ChrisGibson
JUB Addict
THE WEEKEND PORTION
Robert Heinz concluded: “May the Lord Almighty bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.”
They all chorused: “Amen.”
The fire crackled between them, sending tongues of flame and sparks into the thick blackness of night.
“Well,” Robert placed his hands together and pulled them all apart. “I feel good right now. Whaddo you guys wanna do?”
“I think,” Chayne said, “looking around. “The boys might appreciate being separated from the men. I don’t think they want to hear the idle chit-chat of a bunch of creatures thirty-five and over.”
“That’s a good idea,” Robert said as if it had never occurred to him, which, Chayne was beginning to see, it hadn’t.
“That’s a good idea,” Geoff Ford nodded his head.
“So is it just all of us for ourselves?” Robert Heinz seemed pleased at the prospect as he stood up. “I think I’d like to go for a walk around the lake if that’s alright with everyone.”
Everyone nodded. The three boys ran out quickly while Cassidy Addison stood looking between the men and boys as if he couldn’t make up his mind, then followed the boys.
“I know,” Chayne murmured after Cassidy. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to choose too.”
“So what’s Father Heinz really like?” Diggs leaned in and asked Geoff Ford once the newer priest had set off around the lake.
“Whaddo you mean, what’s he like?” This from Jim Addison.
“He means,” Chayne said, “none of us ever talks to him for long. Everyone’s wife and daughter is in love with him. He plans great masses. He’s the most handsome priest this side of The Thornbirds but we don’t know anything about him.”
“He’s almost too perfect to be real,” Diggs said.
“You act like there’s something wrong with being perfect,” Jim Addison sounded offended.
“Firstly,” this from Chayne. “Robert Heinz is not perfect. But it just doesn’t seem like he’s human.”
“Maybe,” John spoke up for the first time tonight, “you guys ought to give him a chance.”
“Everyone’s giving him a chance,” Geoff Ford said. “Everyone likes him.”
“He’s a great guy,” Jeff Cordino spoke up. “But he’s just hard to know. You wonder what’s beyond the... the face. Kind of like when I first met Thom.”
Thom looked at Jeff, surprised.
“That’s how I used to feel,” Jeff Cordino explained.
“Well,” Jeff sat back. “I don’t really know what he’s like. I mean. He’s busy. He runs around and prays a lot. Has a lot of meetings. He’s… a lot of busyness. I don’t know much about him, really. I guess I haven’t really tried to find out.”
“I just...” Diggs began. “I just can’t see him coming down ot have a drink at the Blue Jewel.”
“I can see him,” Chayne differed, lifting a finger. “I can see him there, inviting himself. But I can’t see anyone inviting him.”
“I don’t really know anything about anyone here,” said Chuck Shrader.
“I’m so rude,” Jeff Cordino hit himself in the head.
“No, Jeff, you introduced everyone. I was just saying. I don’t know anything... especially about that Father Heinz. But he’s a nice enough guy, I suppose.”
“I wasn’t trying to say he wasn’t,” Diggs spoke quietly. “I just wanted to know... What he thinks about when he goes off alone to walk around the lake. It seems like a lonely sort of life.”
“Well, now I’m depressed,” said chayne. “If there’s no more gossip, I think I’m going to bed.”
“You can’t just go to bed,” Ted Weirbach protested. “It’s only ten o’clock.”
“Not even,” Thom looked at his watch.
“There’s nothing to do but look at each other,” Chayne protested, rising. “The boys already disappeared.”
“We could go to the liquor store!” Diggs suggested.
“We’re on a retreat!” Bill Dwyer looked disgusted, and the look on Bill Dwyer’s face was enough to make Chayne say, “Great idea, Diggs, let’s go. We’ll take the hearse.”
“Who else is coming?” Chayne turned around and asked while Diggs started up the hearse.
“If you all start drinking, I’m leaving,” Jim Addison said.
To which Ted Weirbach and Chuck Shrader stood up and followed Chayne and climbed into the car.
“Father Geoff,” Jim turned on Geoff Ford sitting still by the fire. “Tell them to stop.”
“The most I can do is,” Father Geoff shouted. “Strongly advise against it!”
But by then the hearse was strongly driving away, leaving Thom, Bill, David and Jeff Cordino to stare at it’s passing along with a flabbergasted Jim Addison, who turned to them, sputtered and trumped off into the woods.
