CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Thom certainly didn’t waist any time moving on from Patti. The whole thing is a mess. At least Russell can depend on Chayne. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon!
The Original Gay Porn Community - Free Gay Movies and Photos, Gay Porn Site Reviews and Adult Gay Forums
-
Welcome To Just Us Boys - The World's Largest Gay Message Board Community
In order to comply with recent US Supreme Court rulings regarding adult content, we will be making changes in the future to require that you log into your account to view adult content on the site.
If you do not have an account, please register.
REGISTER HERE - 100% FREE / We Will Never Sell Your InfoTo register, turn off your VPN; you can re-enable the VPN after registration. You must maintain an active email address on your account: disposable email addresses cannot be used to register.
Works and Days
- Thread starter ChrisGibson
- Start date
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
“Do you mind if I take your sister out tomorrow night?” Chip asked Thom as he threw his jacket over Jackie’s shoulders and she laughed.
Thom shrugged. He didn’t really like the scruffy man his sister was dating. He forced himself to be playful.
“Well, when are you bringing her home?”
“I’ll bring the little lady home by Sunday.”
“Wow, a whole weekend getaway,” Thom said, trying to feign excitement.
“We’re going up to Windsor to disgust the Canadians,” Jackie said. “You’ll have the whole apartment to yourself.”
It wasn’t until Jackie said this that Thom began to develop some enthusiasm.
“Well are you ready?” she asked Chip.
“I was ready when I knocked on the door. I just need a cigarette.”
“We can smoke in the car,” said Jackie, heading out the door behind Chip. “Thom, are you sure you don’t want to come to choir practice?”
“Yes,” Thom said. “Besides, Patti might be there, and it would just be awkward.”
Jackie started to say something, then shrugged and headed out the door.
Thom went to the couch, and looked out of the large window until he saw Jackie and Chip get into the battered Civic and head down Royal Street before he got on the telephone.
“Hello, Liz? Good! Guess what...?”
“Chayne! Russell!”
The two of them turned, shocked to see Geoff Ford in the Blue Jewel, in jeans and a sweater standing at the table, his sister beside him.
“Father Ford,” said Russell.
“Geoff, what the hell are you doing here?” Chayne demanded unceremoniously.
“You all were wonderful,” he said, “Just great.”
“You really were,” Ann Ford echoed.
“I wish I could do that,” said Geoff Ford. “What you all do.”
“Well, you can turn stale bread and bad wine into the body and blood of Jesus, so you’ve already got a leg up on us!”
The air left Jewel’s throat. No one else seemed to be offended by Chayne, though.
“I was wondering, if I could talk to you later,” the priest said instead. “If we could discuss some things later. I was thinking about something. Something I was telling Ann here, and I hadn’t brought it up. But I’d like to bring it up if you come by the church tomorrow.”
Chayne stood there, his only statement a raised eyebrow.
“Geoff’s trying to say he wants you to take over the choir.”
“Oh, Sis,” Geoff pouted.
“Well, he is! That’s what he said. If you could hear our ten o’clock you’d know how bad we are. We need it. Will you do it?”
“I don’t like church,” Chayne said,
Ann waved that aside.
“Well, now who does?”
Geoff Ford looked like he’d been slapped in the face.
“I’m gay,” Chayne said. “Like, really, really gay.”
“What choir director isn’t?”
“I’m not even sure of how Christian I am anymore.”
“We’ll pay you four hundred dollars a week,” Geoff said.
“I’m yours.”
“Good,” said Ann, as she maneuvered her brother away she shouted over her shoulder. “Practice is Thursday night at eight.”
“I just wish,” Jewel began, then became quiet, laying back in her seat.
“What?” said Chayne.
“I just wish... That Ann would brush her damn hair!”
“Thursday?” Russell said. “But tonight’s Wednesday.”
“Pshaw,” Chayne waved that aside.
“Pshaw?”
“Pee-shaw. There are far more interesting things to think about than the proximinity of choir practice.”
“Like?”
“Like the proximity of that cowboy from the other night,” Chayne said.
He was coming to them, looking younger than he had the night before, And Russell hadn’t recognized him without the cowboy hat. He was in a feedcap, still in a check shirt, wearing a tech vest against the cold.
“Would it be alright,” he asked, “if I sat here?”
Chayne smiled and ducked his head making a gesture toward the chair.
“I actually think,” he began, “it wouldn’t be alright unless you did.”
Chayne and Russell were early to Saint Adjeanet’s for choir practice. Chayne was scribbling in a notebook at one of the pews, and Russell was finishing up his homework as Diggs came into the church. He was followed a few minutes later by Father Ford and Ann who came in through the side door, by the little chapel. Then, loud and raucous, becoming suddenly quiet as they realized where they were, Jackie and Chip. Chayne waited as the others entered the church, Jeff Cordino and Anna Castile among them until Jeff Ford finally said: “I think that’s about everyone,” and Chayne and Russell went up to the choir loft.
Chayne cleared his throat, and folding his hands behind his back began, “I am Chayne Kandzierski—”
A round of applause.
Chayne smiled nervously. “Thank you... And Father Ford asked me if I could take over the choir—”
Ann Ford was clearing her throat loudly.
“Actually, it was Ann who asked.”
Ann smiled.
“And...ah... here I am. So why don’t we do some scales? As soon as you get into your sections.”
“Sections?” said Diggs, who was standing beside Jackie.
“Sections, Diggs,” Chayne said flatly. “ You know.... Altos, sopranos, ra ra ra.”
They all looked at Chayne. Even Russell, since he’d never been to practice and didn’t know what was going on.
“We don’t have sections,” Jeff Cordino said after putting up a hand.
“Well, I’ll give you five seconds to work out something. Deep voices together, moderately deep voices together, high voices together. Men together, women together. Come on people, you can do this.”
There was some shuffling, and when they had finally gotten into some formation, Chayne said, “And now for scales.”
This time it was Dena Dwyer who put up a hand.
“Yes, Dena?”
“Excuse me, Chayne,” she said sweetly, in the tone of a woman attempting cuteness who has passed cuteness long ago. “But what’s a scale?”
Chayne swallowed and said soberly to his choir, “Gang, we’re in for a long evening.”
TOMORROW IS THURSDAY, SO BITS AND PIECES AND WORKS AND DAYS
Thom shrugged. He didn’t really like the scruffy man his sister was dating. He forced himself to be playful.
“Well, when are you bringing her home?”
“I’ll bring the little lady home by Sunday.”
“Wow, a whole weekend getaway,” Thom said, trying to feign excitement.
“We’re going up to Windsor to disgust the Canadians,” Jackie said. “You’ll have the whole apartment to yourself.”
It wasn’t until Jackie said this that Thom began to develop some enthusiasm.
“Well are you ready?” she asked Chip.
“I was ready when I knocked on the door. I just need a cigarette.”
“We can smoke in the car,” said Jackie, heading out the door behind Chip. “Thom, are you sure you don’t want to come to choir practice?”
“Yes,” Thom said. “Besides, Patti might be there, and it would just be awkward.”
Jackie started to say something, then shrugged and headed out the door.
Thom went to the couch, and looked out of the large window until he saw Jackie and Chip get into the battered Civic and head down Royal Street before he got on the telephone.
“Hello, Liz? Good! Guess what...?”
“Chayne! Russell!”
The two of them turned, shocked to see Geoff Ford in the Blue Jewel, in jeans and a sweater standing at the table, his sister beside him.
“Father Ford,” said Russell.
“Geoff, what the hell are you doing here?” Chayne demanded unceremoniously.
“You all were wonderful,” he said, “Just great.”
“You really were,” Ann Ford echoed.
“I wish I could do that,” said Geoff Ford. “What you all do.”
“Well, you can turn stale bread and bad wine into the body and blood of Jesus, so you’ve already got a leg up on us!”
The air left Jewel’s throat. No one else seemed to be offended by Chayne, though.
“I was wondering, if I could talk to you later,” the priest said instead. “If we could discuss some things later. I was thinking about something. Something I was telling Ann here, and I hadn’t brought it up. But I’d like to bring it up if you come by the church tomorrow.”
Chayne stood there, his only statement a raised eyebrow.
“Geoff’s trying to say he wants you to take over the choir.”
“Oh, Sis,” Geoff pouted.
“Well, he is! That’s what he said. If you could hear our ten o’clock you’d know how bad we are. We need it. Will you do it?”
“I don’t like church,” Chayne said,
Ann waved that aside.
“Well, now who does?”
Geoff Ford looked like he’d been slapped in the face.
“I’m gay,” Chayne said. “Like, really, really gay.”
“What choir director isn’t?”
“I’m not even sure of how Christian I am anymore.”
“We’ll pay you four hundred dollars a week,” Geoff said.
“I’m yours.”
“Good,” said Ann, as she maneuvered her brother away she shouted over her shoulder. “Practice is Thursday night at eight.”
“I just wish,” Jewel began, then became quiet, laying back in her seat.
“What?” said Chayne.
“I just wish... That Ann would brush her damn hair!”
“Thursday?” Russell said. “But tonight’s Wednesday.”
“Pshaw,” Chayne waved that aside.
“Pshaw?”
“Pee-shaw. There are far more interesting things to think about than the proximinity of choir practice.”
“Like?”
“Like the proximity of that cowboy from the other night,” Chayne said.
He was coming to them, looking younger than he had the night before, And Russell hadn’t recognized him without the cowboy hat. He was in a feedcap, still in a check shirt, wearing a tech vest against the cold.
“Would it be alright,” he asked, “if I sat here?”
Chayne smiled and ducked his head making a gesture toward the chair.
“I actually think,” he began, “it wouldn’t be alright unless you did.”
Chayne and Russell were early to Saint Adjeanet’s for choir practice. Chayne was scribbling in a notebook at one of the pews, and Russell was finishing up his homework as Diggs came into the church. He was followed a few minutes later by Father Ford and Ann who came in through the side door, by the little chapel. Then, loud and raucous, becoming suddenly quiet as they realized where they were, Jackie and Chip. Chayne waited as the others entered the church, Jeff Cordino and Anna Castile among them until Jeff Ford finally said: “I think that’s about everyone,” and Chayne and Russell went up to the choir loft.
Chayne cleared his throat, and folding his hands behind his back began, “I am Chayne Kandzierski—”
A round of applause.
Chayne smiled nervously. “Thank you... And Father Ford asked me if I could take over the choir—”
Ann Ford was clearing her throat loudly.
“Actually, it was Ann who asked.”
Ann smiled.
“And...ah... here I am. So why don’t we do some scales? As soon as you get into your sections.”
“Sections?” said Diggs, who was standing beside Jackie.
“Sections, Diggs,” Chayne said flatly. “ You know.... Altos, sopranos, ra ra ra.”
They all looked at Chayne. Even Russell, since he’d never been to practice and didn’t know what was going on.
“We don’t have sections,” Jeff Cordino said after putting up a hand.
“Well, I’ll give you five seconds to work out something. Deep voices together, moderately deep voices together, high voices together. Men together, women together. Come on people, you can do this.”
There was some shuffling, and when they had finally gotten into some formation, Chayne said, “And now for scales.”
This time it was Dena Dwyer who put up a hand.
“Yes, Dena?”
“Excuse me, Chayne,” she said sweetly, in the tone of a woman attempting cuteness who has passed cuteness long ago. “But what’s a scale?”
Chayne swallowed and said soberly to his choir, “Gang, we’re in for a long evening.”
TOMORROW IS THURSDAY, SO BITS AND PIECES AND WORKS AND DAYS
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
That was an excellent portion! I am glad Chayne agreed to become the choirmaster, I think it will suit him. Thom seems to be only thinking with his dick. Great writing and I look forward to more of both stories tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER FOUR
HOME
The night were still warm and Chayne and Russell walked up Kirkland Street toward home. It was such a quiet night, and they climbed up to the roof to look over what they could see of town.
Russell heard a car pass along the gravel below and leaned on the parapet too, beside Chayne.
“Look at it all,” Chayne said.
Russell looked up. Geschichte Falls was not exactly urban, but in the town proper the stars could not be seen as well as here. Russell looked a little ahead to his left, which was south east. And then he looked back up at the sky. It was so black, and it was filled with white and blue stars, layer after layer of them.
“It’s hard not to believe,” Chayne said. “It’s hard to be depressed looking at heaven. Sometimes things seem unbearable, but then I look up, and I am reminded... no matter what little drama’s going on here, in the very little sections of our lives that we inhabit for the moment... It’s all good.”
“Who is that?” Russell said.
“Huh?”
He pointed below and Chayne shimmied closer to the front porch where a slender man with a graceful walk was coming up to the porch. He wore a feed cap and tech vest and Russell said, “Is that your cowboy?”
The bell rang below.
“It appears to be.”
“You gave him your address?”
“How else is he supposed to find me.”
“Should I make myself scarce?”
Chayne looked at him.
“Did you need to ask?”
Friday night there was a knock at the door, and Thom ran to get it.
“Liz!”
“Thom!” her voice was alive with laughter. She looked so happy. Liz Parr threw her arms around him.
“I just got out of the shower!” he told her, taking her coat and going to the closet.
“You shower in a white shirt and red tie?”
Thom laughed. “Well, I’ve been out of the shower a while. Can I get you a drink?”
“Whaddo you have?”
Thom sighed, smiled and said, “I don’t know! Let me go see.” Liz followed Thom into the little kitchen, and he looked under the island. “We’ve got... well... some old daiquiri mix and a thimbleful of gin.”
Smiling he displayed the bottle.
“We can get drinks when we get to the restaurant.”
“Good idea.”
“You sure do smile a lot, Thom.”
“I’m just happy to see you. Let me get my jacket.”
“It’s not very chilly,” Liz told him.
They decided to take Thom’s car, and as he drove he told Liz, “There’s a great restaurant on Jerrold Parkway, on the border of Saint Gregory.”
“Have you ever had Indian food?” Liz asked as they sped along the Parkway.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, Thom, I think you’d like it. We used to have a lot of fun. Let’s find an Indian restaurant.”
“I wouldn’t even know what to order.”
“I’ll order for you, but do you think there’s an Indian restaurant around here?”
“Oh, yeah. Saint Gregory’s is nothing but strip malls with little restaurants. They’ve got to have one that’s Indian.”
They drove along Jerrold Parkway, and off onto Merrimore, Thom looking and looking for something that seemed Indian until he shouted, “There! See!”
Liz laughed as he turned into Rawling Plaza where there was a little restaurant called Kerala House.
“Tandoori chicken is the one dish I can remember,” Liz told him when they’d been given a table.
“I thought you said you really liked Indian food.”
“Yes,” Liz acknowledged before admitting, “but it’s been a while. I kind of forget what’s what. So this should be an experience.”
As Patti had commented, Liz was shorter even than Thom. She also aged at the same rate as Thom, which was to say, hardly at all. They could have almost been kids again, and as she tried to describe what she wanted to the brown skinned waiter, Thom alternated between chuckles and outright laughs. She was radiant and little and pretty, the light shining on her golden hair, into her dark eyes, her red lips.
“And then there’s this one thing,” she was explaining to the waiter. “It’s kind of red, and it’s chicken—I think—and it’s got yogurt in it. Don’t frown, Thom, it’s delicious. And then... kibbie is it called? This rice thing with lamb in it. And then I want him—” she pointed to Thom, “to try this one thing. The bread, it has different sauces—yes, that’s it! And curry! Oh, any kind!”
Liz was directing Thom how to eat, and what to eat first when she reached across the table, wiping away some of the sweet sauce from Thom’s mouth.
“Thom, are you really going to tell me what happened between you and Patti?”
“If you tell me what happened with you and Lionel Tremor.”
Liz frowned and then said, “First, I want to know what happened with us?”
Thom stopped eating and looked awkward.
“We were together, and then the next thing I knew you were telling me you were with Patti.”
“That was cowardly of me,” Thom said. “I bet you were pretty pissed with me.”
