Your Blue Season

[ChrisGibson]

PART ONE

Note: This story takes place before any of the other Geshichte Falls (Russell, Gilead, Anigel, Brad, Jill...) stories.





From the kitchen door Thom Lewis asked his wife what she was cooking for dinner.
Patty crammed another cigarette between her lips to light it off of the old stub, and flipping to the Movies page said, “I hadn’t really planned on cooking anything.”
“Aw, Patty, it’s Sunday. And Jeff and Bill and David are probably coming.”
“You’re telling me this now? And Bill and David’ll probably bring Lee and Dena?
“Where are you going, anyway?”
Thom shrugged and gestured to the double pockets of his blue shirt as he hefted his bag.
“Bowling.”
“I’m not invited?”
“You hate bowling.”
“So do you.”
“It’s a Church thing,” Thom shrugged, “We’ll be back around six thirty, okay. Tell Russell to wear something decent, alright?”
Thom smiled and was out the door. He was cute and little and that smile had gotten him through many things Patty realized, crushing out the cigarette she hadn’t even noticed smoking. He hadn’t even waited for an answer about dinner, and as she got up to find something in the refrigerator, she realized he didn’t need to.

Unless you counted the buzz of the doorbell, Chayne Kandzierski was there at his mother’s doorstep without warning, leaning on the lintel, clothes askew, a gym bag his only luggage..
“Shouldn’t you be in Massachusetts?” Sharon’s brow furrowed.
“No.” Chayne said.
“How did you get here, baby?” Sharon asked as her son stepped into the apartment on Lowell Street.
“Hitchhiked,” said Chayne. “Mostly.”
Sharon said nothing. After thirty-five years she’d learned.
“Sharon!” Graham called from the kitchen. “Who’s here—Chayne, what the hell are you doing here?” Graham greeted his son. Graham was wrinkling now, his hair greying, his skin yellow unlike the dark skin of his wife and son.
“I’m thirsty,” Chayne ignored the question, put down the gym bag and went to the kitchen. “I miss the old house,” he murmured, opening the refrigerator.
Graham and Sharon exchanged glances, Graham’s asking what was going on, Sharon’s returning that she was damned if she knew.
Chayne came out with an iced tea. He was in jeans and tee shirt under an oversized plaid shirt, brass rimmed spectacles, the only signs of wealth a gold ring on his brown right index finger and a gold crucifix hanging from his neck.
“This is unexpected,” Graham said.
“Yes it is,” said Chayne. “I went to the house first, and saw a FOR SALE sign. What’s that all about?”
“What’s any of this all about?” Sharon asked. “Why are you here?”
Chayne gave his mother a withering glance. “Could you be a little less happy to see me?”
“I’m happy, Baby.” she made to touch his forehead. She was a good looking woman, thin very dark, hair still black, not looking her fifty-seven years. “It’s just we didn;t expect you.”
“Well,” Chayne was a little put off. “I don’t plan on you having to expect me for long. I came to ask about the house, and I’m going to sleep in it tonight. And tomorrow and the day after and the day after.”
“When are you going back East?” Graham cut in.
“I’m not,” said Chayne. “I’m here. To live.”

“Amber! Amber!”
“What, Tim, I’m takin’ a shit!” his wife called from the bathroom.
The big eared man strode into the bathroom—which had no door—and handing her the cordless said, “I think you’ll want this.”
“Alright—hello,” she took the phone. “CHAYNE!!! Chayne! What are you doin’? No! Naw! But what about—? They did what with the house? You’re gonna do what? Oh, Chayne! Oh, you go boy!”
Amber talked into the cordless while she finished her business, flushed the toilet and then washed her hands and strode out into the kitchen, still talking.
“Oh, well, you know nothing’s goin’ on right here.” as if to prove it to herself, she pushed back the gauzy curtain and looked out onto the state road, and then across it to the autumn browned fields that stretched on and on to the belt of trees. “Yeah, I’ll be over tonight. Good luck with the house!”

“What?” Mickey Wynn’s eyebrow rose.
Mickey, and his wife LaVelle, representing the fat gene of the family were present, Feleicia and her microbraids were there along with Carey and Chayne’s mother and his father.
“I said,” Chayne repeated to his family, “ff you all are gonna be like this about it. I’ll just buy the house.”
“Chayne, you can’t just buy a house,” Graham said incredulously.
“Yes, I can,” Chayne differed, reaching into his side pocket and taking out his checkbook. “Let me show you.”
“Well shit, Chayne,” Felice murmured.
“I didn’t expect to spend this much money this soon,” Chayne himself muttered. He looked up to his mother. “How much is my grandmother’s house that you didn’t tell me you’re selling going for?”
“65,000!” Graham said and Chayne eyed his father with annoyance. It wasn’t his mother who had owned the house.
“Well, it’s not worth that,” Chayne said, sullenly writing the check out, “but here’s 70,000.”
His father looked at him for an answer,
“Because then you all can never tell me that you could have gotten the house for a better price.”
He handed the check to his mother. “Now go get me the papers to the house.”
“Chayne,” LaVelle told her cousin by marriage. “I still haven’t gotten used to you.”
“I try to keep life interesting,” Chayne said.
“Well, you’re succeeding.”

