ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Mermaids don't think about being mermaids either. : )
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The Skin of Things
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
The Skin of Things, continued
The following Sunday, Donovan saw a car driving too fast up the street, and it swung into a spot before their building, and then out hopped someone and there was a knock at the door.
“That’s Simon’s car,” Cade said, and the two of them went down to answer the door.
Simon shouted. “I just got back into town. I wanted to see you all.”
Cade looked to Donovan.
“Why….” Donovan began, while Simon was still clinging to him, “don’t you just come inside and have a cup of coffee?”
“Yeah,” Simon nodded his head. “Yeah, we really ought to be together right now.”
Over their heads, Cade looked at Donovan with a question on his face, but Donovan said. “Yes, Simon. We absolutely should be.”
Whatever Cade wanted, and whatever would have been normal, Don decided Simon should stay with them, and after ten o clock, when she got off work, Suzie showed up and said, “I need a drink. I need to see some fucking friends.”
And so she stayed too. Simon slept on the couch in the three season room and Suzie on the one in the living room, and when Cade led Don away, like the lover that he he was, they kissed in his room—their room now—with the door open, and then stripped in candlelight and held each other. Black and white, long and short, they tangled their limbs together, and like baby animals, lay down to sleep.
Donovan woke on his back, his mouth dry, his back sore, grey light coming into the room. He heard shuffling around and was vaguely conscious of being naked. He pushed himself out of bed, and went to the closet to pull a sheet over Cade, before pulling on a housecoat that was much too warm at this time of year.
Out in the living room, Suzie was getting dressed. Simon went to the enclosed porch where Simon was half asleep on his side. Simon rolled over on his back and yawned but turned back on his side. Don came back into the apartment to find Suzie, and he said, “Do you want coffee?”
“I’m already late for work, I’ll get it on the way.”
Suzie was gone a few minutes later and then Don went into the restroom to use it. It was like as soon as she was gone, he became acutely aware of his need to void, and then he came back to the bed. Cade was already half awake and Don said, “You’ve got work.”
“I’m not going,” Cade said. “I hate it, and life is too short, and…”
And then, narrowing his eyes, Cade said, “It does good.”
“What?” Don said.
“Don,” Cade said, “It does good.”
Don screwed his face up, and then he said, his eyes widening, “it lights the way back home.”
Cade only kissed him, quickly, and then he sprang up, pulled on his shorts and went to the restroom. He came back, pulling off his shorts and climbing under the sheet. Only now, as she pulled themselves together, they heard Simon shuffling around, going into the bathroom, and Don said, “I will clean that place today. It’s getting a lot of use.”
As they chuckled, the toilet flushed, water ran, and then there was a heavy silence, and the two of them turned as, hair up, tall and narrow, Simon came into their room. He pulled off his black jockeys and climbed into the bed with them, pulling the covers over him as well.
It’s for rent you know,” Donovan says.
“What?”
“The house,” Don says. “You know, the one we saw the other day.”
“You’re really obsessed with that place.”
“A little,” Don allows. “I pass it every day. I mean, I walk past it on purpose.”
“And how much is the house a month?”
“I think seven forty… with utilities.”
“You think very precisely.”
“I might have asked.”
Cade as quiet for a moment, and then he scratched his beard.
“What is the attraction of the house?”
“Do you hate it that much?”
“I don’t hate it,” Cade said, “I just don’t get why you love it.”
“Fine,” Donovan said, crashing on the sofa. “I have always had this fantasy… about a house. And that house fits it.”
Cade jammed his hands in his pockets and looked at Donovan.
“It’s got lots of rooms. Lots of people could live there.”
Cade narrowed his eyes.
“You always liked to be alone.”
“I did,” Donovan said. “You’re right. You’re not wrong. But ever since you moved in, we haven’t been alone. And then Simon is here, and then Suzie is here, and then your friend Andrew stayed over last weekend.”
“We need to talk about that?”
“Which part of it?”
“Mainly the Simon part,” Cade said, “because we need our life. You and me, Don.”
“Well, yes,” Donovan said. “I suppose you’re right.”
“You suppose?” Cade said. “Remember when we first met? The first time I introduced you to Simon? What you said. What I said? And you suppose? After the nonsense we’ve been through?”
