTINUED
“Well whaddo we do with all this?” Lee said, spreading the cards and the other contents of the wallet out.
“For starters,” Tara Veems said, pocketing a fifty dollar bill. “We keep the money.”
“We keep everything,” Fenn said, sounding distracted as he emptied the wallet and Lee’s eyes lit up while he snatched a hundred dollar bill.
“He carried a mint on him.”
“And I bet he kept a mint in the bank,” Tara said.
“That’s what worries me,” Fenn said.
They looked at him.
“Look, someone with this much money is going to be missed.”
“I have Lemonade’s word on it that he won’t be,” Lee said. “He didn’t really have cronies. In fact, and you’ll love this, he fucked over the mob from what I hear. I don’t know which mob, hell it could be the Japanese mafia for all I know, but he had a lot of enemies, and he was falling on some rough times.”
“It would explain,” Tara said, “why he came after your boy Noah for that half a million. You’d think that the rumor of a suitcase of money would make most people sort of…” Tara shrugged, “I don’t know, chalk up their losses and move the fuck on.”
Lee was turning Joe Callan’s blue bank card up and down, and now Tara and his cousin looked at him.
“I was just thinking: what if we could get into his bank account? How much would be there?”
Tara looked impatient. “I thought you just said he was on hard times?”
Lee nodded, putting the card down on the kitchen table.
“Hard times for a rich man could be very different from hard times. I mean, think of it. We had half a million dollars, and just think how much of it we spent?”
“Well, it’s no use trying to get into his account unless you know his PIN number.”
Lee was silent, considering.
Fenn looked at his cousin: “You’re going to try to figure out his PIN number!”
The door opened just then, and Fenn’s eyes lit up as he rose.
“Todd,” he rounded the table and brought Todd’s face down, kissing it.
“Oh, shit!” Tara murmured in a low voice, for she had already seen what Fenn, pulling away from Todd, was just seeing enter.
Unshaven, a bit of a wreck, Brian Babcock came in and said, “Hi, folks.”
Wet and exhausted, Kirk climbed off of Ralph, and gently laid himself on the bed beside the man who was still on all fours. Ralph collapsed gently, lying on his stomach and squeezing his ass tight.
“That was just what I needed too,” he said, sleepily. “Why’d we break up anyway?”
“Because that’s all we had,” Kirk told him, looking up at the ceiling, his hands behind his head.
“So was I right? Did a good fuck clear your head?”
That, Kirk, realized, was the reason they hadn’t lasted. Ralph just talked so goddamn much.
So Kirk just did like he had back then, and ignored him.
While Ralph prattled, Kirk realized he had basically done what he said he would never do: used someone purely for sex. He had wanted very badly to lose himself in pornographic acts with Ralph and ride him like Paul would do, or would have done to him. He’d needed to be, for a few minutes, a pornstar with not much of a conscience anticipating no repercussions. And when he thought about it, Kirk also realized that if Ralph wanted another go, for now, he was willing to do it. That was the kind of person Ralph was. Some people were. They just didn’t bear too much reflection and didn’t mind being tumbled.
Am I any different from Paul?
“You’re so cute when you’re looking stern and serious,” Ralph said, snuggling up to him. “You know that? You wore my asshole out, you know? You think you wanna have another go? Or you want me to fuck you this time?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kirk said. “It’s all good with me, you know.”
“Then you’re staying awhile?”
“I can stay all day.”
“Good. Then we can fuck all day. It’s been so long!”
Or maybe I just wanted to stop being different from Paul. Maybe that’s why I’m here.
Ralph kissed him up and down. His mouth went to Kirk’s breastbone, kissed him down his stomach, kissed his navel, stopped at the patch of dark hair over his sex.
“Maybe we just all need to fuck sometimes,” Ralph observed.
And, Kirk, hardening again, as he negligently stroked Ralph’s head while Ralph began to to give him head, thought maybe that was as good an answer as any.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Claire Anderson demanded when she walked into the house with Julian.
Brian blinked and looked at her.
“I mean, you look a lot crappier than the last time I saw you, but I know who you are. Is Paul here?” She turned to Fenn.
Before Fenn could answer she said, “And Paul felt bad for you. He felt sorry for what he did to you. You know, he felt so bad he almost had me feeling sorry too. But what did he do to you? Didn’t you bring every bad thing on yourself? You know,” she turned to Julian, “I told myself, I said, if I ever get a chance to tell him off… And now, here you are!”
“Here I am,” Brian said, quietly, spreading his hands.
“And then you sent me that movie. Me and my mother.”
“Yes,” Brian said.
“I didn’t even know you. I didn’t do anything to you. That woman, my mother, she didn’t…”
“I know.”
Claire stared at him.
She took a deep, angry breath.
“You stand here, looking like you slept under a bridge, smug like… shit wouldn’t stick to you, instead of like you smell like shit—”
“Claire—” Todd interrupted, but Fenn put a hand over his, and put a finger to his lips.
“And you just nod your head and say,” Claire imitated him, “I know. I know. You’re a sick bastard. You don’t—” she shook her head, “—You don’t even care. You don’t give a damn.”
“That’s not true,” Brian said. His voice was low, half dead. Todd knew it was how he registered fear and deep regret.
“You don’t… feel,” Claire went on, amazed by the levelness of his voice. “You don’t care.”
“That’s not—”
“Well, you’ll feel this,” Claire said, and with that she reached up and smacked him across the face.
“And this is for my mother,” and she smacked him again.
“And since he’ll just tell you he understands, this is for Paul.”
She smacked him one last time and then she growled, “You… son of a bitch,” and turning, went up the stairs.
Brian stood there, his face red and stinging, and just then the door opened and Paul came in, and then stopped, staring at him.
“I brought him back,” Todd said. “I brought him back here. Where he belongs.”
Paul looked from Todd, to Brian, and Brian, his voice tight, said, “I’m going to make all of this right, Paul. I will. I promise.”
“I wish I could make it all right,” Brian said to Fenn.
“I wish I could turn around and undo everything I’d ever done. Every life I ruined.”
“Is that your way of saying you wish you hadn’t’ve had an affair with Tom?”
“Yes,” Brian nodded.
“It so wasn’t worth it. How many years did it take me to figure that out?
“It’s my way,” Brian said, “of saying… I guess, just what I said. That I wish I could undo every horrible, crazy thing I did. But, I think I can undo this one. I think I can make this one up.
“Fenn?” Brian said after a time.
“Yes?”
“How come you let Todd come and find me?”
“Todd’s not a dog, or a cat to be let to do anything. He told me he was going after you.”
“But you didn’t tell him you didn’t want him to?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not petty? Or did you think I was?”
“No,” Brian said. “I just didn’t know you were that good. I mean, I thought that would test the limits of your…”
“Goodness?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know it didn’t?”
“I don’t,” Brian said.
“I thought of how I forgave Tom, who I loved. And then I thought about you. I thought about that night, when I caught you. When… I threw you out. I think I did a thorough job of it. I think I threw you out so thoroughly you should never go through that again. And, I think that when you fuck up people’s lives, for once, Brian, you should be dragged back to make up for all the damage you’ve done.”
Fenn shook his head.
“I don’t know. Maybe then people could start to like you.
“Maybe you’d start to like yourself.”
Kirk Hanley went to answer the door, and was so shocked he couldn’t shut it. He couldn’t do much of anything.
“Can I come in?” Brian said.
“Haven’t you done enough?”
“No,” Brian said. “No, the problem is I’ve never done enough. I tear down things. I never put them back together. Like a little kid. I’d like to start with you. Please?”
Brian had bathed and shaven, but he wasn’t impressive the way he was before, and his speech was so not what Kirk had expected, that he nodded, and let him through.
“Paul didn’t know I made that DVD,” Brian said. “I… I was angry. Because he told me he was with you, and I hoped that he would be… No, I didn’t really hope that he would be with me. I was just angry because no one I’ve ever been with actually wants to be with me. That was it. I’ve talked to him.”
“I’ve talked to him too.”
“No, you haven’t, Kirk,” Brian said. “I bet you won’t even listen to him. He told me how torn up he was. About all that you had been through, the hurt you had been through.
“It’s… it’s real easy to think we’re the only ones who’ve ever been hurt.”
“What are you saying?” Kirk said. “Are you trying to tell me that Paul told you about my life, and you come in here to tell me that I don’t understand other people have pain?”
“No,” Brian said, shaking his head. “I’m talking about me, now. And maybe Paul. I always thought about my pain, my hurt, and what I did came out of that. That’s why I always understood lonely people, and hurting people. Because I was hurt and lonely. That’s probably why I went after Paul.
“But… I didn’t understand what he’d been through.”
“And if I could only understand poor Paul’s life, then I would forgive him?”
“Yes,” Brian said. “That’s it, exactly.”
Neither one of them said anything, and then Brian said, “Look, I just want you to ask yourself one thing? Firstly, do you hold it against him that he did porn?”
“I hold it against him that he did you,” Kirk said. “And that he didn’t tell me about the porn.”
“Well, then,” Brian said, “ask yourself this. Just ask yourself. If you’d spent the last ten years of your life being paid to screw people, and you had no experience of loving someone, when you finally got to love, how would you react? I’m not saying let him off the hook. Or me, either. Hell, I’d understand it if you threw me out, or punched me, or spat in my face. I’d get it. I’m just saying, as a fucked up person, that there are parts of Paul so fucked up that he immediately does what he hates.”
“And that’s an endorsement to go back to him?”
“No, Kirk.” Brian shook his head. “It’s not. It’s.., an endorsement to try to understand him.”
Brian pulled up to the house, parked and got out as Claire was stepping into her car in the driveway. She sat there, Paul standing beside the car, and Brian screwed up a new kind of courage to approached them. Funny, he’d always mistaken cockiness for courage. Not this trembling he felt right now, not this sucking up shame.
“I did it,” he said.
“Did what?” Claire looked at him from out of the car.
“Talked to Kirk.”
“You what?” Paul started.
“I didn’t think he’d listen to you. You’ve already tried that. I thought maybe if I went and explained… some things, then maybe he’d be ready to hear you. And I think he is. But you have to be the one to go see him. He’s got his pride, and he should. He feels really stupid, and used, and afraid. I told him how sorry I was, and that seems to have made a bit of a difference. I think in a way he sort of saw us in cahoots or something, both trying to make an ass out of him.”
Paul nodded.
“Well, thanks, Brian.”
Brian nodded.
“Todd’s in the house,” Paul said.
“All right. Goodbye, Claire.”
Claire looked at him and said, “I still don’t like you.”
“No,” Brian figured, “I can’t imagine you would. Maybe you will next time. Maybe I’ll be a little more likeable.”
Claire was about to say something rude, but instead she only shrugged, and backed out of the driveway, waving at her brother.
“Brian, could I talk to you?” Paul said.
Brian nodded as Claire honked and then headed up Versailles Street.
Taking a hand through his marmalade hair, Paul said, “You’ve apologized to me. And made up. But, I haven’t apologized to you. I’ve never had to. It’s not that I haven’t wronged someone, or… someones. But I never had to deal with the fall out. There are people I can never look in the face again. I’m not glad about what you did, Brian, but… I don’t know… It wasn’t until you did it that I realized what I had done. How… I’m sorry, Brian. You’re not any worse than me. I deserved it.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Kirk didn’t,” Paul said. “My sister didn’t, and my mom didn’t either.”
Brian’s sinuses went dry, and he turned away, but Paul touched him on the shoulder.
“But I did. I’m sorry I treated you so badly.” Then he added, “But I’m not sorry we slept together. I’ll never be sorry about that. I just wish we could have been nicer, I could have been nicer, when we were doing it.”
“Go try to make it work with Kirk, all right?” said Brian.
“If he’ll let me.”
“He can’t let you if you don’t go to him.”
More Wednesday night
TWO
THE FALL OUT CONTINUED
“Well whaddo we do with all this?” Lee said, spreading the cards and the other contents of the wallet out.
“For starters,” Tara Veems said, pocketing a fifty dollar bill. “We keep the money.”
“We keep everything,” Fenn said, sounding distracted as he emptied the wallet and Lee’s eyes lit up while he snatched a hundred dollar bill.
“He carried a mint on him.”
“And I bet he kept a mint in the bank,” Tara said.
“That’s what worries me,” Fenn said.
They looked at him.
“Look, someone with this much money is going to be missed.”
“I have Lemonade’s word on it that he won’t be,” Lee said. “He didn’t really have cronies. In fact, and you’ll love this, he fucked over the mob from what I hear. I don’t know which mob, hell it could be the Japanese mafia for all I know, but he had a lot of enemies, and he was falling on some rough times.”
“It would explain,” Tara said, “why he came after your boy Noah for that half a million. You’d think that the rumor of a suitcase of money would make most people sort of…” Tara shrugged, “I don’t know, chalk up their losses and move the fuck on.”
Lee was turning Joe Callan’s blue bank card up and down, and now Tara and his cousin looked at him.
“I was just thinking: what if we could get into his bank account? How much would be there?”
Tara looked impatient. “I thought you just said he was on hard times?”
Lee nodded, putting the card down on the kitchen table.
“Hard times for a rich man could be very different from hard times. I mean, think of it. We had half a million dollars, and just think how much of it we spent?”
“Well, it’s no use trying to get into his account unless you know his PIN number.”
Lee was silent, considering.
Fenn looked at his cousin: “You’re going to try to figure out his PIN number!”
The door opened just then, and Fenn’s eyes lit up as he rose.
“Todd,” he rounded the table and brought Todd’s face down, kissing it.
“Oh, shit!” Tara murmured in a low voice, for she had already seen what Fenn, pulling away from Todd, was just seeing enter.
Unshaven, a bit of a wreck, Brian Babcock came in and said, “Hi, folks.”
Wet and exhausted, Kirk climbed off of Ralph, and gently laid himself on the bed beside the man who was still on all fours. Ralph collapsed gently, lying on his stomach and squeezing his ass tight.
“That was just what I needed too,” he said, sleepily. “Why’d we break up anyway?”
“Because that’s all we had,” Kirk told him, looking up at the ceiling, his hands behind his head.
“So was I right? Did a good fuck clear your head?”
That, Kirk, realized, was the reason they hadn’t lasted. Ralph just talked so goddamn much.
So Kirk just did like he had back then, and ignored him.
While Ralph prattled, Kirk realized he had basically done what he said he would never do: used someone purely for sex. He had wanted very badly to lose himself in pornographic acts with Ralph and ride him like Paul would do, or would have done to him. He’d needed to be, for a few minutes, a pornstar with not much of a conscience anticipating no repercussions. And when he thought about it, Kirk also realized that if Ralph wanted another go, for now, he was willing to do it. That was the kind of person Ralph was. Some people were. They just didn’t bear too much reflection and didn’t mind being tumbled.