The air in Geshichte Falls smelled like fried chicken, especially at the end of summer, early, early September. Especially on the walk out of the Breckinridge and down Curtain and onto Kirkland Street. After three o’clock when the sun began to melt like butter across the sky, over the brick and stone buildings of Kirkland and the distant office buildings of the defunct downtown, it also smelled like hot, flaky biscuits, especially on a hot September day.
Russell Lewis kept these thoughts to himself, though.
The bells from the high spire of Saint Adjeanet’s began to ring out What A Friend We Have In Jesus which meant church would start soon, but Russell only thought of quickening his pace for a few seconds. It was too hot to run.
On the walk down Kirkland he had only seen two cars and both were headed toward Saint Adjeanet’s, but when he got to the church, it was surrounded by cars for the five o’clock Mass. As the hymn ended, people were clearing off of the verandah and going into the church. Russell snuck into one of the side pews.
Russell Lewis liked the plainness of Saint Adjeanet’s. Past the old communion rail, over the altar and the golden tabernacle was the long crucifix, dark against the white wall, to its right, a lancet stain glass of the Blessed Virgin, to the left, one of Saint Joseph. Russell could not crane his neck to see the twelve lancets right above him on the west side of the church, but the light of the sun through them painted the three remaining sets of pews, and tinted the white stone aisle gold and green, blue and red. The church was crowded, but it usually was at five o’clock Mass. Russell wondered how many people had showed up to the first three that Sunday. After all there were only twenty thousand people in Geshichte Falls and four Catholic churches. There was Mr. Cordino and his almost girlfriend Miss Castile and near the front was crazy Liz Ford, Father Ford’s sister. A few rows away, past the Jensen family, were his next door neighbors, the Armstrongs. He didn’t really know them. They were Dad’s friends. Actually, in this last year a lot of people were coming up to Russell talking about his father, telling him to say hello to his father and thank his father for this and that.
They never mentioned his mom. Patty was not a church person. She was a devout Catholic who said her prayers, smoked her cigarettes, drank her gin, came to Mass on Sunday, did her business and left. She did not live for choir and RCIA and bazaars or socials and so none of the church people really knew her, and they didn’t really know Russell either. How they spotted him as Thom’s son was always a miracle to Russell because even without the baggy corduroys and long sleeved plaids worn when the weather demanded something lighter, Russell looked nothing like his father. He was already the same height as Thom now, and still growing. He was not dark haired or bold featured, but had shoulder length red hair that he had to push out of his face when he leaned down concentrating on the hymn book with his tilted green eyes in a fine featured face.

Here in this place, new light is streaming
now is the darkness vanished away,
see in this space, our fears and our dreamings,
brought here to you in the light of this day!

Russell stood up with the whole congregation as the servers entered the church, followed by Suzie Cratan bearing the lectionary aloft, and then Father Ford in white and green.

Gather us in—the lost and forsaken,
Gather us in—the blind and the lame,
call to us now and we shall awaken
we shall arise at the sound of your name!


