White Life

[ChrisGibson]

No one was really a bigger bitch or a bastard than Lincoln Balliol, except maybe Addison Cromptley and Seth Mc.Kenna. Andy Rathko was a magician. He had a red, round face and a sharp nose that Balliol privately believed Andy could bend down and bite off if he so chose. He’d started out doing parlor tricks. On the first day of school a priest had reached out to shake his hand, and it had come off bleeding. Andy burst out laughing and when his real hand came out of his blue blazer he roared, “Gotcha, Father!”

This had been worth about a week in detention.

Tonight, at the party in his house, Andy had a meat cleaver in his head and Lincoln Balliol was wearing a football uniform with a sign around his neck that read, “I’M A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FAGGOT.” Seth came out with the punch bowl followed by Andy and his tray of vaguely disgusting looking Halloween treats.

“They taste better than they look,” he said, picking up a bloody ear and biting into with a smile.

He reflected, “Just like chicken.”

“Seth?” said Mason, taking out his vampire teeth, “Exactly what are you supposed to be?”

Seth took off his baseball cap, and pointed to his plaid shirt.

“A redneck from Ohio,” he grinned cheesily, and headed to the kitchen.

“But,” Adam began, “he dresses like that all the time.”

Adam Benet was pretty, always talked about clothing and good food and, as far as Balliol was concerned, was a closet homosexual.

“Yes, Adam,” Balliol he said in his most neutral tone. “That’s why it’s called irony.”

“What are you, Becca?” Mason said.

“A ho.”

“But you dress like that all the time too.”

Addison stood up and Mason yanked at the hem of his friend’s burlap tunic—he was a suddenly defensive Igor.

Mason suggested: “Why don’t we find something fun to do, tonight. Get out of here.”

Addison looked sharply at him. And then Mason looked sharply back.

Addison sat down.

“You know,” Andy said glossing over the minor incident, “It’s still pretty hot. I don’t think winter will ever come. We could go to Lake Ashkelon.”

“Lake who?” Mason said.

“It’s the old quarry lake,” Balliol said, gathering his sorcerer’s robe around him.

“Yes,” Andy said.

“Isn’t that illegal?” Adam’s eyebrows rose up in worry.

It was Balliol who stood up with his punch glass.

“Be a man, Benet! How many chances do you get to commit a felony.”

“Well then let’s go,” Seth shouted, rising up and clapping his hands.

“Let’s go!” Addison agreed.

Andy went out of the living room shouting, “Ma, we’ll be back...”

“You up for it, Mason?” Becky said.

Mason nodded, and they prepared to clean up the house.



LAST ONE IN NAKED IS A LOSER!” Seth shouted, pulling down his pants.

“I lose,” Balliol murmured, and took out a cigarette.

“Come on!” Seth shouted. “This is a great night for a skinny dip.”

“Well then by all means,” Balliol said with a magnanimous gesture, “Dip. Have fun, dip mad. Count me out.”

Everyone else seemed more or less of the same opinion while Seth, on the edge of the pebbly hills that dipped into the lake continued stripping.

“There are ladies here,” Addison said.

“There’s only one lady,” Becky said. “And she doesn’t mind.”

Seth was naked now, and Addison said, “Well, fuck this,” and stood up taking ripping his shirt off, and then unbuckling his jeans.

“Okay, now I mind,” Mason said.

And Addison and Seth ran to the end of the tongue of land that went out to the deeper part of the lake. The last thing the rest of them heard was: “Cannonball!” before Seth jumped and there was a splash of water.

“Well, how often do you get to see two naked bony asses in a day?” Balliol remarked.

“Fuck!” they heard Addison shout from a distance. “It’s FREEZING!”

“I can’t go in,” Adam Benet was saying, “I paid one hundred fifty dollars for these sneakers. I don’t want to put wet feet in them. They’re probably already ruined just by walking on these pebbles.”

“Isn’t the purpose of sneakers to do things like… you know,” Mason suggested, “walk on pebbles and stuff?”

“The purpose is to look good,” Adam said. “And in a month when I get my new car I won’t even have to walk. It’s an Element, the seats are higher in the back. Just like a theatre.”

“That’s the ugliest car I’ve ever seen,” Balliol shook his head in disapproval.

“No,” Adam disagreed knowledgeably. “It’s a great car. Everyone’s got them. Either that,” he sat back on the rocks dreaming, “Or a Mini Coop.”

Mason shrugged.

Andy Rathko said, “Have you ever thought that somebody’s trying to sell you something?”

Adam looked at him blankly.

“I mean, look at this shit. You don’t even tie your sneakers.”

That’s the style.”

“The style,” said Andy, “is to wear sneakers you can’t do anything in or to, and that includes tying?”

“Well, now you’re making it sound stupid.”

Mason and Balliol just looked at each other.

They heard water splashing. Addison and Seth were dogpaddling to the shore.

“Christ!” Seth panted. “Damn, Addison.”

Addison crawled out of the water bedraggled and Mason took off his cape and said, “Cover yourself, sir.”

Addison wrapped it around himself and then grinned stupidly. “I won the race. I’m the winner.”

Seth shook his head and began pulling his jeans on over his wet skin.

“I need a cigarette,” he said.

And then they heard, “Hello! Who’s out there?”

They all looked at each other, suddenly sucking in their breaths.

The voice shouted again:

“Who’s out there!”

Mason’s eyes flew open, the beam of a flashlight fell right in front of him and he jumped back.

“Maybe it’s a friend,” Andy whispered.

Becky shook her head. “A friend with a gun and a flashlight.” She pointed into the weeds. “Let’s go.”





The front door of the house flew open and Mason stood there in the remains of his vampire costume.

He opened his mouth to say something and noticed not only Joel and Dr. Powers, but Dean Howard.

“Hellllllooooooooooo….” He let it come out of his mouth slowly, and then it died.

“Are you fucked in the head, Mason?” his father asked him.

“Dad!” Mason snapped. The dean was here.

Sidney shrugged and then said, looking at Rick Howard, “Oh, it’s just Rick.”

 

[ChrisGibson]

“Hey, Mason,” Rick Howard said.

This was so unfair. The father of an accomplice and his dean were here right now. He needed to talk to his father.

“I need to talk to my father,” Mason told them. “Right now,” he added.

He made a gesture and a bow and motioned for his father to follow him.

Sidney looked at the other men, then shrugged and stood up. “I’ll be back.”

“We went to the quarry lake,” Mason told his dad as he paced about the room throwing off his cape, taking off his black jacket.

“The one near the Pennsylvania border?”

“Yes. Seth drove. Dad, Seth skinny dipped.”

“Seth Seth?”

“No, Dad, Seth the Egyptian God of the Desert.”

Sidney cocked his head.

“You really ought to read more, Dad. Anyway, yes, Seth Mc.Kenna. As in Joel’s son. Anyway, we almost got arrested. We were trespassing.”

Sidney’s eyes went wide.

“What happened?” he sat on his son’s bed, face rapt with interest.

Mason eyed his father in disbelief and then wondered why he was shocked at Sidney’s evident pleasure.

“We ran really fast. I mean fast, through the grasses, on all fours, we kept a tight line, Becky said it would be best if we didn’t scatter—”

\ “Addison’s girlfriend?”

“Yes.”

“Wow,” Sidney said. “And who else?”

“Balliol was there?”

“Lincoln Balliol? He seems a little too classy to skitter through the woods.”

“Actually, Balliol even skitters in a classy way. But, of course, Tommy was at his Christian thing.”

“Um,” Sidney’s voice was neutral.

“So,” Sidney said. “Did you know it was trespassing?”

“Yes,” Mason said wearily.”

“Um?” Sidney looked shocked. He looked... pleased?

“What?” said Mason.

“You willingly broke the law and almost got arrested?”

“Yes, Dad, I did.”

“And just barely got away?”

“Yes, Dad.”

Sidney swooped his son into his arms, kissed him on the head and said, amazed, “You’re turning into a man!”

Mason blinked in shock.

“Just don’t turn into a man too much. A little danger now and then is good.”

` “If you say so,” Mason told him.

“Oh, I do,” Sidney said.

“And you know what Balliol told me?” Mason was changing out of his clothes.

“Hum?”

“I was talking about something, about how this boy we know always wants to buy the latest things and he’s working this job now so he can afford them and his parents got him the job. I think it’s at Menard’s or something. His name is Adam, right? And he tells us how his dad wants him to work because it builds character. Then Balliol says, but when it’s just the two of us, that the only reason Adam’s parents think that way is because they’re middle class, and the middle class have... how did he say it, ‘The middle class has made a virtue out of working forty hours a week to disguise the face that they don’t have a choice because that’s the only way they can have anything.’”

Sidney sat on the bed and began laughing.

“Wait,” Mason said, “He was telling me, and it was funny for a while, he said, that middle class people are always going on about this work ethic and how now in America everyone applauds having a factory worker’s ethic, but that the only reason to work is because you’re poor and you have to.”

Sidney laughed until he wiped his eyes and then he said, “When did this began to bother you?”

“When I told Balliol, ‘Balliol, I am middle class.’ And then he looked at me and said, ‘No, you aren’t Mason.’ But I am. I mean,” Mason looked at his father, looked around his average room. “We are... right?”

Sidney stopped laughing at Mason and looked at him in amazement. Then he said, “Mason, no you aren’t.”

“What?” Mason blinked at him.