Am I any different from Paul?
“You’re so cute when you’re looking stern and serious,” Ralph said, snuggling up to him. “You know that? You wore my asshole out, you know? You think you wanna have another go? Or you want me to fuck you this time?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Kirk said. “It’s all good with me, you know.”
“Then you’re staying awhile?”
“I can stay all day.”
“Good. Then we can fuck all day. It’s been so long!”
Or maybe I just wanted to stop being different from Paul. Maybe that’s why I’m here.
Ralph kissed him up and down. His mouth went to Kirk’s breastbone, kissed him down his stomach, kissed his navel, stopped at the patch of dark hair over his sex.
“Maybe we just all need to fuck sometimes,” Ralph observed.
And, Kirk, hardening again, as he negligently stroked Ralph’s head while Ralph began to to give him head, thought maybe that was as good an answer as any.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Claire Anderson demanded when she walked into the house with Julian.
Brian blinked and looked at her.
“I mean, you look a lot crappier than the last time I saw you, but I know who you are. Is Paul here?” She turned to Fenn.
Before Fenn could answer she said, “And Paul felt bad for you. He felt sorry for what he did to you. You know, he felt so bad he almost had me feeling sorry too. But what did he do to you? Didn’t you bring every bad thing on yourself? You know,” she turned to Julian, “I told myself, I said, if I ever get a chance to tell him off… And now, here you are!”
“Here I am,” Brian said, quietly, spreading his hands.
“And then you sent me that movie. Me and my mother.”
“Yes,” Brian said.
“I didn’t even know you. I didn’t do anything to you. That woman, my mother, she didn’t…”
“I know.”
Claire stared at him.
She took a deep, angry breath.
“You stand here, looking like you slept under a bridge, smug like… shit wouldn’t stick to you, instead of like you smell like shit—”
“Claire—” Todd interrupted, but Fenn put a hand over his, and put a finger to his lips.
“And you just nod your head and say,” Claire imitated him, “I know. I know. You’re a sick bastard. You don’t—” she shook her head, “—You don’t even care. You don’t give a damn.”
“That’s not true,” Brian said. His voice was low, half dead. Todd knew it was how he registered fear and deep regret.
“You don’t… feel,” Claire went on, amazed by the levelness of his voice. “You don’t care.”
“That’s not—”
“Well, you’ll feel this,” Claire said, and with that she reached up and smacked him across the face.
“And this is for my mother,” and she smacked him again.
“And since he’ll just tell you he understands, this is for Paul.”
She smacked him one last time and then she growled, “You… son of a bitch,” and turning, went up the stairs.
Brian stood there, his face red and stinging, and just then the door opened and Paul came in, and then stopped, staring at him.
“I brought him back,” Todd said. “I brought him back here. Where he belongs.”
Paul looked from Todd, to Brian, and Brian, his voice tight, said, “I’m going to make all of this right, Paul. I will. I promise.”
“I wish I could make it all right,” Brian said to Fenn.
“I wish I could turn around and undo everything I’d ever done. Every life I ruined.”
“Is that your way of saying you wish you hadn’t’ve had an affair with Tom?”
“Yes,” Brian nodded.
“It so wasn’t worth it. How many years did it take me to figure that out?
“It’s my way,” Brian said, “of saying… I guess, just what I said. That I wish I could undo every horrible, crazy thing I did. But, I think I can undo this one. I think I can make this one up.
“Fenn?” Brian said after a time.
“Yes?”
“How come you let Todd come and find me?”
“Todd’s not a dog, or a cat to be let to do anything. He told me he was going after you.”
“But you didn’t tell him you didn’t want him to?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not petty? Or did you think I was?”
“No,” Brian said. “I just didn’t know you were that good. I mean, I thought that would test the limits of your…”
“Goodness?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know it didn’t?”
“I don’t,” Brian said.
“I thought of how I forgave Tom, who I loved. And then I thought about you. I thought about that night, when I caught you. When… I threw you out. I think I did a thorough job of it. I think I threw you out so thoroughly you should never go through that again. And, I think that when you fuck up people’s lives, for once, Brian, you should be dragged back to make up for all the damage you’ve done.”
Fenn shook his head.
“I don’t know. Maybe then people could start to like you.
“Maybe you’d start to like yourself.”
Kirk Hanley went to answer the door, and was so shocked he couldn’t shut it. He couldn’t do much of anything.
“Can I come in?” Brian said.
“Haven’t you done enough?”
“No,” Brian said. “No, the problem is I’ve never done enough. I tear down things. I never put them back together. Like a little kid. I’d like to start with you. Please?”
Brian had bathed and shaven, but he wasn’t impressive the way he was before, and his speech was so not what Kirk had expected, that he nodded, and let him through.
“Paul didn’t know I made that DVD,” Brian said. “I… I was angry. Because he told me he was with you, and I hoped that he would be… No, I didn’t really hope that he would be with me. I was just angry because no one I’ve ever been with actually wants to be with me. That was it. I’ve talked to him.”
“I’ve talked to him too.”
“No, you haven’t, Kirk,” Brian said. “I bet you won’t even listen to him. He told me how torn up he was. About all that you had been through, the hurt you had been through.
“It’s… it’s real easy to think we’re the only ones who’ve ever been hurt.”
“What are you saying?” Kirk said. “Are you trying to tell me that Paul told you about my life, and you come in here to tell me that I don’t understand other people have pain?”
“No,” Brian said, shaking his head. “I’m talking about me, now. And maybe Paul. I always thought about my pain, my hurt, and what I did came out of that. That’s why I always understood lonely people, and hurting people. Because I was hurt and lonely. That’s probably why I went after Paul.
“But… I didn’t understand what he’d been through.”
“And if I could only understand poor Paul’s life, then I would forgive him?”
“Yes,” Brian said. “That’s it, exactly.”
Neither one of them said anything, and then Brian said, “Look, I just want you to ask yourself one thing? Firstly, do you hold it against him that he did porn?”
“I hold it against him that he did you,” Kirk said. “And that he didn’t tell me about the porn.”
“Well, then,” Brian said, “ask yourself this. Just ask yourself. If you’d spent the last ten years of your life being paid to screw people, and you had no experience of loving someone, when you finally got to love, how would you react? I’m not saying let him off the hook. Or me, either. Hell, I’d understand it if you threw me out, or punched me, or spat in my face. I’d get it. I’m just saying, as a fucked up person, that there are parts of Paul so fucked up that he immediately does what he hates.”
“And that’s an endorsement to go back to him?”
“No, Kirk.” Brian shook his head. “It’s not. It’s.., an endorsement to try to understand him.”
Brian pulled up to the house, parked and got out as Claire was stepping into her car in the driveway. She sat there, Paul standing beside the car, and Brian screwed up a new kind of courage to approached them. Funny, he’d always mistaken cockiness for courage. Not this trembling he felt right now, not this sucking up shame.
“I did it,” he said.
“Did what?” Claire looked at him from out of the car.
“Talked to Kirk.”
“You what?” Paul started.
“I didn’t think he’d listen to you. You’ve already tried that. I thought maybe if I went and explained… some things, then maybe he’d be ready to hear you. And I think he is. But you have to be the one to go see him. He’s got his pride, and he should. He feels really stupid, and used, and afraid. I told him how sorry I was, and that seems to have made a bit of a difference. I think in a way he sort of saw us in cahoots or something, both trying to make an ass out of him.”
Paul nodded.
“Well, thanks, Brian.”
Brian nodded.
“Todd’s in the house,” Paul said.
“All right. Goodbye, Claire.”
Claire looked at him and said, “I still don’t like you.”
“No,” Brian figured, “I can’t imagine you would. Maybe you will next time. Maybe I’ll be a little more likeable.”
Claire was about to say something rude, but instead she only shrugged, and backed out of the driveway, waving at her brother.
“Brian, could I talk to you?” Paul said.
Brian nodded as Claire honked and then headed up Versailles Street.
Taking a hand through his marmalade hair, Paul said, “You’ve apologized to me. And made up. But, I haven’t apologized to you. I’ve never had to. It’s not that I haven’t wronged someone, or… someones. But I never had to deal with the fall out. There are people I can never look in the face again. I’m not glad about what you did, Brian, but… I don’t know… It wasn’t until you did it that I realized what I had done. How… I’m sorry, Brian. You’re not any worse than me. I deserved it.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Kirk didn’t,” Paul said. “My sister didn’t, and my mom didn’t either.”
Brian’s sinuses went dry, and he turned away, but Paul touched him on the shoulder.
“But I did. I’m sorry I treated you so badly.” Then he added, “But I’m not sorry we slept together. I’ll never be sorry about that. I just wish we could have been nicer, I could have been nicer, when we were doing it.”
“Go try to make it work with Kirk, all right?” said Brian.
“If he’ll let me.”
“He can’t let you if you don’t go to him.”
More Wednesday night
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
I am glad Brian tried to make things up to the people he wronged and I hope Kirk can forgive Paul. Great writing and I look forward to more later this week! 
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
It's all just begun. More this evening.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER
TWO
THE FALL OUT CONTINUED
When Paul came to the apartment the next day, it was Sheila, whom he had never met, who answered the door.
“I know you,” she said. She looked like she wanted to say more, but she stopped herself and, instead, turned and went back into the apartment, and then came back opening the door.
“Come in,” she told him. “I’m going now, Kirk,” she said.
She looked at Paul, again like she wanted to say something. But she didn’t. She turned and left.
“My sister’s very defensive,” Kirk said.
“I know what you mean,” said Paul. Then he explained, “I’ve got a sister too. She’ll tear apart anyone to defend me. And she’s my baby sister!”
Kirk nodded, but he didn’t smile.
“I promised I’d listen to you if you had something to say.”
“I’ve got lots to say, Kirk,” Paul closed the door behind him. “And I don’t know how to say any of it.”
“You’re good enough on stage.”
Paul’s face colored. “For a minute I thought you were going to say I’m good enough in movies.”
“I don’t really want to think about you and movies. Not for a while.”
“No,” said Paul, “Of course not.”
Neither one of them sat down. They both moved about the room, hands in pockets, saying phrases to each other, neither of them really looking up.
“On a stage I’ve got lines,” Paul said. “If someone would just… give me the lines.”
“Why’d you do it?”
Paul looked up.
“Cheat on you?” he said. “Or do the porn?”
“You know what? Both. Just tell me both as long as you’re here.”
“The first one’s pretty big, you know?” Paul said. “I mean, when people ask you why you made dirty movies, they’ve already sort of got the answer they want to hear already in their head.”
“You were looking for love? You were looking for fame? You were were young and gullible?”
“The answer… it’s more than one answer. And it comes out in bits and pieces and just like anything else, you’re surprised by the answers. They were things you didn’t even know yourself at the time. But if you ask me, right here, right now, why I did it, then I’m used to getting questions from porn sites or from… people who don’t want a real answer. And you don’t give a real answer. Folks want to hear that it’s really really glamorous, or it’s really really bad and you feel penitent for it. Or… Something like that.”
“And?”
“It’s really just what it is.
“For a kid with no education, and not a lot of other prospects, it’s not always a bad life. And you get fame, and you get people who tell you how great you are, just like a real star. People like to be stars. They like to feel sexy.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you were with Brian?”
“It’s why I did a lot of things,” said Paul. “But it wasn’t why I was with Brian. I mean, not why I went back to messing around with him, after I started seeing you.”
“Then… why?”
“If I tell you the answer, and the answer seems dumb, you have to accept it anyway,” Paul told him. “That’s my only rule.”
Kirk said, “Okay?”
“I was confused. You and me… we were dating, and caring for each other, getting closer—”
“And you didn’t want to get close.”
“Would you—” for the first time Paul’s voice rose. He brought it down. “Would you… just… listen.”
“All right. Sorry. I’m listening.”
“I’d never had that. And I thought, I honestly thought that all the feelings, the sex feelings I was having… I couldn’t tell the difference between wanting to be with you or wanting to fuck you. But all I’ve ever done in my life is fuck. So, I felt like I shouldn’t feel that way about you, like our relationship should be… higher.”
Kirk barked a laugh.
“You thought that if you screwed Brian and dated me then we, you and me would be… purer?”
“Yes.”
Paul didn’t look at Kirk. He looked at the floor. “It sounds stupid now, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kirk said. “Where does it leave us?”
“I don’t want to… taint the relationship.”
“By having sex with me?”
“I don’t know. Yes!” Paul said, frustrated. “Yes. That’s what I’m afraid of. If I think of you that way, if I allow myself to keep thinking of you, wanting you, then, I don’t know what will happen to us.”
“There is no us,” Kirk said. “Can’t you see that, Paul? If you’re fucking other people cause you’re afraid that having a real relationship with me would be… impure, or whatever bullshit’s floating in your head, then there won’t be an us. And there isn’t an us right now. And you’re scared to go forward with an us. And right now, to tell you the truth, the more you talk to me, the more scared I am of an us, because half of us is you, and you’re really really fucked up! You’re wonderful, and I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’m always ready to forgive you, and I want to, want to be with you, but you’re really, truly, honestly, deeply, fucked up, Paul.”
“I know!” he said, plaintively. “I know.” He turned around.
“And I’m afraid to take you back.”
“I’m afraid to be taken back. I’m afraid that I’m going to screw up, to hurt you again. I’m afraid of this feeling, this sick feeling when I hurt you. I’m afraid that… when I get afraid, I’ll never get to go back to that place and turn into Johnny Mellow. I’m going to have to be Paul Anderson, who gets scared and depressed. And… heartbroken. Who, I get nightmares. I have memories I wish I didn’t. And Johnny Mellow got me out of them. He did. And whether I’m with you or not, I can’t keep doing that. I can’t fuck my way, or drink or drug my way out of pain.
“I’ll do it by myself, Kirk. Because I have to. But I would far rather do it with you. Us.”
“I did something,” Kirk said as they sat on the sofa. “I might as well tell you. I wanted to keep it to myself, but I don’t want to anymore. Not if we’re gonna start over.”
“Okay?” Paul nodded.
“I watched a movie with you. I mean one you were in. I watched it over and over again, and I didn’t know how I felt, or why I was doing it.
“You know how you said we do things we don’t understand? How we don’t understand half the time, until after we’ve done them why we did them?”
Paul nodded.
“I went to an ex’s house, Ralph. I don’t like him very much. I fucked him. We fucked each other. It was kind of a free for all.”