The Gospel for the day was Jesus feeding the four thousand after the Sermon on the Plain. The people were tired and hungry, and sitting in the warm church, his throat a little dry, the story meant more to Russell. Jesus did not feed four thousand that Sunday, for there were less than a hundred people in church that evening. Russell wished he’d bothered to sit up front, the communion hymn was half over by the time the usher came to his pew, and it was a long time trudging, hands folded over his groin, head bowed before he came to the priest.
He saw him out of the corner of his eye.
Half humming, half singing, And I will rai-aise you uu-up on the la-ast day!, Russell craned his neck across the church to make sure he was seeing the right person. Yes, yes it was Chayne!
“Body of Christ,” said the woman with the bad hair.
Russell wondered if he’d take communion in his hands or in his mouth, decided for the hands, and then said, “Amen.”
Chayne is here!
And I will rai-aise you uu-up on the la-ast day!
“The Blood of Christ.”
Question or statement?
“Amen.”
And I will rai-aise you uu-up on the la-ast day! I am the resurrection, I am the life. If you believe in me....
Russell passed Mr. Cordino and Miss Castile, their heads bowed in the front row. He looked for Chayne as decently and unobtrusively as possible. The man was out of reach, hands folded, the old rosary wrapped about his hands. There was no good way to get to him, and so Russell decided to wait until the end of Mass, and run after him.
After announcements, and the closing hymn, Russell had a devil of a time getting out of the church. Father Ford was one of those priest who stood in the middle of the door like a peristyle, or like a gatekeeper and made sure no one left before talking ot him or shaking his hand.
“Russell, it’s good to see you. Your parents were here this morning. I asked them where you were. They said you’d be around later.”
“Yeah,” Russell shrugged. “I don’t like getting up early on Sundays. I mean, it’s the day of rest and all.”
“Oh, Russell, what are we gonna do with you?”
Above them the bells were ringing Oh, the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus, dropping one heavy note after the other.
“Tell your father hello, and great job with the planning for the men’s retreat.”
“Alright,” Russell shook Father Tony’s hand vigorously. “Thank you,” and he was gone, looking up and down Kirkland past the exiting parishioners on the sunlit steps and wondering what the hell he was thanking Father Tony for.
“Chayne!” Russell screamed over the crowd. He’d just gotten a glimpse of the man now crossing Kirkland Street.
“CHAYNE!!!”
He was making himself rather undignified. People were looking. My God, get the fuck out of the way and go home people! “Scuse me, pardon me,” he had to say coming down the sidewalk, through the crowd of chatty parishioners. Chayne had seen him.
“Russell? Russell!”
“Oh my God, why are you here?” Russell demanded, clasping his hands, not knowing what to do, and then, most unRussell like, throwing his arms around Chayne.
“I keep on getting that question?” Chayne said dismally. The black man and the white boy were nearly of a height, Chayne just a little taller. They were walking down Kirkland now, past the little bookstore.
“But when it comes from me it’s a happy question,” said Russell. “How long are you here for?”
“I’m here.”
“What?” Russell stopped to stare at Chayne.
“I’m here.”
“What about… teaching out East?”
They stood still on the corner of Kirkland and Reynold.
“It’s gone. At least for now.”
Chayne was going to be here. He never stayed for long and now he was staying for good. Russell didn’t know what to say, but he said, “Is that a good thing?”
“It’s a way things are thing,” Chayne said.
“Where are you staying?”
“In the house.”
“But I passed it the other day, Chayne,” they started moving up Reynold Street. “It was all overgrown ,and there was a FOR SALE sign up—”
“Well now it’s been sold. I bought it.”
“Oh, Chayne,” Russell hugged his old friend again.
“That’s enough now!”
“You don’t know how its been,” Russell was telling Chayne as they came to the corner and made a right on Curtain Street. “Sophomore year is worse than Freshmen. I hate school. Mom and Dad are still fighting the cold war. I hate this place. I hate these people. It’s like a suburb of hell.”
“It’s just adolescence.”
“My Dad says that teenagers start to think the world is meaningless and that’s what my problem is.”
“Teenagers just start to see the world for what it is,” Chayne said.
Russell stopped in his tracks on Curtain Street. It was one thing for him to say life was meaningless, another for a respected adult to confirm his opinion.
“Do you really mean that, Chayne? That the world is meaningless.”
“The one most people live in,” Chayne said.
Curtain Street was little and brick paved and lined by small old houses, msotly two stories, soem bungalows with gingerbread trim and wrap around porches, hedges that bordered the yeards and grew over the fences. Chayne’s house was much the same, dark green with a large bay widnow overlooking the porch, and a broad stair. The wide yard was overgrown with weeds and the hedges were so high that you had to peer through them to see this view of the house. The FOR SALE sign stood in the yard forlorn and misguiding.
“Do you wanna come and eat with us?” Russell asked Chayne.
Chayne furrowed his brows over his spectacles.
“I don’t really think that Thom would appreciate me there. But I was actually going to ask if you wanted to come here. Amber’ll be here soon and probably bring Shannon and her husband. We’ll be having a regular old party. We could even make sure you get to school safe in the morning. Bring some clothes over.”
Russell’s face lit up.
“Go tell your parents first. I’ll be right here.”
“Will there be liquor?”
“You know I can’t answer that.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Wow this was a nice surprise! Lots going on in this great new story and I am glad you clarified when it takes place. It was good to read about these characters like Russell again. Excellent writing and I look forward to more soon! I hope you had a great Sunday!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I had a smashing Sunday, and hope you did as well. I actually think with the exception of Russell, all these characters will be new for you. I had to clarify because this Russell is kind of different from the one you meet later.

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART TWO



The sky was just beginning to glow orange with the setting sun outlining the black shadows of the neighborhood trees when Thom came in through the back door swinging his bowling bag and said, “Smells great, honey. Everyone’ll be here in a few minutes. They went to get cleaned up.”
“You think you could set the table, Thom?”
Thom made to sniff an armpit and said, “I gotta get cleaned up, hon. I can’t greet guests like this.”
“I’ll take that as a no,” Patty murmured into the potato salad as Thom went upstairs. She judged he should be in the hsower... right... about...now. And turned on the cold water.
“Aaahh shit!” she heard her husband scream upstairs and hadg a little smile over her little victory, and then reached into the cupboard for glasses and went out to set the table.
The front door rang and Patty crossed the dining room into the wide living room to open the door.
“Jeffrey. Anna.” Mr. Cordino and Miss Castile were the first to arrive. Patty imagined that once she’d been that young looking. Both were soft spoken and Mediterranean with pallid skin that contrasted with their very dark eyes and hair.
“They came in, looked around, and Jeff asked, “Do you need any help, Patty?”
“No—” she began, but neither one of them paid attention, going in to get glasses and plates and chatting on about Mass today and how they’d seen Russell. The doorbell rang again and then there were Bill and Dena from next door and Patty heard herself offering drinks and Dena saying, “I’ll help you.”
Patty was falling into the role of being a housewife.
Thom came down. Patty could hear him from the kitchen. He had on a tie and slacks, she came out into the dining room with the potato salad and he asked her, “Where’s Russell?”
“He’s with Chayne.”
“What?”
“Chayne’s back.”
“Chayne Kandzierski?” Bill Dwyer interrupted before he realized he was interrupting.
“Russell swung by and asked if he could stay the night with Chayne and his friends.”
“Great, the boy’ll be in juvenile custody before the week’s out.”
“And I said he could.”
“Patty,” Thom said in the voice that told Patty it was time to put down the salad and have a small conference in the kitchen.
“Thom?” she said when they were in the kitchen.
“I wanted Russell to eat with us.”
“Why? He’d have more fun at Chayne’s. Come to think of it, I’d have more fun at Chayne’s. And Chayne’s his godfather.”
“John’s his godfather,” Thom reminded her. “Your brother, remember?”
“Chayne was his confirmation sponsor though, and that kind of makes him a godfather too.”
“Not if you manage to talk a kid out of getting confirmed.” Thom differed.
“Okay, then. Could we get past your hatred of Chayne Kandzierski and have a nice—”
“I don’t hate Chayne.”
“Whatever.”
“I don’t hate Chayne.”
“Could you be a little louder? It’s your friends we’re trying to impress so don’t blow a gasket right here. Let’s go out and smile and pretend to be happy.”
Patty turned her husband a vicious smile, and then went out followed by Thom who whispered, “I wish you’d done a little something with yourself before everyone got here, hon.”