Sidney shook his head. “Mason, we own half the gas stations and grocery stores in town, not to mention a clothing store. You might not like the way Balliol said it, but he’s right.”

Sidney looked for a nice way to put it: “A lot of times society does have this sort of blue collar ethic and we’re not blue collar, Mason. We’re rich. That’s why Joel drives a bus and I paint when I want to.”

Mason had just discovered something he’d never known about himself.

“But... we live in a regular house... In a regular neighborhood. I mean, we don’t have airplanes and... stuff like that.”

“We’re not that rich. I don’t think the Balliols even have that.”

“We’re not as rich as Balliol are we?” Mason said hopefully. He felt like such a snob. There was so much he took for granted.

Sidney shrugged. “He’s the heir to the entire Balliol fortune, I think. Yes,” Sidney eyed his son. “There is a Balliol fortune.

“You and me and Savannah and some cousins share our family money so I guess, if it makes you happy, we’re not as rich as the Balliols. But... we’re not hard up.”

Mason considered this and then he said, “One more question, and then I’ll let you go.”

“Alright?”

“So, like, are you going to make me live like a normal person?” Mason frowned. “See, I’m even talking like a snob, now. You shouldn’t have told me this.”

“I shouldn’t have had to,” Sidney told him. “Whaddo you mean normal people?”

“You know, go to college right away and have a normal job and—”

“Normalcy is greatly overrated,” Sidney told him. “You’ll work at what you’re good at, which is your art. And you’ll do what you want to do because you can.”

Mason felt the ground falling from under his feet. Why hadn’t he always known this? He had, but... it was in the background.

“Addison’s parents are getting him a car for his eighteenth birthday,” Sidney said. “They already told him.”

“You’re getting a grocery store for yours,” Sidney said. But Mason had always known this, only it didn’t mean anything. There was nothing exciting about owning a supermarket. “And when you get it, then you can buy all the cars you want.”

And that was how Mason discovered something important about himself.

This was all such exciting news, that Mason got on the phone and called Addison up at his house.

“Mase?”

“Addison, did you know I was rich?”

“Uhhh, yeah, Mason. We all did.”

“I just found it out.”

“Good for you, Mase.”

“I never knew it.”

“Mason, you’re going to own a grocery store when you turn eighteen. And that’s just the gift you know about. When I hit eighteen I’ll be lucky to get a blowjob. But thanks for rubbing the shit in, friend.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Mason said. “This means we can do... anything.”

“Well, you can., Mason. I’ll be at Cartimandua Community College.”

“No, you won’t. I can’t be rich by myself.”

“You’re crazy.”

“I’m serious. We’re going to have so much fun with money. I swear!” Mason said.

“Goodnight, Addison.”

“Goodnight freakshow,” Addison told him, and hung up.

 

[ChrisGibson]

VI

CHANGES





Savannah Darrow sat in the passenger seat of the car and waited for Bobby to realize she was still there. He needed to cut his hair. The afro would never come back, not like that, not uncombed with a pick in it, not with slouched shoulders. How did she always get that? The slouched shoulders. He was halfway down Beckett Avenue when he turned around and headed for the car. He stood at her window and finally Savannah cranked it down.

“What? he said.

“Why can’t you open the car door for me?”

“Is that what this is all about?”

Bobby had a long face and a big nose and needed to shave. His eyes rolled in his head and he opened the door.

“You know what your problem is? You want to be treated like a lady.”

“That’s a problem?”

“This isn’t...” Bobby looked around for the right word, but he didn’t look at her. He was walking ahead of her. “The Middle Ages. This is now, baby. Women want to be equal, but they want doors opened and chairs pulled up under ‘em, and—”

“So you know what I want?” Savannah said.

Bobby turned around and looked at her.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean,” Savannah said, “you know what I want, but you refuse to give it to me. You know I want the car door opened, but you won’t give me the car door opened. You know I want flowers just because—”

“You want flowers—”

“But you won’t give me flowers.”

“I can’t believe this,” Bobby threw his hands up in the air.

“What?”

“I can’t believe that we’re having this discussion.

“Savannah, I thought you were past that. I thought you were cool. I thought you were modern. Girl, I thought you were low maintenance. And here you come with all this demanding.”

“I’m demanding?”

“Yes,” Bobby said. Then, in a lower voice, as they headed to the restaurant. “Not here. Not on the Street. Not on Beckett Avenue. We’re not a couple of street niggahs who have to shout all our business.”

“Maybe I am a street niggah,” Savannah said. “Maybe I’m more of a street niggah than you know.”

Bobby thrust his long hands into his pockets and sighed.

“I don’t know why you say I’m so demanding.”

“Because you are.”

“Like how? Give an example.”

“I don’t want to, Savannah.”

“Really, Bobby. You can’t just say a thing and then—”

“Savannah.” His voice was low, but it was final.

She let out a breath.

“Fine,” she said.



She came home at about seven, and her mother said, “I thought you’d be out with Bobby.”

“No. I was out with Bobby all this afternoon, and it was enough.”

“Oh,” Mrs. Darrow said. She was sitting in the den, smoking a Benson and Hedges. She was good with her “ohs”.

Savannah stood there in the den, the curtains were drawn against the last light of sunset.

“He says I’m high maintenance.”

“Hum?” her mother looked up at her.

“Bobby said I was high maintenance. That when we got together he thought I would be low maintenance, but now I’m not.”

“Why are you high maintenance?” she asked in that bland, maddening way.

Because I want things,” Savannah said. “Because I ask him to do things. Because... He said that my problem was that I wanted to be treated like a lady.”

“But you are a lady,” her mother told her. “I mean,” Mrs. Darrow switched on the light, “You knew that, didn’t you?”

Savannah opened her mouth and uncrossed her arms. Actually, she hadn’t known that.

In the light, Savannah could see the half empty bottle of wine on the table by her mother’s chair. Her mother poured another glass and finished her cigarette.

“You know,” she said. “The problem with men these days is they don’t want to work. I don’t mean get a job. I mean, they work on everything but what they should. Cars, cars. I can’t get your father off of his cars. But... they don’t want to have a high maintenance woman, and that’s the only woman worth having. As far as I’m concerned. A lady is supposed to be high maintenance. Tell that to your,” she pronounced the name disdainfully, “Bobby next time you see him.”



“That was Chris,” Mark said, coming out of the kitchen and throwing himself back onto the couch where he sat across from Rick Howard.

“He’s at the Reardon’s. It’s good for him, I think Sullivan’s mother is sort of like... well, a mother for him. I feel bad that I can’t do that. I try, but,” Mark shrugged.

“It must have really hurt,” Rick said. “To lose your wife.”

Mark nodded, but Rick said, “Christ, that’s so stupid of me!”

“What?”

“To say something like it must really have hurt. Of course it hurt.”

Mark looked at him strangely, like he felt sorry for Rick.

“Of course it hurt,” Mark said, “But it’s still good when someone acknowledges it. Even when you’re prepared, you’re not prepared. I thought I would be. I thought I could let go, but when Margot died it really wiped me out. Chris was what brought me back. I had to be there for Chris.”

Neither one of them said anything for a moment, and then Mark said, “Alright, I know I’m supposed to put away my Freud and dream interpretation at five o’clock, but I’m going to say the Dr. is in right now.”

“Hum?” Rick looked distracted.

“What’s up, Rick?’ Mark said. “You’ve been odd tonight.”

Rick just continued to look at him.

“Actually,” Mark said, “the truth is you’ve been odd for a few nights now. For a bit now.”

Mark realized that Rick wasn’t going to volunteer any information. In fact, maybe he couldn’t. This was often the case. You weren’t supposed to lead a patient, but sometimes, if you wanted to actually help someone, you had to. Besides, Rick wasn’t a patient.

“Okay,” Mark said. “Sidney once said my problem as a shrink is I’m not honest, I want everyone to be honest with me, but I have to share part of myself.”

“Mark, you’re not a shrink right now,” Rick sounded a little irritated.

“No,” Mark agreed. “I’m a friend, and the reason I don’t have other friends is because I really don’t know how to share with other people. So, I’m going to share now.”

Rick didn’t say anything, but Mark could tell he was ready to listen.

 

[ChrisGibson]

“I thought we were starting to be good friends, and I thought you liked me, and I know I sound kind of silly for saying this, but it’s like you don’t anymore. Like you don’t even want to be here. I mean, people tell me I’m tense, and I am. But you’re sort of tense now. Like, I guess what I’m saying is if you want to you can go. I won’t mind. We don’t have to hang out. I mean, we’re adults. And we’re guys so we should be past—”

“It’s not that,” Rick interrupted. “It’s not that at all.”

“Oh,” Mark said. This put him in a new place, and he said, “Okay, then... What?”

Rick opened his mouth, and closed his mouth.

“What, Rick?” Mark said.

Rick didn’t say anything. He looked upset. He looked a little angry and finally he said.

“Do you remember when you first met me?’

“In high school?”

“No,” Rick waved that off with a slice of his hand.

“No. That day, at the conference.”

“Yes.”

“And you came to me with that whole business about the red ties, about—”

“I’m sorry,” Mark said. “I am so sorry. I never really apologized for that, Rick. If that’s what it is I can’t tell you how sorry I am for jumping to—”

“You were right,” Rick said simply. “That’s what I thought about you. And... What I hoped.”

It was so quiet in that house. Mark opened his mouth, but couldn’t find anything sensible to say. So finally he said what he wanted to.

