Trouble and Thom: A Geschichte Falls Story

[ChrisGibson]

PART ONE

About five o’clock, Monday afternoon, Jeff Cordino rolled up to 1425 Curtain Street. It appeared to him to be a pleasant enough place, though in need of weeding, and when he knocked, the teacher heard a shout from the roof, and then saw a bespectacled, brown face that soon disappeared and was shortly at the door.
“Come in,” Chayne welcomed Jeff into the house. “We’re still moving in, and there isn’t that much furniture. I just got back, you see.”
“I’ve heard.” Which called Chayne back to the obvious question, heard from whom? Followed by Who are you? Instead—the model of courtesy—he offered Jeff Cordino something to drink.
“Oh, I insist,” Chayne chatted on. Identity didn’t mater. Hospitality was all that remained when everything else perished.
“Well, then, just water,” said Jeff, making to sit on a crate, and then getting back up.
“Oh, no,” said Chayne. “Sit. Sit.”
Jeff sat.
“Mr. Kandzierski—”
“Chayne,” he heard Chayne shout from the kitchen, over running water.
“Everyone calls me Chayne. With a name like that someone better use it!”
“Chayne,” Jeff Cordino tried it out. “I’m looking for Russell.”
Chayne came out with the glass of water and an uplifted eyebrow.
“Are you a friend of Russell?” Chayne asked. This hardly seemed likely. But if Russell did have any friends, then they’d be in the over twenty range.
“Yes, actually,” Jeff Cordino realized. “I am his history teacher—”
“Mr. Cordino!”
“Yes!” Jeff’s eyes lit up.
“I really need to talk to Russell. I know he hates school. I understand all that, but we’ve been covering for him—”
“We?”
“A few teachers. A few friends of mine. You see,” Jeff looked a little embarrassed, “we’ve been saying Russell’s in attendance when he isn’t, stuff like that because if we don’t he’ll fail. He’ll be marked truant. And it’s something we’re not supposed to do and can’t really keep doing. I don’t know why I’m doing it now except that Russell’s a special kid. You know?”
“Yes,” Chayne nodded. “I do. I’ll go get him.”
Russell was down in a few seconds, only half startled to see Mr. Cordino.
“I went to your house first,” Jeff said. “Your mom told me you were here. She didn’t tell me everything that was going on.” Jeff’s dark eyes lowered a second. “I didn’t guess it was my business.”
“My dad hasn’t brought it up?” Thom and Jeff did spend a great deal of time together.
Jeff shook his head.
“They’re getting a divorce.”
“Aw God, Russell—”
Russell waved the sympathy away with a tired hand
“That’s not what I came to tell you anyway, Russell.”
And then Jeff told him what he had just told Chayne.
“I don’t even know Mr. Shrader.”
“Chuck’s a good guy,” Jeff said.
“I—” Russell said. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”
“Russell, it won’t be so bad. I promise. And if I can do anything to help... You know I will.”
“Yeah, Mr. Cordino, I know. Thank you.”
“No problem, Russell.”
Jeff Cordino smiled bravely, nodded and hooking his jacket over his shoulder, left escorted by Chayne who said: “I probably should have invited him to stay to dinner.”
“He’s probably going out with Miss Castile, anyway.”
“Oh,” said Chayne. “Well, next time we’ll have to invite her too.”
They were both quiet for a moment, and then Russell said. “People care about me.”

The Happy Place!
“Let’s go to the Happy Place!”
Thom did not know exactly who had called out to go to the Happy Place, but he felt deliciously lost in the crowd of people. They were all skipping and laughing. The sky was black like a stage set, but like a stage set everything was filled with light, everyone was perfectly visible. Thom loved the green tights he had on, and the feather in his cap, and it was so good to dance and dance as he and the Stuffed Cat and the Tin Cup and the Talking Pumpkin skipped along the yellow brick road.
Suddenly the Pink Fairy was laughing. Well yes, she was the one trilling, “The Happy Place! Let's go the Happy Place!”
Thom laughed idiotically—no—laughed like a child as the Pink Fairy pinged him on the head with her star wand and trilled, “Thhhomasss! The Happy Place!”
He’d know that pink ball gown, those gossamer wings, that tiara, those curls anywhere. It was Patty, laughingly leading, pinging him on the head again as he skipped in his green tights to the Happy Place.
There was something wrong with this. Something he had forgotten, but Thom couldn’t... well, couldn’t remember it right now.
Beyond them the birds sang and the music box melody wound on.
“The Happy Place!” He sang. “The Happy Place!”