“He’s a stick in the mud, anyway,” Thom thought he heard Geoff Ford mumble.
Russell tried to be passive for the first few minutes with the other three boys. He expected Cassidy to take the lead. Cassidy was tall, though Russell now realized, not much taller than him, with dark hair all a mess and chubby cheeks, which made him sound fat so Russell revised to full cheeks. Soon it became apparent that no one was going to suggest anything, and so Russell said, “I’m going on a walk. I need my scarf.”
“It is starting to get cold,” Dave Armstrong agreed.
“I don’t know why we couldn’t wait until after Easter to have this,” Russell went on, coming out of Chayne’s tent with his scarf, Dave going in to get his jacket. Niall and Cassidy hung off to the sides and Niall, hands jammed in his pockets said, “I don’t know why we had to have it all.”
Russell wished Gilead was here. He was walking ahead of all of them, past the lake lit by the moon that was just coming out. Russell ran up to the edge and began tipping along the little rocks, his hands outstretched for balance as he looked down one side where Niall and Cassidy were walking silently, and while Dave went behind him, then to the other where were little shallow pools and beds of reeds. Russell thought it strange that Cassidy was not saying anything. All this afternoon he’d been talking and talking and sometimes at the RCIA meetings he came and never stopped talking about Jesus, the Blessed Mother, the Holy Father and everything in between. Cassidy was the reason his father was being Confirmed. Now the tall, dark boy was saying nothing. Russell was not anxious for him to speak, and did not feel comfortable enough in his presence to pretend that he was. Obviously, neither did anyone else.
They all heard laughter from across the lake, and Russell turned around and posied himself on a large rock, looking back to the campfire.
“That’s our camp!” he said.
“What could they be laughing at?” Dave, beside him, asked.
Russell shrugged.
These rocks, this bit of road beside them, the jutting tongue of earth and pebbles, Russell recognized it as the place his father had brought him that one weekend. Oddly enough, Dave chose that time to ask, “Russell, whaddo you think of my father?”
“Mr. Armstrong?” as if Dave had another.
And as if he did have another, Dave Armstrong nodded.
“I think he’s a good guy,” Russell said decisively.
Dave, looking pleased said, “Me too.”
Now the other two boys had come up to the rocks as well, and Dave said, “I like your dad too, Russell.”
“Well, thank, you Dave.”
What else could he say?
“I hate mine,” Niall said suddenly. “I think he’s the biggest asshole on the planet.”
Russell was a little shocked by such candid vehemence, and a little shamed, because he would have said the same thing not long ago, and now and again, he grew afraid that he might say it again.
“Uncle Bill?” Dave sounded wounded.
“You shouldn’t say things like that about your father,” Cassidy told Niall.
“Well, I shouldn’t have a father like him,” was all Niall said, shrugging, and he climbed off the rocks and trudged into the woods. They followed. Russell was almost in as much shock about what Niall had said as was Dave except that Russell knew from past experience that the parent the rest of the world saw could be a very different animal from the one you knew.
“I think Mom made him have me go on this retreat,” Niall went on. “Because he really doesn’t like me at all.”
“Uncle Bill likes you!” started Dave.
“Uncle Bill! Uncle Bill!” Niall mimicked. “Cameron came two years before me, and when I was born there was no room left for... whatever. Dave—and you too, Russell, you don’t know how great you’ve got it being the only kids. Even if your parents are shitty nd, Russell, I saw your mom throwing your Dad’s shit outthe window and carrying on. I live right next door, so I know the crazy family you have. But even if they don’t treat you right, you never have to stand back and watch the way they treat someone else better. My sister can’t do anything wrong. Everything she does is perfection. When Cameron goes to the bathroom, Dad wants the whole family to take interest. When she cheerleads, you’d think she’s Barishnakov or something. But my dancing—”
“You dance?” Russell interrupted.
“Is that a problem?”
“No... I just never knew. It’s kinda neat.”
Niall, caught off guard, smiled a little, but went on. “He thinks I’m a sissy for it. He thinks all my music is sissy music. How would you like to have a dad who headbangs to Nirvana and Metallica and looks down on your Brahms records, on your Beethoven, says ‘Son, one day you’ll get over that Stravinksy and listen to some real music!”
“Well, tell us how you really feel—” Dave started, then his cousin turned on him and said, “FUCK YOU!” and startled by his outburst, he became the quiet Niall Dwyer they knew, or at least were used to.