The very first morning, after Suzie came, after Simon came into the bed, he slept on one side of Don and Cade on the other, and gently, Simon and Cade began to make love to him. Cade was not going into work, and in this moment after everything had happened, he shrugged off caring. In the early morning, Simon went from one to the other, riding Don and then Cade. They exchanged kisses and lovemaking and passed in and out of orgasm.
After showering they didn’t speak of it, and when Simon decided to go into work they didn’t talk about with each other. Simon stayed in his apartment the following night, and the night when Suzie was there, Simon stayed late but went home. All of Andrew’s visit nothing had happened, but after he left, Simon happened again, and there was a strange pleasure Don took in lying on his back being ridden by Simon, and then watching Simon do the same to Cade, open mouth, to be part of the other sex life of Cade, the one Cade always hid from him, to watch Cade fuck his ex-lover, to, at last, overcome by the shivering fire of lust, find himself fucking Simon as well.
“I didn’t know you minded.”
“You don’t?” Cade said.
“I don’t really know,” Donovan said. “The first time… But the first times I had sex at all, I didn’t know how I felt. I was unsure. And when you would tell me things about what you and Simon did, I was unsure too, so, I don’t know how to feel, or how I actually feel, and it’s like its too much energy pretending to be incensed or angry or trying to stop something that… it seems like we both enjoy.”
“Don,” Cade said, “what I would enjoy is us making a life for ourselves.”
“Me too,” Donovan said. “I just don’t think that means making a life at the exclusion of other people.”
“So you’re saying you want to keep fucking Simon.”
“That,” Donovan said, “is not what I said.”
“Then we need to think about our actions a little,” Cade said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Don said nothing. Whatever he said would have sounded sarcastic.
“Do you need a ride to Harrison in the morning?” Cade asked.
“I’d like that,” Don said.
You look hot like that,” Don says, coming behind Cade and straightening his tie in the mirror.
“I need a haircut.”
“I like it when that one bob of hair kind of falls right between your eyes.
“I hate this job.”
“Come with me to Harrison. Work with kids again. You can still wear khakis and a nice shirt.”
Cade frowned into the mirror and Donovan said, “You’re handsome when you frown, but I still prefer you happy.”
“Don.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to stop fucking Simon. I want Simon out of our bed. I don’t want him to be part of you and me.”
“Alright.”
“You’re the one I want straightening my tie and holding me when I go to sleep. Alright? I don’t want to share my boyfriend anymore.”
“That’s all you needed to say.”
Cade’s face did not change, but he squeezed Don’s hand, and then he said, “Let’s go to work.”
The End of our Story is close at hand….
Theme Song: Little Bird: The Weepies
The following Sunday, Donovan saw a car driving too fast up the street, and it swung into a spot before their building, and then out hopped someone and there was a knock at the door.
“That’s Simon’s car,” Cade said, and the two of them went down to answer the door.
Simon shouted. “I just got back into town. I wanted to see you all.”
Cade looked to Donovan.
“Why….” Donovan began, while Simon was still clinging to him, “don’t you just come inside and have a cup of coffee?”
“Yeah,” Simon nodded his head. “Yeah, we really ought to be together right now.”
Over their heads, Cade looked at Donovan with a question on his face, but Donovan said. “Yes, Simon. We absolutely should be.”
Whatever Cade wanted, and whatever would have been normal, Don decided Simon should stay with them, and after ten o clock, when she got off work, Suzie showed up and said, “I need a drink. I need to see some fucking friends.”
And so she stayed too. Simon slept on the couch in the three season room and Suzie on the one in the living room, and when Cade led Don away, like the lover that he he was, they kissed in his room—their room now—with the door open, and then stripped in candlelight and held each other. Black and white, long and short, they tangled their limbs together, and like baby animals, lay down to sleep.
Donovan woke on his back, his mouth dry, his back sore, grey light coming into the room. He heard shuffling around and was vaguely conscious of being naked. He pushed himself out of bed, and went to the closet to pull a sheet over Cade, before pulling on a housecoat that was much too warm at this time of year.
Out in the living room, Suzie was getting dressed. Simon went to the enclosed porch where Simon was half asleep on his side. Simon rolled over on his back and yawned but turned back on his side. Don came back into the apartment to find Suzie, and he said, “Do you want coffee?”
“I’m already late for work, I’ll get it on the way.”
