ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
PART
ONE
Extravagant the desire, dark and moonless
The needs of a passionate body…
—Cassiane
I
BEGINNING
PLACE
White smoke flew out of Sidney’s nostrils to join the grey smoke of the studio that obscured the three streaks across the canvas and the twinkling lenses of Dr. Mark Powers’ glasses.
The psychiatrist commented, “I see you’ve been working hard.”
“This is me working hard,” Sidney told him, and took a last drag on the cigarette.
“I can tell,” Mark chuckled and Sidney Darrow pushed himself out of the chair, shaking out the wrinkled tee shirt he wore and muttering, “I didn’t even turn the ceiling fan on,” as he did so. “I need to open the windows.”
By the way,” Sidney said, cracking a window open and coming out to meet Mark in the hallway, “Did you just walk into my house?”
“You don’t lock doors,” Mark shrugged. “I just wanted to see if you were here yet.”
“Well,” Sidney placed his hands behind his back, clasped his fingers and stretched, “I am.
‘I see that. You and your cigarettes.”
“You gotta die sometimes. It’s one of those facts of nature.”
Just try not to die before me, alright?”
“I couldn’t give you the satisfaction,” Sidney said. “Besides, you’re a decade older.”
Mark frowned.
“Well, you look a decade older.”
Sidney was slightly taller than Mark Powers, but neither the Irishman nor the Black man was tall, they’d passed those genes onto their sons, one of which was coming through the door right now.
Mason Darrow entered through the kitchen door followed by Addison Cromptley, they raided the refrigerator, picked up the glass cookie jar and then threw open the cabinet doors.
“Have some manners!” Sidney shouted.
“We see you, Dad,” Mason told him.
“It’s the first day of school, Sid,” Addison said pulling two tumblers down and pushing his dark hair out of his face. “It builds up a hunger.”
“Hey, Dr. Powers,” Mason said to Mark, pouring lemonade into the tumblers.
“Sir,” Addison saluted Mark, and then the boys headed into the back of the house with their plunder, a trail of Doritos falling from Mason’s hands.
“Mason!”
“I see, Dad,” Mason said, and disappeared down the hall.
“He always calls me Dr. Powers,” Mark said.
“Do you want to be Dr. Scholls?”
“No,” Mark said, petulantly. “And Joel is Joel, but I’m always Dr. Powers.”
“Because you act like Dr. Powers. It’s just your way is all.”
“You think I’m stuffy?”
“I think you think you’re stuffy. Look, Mark, where the hell is all this coming from?”
I just... I had a patient today, and I was talking to him, asking him questions. We were talking about his love life, and I was asking questions, not lasciviously. Just to prompt him.”
“Right,” Sidney made a motion to Mark who himself seemed like he needed to be prompted.
“And then he said, ‘Well, Dr., how long’s it been for you?’ And I just told him that we were here to talk about him and not me. And… I do that a lot. I feel myself sort of shutting down when I’m counseling.”
“Well,” Sidney said, shrugging and opening up the refrigerator, while Mark stood in his Oxford blue shirt and tie, his arms wrapped around himself, “Technically you were right. You are here for him; not to tell all your business.”
“Right,” Mark allowed hesitantly. “But you said technically.”
“Yeah?”
“Meaning...”
Sidney stopped in the middle of handing Mark a beer.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Meaning you agree with him.”
“There goes that psychology again.”
“Look, Sid, don’t joke,” Mark said in a low voice, cracking open the beer can and sipping, “I need your serious opinion. About what he said. About... how I feel.”
“It’s your eyes,” Sidney said, at last, opening his own beer.
“What?” Mark put his fist to his mouth to belch softly.
“You have these really blue eyes that sort of... did you ever see Dune?
“No,” Mark cocked his head, a little vexed.
“Well, they’re sort of these odd eyes that... shut people out. There’s something about you that shuts people out is all.”
“You think I shut people out,” Mark said needlessly.
“Look,” Sidney put up a hand, “I’m sorry. You asked.”
“No,” Mark said softly, “It’s alright. I was just asking. I’ll think about that,” Mark said with a scowl on his face that looked like he really would think about it.
The two men were both quiet for a long time, and then Mark said, “I don’t shut you out.”
“THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS YEAR,” Mason Darrow reported receiving a cigarette from the hands of his best friend, “is that I was the best looking person in our year,” Mason took a drag. “Except for you. Be a pal and open that window Addison.”