Behind them the house was a dark and benevolent monster. The electric was cut off and so there would be no accomplishing anything in there until the morning. The old, crumbling firepit was lit and the fire turned the backyard, the high trees, the hedges green and black and red and gold.
They were all in dilapidated lawn chairs, Russell seeing between the three adults pitchers of margaritas with ice cubes floating in them, the foil covered plates of burritos and tacos, burgers grilled in the pit earlier. Sparks of fire crackled and shot up into the night sky and Chayne’s singing voice hovered on the air and Shannon leaned into Bill, while Amber, smiling contentedly, nodded her head and lit another cigarette.

When we’ve been here
ten thousand years
bright shining as the su-uuun!
We’ve no--no! no! no! less days
to sing--my God’s prai-aise
than when we first begu-uuun
than when we first BE-GUU-UUN !

Russell was feeling a little drowsy when Chayne poured himself another margarita and Bill broke out the guitar and began to strum it, and then play it in earnest, and Shannon, pushing her mass of curls back, took the cue and sat up straight, cleared her throat and started to moan

Whatchu gonna do?
Whatchu gonna do--about meeee?
Yeah!
Whatchu gonna do?
Whatchu gonna do--about meeee?
ohhhh, yeah!

And they all took it up. It had been so long since Russell had sung, really sung. And he had never been drunk, which he was sure he was now. And he hadn’t enjoyed himself, thrown back his head and let lose with his singing... ever?
“It’s almost midnight,” Amber said at last. “The only person who doesn’t have to be up early is Chayne Kandzierski. “
She got up and put her cigarettes back into her purse.
“Are you really sleeping here, tonight, Chayne?” Bill asked. “You can stay with us.”
“I invited Russell to stay the night though,” Chayne said, gesturing to the boy dozing in the chair.
“Hell, bring’im with us. Poor bastard in the Breckinridge with all those crazy folks. This’ll do him good to have fun with some normal people.”
Chayne didn’t know how normal any of them was, but he shook Russell and said, “Wake up!”
“We’ll get him to school on time in the morning,” Shannon said.
“And you back here!” She looked around and sighed. “It’s so good to have you back!”

“It’s almost chilly tonight,” Shannon noted while Russell was climbing into the truck in front of 1421 Curtain Street and Chayne was saying goodnight to Amber. Soon Amber’s taillights went on, the car headed down Curtain, turned left at Reynold and was gone. And then Chayne came to the truck, looked in and said. “One of us should get in the back. I’ll do it.” he said, and climbed into the truck bed. Shannon rolled down the window and crawled out and then was followed by Russell.
“What’s this all about?” Chayne asked as Shannon threw the tarp over the three of them.
“I guess I’ll be all alone in the cab!” Bill shouted back a false lament, and then started the truck and they pulled down Curtain, coming to Kirkland where the car sped up. They went beyond Kirkland, which deadended and ended up in the midst of downtown. Main Street was empty on the busiest days and in the night there were a few people walking, traffic lights flashing, the buildings, the highest one only ten stories, looking down blankly. If you looked between some of the buildings there was a glimpse of the river, but soon Chayne, between Russell and Shannon put his head down and looked at the sky which, as they left town, rolled out its stars. Main Street turned into a state route They passed a few scattered apartment complexes, strangely named taverns and isolated houses like Amber’s, and reached Bill and Shannon’s place, the dogs barking to welcome them.
“We’re here,” Bill shouted as the truck rumbled to a stop.
Knees aching, Russell climbed out of the truck with his book bag, and Chayne’s assistance. When he’d waken this morning on Breckinridge Avenue, he’d never expected to end up here.