Suzie was gone a few minutes later and then Don went into the restroom to use it. It was like as soon as she was gone, he became acutely aware of his need to void, and then he came back to the bed. Cade was already half awake and Don said, “You’ve got work.”
“I’m not going,” Cade said. “I hate it, and life is too short, and…”
And then, narrowing his eyes, Cade said, “It does good.”
“What?” Don said.
“Don,” Cade said, “It does good.”
Don screwed his face up, and then he said, his eyes widening, “it lights the way back home.”
Cade only kissed him, quickly, and then he sprang up, pulled on his shorts and went to the restroom. He came back, pulling off his shorts and climbing under the sheet. Only now, as she pulled themselves together, they heard Simon shuffling around, going into the bathroom, and Don said, “I will clean that place today. It’s getting a lot of use.”
As they chuckled, the toilet flushed, water ran, and then there was a heavy silence, and the two of them turned as, hair up, tall and narrow, Simon came into their room. He pulled off his black jockeys and climbed into the bed with them, pulling the covers over him as well.
@@@@@@@
It’s for rent you know,” Donovan says.
“What?”
“The house,” Don says. “You know, the one we saw the other day.”
“You’re really obsessed with that place.”
“A little,” Don allows. “I pass it every day. I mean, I walk past it on purpose.”
“And how much is the house a month?”
“I think seven forty… with utilities.”
“You think very precisely.”
“I might have asked.”
Cade as quiet for a moment, and then he scratched his beard.
“What is the attraction of the house?”
“Do you hate it that much?”
“I don’t hate it,” Cade said, “I just don’t get why you love it.”
“Fine,” Donovan said, crashing on the sofa. “I have always had this fantasy… about a house. And that house fits it.”
Cade jammed his hands in his pockets and looked at Donovan.
“It’s got lots of rooms. Lots of people could live there.”
Cade narrowed his eyes.
“You always liked to be alone.”
“I did,” Donovan said. “You’re right. You’re not wrong. But ever since you moved in, we haven’t been alone. And then Simon is here, and then Suzie is here, and then your friend Andrew stayed over last weekend.”
“We need to talk about that?”
“Which part of it?”
“Mainly the Simon part,” Cade said, “because we need our life. You and me, Don.”
“Well, yes,” Donovan said. “I suppose you’re right.”
“You suppose?” Cade said. “Remember when we first met? The first time I introduced you to Simon? What you said. What I said? And you suppose? After the nonsense we’ve been through?”
The very first morning, after Suzie came, after Simon came into the bed, he slept on one side of Don and Cade on the other, and gently, Simon and Cade began to make love to him. Cade was not going into work, and in this moment after everything had happened, he shrugged off caring. In the early morning, Simon went from one to the other, riding Don and then Cade. They exchanged kisses and lovemaking and passed in and out of orgasm.
After showering they didn’t speak of it, and when Simon decided to go into work they didn’t talk about with each other. Simon stayed in his apartment the following night, and the night when Suzie was there, Simon stayed late but went home. All of Andrew’s visit nothing had happened, but after he left, Simon happened again, and there was a strange pleasure Don took in lying on his back being ridden by Simon, and then watching Simon do the same to Cade, open mouth, to be part of the other sex life of Cade, the one Cade always hid from him, to watch Cade fuck his ex-lover, to, at last, overcome by the shivering fire of lust, find himself fucking Simon as well.
“I didn’t know you minded.”
“You don’t?” Cade said.
“I don’t really know,” Donovan said. “The first time… But the first times I had sex at all, I didn’t know how I felt. I was unsure. And when you would tell me things about what you and Simon did, I was unsure too, so, I don’t know how to feel, or how I actually feel, and it’s like its too much energy pretending to be incensed or angry or trying to stop something that… it seems like we both enjoy.”
“Don,” Cade said, “what I would enjoy is us making a life for ourselves.”
“Me too,” Donovan said. “I just don’t think that means making a life at the exclusion of other people.”
“So you’re saying you want to keep fucking Simon.”
“That,” Donovan said, “is not what I said.”
“Then we need to think about our actions a little,” Cade said, crossing his arms over his chest.
Don said nothing. Whatever he said would have sounded sarcastic.
“Do you need a ride to Harrison in the morning?” Cade asked.
“I’d like that,” Don said.
@@@@@@@
You look hot like that,” Don says, coming behind Cade and straightening his tie in the mirror.