“Except for me, you don’t say,” Addison smirked, a Maverick smoking from between his lips while he turned the fan toward the window and pushed the window wide open.
“The whole class has gone down hill,” Mason continued, putting his cigarette in the ashtray and cramming Doritos into his mouth. Over the crunching he said, “I really hope something happens at Saint Vitus this year. I wish we’d meet some new people.”
Addison, who was several inches taller than Mason, collapsed on the bed and bounced back up, smoke flying out of the nostrils of his long nose. Both boys were in the standard after school uniform of a Saint Vitus Men’s College Preparatory High School student; rumpled navy pants, untucked white shirt and loose red tie with a blazer, thrown on the floor somewhere.
“Can I confess something?” Addison rolled his large, mournful eyes at Sidney.
“Shoot fellow. By the way, can you see my goatee yet?”
“No. Stop shaving for three more days.”
“Dad’ll make me cut it off. Anyway, back to you confession,” Mason said, cigarette in one hand, his tongue flicking down to lick the spot under his lower lip where he was trying to grow hair.
“I hate Lewis Chat.”
“What’s that to me?”
“Well, it’s just, you’re my best friend, and.... I like you, but...”
“It’s nice to know you at least like me.”
“But,” Addison pressed on ignoring him, “I don’t know if I really like the other Black people at Saint Vitus. It’s just…”
“I don’t know that I like anybody at Saint Vitus,” Mason said. “No one said you had to love all Black people not to be a bigot?”
“Are you sure?” said Addison.
“Are you serious?” said Mason. He took three quick drags on his cigarette and said, “Besides, they’re all obnoxious as fuck. Except for Balliol.”
“Lincoln Balliol? I don’t even know him. He just seems mean as fuck.”
“I don’t know him either,” Mason said. “But I think I should. And I think he lives around here, too. He’s supposed to be loaded. He just looks like someone who doesn’t have time for bullshit. I wish I looked like that.”
“You will once you get your goatee,” Addison said with a lopsided grin and a puff on his cigarette.
“You’re very funny. Where can we get liquor?”
“From your Dad’s liquor cabinet.”
“Aside from Sidney’s liquor cabinet. I wish we could buy. Just to have a little bit. Not to be drunk all the time, but just to have a little bit of booze. I can’t wait till we’re legal. Then we can do... everything.”
Addison looked very reflective as he puffed on the last of the Maverick, and quick as that lit a new one off the dying one, passed it to Mason and then lit his off of Mason’s.
“Have you noticed everyone’s getting—”
There was a padded thump on the door. Addison let out a slight shriek, Mason cleared his throat, exhaled and said, calmly, “Yes?”
“It’s me, guys.”
“Oh,” Mason let out a breath and caught his chest. He pushed himself up, unlocked the door and pulled in Tommy Dwyer, locking the door behind him.
“It’s smoky in here, guys,” Tommy said.
“Well, yes, Tommy my boy, it is,” Addison said, exhaling into the fan and watching the smoke out of the window.
“I’ll finish this off and that’ll be it,” Mason told him.
“Unless, of course,” said Addison, “you want one.
“No thanks,” Tommy had just pulled off his blazer and pulled it over his nose. “I want to live.”
Addison looked at him and said, “I don’t know why. You’ve given your life to Jesus, you can’t drink, you can’t smoke and you can’t fuck. Doesn’t seem like it would be worth it.”
Tom Dwyer pushed up his glasses and opened his mouth, but Mason just put a hand on his other best friend’s shoulder and Addison, crushing out the last cigarette said, “I’m just fucking with you, Thomas. Only fucking.”
“You shouldn’t play when it comes to Jesus,” Tommy said, sitting down on the crowded bed and helping himself to Doritos.
“I know. Pray for me.”
Tommy looked at Addison suspiciously and then said, eyes narrowed, “I will. Rather you mean it or not.”
“Whether,” Mason automatically corrected.
“Huh?” said both boys.
“Not rather,” Mason told them, crawling onto the bed now too, and punching a pillow that he pulled to his chest. “The word should be whether.”
“Oh,” Tommy said, considering it. “Alright.”
“You were going to say something,” said Mason to Addison, “before Tommy scared the shit out of us.”
“What?” Addison said. “I don’t know.”
Mason prompted: “You said that everyone was—”
“Oh, yeah,” Addison snapped his fingers: “Everyone’s getting laid. Apparently it happened last summer. Everyone got laid while we were... doing whatever we were doing.”