“Why are you telling me this,” Paul said after a time.
“Because there was something in my head saying: ‘Why are you not telling him?’ And I didn’t want to hide it.
“But…”
“Yes?”
“When I went to him… When we were having sex, I felt like… I wasn’t hurt anymore. I wasn’t used. I wasn’t Kirk the car dealer. I was… impervious. I was a sex god. I wasn’t… the way I felt when Brian brought that movie to me.”
“He’s sorry he did it.”
“I know. It’s just… After I did what I did I wondered if maybe that was part of why you did what you did. The you in the movie, or with Brian was different from the you I know. I thought, that must be the real Paul. I don’t know Paul at all.
“But now I think this is the real me, and this is the real you, and that other me was the me…. That I wanted to be. That got me away from… this one.”
“That makes sense,” Paul said softly, nodding his head as he placed it on Kirk’s shoulder.
“Is that how it was for you?”
“A lot. But I wonder if the same thing that made me do all those movies, and you… go with your ex, isn’t the same thing that makes Brian seem like such a mean person, or made Tom cheat on Fenn or… Brendan on Dena, or… any of the things that happen when… people…”
“Hate themselves.”
“Yes,” Paul said tiredly. “That’s sort of strong. But it’s true.”
“You can stay,” he said. “I mean, we don’t have to do anything. I don’t even know that I want to. But… you can stay. All night. If you’d like.”
Paul nodded.
“I would.”
It always took Todd about ten minutes to shut everything down. When he was sure he was finished for the night, there was still a lot of clipping and pasting to be done, and tonight he had not even been working on the project he’d started three months back. This film had clips of Paul and of Noah, of Fenn, and of Barb Affren talking at long stretches. This film had Layla and Dena, and Brendan Miller was in it too. Just little things, just little bits. Dan Malloy was there, and the interior of Saint Barbara’s, though Todd hardly ever went. He didn’t really know what the common thread was. He was tempted to go down to Demming Road and shoot the car lots. He already had a bit of the playhouse: Fenn, Lee, and Tara playing tonk and smoking cigarettes backstage. Lee, going viciously with a red pen over a play he was writing. The only common thread was these were the people in Rossford.
Todd yawned, and he saw his phone flashing with a message. Who was it? He flipped up the lid. Brian? He could call tomorrow. Yes. He could…
He called Brian back.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. It’s Todd.”
“Oh, how are you?”
“Brian,” Todd said, blowing a gush of cigarette smoke out of his mouth. “I’m returning your call.”
“Oh, that’s right. Yes,” Brian sounded slightly scatter brained.
“Well, what’s up?”
“Oh, nothing’s up. I just… I don’t know. I just called.”
“Seriously? Nothing’s up.”
“No,” Brian said with a laugh, which might have been half pretend. “I don’t know, I just thought I’d call. I never just call someone, so I thought I’d try it”
“So like… You’re not screwed up or in trouble or anything.”
“No, Todd. But thanks for asking.”
“Well, I guess I’ll go to bed now.”
“All right. You have a good night. Tell Fenn to have a good night.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.”
Todd almost hung up, but first he said, “Brian?”
“Um hum.”
“Are you going to be weird from now on?”
“I don’t know about weird,” Brian said. “Maybe… different. Is that all right?”
“Different is good,” Todd said. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
And then he hung up.
Clipping off the computer and yawning, Todd went down the hall into the bedroom.
“You seen Paul?”
“He went to go see Kirk, I believe,” Fenn said from the bed. “He hasn’t come back yet, and I suppose that’s a good thing.”
“Brian went and talked to him. Kirk, I mean,” Todd, said, pulling off his shirt, and then then pulling down his jogging pants.
“Actually, he talked to Paul too. To both of them. He’s really serious about turning over a new leaf.”
“Well, Brian shows signs of being an amazing man yet.”
Todd, in his briefs, shook his head and climbed onto the bed.
“Maybe, but you are the most amazing man I’ve ever known. That’s a fact, and I’m just glad to be back.”
“I don’t know how it can be a fact,” Fenn said, “since the most amazing man I know is sitting right here in his underwear.”
Todd put his arms on Fenn’s shoulders and kissed him, and then said, “Let me hit the shower. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Todd stood up and pulled off his underwear, wadding them in his hands.
“You want me to find you clean shorts and a tee shirt?” Fenn said.
“No need,” Todd grinned. “If you’re up for it, I’ll come back to you just the way I am now.”
Fenn smiled looking up and down Todd’s long body, dusted with dark hair.
“If I was on life support,” he told him. “I would be up for it.”
TWO
THE FALL OUT CONTINUED
When Paul came to the apartment the next day, it was Sheila, whom he had never met, who answered the door.
“I know you,” she said. She looked like she wanted to say more, but she stopped herself and, instead, turned and went back into the apartment, and then came back opening the door.
“Come in,” she told him. “I’m going now, Kirk,” she said.
She looked at Paul, again like she wanted to say something. But she didn’t. She turned and left.
“My sister’s very defensive,” Kirk said.
“I know what you mean,” said Paul. Then he explained, “I’ve got a sister too. She’ll tear apart anyone to defend me. And she’s my baby sister!”
Kirk nodded, but he didn’t smile.
“I promised I’d listen to you if you had something to say.”
“I’ve got lots to say, Kirk,” Paul closed the door behind him. “And I don’t know how to say any of it.”
“You’re good enough on stage.”
Paul’s face colored. “For a minute I thought you were going to say I’m good enough in movies.”
“I don’t really want to think about you and movies. Not for a while.”
“No,” said Paul, “Of course not.”
Neither one of them sat down. They both moved about the room, hands in pockets, saying phrases to each other, neither of them really looking up.
“On a stage I’ve got lines,” Paul said. “If someone would just… give me the lines.”
“Why’d you do it?”
Paul looked up.
“Cheat on you?” he said. “Or do the porn?”
“You know what? Both. Just tell me both as long as you’re here.”
“The first one’s pretty big, you know?” Paul said. “I mean, when people ask you why you made dirty movies, they’ve already sort of got the answer they want to hear already in their head.”
“You were looking for love? You were looking for fame? You were were young and gullible?”
“The answer… it’s more than one answer. And it comes out in bits and pieces and just like anything else, you’re surprised by the answers. They were things you didn’t even know yourself at the time. But if you ask me, right here, right now, why I did it, then I’m used to getting questions from porn sites or from… people who don’t want a real answer. And you don’t give a real answer. Folks want to hear that it’s really really glamorous, or it’s really really bad and you feel penitent for it. Or… Something like that.”
“And?”
“It’s really just what it is.
“For a kid with no education, and not a lot of other prospects, it’s not always a bad life. And you get fame, and you get people who tell you how great you are, just like a real star. People like to be stars. They like to feel sexy.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“Is that why you were with Brian?”
“It’s why I did a lot of things,” said Paul. “But it wasn’t why I was with Brian. I mean, not why I went back to messing around with him, after I started seeing you.”
“Then… why?”
“If I tell you the answer, and the answer seems dumb, you have to accept it anyway,” Paul told him. “That’s my only rule.”
Kirk said, “Okay?”
“I was confused. You and me… we were dating, and caring for each other, getting closer—”
“And you didn’t want to get close.”
“Would you—” for the first time Paul’s voice rose. He brought it down. “Would you… just… listen.”
“All right. Sorry. I’m listening.”
“I’d never had that. And I thought, I honestly thought that all the feelings, the sex feelings I was having… I couldn’t tell the difference between wanting to be with you or wanting to fuck you. But all I’ve ever done in my life is fuck. So, I felt like I shouldn’t feel that way about you, like our relationship should be… higher.”
Kirk barked a laugh.
“You thought that if you screwed Brian and dated me then we, you and me would be… purer?”
“Yes.”
Paul didn’t look at Kirk. He looked at the floor. “It sounds stupid now, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” Kirk said. “Where does it leave us?”
“I don’t want to… taint the relationship.”
“By having sex with me?”
“I don’t know. Yes!” Paul said, frustrated. “Yes. That’s what I’m afraid of. If I think of you that way, if I allow myself to keep thinking of you, wanting you, then, I don’t know what will happen to us.”
“There is no us,” Kirk said. “Can’t you see that, Paul? If you’re fucking other people cause you’re afraid that having a real relationship with me would be… impure, or whatever bullshit’s floating in your head, then there won’t be an us. And there isn’t an us right now. And you’re scared to go forward with an us. And right now, to tell you the truth, the more you talk to me, the more scared I am of an us, because half of us is you, and you’re really really fucked up! You’re wonderful, and I can’t stop thinking about you, and I’m always ready to forgive you, and I want to, want to be with you, but you’re really, truly, honestly, deeply, fucked up, Paul.”
“I know!” he said, plaintively. “I know.” He turned around.
“And I’m afraid to take you back.”
“I’m afraid to be taken back. I’m afraid that I’m going to screw up, to hurt you again. I’m afraid of this feeling, this sick feeling when I hurt you. I’m afraid that… when I get afraid, I’ll never get to go back to that place and turn into Johnny Mellow. I’m going to have to be Paul Anderson, who gets scared and depressed. And… heartbroken. Who, I get nightmares. I have memories I wish I didn’t. And Johnny Mellow got me out of them. He did. And whether I’m with you or not, I can’t keep doing that. I can’t fuck my way, or drink or drug my way out of pain.
“I’ll do it by myself, Kirk. Because I have to. But I would far rather do it with you. Us.”
“I did something,” Kirk said as they sat on the sofa. “I might as well tell you. I wanted to keep it to myself, but I don’t want to anymore. Not if we’re gonna start over.”
“Okay?” Paul nodded.
“I watched a movie with you. I mean one you were in. I watched it over and over again, and I didn’t know how I felt, or why I was doing it.
“You know how you said we do things we don’t understand? How we don’t understand half the time, until after we’ve done them why we did them?”
Paul nodded.
“I went to an ex’s house, Ralph. I don’t like him very much. I fucked him. We fucked each other. It was kind of a free for all.”
“Why are you telling me this,” Paul said after a time.
“Because there was something in my head saying: ‘Why are you not telling him?’ And I didn’t want to hide it.
“But…”
“Yes?”
“When I went to him… When we were having sex, I felt like… I wasn’t hurt anymore. I wasn’t used. I wasn’t Kirk the car dealer. I was… impervious. I was a sex god. I wasn’t… the way I felt when Brian brought that movie to me.”
“He’s sorry he did it.”
“I know. It’s just… After I did what I did I wondered if maybe that was part of why you did what you did. The you in the movie, or with Brian was different from the you I know. I thought, that must be the real Paul. I don’t know Paul at all.
“But now I think this is the real me, and this is the real you, and that other me was the me…. That I wanted to be. That got me away from… this one.”
“That makes sense,” Paul said softly, nodding his head as he placed it on Kirk’s shoulder.
“Is that how it was for you?”
“A lot. But I wonder if the same thing that made me do all those movies, and you… go with your ex, isn’t the same thing that makes Brian seem like such a mean person, or made Tom cheat on Fenn or… Brendan on Dena, or… any of the things that happen when… people…”
“Hate themselves.”
“Yes,” Paul said tiredly. “That’s sort of strong. But it’s true.”
“You can stay,” he said. “I mean, we don’t have to do anything. I don’t even know that I want to. But… you can stay. All night. If you’d like.”
Paul nodded.
“I would.”
It always took Todd about ten minutes to shut everything down. When he was sure he was finished for the night, there was still a lot of clipping and pasting to be done, and tonight he had not even been working on the project he’d started three months back. This film had clips of Paul and of Noah, of Fenn, and of Barb Affren talking at long stretches. This film had Layla and Dena, and Brendan Miller was in it too. Just little things, just little bits. Dan Malloy was there, and the interior of Saint Barbara’s, though Todd hardly ever went. He didn’t really know what the common thread was. He was tempted to go down to Demming Road and shoot the car lots. He already had a bit of the playhouse: Fenn, Lee, and Tara playing tonk and smoking cigarettes backstage. Lee, going viciously with a red pen over a play he was writing. The only common thread was these were the people in Rossford.
Todd yawned, and he saw his phone flashing with a message. Who was it? He flipped up the lid. Brian? He could call tomorrow. Yes. He could…
He called Brian back.
“Hello?”
“It’s me. It’s Todd.”
“Oh, how are you?”
“Brian,” Todd said, blowing a gush of cigarette smoke out of his mouth. “I’m returning your call.”
“Oh, that’s right. Yes,” Brian sounded slightly scatter brained.
“Well, what’s up?”
“Oh, nothing’s up. I just… I don’t know. I just called.”
“Seriously? Nothing’s up.”
“No,” Brian said with a laugh, which might have been half pretend. “I don’t know, I just thought I’d call. I never just call someone, so I thought I’d try it”
“So like… You’re not screwed up or in trouble or anything.”
“No, Todd. But thanks for asking.”
“Well, I guess I’ll go to bed now.”
“All right. You have a good night. Tell Fenn to have a good night.”
“I’ll be sure to do that.”
Todd almost hung up, but first he said, “Brian?”
“Um hum.”
“Are you going to be weird from now on?”
“I don’t know about weird,” Brian said. “Maybe… different. Is that all right?”
“Different is good,” Todd said. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
And then he hung up.
Clipping off the computer and yawning, Todd went down the hall into the bedroom.
“You seen Paul?”
“He went to go see Kirk, I believe,” Fenn said from the bed. “He hasn’t come back yet, and I suppose that’s a good thing.”
“Brian went and talked to him. Kirk, I mean,” Todd, said, pulling off his shirt, and then then pulling down his jogging pants.
“Actually, he talked to Paul too. To both of them. He’s really serious about turning over a new leaf.”
“Well, Brian shows signs of being an amazing man yet.”
Todd, in his briefs, shook his head and climbed onto the bed.
“Maybe, but you are the most amazing man I’ve ever known. That’s a fact, and I’m just glad to be back.”
“I don’t know how it can be a fact,” Fenn said, “since the most amazing man I know is sitting right here in his underwear.”
Todd put his arms on Fenn’s shoulders and kissed him, and then said, “Let me hit the shower. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Todd stood up and pulled off his underwear, wadding them in his hands.
“You want me to find you clean shorts and a tee shirt?” Fenn said.
“No need,” Todd grinned. “If you’re up for it, I’ll come back to you just the way I am now.”
Fenn smiled looking up and down Todd’s long body, dusted with dark hair.
“If I was on life support,” he told him. “I would be up for it.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
I am glad Kirk and Paul are working things out. I like them as a couple and I hope they get back together. Great new portion and I look forward to more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
WEEKEND PORTION.... By the way, I want to apologize for not being able to return comments last night.