“When we got back to school after summer I saw you and Patti and wanted to run the two of you over with my car!” Liz laughed. “You’re damn skippy I was pissed! It was a long time and a lot of voodoo dolls before I could talk to you again, Thomas Lewis.”
Thom had stopped eating, and Liz said, “Don’t just stare at me. Eat.”
“Even the really hot stuff?”
“The more painful the better,” Liz laughed. “It’s payback time.
“No, really. It’s not like I didn’t see it coming,” Liz said. “Or really, it’s not like I didn’t see us dying, and you getting on with Patti. We were having all sorts of problems.”
“We did fight a lot.”
“And we fucked a lot.”
Thom grew crimson.
“Well, that’s what you call it,” Liz said.
“I prefer to call it making love,” Thom said, spearing a bit of lamb on his fork.
“You can call it whatever you want to. And Patti was a good Catholic girl, so I can’t imagine you all did anything.”
“No,” Thom said. “I never had sex with Patti while we were engaged, but you were a good Catholic girl too. And I was a good Catholic boy.”
“No,” Liz shook her head. “We were goody goodies. We were really respectable and Republican but Patti was the real thing. She was the wildest, craziest person I ever met but she... She always had integrity. She knew who she was. I really admired her. Even the other day on the phone. Thom, whaddit you do to lose her?”
Thom bawked at Liz. She kicked him under the table.
“I don’t know,” Thom said. “We stopped talking. Things have changed between us. I have a good job. She’s upset that she doesn’t have one at all. All she wants to do is sit around and chain smoke all day. I don’t know.”
“I think you do,” said Liz. “And I think that what you said is only half of it, and I also think that you’re not willing to confront everything that happened. Or able to. So let’s not.”
“What did Lionel do to you?”
“He couldn’t read my mind,” said Liz. She shrugged.
“We never talked. He never paid attention to me. Don’t forget the cliché ‘we had grown into two different people’. All that we could have gotten past.”
Thom put his fork to the plate, realizing he was full, and asked, “What was it that you couldn’t get past?”
“Walking into the bathroom and finding Lionel in the shower with my brother.”
Thom was too shocked to laugh.
After dinner they drove around Saint Gregory and back into Geschichte Falls.
“It’s so quiet,” Liz marveled. “On a Friday night and all.”
“Around Main Street the kids cruise, but otherwise it’s pretty quiet,” Thom agreed as they came back onto Royal Street. In the apartment, he told Liz, “We still never got around to having drinks.”
“You know what?” Liz said, falling on the couch with Thom. “I don’t want to drink. I want to talk.”
And they did talk. On again off again, Thom did bring up Patti, occasionally hinting that he thought things were his fault. But more often he brought up Russell.
“Jackie invited me to choir practice and I said no. When she got home she told me Russ was there, and I felt a little bad for not going. I wanted to see him. But then I was kind of relieved. Because I think he might have felt awkward, a little afraid with me there.”
“You know what?” Liz said, touching a lock of hair behind Thom’s ear, “I think you’re the one who would have been awkward and afraid. You talk about this boy like he’s a little god.”
Thom looked at her amazed.
“It’s okay. That’s the way I feel about Marvin and Julie. Especially Julie for some reason. And after the divorce, I was almost ashamed to see them. Which is sort of inconvenient, since they live with me.”
“Where are they tonight?”
“With my friend. You’re staring at me, Thom.”
“Am I—?” he started. But Liz had kissed him then.
He kissed her back. Thom leaned in to kiss her and placed his hands on her shoulders. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time. He stopped, pulled away.
“We can’t.”
He got up. “Liz, I don’t think...”
But then he kissed her again, and Liz placed her hand on Thom’s back, rubbing it through his shirt. Her hand went to his belt. He thought of pulling away. He didn’t really know what he was doing. If he thought then he could come up with a thousand reasons this was wrong. So he stopped thinking, and began to work with his tie as Liz reached up and turned out the light.
“Are you gonna come back to bed?” Liz asked, wrapping the sheets about her.
“I’ll come now,” Thom said.
“Not just yet,” said Liz. “I want to see you naked.”
Thom opened his mouth, cocked his head, and remained reclined against Jackie’s desk as Liz watched the sun outline his body, turn the top of his dark hair golden..
“You’re still beautiful to look at, Thom,” Liz told him, a little marveled. “What were you thinking?”
“I,” Thom seemed a little puzzled, “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t regret it?” Liz sat up.
Thom came to her, and put a hand around her.
“No, I don’t regret any of it. I haven’t felt that way in a long time. It’s been a long time since...”
“Sex?”
Thom laughed a little and kissed Liz. She put her head against the soft down of his chest as he cradled her. She remembered the first time she’d seen Thom naked and hairy, and how she couldn’t decide to laugh or not. He had been her first. It felt good being held by him again, being assured, feeling his heart beat against her ear. It had felt good feeling him inside of her last night.
“Well, sex, yes,” Thom said. “But it has been a long time since I’ve had love. Last night, I haven’t felt like that in a long time.”
“Remember back in college?” Liz asked him, and they both laughed. She was still laughing when she said, “That’s what it was like last night.”
Thom stopped rocking her. Liz could feel him hard against her.
“You want it to be that way this morning?” he asked her, raising an eyebrow.
She looked up at him in wonder. A smile came over her face.
Thom felt his penis stiffening. His voice was growing thick.
“I haven’t felt like this. I haven’t felt like... a man in forever,” he told her, taking her hands and guiding them to his sides. Liz felt the dimples on his ass. Thom guided her hands to caress him. She went limp against the crook of his neck, and Thom lifted her thighs, pressing her to the backboard.
MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND
HOME
The night were still warm and Chayne and Russell walked up Kirkland Street toward home. It was such a quiet night, and they climbed up to the roof to look over what they could see of town.
Russell heard a car pass along the gravel below and leaned on the parapet too, beside Chayne.
“Look at it all,” Chayne said.
Russell looked up. Geschichte Falls was not exactly urban, but in the town proper the stars could not be seen as well as here. Russell looked a little ahead to his left, which was south east. And then he looked back up at the sky. It was so black, and it was filled with white and blue stars, layer after layer of them.
“It’s hard not to believe,” Chayne said. “It’s hard to be depressed looking at heaven. Sometimes things seem unbearable, but then I look up, and I am reminded... no matter what little drama’s going on here, in the very little sections of our lives that we inhabit for the moment... It’s all good.”
“Who is that?” Russell said.
“Huh?”
He pointed below and Chayne shimmied closer to the front porch where a slender man with a graceful walk was coming up to the porch. He wore a feed cap and tech vest and Russell said, “Is that your cowboy?”
The bell rang below.
“It appears to be.”
“You gave him your address?”
“How else is he supposed to find me.”
“Should I make myself scarce?”
Chayne looked at him.
“Did you need to ask?”
Friday night there was a knock at the door, and Thom ran to get it.
“Liz!”
“Thom!” her voice was alive with laughter. She looked so happy. Liz Parr threw her arms around him.
“I just got out of the shower!” he told her, taking her coat and going to the closet.
“You shower in a white shirt and red tie?”
Thom laughed. “Well, I’ve been out of the shower a while. Can I get you a drink?”
“Whaddo you have?”
Thom sighed, smiled and said, “I don’t know! Let me go see.” Liz followed Thom into the little kitchen, and he looked under the island. “We’ve got... well... some old daiquiri mix and a thimbleful of gin.”
Smiling he displayed the bottle.
“We can get drinks when we get to the restaurant.”
“Good idea.”
“You sure do smile a lot, Thom.”
“I’m just happy to see you. Let me get my jacket.”
“It’s not very chilly,” Liz told him.
They decided to take Thom’s car, and as he drove he told Liz, “There’s a great restaurant on Jerrold Parkway, on the border of Saint Gregory.”
“Have you ever had Indian food?” Liz asked as they sped along the Parkway.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Oh, Thom, I think you’d like it. We used to have a lot of fun. Let’s find an Indian restaurant.”
“I wouldn’t even know what to order.”
“I’ll order for you, but do you think there’s an Indian restaurant around here?”
“Oh, yeah. Saint Gregory’s is nothing but strip malls with little restaurants. They’ve got to have one that’s Indian.”
They drove along Jerrold Parkway, and off onto Merrimore, Thom looking and looking for something that seemed Indian until he shouted, “There! See!”
Liz laughed as he turned into Rawling Plaza where there was a little restaurant called Kerala House.
“Tandoori chicken is the one dish I can remember,” Liz told him when they’d been given a table.
“I thought you said you really liked Indian food.”
“Yes,” Liz acknowledged before admitting, “but it’s been a while. I kind of forget what’s what. So this should be an experience.”
As Patti had commented, Liz was shorter even than Thom. She also aged at the same rate as Thom, which was to say, hardly at all. They could have almost been kids again, and as she tried to describe what she wanted to the brown skinned waiter, Thom alternated between chuckles and outright laughs. She was radiant and little and pretty, the light shining on her golden hair, into her dark eyes, her red lips.
“And then there’s this one thing,” she was explaining to the waiter. “It’s kind of red, and it’s chicken—I think—and it’s got yogurt in it. Don’t frown, Thom, it’s delicious. And then... kibbie is it called? This rice thing with lamb in it. And then I want him—” she pointed to Thom, “to try this one thing. The bread, it has different sauces—yes, that’s it! And curry! Oh, any kind!”
Liz was directing Thom how to eat, and what to eat first when she reached across the table, wiping away some of the sweet sauce from Thom’s mouth.
“Thom, are you really going to tell me what happened between you and Patti?”
“If you tell me what happened with you and Lionel Tremor.”
Liz frowned and then said, “First, I want to know what happened with us?”
Thom stopped eating and looked awkward.
“We were together, and then the next thing I knew you were telling me you were with Patti.”
“That was cowardly of me,” Thom said. “I bet you were pretty pissed with me.”
“When we got back to school after summer I saw you and Patti and wanted to run the two of you over with my car!” Liz laughed. “You’re damn skippy I was pissed! It was a long time and a lot of voodoo dolls before I could talk to you again, Thomas Lewis.”
Thom had stopped eating, and Liz said, “Don’t just stare at me. Eat.”
“Even the really hot stuff?”
“The more painful the better,” Liz laughed. “It’s payback time.
“No, really. It’s not like I didn’t see it coming,” Liz said. “Or really, it’s not like I didn’t see us dying, and you getting on with Patti. We were having all sorts of problems.”
“We did fight a lot.”
“And we fucked a lot.”
Thom grew crimson.
“Well, that’s what you call it,” Liz said.
“I prefer to call it making love,” Thom said, spearing a bit of lamb on his fork.
“You can call it whatever you want to. And Patti was a good Catholic girl, so I can’t imagine you all did anything.”
“No,” Thom said. “I never had sex with Patti while we were engaged, but you were a good Catholic girl too. And I was a good Catholic boy.”
“No,” Liz shook her head. “We were goody goodies. We were really respectable and Republican but Patti was the real thing. She was the wildest, craziest person I ever met but she... She always had integrity. She knew who she was. I really admired her. Even the other day on the phone. Thom, whaddit you do to lose her?”
Thom bawked at Liz. She kicked him under the table.
“I don’t know,” Thom said. “We stopped talking. Things have changed between us. I have a good job. She’s upset that she doesn’t have one at all. All she wants to do is sit around and chain smoke all day. I don’t know.”
“I think you do,” said Liz. “And I think that what you said is only half of it, and I also think that you’re not willing to confront everything that happened. Or able to. So let’s not.”
“What did Lionel do to you?”
“He couldn’t read my mind,” said Liz. She shrugged.
“We never talked. He never paid attention to me. Don’t forget the cliché ‘we had grown into two different people’. All that we could have gotten past.”
Thom put his fork to the plate, realizing he was full, and asked, “What was it that you couldn’t get past?”
“Walking into the bathroom and finding Lionel in the shower with my brother.”
Thom was too shocked to laugh.
After dinner they drove around Saint Gregory and back into Geschichte Falls.
“It’s so quiet,” Liz marveled. “On a Friday night and all.”
“Around Main Street the kids cruise, but otherwise it’s pretty quiet,” Thom agreed as they came back onto Royal Street. In the apartment, he told Liz, “We still never got around to having drinks.”
“You know what?” Liz said, falling on the couch with Thom. “I don’t want to drink. I want to talk.”
And they did talk. On again off again, Thom did bring up Patti, occasionally hinting that he thought things were his fault. But more often he brought up Russell.
“Jackie invited me to choir practice and I said no. When she got home she told me Russ was there, and I felt a little bad for not going. I wanted to see him. But then I was kind of relieved. Because I think he might have felt awkward, a little afraid with me there.”
“You know what?” Liz said, touching a lock of hair behind Thom’s ear, “I think you’re the one who would have been awkward and afraid. You talk about this boy like he’s a little god.”
Thom looked at her amazed.
“It’s okay. That’s the way I feel about Marvin and Julie. Especially Julie for some reason. And after the divorce, I was almost ashamed to see them. Which is sort of inconvenient, since they live with me.”
“Where are they tonight?”
“With my friend. You’re staring at me, Thom.”
“Am I—?” he started. But Liz had kissed him then.
He kissed her back. Thom leaned in to kiss her and placed his hands on her shoulders. He hadn’t felt like this in a long time. He stopped, pulled away.
“We can’t.”
He got up. “Liz, I don’t think...”
But then he kissed her again, and Liz placed her hand on Thom’s back, rubbing it through his shirt. Her hand went to his belt. He thought of pulling away. He didn’t really know what he was doing. If he thought then he could come up with a thousand reasons this was wrong. So he stopped thinking, and began to work with his tie as Liz reached up and turned out the light.
“Are you gonna come back to bed?” Liz asked, wrapping the sheets about her.
“I’ll come now,” Thom said.
“Not just yet,” said Liz. “I want to see you naked.”
Thom opened his mouth, cocked his head, and remained reclined against Jackie’s desk as Liz watched the sun outline his body, turn the top of his dark hair golden..
“You’re still beautiful to look at, Thom,” Liz told him, a little marveled. “What were you thinking?”
“I,” Thom seemed a little puzzled, “I don’t remember.”
“You don’t regret it?” Liz sat up.
Thom came to her, and put a hand around her.
“No, I don’t regret any of it. I haven’t felt that way in a long time. It’s been a long time since...”
“Sex?”
Thom laughed a little and kissed Liz. She put her head against the soft down of his chest as he cradled her. She remembered the first time she’d seen Thom naked and hairy, and how she couldn’t decide to laugh or not. He had been her first. It felt good being held by him again, being assured, feeling his heart beat against her ear. It had felt good feeling him inside of her last night.
“Well, sex, yes,” Thom said. “But it has been a long time since I’ve had love. Last night, I haven’t felt like that in a long time.”
“Remember back in college?” Liz asked him, and they both laughed. She was still laughing when she said, “That’s what it was like last night.”
Thom stopped rocking her. Liz could feel him hard against her.
“You want it to be that way this morning?” he asked her, raising an eyebrow.
She looked up at him in wonder. A smile came over her face.
Thom felt his penis stiffening. His voice was growing thick.
“I haven’t felt like this. I haven’t felt like... a man in forever,” he told her, taking her hands and guiding them to his sides. Liz felt the dimples on his ass. Thom guided her hands to caress him. She went limp against the crook of his neck, and Thom lifted her thighs, pressing her to the backboard.
MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Well it looks like Thom and Liz might become a thing. Maybe it’s just sex, I don’t know but they seem to be rekindling things. That was a great start to the chapter and I look forward to more after the weekend!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Well, sex is never just sex. Not reality, and certainly not in these stories. So.... we'll see.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER FOUR
His name was Dan. Chayne had not asked because he did not ask idle questions, and he did not care. He didn’t find this out until Friday, when he came back, and all Thursday night, Chayne had called him The Cowboy.
He earned the name. He was courtly and well mannered like something from a Gene Autry movie and he smelled damn good. He smoked good cigarettes and they chatted awhile. The house was not small, and there were plenty of other places for Russell to be. He’d told him part of living with a single adult was knowing when to be scarce and it was nearly ten, so Chayne didn’t feel bad about having Russell shove off.