“So you’re gay?”

“Yes,” Rick said. It was like he was coughing up the word.

“Oh,” Mark said. “Well, how long?”

Rick looked at him incredulously.

“All the time, Mark.”

“You mean... Back in high school?”

“Yes.”

“Back when you were playing football and... everything.”

“Yes,” Rick told him.

“Always?” Mark said.

“Always,” Rick repeated.

Mark said, “Shit.”

Neither one of them said anything for a long time, and then Mark said, “Rick, does that mean? I think it means... Does this mean that you like me?”

Rick turned away from him. He stood up suddenly and said, ‘Look, this is strange for me.”

“You don’t think it’s strange for me?” Mark demanded. “Are you saying you like me, Rick? Are you telling me you’re in love with me?”

“I’ll go,” Rick told him. “I’ll go if you want me to. In fact,” Rick reached for his jacket, “ I think I’ll go right now.”

Rick was pulling on his jacket when Mark said, eyes lowered, folding his hands together:

“Rick Howard if you walk out of here without answering my question you can go and never come back.”

He looked directly at Rick.

“Answer me.”

“Yes,” Rick said.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes,” Rick said, “I’m in… I like you. Alright?”

Mark looked like he was shooing a fly away, He blinked, a little disturbed and then bit his lip.

“Why don’t you sit back down,” Mark told him. “I’m not... judgmental. There’re only two people that every fell in love me. One fell out of love and other died. So... I won’t sneeze at it.”

“Mark—”

“Sit down, Rick,” Mark said. “Don’t leave, alright?”

Rick, nervously, removed his jacket, swallowed, and sat down.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Savannah woke up at about twelve to the noise of the television blaring in the dark, hot room. It was hot. The room smelled so bad. Why didn’t Bobby get air freshener. Why was she here?

She turned on the air conditioner, and Bobby woke up by the time she reached the bed.

“Why you turn that on?” he said half asleep. “Air conditioning cost money.”

“I’m hot,” she said.

“I’m not rich like you,” he said.

She thought they were about to fight, but he turned over and went back to sleep, leaving her with that comment.

Savannah lay in bed. Why was she here?

Because there really isn’t any other place to go.

That was always the thing with Bobby, Savannah thought. She would be twenty-eight next year. She told herself that was a bad way to think, always living in the future. Next year was a long way off. When Sidney was twenty-seven he’d had a son and a wife and was becoming an artist. Up until the marriage he’d lived in the house with the rest of the family. The Darrows were multigenerational, and even after they married they went from house to house so that Savannah lived down the hall from her grandmother and her parents slept downstairs. She thought she’d be marrying Bobby, but she didn’t think that would happen now. She’d moved out to the apartment complex near town, Castle Ridge, the one that actually had turrets. But she got lonely there. She was always going from place to place, job to job, needing a change.

Savannah decided that the difference between herself and all of her friends was that she didn’t have someone. Someone would show up one day and change her world. He would come and her life would begin.

So when Bobby showed up, unlike anyone else she had known, she was sure he was the someone. It was so hard to find a good man. She didn’t want to date a white men and there weren’ t that many of them smart as her in college anyway. It was hard to find a Black man in her world. And then, finally, she had. Or so she thought. She had run into him, literally. She hadn’t been paying attention and she’d crashed into him. He was grinning at her with a little smile, tall and dark, slim in old jeans and a snug tee shirt.

“I’ve met my husband,” Savannah told Sidney.

She brought him by the house. After he left, Sidney said, “No you haven’t.”

Savannah wasn’t in a mood to listen. What the hell did he know? As far as she was concerned Bobby held the secret to life because someone had to. He took her back to his place. It was clean. It was clean for the first time. He placed his hands on her hips and his long hands took hers and placed them on his belt. he helped her unhook his belt and brought the jeans and his white briefs down. His penis rose up for her, she lay down and let him in, her face deep in his hair, soft, thick, combed that time. She pulled and pulled in and he pushed in and pushed into her. Her thighs went around his hips that night. The same time her fingertips finally touched the invisible clap was the same time his body arched up above her and his penis pushed into her. His black face went slack. He cried out. He came.

When it was done his seed was on the bed sheet. The patch they’d made love in was soaked. He undressed her slowly and sucked on her nipples, he sucked on her throat. They made love again. He felt so good. She knew that she felt good. She kept coming. She’d never come so many times. When it was over, in the darkness of the night he whispered into her ear. She could feel his beard against her.

“How do you feel?”

“I feel like this is the end of everything,” she told him. She hooked an arm around his waist. “This is what it’s all about.”


EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Bobby yawned and stretched and turned around.

“What’s up now?” he said. That was the way he greeted her, like she had something mean to say, like she had a mean expression on her face.

Maybe she did, after all up until right now his ass had been turned up in her face, and what had awakened her was the large fart that had erupted from it. The smell still lingered.

Bobby looked completely undesirable. She could see every razor bump on his face. This was not her salvation.

Bobby wasn’t ironic. She had appreciated that about him. She had thought this made him “real”. If he was ironic she wouldn’t have said what she did the first time they’d slept together

I feel like this is the end of everything.

But what was it was all about?

She didn’t have a fucking clue.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Those were some great portion. Between people coming out and others realising their life situations for the first time, I am really enjoying getting to know them all. This made me feel a lot better after a tough day so thank you! Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

When Jack Moreland came to Latin class with the little note and Dr. Franco came to him and told him that he was needed in the Dean’s office, Mason received this news with a bit of worry, but largely what he would later write in his journal “was that general sense of freedom that accompanies getting the fuck out of a class you hate.”

Why did he take third year Latin anyway? He asked himself as he headed down the hall to Dean Howard’s office. What if Dean Howard was calling just to shoot the shit. What if he was like, “Remember the other night when we were all at your house?” Mason couldn’t imagine that, and quite frankly, would have been a little sick if it had happened. He preferred Dean Howard at a distance, as a good looking, athletic all American figure of fun.

“Hey, there, Mason!” Rick Howard leaned across his desk and took his hand in a firm grip, but Mason’s eyes were already widening at the sight of his aunt.

“Your aunt says there is something urgent in the family and you’re needed at once, Mason. I’m so sorry. I hope everything’s better soon.”

But even as Dean Howard was saying these things, Savannah, who was out of his view was mouthing, “No it isn’t. Nothing’s wrong. Let’s do lunch.”



“You do know,” he told Savannah as she slipped on her shades and they headed up Bancroft Street, “that you could have just gone to the main office and had the secretaries get me? When you get called to the Dean’s office that always feels so... not good.”

“Um,” Savannah shrugged as they raced up the street, “I didn’t know. But, you know what? That Rick Howard is a good looking man. And sweet too. In a dumb sort of way. I mean, if I was going to run off with an old white man, I could do worse.”

“He’s not that old.”

“He could be my father.”

“He could be your brother. He could be my father. He’s hanging out with Dr. Powers.”

“I know, what’s that all about? Who cares?” Savannah said before they could go down that road. “This is all about me. I could scream, but not right now. I’m too tired. Damn, I wish I hadn’t given up smoking.”

“You’re even more random than usual,” Mason told her.

“Basically, I need your guidance.”

“You left work? ”

“I told them to consider it an extended lunch. The working world is not what I need guidance about. It’s the rest of it.”

“It’s Bobby,” Mason said.

“Yes,” Savannah said, surprised. “Where do you want to go to lunch?”

“That one place with the stuffed mushrooms and that meat pie thingie.”

“Oh, the meat pie, that does sound good right now. And a beer. You want a beer? I’ll sneak you one.”

“Coke’s fine. Plus, don’t I have to go back to school?”

“No,” Savannah said, surprised. “I’m not going back to work.”

“Then I’ll have a beer,” Mason decided.

“Cartimandua Brewing Company,” Savannah said. “That’s where we’re going which means—”

The convertible came to a screeching, though stylish and shiny red halt in the middle of the road, did a U-turn, and headed south.

“You’re just not safe,” Mason told her.

“No,” Savannah shook her head. “And not sensible, either. And how did you know Bobby was the problem?”

“He’s always the problem,” Mason said.

“He used to be good to me.”

“No, he didn’t,” Mason said. “He was just new.”

“Oh,” Savannah moaned, laying back in the driver seat and taking her hand over the scarf she tied her hair back with, “What’s my problem? I need to... get my life back on track.”

“You need to pull to the side of the road,” Mason told his aunt.

“Why?”

“Because the police are chasing us.”

They pulled to the side of the road a block south of Saint Vitus and the cop came out and said, “did you know you were doing eighty?”

“Well, what’s the limit?”

“Twenty-five in a school zone.”

“Oh,” Savannah took off her shades.

“Savannah Darrow!” the cop said.

“Larry!”

“Savannah, I’m going to have to ticket you.”

“Oh, please, my life is in crisis, goddamnit! Besides, I slept with you. That ought to mean something.”

If Larry the cop had not been so impossibly black, he would have blushed. He gestured to Mason.

“Shit, Mason knows I’m a slut who makes bad decisions. Let me go, Larry, and I might be nice to you later. If you know what I mean. And I know you do.”

“I’m married now.”

“If you don’t tell your wife I won’t tell her either.”

Larry shook his head and said, “Yeah, Savannah, I think I’d better let you go.”

And they were off down the road.

“That’s the second person I’ve run into today,” Savannah said as they reached the corner of Bancroft and Gilchrist.

“Who else?”