“Masturbating to fantasies of getting laid,” Mason supplied.
“Yeah, probably,” Addison allowed.
“Well, I don’t think everybody’s doing it,” Tommy said.
“Jeb Kern--”
“In Campus Ministry?” Tommy sounded pained.
“Christians are fucking hypocrites,” Addison began, and then said to Mason and Tommy. “Except for you guys. But... you’re the real deal. Yeah, I heard that Jeb Kern’s been getting sucked off all sophomore year by his girlfriend, and they finally did it.”
“Who did you hear it from?” said Mason.
“Jack Keller.”
“Well, now who did he hear it from?” Tommy said, wearily.
“Somebody,” Addison brushed that aside. “But look guys. The point is everyone’s doing it.”
“And if everyone jumped off a bridge--”
“Yes, Tommy,” Addison cut him off, “I probably would. If they gave me a bungee cord. Look, I’m tired of being a virgin. I think this’ll be the year. I think in a few weeks probably. Me and Becky.”
“No!” To his surprise it flew out of Mason’s mouth.
Addison looked at him.
“You know how I feel,” Mason told him. “Beneath the cigarettes and thr craving for a flask of liquor to smuggle into geometry, I’m a good old Christian soldier just like Tommy.”
Tommy raised an eyebrow then he said, after a pause, “But, Addison, I just think...”
“That it’s a sin.”
“I think that it’s not what God wants for you, and... cigarettes and all that, that’s one thing. But, this is big. This is like a no. You should wait. Till you’re married.”
“I’m going to wait... till I buy Trojans.”
“Addison!”
“Well, how do you feel?” Addison turned to Mason.
“I didn’t know I got to vote on it.”
“You don’t,” Addison said. “But I’d still sort of like to know... I mean, we know how Tommy feels.”
“Well, I sort of feel the same way,” Mason said. “Alright, I do feel the same way.”
Tommy smiled, heartened by this.
“Besides, it just weirds me out, Add. You having sex. I’ve never known someone who’s not a virgin.”
“Mase?”
“Hum?”
“I’m pretty sure your dad’s not a virgin.”
Mason just glared at Addison, and rolled his eyes.
ONE
Extravagant the desire, dark and moonless
The needs of a passionate body…
—Cassiane
I
BEGINNING
PLACE
White smoke flew out of Sidney’s nostrils to join the grey smoke of the studio that obscured the three streaks across the canvas and the twinkling lenses of Dr. Mark Powers’ glasses.
The psychiatrist commented, “I see you’ve been working hard.”
“This is me working hard,” Sidney told him, and took a last drag on the cigarette.
“I can tell,” Mark chuckled and Sidney Darrow pushed himself out of the chair, shaking out the wrinkled tee shirt he wore and muttering, “I didn’t even turn the ceiling fan on,” as he did so. “I need to open the windows.”
By the way,” Sidney said, cracking a window open and coming out to meet Mark in the hallway, “Did you just walk into my house?”
“You don’t lock doors,” Mark shrugged. “I just wanted to see if you were here yet.”
“Well,” Sidney placed his hands behind his back, clasped his fingers and stretched, “I am.
‘I see that. You and your cigarettes.”
“You gotta die sometimes. It’s one of those facts of nature.”
Just try not to die before me, alright?”
“I couldn’t give you the satisfaction,” Sidney said. “Besides, you’re a decade older.”
Mark frowned.
“Well, you look a decade older.”
Sidney was slightly taller than Mark Powers, but neither the Irishman nor the Black man was tall, they’d passed those genes onto their sons, one of which was coming through the door right now.
Mason Darrow entered through the kitchen door followed by Addison Cromptley, they raided the refrigerator, picked up the glass cookie jar and then threw open the cabinet doors.
“Have some manners!” Sidney shouted.
“We see you, Dad,” Mason told him.
“It’s the first day of school, Sid,” Addison said pulling two tumblers down and pushing his dark hair out of his face. “It builds up a hunger.”
“Hey, Dr. Powers,” Mason said to Mark, pouring lemonade into the tumblers.
“Sir,” Addison saluted Mark, and then the boys headed into the back of the house with their plunder, a trail of Doritos falling from Mason’s hands.
“Mason!”
“I see, Dad,” Mason said, and disappeared down the hall.
“He always calls me Dr. Powers,” Mark said.
“Do you want to be Dr. Scholls?”