“I need a haircut.”
“I like it when that one bob of hair kind of falls right between your eyes.
“I hate this job.”
“Come with me to Harrison. Work with kids again. You can still wear khakis and a nice shirt.”
Cade frowned into the mirror and Donovan said, “You’re handsome when you frown, but I still prefer you happy.”
“Don.”
“Yes.”
“I want you to stop fucking Simon. I want Simon out of our bed. I don’t want him to be part of you and me.”
“Alright.”
“You’re the one I want straightening my tie and holding me when I go to sleep. Alright? I don’t want to share my boyfriend anymore.”
“That’s all you needed to say.”
Cade’s face did not change, but he squeezed Don’s hand, and then he said, “Let’s go to work.”
The End of our Story is close at hand….
Theme Song: Little Bird: The Weepies
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
The Skin of Things Continued
-“Do you want children?” Donovan asked, and Cade said, “Well, that’s an odd question.”
“Not really,” Donovan said. “It’s considerate. I mean, you make childrens’ songs. You love daycares. It seems like you’d want kids.”
“I could say the same thing about you.”
“It’s not an accusation.”
“I know,” Cade said while they sat smoking in the bedroom.
“It’s just that I’m not getting any older.”
“Stop that.”
“No. I’m forty and getting older by the day, so if you want a kid this is the time to discuss it.”
“I almost had a kid,” Cade said.
“Huh?”
“I almost had a kid.”
On the bed, Donovan folded his legs under him and ashed his cigarette, looking at Cade.
And then Cade began to talked about the pastor for the first time in a long time, and about his mother finding Jesus, and about being molested, and he went through the story quickly, eyes unfocused.
“After I burned my Bible, I started to do every rebellious thing I could. Except that I couldn’t be with guys. He had fucked me up. So I started sleeping with girls. That’s how I got Ashley pregnant.”
“Only she didn’t have it,” Donovan said. “Or she miscarried.”
“If by miscarried you mean I asked my dad to fork over the money so I could pay for an abortion, then yes, she miscarried.”
Donovan thought of saying many things, most of them about himself and why hadn’t he ever been told and what else was Cade keeping from him, and one by one they sounded selfish and stupid.
Instead, Donovan said, “But does that mean you don’t want kids now?”
“Do you?” Cade almost snapped.
“Not really,” Donovan said. “But in this life, there’s so much we think we don’t want, and then we get it and know it’s a blessing. It’s hard to measure life by what you want at the moment. If you wanted it, then I suppose I would too.”
“That’s very Catholic. Sort of.”
“Well….” Donovan didn’t know what to say.
“If you had gotten a girl pregnant,” Cade began.
“I wouldn’t have. When I was that age I didn’t feel very gay, but I didn’t feel very straight, either,” Donovan said. “And besides, sex outside of marriage would have been a sin in the eyes of the Church, and I was all about the Church back then.”
“But if you had?”
“It’s so far from me. Ifs don’t matter.”
“Humor me,” Cade said.
“Fine,” Don said.
“If you had gotten a girl pregnant, would you have done what I did?”
“I have no idea.”
“Of course you do.”
“I really don’t know. I never had to face that.”
“But you just said that things you don’t want can be a blessing, so humor me again and take a guess.”
“That’s a lot of ifs.”
“Please stop fucking with me and please stop stalling.”
“Then no,” Donovan said. “For someone who has never been close to impregnating a woman, on just a lucky guess, no I would not have done what you did.”
They were quiet and then Donovan said, “I don’t know what the point of that was.”
“Just to know how you felt. You’re my… you’re Don.”
“Can’t I not feel any way? Can’t I just say your decision was your decision? That the past is in the past? Can’t I just not have a… judgment?”
“No,” Cade said.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re my boyfriend.”
They lay side by side in their bed, the snow blowing over the roof above them and whistling at the windows. Donovan has finally stood up to close the thick curtains and then returned to bed and Cade says, “You haven’t said much.”
“I never say much at night.”
Cade moves his long body about in the bed.
“You’re still determined to not have an opinion.”
“Are we still talking about that?”
“Yes,” Cade says. “A little.”
“I feel like you’re punishing me,” Don said. “But for something you did. And a you that was a long time ago.”
“It wasn’t even ten years ago.”
“It wasn’t yesterday.”