“Another old flame. He’s a judge now.”

“You slept with a judge?” Mason said.

“No,” said Savannah, slipping on her shades as she rounded the corner.

“But I did let him eat my coochie.”



Shelley moaned that last time. She hadn’t meant to. Ecstasy was not something she experienced. Maybe three times in her life she could recount a mindblowing ecstasy and not a one of them was related to sex or romance.

She parted from Joel’s body, and he, lying beside her, eyes still wide, stroked her face and her neck. He stroked her side and kissed her in the place over her breasts.

“What time is it?” he said.

“I don’t want to think about it.”

Joel, all concern, rose up and said, “We’d better think about it, I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

Shelley sighed and turned over to look at the clock, “I’ve got to be back in twenty minutes.”

Joel kissed her and brought her close to him.

“There’s got to be something better than the middle of the day,” he said.

Shelley was about to say, “You gave up Mass for me,” but there was no way Joel would take that well. He had pushed that out of his mind. He had, as far as she knew, never violated a rule of the Church, and now, here he was with her.

“We should shower,” Joel told her.

That was one thing they had in common. The idea of smelling like sex all day, or smelling like sweat wasn’t an attractive one. Her first husband, who had married her after living with her for five years, thought it was fun, thought it was naughty. They would come and do it in the middle of the day and at her work place. It excited him, frightened her. If they were at his place, or later, at their house, then she’d say, “I need to shower,” and he’d say, “You want to get the smell of me off of you?”

And then she wouldn’t bathe and for the rest of the day she’d be sure she smelled like sex. She’d feel dried sweat and dirt on her.

They rushed their shower. It was fun, but not erotic. Joel had a three hour break because of how his bus run was scheduled, so he wasn’t in a hurry at all. Everything he did he did for her. As they were rinsing off she held his hands in hers. She looked into his face. She had to squint because of the water and he was squinting too, water in is face. His hair was dark and plastered to his scalp.

“What?” he said, water falling from his nose and over his lips.

She tilted her head and told him, “I love you.”

Joel grinned and embraced her. He wasn’t a tall man, but he was taller than her and it felt good to be in his embrace, his wet arms warm about her, his chest and stomach, his sex pressed against hers, unaroused and then aroused and all the time him unconscious of it.

He kissed her deeply and said, “You know I love you,” and then reached behind him, turned the shower off and shut off the water. That was plummeting from the faucet into the tub.

Joel drove her back to the library, a smile on his face. There was peace about him. It made Shelley afraid. As long as she’d known Joel the peace that came from him was all about his faith. He went to Mass everyday, he treated everyone like Jesus. For a very long time she thought he just treated everyone fairly, but he had told her, a few weeks into their getting serious, that he tried to treat everyone like Jesus. And, he didn’t believe in sex outside of marriage. He didn’t have to say this. It was to be assumed, and Seth had said something to the effect already.

But Seth was at home during the night and during the afternoon, and it was his senior year. Not the time to start up an affair, have women stay over or tell your child that you were going away for the night. So they had snuck their love life into the afternoons. She had made Joel, in effect, lie to his son and give up church and also, do something he didn’t believe in.

That first time they had been at her house. It had been right after Halloween a couple of weeks ago.

Joel said, “I told Seth I would be back after midnight.” he smiled. “Seth told me I could stay out all night. I don’t believe in that.”

“You’re his only parent,” Shelley sympathized.

Joel nodded as if to say this was true enough. But there was another reason.

 

[ChrisGibson]

“My parents loved to party and being parents was second to them. No, third. Being married was second to them. That’s why it all fell apart.”

“I always thought you were a good Catholic cause you came from a good Catholic home.”

Joel only shook his head.

He was one of those counter rebels. He tried to do everything right because he’d grown up seeing it all done wrong. She understood now.

Joel was nice and kind and sweet and that’s what she expected. She knew he was upstanding and she didn’t need bad boys anymore. She was tired of badness and incapable of ecstasy, so she hadn’t expected to want him this bad, and she hadn’t expected him to want her, or anything else badly. When the passion had come, and it had been coming on again off again, getting stronger and stronger, they were both surprised.

The passion started on the first date after Seth left and then to the second and by the third they were like teenagers. Joel came over with Seth for dinner. Seth left and they began good old fashioned necking. Then Joel took her to the bedroom, took down her panties, lifted her dress and made love to her there with his mouth. He held her hips down with his hands. The fire went through her. She thought she’d fly away. She couldn’t believe Joel was doing this to her. Not Joel Mc.Kenna. When she cried out he put a hand over her mouth, but the second time he realized there was no need to shut up. She moaned and moaned for the first time in years while Joel’s head stayed between her thighs.

That night, before the first time they made love, Shelley said, “The Church?” not that she cared what the Church said.

Wisely, Joel didn’t say anything. He just kissed her at the same time his hand went to her pants, to where she flooded at his touch. It was ten o’clock then. They had about two hours. When it was over they lay on the floor, her head in the crook of Joel’s neck. He was still kissing her and kissing her and they rested. She held onto his torso.

She looked at him, his mouth a little open, his eyes mildly glazed.

“You look like you’re in a dream,” she told him.

He stirred, looked at her and grinned. “I am.”



“This is absolutely stupid!” Mason declared, “Did you know?” he told his father, “that I have an incomplete in some bofo English class I took last year? I don’t even know what the hell it’s about! And now I’ve got to talk to Miss Weingarten, who is a perfect idiot, or else this will bar me from getting into art school?”

“Oh, hell, “Sid said. “I’ll give you some money and you can buy an art school.”

But Mason knew his father was saying this because it beat the usual and often truest phrase, “What can you do?”

“This means,” Mason said, “that I’ve got to go and talk to her and everything, and I don’t want to deal with her. She was an idiot. Really!

“By the way,” Mason switched from one subject to another, “You know what we were talking about at lunch—?”

Sidney looked at Savannah and said, “You all went to lunch today?”

“I needed to talk.”

“You could have taken me to lunch.”

“I needed to talk to someone wise. You were saying?” Savannah turned back to Mason.

“There is this place” Mason said, “that I saw on the Internet. It’s called the Say Ya Om Gay Yom House of Rest, and it’s all about prayer and meditation and getting your life back on track.”

“Oh, Mason, that’s what I need. Go with me.”

“What?” Mason.

“We could go together.”

“I think it’s a silent retreat.”

“We can go and be silent together.”

Mason looked at his father.

“If you want,” Sidney said. “Enlightenment’s a good thing.”

“I can’t wait. Let’s go on the computer right now?” Savannah said.

They got up and went to his room and he turned the computer on.

They sat there waiting for it to come on and Savannah said, “Damn, Mason, this computer is slow.”

“If you think this is slow,” said Mason. “Wait till we get on the Internet. It’s AOL.”

“Shit,” Savannah said. “You got a cigarette, Mason?”

“Savannah!” Mason said. “I’m sixteen.”

“You got a cigarette, Mason?”

Mason reached into his book bag and took out a pack of Maverick’s.

“Thanks.”

“I thought you gave it up.”

“I’ve decided to give up sex instead.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I’ve decided to give it up for the next ten hours.”

“I still don’t believe you.”

“I’ve decided to give up sex until we get off the Internet.”

“I still don’t—”

“Oh, shut the fuck up. I’m your elder goddamnit.”

Mason shrugged and ran his fingers over the keyboard.

“Okay, here it is,” he said.

“I don’t know about this Mason. It’s a bunch of really scary looking white people smiling in front of a building.”

“That which does not kill us—”

“Can drive us crazy. I don’t know about this.”

“Listen to this,” Mason said, reading off the information:

“We provide a quiet and peaceful atmosphere for meditation, concentration and sharing the human spirit.”

“Damn, we must be desperate,”

“You know we are,” Mason said. “At least. You are.”

“Thanks.”

“I’m only being real.”

“How much does it cost?” Savannah said.

“Are you broke?”

“Are we doing really this?” Savannah said as she shook her head and scratched the phone number out.

“Yes.”

Savannah sighed as Mason clicked to his e-mail.

“Damn,” she said.

“Damn,” Mason said, shaking his head. “No e-mails. Nobody loves me. I gotta go get on the phone and have some frivolous teenage conversation.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great portion! The characters in this story really appeal to me. They feel like they are real people that I’m getting to know. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon. Good work as always!