“The Happy Place?” a disharmonious voice shouted incredulously. “The Happy Place?”
They all stopped, staring; a little afraid.
Chayne Kandzierski entered in jeans and a tee shirt, carrying a rubber chicken. His disgusted face was framed by a red and yellow jester’s wimple, bells jingling from the points of his felt crown.
“The Happy Place?” Chayne demanded.
“Oooooooh no!” Patty quailed, protecting her face with the star wand.
“The Happy Place?” he challenged Thom. “FUCK—The Happy Place!”
And as he hit Thom in the head with the rubber chicken, Thom Lewis started awake on a sofa on Royal Street only to be hit again, presently with a pillow.
“Thom!” Jackie cried, laughing. “Wake up! I’ve got dinner ready.”
Thom shook his head and sat up, running his hands through his his now sticky up hair.
“You were just laughing and grinning to yourself. What were you dreaming about?”
“You’d never believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
“Well, I’ll tell you over dinner.”
Dinner was macaroni and cheese from the box along with warm ginger ale and toast, sitting on milk crates on either side of the old steamer trunk. Thom told her the whole thing while Jackie laughed and said, “It figures that’s how Chayne would come in.”
“Jackie, whaddo you think of Chayne?”
“That’s a random question.”
“Not really,” Thom shrugged. “I mean, my son is staying with him.”
“Well, Chayne—you can’t really say a whole lot about him,” Jackie said. “But if you could—if I could—I’d say something like 'wow'. Or watch out.”
“Watch out is not what I wanted to hear.”
“But listen,” Jackie said. “Remember he didn’t even start college till he was about twenty. He was aimless and all that, kind of like Russell. And then he was in junior college and now he's sort of well known and has money and he's done all this crazy shit. All sorts of crazy people everywhere really love him—”
“You keep on saying the word crazy when you bring him up.”
Jackie chuckled and said, “But the word fits.”
“Yeah,” Thom said. “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You’re pretty amazing too, Thomas,” Jackie said, placing a hand on her brother’s shoulder. “And you got your own special crazy too.”
Thom smiled at his sister, then asked: “Why did I dream of Patty, though? That way?”
“She’s your wife.”
“Not really,” Thom said. “Not really. And I haven’t dreamed of her in sixteen years. I dream of her now?”
“Thom, did you ever think there was any truth to what she told you?”
“Um?”
“That you did ignore her?”
“Jackie, do you know what she said to me?”
Jackie’s eyes waited.
“She said,” Thom’s brows knitted and he took a breath. His voice was thick. “She said she didn’t love me. She looked at me, and said that.”
They were both quiet for a moment, and then Thom added. “I’d never been hurt like that. It was like she just—kicked me in the stomach. I wish she’d kicked me in the stomach.”
“Thom, you need to talk to Patty.”
Thom sat back and looked sullen. Eternally youthful and five foot five, to Jackie he looked like a little boy.
“You’re telling me that what Patty said hurt you, but I’m telling you that she probably didn’t know she hurt you when she said it. Did you react? What did you tell her?”
Thom didn’t answer.
“Whaddit you tell her, Thom?”
“Jackie, I don’t need you to be my therapist.”
“Fine,” she dropped the subject, exasperated. They kept eating.
“I told her,” Thom’s brow knit, “I told her we’d talk when I got home. I didn’t want to listen to her. I planned to come home and just keep on going. Like it hadn’t happened. I... I didn’t know what to say. I never do.”
“Do you want to be back with Patty?”
Thom snapped for a second.
“I wanna be back in my own goddamn house!” his eyes flashed. It scared Jackie a little because Thom was so in control all the time. He was never unpleasant. He never lost his temper. He never reverted to his West Virginia accent.
“House,” Thom pronounced again, pulling the twang from the word.
Because Jackie loved her brother, she ignored her fear of his temper and said, “But do you want your wife again? That’s the question?”
Thom blew out his cheeks and pulled his hands through his brown hair until it stood up again.
He did not answer.
“I talked to Patty this morning,” Jackie told her brother. “She told me something that I wasn’t sure if I should tell you or not. But since you can’t answer the last question I suppose I’ll tell you this and you can decide what to do with it.”
“Yes, Little Sister?”
“She got a phone call from Liz.”
“Liz?”
“Liz Parr? Don’t act like you don’t know—”
“Liz! What did—”
“She wanted to talk to you. Patty told her she could have you for all she care—”
“Good God!”
“But Liz left her number and I had the sense to take it down because I didn’t think you’d want to have to call Patty to get it.”
“Why not?”
Jackie eyed her brother narrowly, speared a clump of macaroni on her fork and said, before biting into it, “Now, who’s being stupid?”

Patty came over that evening.
“I’m not demanding that you come home,” Patty told her son. They were all sitting on the floor, and Chayne had made a comment about having to go to storage to get his grandmother’s furniture. “I just came to let you know I noticed you weren’t around. And to tell you that you can come back whenever you want to.”
Patty wanted to say that she didn’t blame Russell for leaving. She wanted to say that she was going to start looking for an attorney. She also wanted to say that she had no idea how things were going to work out.
“Has your father been by?” Patty asked.
“Not yet,” said Russell.
“It figures.”
“Patty.” Chayne said in a low voice.
Patty shrugged and reached into her purse for a cigarette. It was too late to take the words back now.
Cigarette clenched between her lips, Patty said, “You just take care of my boy, awright, Kandzierski?”
Chayne opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it in the presence of the boy. Patricia Lewis could tell this, and was glad of it when Chayne only nodded.