They didn’t speak and then finally Donovan turned on his side and said, “Would you do it again?”
“Not the way I did it then.”
Then Donovan says, “I think you were a real asshole. I think… if you were one of my girlfriends I would understand it. But it seems like you didn’t give her a chance. It seems like you were just running away from your responsibility.”
“There!” Cade sat up. “There is the opinionated Don I know.”
“You asked,” Donovan said, tonelessly.
“I asked, and I wanted to know and I wanted you not to pretend you didn’t think anything. How could you not think anything when you’re always thinking about right and wrong? And what I did… Well, what I did was wrong.”
“It was the way,” Donovan said. “Please tell me that… No… I know you wouldn’t do it that way again.”
“Everything about me was different. I know she hated me. She must hate me to this day. You know, I never offered to help. I never asked her how she felt. I had to tell you. There’re so many things about myself that… Well…”
“Cademon, I don’t know that person. I don’t know the you who would do that.”
“You do, Don,” Cade said. “That person is me.”
“I think,” Don said, almost right away, though he was silent a while after that, “that who you are is who you decide to be.”
“Do you think you’d ever want to make a baby with me.”
“I think I’m forty, and I think I don’t really want children, and I think it’s impossible for two men to make a baby.”
“It’s just,” Cade said, lying back down in the covers, touching Don, “once I did that. Once I made a baby, and here I am in love with you and we both love kids and… I don’t know.”
“I don’t know either,” Donovan said, letting Cademon Richards wrap his arms around him, leaning into the warmth of him, surrendering to sleep.
“I need to tell you why I’m saying what I’m saying,” Cade said.
“You don’t,” Don said. “You don’t have to explain it.”
“But I do,” Cade disagrees.
“You see, I hate my job. I hate what my life has become. It’s gone back to being what it was. I was never so happy as when I was with those kids, playing guitar, giving them juice, dancing around being free and making them laugh.”
“That’s when I fell in love with you,” Donovan said. “When I saw you lift a kid up in your arms and laugh, I literally wanted to go to bed with you. I—”
“I love you so much,” Cade says the same time Donovan says it, and neither of them looks at each other.
“It took care of the pit,” Cade says “There was a pit in me. I…”
“Hum?”
“I don’t really want to go into it right now,” Cade said as the light turned green.
“I’m not ashamed or… anything. It’s just too long of a story to tell right now.”
“We have a lifetime to tell it.”
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
And now, the conclusion of The Skin of Things
DONOVAN
It is entirely too cold today. You have to take it on faith, or by the calendar, that spring is almost here. Cade drops me off in the circle before the school, and it’s nice to be back at a sane place. I kiss him quickly, and he grasps my hands.
“What are you doing for lunch?” I ask.
“Quitting,” Cade says.
I blink. I’m thinking about laughing, but he nods and says, “Seriously. Quitting.”
“I have lunch at twelve, so could you quit by eleven thirty?”
We eat soup and sandwiches in the empty classroom.
“Never underestimate the joy of hot soup in a warm room while you watch the cold world outside,” Cade says as he lifts the thermos to his lips.
He sings, “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way…”
“This is an ongoing theme, and I feel like where you are going is Harrison. If you don’t mind working with me.”
“Can I tell you something?” Cade says.
“Please.”
“That was my fantasy. You and me. A little kindergarten. You’d be the teacher, I would be your assistant. Or vice versa, or we’d be co teachers. I dunno. Something. And I would sing songs to the kids and we’d pass out cookies and juice and everyone would talk about how the two probably gays guys down the hall had the best classroom, and then at lunch we’d climb in the car and get high. Possibly fuck, and then go back and get the kids.”
“We’d be the happiest teachers in the school.”
“Exactly.”
“What the hell is that?”
I follow Cade’s gaze to the side door where two women and a man are quickly marching out tiny children to cars and buses
“That, my dear Cademon, may be your destiny.”
“This is where someone else who liked to give me advice would tell me we should go inside the school and ask about a job.”
“I don’t believe in giving advice.”
“I know you don’t.”
“But we are stopping by the main office, right?”
We go through the side door, and the halls are carpeted, quiet, empty. I look around the corner, and then open a little door and pull Cade in and kiss him quickly, pulling his face to mine, pressing my fingers through his hair. I presses Cade’s forehead to my own.