This was the first man he’d met since he’d come back home, and even though he’d confidently said men were everywhere, he wasn’t sure until this one was sitting on the sofa across from him. When Chayne said men were everywhere, it was in response to the belief that there was only a certain type of man who wanted to be with a man, and he lived in New York or San Francisco and was interested in interior decorating or the theatre. But what Chayne knew was that men were men and all sorts of men liked all sorts of things, and if one was patient and confident you old had to look and someone would be on this sofa, chatting, sharing a drink. Something would happen, some pretext, and someone’s pants would be down. Someone would be on their knees and someone else would be leaned back with head between his legs, having the life sucked into one point of him. In a house without children this could have gone on in the living room much longer, but Chayne got up and let Cowboy Dan to the bedroom.
The world was afraid of sex. He was afraid of sex, though he went to it anyway. You were taken out of yourself. Your eyes left the natural world and went to the world of darkness where a man who had been in jeans and an expensive shirt, knelt on you, pulling you inside of him and rode you, his neck arching back, then looking down on you, mouth opened, both of your mouths open. You became one thing and traveled without forward movement, making valleys and hills in this bed, his hand on your shoulders, you hands on his hips and you rode each other through the night.
Chayne was no teenage virgin and neither was the Cowboy. They rode each other through the night and when orgasm finally came it was like lightning buried in blackness, shaking them to the teeth, moving through both their bodies.
He did not have quite a southern accent, but it was country and gentle and he said, “Should I go or should I stay over?”
“No one’s asking you to go,” Chayne said, curling up and facing him.
“Good,” he kissed Chayne on the mouth quickly. “Then I’ll stay.”
Friday night they had been at the Blue Jewel and the Cowboy was there again.
“Do you always hang out here?”
“When I’m town,” he’d said. “I work construction.”
“So, not a cowboy.”
“I like to be a cowboy now and again.”
“What else do you like now and again?” Chayne asked.
“Oh,” the Cowboy said, “I think you know.”
They stayed till well past two and the Cowboy didn’t seem to mind, but when they were all headed back, he followed Chayne at a leisurely crawl.
Russell was dizzy from the little bit of beer he’d had and the smell of pot, and Chayne had no plans of hiding the man from him when he arrived. Russell was already in bed when the Cowboy, beer on his breath and the smell of cigarettes mixed with his cologne, drunkenly kissed Chayne on the mouth and they tumbled from the living room into the bathroom, and undressed almost savagely, making climbing into the shower.
Russell woke from his light sleep to the sounds of sex and lay in bed for only a while before going down the stairs in his shorts. In the hallway he heard the bed heaving slowly, heard a male voice praying, “Yes,… Oh, God. Yes. Yes. Don’t… Don’t stop…”
He heard something beyond speech, an almost mad murmur.
He moved toward the door and placed his ear against it. His heart was beating. Sweat was on his temples. His body shook. He leaned his shoulder in and the door made a faint squeak which terrified Russell, put he pushed it further anyway. He was suddenly aware of how there was this mystery moving all around him, and he hated not being part of it, knowing nothing. His mouth tasted like iron and spit built up under his tongue even as his groin ached.
In the darkness he could make out Chayne spread on top of the other man, pressing and pressing into him, pounding him softly. He saw Chayne rise up, like someone kneeling, gather the man under him, saw the man’s white hand reach back and pull him in. The pounding continued in his heart, on the bed, in the springs. A hand wrapped around Russell’s cock. His whole body was burning and he heard them groaning and fucking. He shuddered and let out a noise the same time one of them did and his need had melted into his hands. He swooned dizzily in the doorway, and his palm closed over his still hard penis was slick with his semen. Exhausted, he moved back and closed the door, swooning as, in Chayne’s room the sound of fucking continued.
They went on a early morning walk down Kirkland toward the bakery to pick up doughnuts.
“You still seeing that cowboy?”
“Hum?” Chayne raised an eyebrow and did not answer, which was his answer.
In a line, riding their bikes down the street came some familiar children, singing, almost solemnly, the girls with their black braids flying behind them:
“My pussy tastes so fresh,
my pussy tastes so fresh
Hi ho the dairio my pussy tastes so fresh
And
My pussy tastes like fish
My pussy tastes like fish
Hi ho the dairio
You ought to make a wish
Oh my pussy tastes like cheese
Its honey to the bees!
Hi ho the dairio
My pussy tastes like cheese!”
As they disappeared toward Lincoln Street, Russell could hear them cry triumphantly:
“And my pussy tastes like trout
You ought to eat me out
Hi ho the dairio you better eat me out!”
“I wonder if they’d like to join the choir,” Chayne said.
“They could only improve it,” said Russell.
“That’s very cruel of you,” Chayne said in a professorial voice.
“True…. But cruel.”
At the breakfast Russell said, “Chayne, I really don’t think I want to go see Dad today.”
Chayne considered this, picked up his toast and took a bite out of it, and then took a swig of tea. Every Saturday started with a pot of coffee, and then worked its way to tea and toast liberally smeared in jam.
“Russell, this is one time I’m actually going to be a moral voice in your life,” Chayne said. “I think you’d better go.”
He picked up his toast and took a bite.
“I mean, the man’s holding out an olive branch to you albeit not the world’s biggest one. Go over and see him. Oh, shit—” Chayne interrupted himself. “Why does the bread always fall jamside on the floor?”
“I think there’s a scientific explanation for it,” Russell said, standing up.
“Where are you going?” Chayne demanded.
“To go see Dad.”
“But we’re only on the second course. We haven’t made it to omelets and sausage yet.”
“I think this is something I need a light stomach for.”
“Oh, Russell, it’s just Thom. It won’t be that bad. It might even be good,” Chayne added, not convinced. “Do you want me to drive you over there?”
“No,” said Russell, heading for the living room and the front door. “I think I’d better walk.”
Rounding the corner and coming to the steps of 1133 Royal Street leading into the old lobby that smelled like old books, Russell wondered why he didn’t come to visit Jackie more often. The climb up the steps made him remember. The only time he really came over was when Uncle John was in town and he took Russell here. Jackie was much cooler than his father, thought Russell, someone who would understand his problems. He remembered how when she had first moved here on Royal Street, Russell was about to knock on the door, and Uncle John took his hand and said, “You don’t knock for Jackie’s place. She hates that.”
“Doesn’t she lock doors?”
“Never.”
Russell caught his breath and turned around to see the broad river through the long, wide window that started in the middle of the landing between the third and the fourth floor. On the other side of it he could see East Sequoia, and a little to the right the expansion bridge that linked the towns. He followed a small boat toward it, and then turned around and went down the high quiet fifth floor hallway that still smelled of old books, and walked into Jackie’s apartment.
“Thom! Thom! Oh, my God! Oh my God! Oh—my—uh!”
Russell caught his breath. His hand was quicker and more careful than his mind. He stood outside of the door, the air stuck in his throat and chest. The image did not come until now. It came out of order.
It wasn’t Jackie and Chip. It was Thom. The woman he had not really seen, but she was too small to be Patti. It—she—was blond. It was definitely Thom. He was sweaty and disheveled, the way he’d been the other night. Only he was also naked. He was… the woman on the dining room table Jackie had bought at a rummage sale.
A perverse section of Russell’s mind said, I never knew Tommy boy had it in him!
Maybe the purpose of sarcasm is to shield us. Sometimes?
“What the hell are you doing back here?” Chayne demanded. “I haven’t even gotten past tea.”
“Good,” said Russell. “I think I’m gonna need that omelet.”
“You look like you’re gonna need castor oil too. Was it that bad?”
Russell paused, his mouth opened, his brow furrowed, and then he nodded and said, “Yes. It was that bad.”
“You can talk about it later,” Chayne said. “If you want to.”
He finished the cup of tea.
“I guess it’s omelet time.”
“I saw Dad and some other woman.”
“Oh,” Chayne said.
“He was fucking her.”
Chayne said nothing.
“I deserved to see it,” Russell said. “I deserved it. Because I’m bad.”
“We’re all a little bad,” Chayne said.
“I came down last night. I was curious. I heard you and that guy.”
“Dan.”
“Dan,” Russell said, desperately.
He blurted out.
“I wanted to see. I watched.”
“You nasty little pervert,” Chayne smiled at him.
Russell blinked.
“You’re so filthy,” Chayne said. “How many eggs do you want in your omelet? Did you like what you saw?”
“What?”
“I’m not your parents. I’m not anyone’s parents. I don’t hide my life. You were young and curious. I took my pleasure. I hope it gave you some pleasure too.”
Russell said, “Three eggs.”
“Alright,” Chayne drawled putting his cigarette down and pulling the egg carton to him.
“You’re not like anyone else I know,” Russell said to Chayne.”
“No,” Chayne said, cracking an egg into a bowl. “I don’t suppose I would be.”
On Jackie’s radio, Sheryl Crow was singing.
I woke up this morning--
now I understand
what it means to give your love
to just one man
Afraid of feeling nothing
no bees or butterflies
my head is full of voices
and this house is full of lies
This is hooooome
this is hoooo-oooome
this is hoooome
this is home!
Even though he was right there, the same sheets tangled about him as she, the blue sky framing him, Liz felt, as she had once before, that Thom was far from here. He rolled over onto his back with one of Jackie’s cigarettes.
“I haven’t seen you guys in a long time,” Thom said to the Salem.
“Oh, Thom you’re not going to start smoking again?”
“Just this once. I’m the one Patti learned it from.”
“I know.”
Thom lit the cigarette. The tip glowed red. Liz watched the first tendrils of smoke rise out of Thom’s open mouth.
“We’re never going to do this again, are we?” she said, at last.
Thom put the cigarette in the ashtray and let it smoke. He didn’t look at Liz. He was looking at the ceiling. She could see his breast rising and falling under the hair on his chest.
“I—” Thom said, at last, “I don’t think so.”
“I’ve never had a one night stand before,” Liz said. “It appears you’re my first everything.”
“Was I really your first? Did you really lose your virginity to me?” Thom asked her.
“You know I did.”
They were silent a little longer. Thom took up the cigarette now and started to smoke it in earnest. It had been years since his last one, but it all came back to him now. He smoked it to the filter.
“You knew that it was the last time we’d have sex, didn’t you?” Liz said. “Just a few moments ago. You knew it, didn’t you?”
Thom nodded. He felt numb.
“I did too,” said Liz. “I’ve never done that before, had sex for the last time.”
“But we did,” said Thom.
“But that wasn’t the last time was it?” Liz almost laughed. “There was an almost twenty year interim. This was the last time. And that last time, I didn’t know it was the last time. I don’t think you did either. I hope you didn’t. If you did, please don’t tell me.”
“I didn’t,” Thom told Liz, rolling over to look at her and touching her arm. He didn’t feel good right now. He felt hollow, he felt smoked out. He wondered if anything would be in his heart if he dared to look.
On Jackie’s radio, Sheryl Crow was singing.
This is hooooome
this is hoooo-oooome
this is hoooome
this is home!
TOMORROW: BITS AND PIECES
His name was Dan. Chayne had not asked because he did not ask idle questions, and he did not care. He didn’t find this out until Friday, when he came back, and all Thursday night, Chayne had called him The Cowboy.
He earned the name. He was courtly and well mannered like something from a Gene Autry movie and he smelled damn good. He smoked good cigarettes and they chatted awhile. The house was not small, and there were plenty of other places for Russell to be. He’d told him part of living with a single adult was knowing when to be scarce and it was nearly ten, so Chayne didn’t feel bad about having Russell shove off.
This was the first man he’d met since he’d come back home, and even though he’d confidently said men were everywhere, he wasn’t sure until this one was sitting on the sofa across from him. When Chayne said men were everywhere, it was in response to the belief that there was only a certain type of man who wanted to be with a man, and he lived in New York or San Francisco and was interested in interior decorating or the theatre. But what Chayne knew was that men were men and all sorts of men liked all sorts of things, and if one was patient and confident you old had to look and someone would be on this sofa, chatting, sharing a drink. Something would happen, some pretext, and someone’s pants would be down. Someone would be on their knees and someone else would be leaned back with head between his legs, having the life sucked into one point of him. In a house without children this could have gone on in the living room much longer, but Chayne got up and let Cowboy Dan to the bedroom.
The world was afraid of sex. He was afraid of sex, though he went to it anyway. You were taken out of yourself. Your eyes left the natural world and went to the world of darkness where a man who had been in jeans and an expensive shirt, knelt on you, pulling you inside of him and rode you, his neck arching back, then looking down on you, mouth opened, both of your mouths open. You became one thing and traveled without forward movement, making valleys and hills in this bed, his hand on your shoulders, you hands on his hips and you rode each other through the night.
Chayne was no teenage virgin and neither was the Cowboy. They rode each other through the night and when orgasm finally came it was like lightning buried in blackness, shaking them to the teeth, moving through both their bodies.
He did not have quite a southern accent, but it was country and gentle and he said, “Should I go or should I stay over?”
“No one’s asking you to go,” Chayne said, curling up and facing him.
“Good,” he kissed Chayne on the mouth quickly. “Then I’ll stay.”
Friday night they had been at the Blue Jewel and the Cowboy was there again.
“Do you always hang out here?”
“When I’m town,” he’d said. “I work construction.”
“So, not a cowboy.”
“I like to be a cowboy now and again.”
“What else do you like now and again?” Chayne asked.
“Oh,” the Cowboy said, “I think you know.”
They stayed till well past two and the Cowboy didn’t seem to mind, but when they were all headed back, he followed Chayne at a leisurely crawl.
Russell was dizzy from the little bit of beer he’d had and the smell of pot, and Chayne had no plans of hiding the man from him when he arrived. Russell was already in bed when the Cowboy, beer on his breath and the smell of cigarettes mixed with his cologne, drunkenly kissed Chayne on the mouth and they tumbled from the living room into the bathroom, and undressed almost savagely, making climbing into the shower.
Russell woke from his light sleep to the sounds of sex and lay in bed for only a while before going down the stairs in his shorts. In the hallway he heard the bed heaving slowly, heard a male voice praying, “Yes,… Oh, God. Yes. Yes. Don’t… Don’t stop…”
He heard something beyond speech, an almost mad murmur.
He moved toward the door and placed his ear against it. His heart was beating. Sweat was on his temples. His body shook. He leaned his shoulder in and the door made a faint squeak which terrified Russell, put he pushed it further anyway. He was suddenly aware of how there was this mystery moving all around him, and he hated not being part of it, knowing nothing. His mouth tasted like iron and spit built up under his tongue even as his groin ached.
In the darkness he could make out Chayne spread on top of the other man, pressing and pressing into him, pounding him softly. He saw Chayne rise up, like someone kneeling, gather the man under him, saw the man’s white hand reach back and pull him in. The pounding continued in his heart, on the bed, in the springs. A hand wrapped around Russell’s cock. His whole body was burning and he heard them groaning and fucking. He shuddered and let out a noise the same time one of them did and his need had melted into his hands. He swooned dizzily in the doorway, and his palm closed over his still hard penis was slick with his semen. Exhausted, he moved back and closed the door, swooning as, in Chayne’s room the sound of fucking continued.
They went on a early morning walk down Kirkland toward the bakery to pick up doughnuts.
“You still seeing that cowboy?”
“Hum?” Chayne raised an eyebrow and did not answer, which was his answer.
In a line, riding their bikes down the street came some familiar children, singing, almost solemnly, the girls with their black braids flying behind them:
“My pussy tastes so fresh,
my pussy tastes so fresh
Hi ho the dairio my pussy tastes so fresh
And
My pussy tastes like fish
My pussy tastes like fish
Hi ho the dairio
You ought to make a wish
Oh my pussy tastes like cheese
Its honey to the bees!
Hi ho the dairio
My pussy tastes like cheese!”
As they disappeared toward Lincoln Street, Russell could hear them cry triumphantly:
“And my pussy tastes like trout
You ought to eat me out
Hi ho the dairio you better eat me out!”