Thom thought he heard the door opening, and nearly jumped up. But it was just someone walking down the hallway outside of the loft. If Jackie and Chip had come back, his sister would have asked him how long he’d been sitting on the battered couch, the cordless phone in his hand and the phone number on his leg, licking his lips.
Thom looked out of the window onto the nighttime downtown.
“Approximately thirty-five minutes,” he murmured.
This is stupid!
Thom licked his lips one more time, and dialed the numbers Jackie had written on the piece of paper into the phone. The phone rang a few times. On the fifth ring Thom was about to hang up when he heard a “Hello?”
“Liz!” Thom croaked, and then, clearing his throat. “Hello, may I speak to Elizabeth Parr?”
“Parr? I haven’t been Liz Parr for—Thom, is that you?”
Thom breathed a sigh of relief and wanted to laugh.
“Yeah. Yes.”
“How are you?”
“Good, well, good enough. With how things are going.”
“Patty told me. Sort of?”
“What did she say?”
“Oh, God, Thom, I’m sure you know what she said. She hasn’t changed since college. She always was wild.”
“Well, she says it’s over.”
“Is it?”
Thom was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “It sort of looks that way.”
“How’s your son?”
“Oh, he’s great.”
“I mean, how’s he taking it?”
“I need to talk to him. It’s hard to get inside of Russell.”
“Like father like son.”
“What?” Thom laughed. “Me and Russell are nothing alike. He’s more like Patty. You remember my little sister—there she is now. Hey sis!”
“Jackie?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s what Russell’s like.”
“Thom it is so good to hear from you!”
“It’s good to hear from you too. Why’d you call?”
Liz was quiet for a moment.
“I think it’s that whole midlife thing,” she said. “Yeah, we get it too.”
“Are we in midlife?” Thom asked.
“We’re getting there. I started thinking a lot about college and you and Patty. After you all and Russell left I didn’t talk to you that much. I missed you guys. I missed the old days.”
“I think the last time we saw you was before your marriage. I forgot you weren’t Liz Parr anymore. How is....”
“Lionel. his name was Lionel. And Lionel isn’t anymore,” said Liz. “I’m Liz Parr all over again. No one calls me that, but I am.”
“You got a divorce.”
“Ah, yes,” Liz said with false lamentation. “Well, fuck him!”
“Do you have any kids?”
“Marvin and Julie. Ten and eight. Thom I wanna see you. When can I see you?”
Thom laughed. “When do you want to see me?”
“What are you doing Friday?”
“Wait a minute—” Tom said, “Where are you?”
“In South Bend?”
“Really, still?”
“Yeah. So that makes me what? Two hours away?”
“About that much. You want me to come down there? Friday? After work I’ll just drive down. We can walk around Notre Dame, go out to dinner, talk about old times? How’s that sound?”
“Great. Let me give you my address and everything...”
Jackie walked in, watching her brother laugh on the phone, watching him scribble stuff down on the bit of paper. It was good to have him here. She wanted to tell her brother how bad this date with Chip had been. She waited until he was off the phone. By then Jackie was undressed and had slid into jogging pants and a tee shirt, ridding herself of the bra.
“Wow, Sis, you’re sagging!” Thom noted.
“You’re such an ass. Was that LIZ?”
“I don’t like the way you say her name. Sounds like lizard?”
“That’s how I always felt about her. You’re going out with her?”
“Um hum,” Thom smiled brightly and drummed his fingertips on the steamer trunk. “Friday night!”
Jackie shook her head, pulled a hand through her thick hair and said, “Just don’t fuck her, Thom.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

I didn't expect another Geschichte Falls story so quickly! That was a nice surprise! This story is shaping up to be an interesting one that I am excited to read more of! I hope Russell goes back to school. I don't want him to fail. Great writing and I look forward to the next portion!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, you know I delight in surprises! We're back in town again with Chayne and Lewises and there will be more on the other side of the weekend. Which I hope you enjoy. Russell's just got to figure himself out, but I feel, Like Chayne, that high school's overrated. We'll see what happens.

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART TWO

“This bitch calls my house,” Patty told Felice and Jackie, “and starts talking about how she just wanted to go over old times. Weren’t they good? No they weren’t good!” Patty swigged the last of her coffee and got up to fill her cup again.
“She acts like we were friends or something.”
“You were roommates,” Felice pointed out.
“She was fucking Thom!”
“To be fair—” Jackie started.
“Jaclyn, if you’re gonna be fair, I don’t want to hear it.”
“To be fair,” Jackie continued, “if anyone should be upset it should be Liz.”
“Yeah,” Felice added as Patty came to sit down between her two friends. “Didn’t you steal Thom from her?”
“I didn’t steal anything,” Patty protested. “Thom’s a man, not a car or a candy bar. When I was a junior I got Liz for a roommate. We had an apartment, and she asked me if I minded her boyfriend coming over again and again, and I said no. I thought she meant visiting. I didn’t mean hearing world class fucking on the other side of my wall. So one day while I was getting up to go to class, the boyfriend came out in his underwear. That’s how I met Thom.
“He was nice back then, and he was actually fun. It took me almost the whole year to admit I liked him because he looked like he was twelve. He was five feet tall and—”
“He was fucking your roommate?”
“And loudly,” said Patty.
“I do not want to hear this about my brother!”
“They were hellcats,” Patty went on. “And I didn’t appreciate that because it was the only thing he and Liz had in common. Thom and I were starting to become somewhat close. Before we left for the summer, I told him I couldn’t do this anymore. We were becoming more than friends, and he was still with Liz. I didn’t want to talk to him anymore. So I went back home to Chicago, and one day that summer there was a knock at my door, and it was Thom and he told me he and Liz were over and he loved me.”
“Girl, that’s the sweetest story,” Felice said.
“Yeah,” said Patty. “And then almost twenty years later we ended up here.
“The romance died. Once upon a time it was good. But once upon a time the wheel was state of the art technology.”
Patty shrugged as if to say, “So what about it?”

That same morning Chayne had seen Russell off to school, and was on his roof top when he saw two cars coming down the cobbles of Curtain Street. The first was his parents, and the second was a hearse.
“What the fuck?” Chayne mumbled, and stood up to walk his way off of the roof, and come back into the house.
“Good morning, Baby,” said Sharon.
“Good morning, Mother.”
“Chayne,” said his father. “We were all talking about you last night—”
“That can’t be good.”
“And your Uncle Woodrow said it was a shame you didn’t have a car, so he decided you should have this one.”
Chayne looked at it, planting his fingers on the back of his neck, thought of saying, But, it’s a hearse, and then decided not to state the obvious, and only said, “Thank you.”
After his parents left, Chayne walked down the steps with the keys, opened up the hearse and sat down in it. He had always imagined a hearse was like a station wagon, but it wasn’t. Not at all. This wagon’s cargo was, of course, the embalmed, and the wagon reminded Chayne of the inside of the casket. Chayne had not refused the gift because he knew he needed some form of trasport and then, also, he thought that the idea of driving a hearse would add to his personal myth, and Chayne loved building up his personal myth. He could admit this vanity to himself.
He flipped open the glove compartment and read the sign:

PRINCES OF QUALITY
PRINCES OF BURIAL
PRINCES OF CREMATION


EDMUND PRINCE
EUGENE PRINCE
WOODROW PRINCE


PRINCES OF GESHICHTE FALLS
PROVIDING FINE FUNERIAL SERVICES FOR THE FAMILIES OF WINTHROP
COUNTY FOR OVER SIXTY YEARS

“Chayne!” There was a tap on his window, and Chayne shouted, and then looked up from his morbid reverie to see Amber Emery along with a hamster faced man he hadn’t seen in years.
“Amber! Diggs!”
“What the hell are you doing in a hearse?” Jason Dygulski demanded.
Chayne got out of the car and said, “My parents got it for me. They thought I should...” Chayne shrugged, and gestured to the hearse, “have a car.”
“Oh, my God,” Amber murmured, shaking her head.
“Well, what’s up?” Chayne said.
“We just came by to see you,” said Diggs. “Amber wanted to know if you were coming to her place tonight.”
“There’s gonna be a live band and everything. Folks getting up and singing. A good time had by all. You will be there. And you should bring Russell with you. That boy can sang!”
“Well,” Chayne shrugged. “I guess we’ll be there. What are you all doing?”
“I gotta be at work by twelve,” said Diggs.
“I gotta be at work at happy hour,” Amber said, smiling. “I love my life. Come to think of it,” said Amber, “I love your life too, Chayne. Oh, by the way, I almost forgot—”
“Yes?”
“I’m pregnant. You wanna be the godfather?”

When Thom got to the apartment after work, he changed into sweats, on impulse, and decided to jog through downtown until he was drenched in sweat. He went up Royal Street, and then came to Kirkland, and he found himself jogging as the nighttime approached toward Chayne Kandzierki’s house.
“Thom?”
It was the first time Thom had ever seen Chayne Kandzierksi look surprised, and to be honest, he was looking terribly surprised right now, just one eyebrow raised, a bandanna hanging from his hand.
“I—is Russell home—here?”
“Yeah,” Chayne remembered himself, and stepped away from the door. “Come in.”
Russell was running downstairs shouting, “Is it Diggs—?” when he stopped and looked at his father.
“Russell!” Thom attempted a smile, folded his hands, unfolded them. “I just came to see you. See if you were okay. You know?”
Russell, coming down the stairs more slowly, folded his hands and nodded his head.
“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Chayne said. Then, thinking that this wasn’t far enough he said, “The library. I’ll be in the library,” and he excused himself as Russell and Thom faced each other.
“I,” Thom started. “I meant to come see you earlier. I wanted to spend some time with you. I wanted to ask you what you were doing this weekend? It... ah... looked like you were getting ready to go somewhere.”
“We’re going to Amber’s.”
“On 103? Is that safe?”
“Dad, it’s perfectly safe.”
Thom nodded and said, “Well. I’d like to see you. Just talk to you, Russell.”
Russell did not want this, but he had manners.
“I could come over to Aunt Jackie’s apartment. Saturday?”
“I was going to pick you up, but... okay. That’s good. Saturday. I’ll see you then. Are you doing good in school?”
Russell, not knowing how to answer that question, said, “Yes.”
“Good,” Thom said, and smiled at his son. Then he was gone.

There is a train
that’s heading straight
to heaven’s gate, to heaven’s gate
and on the way, child and man and woman
watch and wait
for Redemption Day!

Diggs wrapped up the Sheryl Crow ballad and got off of the stage heading toward their table with his guitar.
“Are you going to get up there, Chayne?”
“Go up on stage,” Amber told her friend.
“It makes you feel invincible,” declared Diggs.
“I already feel invincible,” Chayne lied.
“Go on,” said Russell. “For me. If I can go to school, you can go on stage.”
“Indeed,” said Chayne, getting up. “And two days in a row.”
“If you do it I’ll go the whole week.”
“You see me getting up, don’t you? Diggs, back me up on the guitar, alright?”
“Whaddo you wanna do?”
“Route 66.”
Russell watched Chayne get up and go onto the stage, followed by Diggs, all these people clapping who knew them both. He looked to Amber with her frizzed, reddish hair, her caramel skin. These were adults too. Not like the ones in the Breckinridge. They seemed to have more fun than the kids he went to school with. Some of these people it seemed had had very difficult lives. Amber had been through some things. He watched her pull out a cigarette, shake her head, put it back, surely remembering that she was now pregnant. The first notes strummed out of Digg’s guitar, the opening rift.

If you plan
to motor west
travel my way
take the highway that’s the best
get your kicks
on route 66!