“Together?” I ask.
“Always,” says Cade.
Cade looks around the very clean bathroom. “School bathrooms are so nice and accommodating.
“Do you remember?” he says.
“A series of poor choices that led to us right now? Yes, I remember.”
Why are people like that? Cold? Unloving? Selfish?
Not all people.
No, but many.
Because people are afraid.
Let’s never be afraid again.
That is a tall order.
Of each other.
Still a tall order.
But we can try.
Oh, yes. We can always try.
Will sing you songs? All the time. For the rest of you life.
What kind of songs?
Oh…oh, my love, all sorts of songs.
DONOVAN
This is the first day when it has warmed up, when you do not freeze standing outside. This morning, I have been with the children, and it is time for a lunch that is going to last far too long. I wander down the steps and down the long hall past the third grades and the second grades, to the first grades and even past the kindergartens to the preschool. I am hearing his singing I see him sitting in the chair, cradling the guitar he plays and singing:
Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack
All dressed in black, black, black
With silver buttons, buttons, buttons
All down her back, back, back.
The first time I heard it, Ella Jenkins sang it, and I always assumed Mary Mack was black. I still do. So assumed it, I was surprised when it came out of Cade’s mouth for the first time, and he was surprised that I knew it. We sang it together, and even now I sing it outside of the door, as he looks up at me and smiles, and the kept singing.
She asked her mother, mother, mother
For 50 cents, cents, cents
To see the elephants, elephants, elephants
Jump over the fence, fence, fence.
They jumped so high, high, high
They reached the sky, sky, sky
And they didn't come back, back, back
'Til the 4th of July, ly, ly!
“Time for lunch! Cade stands up and sang, and the kids wailed, “No. No!”
“I’m going to walk you to lunch, but…. Yes… if you guys aren’t quiet. You won’t hear my song. Don’t you want to hear my song?”
They did, and as Cade lines them up as he sings:
“Love each other.
Love each other
The world’ll be better
If we love each other
all the time!”
Cade walks at the head of little children, and I walk beside him, and we drop them off in the cafeteria and then turn around, heading back down the empty hall to the empty classroom.
“This,” Donovan says, facing him, “is always exactly what I pictured.”
Cademon Richards wraps his arm about my waist, and presses his head to mine.
He whisper sings:
“We should all love each other.
Love each other
The world’ll be better
If we love each other all the time!”
He kisses me lightly.
“All the time,” I reply. “All the time.”
Thank you for reading, a slightly longer version will be out in print later this year, but for now this is the end of Donovan and Cade. More stories to come next week.
C.G
Theme Song. The Turtles, So Happy Together
DONOVAN
It is entirely too cold today. You have to take it on faith, or by the calendar, that spring is almost here. Cade drops me off in the circle before the school, and it’s nice to be back at a sane place. I kiss him quickly, and he grasps my hands.
“What are you doing for lunch?” I ask.
“Quitting,” Cade says.
I blink. I’m thinking about laughing, but he nods and says, “Seriously. Quitting.”
“I have lunch at twelve, so could you quit by eleven thirty?”
We eat soup and sandwiches in the empty classroom.
“Never underestimate the joy of hot soup in a warm room while you watch the cold world outside,” Cade says as he lifts the thermos to his lips.
He sings, “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way…”
“This is an ongoing theme, and I feel like where you are going is Harrison. If you don’t mind working with me.”
“Can I tell you something?” Cade says.
“Please.”
“That was my fantasy. You and me. A little kindergarten. You’d be the teacher, I would be your assistant. Or vice versa, or we’d be co teachers. I dunno. Something. And I would sing songs to the kids and we’d pass out cookies and juice and everyone would talk about how the two probably gays guys down the hall had the best classroom, and then at lunch we’d climb in the car and get high. Possibly fuck, and then go back and get the kids.”
“We’d be the happiest teachers in the school.”
“Exactly.”
“What the hell is that?”
I follow Cade’s gaze to the side door where two women and a man are quickly marching out tiny children to cars and buses
“That, my dear Cademon, may be your destiny.”
“This is where someone else who liked to give me advice would tell me we should go inside the school and ask about a job.”
“I don’t believe in giving advice.”
“I know you don’t.”
“But we are stopping by the main office, right?”