“I wonder if they’d like to join the choir,” Chayne said.
“They could only improve it,” said Russell.
“That’s very cruel of you,” Chayne said in a professorial voice.
“True…. But cruel.”
At the breakfast Russell said, “Chayne, I really don’t think I want to go see Dad today.”
Chayne considered this, picked up his toast and took a bite out of it, and then took a swig of tea. Every Saturday started with a pot of coffee, and then worked its way to tea and toast liberally smeared in jam.
“Russell, this is one time I’m actually going to be a moral voice in your life,” Chayne said. “I think you’d better go.”
He picked up his toast and took a bite.
“I mean, the man’s holding out an olive branch to you albeit not the world’s biggest one. Go over and see him. Oh, shit—” Chayne interrupted himself. “Why does the bread always fall jamside on the floor?”
“I think there’s a scientific explanation for it,” Russell said, standing up.
“Where are you going?” Chayne demanded.
“To go see Dad.”
“But we’re only on the second course. We haven’t made it to omelets and sausage yet.”
“I think this is something I need a light stomach for.”
“Oh, Russell, it’s just Thom. It won’t be that bad. It might even be good,” Chayne added, not convinced. “Do you want me to drive you over there?”
“No,” said Russell, heading for the living room and the front door. “I think I’d better walk.”
Rounding the corner and coming to the steps of 1133 Royal Street leading into the old lobby that smelled like old books, Russell wondered why he didn’t come to visit Jackie more often. The climb up the steps made him remember. The only time he really came over was when Uncle John was in town and he took Russell here. Jackie was much cooler than his father, thought Russell, someone who would understand his problems. He remembered how when she had first moved here on Royal Street, Russell was about to knock on the door, and Uncle John took his hand and said, “You don’t knock for Jackie’s place. She hates that.”
“Doesn’t she lock doors?”
“Never.”
Russell caught his breath and turned around to see the broad river through the long, wide window that started in the middle of the landing between the third and the fourth floor. On the other side of it he could see East Sequoia, and a little to the right the expansion bridge that linked the towns. He followed a small boat toward it, and then turned around and went down the high quiet fifth floor hallway that still smelled of old books, and walked into Jackie’s apartment.
“Thom! Thom! Oh, my God! Oh my God! Oh—my—uh!”
Russell caught his breath. His hand was quicker and more careful than his mind. He stood outside of the door, the air stuck in his throat and chest. The image did not come until now. It came out of order.
It wasn’t Jackie and Chip. It was Thom. The woman he had not really seen, but she was too small to be Patti. It—she—was blond. It was definitely Thom. He was sweaty and disheveled, the way he’d been the other night. Only he was also naked. He was… the woman on the dining room table Jackie had bought at a rummage sale.
A perverse section of Russell’s mind said, I never knew Tommy boy had it in him!
Maybe the purpose of sarcasm is to shield us. Sometimes?
“What the hell are you doing back here?” Chayne demanded. “I haven’t even gotten past tea.”
“Good,” said Russell. “I think I’m gonna need that omelet.”
“You look like you’re gonna need castor oil too. Was it that bad?”
Russell paused, his mouth opened, his brow furrowed, and then he nodded and said, “Yes. It was that bad.”
“You can talk about it later,” Chayne said. “If you want to.”
He finished the cup of tea.
“I guess it’s omelet time.”
“I saw Dad and some other woman.”
“Oh,” Chayne said.
“He was fucking her.”
Chayne said nothing.
“I deserved to see it,” Russell said. “I deserved it. Because I’m bad.”
“We’re all a little bad,” Chayne said.
“I came down last night. I was curious. I heard you and that guy.”
“Dan.”
“Dan,” Russell said, desperately.
He blurted out.
“I wanted to see. I watched.”
“You nasty little pervert,” Chayne smiled at him.
Russell blinked.
“You’re so filthy,” Chayne said. “How many eggs do you want in your omelet? Did you like what you saw?”
“What?”
“I’m not your parents. I’m not anyone’s parents. I don’t hide my life. You were young and curious. I took my pleasure. I hope it gave you some pleasure too.”
Russell said, “Three eggs.”
“Alright,” Chayne drawled putting his cigarette down and pulling the egg carton to him.
“You’re not like anyone else I know,” Russell said to Chayne.”
“No,” Chayne said, cracking an egg into a bowl. “I don’t suppose I would be.”
On Jackie’s radio, Sheryl Crow was singing.
I woke up this morning--
now I understand
what it means to give your love
to just one man
Afraid of feeling nothing
no bees or butterflies
my head is full of voices
and this house is full of lies
This is hooooome
this is hoooo-oooome
this is hoooome
this is home!
Even though he was right there, the same sheets tangled about him as she, the blue sky framing him, Liz felt, as she had once before, that Thom was far from here. He rolled over onto his back with one of Jackie’s cigarettes.
“I haven’t seen you guys in a long time,” Thom said to the Salem.
“Oh, Thom you’re not going to start smoking again?”
“Just this once. I’m the one Patti learned it from.”
“I know.”
Thom lit the cigarette. The tip glowed red. Liz watched the first tendrils of smoke rise out of Thom’s open mouth.
“We’re never going to do this again, are we?” she said, at last.
Thom put the cigarette in the ashtray and let it smoke. He didn’t look at Liz. He was looking at the ceiling. She could see his breast rising and falling under the hair on his chest.
“I—” Thom said, at last, “I don’t think so.”
“I’ve never had a one night stand before,” Liz said. “It appears you’re my first everything.”
“Was I really your first? Did you really lose your virginity to me?” Thom asked her.
“You know I did.”
They were silent a little longer. Thom took up the cigarette now and started to smoke it in earnest. It had been years since his last one, but it all came back to him now. He smoked it to the filter.
“You knew that it was the last time we’d have sex, didn’t you?” Liz said. “Just a few moments ago. You knew it, didn’t you?”
Thom nodded. He felt numb.
“I did too,” said Liz. “I’ve never done that before, had sex for the last time.”
“But we did,” said Thom.
“But that wasn’t the last time was it?” Liz almost laughed. “There was an almost twenty year interim. This was the last time. And that last time, I didn’t know it was the last time. I don’t think you did either. I hope you didn’t. If you did, please don’t tell me.”
“I didn’t,” Thom told Liz, rolling over to look at her and touching her arm. He didn’t feel good right now. He felt hollow, he felt smoked out. He wondered if anything would be in his heart if he dared to look.
On Jackie’s radio, Sheryl Crow was singing.
This is hooooome
this is hoooo-oooome
this is hoooome
this is home!
TOMORROW: BITS AND PIECES
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Poor Russell, he went to see his Dad and got much more then he bargained for. Thom is a bit of an asshole for not even remembering his son was going to visit and putting him through seeing that. Great writing and I look forward to Bits and Pieces tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CHAPTER FIVE
SECOND
CHANCE
The battered and faded red hatchback had already rolled up and down Curtain Street two or three times that Sunday morning when it came back down, stopped in front of 1421 Curtain Street and parked behind the hearse with a sputtering near-death rattle accompanied by a cloud of white exhaust. A tall woman with long, penny colored hair stepped out in sunshades, looked at the hearse, muttered, “He better not be dead,” then walked unsteadily up the walk, tested the door, looked around the nearly empty house, shouting, “Chayne! Chayne!” before walking to the sofa on the other side of the living room, shrugging and passing out.
“In some churches they’ve started putting the choir in the front where everyone can see them,” Chayne told Jackie Lewis. The two of them were looking over the railing of the choir loft down at the ten a.m. congregation of Saint Adjeanet’s.
“I’m so glad we don’t do that. I’m not sure I’d want the people to see us.”
“Are we that bad?” Jackie asked Chayne.
From below, Bill Dwyer, at the pulpit, informed the congregation, “Our offertory hymn is Number Forty-Nine. “Come Down, O Love, Divine”. Number Forty-Nine.”
Hannah’s began at the organ, and Chayne waited a few seconds for Russell to get up, but saw the boy was sitting around in jeans and a tee shirt, staring out of the large round window over the choir loft.
“Russell!” Chayne hissed as Hannah looked to Chayne, and finished with her intro, improvised a new one.
Russell turned to him.
“It’s your solo,” his aunt hissed.
“Oh.” Russell’s eyes widened in delayed reaction after the bland, “Oh,” and he came to stand over the balcony, where Chayne and Jackie were.
“Just because your mind is full of sex, this is not the time to fuck up your solo.”
Russell looked at Chayne, nodded his head, and then opened his mouth:
“Come down, O Love, Divine, seek Thou this soul of mine....”
“Chayne. He’s still married to my mom. Even if she did throw him out.”
Suddenly Russell stopped talking. Before the house, behind the hearse, was an old red hatchback.
“What the?” Chayne began, taking his hand from Russell’s back, and followed by the boy he went up the stairs and into the house to see the woman passed out on the couch.
Russell looked up at Chayne.
The woman, coming to consciousness, looked up at Chayne too, and with a crooked smile drawled, “Wazabi!” and then gave them a thumbs up and passed out again.
“Faye?” Russell moved to shake the woman.
“Shaken not stirred,” she mumbled, and then shook her head and sat up.
“Faye Matthison?” Russell tried the name again, the woman pushed a hand through her disheveled hair and took the glass of water Russell offered her.
“Chayne made this for you,” he said. “He’s in the kitchen. I’m Russell.”
“I’ve heard so much about you,” said Faye, sipping the water, frowning and saying, “Shit, I thought it was vodka.”
She began rummaging through her purse.
“I need a smoke. Sit by me, Russell,” she patted the couch to indicate where he should sit, and continued rummaging through her purse. “Chayne! Get your black ass out here! Um,” she said the last reflectively, to herself, “Found em,” and she took out her Newports.
When Chayne came out from the kitchen, he heard Faye saying, “So you found your dad fucking some slut on a table! Awful, honey, awful way to see your folks. The first time I saw my Father was on television. He was in handcuffs wearing a tutu, ballet slippers and push up bra. He’d been arrested for offering fellatio to a cop. That’s when I knew why Ma had never told me much about him. Chayne, Chayne, Chayne, Chayne of fools! What are you doing in that kitchen?”
“Trying to put together something decent for tonight’s meal.”
“Oh,” said Faye, “I guess I should get up and help you.”
“I guess you should.”
“Shit,” she blew out smoke and told Russell, “I didn’t know he’d call my bluff.”
“Well,” said Faye, as she stood up, stretching and cussing at her creaking bones, “We can stay here tonight, but we gotta be on the road in the morning.”
“On the Road?” started both Russell and Chayne.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Chayne, you called and said you were going to need to get your stuff out of the apartment, so I figured I’d come and get you now.”
“You’re going out East,” started Russell.
“I am?” Chayne looked from Russell to Faye. “Faye what inspired you to do this on this particular weekend?”
“I was sitting around my house,” said Faye, “and thought, shit, nothing else to do. Guess I’ll drive to Michigan. So here I am and here we go. In the morning.”
“I’m not just leaving Russell here,” Chayne said, forgetting or discounting that Russell had two parents in town.
Faye looked at the red headed boy and said, “Bring him with us.”
“He’ll miss school,” Chayne protested weakly.
“Oh, com’on,” Faye said, smiling at Chayne. “You and I both know that school is overrated.”
“And don’t forget, we’re going to Chicago Friday night,” Felice reminded her friend.
After Felice and Jackie left the house, Patti realized that she had the day to herself. Then she realized that since the junior college had been closed, she’d had the days to herself. She hadn’t looked on it that way before. Before she had been the professor turned housewife. The odd thing was that she didn’t mind making dinner for Russell or seeing after his needs. Being a mother had never made her feel less of a woman, and Russell had never really demanded much. She resented the frequent dinners for Thom, the elaborate spur of the moment affairs that she no longer had to worry about. There would be no Thom. She did not have until six o’clock to herself. Patti had the whole day and the next and the next to herself.
And Russell’s leaving had done a strange thing to her. She had not tried to stop him from leaving, had thought it best for him to be away from her craziness and with Chayne. She had missed her son, but not as much as she thought she would, and she realized that right now not only was she not a wife, she wasn’t even acting as a mother.
Acting.
Patti stood in the kitchen on the precipice of a huge panic attack. She wasn’t a professional. She wasn’t a wife, and didn’t especially want to be. She wasn’t even a mother anymore.
I’m just myself.
What did that even mean? Suddenly, by surprise, she had been stripped of what she knew herself to be and the stripping was too much.
“Get it together,” Patti said, and went to get her cigarettes and an ash tray before going upstairs. She went into the bathroom. It was large and white tiled with a clawfoot slipper shaped bathtub under a fanned window filled with sunlight. The place was clean, none of Thom’s underwear lying about or his shaving cream and facial hair all in the sink. None of his wet footprints on the tile. Patti prepared to draw a bath. She poured the bath foam in, and then the salts. It couldn’t be ready too soon.
Patti wondered if the womb felt like these warm soft waters. As she lit a cigarette she thought, “If this were really a womb, then I’d have to be completely submerged.” She pictured herself slipping all the way under the water, her gold brown curls bobbing on the surface, the last of the cigarette going beneath the bubbles with her. Then she imagined never coming up again, and she was shocked by how wonderful the idea seemed to her.
Patti sat up, because she realized the waters were to her chin. The reality was too close to the fantasy. Suddenly, as bright as the sun through the window came the truth. She had been unemployed for so long now because she had limited her search to the area. Couldn’t she get something at Notre Dame? Wouldn’t any university take her? She had resented Thom because he was an anchor, or a chain. But if she was divorcing him, she could go to Ann Arbor, to the University. She could do anything. What about Russell? Russell, having an adolescence neither she or Thom had had, hated his life, hated Geschichte Falls. He could get up and go anywhere with her. That seemed insensitive as soon as she’d said it, dragging her only child behind her the way Thom had done with her. But if Russell really didn’t want to go, he could always stay with Chayne.
No he couldn’t!
Why couldn’t he?
Because he’s not Chayne’s child! A child should be with his mother.
So the reason for this is just because he should be with me?
Yes.
If I left town, Russell would go on just fine. He doesn’t really need me or Thom does he?
No answer.
I could do anything!
Patti was aware that she had added the exclamation point. Suddenly the full horror of the truth was coming upon her. She didn’t have to move away to work at Notre Dame. It was only a little more than an hour away. She could teach a few days a week and commute. But this hardly mattered, even in graduate school she understood that the university didn’t hire its graduate students to go on teaching. They wanted their professors to come from elsewhere, and Geschichte Falls was not elsewhere.
She could work in Grand Rapids. She could even work at one of the little colleges around East Sequoia or Saint Gregory. But Patti suddenly knew why she hadn’t tried to get another job.
I’m afraid I won’t get it.
No.
I’m afraid I will get a new teaching job...
And I don’t want to teach anymore.
Well, ah, yes, there it was.
I do not want to teach anymore.
In the bathtub, in the large bathroom, Patti’s shoulders began shaking and he threw her head back and howled as her shoulders shook and salt tears ran into the bath water.
MORE TOMORROW
SECOND
CHANCE
The battered and faded red hatchback had already rolled up and down Curtain Street two or three times that Sunday morning when it came back down, stopped in front of 1421 Curtain Street and parked behind the hearse with a sputtering near-death rattle accompanied by a cloud of white exhaust. A tall woman with long, penny colored hair stepped out in sunshades, looked at the hearse, muttered, “He better not be dead,” then walked unsteadily up the walk, tested the door, looked around the nearly empty house, shouting, “Chayne! Chayne!” before walking to the sofa on the other side of the living room, shrugging and passing out.
“In some churches they’ve started putting the choir in the front where everyone can see them,” Chayne told Jackie Lewis. The two of them were looking over the railing of the choir loft down at the ten a.m. congregation of Saint Adjeanet’s.
“I’m so glad we don’t do that. I’m not sure I’d want the people to see us.”
“Are we that bad?” Jackie asked Chayne.
From below, Bill Dwyer, at the pulpit, informed the congregation, “Our offertory hymn is Number Forty-Nine. “Come Down, O Love, Divine”. Number Forty-Nine.”