CHAPTER
TWO
THE FALL OUT CONCLUSION
“How is Kenny?” Mrs. Miller asked as Brendan closed the side door behind him and entered the house.
“He’s good, Mom.”
“It’s good to see you all friends again,” she said. “I was concerned for a while.”
Brendan thought, momentarily, about letting this pass. It was late. But, what had she meant?
He asked her, as he stood at the edge of the kitchen, about to go through the living room, toward his bedroom.
“Well, I guess I mean…” Mrs. Miller, put her pen down and stopped her work, “Men can be unreliable is all. But… not you. You’re turning into a real man, and there aren’t a lot of them.
“I used to think what a shame it was to be a woman, and always be waiting for a man. Because that’s what I used to do. When a man finds a woman he expects her to cook, to clean, to understand him, to be a good wife. And so she does. Mostly.
“When a woman finds a man she expects he’ll save her by… I don’t know, just being a man. He’ll… ride on his white horse and take her away from all of her troubles.”
She stopped. “Am I telling you too much?”
“No, Mom.”
“Good,” she nodded. “See, cause you should know this. The bargain we make for men. He does sweep us away from all of our troubles, by sweeping us away from ourselves. We expect him to solve everything. He solves nothing. In the end you suck it up and realize you are more or less on your own. For understanding, for finances, for a lot of things. You learn that a man is… very often unreliable.
“And so I had thought how bad to be a woman. But now I think how bad to be a man. And, can a man ever actually rely on another man? I mean, really. I don’t mean being… buddies. Can a man actually, really love another man? Can men love? Or are they just as lonely as they make the rest of us?
“And then I saw Kenny, and you. And there was this part of you that had always been lonely, opening up. I thought, well yes it can be done. It is done. Brendan can do it.”
Brendan didn’t know how to respond, so he nodded.
Then he said, “But, Mom?”
“Yes?”
“I… I have been unreliable. I mean, I’ve done some… I haven’t done right by my friends. Or by Dena.”
“But you’re making it right? Aren’t you?”
“Well, yeah. Yes, I mean.”
“You’re not… walking away? You’re not running away?”
“No.” Then Brendan said, “Not anymore.”
Mrs. Miller, who was the same height as her son, lifted his chin and said, “You are brave.”
“No, Ma, I’m not.”
“You are! Most men run away. Most people run away. No one owns up! That’s why the world is what it is.”
Layla walked into the living room with a drink for Brendan and one for Will. She lay on the couch placing her head on Will’s lap, and then reached for her old lemonade and sipped from the straw.
“You all look so happy,” Brendan said.
“Well, we try to keep up appearances,” Will said.
“I thought I made you happy?” said Layla. “It’s all I think about. Day and night. Keeping Will Klasko happy.”
“Yeah,” Will remarked. “I see that.”
“Do you know,” Will told Brendan, “this is the first week she hasn’t called me a bastard or a son of a bitch since we’ve been together?”
“It’s only Wednesday,” she reminded him.
“But you all are happy,” Brendan insisted.
“Of course we’re happy,” Layla told him. “We’re happy as fuck.”
“I want to be happy.”
They both looked at him.
“I mean with Kenny. I thought that if I broke things off with Dena, then when I went back to Kenny, I’d be really happy again. We’d be a couple again. Or, at least, be a couple for the first time.”
Will furrowed his brow to say something intelligent, but Layla, ready to talk, sat up and said, “And now what’s going on? I mean, aside from the fucking?”
Will blinked at her, and Brendan stared.
“What?” said Layla. “How will we take care of anything if we don’t call a spade a spade.”
“Well…” Will said, shaking his head.
“When she’s right she’s right,” Brendan told her.
“No,” he said. “That’s about all it is. I mean, it seems like we can’t really get past that.”
Will said nothing. Layla pursed her lips together.
“You’ve got an idea?” Will said to her. “I see it. I see your wheels turning.”
“My wheels are only turning trying to figure out the right way to say this.”
“Layla, we’ve been friends since kindergarten. You don’t have to think of the right way to say anything.”
“Well, it’s just, maybe you think that since you weren’t loyal to Dena, you have to be loyal to Kenny. And that’s fine and good. But maybe the thing is… you don’t love Kenny.”
“No!” Brendan said with a wince.
Layla looked at him levelly.
“I don’t… I must have loved him. I can love him. I can stick by him.”
“Look, Bren,” Will said, “I bet you think that because you failed with Dena it’s horrible to fail with Kenny. But the only way you’ll fail is if you don’t be true to yourself.”
Layla and Will both looked at their friend, and then turned away thinking it wasn’t polite. Brendan’s face looked so sad.
He said, “I just want to be in love.”
“Brendan?” Kenny looked beyond Brendan and saw no one else was in line.
“I want to talk to you,” Brendan said. “Can we talk?”
“Uh… I’m busy. I mean, I’m on the clock.”
“Okay,” Brendan said.
He turned around where the candy and the magazines were, and dumped them all on the conveyer belt. Then he dumped a pile of Snickers and said.
“Okay. Talk and work.”
Kenny blinked at him.
“Just scan. I need to talk.”
Kenny nodded.
“I was just thinking, Kenny. I want to be in love.”
Kenny nodded.
“I was at Layla’s last night, and she was with Will, and I thought, I want that. Or, you know, Layla’s uncle and Dena’s uncle… I want something like that. I want love. I want real love.”
Kenny continued scanning candy bars and People magazines.
“I want that too, Brendan. It’s exactly what I want.
“I thought I had it with you. I thought we were that.”
“We were,” Brendan said. “But we’re not now. We’re…
“Kenny, if we’re not going to make a go at it, then we should just stop being together period.”
Kenny didn’t say anything right away. And then he said, “I agree, Bren.”
“Uh,” Brendan looked around. An old woman came into line with a loaded cart. She looked like she was eavesdropping, and suddenly Brendan turned around, took a rack of Enquirers and M&Ms and dumped them on the conveyer belt. She took a deep breath, and in disdain moved to the next aisle.
“Kenny, do you love me at all? Because if you don’t, if you’re still mad and we’re still just fucking, then… I don’t see a point in this.”
“I do,” Kenny said. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”
“That’s the way I feel about you, Ken. But I wasn’t sure what it was. I think that I love you, but these last few months have been so…”
“I know,” said Kenny.
“Well,” Kenny continued. “I know I love you. And… Your grocery bill comes to five hundred dollars and thirty-five cents.”
“What?” Brendan began, and then Kenny burst out laughing.
“If you want us to have a future,” Brendan said, “You’d better take that shit off.”
“You’ve been around Layla too long,” Kenny said as he and Brendan began to gather up the candy and magazines.
“I don’t know,” Brendan said. “Maybe there’s always been a Black woman inside of me waiting to come out.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
No need to apologize! We all get busy sometimes. Great conclusion to the chapter! Brendan and Kenny are so cute! I hope they end up together for the long haul.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I adore Brendan and Kenny.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER
THREE
GOING OUT
Adele Lawden crashed her shopping cart into a man.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I am so sorry.”
She moved away from her cart toward the man.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I should have been paying attention.”
“I wasn’t paying attention either,” she admitted. “I mean if I had been… I wouldn’t have…”
“Crashed into my cart?”
“Right,” Adele said.
“I’m Simon Davis, by the way,” he offered her his hand.
“Oh,” Adele said. “Yes… I’m Adele Law—Houghton.”
“You must be having a rough day. If you forgot your last name.”
“No,” she said. “I just… You see, I’m getting a divorce.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He was a son of a bitch. But the bottom line is, I’m having a hard time remembering my last name these days, seeing as it’s about to change, anyway.”
“Well… you’re single, then.”
“Yes.”
“Is it too quick to ask for a date?”
“A what?”
“A… You know what?” Simon Davis said. “It is too quick. It’s entirely too quick. Forgive me, it’s just this beautiful woman crashed her cart into me and I thought ‘It’s a sign from God.’ But, nevermind.”
“Yes,” Adele said.
“What?”
“Yes. I’ll go out with you. I’d love that.”
“Really? Well, heck. Hell,” Simon Davis jammed his hands in his pockets. “This must be my lucky day. What about eight o’clock?”
“Eight is good.” Adele said, and then nodding, she took her cart and headed all the way down the aisle, when she realized something and turned back.
“You’re going to want my address, right?”
Simon Davis nodded.
“It would be helpful.”
“I WAS GOING TO go home, but then I thought, well who would I talk to at home? I’d just walk around in circles and say it again and again to myself. So I came here.”
“Actually,” Todd noted, looking up from Adele at his sister’s kitchen table, “You haven’t really told us anything.”
Nell looked at Adele who was looking vaguely stupid, and then Adele said, “That’s right.”
Adele Houghton paused for effect: “I have a date.”
“Thank God,” Todd and Nell said together, and Adele frowned at them.
“You’re one to talk,” Adele looked at her best friend. “You got rid of Kevin when Dena could hardly walk, and I’ve never seen you with a man.”
“Don’t follow my example,” Nell said. “Follow my wish. Besides, Todd’s been with enough men for us both.”
Todd shot his sister a sour look, but Nell said, “What’s he like? What’s he look like?”
“I really don’t know.”
Nell looked at her.
“Well, you know, these days you just don’t know. Folks are all mixed up. He looked kinda white, but maybe with some Mexican. Or maybe he was part Black. I don’t know. He was definitely brownish, but not entirely brown.”
“You know,” said Todd. “Like Dad. Or like toffee.”
“Toffee is good,” Nell said.
“He definitely had some toffee like aspects to him,” Adele said.
“Very good. Mystery man from Toffee Land, which is just due south of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Now what’s Toffee-Man do?”
“I don’t know,” Adele said.
Nell and Todd looked at each other, and then Nell said, “Well, honey, what do you know?”
“Well, I crashed into his cart at the Kroger on Birmingham and he looked at me, and I looked at him and I asked him for a date, and gave him my address and said I’d be ready at eight.”
“So this man you don’t know—do you even know his name?” Todd said.
“His name is Simon Davis.”
“Well, that is one thing. Simon Davis, who you know nothing about, is coming to take you some place you don’t know.”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
“Adele,” Nell warned, “he could be… an ax murderer.”
“He doesn’t have the arms for it.”
“You know what I’m talking about! You don’t know anything about this man.”
“I was married to Hoot for seventeen years, and now it turns out I didn’t know anything about him. But I felt things. I always felt things. Well, we don’t really know anything about each other, do we? How much do we know? But, I feel like he’s a nice man. It’s just a date. And I could use just a date.”
Under the table, Todd crossed his long legs and propped them on another chair.
“All right,” he said. “You’re right. But I think we should be there to meet him.”
When Nell nodded her head in agreement, Adele said, “You’re not meeting him, and that’s that.”
“Fine, but… I’m gonna be across the street in the Land Rover. Tailing you.”
“You’re not serious.” Adele turned to Nell. “He’s not serious, is he?”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Nell said.
“Don’t try and stop me,” Todd said.
“No, I won’t,” Adele told him at last. “It would just be pointless.”
Suddenly Nell clapped her hands and said, “Well, okay. Now that security’s taken care of, let’s go shopping and find you something pretty to wear.”
The sheet around his waist, Paul had climbed into the chair, knees to his chest, and watched as Kirk knuckled his eyes and stretched in the bed, blinking up at him.
Kirk yawned out a: “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Kirk.”
“Come here,” Kirk gestured for Paul. As Paul approached, Kirk held up a hand, took a sip of water, gargled, swallowed it, took another sip and swallowed again. Sitting up he pulled Paul’s mouth to him and kissed him, and Paul came down to his knees so they could kiss on the edge of the bed better.
“I thought you might be angry,” Paul said.
“At what?”
“At last night. At everything. We said we would just hold each other. It went a little further.”
“It turned into what we wanted,” Kirk moved into the bed and patted it so Paul, in his boxer shorts and tee shirt could climb in with him.
“It’s just,” said Paul, “there are times when people take advantage. When your head is clear you say, I want this and that’s all. And then lust gets in the way, and suddenly you’re doing far more than you planned. And then when it’s over you’re angry. You hate the person, or yourself.”
“Do you feel that way?”
“No,” Paul said suddenly. “But I thought you might.”
“I’ve never felt that way,” Kirk said, shaking his head. “With anyone. First we held each other, and I wanted that. And then we kissed, and I wanted that. And then we decided not to told anything back, and I wanted that too.”
“Well, so did I.”
“When you talk about all of this shame and guilt and… all of that,” Kirk said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, I know it’s real. It’s explains some things. About you. But I haven’t been there.”
“I think that’s part of why I love you.”
“You said it.”
“Said what?”
“You said you loved me.”
“So I did,” said Paul. “I don’t know the rules. Is there some sort of time lag before I say it? Or a special condition.”
“The condition is that it has to be true.”
Paul grinned from the side of his mouth and said, “Now that I’m a commoner so to speak, I’m starting to get that most people take a long time to know if anything’s true. I used to go to the websites: Guy McClintock, Rick Brody, Wet Times—”
“Wet Times?”
“Yes,” said Paul raising an eyebrow and lifting a finger. “And the sites lied, and in interviews we lied, and some of the pictures lied too. But you know, there was something very real about the business. I never once approached a guy and said, ‘I’m starting to have feelings for you. Or, let’s see where doing these next few movies takes our relationship. Or, let’s pretend we love each other. Let’s even say it in bed.
“That was one of the reasons I stopped being an escort. They always wanted you… to lie. Call you daddy, call you uncle…”
“I do know what you’re talking about,” Kirk said suddenly. “I know just what you’re talking about now. Except the uncle and the daddy part.”
Paul barked out a laugh, and Kirk remembered:
“A very long time ago I loved someone. I told him that, and even though I think he loved me that ended it all. He just left. And that was the last time. And I’ve sat in relationships for a long time, and no one ever told me they loved me. I think, sometimes, it would have been better to just screw around than to devote myself to one person for weeks, sometimes months, and think love would come. Or love would be confessed. But it never came and it was never said. And now you say it, just like that.”
“Because I’ve had years of experience knowing what it’s like to care for someone. I think I cared for most of the guys I was with. I care for Noah a lot. Whenever we did movies together, I cared for him, but I knew it wasn’t love. I mean, it was love. It is love, but it’s not… Does it sound silly if I say that when I thought we wouldn’t be together I felt as if when you came along you had a part of me? You had this part of me I always sort of knew belonged to someone else, and then there it was and we fit?”