We go through the side door, and the halls are carpeted, quiet, empty. I look around the corner, and then open a little door and pull Cade in and kiss him quickly, pulling his face to mine, pressing my fingers through his hair. I presses Cade’s forehead to my own.
“Together?” I ask.
“Always,” says Cade.
Cade looks around the very clean bathroom. “School bathrooms are so nice and accommodating.
“Do you remember?” he says.
“A series of poor choices that led to us right now? Yes, I remember.”
Why are people like that? Cold? Unloving? Selfish?
Not all people.
No, but many.
Because people are afraid.
Let’s never be afraid again.
That is a tall order.
Of each other.
Still a tall order.
But we can try.
Oh, yes. We can always try.
Will sing you songs? All the time. For the rest of you life.
What kind of songs?
Oh…oh, my love, all sorts of songs.
DONOVAN
This is the first day when it has warmed up, when you do not freeze standing outside. This morning, I have been with the children, and it is time for a lunch that is going to last far too long. I wander down the steps and down the long hall past the third grades and the second grades, to the first grades and even past the kindergartens to the preschool. I am hearing his singing I see him sitting in the chair, cradling the guitar he plays and singing:
Miss Mary Mack Mack Mack
All dressed in black, black, black
With silver buttons, buttons, buttons
All down her back, back, back.
The first time I heard it, Ella Jenkins sang it, and I always assumed Mary Mack was black. I still do. So assumed it, I was surprised when it came out of Cade’s mouth for the first time, and he was surprised that I knew it. We sang it together, and even now I sing it outside of the door, as he looks up at me and smiles, and the kept singing.
She asked her mother, mother, mother
For 50 cents, cents, cents
To see the elephants, elephants, elephants
Jump over the fence, fence, fence.
They jumped so high, high, high
They reached the sky, sky, sky
And they didn't come back, back, back
'Til the 4th of July, ly, ly!
“Time for lunch! Cade stands up and sang, and the kids wailed, “No. No!”
“I’m going to walk you to lunch, but…. Yes… if you guys aren’t quiet. You won’t hear my song. Don’t you want to hear my song?”
They did, and as Cade lines them up as he sings:
“Love each other.
Love each other
The world’ll be better
If we love each other
all the time!”
Cade walks at the head of little children, and I walk beside him, and we drop them off in the cafeteria and then turn around, heading back down the empty hall to the empty classroom.
“This,” Donovan says, facing him, “is always exactly what I pictured.”
Cademon Richards wraps his arm about my waist, and presses his head to mine.
He whisper sings:
“We should all love each other.
Love each other
The world’ll be better
If we love each other all the time!”
He kisses me lightly.
“All the time,” I reply. “All the time.”
Thank you for reading, a slightly longer version will be out in print later this year, but for now this is the end of Donovan and Cade. More stories to come next week.
C.G
Theme Song. The Turtles, So Happy Together
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Becomes sometimes it just takes emoticons!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
And thank you for being a great reader !
72-Jay
Daydreamer
At first the flashbacks had me thinking....um? what?, then I realized that's what they were 
I enjoyed reading, and deff liked the ending!
(I did have to downsize that oversized font though LOL)
I enjoyed reading, and deff liked the ending!
(I did have to downsize that oversized font though LOL)
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
And you know, I oversized it because some people had to make it bigger. Ah, the world of the interweb!
72-Jay
Daydreamer
@ChrisGibson:
yep. LOL
& I guess the beauty of a web-browser is you can easily shrink/grow the fonts...
yep. LOL
& I guess the beauty of a web-browser is you can easily shrink/grow the fonts...
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Well, see, there you go..... And now you can start reading my new story or get a copy of this when its out in print (shameless self promotion)
72-Jay
Daydreamer
^Nothing wrong with shameless self promotion!
I'll have to check out your other story..
..and never know I could end up getting the book too.
I'll have to check out your other story..
..and never know I could end up getting the book too.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
We've had a brief snag in publications, so not just yet.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Now the fun exists in print. It will exist in three forms, but this is the first.
http://www.lulu.com/shop/chris-lewis-gibson/the-skin-of-things/paperback/product-24015838.html
http://www.lulu.com/shop/chris-lewis-gibson/the-skin-of-things/paperback/product-24015838.html
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I always wonder if I should put the extended version of this down.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I hope you all enjoy the story.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
I hope you're enjoying this!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
It's all for you.