Russell had forgotten how smooth Chayne’s voice was, how it played with the music and went above and around it, sometimes swooping into it. He missed Chayne’s voice. He missed singing.
Russell expected Chayne to do wonderfully. He expected people to be captivated by his music. He did not expect Chayne to say, “If you thought that was something, you ought to hear this young man, come on up, Russell!”
Before Russell knew what was going on, he was watching Chayne’s beckoning hand and hearing clapping, faces turned in his direction.
Amber pushed him in the back and said, “Go on boy, show us what you got,” and Russell knew he’d be more embarrassed sitting down, then just getting up on stage.
“Show’em whatcha got,” Chayne murmured, coming off the stage.
“Whaddo you wanna sing?” Diggs asked, his hamster face grinning.
“Do you know 'Three Hits'?”
“Three what?”
“By the Indigo Girls?”
“No.”
“How about... let’s see, 'Kiss the Rain'.”
“No.”
“Ice Cream?”
“Whum?”
“Your love, is better than chocolate...” Russell sang a line.
“Oh,” Diggs looked to the band. They all nodded, they could play it. Russell nodded and adjusted the microphone.
Jack started on the drums, hitting the cymbal lightly. Sam started the piano, gentle notes, Diggs worked his way across his guitar. Russell opened his mouth, found his voice wasn’t there, and then went down into his diaphragm to find it. Out came a richness that hardly belonged to him. But it was his. It was his instrument.
Russell didn’t know why, but singing the song he wanted to cry. It made him think of his mother and his father. It made him think of having to get up and go back to Our Lady of Mercy in the morning. It made him think of the whole sorry state of things. The world really was a sorry place. And against all the sorriness, Mr. Cordino and Chayne and Amber and the house on Curtain Street, this place here, the good smell of cigarettes that he wasn’t supposed to like, the smell of fried chicken and biscuits that possessed the city after three in the afternoon. The red taillights shooting by outside, the darkness of the night outside. And for some reason it made him so sad, it was a sweet pain. The cymbals in the background, lightly hit, the piano, lightly touched, Diggs scarcely on his guitar. It all gave him a wonderful sadness.

It’s a long way down
It’s a long way down
It’s a long way down to the place
where we started from!

The applause were startling. They didn’t come right away. Russell threw his head back and laughed, and Chayne stood up laughing again.
“Wonderful, Russell,” Diggs, beside him, said quietly. And Russell, not all there, got off the the stage and moved through the people clapping him on the back, back to the table in the corner. Why did it have to be in the corner?
“Oh, Russell honey,” said Amber, “the two of you were wonderful. The child leapt in my womb!”
“Just like John the Baptist?” said Chayne.
“Yup!”
“Chayne! Russell!”
The two of them turned, shocked to see Geoff Ford, in jeans and a sweater standing at the table, his sister beside him.
“Father Ford,” said Russell.
“Jeff, what the hell are you doing here?” Chayne demanded unceremoniously.
“You all were wonderful,” he said, “Just great.”
“You really were,” Ann Ford echoed.
“I wish I could do that,” said Geoff Ford. “What you all do.”
“Well, you can turn stale bread and bad wine into the body and blood of Jesus, so you’ve already got a leg up on us!”
The air left Amber’s throat. No one else seemed to be offended by Chayne, though.
“I was wondering, if I could talk to you later,” the priest said instead. “If we could discuss some things later. I was thinking about something. Something I was telling Ann here, and I hadn’t brought it up. But I’d like to bring it up if you come by the church tomorrow.”
Chayne stood there, his only statement a raised eyebrow.
“Geoff’s trying to say he wants you to take over the choir.”
“Oh, Sis,” Jeff pouted.
“Well, he is! That’s what he said. If you could hear our ten o’clock you’d know how bad we are. We need it. Will you do it?”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good,” said Ann, as she maneuvered her brother away she shouted over her shoulder. “Practice is Thursday night at eight.”
“But tonight’s Wednesday,” Russell murmured in the wake of the Ford siblings.
“I just wish,” Amber began, then became quiet, laying back in her seat.
“What?” said Chayne.
“I just wish... That she’d brush her damn hair!”

Chayne disappeared for a while, and when Russell started yawning and asked where he was, Amber said, “Probably on the roof top.”
The rooftop was covered in gravel, and Russell could just barely hear the noise of the bar underneath. Chayne lay against the parapet, looking up into the night. Russell heard a car pass along the gravel below and leaned on the parapet too, beside Chayne.
“Look at it all,” Chayne said.
Russell looked up. Geshichte Falls was not exactly urban, but in the town proper the stars could not be seen as well as here. Russell looked a little ahead to his left, which was south east. And then he looked back up at the sky. It was so black, and it was filled with white and blue stars, layer after layer of them.
“It’s hard not to believe,” Chayne said. “It’s hard to be depressed looking at heaven. Sometimes things seem bad,” he said. “But then I look up, and I am reminded... no matter what little drama’s going on here, in the very little sections of our lives that we inhabit for the moment... It’s all good.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great part two! I am liking getting to know some of these characters better. It was interesting to read how Russell's parents met. By the sounds of things Patty might think she is better off without him. Great writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you are having a nice weekend!

 

[ChrisGibson]

We will definitely be checking back in with Patty and seeing how things shape up for her. She's going to be pretty important. Russell is no longer the main character. And of course the story isn't Thom in trouble, its Thom and Trouble, so the trouble isn't always his.

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART THREE


“Do you mind if I take your sister out tomorrow night?” Chip asked Thom as he threw his jacket over Jackie’s shoulders and she laughed.
Thom shrugged. He didn’t really like the scruffy man his sister was dating. He forced himself to be playful.
“Well, when are you bringing her home?”
“I’ll bring the little lady home by Sunday.”
“Wow, a whole weekend getaway,” Thom said, trying to feign excitement.
“We’re going up to Windsor to disgust the Canadians,” Jackie said. “You’ll have the whole apartment to yourself.”
It wasn’t until Jackie said this that Thom began to develop some enthusiasm.
“Well are you ready?” she asked Chip.
“I was ready when I knocked on the door. I just need a cigarette.”
“We can smoke in the car,” said Jackie, heading out the door behind Chip. “Thom, are you sure you don’t want to come to choir practice?”
“Yes,” Thom said. “Besides, Patty might be there, and it would just be awkward.”
Jackie started to say something, then shrugged and headed out the door.
Thom went to the couch, and looked out of the large window until he saw Jackie and Chip get into the battered Civic and head down Royal Street before he got on the telephone.
“Hello, Liz? Good! Guess what...?”