I I


“And then he says ‘Gee honey, I wish you’d done something to yourself!’”
“He didn’t!” Felice Wynn’s eyes and mouth opened up into O’s over her coffee.
“He did,” Patty told her friend, crushing out one cigarette and lighting another. “And there was no thank you honey, no offer to help. Jeff Cordino and his little girlfriend were the ones who set the table—”
“I like her,” Jackie said, tipping the ash off her cigarette.
“Yeah, me too,” Patty said. “And then after that—” all three women, sipping coffee around the kitchen table shut up as Thom came down the back stairs with his brief case.
“Felice! Jackie!” Thom flashed his wife’s friend and his sister a smile. Felice had to admit that he was attractive—for a white man.
“Did you call Chayne to make sure Russell got to school?” Thom asked Patty as he reached for one of the oranges in the basket on the table, and went to the counter to fill a thermos with coffee.
“How could I when he doesn’t have a phone?”
“Doesn’t have a—” Thom stopped in mid action, looking a little mystified.
“He just got back yesterday, Thom,” Felice informed her friend’s husband, feeling a little of Patty’s irritation as she pushed a long brown hand through her thick braids.
“Oh,” and because Thom didn’t know what else to say, he added, “Well.” and then said, “I’ll be back around six. Later, ladies.”
“I love you too,” Patty said to the door, and lit another cigarette as the door opened again.
Thom stuck his head back in and said, “Honey, you should really lay off the cigarettes. They’re gonna make you look old.”
And then he was gone.
Patty waited a second and then let loose with a scream her friends were waiting for.
“He does it every time. I can’t take it!” Patty said. “I know he’s your brother, Jackie, but I can’t take him. If I divorce him do I have to lose the whole Lewis family?”
“The whole Lewis family and half of Russell’s genetic makeup will go to Thom,” Jackie said seriously, smiling like Buddha.
“Girl, if it bothers you this much, you need to talk to him,” Felicia said.
“Yeah, Patty,” Jackie chimed in.
“I do talk to him, but he doesn’t listen. I used to actually be able to talk to Thom. We actually—I’m pretty sure once upon a time we had something. I mean, after all, Russell came from somewhere. But he doesn’t listen. He doesn’t really listen to anything.”
“He’s a man,” Jackie said, dismally.
“He just smiles his dashing smile,” Patty said waving her cigarette in the air like an infernal magic wand, “He’s polite. Sometimes he’s out of line, but he’s never attentive. It’s like talking to a brick with a smiley face painted on it.”
“It’s a cute brick, though,” Felice said.
Patty eyed her friend.
“Girl, I’m sorry but Thom is cute.”
“He is short as fuck.”
“He was short when you married him sixteen years ago,” Jackie said. “You knew it then. He hasn’t changed.”
“He’s bite sized,” Felice went on. “It just makes him cuter. You wanna put him in your pocket and do all sorts of things to him—”
“Felice!”
“Just because I’m not getting along with my husband doesn’t mean I’m advocating you having fantasies about the man.”
“Thom Lewis is the only white man I have ever fanta— ”
“Could we leave this subject alone?” Jackie said.
“Thank you,” said Patty. But then she added. “And he even fucks like a brick—”
“Here we go again,” Jackie rolled her eyes.
“Up and down, up and down, and it’s over and I’m sitting in bed thinking, ‘I gave up ER for this?’”
Felice shouted and clapped her hands.
“And—” Patty went on, “It doesn’t help that he’s attractive. I know he’s attractive. And it doesn’t help that he’s charming and has dark wavy hair and deep soulful eyes if neither one of them is benefiting me, and I don’t know what bitch in Grand Rapids is trying to get into his pants or what he’ll do—”
“Thom wouldn’t—”
“Jackie, you don’t know what Thom would do. I married a younger man—”
“Two years younger—”
“Grant it, but now it’s starting to show.”
And it was. Patty had once heard that she and Thom were a beautiful couple. Now Thom was impeccably handsome and she was a loose conglomeration of jogging pants, hooded sweatshirt, cigarettes, pale skin, and pinched nostrils held together by a riot of gold-brown curls.
“You know what I think it is?” Jackie said, taking another sip of her old coffee. “I think it’s the role reversal.”
Patty raised an eyebrow.
“Well, you’re right about Thom,” Jackie went on about her brother. “He’s handsome. Women like to look at him but for a long time that was all he had. I mean you were the one with the Masters that got the Ph.D. and made all the money and got this house. And now, for the first time, Thom has a good job and he’s really respected—”
“And the fact that I’m an unemployed housewife is just icing on the cake?”
Jackie paused, eyed her pack of Carltons and said, “I wasn’t going to say that.”
“I think,” Patty, not heeding her husband, took another cigarette out of the pack, “that it’s the only thing we can say.”

Kirkland ran west and came to a dead end into north south Lincoln Street three blocks past Saint Adjeanet’s. Here stood Queen of Angels, the high school Shannon and Chayne dropped Russell off at that morning.
“I do not want to go,” Russell said, climbing out of the truck.
“I don’t blame you,” Chayne looked at the long three story behemoth of grey stone, blackened by age and waterstains. If possible, it was even uglier than when he’d gone there.
“Look at it this way,” Shannon said. “We shaved off at least an hour from your schedule.”
He made the walk up to the third floor, the placing of books in his locker take as long as possible, but Mr Connelly, the wresly coach with the crooked nose stuck his head out and said, “Hey, Lewis, stop slow poking and get to class.”
So he stopped slowpoking. He had thought about sitting in the bathroom and waiting for the end of second period, but he actually liked second period, as much as he liked anything, and so he entered the classroom and as he took his seat in the very middle of the classroom it seemed like every body in blazers in ties was eyeing them and none of them was doing it in friendship. Ralph Balusik smiled at him and so did Jason Lorry under his hooded eyes, but he wouldn’t call smiles like theirs friendship, and when a spitball landed in his hair and there was a little chuckle, he knew it wasn’t.