“No,” Kirk shook his head. “No, it’s why I’d buy a house with you and raise Vietnamese orphans.”
“Is that your way of saying you love me?”
Kirk took Paul’s head and pressed it into his chest, saying, “I love you is the my way of saying I love you.”
“What,” Brian whispered to Tom as he entered Fenn’s office, “are they doing?”
Lee was at the computer, typing furiously and swearing, and Fenn was walking back and forth saying: “Do we need the password and the PIN number, or just one?”
“We need the PIN number. He’s got his password in already.”
“Lazy bastard.”
“And if we were at the ATM, then we’d just need the PIN.”
“Well, do you have his social security?”
“No. Where’s his wallet?”
Fenn opened the desk and dug through it. “Here it is.”
He handed the card to Lee and Lee typed it in, swearing, “Damn! I’ll use his birthday. Or the year he was born.”
“Guys,” Brian said.
Fenn continued: “Well, what about, you know now, how they have month and the year. His says 1967 and he was born in… er, April. Try zero four sixty-seven.”
Lee nodded approvingly and typed it.
“Damn.”
“We will be here a very long time.”
“Guys!” Brian said a little louder.
Lee looked at him irritatedly, Fenn said, “Yes?”
“What are you trying to do?”
Fenn toyed with an answer, but Lee said, forthrightly, “Break into a dead man’s bank account.”
“Should I ask… the circumstances?”
“No, you should not,” Fenn said.
“Well,” Brian went on after a pause, approaching the computer. “I was a math major back in college.”
“I thought you were a music major.”
“I was in math and music. They’re related. Music is very mathematical. If you’re not a dumb music major, which lots are. I thought I was going to be a math teacher.”
“I don’t get it,” Lee said.
Fenn did. “There are only so many numbers. I mean, there are only ten.”
“There are infinite numbers,” Lee said. “I’m a playwright, not a jackass.”
“Yes,” Brian said, taking the seat Fenn yielded. “But they are made up of one through nine with zero thrown in. Only ten numbers, and only so many combinations. The combininations are not as infinite as people think. Or, rather, most peoples minds are not as infinite as the combinations. Let me crack this.”
Lee looked at him suspiciously.
“Why?”
“Lee!” Fenn said.
Brian said, “Because I want to help for once, and because if it’s illegal, it’s a little bit bad, and I can’t seem to help being a little bit bad. Now move over, Lee.”
Lee grumbled and Brian sat at the keyboard, a strange light in his dark eyes, a weird smile on his handsome face as he began typing.
“By the way,” Brian said, “it’s actually a PIN, not a PIN number. PIN means personal identification number, so you’re just being redundant when you call it PIN number.”
“What about when I call you a pinhead?” Lee said.
But before Brian could answer this insult, Todd burst into the room and Fenn said, “Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Burst into places,” said Lee. “Every time I see you I feel like you’re about to announce World War Three.”
“Adele’s going on a date tonight,” Todd said.
“Good for her,” Fenn said.
“With a man she met in the grocery store. And all she knows about him is his name.”
“Well, now Todd,” Lee said. “Everyone can’t end up with a man they’ve known their entire life.”
“Is he Black or white?” said Fenn.
“She doesn’t know.”
“She’s getting more and more fucked up everyday,” Fenn commented.
“She says he could be anything. You know, like how I’m Lebanese.”
“I’m Mexican,” Tom volunteered.
“You’re white,” Fenn and Lee said together.
“My Dad was Mexican. From Oaxaca.”
From the computer, Brian added, “I am actually of Portuguese decent,” and kept typing.
“Great,” said Lee.
“So I’m going to tail her and this Davis guy tonight,” Todd said. “To make sure she’s safe. And I thought you’d go with me.”
“No.”
“Isn’t Portugal in Europe?” Lee said.
“Yes,” Brian said. “On the Iberian peninsula with Spain.”
“Well, then you’re still white.”
“Yes, I guess so—” Brian said testily. “But my mom’s family was from Puerto Rico and—shit!”
They all looked down at him.
Looking up with a victorious smile, Brian folded his arms across his chest and reported: “I’ve got it.”
THREE
GOING OUT
Adele Lawden crashed her shopping cart into a man.
“I am so sorry,” she said. “I am so sorry.”
She moved away from her cart toward the man.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I should have been paying attention.”
“I wasn’t paying attention either,” she admitted. “I mean if I had been… I wouldn’t have…”
“Crashed into my cart?”
“Right,” Adele said.
“I’m Simon Davis, by the way,” he offered her his hand.
“Oh,” Adele said. “Yes… I’m Adele Law—Houghton.”
“You must be having a rough day. If you forgot your last name.”
“No,” she said. “I just… You see, I’m getting a divorce.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. He was a son of a bitch. But the bottom line is, I’m having a hard time remembering my last name these days, seeing as it’s about to change, anyway.”
“Well… you’re single, then.”
“Yes.”
“Is it too quick to ask for a date?”
“A what?”
“A… You know what?” Simon Davis said. “It is too quick. It’s entirely too quick. Forgive me, it’s just this beautiful woman crashed her cart into me and I thought ‘It’s a sign from God.’ But, nevermind.”
“Yes,” Adele said.
“What?”
“Yes. I’ll go out with you. I’d love that.”
“Really? Well, heck. Hell,” Simon Davis jammed his hands in his pockets. “This must be my lucky day. What about eight o’clock?”
“Eight is good.” Adele said, and then nodding, she took her cart and headed all the way down the aisle, when she realized something and turned back.
“You’re going to want my address, right?”
Simon Davis nodded.
“It would be helpful.”
“I WAS GOING TO go home, but then I thought, well who would I talk to at home? I’d just walk around in circles and say it again and again to myself. So I came here.”
“Actually,” Todd noted, looking up from Adele at his sister’s kitchen table, “You haven’t really told us anything.”
Nell looked at Adele who was looking vaguely stupid, and then Adele said, “That’s right.”
Adele Houghton paused for effect: “I have a date.”
“Thank God,” Todd and Nell said together, and Adele frowned at them.
“You’re one to talk,” Adele looked at her best friend. “You got rid of Kevin when Dena could hardly walk, and I’ve never seen you with a man.”
“Don’t follow my example,” Nell said. “Follow my wish. Besides, Todd’s been with enough men for us both.”
Todd shot his sister a sour look, but Nell said, “What’s he like? What’s he look like?”
“I really don’t know.”
Nell looked at her.
“Well, you know, these days you just don’t know. Folks are all mixed up. He looked kinda white, but maybe with some Mexican. Or maybe he was part Black. I don’t know. He was definitely brownish, but not entirely brown.”
“You know,” said Todd. “Like Dad. Or like toffee.”
“Toffee is good,” Nell said.
“He definitely had some toffee like aspects to him,” Adele said.
“Very good. Mystery man from Toffee Land, which is just due south of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Now what’s Toffee-Man do?”
“I don’t know,” Adele said.
Nell and Todd looked at each other, and then Nell said, “Well, honey, what do you know?”
“Well, I crashed into his cart at the Kroger on Birmingham and he looked at me, and I looked at him and I asked him for a date, and gave him my address and said I’d be ready at eight.”
“So this man you don’t know—do you even know his name?” Todd said.
“His name is Simon Davis.”
“Well, that is one thing. Simon Davis, who you know nothing about, is coming to take you some place you don’t know.”
“Well, when you put it that way…”
“Adele,” Nell warned, “he could be… an ax murderer.”
“He doesn’t have the arms for it.”
“You know what I’m talking about! You don’t know anything about this man.”
“I was married to Hoot for seventeen years, and now it turns out I didn’t know anything about him. But I felt things. I always felt things. Well, we don’t really know anything about each other, do we? How much do we know? But, I feel like he’s a nice man. It’s just a date. And I could use just a date.”
Under the table, Todd crossed his long legs and propped them on another chair.
“All right,” he said. “You’re right. But I think we should be there to meet him.”
When Nell nodded her head in agreement, Adele said, “You’re not meeting him, and that’s that.”
“Fine, but… I’m gonna be across the street in the Land Rover. Tailing you.”
“You’re not serious.” Adele turned to Nell. “He’s not serious, is he?”
“I think it’s a good idea,” Nell said.
“Don’t try and stop me,” Todd said.
“No, I won’t,” Adele told him at last. “It would just be pointless.”
Suddenly Nell clapped her hands and said, “Well, okay. Now that security’s taken care of, let’s go shopping and find you something pretty to wear.”
The sheet around his waist, Paul had climbed into the chair, knees to his chest, and watched as Kirk knuckled his eyes and stretched in the bed, blinking up at him.
Kirk yawned out a: “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Kirk.”
“Come here,” Kirk gestured for Paul. As Paul approached, Kirk held up a hand, took a sip of water, gargled, swallowed it, took another sip and swallowed again. Sitting up he pulled Paul’s mouth to him and kissed him, and Paul came down to his knees so they could kiss on the edge of the bed better.
“I thought you might be angry,” Paul said.
“At what?”
“At last night. At everything. We said we would just hold each other. It went a little further.”
“It turned into what we wanted,” Kirk moved into the bed and patted it so Paul, in his boxer shorts and tee shirt could climb in with him.
“It’s just,” said Paul, “there are times when people take advantage. When your head is clear you say, I want this and that’s all. And then lust gets in the way, and suddenly you’re doing far more than you planned. And then when it’s over you’re angry. You hate the person, or yourself.”
“Do you feel that way?”
“No,” Paul said suddenly. “But I thought you might.”
“I’ve never felt that way,” Kirk said, shaking his head. “With anyone. First we held each other, and I wanted that. And then we kissed, and I wanted that. And then we decided not to told anything back, and I wanted that too.”
“Well, so did I.”
“When you talk about all of this shame and guilt and… all of that,” Kirk said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I mean, I know it’s real. It’s explains some things. About you. But I haven’t been there.”
“I think that’s part of why I love you.”
“You said it.”
“Said what?”
“You said you loved me.”
“So I did,” said Paul. “I don’t know the rules. Is there some sort of time lag before I say it? Or a special condition.”
“The condition is that it has to be true.”
Paul grinned from the side of his mouth and said, “Now that I’m a commoner so to speak, I’m starting to get that most people take a long time to know if anything’s true. I used to go to the websites: Guy McClintock, Rick Brody, Wet Times—”
“Wet Times?”
“Yes,” said Paul raising an eyebrow and lifting a finger. “And the sites lied, and in interviews we lied, and some of the pictures lied too. But you know, there was something very real about the business. I never once approached a guy and said, ‘I’m starting to have feelings for you. Or, let’s see where doing these next few movies takes our relationship. Or, let’s pretend we love each other. Let’s even say it in bed.
“That was one of the reasons I stopped being an escort. They always wanted you… to lie. Call you daddy, call you uncle…”
“I do know what you’re talking about,” Kirk said suddenly. “I know just what you’re talking about now. Except the uncle and the daddy part.”
Paul barked out a laugh, and Kirk remembered:
“A very long time ago I loved someone. I told him that, and even though I think he loved me that ended it all. He just left. And that was the last time. And I’ve sat in relationships for a long time, and no one ever told me they loved me. I think, sometimes, it would have been better to just screw around than to devote myself to one person for weeks, sometimes months, and think love would come. Or love would be confessed. But it never came and it was never said. And now you say it, just like that.”
“Because I’ve had years of experience knowing what it’s like to care for someone. I think I cared for most of the guys I was with. I care for Noah a lot. Whenever we did movies together, I cared for him, but I knew it wasn’t love. I mean, it was love. It is love, but it’s not… Does it sound silly if I say that when I thought we wouldn’t be together I felt as if when you came along you had a part of me? You had this part of me I always sort of knew belonged to someone else, and then there it was and we fit?”
“No,” Kirk shook his head. “No, it’s why I’d buy a house with you and raise Vietnamese orphans.”
“Is that your way of saying you love me?”
Kirk took Paul’s head and pressed it into his chest, saying, “I love you is the my way of saying I love you.”
“What,” Brian whispered to Tom as he entered Fenn’s office, “are they doing?”
Lee was at the computer, typing furiously and swearing, and Fenn was walking back and forth saying: “Do we need the password and the PIN number, or just one?”
“We need the PIN number. He’s got his password in already.”
“Lazy bastard.”
“And if we were at the ATM, then we’d just need the PIN.”
“Well, do you have his social security?”
“No. Where’s his wallet?”
Fenn opened the desk and dug through it. “Here it is.”
He handed the card to Lee and Lee typed it in, swearing, “Damn! I’ll use his birthday. Or the year he was born.”
“Guys,” Brian said.
Fenn continued: “Well, what about, you know now, how they have month and the year. His says 1967 and he was born in… er, April. Try zero four sixty-seven.”
Lee nodded approvingly and typed it.
“Damn.”
“We will be here a very long time.”
“Guys!” Brian said a little louder.
Lee looked at him irritatedly, Fenn said, “Yes?”
“What are you trying to do?”
Fenn toyed with an answer, but Lee said, forthrightly, “Break into a dead man’s bank account.”
“Should I ask… the circumstances?”
“No, you should not,” Fenn said.
“Well,” Brian went on after a pause, approaching the computer. “I was a math major back in college.”
“I thought you were a music major.”
“I was in math and music. They’re related. Music is very mathematical. If you’re not a dumb music major, which lots are. I thought I was going to be a math teacher.”
“I don’t get it,” Lee said.
Fenn did. “There are only so many numbers. I mean, there are only ten.”
“There are infinite numbers,” Lee said. “I’m a playwright, not a jackass.”
“Yes,” Brian said, taking the seat Fenn yielded. “But they are made up of one through nine with zero thrown in. Only ten numbers, and only so many combinations. The combininations are not as infinite as people think. Or, rather, most peoples minds are not as infinite as the combinations. Let me crack this.”
Lee looked at him suspiciously.
“Why?”
“Lee!” Fenn said.
Brian said, “Because I want to help for once, and because if it’s illegal, it’s a little bit bad, and I can’t seem to help being a little bit bad. Now move over, Lee.”
Lee grumbled and Brian sat at the keyboard, a strange light in his dark eyes, a weird smile on his handsome face as he began typing.
“By the way,” Brian said, “it’s actually a PIN, not a PIN number. PIN means personal identification number, so you’re just being redundant when you call it PIN number.”
“What about when I call you a pinhead?” Lee said.
But before Brian could answer this insult, Todd burst into the room and Fenn said, “Why do you always do that?”
“Do what?”
“Burst into places,” said Lee. “Every time I see you I feel like you’re about to announce World War Three.”
“Adele’s going on a date tonight,” Todd said.
“Good for her,” Fenn said.
