WATCHING BRAD
Part 156
Part 156
I stood at the door for a short time, my hand on the doorknob and staring across the yards at the door through which Brad had just disappeared, hoping against hope, I suppose, that he would change his mind and come back home.
But he didn't.
For a very brief moment, I contemplated going into the back yard again and sitting on the wall in case Brad decided to put on another show for me as he had done when me met last year.
But I didn't.
Instead, I went inside our home, closed the door behind me, and blankly walked through the motions of locking up the house for the night. I stopped in the boys' room to check up on them before heading down the hall to check on Lindsay. All of them were sleeping soundly. Through my closed bedroom door came the muffled snores of both Warren and Bill. Downstairs, in the guestroom, I suspected that both Mom and Dad were snoring softly as well. I was the only one awake and I wasn't quite ready to go to bed yet.
I grabbed a cold beer from the refrigerator, twisted off the cap, went into the livingroom, turned the stereo volume knob to ‘zero' before turning it on, then adjusting the volume until the room was filled with the soft, gentle strains of Für Elise which was playing on my favourite radio station. I took a seat on the loveseat, stuffed a small pillow behind my head, and sprawled out with my legs crossed at the ankles and propped on the coffee table. At first I thought of Brad and how happy I was feeling even though I was missing him terribly already. Then I thought about the wedding and the honeymoon. And then I thought about. . .
Time passed along with the thoughts flying through my head until I lost track of both.
"Teddy," the voice said from beside me, "are you okay?"
The voice startled me and I'm sure my butt actually left the settee cushion. My head whipped around to face my friend. "Gee-sus, Murphy, Warren!" I said as loudly as I dared without waking up the entire household. "If you're going to go skulking around the house in the middle of the night, either learn to whistle or wear a bloody cow bell!"
"I called your name from the hallway," Warren said as he sat down beside me. "I thought you heard me."
"Well, I didn't! Geez! You scared the bloody shit out of. . ." And then it suddenly dawned on me that I had just admonished my best friend who had had open heart surgery only last month. "Oh, God, Warren," I said earnestly and sincerely as I sat forward and turned slightly to face him. "I'm sorry! . . . I mean, I didn't mean to. . . I mean, your heart. . . Oh, God, Warren, I'm so sorry!"
Warren just grinned at me and gave my thigh a friendly, reassuring squeeze. "Take it easy, mon ami. I'm fine, really. I'm not going to croak on you or anything, so let's clear this up right here and now. It's going to take time to get my strength back, and I get tired a lot, but I'm not going to keel over and die on you, okay? Those days are behind me."
I relaxed somewhat, but my own heart was still pounding in my chest and rumbling in my ears. "Can you guarantee that?"
"Of course not, Teddy," my best friend smiled and squeezed my leg again. "No-one can. But, unless I get run over by a bus before Saturday afternoon, I'll be standing there beside you. Count on it."
I put my own hand over Warren's and curled my fingers beneath his palm. I found the contact deeply comforting.
"Now, mon cher, you still haven't answered my question. Are you okay?"
"Sure I am," I replied. "What makes you think I'm not?"
"It's almost three-thirty in the morning and you're sitting here all alone with hardly any lights on and a warm, untouched bottle of beer in your hand and you're listening to Mozart."
I glanced from Warren to the stereo and back again. "It's Debussy."
"N'import," Warren said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Now, what's bothering you?"
I sighed deeply before answering. "Nothing that you need to bother yourself about, my friend."
"If it bothers you, it bothers me. You know that."
"But you don't need it, Warren," I told him. "You've got enough bother in your life without taking on mine as well. I think we should both just go to bed."
I set the untouched bottle of beer on the coffee table and began to stand up but Warren grabbed my hand and pulled me back down into the loveseat. "Francis Theodore de Villiers," he whispered firmly and harshly, stretching out the words in an intimidating and threatening manner, "sit down!" I knew when he called me by my full name that he wasn't pleased with me.
I sat back down beside him.