Hannah’s began at the organ, and Chayne waited a few seconds for Russell to get up, but saw the boy was sitting around in jeans and a tee shirt, staring out of the large round window over the choir loft.
“Russell!” Chayne hissed as Hannah looked to Chayne, and finished with her intro, improvised a new one.
Russell turned to him.
“It’s your solo,” his aunt hissed.
“Oh.” Russell’s eyes widened in delayed reaction after the bland, “Oh,” and he came to stand over the balcony, where Chayne and Jackie were.
“Just because your mind is full of sex, this is not the time to fuck up your solo.”
Russell looked at Chayne, nodded his head, and then opened his mouth:
“Come down, O Love, Divine, seek Thou this soul of mine....”
“Chayne. He’s still married to my mom. Even if she did throw him out.”
Suddenly Russell stopped talking. Before the house, behind the hearse, was an old red hatchback.
“What the?” Chayne began, taking his hand from Russell’s back, and followed by the boy he went up the stairs and into the house to see the woman passed out on the couch.
Russell looked up at Chayne.
The woman, coming to consciousness, looked up at Chayne too, and with a crooked smile drawled, “Wazabi!” and then gave them a thumbs up and passed out again.
“Faye?” Russell moved to shake the woman.
“Shaken not stirred,” she mumbled, and then shook her head and sat up.
“Faye Matthison?” Russell tried the name again, the woman pushed a hand through her disheveled hair and took the glass of water Russell offered her.
“Chayne made this for you,” he said. “He’s in the kitchen. I’m Russell.”
“I’ve heard so much about you,” said Faye, sipping the water, frowning and saying, “Shit, I thought it was vodka.”
She began rummaging through her purse.
“I need a smoke. Sit by me, Russell,” she patted the couch to indicate where he should sit, and continued rummaging through her purse. “Chayne! Get your black ass out here! Um,” she said the last reflectively, to herself, “Found em,” and she took out her Newports.
When Chayne came out from the kitchen, he heard Faye saying, “So you found your dad fucking some slut on a table! Awful, honey, awful way to see your folks. The first time I saw my Father was on television. He was in handcuffs wearing a tutu, ballet slippers and push up bra. He’d been arrested for offering fellatio to a cop. That’s when I knew why Ma had never told me much about him. Chayne, Chayne, Chayne, Chayne of fools! What are you doing in that kitchen?”
“Trying to put together something decent for tonight’s meal.”
“Oh,” said Faye, “I guess I should get up and help you.”
“I guess you should.”
“Shit,” she blew out smoke and told Russell, “I didn’t know he’d call my bluff.”
“Well,” said Faye, as she stood up, stretching and cussing at her creaking bones, “We can stay here tonight, but we gotta be on the road in the morning.”
“On the Road?” started both Russell and Chayne.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Chayne, you called and said you were going to need to get your stuff out of the apartment, so I figured I’d come and get you now.”
“You’re going out East,” started Russell.
“I am?” Chayne looked from Russell to Faye. “Faye what inspired you to do this on this particular weekend?”
“I was sitting around my house,” said Faye, “and thought, shit, nothing else to do. Guess I’ll drive to Michigan. So here I am and here we go. In the morning.”
“I’m not just leaving Russell here,” Chayne said, forgetting or discounting that Russell had two parents in town.
Faye looked at the red headed boy and said, “Bring him with us.”
“He’ll miss school,” Chayne protested weakly.
“Oh, com’on,” Faye said, smiling at Chayne. “You and I both know that school is overrated.”
“And don’t forget, we’re going to Chicago Friday night,” Felice reminded her friend.
After Felice and Jackie left the house, Patti realized that she had the day to herself. Then she realized that since the junior college had been closed, she’d had the days to herself. She hadn’t looked on it that way before. Before she had been the professor turned housewife. The odd thing was that she didn’t mind making dinner for Russell or seeing after his needs. Being a mother had never made her feel less of a woman, and Russell had never really demanded much. She resented the frequent dinners for Thom, the elaborate spur of the moment affairs that she no longer had to worry about. There would be no Thom. She did not have until six o’clock to herself. Patti had the whole day and the next and the next to herself.
And Russell’s leaving had done a strange thing to her. She had not tried to stop him from leaving, had thought it best for him to be away from her craziness and with Chayne. She had missed her son, but not as much as she thought she would, and she realized that right now not only was she not a wife, she wasn’t even acting as a mother.
Acting.
Patti stood in the kitchen on the precipice of a huge panic attack. She wasn’t a professional. She wasn’t a wife, and didn’t especially want to be. She wasn’t even a mother anymore.
I’m just myself.
What did that even mean? Suddenly, by surprise, she had been stripped of what she knew herself to be and the stripping was too much.
“Get it together,” Patti said, and went to get her cigarettes and an ash tray before going upstairs. She went into the bathroom. It was large and white tiled with a clawfoot slipper shaped bathtub under a fanned window filled with sunlight. The place was clean, none of Thom’s underwear lying about or his shaving cream and facial hair all in the sink. None of his wet footprints on the tile. Patti prepared to draw a bath. She poured the bath foam in, and then the salts. It couldn’t be ready too soon.
Patti wondered if the womb felt like these warm soft waters. As she lit a cigarette she thought, “If this were really a womb, then I’d have to be completely submerged.” She pictured herself slipping all the way under the water, her gold brown curls bobbing on the surface, the last of the cigarette going beneath the bubbles with her. Then she imagined never coming up again, and she was shocked by how wonderful the idea seemed to her.
Patti sat up, because she realized the waters were to her chin. The reality was too close to the fantasy. Suddenly, as bright as the sun through the window came the truth. She had been unemployed for so long now because she had limited her search to the area. Couldn’t she get something at Notre Dame? Wouldn’t any university take her? She had resented Thom because he was an anchor, or a chain. But if she was divorcing him, she could go to Ann Arbor, to the University. She could do anything. What about Russell? Russell, having an adolescence neither she or Thom had had, hated his life, hated Geschichte Falls. He could get up and go anywhere with her. That seemed insensitive as soon as she’d said it, dragging her only child behind her the way Thom had done with her. But if Russell really didn’t want to go, he could always stay with Chayne.
No he couldn’t!
Why couldn’t he?
Because he’s not Chayne’s child! A child should be with his mother.
So the reason for this is just because he should be with me?
Yes.
If I left town, Russell would go on just fine. He doesn’t really need me or Thom does he?
No answer.
I could do anything!
Patti was aware that she had added the exclamation point. Suddenly the full horror of the truth was coming upon her. She didn’t have to move away to work at Notre Dame. It was only a little more than an hour away. She could teach a few days a week and commute. But this hardly mattered, even in graduate school she understood that the university didn’t hire its graduate students to go on teaching. They wanted their professors to come from elsewhere, and Geschichte Falls was not elsewhere.
She could work in Grand Rapids. She could even work at one of the little colleges around East Sequoia or Saint Gregory. But Patti suddenly knew why she hadn’t tried to get another job.
I’m afraid I won’t get it.
No.
I’m afraid I will get a new teaching job...
And I don’t want to teach anymore.
Well, ah, yes, there it was.
I do not want to teach anymore.
In the bathtub, in the large bathroom, Patti’s shoulders began shaking and he threw her head back and howled as her shoulders shook and salt tears ran into the bath water.
MORE TOMORROW
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Poor Patti! She is suffering too. She may not have always been there but it seems like she really cares about Russell. The whole situation is one big mess at the moment but I am enjoying it. Great writing and I look forward to more tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Patti is in a great deal of trouble, and this is one of the oldest parts of this story. It was never in the earlier versions you read. This is the first time I've gotten to concentrate on her.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
TONIGHT SPARKS FLY IN THE LEWIS HOUSEHOLD
It had been so long since she had cried. It was good to surrender to it. She wept while the specter of her fear grew larger before her. She wept until she was ready to stop, and then sniffed and sniffed and suddenly wept again. She wept loudly, softly, hoping it would end, hoping to get to the end of it, putting up no defenses. She wept over Thom’s ignoring her, she wept over the fact that he hadn’t even tried to speak to her. She wept over the fact that he had probably spent the weekend fucking Liz Parr. She wept from envy. She wept wondering what she had done wrong to turn him from what he’d once been to what he was now. She wept because Russell had left the house, and she was glad he had left because she wasn’t good for him now. Neither she nor Tom was. They were failures. She wept because for thirty-eight years her life had gone down the wrong path. She wept because the severance pay would run out sooner or later, perhaps sooner than it would take for her to find a right path. She was lost in the woods. There was no Hansel. The breadcrumbs were gone. Patricia Mc.Larchlahn was afraid.
She put on jeans and a sweatshirts, shades, and pulled a comb through her tangled hair. Patti got in the station wagon and drove to the grocery store. Afraid or not, depressed or not, she needed to eat, and if Russell should choose to come back tonight or tomorrow night or the next, then there had better be food in the refrigerator.
She was amazed that on a Monday mid-morning there would be this large of a crowd at the Kroger on East Side. She had to park near Bunting Street and walk across the entire lot.
The shopping was different this time. Patti didn’t get the usual red meats and potato mixes. She got some chickens. She went to the fish aisle for the first time since Lent. She bought fruit, weird things like kiwi and mango that never came inside 1735 Breckinridge. She delighted herself in the different colors of the fruits and, passing the floral section, found herself picturing a house full of flowers. Those hydrangeas would be beautiful on the coffee table, and imagine all those carnations in the window! And what was the harm in getting roses for herself?
And while she was at it. What was the harm in getting chocolate for herself? Fat wasn’t going to her hips. It never had. She’d hated her body in childhood, all of her Mc.Larchlahn cousins telling her she had the body of a boy, blah, blah, blah. But later in life it seemed to be to her benefit. Russell had been a hard birth, but there’d been no other children after Russell—not for lack of trying—and her body had recovered quickly.
She was thinking of this and many other things when she crashed, and heard a swear and a tumbling of cans.
Back in the present world Patti found herself helping a man pick up the pile of cans.
“I am so sorry,” she told him.
“It’s alright,” he shook his head. “It’s not every day I collide into a shopping cart driven by a beautiful woman.”
“It’s not today either,” Patti said, ruefully, handing him the last of the cans.
“Oh, yes,” he said earnestly, smiling at her. He was only a little taller than her, but this was amazing after eighteen years of Thom. “It is true.”
He looked right at her, down into her with bright greenish blue eyes and a very wide smile. He turned around ,and she was sorry for the turning, and went to put the cans in his cart.
Patti stood at her cart, rooted to the middle of the aisle, watching him, or the back of him, his easy stride, his broad, sloping shoulders, his blond hair.
“Excuse me,” she said, at last.
` He turned around with an uplifted eyebrow.
“Yes.”
“I’m a little bit out of practice,” Patti said. “But it seems like you were hitting on me.”
“I’m a little out of practice too,” he chuckled—that smile again—and wheeled his cart up beside hers. She saw he had a wedding ban on, and understood. Widowed.
“And yes, I was hitting on you.”
“Oh,” Patti said at last. Then turning from him, “Look, chocolate chips.” she scooped them into her cart too.
“Are you Saturday?” he asked, “Wait, I should introduce myself.”
As he took a hand through his hair, she noticed how there was a little part in his hair line and two gold wings waved down. “I’m Chuck Shrader.”
“Patti—” she started, extending her hand, “Patricia Mc.Larchlahn.”
“So, Patricia Mc.Larchlahn, are you free?”
“Uh.... Yes.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty?”
“Ahhhhh,” Patti tried to find her voice, smiled and said, “Yeah. Yes. Saturday night.”
“Saturday night,” Chuck echoed.
The two of them continued down opposite ends of the aisle, and then as both were about to turn in their own directions, they both turned around.
Patti stopped Chuck in the midst of preparing to speak.
“1735 Breckinridge Avenue.”
Chuck smiled, saluted her and bowing, turned on one heel and went down the aisle.
“Oh, Patti, your life is so exciting!” Jackie rejoiced, liberally splashing paint onto the easel.
“How do you figure?” said Patti, sitting on the steamer trunk, folding her legs under her.
“You’ve got severance pay to last you for a year. You’re thirty-eight, the age a lot of people are when they realize they’ve never lived, and you have lived! You’ve lived a lot! And now you’re getting ready to start a whole new phase of your life. At least you know you don’t want to go back to the old way, and now you can go do anything you want. You’ve got two Masters and a Ph.D for God’s sake.”
“I never thought of it that way.” Patti murmured.
“Well,” Jackie said, taking a cigarette between her lips, “You’ve got to honey.”
She lit the cigarette.
“And then add to it this man you’re going out with tonight. You just bump into him, give him your address and everything. You are so dangerous!” her sister-in-law exulted.
Patti hadn’t thought about that either.
“I mean, you could get raped or something!”
Patti stared at her sister in law.
“I mean, you probably won’t but…. Still… What an adventure!”
Patti stood observing her figure in the floor length mirror of the master bedroom. If Chuck had not said it she would not believe. Boys half her age had said it last night and she still hardly believed it. She was beautiful. She was here before her own image. She had ignored herself for so long and now she was embarrassed at the pride she had in her appearance. Her dark golden brown curls were shiny and springy. There was rosiness in her cheeks. She had looked like forty was supposed to feel this morning. Now she could pass for twenty-nine. Twenty-eight? She hadn’t worn this red dress, this splash of blood that stopped right at her knees, or these pumps that could slice oranges in a long time. She wanted to laugh at herself—with herself. Patti dared to toss her curls and laughed again.
In the middle of the next laugh, there was a rapid series of rings at the front door. Patti frowned and looked at the clock. This Chuck was not only early, but, she determined as the bell went on ringing, rude. She went down the hall and down the stairs carefully, getting accustomed to heels again, and answered the door to look down on the momentarily awed, and then suddenly enraged form of Thom Lewis.
Your husband...
What a depressing thought.
Thom couldn’t read her mind. He simply charged into the house shouting.
“Do you know where our child is?”
In the face of Thom Lewis’s rage, Patti raised an eloquent eyebrow and said, “Three blocks away on 1421 Curtain Street?”
“No, Patricia—he’s in MASSACHUSETTS !!!”
Patti’s eyes widened a little and Thom shoved the piece of paper he was carrying with him at her and said, “Read this. I went to go see Russell this afternoon and—”
“You never bothered to see him in the last fifteen years—”
“And when I got there I saw this note on the door. Read it.”
Patti shrugged and read.
Dear, Whomever,
We (Russell and myself) have gone out Eastfor the next few days to get my belongings from my old apartment. We are with my friend, Dr. Faye Matthison, all is well. We will be back by Wednesday,
Sincerely,
Chayne
“Oh, Faye Matthison,” said Patti. “she’s good. I read her book The Stone and—”
“Patti, what the hell kind of mother are you!” Thom snatched the piece of paper from her. “Your son’s off in Massachusetts when he should be in school, and you’re whored out in red and—”
“And you’re out of place.”
“Where’s your son, Patti?” Thom demanded, getting ugly as he tried to stare down his wife.
“Where is he? You haven’t even bothered to go over there. It doesn’t bother you that he just walked out of here! I come to tell you Russell’s gone and I find you dressed like a prostitute—”
“You wait a minute you short—little—fuck!”
Thom stopped.
“What I am doing is letting my son deal with his adolescence the way he needs to. I can’t help him right now. You’re useless as hell. You haven’t been any help. You’re not about to be. And while he’s dealing with his adolescence I’m dealing with my approaching middle age by going out—on a date—with a man. And not the old flame I had from college unlike you—who probably spent the entire weekend fucking her.
“And I threw you out. So get out.”
Thom stared at his wife. She looked down at him, and then he left. She closed the door, went into the dining room for the Scotch, poured herself a small glass and murmured, “To Massachusetts? Holy shit, Russell!”