“With a man she met in the grocery store. And all she knows about him is his name.”
“Well, now Todd,” Lee said. “Everyone can’t end up with a man they’ve known their entire life.”
“Is he Black or white?” said Fenn.
“She doesn’t know.”
“She’s getting more and more fucked up everyday,” Fenn commented.
“She says he could be anything. You know, like how I’m Lebanese.”
“I’m Mexican,” Tom volunteered.
“You’re white,” Fenn and Lee said together.
“My Dad was Mexican. From Oaxaca.”
From the computer, Brian added, “I am actually of Portuguese decent,” and kept typing.
“Great,” said Lee.
“So I’m going to tail her and this Davis guy tonight,” Todd said. “To make sure she’s safe. And I thought you’d go with me.”
“No.”
“Isn’t Portugal in Europe?” Lee said.
“Yes,” Brian said. “On the Iberian peninsula with Spain.”
“Well, then you’re still white.”
“Yes, I guess so—” Brian said testily. “But my mom’s family was from Puerto Rico and—shit!”
They all looked down at him.
Looking up with a victorious smile, Brian folded his arms across his chest and reported: “I’ve got it.”
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
I am glad Adele has a date and that Paul and Kirk seem to be back on good terms! Excellent writing as usual and I look forward to more soon!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I'm glad you enjoyed. More to come tomorrow night!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
[FONT=Arial]CHAPTER
THREE
GOING OUT CONTINUED
“Now what is it?”
They all looked at him, then at each other. Tom looked to Fenn, Fenn looked to Lee, Lee looked at Tom and Tom looked at Todd who looked back at Fenn. They looked at each other again.
“I mean,” said Brian, as Lee moved to the screen and whistled. “Who is this guy? Why are we—?”
“We?” Lee said.
“Why are you,” Brian amended, “digging around in his account?”
Again the silence, and then Brian said, “You know what? It’s not my business. I don’t care.” He stood up, making a show of big heartedness. “I said I’d find the PIN, which is 3245, by the way, and I did. That’s all I wanted. I don’t need to know any more.”
“About five months ago we found a half a million dollars in Guy McClintock’s house after the police had just raided it. We put the money in a bank account in the Caymans, and then the man who the money belonged to, who turned out to be a low level ganster came after us and we killed him. And now we’re taking what’s left of his funds.”
They all looked at Fenn. Brian blinked.
“He earned the knowledge. Without him we’d still be clicking away at that keyboard.”
“Adele doesn’t even know,” Lee said. “Your sister doesn’t know,” he said to Fenn.
“Tara knows. Paul knows. Noah knows and that’s risky as hell. Besides, now Layla and Claire and Barb Affren know. Hell, Dan Malloy knows. Half the town knows.”
“What?” Todd said.
Tom and Lee nodded
“And anyway,” Fenn said to Todd, “you went all the way to Pennsylvania to bring him back. To tell him he was part of us. How can Brian be one of us if we keep in the dark?”
“I don’t like it,” Lee said.
“You don’t like me,” Brian said to him.
“No one does.”
“Lee!”
“No, Fenn. He ruined your life once, and now…”
“Lee,” Tom said. “I had a little something to do with that too.”
“You had a lot of something to do with it. It’s why it took me ten years to even stand in the same room with you.”
“But it was my choice to make,” Fenn said. “If we’re going to go through all the trouble of bringing him back, he ought to have something to come back to.”
“All the money in Joe Callan’s account?”
“No, Lee,” said Fenn. “Us.”
This produced an embarrassed silence for everyone but Fenn. And then Tom said, “Don’t you think we should actually make sure there is money in Joe Callan’s account?”
Brian nodded and went to the computer at the same time Lee did. They both looked at each other and then with a raised eyebrow, Lee made space for him.
“I’ll be goddamned,” Lee muttered.
Brian just kept blinking, and scrolling up and down.
“I don’t believe this,” he said breathlessly. “I don’t believe it.”
“I’ll tell you what your problem is,” Fenn said while they sat on the roof smoking and looked down on Ryan Street, “Now, I’ve got no problem with the pussy. It’s not my game, particularly, but I’ve got no problem with the pussy, and I understand how it has its appeals.
“But you just eat up all the pussy,” he told Tara. “You don’t leave any pussy for nobody else. You walk into the carpet shop, you say, I’m gone have all that shit. The shag, the Berber, the wall to wall, the Persian, and you just gobble it up like this, gobble gobble, gobble gobble. You don’t leave no pussy for nobody else. And that’s your problem, and that’s why you’re a ho.”
“You through?”
“No, bitch, I’m not through. You asked. Now, this is what you’re trifling ass needs to do. You need to find yourself one good pussy. Or maybe two or three. But probably one. You need to find that good, good pussy. And you needed to sit down, stick your face all up that good ole wet pussy, and just munch munch munch. You getting old, dyke. Find yourself a pussy to love you.”
They both stopped and looked up as Brian Babcock emerged onto the roof with a startled look on his face, and then Fenn and Tara looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“I… only heard the last part of that,” Brian said, awkwardly. “But I don’t think I’ve ever heard a discussion quite like that before.”
Tara stood up tossing her cigarette and crushed it on the tar.
“Well, the same thing applies to you, only take out the word pussy and put in the word dick.”
“And sausage factory,” Fenn added.
“You got a way with words,” Tara said, opening the door back into the playhouse. “Maybe you should have been the playwright.”
“Maybe I will be, bitch,” Fenn said, as she disappeared. “Now, what brings you up here, Mr. Babcock?”
“It’s really beautiful up here. You can see the college. And you can see the highway from here.”
“You came up to look at the highway?”
“Is it true, what you said? I mean, what they said. Even Adele doesn’t know about this?”
“Yes?”
“But why?”
“Because she didn’t need to.”
“But I do?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For all the reasons I said before.”
“But… I would have been happy just to… not know. Just to say, here you guys go.”
“You would have?”
Brian looked at him.
“Or would you have just nursed in your heart how we didn’t trust you after all, until you got angrier and did something about it?”
“So you told me to save yourself from my wrath?” said Brian. “That doesn’t make sense, Fenn. I think I would have lied. I think I would have told part of the truth if that was just it.”
“Then obviously that wasn’t just it.”
“Then what?”
“What do you think? Seriously, Brian, what do you think?”
Brian turned away and went to the parapet. He stood there looking out on the street for only a little bit before he turned around and said:
“That you did it for the reasons you said, Fenn. And that… hurts. It… You are heaping coals upon my head.”
Fenn raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“From Saint Paul. In the Bible. Do good to your enemies, and it’s like heaping hot coals on their heads.”
“Thanks, I go to church too,” Fenn said. “Look, you’re not my enemy, and Paul’s a delusional fascist anyway, so that certainly wasn’t my intention.”
“But it’s how I feel,” Brian said. “It’s how I keep feeling.
“You’re right. If you had kept it a secret, I would have been angry. Not at once but it would have just fed into me. There’s this voice inside of me that says ‘See, you are rotten. You can’t be trusted. You are worthless. You are a fake. No one can like you, let alone love you.’ And… that’s how I would have felt. And I would have just gone on being me.”
“How do you know that’s you?” said Fenn. “How do you know that you is someone who just hurts people and can’t be trusted with the truth?”
“Because that’s always been me.”
“Because that’s the only you people expected.”
“I know,” Brian said quietly. “But you…. Expect me to keep this quiet. All of it.”
“I’m hoping you will.”
Brian sat down in Tara’s chair, his legs apart, and took his hands through his dark hair, sighing.
“I don’t get you, Fenn,” he said, at last. “I do, but I… I do get you, but I don’t get how you can be you.”
“I think the conventional wisdom is I’m still supposed to hate you,” Fenn said. “To make Lee and my sister and other just souls satisfied I am supposed to… never forget and never forgive. But I do both. Sometimes even simultaneously. On principal I am supposed to be angry and hurt for the rest of my life over something that is long past. Or pretend to be indifferent, and hate you in my heart.
“Why? Tom never strayed. He wouldn’t stray for anyone. Even if he forgets there must have been something in you, Brian that drew him to you, the way you were drawn to him. And though neither one of you likes to think about it, I see a lot of him in you. And I loved him. I still love him.
“Todd wouldn’t love just anyone, but he loved you. You were the first real lover he had and he still loves you. So why shouldn’t I?”
Brian opened his mouth.
Fenn held up a hand and repeated:
“So, why shouldn’t I?”
[/FONT]
THREE
GOING OUT CONTINUED
“Now what is it?”
They all looked at him, then at each other. Tom looked to Fenn, Fenn looked to Lee, Lee looked at Tom and Tom looked at Todd who looked back at Fenn. They looked at each other again.
“I mean,” said Brian, as Lee moved to the screen and whistled. “Who is this guy? Why are we—?”
“We?” Lee said.
“Why are you,” Brian amended, “digging around in his account?”
Again the silence, and then Brian said, “You know what? It’s not my business. I don’t care.” He stood up, making a show of big heartedness. “I said I’d find the PIN, which is 3245, by the way, and I did. That’s all I wanted. I don’t need to know any more.”
“About five months ago we found a half a million dollars in Guy McClintock’s house after the police had just raided it. We put the money in a bank account in the Caymans, and then the man who the money belonged to, who turned out to be a low level ganster came after us and we killed him. And now we’re taking what’s left of his funds.”
They all looked at Fenn. Brian blinked.
“He earned the knowledge. Without him we’d still be clicking away at that keyboard.”
“Adele doesn’t even know,” Lee said. “Your sister doesn’t know,” he said to Fenn.
“Tara knows. Paul knows. Noah knows and that’s risky as hell. Besides, now Layla and Claire and Barb Affren know. Hell, Dan Malloy knows. Half the town knows.”
“What?” Todd said.
Tom and Lee nodded
“And anyway,” Fenn said to Todd, “you went all the way to Pennsylvania to bring him back. To tell him he was part of us. How can Brian be one of us if we keep in the dark?”
“I don’t like it,” Lee said.
“You don’t like me,” Brian said to him.
“No one does.”
“Lee!”
“No, Fenn. He ruined your life once, and now…”
“Lee,” Tom said. “I had a little something to do with that too.”
“You had a lot of something to do with it. It’s why it took me ten years to even stand in the same room with you.”
“But it was my choice to make,” Fenn said. “If we’re going to go through all the trouble of bringing him back, he ought to have something to come back to.”
“All the money in Joe Callan’s account?”
“No, Lee,” said Fenn. “Us.”
This produced an embarrassed silence for everyone but Fenn. And then Tom said, “Don’t you think we should actually make sure there is money in Joe Callan’s account?”
Brian nodded and went to the computer at the same time Lee did. They both looked at each other and then with a raised eyebrow, Lee made space for him.
“I’ll be goddamned,” Lee muttered.
Brian just kept blinking, and scrolling up and down.
“I don’t believe this,” he said breathlessly. “I don’t believe it.”
“I’ll tell you what your problem is,” Fenn said while they sat on the roof smoking and looked down on Ryan Street, “Now, I’ve got no problem with the pussy. It’s not my game, particularly, but I’ve got no problem with the pussy, and I understand how it has its appeals.
“But you just eat up all the pussy,” he told Tara. “You don’t leave any pussy for nobody else. You walk into the carpet shop, you say, I’m gone have all that shit. The shag, the Berber, the wall to wall, the Persian, and you just gobble it up like this, gobble gobble, gobble gobble. You don’t leave no pussy for nobody else. And that’s your problem, and that’s why you’re a ho.”
“You through?”
“No, bitch, I’m not through. You asked. Now, this is what you’re trifling ass needs to do. You need to find yourself one good pussy. Or maybe two or three. But probably one. You need to find that good, good pussy. And you needed to sit down, stick your face all up that good ole wet pussy, and just munch munch munch. You getting old, dyke. Find yourself a pussy to love you.”
They both stopped and looked up as Brian Babcock emerged onto the roof with a startled look on his face, and then Fenn and Tara looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“I… only heard the last part of that,” Brian said, awkwardly. “But I don’t think I’ve ever heard a discussion quite like that before.”
Tara stood up tossing her cigarette and crushed it on the tar.
“Well, the same thing applies to you, only take out the word pussy and put in the word dick.”
“And sausage factory,” Fenn added.
“You got a way with words,” Tara said, opening the door back into the playhouse. “Maybe you should have been the playwright.”
“Maybe I will be, bitch,” Fenn said, as she disappeared. “Now, what brings you up here, Mr. Babcock?”
“It’s really beautiful up here. You can see the college. And you can see the highway from here.”
“You came up to look at the highway?”
“Is it true, what you said? I mean, what they said. Even Adele doesn’t know about this?”
“Yes?”
“But why?”
“Because she didn’t need to.”
“But I do?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“For all the reasons I said before.”
“But… I would have been happy just to… not know. Just to say, here you guys go.”
“You would have?”
Brian looked at him.
“Or would you have just nursed in your heart how we didn’t trust you after all, until you got angrier and did something about it?”
“So you told me to save yourself from my wrath?” said Brian. “That doesn’t make sense, Fenn. I think I would have lied. I think I would have told part of the truth if that was just it.”
“Then obviously that wasn’t just it.”
“Then what?”
“What do you think? Seriously, Brian, what do you think?”
Brian turned away and went to the parapet. He stood there looking out on the street for only a little bit before he turned around and said:
“That you did it for the reasons you said, Fenn. And that… hurts. It… You are heaping coals upon my head.”
Fenn raised a disbelieving eyebrow.
“From Saint Paul. In the Bible. Do good to your enemies, and it’s like heaping hot coals on their heads.”
“Thanks, I go to church too,” Fenn said. “Look, you’re not my enemy, and Paul’s a delusional fascist anyway, so that certainly wasn’t my intention.”
“But it’s how I feel,” Brian said. “It’s how I keep feeling.
“You’re right. If you had kept it a secret, I would have been angry. Not at once but it would have just fed into me. There’s this voice inside of me that says ‘See, you are rotten. You can’t be trusted. You are worthless. You are a fake. No one can like you, let alone love you.’ And… that’s how I would have felt. And I would have just gone on being me.”
“How do you know that’s you?” said Fenn. “How do you know that you is someone who just hurts people and can’t be trusted with the truth?”
“Because that’s always been me.”
“Because that’s the only you people expected.”
“I know,” Brian said quietly. “But you…. Expect me to keep this quiet. All of it.”
“I’m hoping you will.”
Brian sat down in Tara’s chair, his legs apart, and took his hands through his dark hair, sighing.
“I don’t get you, Fenn,” he said, at last. “I do, but I… I do get you, but I don’t get how you can be you.”