 

[ChrisGibson]

THE END OF CHAPTER SIX



“So, are the Darrows okay?” Rick asked Mark.
“What?” Mark said, across the table at Ciao’s. All around them business men were sitting down to short and sensible lunches in the mildly fashionable downtown restaurant.
“Well, Sidney’s sister, Mason Darrow’s aunt, came by yesterday and took him out of school. She said it was a pressing affair.”
Mark thought about this, and he thought about the Darrows. Then he said, with a frown in his forehead, “I’m sure they’re fine. It was probably just a little bit of trouble.”
“Hum,” Rick smiled pleasantly. “How’re your breadsticks? I don’t know why I got French onion soup. I don’t like French onion.”
“Here,” Mark said, passing a fat breadstick.
“Oh, no, I was just saying.”
“Here,” Mark repeated and put the breadstick on Rick’s plate. He poured out some sauce. “And that’s to complete the whole experience.”
“Thanks,” Rick said, grinning.
“No one should be without breadsticks. Can I ask you something, Rick?”
“Hum?”
“About that whole thing the other night—?”
“Mark, please,” Rick said. “If you have any respect for me—”
“I do have respect for you,” Mark said, “And as a psychiatrist—”
“You’re not my psychiatrist—” Rick said, becoming visibly agitated.
“I know that,” Mark sounded petulant to himself, “and if you’d let me finish speaking I was going to say as a psychiatrist I don’t intervene in people’s affairs, but as your friend, I want to know more.”
Rick looked around the room as if he were searching for a way to get out. Finally Mark said, “Rick, I’m talking to you.”
“I know that. I—look, Mark,” he said, he was glad they were in a booth, and he lowered his voice more than it was usually lowered, “I haven’t told that many people,” he said. “Actually, I haven’t told anyone.”
“Wait a minute,” Mark cut him off. “You’ve been gay your whole life?”
“Yes,” Rick said. “And could you not be so loud about it?”
Mark sighed and shook his head, “You’ve been gay your whole life and you haven’t told anyone? Not anybody?”
“I told you.”
“I’m it.”
“Yes.”
“No one else?”
“If you’re going to ask me that again—” Rick began.
He sighed, he started over. “I suppose to you this is just something interesting to question me about, but to me it is something I have lived with my whole life—”
“You make it sound like it’s cancer or some disease—”
“Sometimes that’s what it feels like,” Rick said. “That’s exactly what it feels like. A blot, something really, really wrong. Something that if Saint Vitus knew I’d be out of a job. Yeah, Mark,” he said at the look on Mark’s face. “It’s a Catholic school remember? An all boy’s Catholic school. Heck, I’m Chris’s coach. Your son’s a student there. You should be worried.”
“Worried about what?” Mark said. “Look, I’m not that way. You know it. If I was that way I wouldn’t be here.”
“Well then what way are you?” Rick said.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rick didn’t say anything for a long time. He looked very upset. He looked a little like Chris did when he was a child and wouldn’t get his way. Do I look like a parent? Mark wondered.
“What I mean,” Rick said, “is did you ever think about it, one way or another until I told you.…? That I was gay?”
“No,” Mark said. “It just... it wasn’t… anything.”
“And now it is, and now you’re trying to understand. And I’m your guinea pig. I’m your coming to grips. I suppose you feel like you have something on me because I told you how I felt. About you.”
“Look,” Mark said, suddenly angry. “I never asked you to have anything for me, and quite frankly, I think I’m dealing with it a lot better than most people would. Most straight men would have... they would have never talked to you again.”
“You were going to say most straight men would clock me in the face.” “No I wasn’t,” Mark said. “Violence is never the answer.”
That sounded stupid.
“Well, then fine,” Rick said. “You know what?” He didn’t move. “Tell me why you don’t walk out. Tell me why you’re not going to clock me in the face. Tell me why you’re still here.”
Mark gritted his teeth. His eyes withdrew. They looked blank and yet, at the same time, angry. Like he was contemplating the idea of killing someone.
“Fine,” Rick said, “How about this? How about you get the hell up right now and then we don’t bother with this because obviously you think you’re above me. You think you’re so superior and so damn good and liberal for talking to me. Well, don’t bother, Mark. The cat’s out of the bag and...” Rick apparently couldn’t think of anything else to say. He stood up and said, “I have to get back to the school. Unless you want to call them up and tell them everything, and then I guess I’ll be unemployed. Don’t worry,” he told Mark. I’ve got the bill.”
And Mark sat there, eyes still distant like Sidney would say. He didn’t say or do anything. And then Rick Howard was gone.

“You’ve got to be kidding me, Mason, please tell me you’re kidding me?”
“No,” Mason told Balliol.
“We just went on a retreat.”
“No,” Mason corrected him. “Actually we went to a conference. And this will be different.”
“Are we going to be wearing white robes and shit, eating tofu? I bet we can’t smoke,” Balliol said.
“You know in your heart that it’s going to be fun,” Mason said.
“I must not be in touch with my heart right now then.”
“And that,” Mason seized the moment, “is exactly why you need a retreat. It will be great, and my aunt Savannah’s paying.”
` “Have I met her?”
“Beautiful, loose, crazy? I don’t think so.”
“Well, she sounds like my kind of girl.”
“She’s getting her life together. That’s why we’re going.”
“How long is the trip?”
“Well, we’ll be in Pennsylvania, so I think it’s about four hours. The place is supposed to be all hidden away in the hills.”
“Like Deliverance?”
“It’s Pennsylvania, not Appalachia.”
“They have hillbillies everywhere.”
“Come on, Balliol!” Mason said, “Are you going to go with me or not?”
“My options are to go with you and have a dreadful time that I’ll be able to tell stories about for years and years, or sit here and clip my toenails?
“Naturally I’m going with you.”

“Where are you going?” Bobby asked her when he came through the back of the house to Savannah’s room that night.
“To the Om Ni Si Gay ohhh Whatever The Fuck It’s Called meditation and retreat center.”
“Really,” Bobby said putting his hands together and making a smug face, “You goin’ to do some of the meditation some of that OMMMMM, OMMMM.”
“Yes,” Savannah stopped packing her back, “Om, Om, shant shanga and whatever the hell else is part of it. I’m going to do it.”
“You, at a meditation place. By yourself.”
“I won’t be by myself,” Savannah said.
“Oh, who are you taking?”
It seemed lame to say, “my nephew”, so she said nothing. She just threw another tee shirt into the suitcase then sat down on it, trying to shut it. No good.
“You’re taking Mason,” Bobby said.
Savannah’s eyes flew open.
“You gon run off to the monks with your nephew. You crazy, Savannah, crazy.”
But I tell you what, baby, I love you anyway.” He leaned down and kissed her. “I’ll see you when you get back.”
He made a face and left the room.
Savannah discovered something at that moment:
“I hate him.”

 

[ChrisGibson]

“I miss our lunch dates,” Mark was saying that afternoon.
“Yeah, I know. It’s the only time I get to see, Shelley, though,” Joel shrugged lamely, “you know?”
“Yeah,” said Mark. “So how are things going with Shelley, whom we haven’t met?”
“That’s right! Tell you what? I’ll bring her by your house. Or all of us can have dinner one night. You, me, Sidney, the kids.”
“If she’d like that, “Mark said.
“She should meet the family.”
“The family,” Mark made a face.
“Well, we are.” Joel said. “After all these years.”
Joel waited a moment and then he said, “This means that you can tell me whatever’s bugging you.”
“There’s nothing bugging me.”
“Why are you lying to me?”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” Joel said. “You’re glum. You look like you lost your best friend. And I’m your best friend, so that couldn’t be it. Unless you lost your other best friend, and it’s hard to shake Sidney. So I’m guessing it’s Rick Howard.”
“What?”
“Am I wrong?” Joel cocked his head. “Nope, not wrong. What the heck happened? He’s the only other friend you’ve ever had.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yes it is. And now you all fell out?”
“I’m not twelve,” Mark said sounding a little petulant. “I don’t fall out with people.”
“But you have fallen out,” Joel said.
“Joel, can it, alright?” Mark said, and that was the end of it. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Joel shrugged.
“Fine,” he said. “But it must have been a really big fight.”

“Welcome to Say Ya Om Gay Yom’s Center For Health and Well Being,” the man said, “I’m your weekend counselor, Deep Mountain River.”
“Get out,” Balliol murmured from the side of his mouth.
“And you will be able to attain your heaven name after this retreat.”
“Oh,” said Balliol.
“Here is your white robe, the man handed one to Balliol and one to Mason and finally one to Savannah. “And we will be having a tofu lunch in around one half hour. Relax,” he said, “Enjoy!”
And Deep Mountain River was gone down the hall of the retreat center.
Balliol began tittering to himself while Mason and Savannah looked at him trying not to laugh.
“The good thing,” Mason told them, “is that he didn’t say we couldn’t smoke.”

When Mark came over that evening, Sidney said, “Joel isn’t here. Joel won’t be here. He’s on a date with the lovely Shelley.”
“This is turning kind of serious, isn’t it?”
“I think it turned serious a while ago,” Sidney said. “By my count this is the second woman in Joel’s life. Third if you count Blowjob Carla.” Sidney shrugged.
“Sid!”
“What? That’s what I called her. Not to her face though.”
“And I bet not to Joel’s either.”
“You bet right,” Sidney told him.
“The house is empty?”
“Mason and Savannah went on some retreat,” Sidney said. “Savannah’s getting her life together and I guess Mason’s either having a mid-teenage crisis or just in need of a good laugh at his aunt’s expense, and God knows she’ll give him. Where’s your little friend?”
“My little...?”
“Your partner in crime,” Sidney said. “Rick Howard, Dean of the illustrious Saint Vitus?”
“Oh,” Mark said.
“That was a loaded o,”
“It was not a loaded o.”
“It was too,” Sidney told him. “It wasn’t just an o, not a round o. It was an o with a gunshot through it, like, ohhhh. Did you all have a falling out?”
“Sidney?”
“Did you?”
“Sidney, don’t talk to me like a teenager. I’m not Mason—”
“no,” Sidney agreed, “if you were I’d never have to address you like a teenager. You’d be addressing me. What happened?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to hear it. But something happened, you’re my friend, so spit it out.”
Mark opened his mouth. Sidney did this to him. Sidney was the only one.
“Yes,” Mark said at last. “We had a brief... I don’t know what it was.”
“Sit down and tell it to Sidney.”
Mark frowned at Sidney.
“Who else are you going to tell it to?”
Mark blew out his cheeks and sat down.
“I don’t really know what happened. We had a... he blew up for no reason. He just got a really angry, and I got really angry and then he... sort of said that we just shouldn’t see each other—”
“See each other?”
“I mean, hang out.”
Sidney said nothing.
“And that was that,” Mark shrugged. “Things ended kind of badly. I felt like a kid all over again, like when you’d have one of those really bad fights with your friends.”
“You all should do something about that,” Sidney said, sharply.
“What?”
“I said you all should do something about that, Mark. Kids have tiffs and stomp away, not men in their forties. The both of you are too old.”
“I’m not old.”
“You’re missing the point.”
“Well, then what am I supposed to do, Mom? Am I supposed to go to his house and apologize? Did you want to make a pie for me to take to him?”
Sidney looked at his friend witheringly and said, “I hate it when you try to be witty. Hold on,” he said.
He left the kitchen, Mark looked around. Why didn’t they ever leave this fucking kitchen? When Sidney came back he said, “You don’t have to do anything, because Rick’ll be here in about fifteen minutes.”
“Sidney!’
Sidney was almost, but not, quite afraid at the look on Mark’s face.
“How could you! That’s enough. Sometimes I’ve really got enough of you. You think you can tell other people how to run their lives and just interfere, but you don’t understand—” Mark got up and followed Sidney into the living room. Sidney was going down the hall, indifferent to him.
“I’m talking to you,” Mark said. “You don’t have any respect for—”
Sidney closed his bedroom door and shut the lock.
“Sidney Darrow, I will stand here until you come out.”
“Just stand there until Rick Howard comes,” Sidney said from the other side of the door. “And then let him in.”