MORE OF PATTI ON THURSDAY
It had been so long since she had cried. It was good to surrender to it. She wept while the specter of her fear grew larger before her. She wept until she was ready to stop, and then sniffed and sniffed and suddenly wept again. She wept loudly, softly, hoping it would end, hoping to get to the end of it, putting up no defenses. She wept over Thom’s ignoring her, she wept over the fact that he hadn’t even tried to speak to her. She wept over the fact that he had probably spent the weekend fucking Liz Parr. She wept from envy. She wept wondering what she had done wrong to turn him from what he’d once been to what he was now. She wept because Russell had left the house, and she was glad he had left because she wasn’t good for him now. Neither she nor Tom was. They were failures. She wept because for thirty-eight years her life had gone down the wrong path. She wept because the severance pay would run out sooner or later, perhaps sooner than it would take for her to find a right path. She was lost in the woods. There was no Hansel. The breadcrumbs were gone. Patricia Mc.Larchlahn was afraid.
She put on jeans and a sweatshirts, shades, and pulled a comb through her tangled hair. Patti got in the station wagon and drove to the grocery store. Afraid or not, depressed or not, she needed to eat, and if Russell should choose to come back tonight or tomorrow night or the next, then there had better be food in the refrigerator.
She was amazed that on a Monday mid-morning there would be this large of a crowd at the Kroger on East Side. She had to park near Bunting Street and walk across the entire lot.
The shopping was different this time. Patti didn’t get the usual red meats and potato mixes. She got some chickens. She went to the fish aisle for the first time since Lent. She bought fruit, weird things like kiwi and mango that never came inside 1735 Breckinridge. She delighted herself in the different colors of the fruits and, passing the floral section, found herself picturing a house full of flowers. Those hydrangeas would be beautiful on the coffee table, and imagine all those carnations in the window! And what was the harm in getting roses for herself?
And while she was at it. What was the harm in getting chocolate for herself? Fat wasn’t going to her hips. It never had. She’d hated her body in childhood, all of her Mc.Larchlahn cousins telling her she had the body of a boy, blah, blah, blah. But later in life it seemed to be to her benefit. Russell had been a hard birth, but there’d been no other children after Russell—not for lack of trying—and her body had recovered quickly.
She was thinking of this and many other things when she crashed, and heard a swear and a tumbling of cans.
Back in the present world Patti found herself helping a man pick up the pile of cans.
“I am so sorry,” she told him.
“It’s alright,” he shook his head. “It’s not every day I collide into a shopping cart driven by a beautiful woman.”
“It’s not today either,” Patti said, ruefully, handing him the last of the cans.
“Oh, yes,” he said earnestly, smiling at her. He was only a little taller than her, but this was amazing after eighteen years of Thom. “It is true.”
He looked right at her, down into her with bright greenish blue eyes and a very wide smile. He turned around ,and she was sorry for the turning, and went to put the cans in his cart.
Patti stood at her cart, rooted to the middle of the aisle, watching him, or the back of him, his easy stride, his broad, sloping shoulders, his blond hair.
“Excuse me,” she said, at last.
` He turned around with an uplifted eyebrow.
“Yes.”
“I’m a little bit out of practice,” Patti said. “But it seems like you were hitting on me.”
“I’m a little out of practice too,” he chuckled—that smile again—and wheeled his cart up beside hers. She saw he had a wedding ban on, and understood. Widowed.
“And yes, I was hitting on you.”
“Oh,” Patti said at last. Then turning from him, “Look, chocolate chips.” she scooped them into her cart too.
“Are you Saturday?” he asked, “Wait, I should introduce myself.”
As he took a hand through his hair, she noticed how there was a little part in his hair line and two gold wings waved down. “I’m Chuck Shrader.”
“Patti—” she started, extending her hand, “Patricia Mc.Larchlahn.”
“So, Patricia Mc.Larchlahn, are you free?”
“Uh.... Yes.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty?”
“Ahhhhh,” Patti tried to find her voice, smiled and said, “Yeah. Yes. Saturday night.”
“Saturday night,” Chuck echoed.
The two of them continued down opposite ends of the aisle, and then as both were about to turn in their own directions, they both turned around.
Patti stopped Chuck in the midst of preparing to speak.
“1735 Breckinridge Avenue.”
Chuck smiled, saluted her and bowing, turned on one heel and went down the aisle.
“Oh, Patti, your life is so exciting!” Jackie rejoiced, liberally splashing paint onto the easel.
“How do you figure?” said Patti, sitting on the steamer trunk, folding her legs under her.
“You’ve got severance pay to last you for a year. You’re thirty-eight, the age a lot of people are when they realize they’ve never lived, and you have lived! You’ve lived a lot! And now you’re getting ready to start a whole new phase of your life. At least you know you don’t want to go back to the old way, and now you can go do anything you want. You’ve got two Masters and a Ph.D for God’s sake.”
“I never thought of it that way.” Patti murmured.
“Well,” Jackie said, taking a cigarette between her lips, “You’ve got to honey.”
She lit the cigarette.
“And then add to it this man you’re going out with tonight. You just bump into him, give him your address and everything. You are so dangerous!” her sister-in-law exulted.
Patti hadn’t thought about that either.
“I mean, you could get raped or something!”
Patti stared at her sister in law.
“I mean, you probably won’t but…. Still… What an adventure!”
Patti stood observing her figure in the floor length mirror of the master bedroom. If Chuck had not said it she would not believe. Boys half her age had said it last night and she still hardly believed it. She was beautiful. She was here before her own image. She had ignored herself for so long and now she was embarrassed at the pride she had in her appearance. Her dark golden brown curls were shiny and springy. There was rosiness in her cheeks. She had looked like forty was supposed to feel this morning. Now she could pass for twenty-nine. Twenty-eight? She hadn’t worn this red dress, this splash of blood that stopped right at her knees, or these pumps that could slice oranges in a long time. She wanted to laugh at herself—with herself. Patti dared to toss her curls and laughed again.
In the middle of the next laugh, there was a rapid series of rings at the front door. Patti frowned and looked at the clock. This Chuck was not only early, but, she determined as the bell went on ringing, rude. She went down the hall and down the stairs carefully, getting accustomed to heels again, and answered the door to look down on the momentarily awed, and then suddenly enraged form of Thom Lewis.
Your husband...
What a depressing thought.
Thom couldn’t read her mind. He simply charged into the house shouting.
“Do you know where our child is?”
In the face of Thom Lewis’s rage, Patti raised an eloquent eyebrow and said, “Three blocks away on 1421 Curtain Street?”
“No, Patricia—he’s in MASSACHUSETTS !!!”
Patti’s eyes widened a little and Thom shoved the piece of paper he was carrying with him at her and said, “Read this. I went to go see Russell this afternoon and—”
“You never bothered to see him in the last fifteen years—”
“And when I got there I saw this note on the door. Read it.”
Patti shrugged and read.
Dear, Whomever,
We (Russell and myself) have gone out Eastfor the next few days to get my belongings from my old apartment. We are with my friend, Dr. Faye Matthison, all is well. We will be back by Wednesday,
Sincerely,
Chayne
“Oh, Faye Matthison,” said Patti. “she’s good. I read her book The Stone and—”
“Patti, what the hell kind of mother are you!” Thom snatched the piece of paper from her. “Your son’s off in Massachusetts when he should be in school, and you’re whored out in red and—”
“And you’re out of place.”
“Where’s your son, Patti?” Thom demanded, getting ugly as he tried to stare down his wife.
“Where is he? You haven’t even bothered to go over there. It doesn’t bother you that he just walked out of here! I come to tell you Russell’s gone and I find you dressed like a prostitute—”
“You wait a minute you short—little—fuck!”
Thom stopped.
“What I am doing is letting my son deal with his adolescence the way he needs to. I can’t help him right now. You’re useless as hell. You haven’t been any help. You’re not about to be. And while he’s dealing with his adolescence I’m dealing with my approaching middle age by going out—on a date—with a man. And not the old flame I had from college unlike you—who probably spent the entire weekend fucking her.
“And I threw you out. So get out.”
Thom stared at his wife. She looked down at him, and then he left. She closed the door, went into the dining room for the Scotch, poured herself a small glass and murmured, “To Massachusetts? Holy shit, Russell!”
MORE OF PATTI ON THURSDAY
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
I am glad Patti stood up to Thom! I know they have both screwed up as parents but it’s definitely not all Patti’s fault. Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Yes, one thing I didn't see, or forgot to see, is that Patti hasn't been a perfect parent. But I will say this, she is a parent as much as anyone else. And she has needed to stand up to Thom.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
PATTI GOES ON A DATE, THOM GOES ON A RAMPAGE, CHUCK GOES ON ABOUT PATTI AND CHAYNE SHOWS THOM THE DOOR.
Patti was halfway through the glass of Scotch when there was a ring at the door, and her eyes flew open. She looked down at the glass. started to place it on the coffee table, was afraid of making a ring, and placed it on the carpet, and then went to the door.
“Chuck!” she said, immediately aware of the power of her breath.
“You look,” he started, that smile spreading across his face, “beautiful! Are you ready? I left the car on.”
“Yes,” said Patti. “Do you have a stick of gum?”
Chuck looked at her with a raised eyebrow as she locked the door and they both set out down the walk.
“My almost ex-husband came by,” he might as well know about Thom, “and his leaving required a drink.”
Chuck looked bemused, he blew out his cheeks, nodded his head and said, “I think some gum can be arranged.”
“I thought he was you,” Patti said, “when he rang the doorbell.”
Chuck opened the car door for her. She smiled and murmured, “A gentleman!”
“As long as I get some tonight.”
Patti looked at him.
“Oh my God, it was a joke and a bad one. I’m out of practice with the etiquette of humor on a first date.”
“Too bad,” she said, putting on her seat belt before Chuck closed her door and went around to the other side. “I was thinking of saying yes.”
He rounded the car and got in, laughing.
Patti said, “It’s been a while for me too.”
“So you were married too?” Patti said over dessert.
“Um hum,” Chuck nodded.
“Divorced?”
“She died,” Chuck told her.
“Oh, my God,”
“It was a little over two years ago,” Chuck said.
“Her name was Jane. Nice sensible name. But she was just... wild. And fun and crazy. You remind me of her. Except, she had long golden hair, not just blond, golden, and these beautiful green eyes,”
“She looked like you,”
Chuck gave her a funny look, and then nodded reflectively and said, “People did call us the Twins sometimes. I guess we did look alike.”
“You loved her a lot.”
Chuck nodded.
“So much you’re still wearing your ring.”
Chuck looked at his finger, and then, puzzled, said, “Does it offend you?”
“No,” Patti shook her head with a slow certainty, taking a sip of wine. “I think it’s very... sweet. Not the way that people mean when they say, ‘Isn’t that cute?’ but really, really sweet.”
“Tell me about your husband. Soon to be Ex.”
“Oh,” Patti shook her head. “There’s nothing glamorous to tell you.”
“I guess that’s why he’s almsot the ex?”
Patti laughed and nodded ruefully.
“He didn’t leave me,” Patti said. “I should probably just say that now. I threw him out.”
“Before you throw me out, too, why don’t you tell me what he did.”
Patti sighed, “I had not planned to talk about Thom, tonight.”
“Well then don’t,” Chuck shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Patti put out a hand. “It’s partly my fault. I think. I guess it’s always partly your fault. Thom and I used to be in love—obviously. He was my husband. And when we married I was doing graduate studies, and he was a senior, and then our son was born and I went from graduate work to teaching. I earned my doctorate, started teaching. I was really the one supporting the family, and I felt bad about that because Thom didn’t have a chance to shine, and I wanted him to. We moved back here, where Thom grew up. I took a job at the little junior college. Thom got a nice job in Grand Rapids, and when he got that job, that’s when he started to change. He got a life, and he got influence at our church, and his life wasn’t me or the family. I kind of let that slip by. I let Thom become Thom.
“And Thom becoming Thom didn’t matter until I lost my job. Then it hurt, because it was then I realized that he’d pushed me—and Russell—to the back of his life. It wasn’t our life anymore. He’d do things like call from the office and say, ‘I’m bringing home six of my closest friends, why don’t you whip something together nice.’ And I would. I tried to talk to him gently, and sometimes loudly. But it was just like he was incapable of listening. I needed someone there. Russell was it, and I was not about to make my only child my sounding board, not with the troubles boys have already.
“So one night, about two weeks ago, I was sleeping on the couch when I woke up and realized that things couldn’t go on this way, and if Thom wouldn’t hear me, then Thom had to go.”
Chuck Shrader was looking at Patti intently, and Patti was afraid that maybe he was judging her a failure. She was waiting for him to speak.
“It is a terrible thing,” Chuck Shrader said, at last, “to be ignored.”
It was still warm at eleven o’clock when Chuck brought Patti to the doorstep.
“It’s getting to be my bedtime,” he told her, stifling a yawn. “This was such a pleasure... But I’ve gotta be up early.”
“For work.”
“For school?”
Patti looked at him puzzled, “I don’t even know what you do.”
“Then we’ve got lots to discuss on our next date. I’m a school teacher. Not a lofty professor such as thou art? Thou art? Was that correct?”
“I’m a doctor of sociology, check with someone in English.”
Chuck laughed, taking Patti’s hand. “I teach at Our Lady of Mercy.”
Patti snatched her hand away, “My son goes there!”
“He does? Russell’s his name?”
“Russell Lewis—” Patti watched something in Chuck’s face. “Am I dating one of my son’s teachers?”
“No,” Chuck shook his head, looking mystified. “I know who he is. That’s all.”
“Is Russell famous?”
Chuck smiled and said, “You might say that.”
“So is it serious?” Felice demanded the next morning over coffee.
“It was just one date,” Patti said. “What does that mean?”
“Did he kiss you?” Jackie asked, her eyes lighting up as she rubbed her hands together.
“No.”
“What!” Felice was unimpressed and indignant.
“He is a respectable man,” Patti said. “He’s a widower. And a schoolteacher.”
“Then he likes kids,” Jackie nodded in approval. “Does he have any?”
“No,” Patti said, “and he teaches at Russell’s high school.”
“That is so...” Jackie shivered, “storybook.”
“So, how was the big date last night?” Jeff Cordino demanded, ribbing Chuck.
“She’s incredible,” Chuck confided, smiling broadly in his classroom. The students were coming in. Chuck Shrader became quieter. “And you’ll never guess who she was?”
“The Duchess of York?”
“Close...” Chuck said, “but even better. She’s your Russell’s mom.”
“What!” Jeff’s eyes flew open.
“Something wrong, Jeffy boy?” the older man patted his friend on the shoulder.
Jeff recovered, knowing that the students would be watching, and listening.
“I knew that Russell’s parents were having problems. I knew that they were splitting up. I—this means it’s serious.”
“I kind of hope it is. Patti’s a great woman.”
“She is,” Jeff nodded vacantly. “I don’t know her as well as I should. But her hus—almost ex, whatever—Thom. He’s my confirmation sponsor.”
“Shit, Jeff!”
“Thom doesn’t really tell me everything,” Jeff said. “So I didn’t know how... things had fallen apart.”
“Is he your friend?” Chuck asked with concern.
“Russell—”
“No,” Chuck shook his head with a little impatience. “This Thom? Thom Lewis?”
Jeff Cordino’s mouth was open a little as he tried to come up with an answer.
“I—ah... Yes. He is.”
“Now what we need,” said Faye, at the other end of the desk she and Chayne were bringing through the front door, “is a literary society! Where do you want this?”
“In front of the window.”
“Good idea. Speaking of good ideas, was it really a good idea to send Russell to school today?”
“It was his choice,” Chayne shrugged after they put down the desk. He sighed and looked out of the window where the yellow box of a Ryder truck peeked up over the shurbbery. “I guess being away for the better part of a week made him want to go.”
Chayne looked around the living room that was still pretty much empty and said, “with the stuff we brought back, I may not even have to get Grandma’s stuff out of storage.”
“Did you really throw down all of your money on this house and tell your parents you were taking it?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, but yes.”
“That’s beautiful.”
This literary society you’re talking about—”
“For a little podunk town it’s a lot of writers here, and doctors and musicians and stuff like that,” said Faye.