“I think the conventional wisdom is I’m still supposed to hate you,” Fenn said. “To make Lee and my sister and other just souls satisfied I am supposed to… never forget and never forgive. But I do both. Sometimes even simultaneously. On principal I am supposed to be angry and hurt for the rest of my life over something that is long past. Or pretend to be indifferent, and hate you in my heart.
“Why? Tom never strayed. He wouldn’t stray for anyone. Even if he forgets there must have been something in you, Brian that drew him to you, the way you were drawn to him. And though neither one of you likes to think about it, I see a lot of him in you. And I loved him. I still love him.
“Todd wouldn’t love just anyone, but he loved you. You were the first real lover he had and he still loves you. So why shouldn’t I?”
Brian opened his mouth.
Fenn held up a hand and repeated:
“So, why shouldn’t I?”
[/FONT]
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Interesting developments! Fenn is a complex character. I still think this money and bank account business is going to lead to more trouble. Great continuation and I can't wait for more!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER
THREE
GOING OUT CONTINUED CONTINUED
“I’m going to Adele’s; are you coming?”
“You’re seriously going to tail this man?”
“Yes,” said Todd. “Aren’t you curious about him?”
“No, I wasn’t curious about Hoot. Which was the problem. Despite what we’ve seen in the last few months, Adele is an intelligent woman and I trust her to not get herself killed.”
“Fine,” Todd shrugged. “I’ll go by myself.”
Todd headed out of the office and Fenn sat there for a second before calling:
“Todd!”
`A few moments later, Todd came back.
“What?”
“Fine, I’ll go by myself,” Fenn mimicked airly.
“I will.”
“I’ll get my coat.”
“I told you I would—” Fenn went to the closet under the stairwell and pulled out his car coat.
“Fine, Fine Fine.”
The back door opened and Paul entered.
“Where’ve you been?” said Todd.
“With Kirk.”
“All day and all night,” Fenn was slipping his coat on.
“We had a lot to talk about.”
“I’ll bet,” said Fenn.
Paul blushed, changed the subject and said: “Anyone seen Noah?”
“He dipped out a couple of days ago,” said Todd.
“You don’t think someone kidnapped him again?” Fenn said, only half joking.
“I don’t think that Callan guy had any friends,” Paul told him. “But I don’t like Noah just appearing and disappearing.”
“Hey,” Fenn said “We’ve opened up Callan’s account.”
“What?”
“Actually Brian did. Lee and I tried for a while, but Brian succeeded.”
“Are you actually going to take the man’s money, Fenn?”
“He’s dead. What can he do with it? Besides, it is so much more than money. It’s so much—” Fenn looked at Todd, who was tapping his foot.
“But we can talk about it all later. For now we’ve got to go and follow my sister around on her date with some man she met at the grocery store.”
Paul stared at Fenn, his brow furrowed.
Fenn stuck his thumb at Todd and, shrugging, said, “His idea.”
“This one or this one?”
“That one.”
“This top or this top?”
“Neither,” Layla said and left her mother’s bedroom. A few moments later she came back and said, “This.”
“I can’t wear this.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too… young.”
“You are young.”
“I’m not seventeen,” Adele said.
“Well, no Mom. Because I’m seventeen, and if we were both seventeen that would mean something sick had happened.”
“Did you hear a knock at the door?”
“No, Mama.”
The doorbell rang.
“You heard that, right?”
“Yes. I’ll go get it.” Layla was heading for the door when her mother said, “No!”
“What?”
“If you get it… then that’ll be him.”
“That’s right.”
“And then he’ll come in.”
“I think so.”
“So…. Don’t get it yet.”
“If I don’t get it, he’ll go away.”
The doorbell rang again.
“And then you’ll have no date.”
“Yes,” Adele stood in the mirror in her slip and bra, drumming he bureau top.
“I’m gonna go get it,” Layla said, and went down the hall and down the steps.
When she opened the door she said, “Will?”
“Glad to see you too. Do I get a kiss?”
“You get to come in here and close the door,” Layla said, shutting the door behind him. “I’m being emotional support. Mom’s going on a date for the first time tonight.”
“I’m going on a date for the first time in eighteen years,” Adele shouted from up the stairs, and coming down to the middle in her top and skirt, holding out the necklace for Layla to put around her neck, she said, “And these bitches make it hard now.
“I remember men used to like to treat a lady with respect. Do you know,” she said while she turned around and Layla fastened the necklace onto her mother, “I went on a dating site for about three weeks earlier this summer? All these tired men. Black, white, whatever. It didn’t matter. Profiles like, I’m forty-five, currently seeking new employment or… in transition. Ain’t that a bitch! In transition! And for a date… My moms is asleep on the couch, but if you come around back, it’ll be okay. Or my ex wife, or my baby mama lives with me, but it’s all right.”
“But,” Layla said, chuckling and coming down the stairs to Will, “my mother was lucky because what she met was a nice man in a grocery store. So she never had to sneak around to any man’s back door. At least as far as I know.”
“You,” Adele said, “can watch your mouth.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” Layla said in a tone which meant she had no intentions of watching her mouth at all.
“Maybe we could go on a date of our own?” Will suggested. “That was why I came over.”
“You could go back to school shopping.”
“For what?” Layla said. “We wear the same thing everyday, and it comes from a uniform company.”
“Your problem,” Adele said coming down the stairs, “is you don’t realize free money when a parent’s handing it to you.”
“Oh, well, then—”
The doorbell rang.
“Oh, shit,” Adele jumped up the steps.
“I’m going to answer that,” her daughter warned her.
“All right. I need to go get my shoes. And… a little cologne. And… make an entrance… or exit.”
The doorbell rang again.
Layla said: “Damn, he’s pushy,”
And as Adele ran up the stairs she said, “Watch your mouth, Miss Lawden.”
“She keeps telling you to do it,” Will murmured as they went to the door. “And yet …”
“It’s part of my charm,” Layla said, and opened the door.
“Hello, you must be Mr. Davis. Come on in.”
“Call me Simon,” he said, entering the house.
“Flowers,” Will noted.
“I’m Layla,” she said, “and this is Will, my boyfriend. My mother will be with you in a minute.”
“She told you she had a daughter right,” Layla heard Will saying. “She was very, very young when she had Layla. I mean, not young enough to be a slut or something like that, but just young enough not to be old.”
“Will!” Layla heard her mother shout from up the stairs, “Why don’t you go join Layla.”
When Layla was coming back to the foyer with the flowers in a vase from under the sink, she nearly stumbled into Will going in the opposite direction.
“I stepped in it.”
“You bet your ass you did,” she said and joined her mother back in the foyer.
“See,” she said.
“Roses, oh, these are beautiful.”
“Actually,” Simon said, “they’re standard protocol for a first date.”
“You haven’t been on a date in a long time,” Adele said.
“It’s been about twenty years.”
Adele nodded and, inhaling the roses before she put them on the table by the stairs said, “You would be surprised as hell to learn what standard protocol is now. Shall we go? Or did you want more of my daughter and her,” Adele shouted down the hall, “LOVELY boyfriend.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Lawden.”
“She was being sarcastic,” Layla shouted back.
“Only a little,” Adele told her daughter. She kissed Layla, handed her fifty dollars and said, “Don’t wait up.”
“Take good care of her,” Layla said and opened the door for them to leave.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Layla. You too, Will,” Simon shouted back.
This time Will had the sense to say nothing. He waited until the door was safely closed and then came back down the hall.
Peering through the curtain over the glass paneled door, Will said, “Was he Mexican?”
“I thought he might be Arab. Or something.”
As the lights went on and Simon Davis’s car went down the street, other lights on another vehicle went off in the same direction.
“I saw that car when I was coming here. It looked a lot like the Land Rover Dena’s uncle has.”
“That’s because it is.”
“Why’s Todd here? “
“It’s a very long story.”
“Which means it’s really just a story you don’t want to repeat?”
“Yes,” said Layla, pushing the curtain back as the taillights of the Land Rover turned in the same direction Simon and Adele had gone, “That’s exactly what it means.”
More Wednesday night
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
I hope Adele's date goes well! I also hope Noah has not got into more trouble. Great continuation and I look forward to more in a few days.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Thanks for reading. But why would you want a story where no one got into trouble? There is not plot and there is not story unless there is trouble.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Very true! I am just very attached to the characters lol. I’ll cope. Looking forward to more story soon.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
They are strong characters. They became my friends during a very bad time in my life, and taught me that we are all stronger than we know, you included.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER
THREE
GOING OUT CONTINUED
Kirk went to answer the door with a beer in his hand, and when he did, he blinked a couple of times.
“Noah? Right?”
“Yes,” said Noah. “I… you’re Kirk. I’m glad to see you took him back. I… I don’t mean to interrupt but—”
“Noah?” Paul said over Kirk’s shoulder.
Remembering himself, Kirk lowered his arm, and ushered Noah in.
“I’m sorry,” Noah said. “But I just got back from Port Ridge, and I needed to talk to someone. I mean, I needed to talk to you.” He turned to Kirk. “Is that all right?”
“I’ll just go back to my room,” Kirk offered.
“Don’t be silly,” Paul said.
“I just really needed to talk,” Noah mumbled.
“Why don’t you all go to the courtyard? I’ll be right here.”
Paul nodded and asked Noah, “Do I need a jacket?”
“You might,” Noah said, shrugging. He was wearing a long sleeved plaid over his tee shirt.
Kirk went to the closet, handed Paul his jacket, and then the two left the apartment.
“What’s wrong?” Paul said.
“That whole gun thing shook me up,” Noah said as they headed down the apartment steps.
“I could tell. And you’ve been MIA for the last few days. We were getting worried.”
“Were we getting worried, or were you getting worried?”
“Whaddo you mean?”
“I always feel like this is your place. Like you’ve really made a home for yourself. And my home… I don’t have one. Not really.
“That son of a bitch almost killed me. I just stood there with that gun in my mouth,” Noah said punching the door open and walking through it into the dark courtyard. “And all the shit in me turned into water. As soon as I could I swear I sat on the can and crapped out my insides for three hours, but I couldn’t get enough out. I just kept trembling. I’m still fucking trembling.”
“And then you went to Port Ridge?” Paul said, sitting on a stone bench. Noah sat on the one across from him.
“Yeah. To make a few movies for Guy’s new site. And Jack Brody was interviewing me. I might do some shit for him. They had me in this one pose, where I had this guy on his back with his legs up in the air, you know, knees to chest, and while I’m plowing him with my ass all up in the air, I turn to the camera and smile, just like this:” Noah gave a cheesy grin.
Paul shook his head and chuckled.
“Don’t laugh too hard, I’m sure Johnny Mellow gave a few cheesy grins like that in his time.”
“I know he did,” Paul said. “But Johnny Mellow almost ruined my life, so he’s not so funny to me anymore.”
“Well,” said Noah. “I felt so… scared. The only way to get my… mojo back, if you will, was to fuck a few dudes on camera. I really feel like a fucking god then.”
They were quiet, and the crickets were chirping loudly all around. In the distance a cop car wailed.
“But you can’t make movies all the time. I wish I could, and now I’m back to me again.
“You… you make it work.”
“Whaddo you mean?” said Paul.
“You got the boyfriend. You got a home. You have this life and people who like you. You could just get up and leave all we used to do. I can’t make it work. I don’t know how to do anything else. Burt, he makes movies now. And then Keith is doing that whole physical trainer crap. I don’t know how to be anybody else.”
“I’m sure you could work at the theatre.”
“I don’t want to work at the fucking theatre. I want to do shit that excites me and is dangerous and would shame my parents and could damn near kill me. Don’t you know that about me, already? That’s the only time I’m close to happy doing, and even when I’m close to happy… I’m not happy at all. The shit is exhausting.
“And… I don’t want to live with Fenn and Todd. It just seems like I’m taking charity. I’m not close to them like you are.”
And then Paul heard himself beginning to make a suggestion he didn’t think he’d ever create, namely, because he’d done it already and he hated it.
“How much money do you have left?”
“A little. Plus I made those movies.”
“Well, like, if you need help then I’ll lease a place with you. That’s part one.”
“All right?” Noah nodded at him, waiting for the approaching idea.
“That way you don’t have to feel like you’re being someone else’s charity. And then you can run an escort service. I mean, you can be an escort.”
Noah blinked at him.
“You want me to be a male prostitute?”
“No,” Paul said. “I want you to enroll at college with me so we can go together when the new semester starts. But, I know you won’t do that, so I’m suggesting something you might do.”
Noah sat there quietly for a moment.
“Or you can keep going back to Port Ridge,” Paul shrugged. “I don’t have any exciting ideas for you anymore. I spent ten years doing exciting stuff and I’m sick of it. I want to do dull stuff like… be happy.”
“I want to be happy too…. But it’s not easy.”
“No,” Paul considered, “it isn’t.”
“What do I do tonight, though?”
“It’s very simple,” Paul said. “Either go back to Port Ridge, or take some of Fenn and Todd’s charity you can’t stand.”
“I know what I’ll do?” Noah stood up, jamming his hands into his jeans. “I’ll go home.”
Paul raised an eyebrow.
“To Rummelsville.”
East Carmel was an hour south. A half hour west was Carmel. On the other side of Carmel was Rummelsville.
“You’re going there tonight?” Paul said, disbelievingly.
“Yes,” said Noah. “Nothing better to do.”
Paul was about to say define better, but he held his tongue.
“And you,” Noah told him, “can go back to your hot date.”
Disguising his concern for Noah, he put on a smile and said, “I think I will.”
“Okay, so are you Mrs. Lawden or Miss Houghton?”
“I,” Adele opened her mouth and put down the menu, “am in transition.”
“Are you still attached to him?” Simon Davis said.
“Fuck no!” Adele covered her mouth. “I mean… no.”
“Maybe you want to settle somewhere in the middle and mean hell no?” Simon suggested.
Adele smiled and said, “That’s an appropriate compromise.”
The waiter approached.
“Have you all decided?”
“I want the house special. That freshwater trout sounds nice,” Simon said then nodded to Adele.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“I’m paying.”
“I’ll have the lobster, and glass of white wine,” Adele said and handed the menu back to the waiter.
“When we were married, my wife used to do that,” Simon said, leaning in. “She did it before we got married too. She’d get something like lobster and see my facial expression.”
“And then you divorced her.”
“And then she died.”
“Oh,” said Adele.
“Fifteen years, which is not as long as your seventeen years. She was… a lot like you. From what I know of you.”
Adele folded her hands together.