Chayne and Russell were early. Chayne was scribbling in a notebook in one of the pews, and Russell was finishing up his homework as Diggs came into the church. He was followed a few minutes later by Father Ford and Ann who came in through the side door, by the little chapel. Then, loud and raucous, becoming suddenly quiet as they realized where they were, came Jackie and Chip. Chayne waited as the others entered the church, Jeff Cordino and Anna Castile among them until Geoff Ford finally said: “I think that’s about everyone,” and Chayne and Russell went up to the choir loft.
Chayne cleared his throat, and folding his hands behind his back said, “I am Chayne Kandzierski—”
A round of applause.
Chayne smiled nervously. “Thank you... And Father Ford asked me if I could take over the choir—”
Ann Ford was clearing her throat loudly.
“Actually, it was Ann who asked.”
Ann smiled.
“And...ah... here I am. So why don’t we do some scales? As soon as you get into your sections.”
“Sections?” said Diggs, who was standing beside Jackie.
“Sections, Diggs,” Chayne said flatly. “ You know.... Altos, sopranos, ra ra ra.”
They all looked at Chayne. Even Russell, since he’d never been to practice and didn’t know what was going on.
“We don’t have sections,” Jeff Cordino said after putting up a hand.
“Well, I’ll give you five seconds to work out something. Deep voices together, moderately deep voices together, high voices together. Men together, women together. Come on people, you can do this.”
When they had gotten into some formation, Chayne said, “And now for scales.”
This time it was Dena Dwyer who put up a hand.
“Yes, Dena?”
“Excuse me, Chayne,” she said sweetly, in the tone of a woman attempting cuteness though she had passed cuteness long ago. “But what’s a scale?”
Chayne swallowed and said soberly to his choir, “It appears, friends, we have some work to do.”

There was a knock at the door, and Thom ran to get it.
“Liz!”
“Thom!” her voice was alive with laughter. She looked so happy. Liz Parr threw her arms around him.
“I just got out of the shower!” he told her, taking her coat and going to the closet.
“You shower in a white shirt and red tie?”
Thom laughed. “Well, I’ve been out of the shower a while. Can I get you a drink?”
“Whaddo you have?”
Thom sighed, smiled and said, “I don’t know! Let me go see.” Liz followed Thom into the little kitchen, and he looked under the island. “We’ve got... well... some old daiquiri mix and a thimbleful of gin.”
Smiling he displayed the bottle.
“We can get drinks when we get to the restaurant.”
“Good idea.”
“You sure do smile a lot, Thom.”
“I’m just happy to see you. Let me get my jacket.”
“It’s not very chilly,” Liz told him.
They decided to take Thom’s car, and as he drove he told Liz, “There’s a great restaurant on Jerrold Parkway, on the border of Saint Gregory.”
“Have you ever had Indian food?” Liz asked as they sped along the Parkway.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, Thom, I think you’d like it. We used to have a lot of fun. Let’s find an Indian restaurant.”
“I wouldn’t even know what to order.”
“I’ll order for you, but do you think there’s an Indian restaurant around here?”
“Oh, yeah. Saint Gregory’s is nothing but strip malls with little restaurants. They’ve got to have one that’s Indian.”
They drove along Jerrold Parkway, and off onto Merrimore, Thom looking and looking for something that seemed Indian until he shouted, “There! See!”
Liz laughed as he turned into Rawling Plaza where there was a little restaurant called Kerala House.
“Tandoori chicken is the one dish I can remember,” Liz told him when they’d been given a table.
“I thought you said you really liked Indian food.”
“Yes,” Liz acknowledged before admitting, “but it’s been a while. I kind of forget what’s what. So this should be an experience.”
As Patti had commented, Liz was shorter even than Thom. She also aged at the same rate as Thom, which was to say, hardly at all. They could have almost been kids again, and as she tried to describe what she wanted to the brown skinned waiter, Thom alternated between chuckles and outright laughs. She was radiant and little and pretty, the light shining on her golden hair, into her dark eyes, her red lips.
“And then there’s this one thing,” she was explaining to the waiter. “It’s kind of red, and it’s chicken—I think—and it’s got yogurt in it. Don’t frown, Thom, it’s delicious. And then... kibbie is it called? This rice thing with lamb in it. And then I want him—” she pointed to Thom, “to try this one thing. The bread, it has different sauces—yes, that’s it! And curry! Oh, any kind!”