“I’m sorry, Dave. It’s just. No one knows what it’s like.”
“I think—” Russell heard himself speaking, and stopped when all eyes went to him. “I think... that most of us do, but no one ever says anything. And so... it get’s lonely. You know?”
They heard crickets chirping, and then suddenly the night was lit by headlights and they heard a roar of a semi that pointed out a road up ahead, a gas station, fluorescent lit and visibly through the tree limbs.
“I’m hungry,” Cassidy said with emphasis, as if he’d just made a major discovery about himself.
Another car whizzed by and Russell said, “Me too.”
They headed for the gas station.
Russell got a large bag of Doritos and a sausage of questionable origin about which Niall commented, “I hope you’re feeling lucky tonight.” But as they were all at the counter to buy their puraches, Russell kept looking at the rows and rows of cigarettes. Since Anigel had given him his first last week—was it just last week?—he’d been wanting another one. He would wait for Thom or Patti to sneak off and take a few of their Benson and Hedges, puffed in private with the large ceiling fan on and all his windows and the balcony door open. But he wanted a Red. And he wanted his own.
All the way up the line, Russell kept wondering what they would say if he told the woman, “A pack of Reds please.” Part of him felt a little dirty doing it. He felt like his father going to get maxi pads for his mother, or like those older boys at school going to buy condoms. Then suddenly he heard himself say:
“A pack of Reds, please?” pointing up. He sounded so professional. The girl brought them down. He looked at them and asked, “One hundreds?” she brought down the larger pack and said, “Can I see some ID please?”
Russell felt all of his skin prickle. To have asked for cigarettes in front of these people he did not really know—who might let it slip to their fathers who would let it slip to his... all to be asked for ID he didn’t have!
But while he was beginning to perspire, Russell scarcely felt someone move beside him and then, in a surreal moment, he saw Cassidy saying, “He was ordering for me. I felt lazy, and Cassidy took out his ID and the woman accepted it and Russell was amazed.
Outside of the gas station, Russell shuffled the bag of Doritos off on Niall, unwrapped the cigarettes. Cassidy snatched them from his hand and said: “You gotta cash ‘em,” then doing so, handed them back to Russell who took out, with difficulty, his first one, and swore. Cassidy held out a lighter then said, “Hook me up with one, too, okay?” and Russell, feeling strangely close to Cassidy, did. He watched the older boy suck on the Red, then exhale it from his nostrils and next, in a fan of smoke, from his mouth.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Russell said.
“I quit,” said Cassidy. Then he laughed, and Russell, sharing the bag of chips with Niall as they passed it back and forth, learned that it was difficult for him—cigarette novice that he was—to walk and smoke as Cassidy did. Oddly enough, it was not Cassidy’s Christianity, but the promise of his impending lung cancer that made Russell like him.
“I think Russell’s a really great kid, though. I do! No, thanks,” David Armstrong waved the bottle away from Diggs..
“Well, thanks,” Thom found himself accepting the bottle. “I think Dave Jr.’s good too.”
“But it’s really the way you and Russell get a long, it is,” David was going on. “I mean, firstly, your boy’s really smart. When I’m talking to him I forget he’s only fifteen for one hting. But you all, you just get along really great. You all’ve got a great relationship. I don’t,” Dave shook his head. This time he took a swig from the bottle as Jeff Cordino passed it to him. “I don’t know what I’d do with a kid like Russell. My own Dave’s starting to get... Like a stranger.”
“Well,” said Thom, the dying firelight turning his face a dark red, rising up, making it golden. “if it helps. I don’t know where he’s coming from either. I don’t take any credit for Russell. That’s mostly Chayne’s doing.”
Chayne looked over at Thom startled.
“Yeah,” Thom said, feeling unusually boisterous. “You, Chayne.”
“Thom Lewis, I never thought the day would come when you’d give me credit for.... Not corrupting your son.”
“My son would have died of boredom if not for you,” Thom said.
“Yeah well,” the large nosed Bill Dwyer started, “maybe you need a crack at my son.”
“Aw, Bill!” Dave said, clapping his best friend on the shoulder.
“Everyone else... their kids look up to them. I don’t get Niall. I mean, I’m glad Chayne let the boys go off on their own—”
“Where are they anyway?” Jeff Cordino looked around in the darkness.