“No,” Mark said, petulantly. “And Joel is Joel, but I’m always Dr. Powers.”
“Because you act like Dr. Powers. It’s just your way is all.”
“You think I’m stuffy?”
“I think you think you’re stuffy. Look, Mark, where the hell is all this coming from?”
I just... I had a patient today, and I was talking to him, asking him questions. We were talking about his love life, and I was asking questions, not lasciviously. Just to prompt him.”
“Right,” Sidney made a motion to Mark who himself seemed like he needed to be prompted.
“And then he said, ‘Well, Dr., how long’s it been for you?’ And I just told him that we were here to talk about him and not me. And… I do that a lot. I feel myself sort of shutting down when I’m counseling.”
“Well,” Sidney said, shrugging and opening up the refrigerator, while Mark stood in his Oxford blue shirt and tie, his arms wrapped around himself, “Technically you were right. You are here for him; not to tell all your business.”
“Right,” Mark allowed hesitantly. “But you said technically.”
“Yeah?”
“Meaning...”
Sidney stopped in the middle of handing Mark a beer.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Meaning you agree with him.”
“There goes that psychology again.”
“Look, Sid, don’t joke,” Mark said in a low voice, cracking open the beer can and sipping, “I need your serious opinion. About what he said. About... how I feel.”
“It’s your eyes,” Sidney said, at last, opening his own beer.
“What?” Mark put his fist to his mouth to belch softly.
“You have these really blue eyes that sort of... did you ever see Dune?
“No,” Mark cocked his head, a little vexed.
“Well, they’re sort of these odd eyes that... shut people out. There’s something about you that shuts people out is all.”
“You think I shut people out,” Mark said needlessly.
“Look,” Sidney put up a hand, “I’m sorry. You asked.”
“No,” Mark said softly, “It’s alright. I was just asking. I’ll think about that,” Mark said with a scowl on his face that looked like he really would think about it.
The two men were both quiet for a long time, and then Mark said, “I don’t shut you out.”
“THE BEST THING ABOUT THIS YEAR,” Mason Darrow reported receiving a cigarette from the hands of his best friend, “is that I was the best looking person in our year,” Mason took a drag. “Except for you. Be a pal and open that window Addison.”
“Except for me, you don’t say,” Addison smirked, a Maverick smoking from between his lips while he turned the fan toward the window and pushed the window wide open.
“The whole class has gone down hill,” Mason continued, putting his cigarette in the ashtray and cramming Doritos into his mouth. Over the crunching he said, “I really hope something happens at Saint Vitus this year. I wish we’d meet some new people.”
Addison, who was several inches taller than Mason, collapsed on the bed and bounced back up, smoke flying out of the nostrils of his long nose. Both boys were in the standard after school uniform of a Saint Vitus Men’s College Preparatory High School student; rumpled navy pants, untucked white shirt and loose red tie with a blazer, thrown on the floor somewhere.
“Can I confess something?” Addison rolled his large, mournful eyes at Sidney.
“Shoot fellow. By the way, can you see my goatee yet?”
“No. Stop shaving for three more days.”
“Dad’ll make me cut it off. Anyway, back to you confession,” Mason said, cigarette in one hand, his tongue flicking down to lick the spot under his lower lip where he was trying to grow hair.
“I hate Lewis Chat.”
“What’s that to me?”
“Well, it’s just, you’re my best friend, and.... I like you, but...”
“It’s nice to know you at least like me.”
“But,” Addison pressed on ignoring him, “I don’t know if I really like the other Black people at Saint Vitus. It’s just…”
“I don’t know that I like anybody at Saint Vitus,” Mason said. “No one said you had to love all Black people not to be a bigot?”
“Are you sure?” said Addison.
“Are you serious?” said Mason. He took three quick drags on his cigarette and said, “Besides, they’re all obnoxious as fuck. Except for Balliol.”
“Lincoln Balliol? I don’t even know him. He just seems mean as fuck.”
“I don’t know him either,” Mason said. “But I think I should. And I think he lives around here, too. He’s supposed to be loaded. He just looks like someone who doesn’t have time for bullshit. I wish I looked like that.”
“You will once you get your goatee,” Addison said with a lopsided grin and a puff on his cigarette.
“You’re very funny. Where can we get liquor?”
“From your Dad’s liquor cabinet.”