"Now, talk!"
"Warren, nothing's wrong. I'm okay. Really."
"Are you forgetting who you're talking to, Teddy? I know you. You don't sit in front of the stereo with a warm bottle of beer in your hands unless something is really bugging you. Now, spill it."
What should I tell him? How much should I tell him? Does he really need to know how scared I was? Would it serve any purpose in worrying him as well?
All those questions and more flew into my mind in the blink of an eye and I didn't have an answer for any of them. As I thought what to say, Warren spoke for me.
"Fine," he said. "I'll talk. It shouldn't be difficult to figure out."
I had convinced myself that I would not drag my friend into this and had prepared myself not to react to anything he might say, but, of all the things which could have been bothering me at that time, I never would have - never could have - imagined that Warren would guess correctly with his very first guess.
* * * * *
I was sitting at my favourite spot under the tree on the bank of the creek near our houses, tossing the pale purple blossoms from a handful of clover into the water and watching them flow downstream toward Lake Erie. I liked imagining myself to be those clover blossoms, being carried down the creek and into the lake, then down the Niagara River and over the Falls. I'd float past the Maid of the Mist and under the bridges and dodge the Whirlpool Rapids until I reached Lake Ontario. From there, I would float toward the east, past cities and towns, until I reached the St. Lawrence River, and then on to the Atlantic Ocean and to the place where I was born. Now I was trying to imagine the clover - and myself - going a whole lot further.
I heard Warren coming up behind me but I didn't turn to greet him. "Hi, Teddy."
"Hi, Warren," I said softly and tiredly. I was still wiped out from the vacation and the jet lag.
My best friend best friend gave me a small kiss on the cheek as he always did when we were alone, crossed his ankles, and plopped himself on the grass beside me. "I'm so glad you're home again, Teddy," he added. "I hate it when you go to England to visit your Gran an' Gramps. I get so lonely here all by myself."
Warren folded his legs and sat there Indian-style the way I was doing. I could sit like that back then. He set a small brown paper bag onto the grass between us and I heard the dull clink of metal against metal and I knew that, inside the bag, there would be a tin of Cream Soda for him and a tin of Sprite for me. There would, of course, be a few assorted candy bars, too, and some sponge toffee.
Warren loved that chocolate and sponge toffee. A little too much if you ask me. In the years that I'd known him, he'd really packed on the beef. He'd always been ‘chunky', but now he was getting fat and he was being teased and taunted more and more at school. I'd always done my best to try to get him off the sweets, but it was like trying to tell a fish not to swim. He liked his chocolate and his sugar. I'd always taken care of Warren since we became friends, and now I was afraid that he would be left alone with no-one to take care of him anymore.
He opened the bag and pulled out the pop, handing the Sprite to me after he'd popped the tab open.
"Thanks," I told him.
"Coffee Crisp?" he asked. "I got you two."
"No, thank you."
He took a swig from his Cream Soda and set it down before ripping the paper wrapping off the end of an Oh Henry candy bar and biting off a sizeable chunk of chocolate-coated peanuts, caramel, and nougat. His lips smacked with great enjoyment as he chewed noisily.
"I wish you'd stop eating those things, Warren," I told him as I watched his chubby cheeks puff out with every chew. "They're not good for you. Why don't you try eating carrot sticks or celery or something?"
Warren hurriedly swallowed the bite of chocolate and wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand. "Please don't start on me, too, Teddy. I get that enough from Mom an' Dad. When you go away, I get lonely an' eating is the only thing that keeps me company."
"I worry about you, Warren. That's all."
"Well, you can stop worrying about me," he said matter-of-factly. "I'm gonna eat so much choc'late an' get so fat that I blow up an' die an' then I don't have to listen to all them guys at school callin' me ‘queer boy' an' ‘fatso' an' stuff."