“But one of the reasons I brought Niall on this was... because our relationship is so....” Bill shrugged. “Not even bad. Non-existent. I’ve never told anyone—not even you—” he said to David, “this. But... I don’t know what to do with my family. I really don’t. I don’t know how to get it back to what it should be. I don’t know what it should be. Everything. Everything with us just happened so quickly. Dena got pregnant my senior year. Right after I graduated we got married. Cameron came while Deen was still in college. Then two years later there was Niall, and I look up and it seems yesterday I was a kinda sorta kid and now I’m thirty-eight years old living in the Breckinridge. I don’t know up from down half the time and I look around and everyone I know is a lot like me.”
“Dena was still in college when Cameron was born?” Geoff Ford had fastened on this.
“Yeah,” said Bill and David elaborated.
“Bill was my roommate. Then he met my sister and they’d come back to my house for holidays. And one year I met Lee.”
“Did you all have sex in college?” Diggs asked gracelessly, which is when Chayne took the bottle from him.
“No,” Dave went on. “Lee... and myself, we both wanted to wait till we got married.”
“Plus they’d had to go through the drama of me and Dena,” Bill added.
“That’s not true,” David argued, then turned red, laughed and nodded. “A little. Okay. Okay.”
“I just want to know,” Geoff Ford was about to stand up, realized he shouldn’t. “Does anybody practice celibacy? Is it just me?”
“Oh, God we’re all drunk,” Chayne murmured.
“No, I’m serious,” Goeff went on. “I want to know.”
“I’m not sure what the hell that means but...” Chayne started.
“Well, me and Chuck aren’t—” Jeff Cordino offered, “unchaste. And neither is Dwyer. I mean—who was there before Dena?”
“Dena’s the only woman I’ve ever been with.”
“Really?” Chayne cleared the pity from his throat and said again, “Really?”
“And I know Thom and Patti waited till the wedding night.”
“Half of you here know Patti wasn’t my first.”
“This is definitely men’s talk now,” Geoff Ford decided. “I’ll be embarrassed if the kids come back. Hell, I’ll be embarrassed if Heinz comes back.”
“Where is Heinz?” Chuck Shrader asked.
“Liz was your first?” Cordino said.
“No,” Thom smiled and blushed.
“What?” Chayne looked at Thom.
“No. There was a girl before Liz.”
“That you had sex with?” this from Jeff Cordino.
Thom nodded.
“How old were you?” Jeff Cordino was taking a boyish glee in this.
“What? Are we gonna compare ages now?” Thom demanded.
“Twenty!” shouted Bill.
“Twenty-two,” said Dave.
Chuck said, “Nineteen.”
“What about you, Chayne?” Thom said, and Chayne blinked at him.
“When have you ever been interested in my love life?”
“I’m interested now,” Thom said.
Ted Weirbach cleared his throat.
Chayne looked at him.
“My love life is rich,” Chayne began.
Ted said, “I would like to make an announcement.”
“What the fuck, Ted?” Chayne said.
“Chayne is gay,” Ted said. “As you know.”
“I didn’t know,” David said. Then he said, “I mean, I didn’t care. I mean, good for you, Chayne. I mean, I wish I was gay too. I mean.”
“Dave,” Bill said.
Dave Armstrong shut up.
“I’ve known Chayne most of my life,” Thom said, “so why are we talking about this?”
“Because we don’t talk about things,” Ted said, “and…. Chayne is my LOVER.”
“For real?” Geoff said.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Chayne looked at the priest.
“Nothing!” Geoff Ford threw up his hands defensively. “Just… I don’t see it. I expect you to be with someone more…”
“Dangerous?” Thom said.
“Like a criminal or something,” Bill Dwyer said, playing with his shoelaces, “definitely a criminal.”
“This is why I keep my business to myself,” Chayne said.
“Well, he’s with me,” Ted said.
And then he said, “Aren’t you?”
For a moment Chayne wasn’t sure he’d been spoken to, and then he said, “Well, yes, Theodore. Yes, I suppose I am.”
Ted looked very pleased and he said, “And I love making love to him.”
“Wow,” was all Jeff Cordino said.
“Awkward,” Chuck Shrader said.
Thom burst out laughing and said, “Chayne Kandzierski! Embarassed! I love it.”
While they all laughed, Chayne laughed a little too loudly and when they had stopped, Chayne laughed and said, clasping Chuck’s hand and then Thom’s, “It’s almost as awkward as Chuck dating your wife.”