Liz was directing Thom how to eat, and what to eat first when she reached across the table, wiping away some of the sweet sauce from Thom’s mouth.
“Thom, are you really going to tell me what happened between you and Patti?”
“If you tell me what happened with you and Lionel Tremor.”
Liz frowned and then said, “First, I want to know what happened with us?”
Thom stopped eating and looked awkward.
“We were together, and then the next thing I knew you were telling me you were with Patty.”
“That was cowardly of me,” Thom said. “I bet you were pretty pissed with me.”
“When we got back to school after summer I saw you and Patty and wanted to run the two of you over with my car!” Liz laughed. “You’re damn skippy I was pissed! It was a long time and a lot of voodoo dolls before I could talk to you again, Thomas Lewis.”
Thom had stopped eating, and Liz said, “Don’t just stare at me. Eat.”
“Even the really hot stuff?”
“The more painful the better,” Liz laughed. “It’s payback time.
“No, really. It’s not like I didn’t see it coming,” Liz said. “Or really, it’s not like I didn’t see us dying, and you getting on with Patti. We were having all sorts of problems.”
“We did fight a lot.”
“And we fucked a lot.”
Thom grew crimson.
“Well, that’s what you call it,” Liz said.
“I prefer to call it making love,” Thom said, spearing a bit of lamb on his fork.
“You can call it whatever you want to. And Patti was a good Catholic girl, so I can’t imagine you all did anything.”
“No,” Thom said. “I never had sex with Patti while we were engaged, but you were a good Catholic girl too. And I was a good Catholic boy.”
“No,” Liz shook her head. “We were goody goodies. We were really respectable and Republican but Patty was the real thing. She was the wildest, craziest person I ever met but she... She always had integrity. She knew who she was. I really admired her. Even the other day on the phone. Thom, whaddit you do to lose her?”
Thom bawked at Liz. She kicked him under the table.
“I don’t know,” Thom said. “We stopped talking. Things have changed between us. I have a good job. She’s upset that she doesn’t have one at all. All she wants to do is sit around and chain smoke all day. I don’t know.”
“I think you do,” said Liz. “And I think that what you said is only half of it, and I also think that you’re not willing to confront everything that happened. Or able to. So let’s not.”
“What did Lionel do to you?”
“He couldn’t read my mind,” said Liz. She shrugged.
“We never talked. He never paid attention to me. Don’t forget the cliché ‘we had grown into two different people’. All that we could have gotten past.”
Thom put his fork to the plate, realizing he was full, and asked, “What was it that you couldn’t get past?”
“Walking into the bathroom and finding Lionel in the shower with my brother.”
Thom was too shocked to laugh.

After dinner they drove around Saint Gregory and back into Geschichte Falls.
“It’s so quiet,” Liz marveled. “On a Friday night and all.”
“Around Main Street the kids cruise, but otherwise it’s pretty quiet,” Thom agreed as they came back onto Royal Street. In the apartment, he told Liz, “We still never got around to having drinks.”
“You know what?” Liz said, falling on the couch with Thom. “I don’t want to drink. I want to talk.”
And they did talk. On again off again, Thom did bring up Patti, occasionally hinting that he thought things were his fault. But more often he brought up Russell.
“Jackie invited me to choir practice and I said no. When she got home she told me Russ was there, and I felt a little bad for not going. I wanted to see him. But then I was kind of relieved. Because I think he might have felt awkward, a little afraid with me there.”
“You know what?” Liz said, touching a lock of hair behind Thom’s ear. “I think you’re the one who would have been awkward and afraid. You talk about this boy like he’s a little god.”
Thom looked at her amazed.
“It’s okay. That’s the way I feel about Marvin and Julie. Especially Julie for some reason. And after the divorce, I was almost ashamed to see them. Which is sort of inconvenient, since they live with me.”
“Where are they tonight?”
“With my friend. You’re staring at me, Thom.”
“Am I—?” he started. But Liz had kissed him then.
He kissed her back. Thom leaned in to kiss her and placed his hands on her shoulders. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time. He stopped, pulled away.
“We can’t,” he got up. “Liz, I don’t think...”
But then he kissed her again, and Liz placed her hand on Thom’s back, rubbing it through his shirt. Her hand went to his belt. He thought of pulling away. He didn’t really know what he was doing. If he thought then he could come up with a thousand reasons this was wrong. So he stopped thinking, and began to work with his tie as Liz reached up and turned out the light.

TUNE IN TOMORROW NIGHT FOR OUR CONCLUSION

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an interesting portion! I am glad Thom has Liz to talk to and it looks like they might become more then friends again. I am very interested to see how this shorter story ends! Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I'm glad you could read and get to know Thom a little more, and I'm gratified that you were entertained. I hope you have a great day and until then, I'll see you tomorrow.

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART FOUR

“Are you gonna come back to bed?” Liz asked, wrapping the sheets about her.
“I’ll come now,” Thom said.
“Not just yet,” said Liz. “I want to see you naked.”
Thom opened his mouth, cocked his head, and remained reclined against Jackie’s desk as Liz watched the sun outline his body, turn the top of his dark hair golden..
“You’re still beautiful to look at, Thom,” Liz told him, a little marveled. “What were you thinking?”
“I,” Thom seemed a little puzzled. “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t regret it,” Liz sat up.
Thom came to her, and put a hand around her.
“No, I don’t regret any of it. I haven’t felt that way in a long time. It’s been a long time since...”
“Sex?”
Thom laughed a little and kissed Liz. She put her head against the soft down of his chest as he cradled her. She remembered the first time she’d seen Thom naked and hairy, and how she couldn’t decide to laugh or not. He had been her first. It felt good being held by him again, being assured, feeling his heart beat against her ear. It had felt good feeling him inside of her last night.
“Well, sex, yes,” Thom said. “But it has been a long time since I’ve had love. Last night, I haven’t felt like that in a long time.”
“Remember back in college?” Liz asked him, and they both laughed. She was still laughing when she said, “That’s what it was like last night.”
Thom stopped rocking her. Liz could feel him hard against her.
“You want it to be that way this morning?” he asked her, raising an eyebrow.
She looked up at him in wonder. A smile came over her face.
Thom felt himself stiffening. His voice was growing thick.
“I haven’t felt like this. I haven’t felt like... a man in forever,” he told her, taking her hands and guiding them to his sides. Liz felt the dimples on his ass. Thom guided her hands to caress him. She went limp against the crook of his neck, and Thom lifted up her thighs, pressing her to the backboard.