“Do you know how long I’ve been waiting?” Chayne demanded three days later of the phone he was shouting into as he walked around the kitchen and Russell watched him.
“A long ass time! No—not a long time. A long ASS time. Now the phone company was here yesterday. You said you’d be here yesterday. Do you see what I’m doing?” Chayne moved to the light switch. “Do you see? I’m flicking on the light switch. Do you see what’s happening? That’s right. Nothing. I don’t have to call again. I don’t want to have to walk over to the that power plant myself and—what’s that? Thank you. You—you have a good day too.”
Russell, sitting at the table, bit into an apple and said decidedly, “I want to be you when I grow up.”
“Oh, you grew up a long time ago. Playing hookie again?”
Russell nodded. “I made it to homeroom but general science came next, and I couldn’t take that.”
Chayne checked a parental impulse, the small voice that would have said Russell, how are you going to do on the test if you don’t go to class or One day that will all catch up to you or Face your problems head on, high school is very valuable. Saying any of that would have just let Russell down. There were enough people to tell him this, and the eighteen intervening years between high school and Chayne’s present had told him that all those little voices weren’t really true. The best he could do for Russell was to help him get through childhood’s end as unscarred as possible.
Russell got up and went into the living room. It was bare except for one of Chayne’s grandmothers old sofa’s and her a bingo table at the large window Chayne was now using for a desk. Outside the front yard was overgrown with weeds and their late summer flowers
“Are you going to work on the garden?” Russell asked.
“I don’t know what the point would be,” Chayne said. “It’s almost winter. All the weeds’ll be dead by then. Maybe I’ll work on it next year.”
“Yeah,” Russell lifted an eyebrow. “Maybe you will.”
“Maybe I will,” Chayne insisted, reentering the empty living room and looking around. “I need to get Grandma Wynn’s furniture.”
“Chayne?” Russell asked, “Why did you leave your school?”
“I wasn’t happy,” he said. “It was getting old. But that wasn’t enough. I got squeezed out. Plain and simple. Without tenure, I was just a simple adjunct and there’s the end of that. You can only spend so much time cobbling out a living running between three schools teaching, and so now my only plan is to wait for the next step.”
“Next step?”
“Yes,” Chayne said. “There’s always a next step. Even if you can’t see it.”
That the next step would have been a lot easier had he not written a seventy-five thousand dollar check to his parents, he did not say.
“You sound like my mom,” Russell told his friend.
“We both had a job and we both spent a long time getting it, and we both mostly got fired,” Chayne said. “Her esoteric crisis is if she’ll ever find a job again. Mine is that I always can get one—I think, I hope. But nothing looks worth anything except sitting right here. And that’s a whole other sort of crisis.”
“I think that’s my crisis,” Russell said.

The air was scentless. There was no promise of dinner to be inhaled. Usually this was a sign that if Russell walked around downstairs for a few seconds, then Patty would say, “I guess I should get up and throw something together,” and she would and they would eat.
Now, as he headed downstairs, there was laughing and there was talking.
“And so we can go over the Creed at our next meeting—”
And he froze at the head of the stairs.
It was Mr. Cordino.
Whose class he had missed for two days now.
Russell inhaled, shook himself, and then ran back to his room, locked the door, and looked at Moby-Dick open on the bed.
It was a large room with hardwood floors, that shot out from the rest of the house so that three of the walls had large windows, one leading to a little rusted and useless balcony overlooking their yard the Yarborough’s. Russell fantasized that he could climb down the balcony, out his yard and through yards until he got three blocks down to Chayne’s house. Too late now. He was locked in his room as long as long as Mr. Cordino was here. And what if the man brought up Russell’s truancy?
Steady, steady now. All he could do was go on reading.
Russell had only gotten a page or so further when there was a knock on the door, but there was no telling how much time had really passed. He tended to blank out when bored, and now he could smell cooking downstairs. This was not like Mom. Usually she would take her broom and hit the butt of it to the ceiling to call him down for dinner. He opened it and—
It was Mr. Cordino.
“Your Mom was going to come up and tell you it was time for dinner, but I suggested going myself.”
Russell opened his mouth to say something. Nothing came.
“It’s not ready yet,” said Jeff Cordino. “So we’ve got a few moments. Could I talk to you a second, Russell?”
Oh, God! and he said it so nicely. Russell only nodded and invited Mr.Cordino—Jeff—into his room.
“This is a nice place you’ve got. Oooh, and lots of books,” he sounded shocked as if the bookshelves had snuck up like a small pet to sniff his leg. He sat on the edge of Russell’s bed and Russell stood, looking at him.
“You’re a smart kid, Russell. A smart young man I should say.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cordino.”
He shrugged. He looked very young in jeans and a button down shirt. “We’re not in school right now. You can call me Jeff. I’m only twenty-four.”
He smiled. Then his face grew serious.
“Russell, you’re one of the best if not the best students I have, and you’re good. I want to know what—why you won’t come to school. If I can help you, I want you to tell me.”
Until that moment Russell had seen his truancy as a personal choice in a shitty situation. Coming out of Mr. Cor—Jeff’s mouth—it seemed like an illness, something that called for a twelve step program, a problem needing attention, and this new view so shook Russell that he said, “I don’t know what to say.”
“What don’t you like about school, Russell?”
“How about asking me what I like about it?” Russell said.
“I hate everything. I hate everybody. When I was going to Saint Adjeanet’s I thought high school would be better and Mom told me about how cool high school was, how much fun all the activities were! And when I started high school I tried to do all that stuff. Choir, drama cause I’m not good at sports. But you know what? I don’t like it. I don’t like the pep rallies. I think it’s all stupid. I hate everybody. I think its all stupid. Whenever anybody tries to insult me I wanna slap him, because it’s not insulting it’s stupid and it’s like—I’m supposed to make a comeback with that. I hate all the teachers, they’re all stupid too—except for you, Mr. Cor—Jeff,” Russell screwed up his face and threw out his hands, “Mr.Cordino, whoever you are, now. I hate sitting in class, sleeping through everything and still being able to get an A, or the classes like algebra and general science I’ll never get an A—or a B or maybe even a C in that I—don’t—care about. I hate Ralph Balusik, I hate Jason Lorry. I hate Jeremy. I hate my classes, I hate the way the school smells. I hate being a teenager. I hate that I have no friends my own age. I hate gym class cause I can’t dribble a ball or climb that rope—AND I DON’T WANT TO! I hate that there’s no more recess! And I hate that I’m sitting in some stuffy classroom being bored to tears when I look out of the window and there’s this whole summer world outside and so I don’t come.”
Then, looking at the slightly dumbfounded Jeff Cordino he said, “And, Sir, there’s nothing you can do about any of it.”