MORE NEXT WEEK
Robert Heinz concluded: “May the Lord Almighty bless us, protect us from all evil and bring us to everlasting life.”
They all chorused: “Amen.”
The fire crackled between them, sending tongues of flame and sparks into the thick blackness of night.
“Well,” Robert placed his hands together and pulled them all apart. “I feel good right now. Whaddo you guys wanna do?”
“I think,” Chayne said, “looking around. “The boys might appreciate being separated from the men. I don’t think they want to hear the idle chit-chat of a bunch of creatures thirty-five and over.”
“That’s a good idea,” Robert said as if it had never occurred to him, which, Chayne was beginning to see, it hadn’t.
“That’s a good idea,” Geoff Ford nodded his head.
“So is it just all of us for ourselves?” Robert Heinz seemed pleased at the prospect as he stood up. “I think I’d like to go for a walk around the lake if that’s alright with everyone.”
Everyone nodded. The three boys ran out quickly while Cassidy Addison stood looking between the men and boys as if he couldn’t make up his mind, then followed the boys.
“I know,” Chayne murmured after Cassidy. “Sometimes it’s hard for me to choose too.”
“So what’s Father Heinz really like?” Diggs leaned in and asked Geoff Ford once the newer priest had set off around the lake.
“Whaddo you mean, what’s he like?” This from Jim Addison.
“He means,” Chayne said, “none of us ever talks to him for long. Everyone’s wife and daughter is in love with him. He plans great masses. He’s the most handsome priest this side of The Thornbirds but we don’t know anything about him.”
“He’s almost too perfect to be real,” Diggs said.
“You act like there’s something wrong with being perfect,” Jim Addison sounded offended.
“Firstly,” this from Chayne. “Robert Heinz is not perfect. But it just doesn’t seem like he’s human.”
“Maybe,” John spoke up for the first time tonight, “you guys ought to give him a chance.”
“Everyone’s giving him a chance,” Geoff Ford said. “Everyone likes him.”
“He’s a great guy,” Jeff Cordino spoke up. “But he’s just hard to know. You wonder what’s beyond the... the face. Kind of like when I first met Thom.”
Thom looked at Jeff, surprised.
“That’s how I used to feel,” Jeff Cordino explained.
“Well,” Jeff sat back. “I don’t really know what he’s like. I mean. He’s busy. He runs around and prays a lot. Has a lot of meetings. He’s… a lot of busyness. I don’t know much about him, really. I guess I haven’t really tried to find out.”
“I just...” Diggs began. “I just can’t see him coming down ot have a drink at the Blue Jewel.”
“I can see him,” Chayne differed, lifting a finger. “I can see him there, inviting himself. But I can’t see anyone inviting him.”
“I don’t really know anything about anyone here,” said Chuck Shrader.
“I’m so rude,” Jeff Cordino hit himself in the head.
“No, Jeff, you introduced everyone. I was just saying. I don’t know anything... especially about that Father Heinz. But he’s a nice enough guy, I suppose.”
“I wasn’t trying to say he wasn’t,” Diggs spoke quietly. “I just wanted to know... What he thinks about when he goes off alone to walk around the lake. It seems like a lonely sort of life.”
“Well, now I’m depressed,” said chayne. “If there’s no more gossip, I think I’m going to bed.”
“You can’t just go to bed,” Ted Weirbach protested. “It’s only ten o’clock.”
“Not even,” Thom looked at his watch.
“There’s nothing to do but look at each other,” Chayne protested, rising. “The boys already disappeared.”
“We could go to the liquor store!” Diggs suggested.
“We’re on a retreat!” Bill Dwyer looked disgusted, and the look on Bill Dwyer’s face was enough to make Chayne say, “Great idea, Diggs, let’s go. We’ll take the hearse.”
“Who else is coming?” Chayne turned around and asked while Diggs started up the hearse.
“If you all start drinking, I’m leaving,” Jim Addison said.
To which Ted Weirbach and Chuck Shrader stood up and followed Chayne and climbed into the car.
“Father Geoff,” Jim turned on Geoff Ford sitting still by the fire. “Tell them to stop.”
“The most I can do is,” Father Geoff shouted. “Strongly advise against it!”
But by then the hearse was strongly driving away, leaving Thom, Bill, David and Jeff Cordino to stare at it’s passing along with a flabbergasted Jim Addison, who turned to them, sputtered and trumped off into the woods.