“Chayne,” Russell told his friend at the breakfast table that morning, “I really don’t think I want to go see Dad today.”
Chayne considered this, picked up his toast and took a bite out of it, and then took a swig of tea. Every Saturday started with a pot of coffee, and then worked its way to tea and toast liberally smeared in jam.
“Russell, this is one time I’m actually going to be a moral voice in your life,” Chayne said. “I think you’d better go.”
He picked up his toast and took a bite.
“I mean, the man’s holding out an olive branch to you, albeit, not the world’s biggest one. Go over and see him. Oh, shit—” Chayne interrupted himself. “Why does the bread always fall jamside on the floor?”
“I think there’s a scientific explanation for it,” Russell said, standing up.
“Where are you going?” Chayne demanded.
“To go see Dad.”
“But we’re only on the second course. We haven’t made it to omelettes and sausage yet.”
“I think this is something I need a light stomach for.”
“Oh, Russell, it’s just Thom. It won’t be that bad. It might even be good,” Chayne added, not convinced. “Do you want me to drive you over there?”
“No,” said Russell, heading for the living room and the front door. “I think I’d better walk.”
Rounding the corner and coming to the steps of 1133 Royal Street that led into the old lobby that smelled like old books, Russell wondered why he didn’t come to visit Jackie more often. The climb up the steps made him remember. The only time he really came over was when Uncle John was in town and he took Russell here. Jackie was much cooler than his father, thought Russell, someone who would understand his problems. He remembered how when she had first moved here on Royal Street, Russell was about to knock on the door, and Uncle John took his hand and said, “You don’t knock for Jackie’s place. She hates that.”
“Doesn’t she lock doors?”
“Never.”
Russell caught his breath and turned around to see the broad river through the long, wide window that started in the middle of the landing between the fourth floor. On the other side of it he could see East Sequoya, and little to the right, the expansion bridge that linked the towns. He followed a small boat toward it, and then turned around and went down the high quiet fifth floor hallway that still smelled of old books, and walked into Jackie’s apartment.
“Thom! Thom! Oh, my God! Oh my God! Oh—my—uh!”
Russell caught his breath. His hand was quicker and more careful than his mind. He stood outside of the door, the air stuck in his throat and chest. The image did not come until now. It came out of order.
It wasn’t Jackie and Chip. It was Thom. The woman he had not really seen, but it was to small to be Patti. It—she—was blond. It was definitely Thom. He was sweaty and disheveled, the way he’d been the other night. Only he was also naked. He was doing the woman on the dining room table Jackie had bought at a rummage sale.
A perverse section of Russell’s mind said, I never knew Tommy boy had it in him!
Maybe the purpose of sarcasm is to shield us. Sometimes?

“What the hell are you doing back here?” Chayne demanded. “I haven’t even gotten past tea.”
“Good,” said Russell. “I think I’m gonna need that omelette.”
“You look like you’re gonna need castor oil too. Was it that bad?”
Russell paused, his mouth opened, his brow furrowed, and then he nodded and said, “Yes. It was that bad.”
“You can talk about it later,” Chayne said. “If you want to.”
He finished the cup of tea.
“I guess it’s omelette time.”


On Jackie’s radio, Sheryl Crow was singing.


I woke up this morning--
now I understand
what it means to give your love
to just one man
Afraid of feeling nothing
no bees or butterflies
my head is full of voices
and this house is full of lies
This is hooooome
this is hoooo-oooome
this is hoooome
this is home!

Even though he was right there, the same sheets tangled about him as she, the blue sky framing him, Liz felt, as she had once before, that Thom was far from here. He rolled over onto his back with one of Jackie’s cigarettes.
“I haven’t seen you guys in a long time,” Thom said to the Salem.
“Oh, Thom you’re not going to start smoking again?”
“Just this once. I’m the one Patti learned it from.”
“I know.”
Thom lit the cigarette. The tip glowed red. Liz watched the first tendrils of smoke rise out of Thom’s open mouth.
“We’re never going to do this again, are we?” she said, at last.
Thom put the cigarette in the ashtray and let it smoke. He didn’t look at Liz. He was looking at the ceiling. She could see his breast rising and falling under the hair on his chest.
“I—” Thom said, at last, “I don’t think so.”
“I’ve never had a one night stand before,” Liz said. “It appears you’re my first everything.”
“Was I really your first? Did you really lose your virginity to me?” Thom asked her.
“You know I did.”
They were silent a little longer. Thom took up the cigarette now and started to smoke it in earnest. It had been years since his last one, but it all came back to him now. He smoked it to the filter.
“You knew that it was the last time we’d have sex, didn’t you?” Liz said. “Just a few moments ago. You knew it, didn’t you?”
Thom nodded. He felt numb.
“I did too,” said Liz. “I’ve never done that before, had sex for the last time.”
“I know we did it,” said Thom. “Before junior year.”
“But that wasn’t the last time was it?” Liz almost laughed. “There was an almost twenty year interim. This was the last time. And that last time, I didn’t know it was the last time. I don’t think you did either. I hope you didn’t. If you did, please don’t tell me.”
“I didn’t,” Thom told Liz, rolling over to look at her and touching her arm. He didn’t feel good right now. He felt hollow, he felt smoked out. He wondered if anything would be in his heart if he dared to look.
On Jackie’s radio, Sheryl Crow was singing.

This is hooooome
this is hoooo-oooome
this is hoooome
this is home!

THE END

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was an excellent end to the story. I hope that Thom and Russell can make things up with each other. I can't remember how their relationship was in future stories. I think Russell has had quite a shock. Who knows if he will even want to see his father for a while. Great writing as always!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, if you go back to the Gift of True Light, which is still here, there is a moment or two with Thom, but Thom and Patti really aren't big parts of that or any of the previous stories. Don't worry, they will be. And the Lewises and Chayne will be back. But not tomorrow night. I'm not sure what's coming tomorrow night, but it is going to be good. I promise that.