“The first time I went out with Hoot—Layla’s father—he got upset when I wanted the lobster. I said lobster and I saw this crease in his forehead. Just like this: see? And it really pissed me off, but I ignored it. I thought, money’s tight, he’s a young law student. Now I know a young law student is pretty much like an apprentice devil and Hoot, who I excused so much for, was already married to another woman and had a baby while he was romancing me.”
“Wow,” Simon shook his head. “I don’t have anything that adventurous. I just almost killed Diane when I proposed to her is all.”
“What?”
“I put the ring in her soufflé. I thought she’d bite down on it. She choked. I Heimliched. Afterward she threw up. It was truly romantic. She still said ‘I do’.”
Adele chuckled and shook her head.
“We… Hoot and I were not a funny couple. He was very serious about being the modern successful Black Man, and I was his wife, and we had something to show… to all the benighted Blacks folks out there who didn’t know they could do better.”
“So you were like the Huxtables?” he said.
Adele burst out laughing as the waiter approached with her wine and she said, “I thought I’d said too much. Like you wouldn’t get it, and here you beat me to the punch. We were like the Huxtables, except I’m a Houghton, and I forgot that, and Houghtons are nothing like Huxtables.”
“Your daughter, Layla, is nothing like a Huxtable.
“You know what?” Simon said, “You kill me. I mean, Black people always think that no one can understand them but another Black person. Maybe I’m speaking out of place?”
“No,” Adele said cocking her head. “Go on.”
“But, my grandmother used to say about us—everybody get’s treated like a wetback sometime or another.”
“You’re Mexican?”
“I’m Puerto Rican, but wetback sounded better than what she really said.”
Adele nodded knowingly, “She said everybody gets treated like a niggah sometime.”
Simon looked at her startled.
“It’s the same thing my grandmother said,” Adele explained. “Actually, it’s the same thing she still says.”
“She’s still alive?”
“How old do I look?” Adele feigned shock.
“As old as me,” Simon said levelly, “and my grandmother is long dead.”
“My grandmother,” Adele said firmly, “is hell on wheels, and I’m sure that old woman will outlive us all.”
“I want to thank you for a lovely evening. Listen to that, I just said lovely.”
“Well, we can think of another word.”
“Any word but lovely,” Adele said. “My mother in law used to say lovely, and I never liked her.”
“If she’s anything like what you said about the son I see why,” Simon Davis said. “Let me walk you to your door.”
“I would like that. That would be something that would otherwise be the word lovely.”
“I like you Adele,” Simon rounded the car and opened the door for her. He offered his hand.
“This is just like the real date I never had.”
“If I just keep being corny, I guess I’ll be doing all right.”
“Corniness is overrated.”
They walked up the brick steps to the front door, and then Adele said, “Would you like to come in? I don’t know if you want to brave Will and Layla, but I’d be glad for your company.”
“I would be glad to give you company,” he said. “But I have to be up early for orientation at my new job.”
“You did say you just moved here. What will it be? If I can ask.”
“Oh, it’s not top secret. I’m just a teacher. Gotta get the lay of the school and everything.”
“Oh, dear,” Adele said.
“Hum?”
“The whole calling thing. The whole do you call me, do I call you? How long do we wait?”
“What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Uh… nothing?”
“We could go out again. I can’t buy lobster, but we can go out again.”
“Is that in the rulebook?” Adele said. “I mean I think in the rulebook, two dates in a row is unprecedented.”
“I’m not saying you’re too old for the rulebook. I’m just saying, I’m too old for the rulebook,” said Simon.
“So tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow night. You can kiss me by the way.”
“Oh! All right, hold on.”
Simon took the gum out of his mouth and said, “You’d never believe how many people try to chew gum and kiss at the same time. This is a world lacking in style and manners.”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth?”
Simon leaned forward and kissed her, and when they parted, Adele said, “And the way to handle the whoel calling thing is, call when you get home so I know you’re safe.”
He looked at her.
“I’m a mother,” she said. “I can’t help myself. Now, Goodnight.”
When Simon had gone down the steps and Adele opened the door, Layla and Will jumped back from it.
“That’s just sad,” she told them. “You’re just sad. Don’t the two of you have anything better to do than eavesdrop on my date?”
“You got a point mom,” Layla said. “Will, you wanna go up to my room and have some premarital sex?”
THREE
GOING OUT CONTINUED
Kirk went to answer the door with a beer in his hand, and when he did, he blinked a couple of times.
“Noah? Right?”
“Yes,” said Noah. “I… you’re Kirk. I’m glad to see you took him back. I… I don’t mean to interrupt but—”
“Noah?” Paul said over Kirk’s shoulder.
Remembering himself, Kirk lowered his arm, and ushered Noah in.
“I’m sorry,” Noah said. “But I just got back from Port Ridge, and I needed to talk to someone. I mean, I needed to talk to you.” He turned to Kirk. “Is that all right?”
“I’ll just go back to my room,” Kirk offered.
“Don’t be silly,” Paul said.
“I just really needed to talk,” Noah mumbled.
“Why don’t you all go to the courtyard? I’ll be right here.”
Paul nodded and asked Noah, “Do I need a jacket?”
“You might,” Noah said, shrugging. He was wearing a long sleeved plaid over his tee shirt.
Kirk went to the closet, handed Paul his jacket, and then the two left the apartment.
“What’s wrong?” Paul said.
“That whole gun thing shook me up,” Noah said as they headed down the apartment steps.
“I could tell. And you’ve been MIA for the last few days. We were getting worried.”
“Were we getting worried, or were you getting worried?”
“Whaddo you mean?”
“I always feel like this is your place. Like you’ve really made a home for yourself. And my home… I don’t have one. Not really.
“That son of a bitch almost killed me. I just stood there with that gun in my mouth,” Noah said punching the door open and walking through it into the dark courtyard. “And all the shit in me turned into water. As soon as I could I swear I sat on the can and crapped out my insides for three hours, but I couldn’t get enough out. I just kept trembling. I’m still fucking trembling.”
“And then you went to Port Ridge?” Paul said, sitting on a stone bench. Noah sat on the one across from him.
“Yeah. To make a few movies for Guy’s new site. And Jack Brody was interviewing me. I might do some shit for him. They had me in this one pose, where I had this guy on his back with his legs up in the air, you know, knees to chest, and while I’m plowing him with my ass all up in the air, I turn to the camera and smile, just like this:” Noah gave a cheesy grin.
Paul shook his head and chuckled.
“Don’t laugh too hard, I’m sure Johnny Mellow gave a few cheesy grins like that in his time.”
“I know he did,” Paul said. “But Johnny Mellow almost ruined my life, so he’s not so funny to me anymore.”
“Well,” said Noah. “I felt so… scared. The only way to get my… mojo back, if you will, was to fuck a few dudes on camera. I really feel like a fucking god then.”
They were quiet, and the crickets were chirping loudly all around. In the distance a cop car wailed.
“But you can’t make movies all the time. I wish I could, and now I’m back to me again.
“You… you make it work.”
“Whaddo you mean?” said Paul.
“You got the boyfriend. You got a home. You have this life and people who like you. You could just get up and leave all we used to do. I can’t make it work. I don’t know how to do anything else. Burt, he makes movies now. And then Keith is doing that whole physical trainer crap. I don’t know how to be anybody else.”
“I’m sure you could work at the theatre.”
“I don’t want to work at the fucking theatre. I want to do shit that excites me and is dangerous and would shame my parents and could damn near kill me. Don’t you know that about me, already? That’s the only time I’m close to happy doing, and even when I’m close to happy… I’m not happy at all. The shit is exhausting.
“And… I don’t want to live with Fenn and Todd. It just seems like I’m taking charity. I’m not close to them like you are.”
And then Paul heard himself beginning to make a suggestion he didn’t think he’d ever create, namely, because he’d done it already and he hated it.
“How much money do you have left?”
“A little. Plus I made those movies.”
“Well, like, if you need help then I’ll lease a place with you. That’s part one.”
“All right?” Noah nodded at him, waiting for the approaching idea.
“That way you don’t have to feel like you’re being someone else’s charity. And then you can run an escort service. I mean, you can be an escort.”
Noah blinked at him.
“You want me to be a male prostitute?”
“No,” Paul said. “I want you to enroll at college with me so we can go together when the new semester starts. But, I know you won’t do that, so I’m suggesting something you might do.”
Noah sat there quietly for a moment.
“Or you can keep going back to Port Ridge,” Paul shrugged. “I don’t have any exciting ideas for you anymore. I spent ten years doing exciting stuff and I’m sick of it. I want to do dull stuff like… be happy.”
“I want to be happy too…. But it’s not easy.”
“No,” Paul considered, “it isn’t.”
“What do I do tonight, though?”
“It’s very simple,” Paul said. “Either go back to Port Ridge, or take some of Fenn and Todd’s charity you can’t stand.”
“I know what I’ll do?” Noah stood up, jamming his hands into his jeans. “I’ll go home.”
Paul raised an eyebrow.
“To Rummelsville.”
East Carmel was an hour south. A half hour west was Carmel. On the other side of Carmel was Rummelsville.
“You’re going there tonight?” Paul said, disbelievingly.
“Yes,” said Noah. “Nothing better to do.”
Paul was about to say define better, but he held his tongue.
“And you,” Noah told him, “can go back to your hot date.”
Disguising his concern for Noah, he put on a smile and said, “I think I will.”
“Okay, so are you Mrs. Lawden or Miss Houghton?”
“I,” Adele opened her mouth and put down the menu, “am in transition.”
“Are you still attached to him?” Simon Davis said.
“Fuck no!” Adele covered her mouth. “I mean… no.”
“Maybe you want to settle somewhere in the middle and mean hell no?” Simon suggested.
Adele smiled and said, “That’s an appropriate compromise.”
The waiter approached.
“Have you all decided?”
“I want the house special. That freshwater trout sounds nice,” Simon said then nodded to Adele.
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“I’m paying.”
“I’ll have the lobster, and glass of white wine,” Adele said and handed the menu back to the waiter.
“When we were married, my wife used to do that,” Simon said, leaning in. “She did it before we got married too. She’d get something like lobster and see my facial expression.”
“And then you divorced her.”
“And then she died.”
“Oh,” said Adele.
“Fifteen years, which is not as long as your seventeen years. She was… a lot like you. From what I know of you.”
Adele folded her hands together.
“The first time I went out with Hoot—Layla’s father—he got upset when I wanted the lobster. I said lobster and I saw this crease in his forehead. Just like this: see? And it really pissed me off, but I ignored it. I thought, money’s tight, he’s a young law student. Now I know a young law student is pretty much like an apprentice devil and Hoot, who I excused so much for, was already married to another woman and had a baby while he was romancing me.”
“Wow,” Simon shook his head. “I don’t have anything that adventurous. I just almost killed Diane when I proposed to her is all.”
“What?”
“I put the ring in her soufflé. I thought she’d bite down on it. She choked. I Heimliched. Afterward she threw up. It was truly romantic. She still said ‘I do’.”
Adele chuckled and shook her head.
“We… Hoot and I were not a funny couple. He was very serious about being the modern successful Black Man, and I was his wife, and we had something to show… to all the benighted Blacks folks out there who didn’t know they could do better.”
“So you were like the Huxtables?” he said.
Adele burst out laughing as the waiter approached with her wine and she said, “I thought I’d said too much. Like you wouldn’t get it, and here you beat me to the punch. We were like the Huxtables, except I’m a Houghton, and I forgot that, and Houghtons are nothing like Huxtables.”
“Your daughter, Layla, is nothing like a Huxtable.
“You know what?” Simon said, “You kill me. I mean, Black people always think that no one can understand them but another Black person. Maybe I’m speaking out of place?”
“No,” Adele said cocking her head. “Go on.”
“But, my grandmother used to say about us—everybody get’s treated like a wetback sometime or another.”
“You’re Mexican?”
“I’m Puerto Rican, but wetback sounded better than what she really said.”
Adele nodded knowingly, “She said everybody gets treated like a niggah sometime.”
Simon looked at her startled.
“It’s the same thing my grandmother said,” Adele explained. “Actually, it’s the same thing she still says.”
“She’s still alive?”
“How old do I look?” Adele feigned shock.
“As old as me,” Simon said levelly, “and my grandmother is long dead.”
“My grandmother,” Adele said firmly, “is hell on wheels, and I’m sure that old woman will outlive us all.”
“I want to thank you for a lovely evening. Listen to that, I just said lovely.”
“Well, we can think of another word.”
“Any word but lovely,” Adele said. “My mother in law used to say lovely, and I never liked her.”
“If she’s anything like what you said about the son I see why,” Simon Davis said. “Let me walk you to your door.”
“I would like that. That would be something that would otherwise be the word lovely.”
“I like you Adele,” Simon rounded the car and opened the door for her. He offered his hand.
“This is just like the real date I never had.”
“If I just keep being corny, I guess I’ll be doing all right.”
“Corniness is overrated.”
They walked up the brick steps to the front door, and then Adele said, “Would you like to come in? I don’t know if you want to brave Will and Layla, but I’d be glad for your company.”
“I would be glad to give you company,” he said. “But I have to be up early for orientation at my new job.”
“You did say you just moved here. What will it be? If I can ask.”
“Oh, it’s not top secret. I’m just a teacher. Gotta get the lay of the school and everything.”
“Oh, dear,” Adele said.
“Hum?”
“The whole calling thing. The whole do you call me, do I call you? How long do we wait?”
“What are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Uh… nothing?”
“We could go out again. I can’t buy lobster, but we can go out again.”
“Is that in the rulebook?” Adele said. “I mean I think in the rulebook, two dates in a row is unprecedented.”
“I’m not saying you’re too old for the rulebook. I’m just saying, I’m too old for the rulebook,” said Simon.
“So tomorrow night?”
“Tomorrow night. You can kiss me by the way.”
“Oh! All right, hold on.”
Simon took the gum out of his mouth and said, “You’d never believe how many people try to chew gum and kiss at the same time. This is a world lacking in style and manners.”
“Ain’t that the fucking truth?”
Simon leaned forward and kissed her, and when they parted, Adele said, “And the way to handle the whoel calling thing is, call when you get home so I know you’re safe.”
He looked at her.
“I’m a mother,” she said. “I can’t help myself. Now, Goodnight.”
When Simon had gone down the steps and Adele opened the door, Layla and Will jumped back from it.
“That’s just sad,” she told them. “You’re just sad. Don’t the two of you have anything better to do than eavesdrop on my date?”
“You got a point mom,” Layla said. “Will, you wanna go up to my room and have some premarital sex?”