“He’s a stick in the mud, anyway,” Thom thought he heard Geoff Ford mumble.
Russell tried to be passive for the first few minutes with the other three boys. He expected Cassidy to take the lead. Cassidy was tall, though Russell now realized, not much taller than him, with dark hair all a mess and chubby cheeks, which made him sound fat so Russell revised to full cheeks. Soon it became apparent that no one was going to suggest anything, and so Russell said, “I’m going on a walk. I need my scarf.”
“It is starting to get cold,” Dave Armstrong agreed.
“I don’t know why we couldn’t wait until after Easter to have this,” Russell went on, coming out of Chayne’s tent with his scarf, Dave going in to get his jacket. Niall and Cassidy hung off to the sides and Niall, hands jammed in his pockets said, “I don’t know why we had to have it all.”
Russell wished Gilead was here. He was walking ahead of all of them, past the lake lit by the moon that was just coming out. Russell ran up to the edge and began tipping along the little rocks, his hands outstretched for balance as he looked down one side where Niall and Cassidy were walking silently, and while Dave went behind him, then to the other where were little shallow pools and beds of reeds. Russell thought it strange that Cassidy was not saying anything. All this afternoon he’d been talking and talking and sometimes at the RCIA meetings he came and never stopped talking about Jesus, the Blessed Mother, the Holy Father and everything in between. Cassidy was the reason his father was being Confirmed. Now the tall, dark boy was saying nothing. Russell was not anxious for him to speak, and did not feel comfortable enough in his presence to pretend that he was. Obviously, neither did anyone else.
They all heard laughter from across the lake, and Russell turned around and posied himself on a large rock, looking back to the campfire.
“That’s our camp!” he said.
“What could they be laughing at?” Dave, beside him, asked.
Russell shrugged.
These rocks, this bit of road beside them, the jutting tongue of earth and pebbles, Russell recognized it as the place his father had brought him that one weekend. Oddly enough, Dave chose that time to ask, “Russell, whaddo you think of my father?”
“Mr. Armstrong?” as if Dave had another.
And as if he did have another, Dave Armstrong nodded.
“I think he’s a good guy,” Russell said decisively.
Dave, looking pleased said, “Me too.”
Now the other two boys had come up to the rocks as well, and Dave said, “I like your dad too, Russell.”
“Well, thank, you Dave.”
What else could he say?
“I hate mine,” Niall said suddenly. “I think he’s the biggest asshole on the planet.”
Russell was a little shocked by such candid vehemence, and a little shamed, because he would have said the same thing not long ago, and now and again, he grew afraid that he might say it again.
“Uncle Bill?” Dave sounded wounded.
“You shouldn’t say things like that about your father,” Cassidy told Niall.
“Well, I shouldn’t have a father like him,” was all Niall said, shrugging, and he climbed off the rocks and trudged into the woods. They followed. Russell was almost in as much shock about what Niall had said as was Dave except that Russell knew from past experience that the parent the rest of the world saw could be a very different animal from the one you knew.
“I think Mom made him have me go on this retreat,” Niall went on. “Because he really doesn’t like me at all.”
“Uncle Bill likes you!” started Dave.
“Uncle Bill! Uncle Bill!” Niall mimicked. “Cameron came two years before me, and when I was born there was no room left for... whatever. Dave—and you too, Russell, you don’t know how great you’ve got it being the only kids. Even if your parents are shitty nd, Russell, I saw your mom throwing your Dad’s shit outthe window and carrying on. I live right next door, so I know the crazy family you have. But even if they don’t treat you right, you never have to stand back and watch the way they treat someone else better. My sister can’t do anything wrong. Everything she does is perfection. When Cameron goes to the bathroom, Dad wants the whole family to take interest. When she cheerleads, you’d think she’s Barishnakov or something. But my dancing—”
“You dance?” Russell interrupted.
“Is that a problem?”
“No... I just never knew. It’s kinda neat.”
Niall, caught off guard, smiled a little, but went on. “He thinks I’m a sissy for it. He thinks all my music is sissy music. How would you like to have a dad who headbangs to Nirvana and Metallica and looks down on your Brahms records, on your Beethoven, says ‘Son, one day you’ll get over that Stravinksy and listen to some real music!”
“Well, tell us how you really feel—” Dave started, then his cousin turned on him and said, “FUCK YOU!” and startled by his outburst, he became the quiet Niall Dwyer they knew, or at least were used to.