That was another thing I always tried to do for my friend - protect him from everyone else. Especially the schoolyard bullies. They were relentless and teased him about his weight and his lack of female friends and his somewhat feminine mannerisms. Ever since I'd met Warren, we both knew that he liked boys more than girls, but it wasn't until we began high school that we understood it actually had a name. We were also very aware that Warren liked me especially, but more as a friend. Sex was never an issue between us back then. We didn't even know what sex was yet.
I've got to give it to Warren, though. When we discovered sex and what it was about boys that he really liked, it was only natural that he would proposition me. Even today, he still does it although it's done more jokingly than seriously, and we are both extremely comfortable with it. I can't imagine either of us ever doing anything that would jeopardize our love and friendship for each other.
I could have argued with him - that he was using loneliness as an excuse to eat - but I had other things on my mind and went back to ripping clover heads from their stems and tossing them into the brook and watching them float away.
After a time, Warren said, "Aren't you gonna try an' stop me?"
I just shook my head ‘no'.
Warren made a ‘humph' sound and bit off another chunk of his candy bar. As he smacked his lips and chewed, I looked at him. He was looking at the chocolate bar as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
"You've got to start doing things for yourself, Warren," I told him between two of his ‘yummy' moans. "What are you going to do when I'm not around to help you?"
"I'm not worried," he said. "You'll always be around to help me, Teddy."
"But what if I'm not?" I paused then. "What if something happens and I'm not around to watch out for you anymore?"
Warren stopped chewing and stared at me. When he swallowed his chocolate, I looked away and back down at the stalks of clover still clasped tightly in my fingers.
"What do you mean, Teddy?" Warren asked with sudden urgency in his voice. "What are you sayin'? What's goin' on?"
I couldn't look at him. Instead, I crumpled the handful of clover into a ball and threw it as far away from me as I could. And then, out of the blue, I heard a loud gasp and Warren said the words I was so afraid to say: "You're movin' away, aren't you? You're movin' an' you're goin' to leave me here all alone!"
My head whipped around to face him. "Who told you!?" I shouted.
"No-one, but I'm right, aren't I? You're movin' away!"
I had to look away again. I couldn't answer him and I couldn't look at his pain and fear.
"You can't move away, Teddy," he objected. His voice was strained and he was teetering on the edge of crumbling into tears. "What am I supposed to do?"
"I don't have a choice, Warren," I said, my own voice crackling as I spoke. "You'll be okay."
"No, I won't, Teddy. You're supposed to be here to take care of me. I need you! You just can't move away. You have to stay here." Warren lost his battle and the tears began to trickle down his cheeks.
I knew Warren would react like this when he found out. I was really the only friend he had in the world and he relied upon me much more than he should have, perhaps.
The Oh Henry bar fell from Warren's chubby hand, dropping neglected to the grass. He rolled to his knees and into my arms. I had little choice but to hold him and comfort him. His arms wrapped themselves around me and his fingers dug into my side as he buried his face against my chest and cried.
"It's not a ‘for sure', Warren," I said softly as I cuddled him. "It's just a ‘maybe'. Mom's just feeling homesick for England and Gran and Gramps are getting older and she wants to be closer to them. Pa doesn't want to go. He wants to stay here, and so do I. We might not even move away."
Warren sniffled loudly and sobbed for several long minutes before he spoke again. "What'll happen to me if you do, Teddy?" he asked. "What's goin' to happen to me?"
I didn't have an answer for him.
* * * * *
That was over twnety years ago. In the end, we didn't move away, but it was a very intense and uncertain Summer that year. Warren and I grew very close that Summer, and we've grown even closer since then.
Warren likes to think that he can read my mind. I prefer to think that he's lucky with his guesses. Still, it surprised me when he said:
"You're worried about what Connie's going to do to you now that she's out of prison, aren't you?"
As I had done two decades ago, my head spun around to face Warren. He simply tapped the side of his nose in a ‘the nose knows' gesture and grinned at me.
"I'm right, aren't I?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied, "but I didn't think you'd remember that she was released today."