 

[ChrisGibson]

When the knock on the door came, Sidney heard Mark swearing on the other side of his bedroom door.
“You’d better get it, Mark,” Sidney said, lightly.
“I hate you,” Mark told him.
“No you don’t. Go get the door.”
Mark humphed and went down the hallway. A few seconds later he opened it to Rick Howard who was standing there looking surprised.
“Sidney told me...”
Mark realized.
“Did Sidney cook up something about how he was worried about Mason’s academic situation or—”
“Actually, yes,” Rick said, dazed as he stepped into the house. “That’s exactly what he said.”
“Sid lies when it suits him,” Mark told Rick.
“I don’t—”
“He thinks we need to talk,” Mark said. “He thinks we should make up.”
“My God, did you tell him—?”
“No,” Mark said. “No, I didn’t. I just said we had a falling out, and he said that we were both too old to have falling outs… fallings out… whatever you call it—and that we should make up. You know.”
To Mark’s surprise, Rick Howard actually cocked a smile.
“That’s really kind of sweet,” he said.
Mark considered this and then said, “Well, I suppose that in a nosey and overbearing way… it is.
“Look, Rick, I don’t know what to say. I really... I really try to take the blame for the things I do, but I don’t even know what I did the other day. I felt like maybe you were trying to find a reason to get rid of me.”
Rick said nothing at first, and then he said, “Mark, listen. You’re a wonderful person. You’re a good guy, really.”
“Thanks,” Mar said sarcastically.
“That’s not coming out right,” Rick said, putting hand to his head.
“You know that you’re more than that for me. You know it. And I can’t be that to you, and... to me that doesn’t feel fair.”
“Me liking you isn’t enough?” Mark said. “I’ve been doing everything I can for us to still be friends, and that’s not enough.”
“It’s not going to work,” Rick said. “Look, I’m glad Sidney played his little game. Just so I could tell you this isn’t about you at all. It’s me. People say that a lot, but you know it’s true this time. I... I have spent the bulk of my life thinking I couldn’t find someone, or I didn’t deserve someone, that I wouldnt’ even have friends, and then I had you and you mean a lot to me. You really do. But you’re always going to be.. I mean we will only be just friends, and I’m always going to want you to be more, and I hate to admit that. I hate it, but it’s true. and this is going to be bad for us. It’s not fair to you. Really Mark.”
Mark stood there saying nothing.

Rick went out the side door into the night, and then Mark saw the lights of his car flash on and he headed own the driveway and up Owens Street.
A few seconds later Sidney came out of his room looking expectant.
Mark’s back was to the kitchen door and he let out a deep sigh.
“Shit,” he said.
“Shit.”


MORE NEXT WEEK

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great to have a portion to read again. I hope that Rick and Mark can be friends one day. I know that Rick likes him as more then a friend but hopefully he can get past that. They are too good of friends to let that get in the way. Excellent writing and I look forward to reading what happens next!

 

[ChrisGibson]

VII


PASS ME
THE FORKS









After the devastation of his first serious relationship, Mark Powers thought he would never love again, and for a very long time he didn’t. When Vanessa Londgren broke up with him he was twenty-one and getting ready to graduate. He became more serious than usual, shaved off his hair, quit wearing tie-dye and slipped into sensible shoes. He’d never been very loud or boisterous around anyone but his close friends, and there weren’t many of those. Now he was quieter still. Life went on as normal, Mark living like a monk, or like a graduate student.

And then his sister introduced him to Margot.

Mark was twenty-three and self effacing with a small car, a little job, spectacles and a nervous tick that most people didn’t know about. Margot Bello was one of Julia’s sorority sisters, Irish-Italian, mildly devout, and ready to graduate.

“You all will love each other,” Julia had told him. “And she just broke up with the love of her life too.”

“She’s on the rebound?”

“It’s been a year,” Julia told him. “She already had her rebound man.”

“People really have those?”

“We do. Girls do. I suppose gay men do, I don’t know. Didn’t you have a rebound girl? No,” Julia looked at her serious brother. “No, you wouldn’t. Well, You must be over Vanessa by now. I never liked her anyway.”

“Jules—”

“I don’t see why you bother defending her. She was a total bitch anyway.”

“And if things don’t work out with your friend, Margot?”

“Well, then she’ll be a total bitch too.”

But things did work out. He came to pick her up. He brought flowers.

“You brought flowers!” she said.

“But you’re supposed to,” Mark said.

“No man has ever brought me flowers,” she told him.

Over dinner she quizzed him. It was important that he be Catholic, but only Catholic enough. He’d already lost his virginity, but to a girl he loved for years. He didn’t believe in abortion, but he did believe in birth control and contraceptive. He was a Republican. He believed in sin, but not in confession. He wanted his children baptized and raised in the faith as well as sent to Catholic school, but they didn’t have to believe because he wasn’t sure if he did either. It was all perfect. They began making out in the car. It went on so long and so heavily that Margot told him she was on the pill. They went back to her apartment. He dropped his trousers and fucked her against the door. When they finished she brought him to bed with her. They made love all night.

“I didn’t think I’d love anyone again,” Mark told her, dazed, early the next morning.

Apropos to nothing she said as she ran a finger over the hair of his arm, “You have a nervous tick.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, not right now,” Margot said. “I noticed it in the restaurant. It’s not exactly a tick. It’s a twitch.”

“Oh,” his voice was different.

She kissed him.

“It’s cute. It’s so cute. Everything about you is cute, Mark. I’m in love with you.”



“We had the best time last night,” Sidney was telling Mark. “Me and Joel and Keisha went out toward Lake....”

“The Quarry Lake?”

“Yes, we almost got arrested! We tried to call.”

“I wasn’t home.”

“When did you get home?” Joel said, stuffing his mouth with Doritos.

Mark looked at them for a second, and then returned to balancing his checkbook.

Sidney gave a predatory smile and said, “Oh, you didn’t get home. Did you?”

“Pass me the calculator, please, Sidney,” Mark said to him.

Sidney took the checkbook out of Mark’s hand.

“Did you—? My God, you just met her, Mark!” Sidney cackled to himself and murmured, “You dirty slut.”

Joel blinked a couple of times and then said, “Are you serious? Mark, did you really?”

Mark snatched the checkbook from Sidney, pushed up his glasses.

“Um,” Sidney said, appreciatively. “That is so unlike you. It’s so... Actually, it’s not like me, either. God, Mark, she must be something else.”

Mark was completely scarlet.

“She is,” he said at last. “And if it’s okay with the both of you I’d rather not discuss this right now.”

“Um,” Sidney shrugged. “Whatever you want.”

“Thank you.”

It’s just you’ve been out of love so long I forget that when you’re in love you’re a tiger.”

Mark looked up from his checkbook at Sidney.

“Margot Bello,” Joel mused. “That name... I bet the girl doesn’t have an Irish bone in her body.”

Sidney raised an eyebrow and said, moving a safe distance from Mark’s fist.

“She did last night.”





Mark Power lay in bed for a long time, unable to sleep.



“You’re just going to go? And my crime is being straight.”

“Your crime is being straight and good and one of the best things that ever happened to me.

“I’m going to go now… Good night, Mark. Goodbye Mark.

“Goodbye.”



He just left. He just walked out without them being able to work something out. Didn’t Rick understand? Even if it wasn’t exactly what he wanted it was something. Mark didn’t just feel nothing. Rick brought him to life, and now Rick was going away. For good. His friend... His… friend.

“Shit, Rick,” he murmured again and punched his pillow.

Well, then he needed to put Rick out of his head.

But all these last few months he had been thinking about Rick. Really since they’d started hanging out together all he did was think and talk about Rick, and it was really too bad that Rick had to bring up this whole business in the last few weeks because it was causing a lot of problems.

Why doesn’t he understand. I really don’t care.