“I’m sorry, Dave. It’s just. No one knows what it’s like.”
“I think—” Russell heard himself speaking, and stopped when all eyes went to him. “I think... that most of us do, but no one ever says anything. And so... it get’s lonely. You know?”
They heard crickets chirping, and then suddenly the night was lit by headlights and they heard a roar of a semi that pointed out a road up ahead, a gas station, fluorescent lit and visibly through the tree limbs.
“I’m hungry,” Cassidy said with emphasis, as if he’d just made a major discovery about himself.
Another car whizzed by and Russell said, “Me too.”
They headed for the gas station.
Russell got a large bag of Doritos and a sausage of questionable origin about which Niall commented, “I hope you’re feeling lucky tonight.” But as they were all at the counter to buy their puraches, Russell kept looking at the rows and rows of cigarettes. Since Anigel had given him his first last week—was it just last week?—he’d been wanting another one. He would wait for Thom or Patti to sneak off and take a few of their Benson and Hedges, puffed in private with the large ceiling fan on and all his windows and the balcony door open. But he wanted a Red. And he wanted his own.
All the way up the line, Russell kept wondering what they would say if he told the woman, “A pack of Reds please.” Part of him felt a little dirty doing it. He felt like his father going to get maxi pads for his mother, or like those older boys at school going to buy condoms. Then suddenly he heard himself say:
“A pack of Reds, please?” pointing up. He sounded so professional. The girl brought them down. He looked at them and asked, “One hundreds?” she brought down the larger pack and said, “Can I see some ID please?”
Russell felt all of his skin prickle. To have asked for cigarettes in front of these people he did not really know—who might let it slip to their fathers who would let it slip to his... all to be asked for ID he didn’t have!
But while he was beginning to perspire, Russell scarcely felt someone move beside him and then, in a surreal moment, he saw Cassidy saying, “He was ordering for me. I felt lazy, and Cassidy took out his ID and the woman accepted it and Russell was amazed.
Outside of the gas station, Russell shuffled the bag of Doritos off on Niall, unwrapped the cigarettes. Cassidy snatched them from his hand and said: “You gotta cash ‘em,” then doing so, handed them back to Russell who took out, with difficulty, his first one, and swore. Cassidy held out a lighter then said, “Hook me up with one, too, okay?” and Russell, feeling strangely close to Cassidy, did. He watched the older boy suck on the Red, then exhale it from his nostrils and next, in a fan of smoke, from his mouth.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Russell said.
“I quit,” said Cassidy. Then he laughed, and Russell, sharing the bag of chips with Niall as they passed it back and forth, learned that it was difficult for him—cigarette novice that he was—to walk and smoke as Cassidy did. Oddly enough, it was not Cassidy’s Christianity, but the promise of his impending lung cancer that made Russell like him.
“I think Russell’s a really great kid, though. I do! No, thanks,” David Armstrong waved the bottle away from Diggs..
“Well, thanks,” Thom found himself accepting the bottle. “I think Dave Jr.’s good too.”
“But it’s really the way you and Russell get a long, it is,” David was going on. “I mean, firstly, your boy’s really smart. When I’m talking to him I forget he’s only fifteen for one hting. But you all, you just get along really great. You all’ve got a great relationship. I don’t,” Dave shook his head. This time he took a swig from the bottle as Jeff Cordino passed it to him. “I don’t know what I’d do with a kid like Russell. My own Dave’s starting to get... Like a stranger.”
“Well,” said Thom, the dying firelight turning his face a dark red, rising up, making it golden. “if it helps. I don’t know where he’s coming from either. I don’t take any credit for Russell. That’s mostly Chayne’s doing.”
Chayne looked over at Thom startled.
“Yeah,” Thom said, feeling unusually boisterous. “You, Chayne.”
“Thom Lewis, I never thought the day would come when you’d give me credit for.... Not corrupting your son.”
“My son would have died of boredom if not for you,” Thom said.
“Yeah well,” the large nosed Bill Dwyer started, “maybe you need a crack at my son.”
“Aw, Bill!” Dave said, clapping his best friend on the shoulder.
“Everyone else... their kids look up to them. I don’t get Niall. I mean, I’m glad Chayne let the boys go off on their own—”
“Where are they anyway?” Jeff Cordino looked around in the darkness.