“That’s true. And a lot of artists. But my question was... how long are you going to be here?”
“Are you trying to throw me out?”
“Not at all.”
“I think I’ll stay a week or so,” Faye said. “Because I’m Faye Matthison and I can do stuff like that.”
“Well can you help me bring in that sofa, Faye Matthison?”
After swearing, Faye said she could.
They had both collapsed on the sofa when Chayne asked Faye how she was going to form this literary society.
She took a hand through her tired hair and smiling said, “My feminine wiles!”
Then, “Oh, shit.”
“Um?”
“I might have to use my feminine wiles on that angry little man coming up the stairs.”
“What?” Chayne started, wearily, and looked out of the large picture window to see Thom Lewis.
“Oh, shit,” Chayne muttered, and then there was a pounding on the door.
“He’s rude,” Faye commented.
Chayne got up as the door held up under Thom Lewis’s assault and then Chayne was standing before Thom.
“Yes?” Chayne said calmly, looking Thom up and down.
“I want to see my son.”
“He’s at school—with it beign eleven a.m. and him being a fifteen year old. Speaking of it being eleven a.m., shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Don’t you tell me what I ought to be doing!” Thom said, pushing his way into the house. “What you shouldn’t be doing is carting my child around the country with you. And let me remind you, though you never seem to remember this and no one has a problem with you forgetting it: he is my child?”
“Really?” Chayne said calmly. “The way that’s my couch, the way that’s my desk and that’s my easy chair. The way Patti’s your wife—oh, wait a minute—”
“You’re an asshole!” Thom hissed.
“You really need to get the fuck out of my face.”
Thom looked like he was contemplating hitting Chayne, and Chayne was filled with rage looking at Thom. He could only swallow and swallow and try to pray.
Suddenly, Thom shouted, “He’s my son! Not your’s Chayne! He’s my Son! Russell’s mine and I’m his father no matter how much you pretend you’re his dad—”
Chayne laughed and said, “Now you hold on a minute, Thom Lewis.”
“Chayne—”
“I said hold,” he lifted a finger, “on.”
“And when he says hold on—” started Faye from the sofa.
“Faye! Thom. Now if I wanted a son I would have had one by now. I know I’m not Russell’s father, and wouldn’t want to be. That’s your job, but it’s one you’ve been neglecting for a long time. And I never turned Russell against you. In fact, when he didn’t want to go see you, I made him go to Jackie’s apartment.”
“Then why didn’t he come?”
Chayne’s eyes went wide. He was about to come up with an answer when Thom continued, “Because you’ve always got to shine and be amazing and be Chayne and have everybody love you and make a name for yourself. You’ve got to be better than everyone even if it’s me, even if it means making me look like nothing in the eyes of my son next to you.”
“You think I’m jealous of you?” Chayne asked.
Thom was quiet, and then he said, “Yes... Chayne. I think you are. I think you want to be Russell’s father, and you’re not.”
“Would you like to hear something?”
“No, Chayne, I would not. I don’t want to hear a damn thing you have to say.”
“You haven’t in fifteen years. “
“That’s right,” said Thom.
“Well then you can get out.”
“You just take him to Chicago like me and Patti don’t mean anything, like we don’t know how to raise a child—”
“That’s right, now turn around and get out.”
Thom stood there facing Chayne.
“Get out, Thom.”
Thom breathed in, and then turned around and left.
He had not gone so far down the path that as Chayne shut the door he couldn’t hear the other man murmur, “Asshole.”
MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND.
Patti was halfway through the glass of Scotch when there was a ring at the door, and her eyes flew open. She looked down at the glass. started to place it on the coffee table, was afraid of making a ring, and placed it on the carpet, and then went to the door.
“Chuck!” she said, immediately aware of the power of her breath.
“You look,” he started, that smile spreading across his face, “beautiful! Are you ready? I left the car on.”
“Yes,” said Patti. “Do you have a stick of gum?”
Chuck looked at her with a raised eyebrow as she locked the door and they both set out down the walk.
“My almost ex-husband came by,” he might as well know about Thom, “and his leaving required a drink.”
Chuck looked bemused, he blew out his cheeks, nodded his head and said, “I think some gum can be arranged.”
“I thought he was you,” Patti said, “when he rang the doorbell.”
Chuck opened the car door for her. She smiled and murmured, “A gentleman!”
“As long as I get some tonight.”
Patti looked at him.
“Oh my God, it was a joke and a bad one. I’m out of practice with the etiquette of humor on a first date.”
“Too bad,” she said, putting on her seat belt before Chuck closed her door and went around to the other side. “I was thinking of saying yes.”
He rounded the car and got in, laughing.
Patti said, “It’s been a while for me too.”
“So you were married too?” Patti said over dessert.
“Um hum,” Chuck nodded.
“Divorced?”
“She died,” Chuck told her.
“Oh, my God,”
“It was a little over two years ago,” Chuck said.
“Her name was Jane. Nice sensible name. But she was just... wild. And fun and crazy. You remind me of her. Except, she had long golden hair, not just blond, golden, and these beautiful green eyes,”
“She looked like you,”
Chuck gave her a funny look, and then nodded reflectively and said, “People did call us the Twins sometimes. I guess we did look alike.”
“You loved her a lot.”
Chuck nodded.
“So much you’re still wearing your ring.”
Chuck looked at his finger, and then, puzzled, said, “Does it offend you?”
“No,” Patti shook her head with a slow certainty, taking a sip of wine. “I think it’s very... sweet. Not the way that people mean when they say, ‘Isn’t that cute?’ but really, really sweet.”
“Tell me about your husband. Soon to be Ex.”
“Oh,” Patti shook her head. “There’s nothing glamorous to tell you.”
“I guess that’s why he’s almsot the ex?”
Patti laughed and nodded ruefully.
“He didn’t leave me,” Patti said. “I should probably just say that now. I threw him out.”
“Before you throw me out, too, why don’t you tell me what he did.”
Patti sighed, “I had not planned to talk about Thom, tonight.”
“Well then don’t,” Chuck shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
“No,” Patti put out a hand. “It’s partly my fault. I think. I guess it’s always partly your fault. Thom and I used to be in love—obviously. He was my husband. And when we married I was doing graduate studies, and he was a senior, and then our son was born and I went from graduate work to teaching. I earned my doctorate, started teaching. I was really the one supporting the family, and I felt bad about that because Thom didn’t have a chance to shine, and I wanted him to. We moved back here, where Thom grew up. I took a job at the little junior college. Thom got a nice job in Grand Rapids, and when he got that job, that’s when he started to change. He got a life, and he got influence at our church, and his life wasn’t me or the family. I kind of let that slip by. I let Thom become Thom.
“And Thom becoming Thom didn’t matter until I lost my job. Then it hurt, because it was then I realized that he’d pushed me—and Russell—to the back of his life. It wasn’t our life anymore. He’d do things like call from the office and say, ‘I’m bringing home six of my closest friends, why don’t you whip something together nice.’ And I would. I tried to talk to him gently, and sometimes loudly. But it was just like he was incapable of listening. I needed someone there. Russell was it, and I was not about to make my only child my sounding board, not with the troubles boys have already.
“So one night, about two weeks ago, I was sleeping on the couch when I woke up and realized that things couldn’t go on this way, and if Thom wouldn’t hear me, then Thom had to go.”
Chuck Shrader was looking at Patti intently, and Patti was afraid that maybe he was judging her a failure. She was waiting for him to speak.
“It is a terrible thing,” Chuck Shrader said, at last, “to be ignored.”
It was still warm at eleven o’clock when Chuck brought Patti to the doorstep.
“It’s getting to be my bedtime,” he told her, stifling a yawn. “This was such a pleasure... But I’ve gotta be up early.”
“For work.”
“For school?”
Patti looked at him puzzled, “I don’t even know what you do.”
“Then we’ve got lots to discuss on our next date. I’m a school teacher. Not a lofty professor such as thou art? Thou art? Was that correct?”
“I’m a doctor of sociology, check with someone in English.”
Chuck laughed, taking Patti’s hand. “I teach at Our Lady of Mercy.”
Patti snatched her hand away, “My son goes there!”
“He does? Russell’s his name?”
“Russell Lewis—” Patti watched something in Chuck’s face. “Am I dating one of my son’s teachers?”
“No,” Chuck shook his head, looking mystified. “I know who he is. That’s all.”
“Is Russell famous?”
Chuck smiled and said, “You might say that.”
“So is it serious?” Felice demanded the next morning over coffee.
“It was just one date,” Patti said. “What does that mean?”
“Did he kiss you?” Jackie asked, her eyes lighting up as she rubbed her hands together.
“No.”
“What!” Felice was unimpressed and indignant.
“He is a respectable man,” Patti said. “He’s a widower. And a schoolteacher.”
“Then he likes kids,” Jackie nodded in approval. “Does he have any?”
“No,” Patti said, “and he teaches at Russell’s high school.”
“That is so...” Jackie shivered, “storybook.”
“So, how was the big date last night?” Jeff Cordino demanded, ribbing Chuck.
“She’s incredible,” Chuck confided, smiling broadly in his classroom. The students were coming in. Chuck Shrader became quieter. “And you’ll never guess who she was?”
“The Duchess of York?”
“Close...” Chuck said, “but even better. She’s your Russell’s mom.”
“What!” Jeff’s eyes flew open.
“Something wrong, Jeffy boy?” the older man patted his friend on the shoulder.
Jeff recovered, knowing that the students would be watching, and listening.
“I knew that Russell’s parents were having problems. I knew that they were splitting up. I—this means it’s serious.”
“I kind of hope it is. Patti’s a great woman.”
“She is,” Jeff nodded vacantly. “I don’t know her as well as I should. But her hus—almost ex, whatever—Thom. He’s my confirmation sponsor.”
“Shit, Jeff!”
“Thom doesn’t really tell me everything,” Jeff said. “So I didn’t know how... things had fallen apart.”
“Is he your friend?” Chuck asked with concern.
“Russell—”
“No,” Chuck shook his head with a little impatience. “This Thom? Thom Lewis?”
Jeff Cordino’s mouth was open a little as he tried to come up with an answer.
“I—ah... Yes. He is.”
“Now what we need,” said Faye, at the other end of the desk she and Chayne were bringing through the front door, “is a literary society! Where do you want this?”
“In front of the window.”
“Good idea. Speaking of good ideas, was it really a good idea to send Russell to school today?”
“It was his choice,” Chayne shrugged after they put down the desk. He sighed and looked out of the window where the yellow box of a Ryder truck peeked up over the shurbbery. “I guess being away for the better part of a week made him want to go.”
Chayne looked around the living room that was still pretty much empty and said, “with the stuff we brought back, I may not even have to get Grandma’s stuff out of storage.”
“Did you really throw down all of your money on this house and tell your parents you were taking it?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, but yes.”
“That’s beautiful.”
This literary society you’re talking about—”
“For a little podunk town it’s a lot of writers here, and doctors and musicians and stuff like that,” said Faye.
“That’s true. And a lot of artists. But my question was... how long are you going to be here?”
“Are you trying to throw me out?”
“Not at all.”
“I think I’ll stay a week or so,” Faye said. “Because I’m Faye Matthison and I can do stuff like that.”
“Well can you help me bring in that sofa, Faye Matthison?”
After swearing, Faye said she could.
They had both collapsed on the sofa when Chayne asked Faye how she was going to form this literary society.
She took a hand through her tired hair and smiling said, “My feminine wiles!”
Then, “Oh, shit.”
“Um?”
“I might have to use my feminine wiles on that angry little man coming up the stairs.”
“What?” Chayne started, wearily, and looked out of the large picture window to see Thom Lewis.
“Oh, shit,” Chayne muttered, and then there was a pounding on the door.
“He’s rude,” Faye commented.
Chayne got up as the door held up under Thom Lewis’s assault and then Chayne was standing before Thom.
“Yes?” Chayne said calmly, looking Thom up and down.
“I want to see my son.”
“He’s at school—with it beign eleven a.m. and him being a fifteen year old. Speaking of it being eleven a.m., shouldn’t you be at work?”
“Don’t you tell me what I ought to be doing!” Thom said, pushing his way into the house. “What you shouldn’t be doing is carting my child around the country with you. And let me remind you, though you never seem to remember this and no one has a problem with you forgetting it: he is my child?”
“Really?” Chayne said calmly. “The way that’s my couch, the way that’s my desk and that’s my easy chair. The way Patti’s your wife—oh, wait a minute—”
“You’re an asshole!” Thom hissed.
“You really need to get the fuck out of my face.”
Thom looked like he was contemplating hitting Chayne, and Chayne was filled with rage looking at Thom. He could only swallow and swallow and try to pray.
Suddenly, Thom shouted, “He’s my son! Not your’s Chayne! He’s my Son! Russell’s mine and I’m his father no matter how much you pretend you’re his dad—”
Chayne laughed and said, “Now you hold on a minute, Thom Lewis.”
“Chayne—”
“I said hold,” he lifted a finger, “on.”
“And when he says hold on—” started Faye from the sofa.
“Faye! Thom. Now if I wanted a son I would have had one by now. I know I’m not Russell’s father, and wouldn’t want to be. That’s your job, but it’s one you’ve been neglecting for a long time. And I never turned Russell against you. In fact, when he didn’t want to go see you, I made him go to Jackie’s apartment.”
“Then why didn’t he come?”
Chayne’s eyes went wide. He was about to come up with an answer when Thom continued, “Because you’ve always got to shine and be amazing and be Chayne and have everybody love you and make a name for yourself. You’ve got to be better than everyone even if it’s me, even if it means making me look like nothing in the eyes of my son next to you.”
“You think I’m jealous of you?” Chayne asked.
Thom was quiet, and then he said, “Yes... Chayne. I think you are. I think you want to be Russell’s father, and you’re not.”
“Would you like to hear something?”
“No, Chayne, I would not. I don’t want to hear a damn thing you have to say.”
“You haven’t in fifteen years. “
“That’s right,” said Thom.
“Well then you can get out.”
“You just take him to Chicago like me and Patti don’t mean anything, like we don’t know how to raise a child—”
“That’s right, now turn around and get out.”
Thom stood there facing Chayne.
“Get out, Thom.”
Thom breathed in, and then turned around and left.
He had not gone so far down the path that as Chayne shut the door he couldn’t hear the other man murmur, “Asshole.”
MORE AFTER THE WEEKEND.
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
Wow Thom really hasn’t caught on to what a bad father he has been. Good on Chayne for standing up to him. I don’t know if Thom can be redeemed with the way he is at the moment but I’ll have to wait and see. Excellent writing and I look forward to more in a few days.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Thom has been a bad father, but I am really thinking of him as a bad husband, which is what Patti was concerned about, and in some ways, as just a bad person, and its hard to be good when you've been a chump for so long.
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER FIVE
“So did they do it?”
“Chip!” Jackie stood up so quickly that she almost hit her head on the stove as she pulled out the roast.
“What?” Chip grumbled, pulling on his goatee. Thom, on the other side of the poker table Jackie was using for a dining room table, remained poker faced.
“Well, Chip, I don’t know what Patti and this man did.”
“And I don’t know why you’d ask that,” Jackie said, backhanding Chip in the head as she opened the refrigerator and began pulling out the salad dressing, the mayonaisse, ketchup, mustard.
“Because it’s inevitable,” Chip said, smirking. “If people are together they’re bound to have sex.”
Thom shot his sister a glance, Jackie ignored it and shot Chip a glance.
“I know being with me hasn’t taught you that.” The microwave went off.
“Thom, get the potatoes out.”
She was still eyeing Chip.
“Well,” said Chip, “Not yet. I’m being patient, Baby,” he moved to grab Jackie’s ass, she moved away.
“Not ever if you keep that up.”
“Jackie, would you do me a favor?” Thom asked after Chip had left.
“Get rid of Chip and find someone new?”
“Well, that would be doing yourself a favor,” Thom tried to jest, but after one look from Jackie, he wiped the smile from his face.