Again Mark turned over. The house felt so big and empty. This bed felt huge and empty. Chris was with Sully tonight and Mark was more alone than usual.

The truth was that Rick’s love didn’t scare Mark. It made him feel good. Only two people had loved him like that and one was dead. He had completely put out of his mind the possibility that he might be lovable. It was all news to him. And then Rick told him, and he wanted Rick to keep loving him.

“But that’s not fair is it?” Mark said, turning on his back. Really, that made Mark the bad guy then. Didn’t Rick deserve a chance at happiness? Shouldn’t Rick have someone who was willing to give it to him?

“What if?” Mark began.

It was so crazy, but... what if Mark helped Rick find a boyfriend? He didn’t know how that could be done, but what if he found someone for Rick, and then he and Rick could be friends all over again, problem solved.

“That’s a—” Mark yawned, the hall light from the bathroom streamed into his bedroom. “That’s a great idea,” Mark murmured.

Now how the hell to pull it off?

 

[ChrisGibson]

Sullivan Reardon and Chris Powers were in their boxers on Sullivan’s bed. Chris kept his hands on Sullivan’s sides and they never moved from there. Sullivan kept his hands in Chris’s hair when they made out.

Chris pulled away.

“I want more,” Chris said. “That’s the problem. I want more and...”

Sullivan parted from him and sat on the other side of the bed.

“Me too,” he said.

Chris didn’t say anything for a moment. He pulled his tee shirt back on and then he told Sullivan, “I’m afraid of what’ll happen if we cross that line.”

“I think we’ve already crossed a line,” Sullivan, on his side, gave Chris a slight smile.

“Yeah,” Chris agreed. “But not that line.”

“I think,” Sullivan said, “That’s it’s going to happen sooner or later. I think I want it to happen sooner or later. We should like plan ahead or something.”

“For when it happens?”

“Yeah,” Sullivan said. “I don’t just want it to happen... all haphazard, you know?”

“What about the ski trip?” Chris said.

“With your dad in the next room?”

“But it’ll be at a ski lodge and everything and.... Right before Christmas so...”

Chris was standing at the edge of Sullivan’s bed, and Sully was sitting with his knees to his chest, considering.

On his knees he knelt-crawled across the bed and said, “Before you go downstairs to the couch, I wanna kiss you, alright?”

“Alright,” Chris said.

Sullivan pulled him down by his hair and kissed him on the mouth and then Chris sunk on his knees to the edge of the bed. Sullivan’s hands went over his short hair, down his sideburns onto his unshaven face. His hands went under Chris’s shirt and they pulled off each other’s tee shirts. Sullivan was getting hard again. It was always like this tugging him, pulling him toward Chris’s body.

Chris Powers spread himself over Sullivan and the only thing that separated them from each other was their boxers.

“No,” Chris said in a voice that sounded a little desperate. Sullivan tilted Chris’s face so he could kiss his ears and then said, “What about tonight?” and began to work off his shorts.



The phone rang and Joel Mc.Kenna cursed before he rolled over and reached across Shelley. He put his fingers to his lips and she laughed while he said, “Hello?”

“Mr. Mc.Kenna?”

Joel thought for a moment. “Addison?”

“Yes, is Seth there?”

“No,” Joel fought to keep the stiffness out of his voice. “I thought Seth went to see you.”

“Oh,” Addison said. And then. “Oh, he did,” in a tone that made Joel certain Seth hadn’t been anywhere near Addison Cromptley’s house that night.

Well, considering the fact that he was sleeping with Shelley behind his son’s back, he couldn’t get too upset. Or so he told himself.

“I ah...” Addison was saying, “was just calling to see that he’d gotten home safe.”

“Well, thank you, Addison,” Joel said. “Would you like him to call when he gets here?”

“If it’s not too much trouble,” Addison said. “I’ll be up.”

Addison hung up and Joel turned to Shelley.

“I think we need to get dressed.”



When Sullivan Reardon woke up in the middle of the night, for the first time ever his naked body was tangled with someone else’s. It was so strange. It wasn’t anything like he thought it would be. When it had finally happened the tenderness in both of them danced with a deep need. Sullivan was afraid because Chris was so strong and so in need, and he was scared because, at least tonight, he was just as strong and the need in him just as powerful. He’d never thought of himself that way, but in the night, in his bed he and Chris Powers and striven together pushing each other to climax.

Even after the first time Chris had kissed him his thoughts were chaste. They weren’t prepared for this. He’d had a crush for years on Chris but the actuality of Chris’s body linked with his was offsetting. He wanted it. He wanted the warmth. He wanted to melt into it again but at the same time he wanted to be free. When they’d been having sex they had melted into something new and now Sully wanted to be Sully again.

Carefully he climbed out of bed and pulled on his boxers and then went down the hall to his bathroom.

What the hell was wrong with him? Hadn’t he liked it, hadn’t he needed it, hadn’t he wanted it? Then why did he ache like this? Why did he feel fucked up like this?

Balliol would know. I would tell him and he would have the answer.

No, Balliol would laugh at him, just like Balliol always did. Balliol... He wanted to think of him as a good friend, but how good was he? Wasn’t Balliol always criticizing him? Well it didn’t matter, Balliol was gone.

He went off to some Christian rally with Tommy Dwyer...

Because he was good friends with Tommy? No, but they were apparently good friends now. He went because he was asked. He put up with it because he was asked.

He’s off right now, as I sit in this bathroom, at some crazy retreat with Mason Darrow...

Because he was asked.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Maybe he didn’t know Balliol as well as he thought he did. Maybe he didn’t give Balliol a chance. Maybe he wasn’t the right type of friend. But who would he tell this too? Maybe Balliol would have understood, maybe he could have shared this with him, but he had no one to share it with at all, no one to check back with about this whole experience and suddenly he was snuffling up snot and crying in the bathroom, the porcelain of the bathtub cold against his back, the carpet shielding his ass from the tiles. He kept snuffling and crying softly to himself. He felt so empty. That wasn’t right. No. The thing he’d wanted to happen for weeks now had happened, and he felt so at a loss. He wanted Balliol so badly.

And he was gone.

Sully thought he heard a tapping at the door, but wasn’t sure. The second time he knew there was a knocking. Was it Mom?

“Mom?”

“No.”

Chris, Sully turned on the water and said, “Hold on, Chris.”

He rinsed his face, dried it and opened the door. Chris stood there looking horrified.

“Is it my fault?” he said.

“What?”

“I did this,” Chris said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

Sullivan put up a hand. Why when Chris was around did he always feel like Sullivan and not Sully? To Balliol he was always Sully.

“That’s not it,” Sullivan said. “That’s really not it. I was just... thinking of someone who’s gone?”

“Your dad?”

“Yeah,” Sully, Sullivan... right now Sully... lied.

They went back to his room. Sully needed it to work. He wanted it all over again, right way, with the door locked. He needed Chris, he pulled down his boxers and took him in his mouth. Chris’s voice came out in a sharp gasp and his fingertips reached back and scratched the door. Sully kissed him there and up on his belly. He placed him on his back on the bed and then he pushed against him. He pushed until Chris pushed back, until they were writhing together, harder and harder. Faster.

“Don’t be nice with me…” Sully’s voice was strangled. “Not right now...”

They rode harder and harder, the bedsprings creaking faster and faster.





Joel was flat out cranky when Seth got home. He was honest enough to realize that it wasn’t Seth’s safety, but the fact that he’d had to cut his romance short because he didn’t know when the hell Seth would walk through the door.

“Addison called,” Joel said. “He wanted to make sure you were back safe.”

“From visiting him?” Seth said.

“Yes, Seth.”

Seth shrugged. “He’s a great guy.”

“Yeah,” said Joel. “I told him you’d call when you got back. Funny how it took you two hours to get from here to Addison’s house.”

“I got lost.” That was such a transparent lie Joel realized he wasn’t even supposed to pretend to believe it. “I’ll call in the morning.”

“I told him you’d call now,” Joel said. There had been something urgent in Addison’s voice. Seth shrugged and picked up the phone that was in the cut out window between the kitchen and the dining room.

“Hello, Add? Yeah, what? Are you serious...?”

Against his will, Joel turned and paid attention to the conversation. He watched Seth’s face turn suddenly sad and concerned and remembered why he liked his son, even when he was lying, which was half the time.



“Yeah,” Seth said softly. “Yeah, man... I can do that. Yes.”

He put down the phone and said: “Do you have gas money? Addison needs me.”

“Uh, yeah,” Joel waved nonchalantly. “On my dresser.”

“Thanks, I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“I gotta go to Pennsylvania.”

Why open his mouth and echo, “Pennsylvania!” like an idiot. He just shrugged and shook his head and Seth went to his bedroom to get his wallet.

“What the?” Seth muttered when he pulled out the money. For one wild, brief second he thought his mother must have come to visit, but that didn’t make any sense. In a crumpled heap, diaphanous, by the side of Joel’s hurriedly made up bed—that’s right, it had just been made and not very well, Seth realized—was a woman’s slip.

“Fuck!” Seth whispered, putting the money in his pocket and the wallet back on the dresser while he stared, open mouthed, at the piece of lingerie.



Mark could not sleep. He was irritable now. Mark Powers believed that the body was meant to be conquered, and its desires and weaknesses should never be accepted. There should be no provision for the flesh. When it was time to sleep, sleep and when it was time to be awake, wake up. So, Mark had punished himself for horus, tossing and turning, beating the pillow, willing himself to sleep.