Russell and Jeff, coming down the stairs, when they heard the crash, the thud and smash of class. They had just missed what had happened in the kitchen. Anna Castile had been helping Patty. She was a pretty, silent girl who wanted to say several things to Patti but considered them all out of the place, so she jus helped. If she’d spoken she would have said that she knew she and Jeff should not have popped on over, and that it wasn’t right for her husband to just call an impromptu dinner.
But she didn’t. She just went out into the dining room to put out the glasses. Patty was lifting the casserole out of the oven when Thom was coming into the kitchen and he stopped in his tracks and looked at her, horrified.
“What?” she said.
“Is that the best you could do?” Thom demanded.
Patty stared straight at him, held out the casserole dish and dropped it on the kitchen floor. The whole house heard. Thom lost his breath, and then his wife turned on one heel and marched upstairs.

“Patty, open the door.”
“Patty, please, let me in. Patty open the door,” Thom hissed through the door and shook it a little, playing with the handle. “Patty, com’on. What’s this gonna look like to Russell?”
The door opened so quickly Thom nearly fell in, and eyes flashing, tendriled curls waving like snakes his wife hissed, “Don’t you dare bring Russell into this!”
“Into what?” he snapped a little, “Do you know what I looked like, what kind of explaining I had to do to Jeff and—”
“I don’t give a damn what kind of explaining you had to do—”
“And to,” Thom had raised his voice. He quieted now. “And to Russell.”
“Like I said, Thom—”
“I had to feed him tonight.”
“You did?” Patty tossed her hair and affected surprise.
“Well, welcome to my world. It’s almost like you’re his father or something! Don’t tell me about how caring you are, you don’t give a good goddamn about either one of us!”
“Could we fight in the morning?”
“No, because you ignore me in the morning and in the afternoon and in the night—”
“That is not true.”
Thom came into the room and closed the door
“It is perfectly true,” Patty said, hand on one hip.
“Russell doesn’t need to hear us shouting,” Thom said pacifically.
“Um?” Patty cocked her head. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you mention your son in days. And three times in a row, too—”
Thom’s face blackened and he said ,”Oh, you wait a minute, Patricia. You wait a goddamn minute—”
“What?” she grew livid the darker her husband became. “What? You wanna fight? Good. Shit, Thom I’ve been dying for a fight. Come on!”
Suddenly Thom stopped, sucked in his breath, folded his arms across his chest and threw back his head and laughed.
“What?” Patty snapped.
Thom just went on laughing.
“What?”
“I’m not going to fight with you.”
Patty went to the bed, got her pillow, ripped off the comforter and said, “And I’m not going to sleep with you.”
And she left Thom alone in the room.