“Aside from Sidney’s liquor cabinet. I wish we could buy. Just to have a little bit. Not to be drunk all the time, but just to have a little bit of booze. I can’t wait till we’re legal. Then we can do... everything.”
Addison looked very reflective as he puffed on the last of the Maverick, and quick as that lit a new one off the dying one, passed it to Mason and then lit his off of Mason’s.
“Have you noticed everyone’s getting—”
There was a padded thump on the door. Addison let out a slight shriek, Mason cleared his throat, exhaled and said, calmly, “Yes?”
“It’s me, guys.”
“Oh,” Mason let out a breath and caught his chest. He pushed himself up, unlocked the door and pulled in Tommy Dwyer, locking the door behind him.
“It’s smoky in here, guys,” Tommy said.
“Well, yes, Tommy my boy, it is,” Addison said, exhaling into the fan and watching the smoke out of the window.
“I’ll finish this off and that’ll be it,” Mason told him.
“Unless, of course,” said Addison, “you want one.
“No thanks,” Tommy had just pulled off his blazer and pulled it over his nose. “I want to live.”
Addison looked at him and said, “I don’t know why. You’ve given your life to Jesus, you can’t drink, you can’t smoke and you can’t fuck. Doesn’t seem like it would be worth it.”
Tom Dwyer pushed up his glasses and opened his mouth, but Mason just put a hand on his other best friend’s shoulder and Addison, crushing out the last cigarette said, “I’m just fucking with you, Thomas. Only fucking.”
“You shouldn’t play when it comes to Jesus,” Tommy said, sitting down on the crowded bed and helping himself to Doritos.
“I know. Pray for me.”
Tommy looked at Addison suspiciously and then said, eyes narrowed, “I will. Rather you mean it or not.”
“Whether,” Mason automatically corrected.
“Huh?” said both boys.
“Not rather,” Mason told them, crawling onto the bed now too, and punching a pillow that he pulled to his chest. “The word should be whether.”
“Oh,” Tommy said, considering it. “Alright.”
“You were going to say something,” said Mason to Addison, “before Tommy scared the shit out of us.”
“What?” Addison said. “I don’t know.”
Mason prompted: “You said that everyone was—”
“Oh, yeah,” Addison snapped his fingers: “Everyone’s getting laid. Apparently it happened last summer. Everyone got laid while we were... doing whatever we were doing.”
“Masturbating to fantasies of getting laid,” Mason supplied.
“Yeah, probably,” Addison allowed.
“Well, I don’t think everybody’s doing it,” Tommy said.
“Jeb Kern--”
“In Campus Ministry?” Tommy sounded pained.
“Christians are fucking hypocrites,” Addison began, and then said to Mason and Tommy. “Except for you guys. But... you’re the real deal. Yeah, I heard that Jeb Kern’s been getting sucked off all sophomore year by his girlfriend, and they finally did it.”
“Who did you hear it from?” said Mason.
“Jack Keller.”
“Well, now who did he hear it from?” Tommy said, wearily.
“Somebody,” Addison brushed that aside. “But look guys. The point is everyone’s doing it.”
“And if everyone jumped off a bridge--”
“Yes, Tommy,” Addison cut him off, “I probably would. If they gave me a bungee cord. Look, I’m tired of being a virgin. I think this’ll be the year. I think in a few weeks probably. Me and Becky.”
“No!” To his surprise it flew out of Mason’s mouth.
Addison looked at him.
“You know how I feel,” Mason told him. “Beneath the cigarettes and thr craving for a flask of liquor to smuggle into geometry, I’m a good old Christian soldier just like Tommy.”
Tommy raised an eyebrow then he said, after a pause, “But, Addison, I just think...”
“That it’s a sin.”
“I think that it’s not what God wants for you, and... cigarettes and all that, that’s one thing. But, this is big. This is like a no. You should wait. Till you’re married.”
“I’m going to wait... till I buy Trojans.”
“Addison!”
“Well, how do you feel?” Addison turned to Mason.
“I didn’t know I got to vote on it.”
“You don’t,” Addison said. “But I’d still sort of like to know... I mean, we know how Tommy feels.”
“Well, I sort of feel the same way,” Mason said. “Alright, I do feel the same way.”
Tommy smiled, heartened by this.
“Besides, it just weirds me out, Add. You having sex. I’ve never known someone who’s not a virgin.”
“Mase?”
“Hum?”
“I’m pretty sure your dad’s not a virgin.”
Mason just glared at Addison, and rolled his eyes.