“I wanted to know if you would call Chayne’s house.”
“Why?”
“So you could ask for Russell so I could speak to him.”
“Why don’t you just call?”
“Jackie, don’t be difficult.”
“Fine,” Jackie put up a hand, “I won’t ask. I’ll just dial.”
Thom heard Jackie say, “Chayne. It’s Jackie. Thom wants to talk to Russell—”
“Jackie!”
“But he’s afraid to talk to you, so he had me call. Would you bring my nephew to the phone? Thanks, darlin’.”
Jackie cradled the phone in the crook of her neck, ignoring Thom and then said, at last, “Hey, Russell. Yeah. Yeah,” and gave the phone to her scowling brother.
Thom immediately brightened, “Hey-ah, Russell!”
“Hi, Dad,” Russell sounded dull. Thom, who had picked up on so little for so long, picked up on this.
“How are you? I just wanted to talk to you.”
“I’m fine, Dad.”
“Doin’ good in school?”
“Good enough.”
Silence.
“Ah, what are you doing this weekend, Russell?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wanna go out? Why don’t we go out?”
There was a space, and then Russell said, “Ah... alright.”
“I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock. Is nine too early?”
“No, Dad.”
“Great.”
Thom ignored the flatness in his son’s voice.
At 1421 Curtain Street, Russell hung up the phone and asked Chayne. “What was that all about?”
He and Faye were sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea.
“It’s simple,” Chayne said. “He loves you.”
Russell leaned his back against the sink, pressing the palms of his hands on the counter.
“I already went to see him,” Russell said.
Faye and Chayne said nothing.
“Do I have to see him?” Russell asked Chayne.
“No, Russell. No, you don’t.”
Russell went out walking. Like the Breckinridge, the Curtain was the neighborhood around the street as well as the brick street’s name. It was just cool enough for Russell to wrap himself in a large flannel as he went down the street, the crickets chirping in his ears. The little houses of the Curtain spaced out, and then, a block later, became ranches as the street widened out, and he was walking on Breckinridge Avenue. The laughter of the last of the children playing was in his ears. The wind blew his hair. When he looked up, the sky was a deeply polished blue, and the stars twinkled. Russell could see one over his house, winking brightly. He imagined it was the North Star, but who could be sure? A Boy Scout. He’d only been one for a year, and he’d never earned a badge.
Of course he didn’t knock, and when he walked into his own house, Russell was surprised by the sound of laughter, by the candlelight from the table, by his mother’s laughter and her beauty and the man.
“Russell!” she said, gaily, then at the look on his face, rising up. “Russell.”
Russell was looking at the man. Now he was sure it was Mr. Shrader.
“I could leave,” Chuck offered.
“No,” it was Russell who spoke.
“Do you want to talk to me, Russell?”
Russell took a breath, assessed the situation, and then said, “Just for a second.”
“Russell, this is Chuck. Chuck Shrader. He says he knows you.”
“Russell,” Chuck beamed. “Jeff Cordino’s told me a lot about you. Your mom’s told me a lot about you,” he offered his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
Russell shook Chuck’s hand. It felt odd. He thought he should have resented Chuck Shrader, but he seemed like a good man. He’d never paid Chuck Shrader much attention in school, but up close, he seemed good.
“I’ll let you and your mom talk now. Are you sure you don’t want me to go?”
And the thing that made Russell say “No, stay,” was that Chuck’s blue-green eyes had asked him the question, asked him earnestly, respected him.
“Russell,” Patti said once again, now that they were in the kitchen.
“You look really beautiful, Mom,” Russell said, as surprised as she was. And he thought she smelled beautiful, and she looked happy. The house looked beautiful and happy as well.
Patti threw back her head and laughed, “I thank you, Russell, but I can guess that’s not what you came to tell me. And...” she added. “I can guess that you didn’t expect to find Chuck here.”
“Ah, no,” Russell admitted truthfully. “I came because Dad called tonight, and he wants me to go out with him this Saturday.”
“And you don’t want to?”
“No.”
“Oh, Russell, go out with the man,” Patti said, surprising him.
She smiled. “You thought I was going to tell you no. What did Chayne say?”
“What?”
“I know you asked him,” said Patti. “And Chayne’s advice is usually—always, actually—good.”
“He said I didn’t have to.”
“And you don’t have to,” said Patti. “But if you’re merciful you will.”
“Mom!”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Patti said, “Well, actually I do. I broke off things with your father because he doesn’t listen and it’s impossible to be with him anymore. I did what I could. To give my whole life to him when he doesn’t seem to care is foolish. To give him a few hours when he requests them is mercy.”
Russell was quiet, and Patti, looking at her son went on.
“I know, Russell, that he hasn’t been the best. He hasn’t been anything to me for some time, and I don’t guess he’s been much more to you, and that’s why Chayne’s right. You don’t have to go out with him. You don’t have to give him a minute of your time. But that’s where mercy comes in. Mercy is when you give someone something they don’t deserve... just because they asked for it. So if you want to be merciful, then go out with Thom. If you want to please yourself and give nothing but what your father deserves, don’t. But... I think the world’s a bad place without mercy.”
“I didn’t... expect you…” Russell spoke slowly. “to say that.”
“I didn’t expect to say it either. I need a cigarette now.”
“I went to go see Dad last Saturday, though,” Russell spat out. “Because he asked me.”
Patti’s brows came together. “You did?”
Russell nodded.
“And?”
“And he didn’t expect me. He... wasn’t there.”
Patti exhaled, and looked at her son through half closed eyes.
“You’re not telling me everything.”
“No,” Russell consented.
Patti stared at her bosom a moment, then said, “Well then he really doesn’t deserve a thing,” Patti said.
“Russell, I want you to do whatever you have to do. You’ll know. It’ll come to you when all the other voices are quiet. Alright?”
Russell nodded, and they prepared to go back into the dining room, but then Patti stopped and pulled at Russell’s collar.
“Are you staying here or going back to Chayne’s?”
“Do you mind if I go back to Chayne’s?”
Patti shook her head. She was only half lying, and Russell knew it.
“Come back when you want to. You will be coming back?”
Russell nodded. He didn’t know when, but he would be.
“Is it true that Faye Matthison is with you all?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my God. How long is she going to be there?”
“A while... I guess.”
“What’s she like?”
“She’s cool?”
“Oh, my God, Faye Matthison!”
“Is she somebody special?”
“Oh, my God, Russell! Is she somebody special! Yes! I’ve got a shelf of her books.”
“Faye?”
“Yeah. You probably don’t even realize that Chayne’s somebody, do you?”
Russell did know that, but as he phrased it now, “Chayne’s Chayne.”
The world of arts and letters was not like television or music. “Are you somebody too, Mom?”
“I’m your mother. Oh, Russell, whaddo you think of Chuck?”
“He’s a nice guy. He’s... a good person.”
“Yes he is,” said Patti. “He’s a really good man.”
“Is it... is it serious?” Russell asked.
Patti, looking at her son with her head cocked, read between the lines.
“Oh, Russell, I just met him. Nothing.... improper is happening. Or is about to happen. Just... He makes me feel special.” she told her son, “A woman likes to feel beautiful every once in a while, wants to feel wanted... like a woman.”
TOMORROW, bits and pieces
“So did they do it?”
“Chip!” Jackie stood up so quickly that she almost hit her head on the stove as she pulled out the roast.
“What?” Chip grumbled, pulling on his goatee. Thom, on the other side of the poker table Jackie was using for a dining room table, remained poker faced.
“Well, Chip, I don’t know what Patti and this man did.”
“And I don’t know why you’d ask that,” Jackie said, backhanding Chip in the head as she opened the refrigerator and began pulling out the salad dressing, the mayonaisse, ketchup, mustard.
“Because it’s inevitable,” Chip said, smirking. “If people are together they’re bound to have sex.”
Thom shot his sister a glance, Jackie ignored it and shot Chip a glance.
“I know being with me hasn’t taught you that.” The microwave went off.
“Thom, get the potatoes out.”
She was still eyeing Chip.
“Well,” said Chip, “Not yet. I’m being patient, Baby,” he moved to grab Jackie’s ass, she moved away.
“Not ever if you keep that up.”
“Jackie, would you do me a favor?” Thom asked after Chip had left.
“Get rid of Chip and find someone new?”
“Well, that would be doing yourself a favor,” Thom tried to jest, but after one look from Jackie, he wiped the smile from his face.
“I wanted to know if you would call Chayne’s house.”
“Why?”
“So you could ask for Russell so I could speak to him.”
“Why don’t you just call?”
“Jackie, don’t be difficult.”
“Fine,” Jackie put up a hand, “I won’t ask. I’ll just dial.”
Thom heard Jackie say, “Chayne. It’s Jackie. Thom wants to talk to Russell—”
“Jackie!”
“But he’s afraid to talk to you, so he had me call. Would you bring my nephew to the phone? Thanks, darlin’.”
Jackie cradled the phone in the crook of her neck, ignoring Thom and then said, at last, “Hey, Russell. Yeah. Yeah,” and gave the phone to her scowling brother.
Thom immediately brightened, “Hey-ah, Russell!”
“Hi, Dad,” Russell sounded dull. Thom, who had picked up on so little for so long, picked up on this.
“How are you? I just wanted to talk to you.”
“I’m fine, Dad.”
“Doin’ good in school?”
“Good enough.”
Silence.
“Ah, what are you doing this weekend, Russell?”
“I don’t know.”
“Wanna go out? Why don’t we go out?”
There was a space, and then Russell said, “Ah... alright.”
“I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock. Is nine too early?”
“No, Dad.”
“Great.”
Thom ignored the flatness in his son’s voice.
At 1421 Curtain Street, Russell hung up the phone and asked Chayne. “What was that all about?”
He and Faye were sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea.
“It’s simple,” Chayne said. “He loves you.”
Russell leaned his back against the sink, pressing the palms of his hands on the counter.
“I already went to see him,” Russell said.
Faye and Chayne said nothing.
“Do I have to see him?” Russell asked Chayne.
“No, Russell. No, you don’t.”
Russell went out walking. Like the Breckinridge, the Curtain was the neighborhood around the street as well as the brick street’s name. It was just cool enough for Russell to wrap himself in a large flannel as he went down the street, the crickets chirping in his ears. The little houses of the Curtain spaced out, and then, a block later, became ranches as the street widened out, and he was walking on Breckinridge Avenue. The laughter of the last of the children playing was in his ears. The wind blew his hair. When he looked up, the sky was a deeply polished blue, and the stars twinkled. Russell could see one over his house, winking brightly. He imagined it was the North Star, but who could be sure? A Boy Scout. He’d only been one for a year, and he’d never earned a badge.
Of course he didn’t knock, and when he walked into his own house, Russell was surprised by the sound of laughter, by the candlelight from the table, by his mother’s laughter and her beauty and the man.
“Russell!” she said, gaily, then at the look on his face, rising up. “Russell.”
Russell was looking at the man. Now he was sure it was Mr. Shrader.
“I could leave,” Chuck offered.
“No,” it was Russell who spoke.
“Do you want to talk to me, Russell?”
Russell took a breath, assessed the situation, and then said, “Just for a second.”
“Russell, this is Chuck. Chuck Shrader. He says he knows you.”
“Russell,” Chuck beamed. “Jeff Cordino’s told me a lot about you. Your mom’s told me a lot about you,” he offered his hand. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
Russell shook Chuck’s hand. It felt odd. He thought he should have resented Chuck Shrader, but he seemed like a good man. He’d never paid Chuck Shrader much attention in school, but up close, he seemed good.
“I’ll let you and your mom talk now. Are you sure you don’t want me to go?”
And the thing that made Russell say “No, stay,” was that Chuck’s blue-green eyes had asked him the question, asked him earnestly, respected him.
“Russell,” Patti said once again, now that they were in the kitchen.
“You look really beautiful, Mom,” Russell said, as surprised as she was. And he thought she smelled beautiful, and she looked happy. The house looked beautiful and happy as well.
Patti threw back her head and laughed, “I thank you, Russell, but I can guess that’s not what you came to tell me. And...” she added. “I can guess that you didn’t expect to find Chuck here.”
“Ah, no,” Russell admitted truthfully. “I came because Dad called tonight, and he wants me to go out with him this Saturday.”
“And you don’t want to?”
“No.”
“Oh, Russell, go out with the man,” Patti said, surprising him.
She smiled. “You thought I was going to tell you no. What did Chayne say?”
“What?”
“I know you asked him,” said Patti. “And Chayne’s advice is usually—always, actually—good.”
“He said I didn’t have to.”
“And you don’t have to,” said Patti. “But if you’re merciful you will.”
“Mom!”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Patti said, “Well, actually I do. I broke off things with your father because he doesn’t listen and it’s impossible to be with him anymore. I did what I could. To give my whole life to him when he doesn’t seem to care is foolish. To give him a few hours when he requests them is mercy.”
Russell was quiet, and Patti, looking at her son went on.
“I know, Russell, that he hasn’t been the best. He hasn’t been anything to me for some time, and I don’t guess he’s been much more to you, and that’s why Chayne’s right. You don’t have to go out with him. You don’t have to give him a minute of your time. But that’s where mercy comes in. Mercy is when you give someone something they don’t deserve... just because they asked for it. So if you want to be merciful, then go out with Thom. If you want to please yourself and give nothing but what your father deserves, don’t. But... I think the world’s a bad place without mercy.”
“I didn’t... expect you…” Russell spoke slowly. “to say that.”
“I didn’t expect to say it either. I need a cigarette now.”
“I went to go see Dad last Saturday, though,” Russell spat out. “Because he asked me.”
Patti’s brows came together. “You did?”
Russell nodded.
“And?”
“And he didn’t expect me. He... wasn’t there.”
Patti exhaled, and looked at her son through half closed eyes.
“You’re not telling me everything.”
“No,” Russell consented.
Patti stared at her bosom a moment, then said, “Well then he really doesn’t deserve a thing,” Patti said.
“Russell, I want you to do whatever you have to do. You’ll know. It’ll come to you when all the other voices are quiet. Alright?”
Russell nodded, and they prepared to go back into the dining room, but then Patti stopped and pulled at Russell’s collar.
“Are you staying here or going back to Chayne’s?”
“Do you mind if I go back to Chayne’s?”
Patti shook her head. She was only half lying, and Russell knew it.
“Come back when you want to. You will be coming back?”
Russell nodded. He didn’t know when, but he would be.
“Is it true that Faye Matthison is with you all?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, my God. How long is she going to be there?”
“A while... I guess.”
“What’s she like?”
“She’s cool?”
“Oh, my God, Faye Matthison!”
“Is she somebody special?”
“Oh, my God, Russell! Is she somebody special! Yes! I’ve got a shelf of her books.”
“Faye?”
“Yeah. You probably don’t even realize that Chayne’s somebody, do you?”
Russell did know that, but as he phrased it now, “Chayne’s Chayne.”
The world of arts and letters was not like television or music. “Are you somebody too, Mom?”
“I’m your mother. Oh, Russell, whaddo you think of Chuck?”
“He’s a nice guy. He’s... a good person.”
“Yes he is,” said Patti. “He’s a really good man.”
“Is it... is it serious?” Russell asked.
Patti, looking at her son with her head cocked, read between the lines.
“Oh, Russell, I just met him. Nothing.... improper is happening. Or is about to happen. Just... He makes me feel special.” she told her son, “A woman likes to feel beautiful every once in a while, wants to feel wanted... like a woman.”
TOMORROW, bits and pieces
CharmedFan28
JUB Addict
I am happy that Russell had a talk with his Mum. It’s unfortunate what his Father was doing the last time he saw him so I am conflicted as to whether or not he should see him. Thom doesn’t make things easy for anyone. It was a surprise to hear that Faye is known as an author. Great writing and I look forward to Bits and Pieces tomorrow!
ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
Russell and Patti did need to have a talk, true enough. Thom makes nothing easy, and perhaps he even makes things a little psychologically dangerous. There's all the reason in the world for Russell not to see him, but we'll see what happens.