No luck.

He got up and walked around the house, and then he went all the way downstairs, found the flashlight in a drawer in the kitchen and stomped upstairs to the attic. The attic was freezing tonight and it would have daunted someone who didn’t have Mark’s organizational skills. After the death of Margot, and after the affair, Mark busied himself with organizing his entire life in the attic and so he found Freshmen year of high school and opened up that yearbook. This was so strange. He would never do this any other time. He should be asleep. Church was tomorrow, but he looked for Rick. He looked and when he saw him in black and white, in his uniform, his thick hair untidy, a look of concentration on his face he thought, “That’s Rick.” And that’s the Rick everyone wanted to be. And this Rick loved him.

Rick Howard was standing in is white football pants and the red jersey with his number, 13, go fig, his helmet held in one hand the other on his hip while he was catching his breath. He was so rugged. He was what they all had wanted to be.

“Even then?” Mark wondered. Even back then when Mark had long hair and wore macramé bracelets and a shabby uniform, Rick Howard already knew he’d never find a nice girl, and he was already living with his feelings...

 

[CharmedFan28]

An excellent portion! I hope Mark can get Rick back in his life. I don’t know about finding a boyfriend but they are too good of friends to just not talk. Sully and Chris are interesting together to say the least. I don’t know what’s going to happen with them. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

 

[ChrisGibson]

An excellent portion! I hope Mark can get Rick back in his life. I don’t know about finding a boyfriend but they are too good of friends to just not talk. Sully and Chris are interesting together to say the least. I don’t know what’s going to happen with them. Great writing and I look forward to more soon!

I'm really glad you're enjoying the side characters so much.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Rick Howard’s prom was his eighteenth birthday, and he remembered taking Marcia Ryan and kissing her politely, but feeling nothing when he dropped her off. For a very long time Rick had lived with the idea that a proper young man wasn’t supposed to feel lust for girls anyway, so this was a mark of his superiority. Only, he did feel lust. His mind did go in certain directions. He did have certain wonders. They’d started out idly enough, but lately they’d grown more and more. He tossed and turned and he really couldn’t name it. He knew there was a name for something like it, but he couldn’t have been it. Not quite. He was an athlete. He believed in God. He didn’t like musicals. He didn’t put on women’s clothing. He was just powerfully, passionate, inordinately curious, so curious his body bent into a question mark and his cock leapt in an exclamation point at the idea of being with a man.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Nobody really liked Jeffrey Kilborn. He was in all the theatrical productions at Saint Vitus. Everyone knew he was a fruit, and he was in Rick’s gym glass. One day Jeffrey came out of the shower while Rick was already toweling off and the sight of Jeffrey aroused so much in Rick, and the so much caused so much guilt that the erection circumvented and became a severe headache, It throbbed. It was a body ache now. Jeffrey looked at him with something... wrong, that knew too much, and then he dropped the towel and let Rick look at him. Rick stood there and stammered and then let his towel go too.

There was an adjoining locker room, a nicer one for the swim team and Jeffrey opened the door to it and made a motion for Rick to follow. Half conscious, mouth open, erection hard, body hot, pain throbbing behind his right eye, Rick followed him and Jeffrey closed the door.

So Rick never didn’t have a romantic experience. His first experience of his own sexuality was a desperate curiosity with someone he didn’t care for in a place where he hoped he wouldn’t get caught. Rick never considered that the same principle applied to him now would have been true even if he was straight. He identified his sexuality with his first sex and that was dirty and hidden, completely contradictory to his nature. He promised it would never happen again.

But in college it did. It happened a lot and Rick never knew when it would hit him. The curiosity and the lust and the loneliness would rise up so bad, and there was always someone he would never have talked to in a normal state who was willing to be with him. And then he just felt like hell. He just felt sick and angry with himself and the way he was.

But in the last few years Rick had steadily held out hope that maybe he could be happy this way, find someone, and he thought he had for a while. This first one he’d cared for so much nothing had ever happened before they broke up. He hadn’t needed it to.

And then Mark came, and he thought, he thought for that brief second that Mark was like him, and then he thought that maybe it wouldn’t matter, but Rick knew it would.

The truth was, Rick, who was getting out of bed in the middle of the night and kneeling, like he did much of the time at the foot of his bed, didn’t really believe that happiness was possible. Certainly not for him.

He knelt for a very long time, not sure of what to say to God, and then he looked up at the crucifix over the bed, black against the grey white in the darkness, and said, “I don’t know why you made me like this...

“Sometimes I hate you.”





“See,” the brown haired man said, “the way I see it we are all just like fish in this cosmic ocean, and there is this net, this sacred net that dips in and pulls us all in, and so here we are, caught up in ths sacred net. And, I just want to touch the fibers of it. I just want to get in touch with it, and coming to this place is really touching the fiber,” Cody stopped talking. He was in his bare feet he walked to the sensei and touched him on his head.

“Big Mountain River, you are a cord in the great sacred net.”

Balliol said under his breath, “if Morning Revelation was optional, then why did we come?”

“Because we wanted to get the most out of this experience,” Savannah told him on the other side of the man called Adam.

“Savannah,” Big Mountain River said, “Would you like to speak.”

Mason turned to her smiling, and cleared his throat.

Her eyes flashed and she said:

“My name is Savannah.”

“Hi Savannah!” they all said.

“I would pay you money,” Balliol whispered to Mason, “if when they got to you you said, ‘And I’m an alcoholic.’”

Savannah was speaking.

“And I came here because...I came here because I have a really bad way with love. You know. I’m bad at it. I just go for the wrong people. I...” she looked around. They were all waiting for her to speak and Cody had talked about nets for about ten minutes before her.

“My problem,” Savannah said, “is that I keep waiting for the someone or the something that’s going to...”

“Save you?” Adam replied.

“No,” Savannah said. “Well, maybe. I’m waiting for the one who will shake my world up. I don’t want to be saved. I just want to be shaken. I want to be reminded that I’m alive, and I keep wanting someone to do it. Like my current boyfriend. He’s a failure, really. But he couldn’t be anything but a failure because he can’t do what I want him to do. Bring me to life.”

“Well only you can do that,” Adam said. And then said, “I’m sorry.”

“What?” said Savannah.

“The rule is we let everyone talk and don’t offer answers.”

“Well can I say something?” Savannah said in her white robe. “That’s a stupid rule. Because let me tell you, I could use some answers. I would really, really appreciate some answers.”

She turned to Adam again

“What?”

“Answers!” she demanded.

“But I just told you, only you can bring yourself to life.”

“How?”

Adam looked around the room, but now, even Big Mountain River was waiting for him to say something.

“In things like this, by looking for the answers. Look,” said Adam, “maybe it’s not the best thing in the world to keep dating people hoping they’ll give you answers, but at least you’re looking for the answers. At least you want something. Some people don’t want anything. They just sort of drift along from thing to thing. You care. We all care. That’s why we’re here, right?”

Mason opened his mouth and Balliol said, “I know, this thing might turn out to be not so stupid after all.”



“But the tofu does suck,” Mason said over breakfast.

“The tofu is shit,” Adam said. “Do you all mind if I sit here?”

“No,” Savannah pulled out a chair.

“We’re not supposed to be talking, I don’t think,” Adam told them.

Savannah shrugged.

“My sentiments exactly,” he whispered.

Some woman rolled her eyes at them, very incensed.

“I don’t think she’ll be finding enlightenment today,” Balliol said.

“Probably not,” agreed Adam. “Where are you guys from?”

“Cartimandua Ohio,”

“The last stand of the Industrial Revolution? skyline full of smoke stacks.”

“You know Cartimandua?”

“I am Cartimandua,” Adam said. “Well, actually, I’m just a librarian in Cartimandua.”

“So that’s what you guys do,” Savannah said. “I always wondered. I always thought it would be exotic to be a librarian.”

Adam raised an eyebrow, “Did you really?”

“Well, yeah,” Savannah told him. “You’re surrounded by all those books and music. You know where everything is. A world is at your fingertips.”

“The computer helps.”

“You’re demystifying it for me.”

“I’m sorry. You’re right,” he told her. “It’s all magic.”

“I thought as much.”



There was a knock on Mason’s door at the retreat center and, since knocking was not allowed, Mason assumed it must have been Savannah, or maybe Balliol. But it was:

“Addison! Seth?”

“It was imperative,” Seth said, “that Addison see you.”

For the most part Seth looked serious and Addison looked miserable.

“Can I sit?”

“Mason gestured to his unmade bed.

“Is your mother dead?” he said. Then: “Is my mother dead?”

But Addison didn’t look in a joking mood. He just looked really sad and shaken. He said:

“This is going to sound really stupid, but I really needed to see you, and now I realize that you’ll jet be coming home tonight anyway.”

“Well, what it is, Addison?” Mason handed him and then Seth a cigarette.

“Can we smoke?” Seth said.

“If you close the door and open the window,” Mason gestured to the door and Seth shut it.

“Last night Rebecca just said it was over,” Addison said. “She told me it was all a mistake and that... she didn’t even like being with me.”

“Maybe she was...” Mason began.

“No,” Addison said. “She said it was over. That she didn’t love me at all and she hadn’t for a long time. I thought it was so good. I really thought... Every time we did it I felt something, but she said it was nothing. Mason, she said she actually hated having sex with me. Who would say that? I can’t—” Addison stopped.

“I feel so fucking bad,” he said.