"I couldn't let myself forget, Teddy," he said. "I knew you'd need me if you remembered. I've been waiting for this all day, but I didn't expect to be talking about it at three-thirty in the morning. I thought you'd forgot."
"Is it really that late?"
"Yes, it is," Warren replied, "but don't go thinking you're going to get out of talking about it. Now, tell me what you're worried about. What can she really do?"
"Are you kidding, Warren?" I asked, surprised. "She can make a royal cock-up of it if she really puts her mind to it."
"Yes, she could," Warren said. "But would she? You told me yourself that she'd changed, that she'd gone back to the way she used to be."
"It's a rare occurrence, Warren, but I've been wrong once or twice in my life."
Warren snickered and snorted through his nose, but he wisely avoided commenting. Instead, he said, "Do you know what your problem is, Teddy? You need to be in control of everything, and you're not in control of Connie anymore."
"I don't need to be in control all the time," I objected.
Warren harrumphed, then said, "Teddy, you know I love you, Sweetie, but you also know that is the biggest load of crap I've ever heard."
"No, it's not," I protested, but I knew he was right. I did feel a need on occasion to be in control of everything.
Warren tilted his head forward, peering at me from under his eyebrows. "Teddy," he said with a gentle smirk. "Sweetie. Remember who you're talking to. You may think you're fooling everyone else with that bullshit, but you can't fool me. Things have to be your way or no way at all, and the reason you're so annoyed now is because you lost control of Connie years ago and never got it back, and now you have no control over what she might do to you and your family. But think about it. What can she really do?"
"She could crash the wedding or the reception," I said. "She could bring everything to a halt. She could even stop the wedding if she wanted to."
"And get swarmed by any number of family and friends, including that dishy hunk of a cop friend of yours. Besides," he continued, "anyone else could do the same thing, Teddy. She could have been screwing up your life even when she was in prison, but she didn't. I don't think she's going to do anything now."
"I'm afraid I'm not convinced. What if it was all an act during her parole hearing and she's really gone off the deep end? Toys in the attic and all that?"
"If she was wacko, Teddy, she would have been sent to Penetanguishene, and if she wasn't sent there, I doubt if she would even have been offered parole."
What Warren said that night was what I had been trying to convince myself as I had sat there alone and thinking. Somehow, I found it very comforting to hear my friend say it to me.
"Trust me, Teddy," Warren continued. "We're all going to be on the lookout for her, and if she does show up and try something, we'll deal with it then. But there isn't anything we can do to prevent what we don't know is even going to happen. What's more, there's nothing you can do. It's out of our hands."
Warren looped his arms around mine and rested his cheek against my shoulder.
"Don't worry, Sweetie," he said quietly. "We'll do everything we can to make sure your day is everything you want it to be."
We fell into silence then, sitting there together until we both decided it was time to go to bed.
* * * * *
As soon as I settled into the bed with the twins, they roused themselves enough to take their usual places when Brad and I shared the bed with them. As usual, Justin straddled my waist and settled himself belly-to-belly on my chest. Jeremy, however, had a problem.
"Where's Brad, Daddy?" he asked sleepily.
"Brad's sleeping at Grandma's, remember?"
In the dim light of the nightlight, I could see the sleepy confusion in his face.
"Can I go sleep with him?" Jeremy asked hopefully.
"Not tonight, Jeremy," I whispered to him as I held my left arm open to him. "Come on. You can sleep with me."
Jeremy tried to settle in beside me, but, with Justin sprawled on my chest, there was little room left for him. "Justin, move," he said loudly, but Justin was sound asleep. Jeremy put his little hand on his brother's side and pushed. "Justin! Move!" he said loudly. "You have to share Daddy tonight!"
It was rare to see Jeremy asserting himself like that and I snickered to myself as Justin rolled to my right side and my two sons settled into my arms - one son on either side. I pulled the cotton sheet over us and hugged my sons to me, bent my head to kiss their hair, whispered ‘goodnight' to each of them, and fell asleep much more quickly than I would have thought.
To Be Continued
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