“But one of the reasons I brought Niall on this was... because our relationship is so....” Bill shrugged. “Not even bad. Non-existent. I’ve never told anyone—not even you—” he said to David, “this. But... I don’t know what to do with my family. I really don’t. I don’t know how to get it back to what it should be. I don’t know what it should be. Everything. Everything with us just happened so quickly. Dena got pregnant my senior year. Right after I graduated we got married. Cameron came while Deen was still in college. Then two years later there was Niall, and I look up and it seems yesterday I was a kinda sorta kid and now I’m thirty-eight years old living in the Breckinridge. I don’t know up from down half the time and I look around and everyone I know is a lot like me.”
“Dena was still in college when Cameron was born?” Geoff Ford had fastened on this.
“Yeah,” said Bill and David elaborated.
“Bill was my roommate. Then he met my sister and they’d come back to my house for holidays. And one year I met Lee.”
“Did you all have sex in college?” Diggs asked gracelessly, which is when Chayne took the bottle from him.
“No,” Dave went on. “Lee... and myself, we both wanted to wait till we got married.”
“Plus they’d had to go through the drama of me and Dena,” Bill added.
“That’s not true,” David argued, then turned red, laughed and nodded. “A little. Okay. Okay.”
“I just want to know,” Geoff Ford was about to stand up, realized he shouldn’t. “Does anybody practice celibacy? Is it just me?”
“Oh, God we’re all drunk,” Chayne murmured.
“No, I’m serious,” Goeff went on. “I want to know.”
“I’m not sure what the hell that means but...” Chayne started.
“Well, me and Chuck aren’t—” Jeff Cordino offered, “unchaste. And neither is Dwyer. I mean—who was there before Dena?”
“Dena’s the only woman I’ve ever been with.”
“Really?” Chayne cleared the pity from his throat and said again, “Really?”
“And I know Thom and Patti waited till the wedding night.”
“Half of you here know Patti wasn’t my first.”
“This is definitely men’s talk now,” Geoff Ford decided. “I’ll be embarrassed if the kids come back. Hell, I’ll be embarrassed if Heinz comes back.”
“Where is Heinz?” Chuck Shrader asked.
“Liz was your first?” Cordino said.
“No,” Thom smiled and blushed.
“What?” Chayne looked at Thom.
“No. There was a girl before Liz.”
“That you had sex with?” this from Jeff Cordino.
Thom nodded.
“How old were you?” Jeff Cordino was taking a boyish glee in this.
“What? Are we gonna compare ages now?” Thom demanded.
“Twenty!” shouted Bill.
“Twenty-two,” said Dave.
Chuck said, “Nineteen.”
“What about you, Chayne?” Thom said, and Chayne blinked at him.
“When have you ever been interested in my love life?”
“I’m interested now,” Thom said.
Ted Weirbach cleared his throat.
Chayne looked at him.
“My love life is rich,” Chayne began.
Ted said, “I would like to make an announcement.”
“What the fuck, Ted?” Chayne said.
“Chayne is gay,” Ted said. “As you know.”
“I didn’t know,” David said. Then he said, “I mean, I didn’t care. I mean, good for you, Chayne. I mean, I wish I was gay too. I mean.”
“Dave,” Bill said.
Dave Armstrong shut up.
“I’ve known Chayne most of my life,” Thom said, “so why are we talking about this?”
“Because we don’t talk about things,” Ted said, “and…. Chayne is my LOVER.”
“For real?” Geoff said.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Chayne looked at the priest.
“Nothing!” Geoff Ford threw up his hands defensively. “Just… I don’t see it. I expect you to be with someone more…”
“Dangerous?” Thom said.
“Like a criminal or something,” Bill Dwyer said, playing with his shoelaces, “definitely a criminal.”
“This is why I keep my business to myself,” Chayne said.
“Well, he’s with me,” Ted said.
And then he said, “Aren’t you?”
For a moment Chayne wasn’t sure he’d been spoken to, and then he said, “Well, yes, Theodore. Yes, I suppose I am.”
Ted looked very pleased and he said, “And I love making love to him.”
“Wow,” was all Jeff Cordino said.
“Awkward,” Chuck Shrader said.
Thom burst out laughing and said, “Chayne Kandzierski! Embarassed! I love it.”
While they all laughed, Chayne laughed a little too loudly and when they had stopped, Chayne laughed and said, clasping Chuck’s hand and then Thom’s, “It’s almost as awkward as Chuck dating your wife.”
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