Thom almost noticed the quiet in the house the next morning. If he’d really listened to how he felt about Patty in the recent past, Patty all unkempt, chain smoking, a half nervous wreck, he would have felt the difference more keenly. There was not the scent of cigarette smoke in the air. There was not busy energy all over the kitchen. Jackie and Felice were not present. Russell was off to school by now.
The change? Somewhere in the middle of the night, Patricia Lewis had awoken on the couch, her back in pain. She blinked up at the ceiling, waiting for it to come into focus out of the blackness before she sat up and looked around the wide living room, looked through the lace curtains as best she could in the pre-dawn darkness. Things somehow became clearer in the dark. There was no messy sunlight in her eyes, not the voices of her friends, the specter of Thom, or even the guilt of Russell. She knew what she had to do. The decision hurt so bad she wasn’t sure it could possibly be true. Then she knew, when she tried to flee from it that it had to be true. After the pain, after the tears which surprised her by coming while she stuffed the edge of the comforter in her mouth, she fell asleep, and woke up breathing in and out, praying.
“Thom?” she said. She’d only had one cup of coffee and was still in her housecoat. She sat in the living room, before the coffee table. For once he was heading out the front door.
He turned around in his suit, his briefcase in one hand, thermos in the other.
“Yeah, Patty?”
“I need to talk to you.” she stood up and approached him.
Thom nodded, satisfied. “Good. A real talk instead of all the yelling.”
“I yelled because you wouldn’t hear me when I was talking—”
“And this is good and we can talk when I get home, because I’m running late, Pat—”
“But you’ll hear me when I talk now,” Patty went on, nonplussed. “I’ve been thinking a lot about us, Thomas. And I don’t want you to come home tonight.”
Thom laughed.
“Patty, what are you—?”
“I don’t want to be married to you anymore. We’ll work out the whole thing, who gets what, what happens with the house later on. But I’ve got to do this—”
“Patty, you don’t know what you’re talking—”
“Yes—” she put a hand out and continued, talking to the floor. “I do. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and it terrified me. The truth? I don’t really think you see me, Thom. Or anything else. And I don’t think you love me.”
“Patty,” but he tried to put the laugh into his voice, to tell her she was silly.
“No, I really don’t think you do. And I’ve wondered what it is about you that has made me not leave you. You see, I’ve been Patricia Lewis for seventeen years, almost half my life, and I’ve been Thom’s girl for longer. Whatever you said, I did. All you ever had to do was give the command and smile, and everyone told me how lucky I was to have you. They did,” she nodded to herself looking back on something. “And I’m... used to you, Thom...”
Thom’s face had grown serious. His dark eyes darkened even more until they were almost black. He didn’t notice the soreness in his arm from holding the briefcase. His mouth was open a little.
“I’m used to you. I even need you. I need you badly. I discovered that last night, and that was almost the hardest discovery. But need isn’t enough, Thomas. And I might need you,” she lifted her eyes to him and they were almost honey colored. They were so full of color it hurt her husband, “but I don’t love you.”
Thom’s jaw steadied. He lifted it, narrowed his eyes a little and clearing his throat he said, “We’ll talk when I get home.”
“No.” Patty shook her head sadly. She was looking at the floor again.
As soon as Thom walked out he heard the lock slide home. Something in him wanted to scream and rush at the door, but he’d trained that something into submission a long time ago. Thom did not display emotions unless they were happy, unless they were witty. He would be patient with his wife. It was probably best that way.
Thom took in a breath, turned around and marched down the little brick walk for the car before he felt something whiz past his ear. He looked down and saw one of his shoes. and then came the next.
“Hey, Patty!” but then he had to dodge a bowling bag, and then underwear was coming down, sports jackets now. Thom thought of shaking his fist at the window, and then turned around, got in the car and headed for Grand Rapids.

 

[CharmedFan28]

This is certainly a different Russell to the other stories! So much going on that I will have to re-read this a bit to keep up! Looks like Thomas and Patty are breaking up. I wonder how this will affect the other characters. Great writing and I look forward to more soon. Hope you are having a relaxing night!

 

[ChrisGibson]

I did post a lot tonight to make up for only a little last night. I'm going to post less tomorrow or maybe perhaps not post until Wednesday that way you'll have ample time to peruse and regather. I had a terrible headache today, but the night is good and returning to this earlier Russell is good as well.

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART THREE


Thom had largely ignored Patty. Her anger wasn’t real for him. What she’d said wasn’t serious. For various reasons Thom had spent a life time deadening his intuition and his emotions and this had given him a head hard enough to sail into his driveway at six and come to the door, open it—it was never locked except for Patty’s drama this morning, and she was past that—and walk in to face Patty standing squarely in his face.
She was wordless. She patted him down, reached into his side pockets, pulled out his keys, wrenched at her index finger and replaced them with her wedding ring, and then closed the door in Thom’s face, slid home the lock and put on the chains. The backdoor was already locked.
Thom drove around town about an hour, an amazing accomplishment considering the size of Geshichte Falls, before his pride finally released him and he could head to his sister’s apartment on Royal Street.
“It’s about time you got here,” Jackie said. “I’ve got dinner waiting on the stove for you, and I made up the let out bed.”
Thom looked at her confusedly.
“Patty called me,” his sister explained. “She knew you’d end up here.”
“This is ridiculous!”
“Really?” Jackie’s blunt featured face stared at him, her blue eyes bemused, as she pulled a hand through her dark, thick hair.
Thom ignored his sister and threw his suitcase on the sofa before the large window overlooking Royal Street.
Then he said, “Yes, really.”
“Well,” said Jackie, heading back to the section of the apartment that served for a kitchen. “It might be ridiculous, but I wouldn’t try to go over there again if I were you. She’s serious.”
“What about Russell?”
“What about him?” Jackie paused in slopping the microwave veal parmesan on plates.
“What’s he gonna do?”
“What he’s always done. He’s practically living with Chayne.”
“I don’t like that. Chayne coming back into town and all.”
“Firstly, Chayne Kanzierski or anybody else doesn’t give a shit about what you like and second, it’s better Russell have Chayne take care of him than no one—”
“I was there. And Patty—”
“Thom,” Jackie said, bringing the plate to him and sitting on the steamer trunk that served as a coffee table, “neither one of you has been there for Russell in the last few years. That boy has been like a wild weed. And he can pretty much take care of himself.”
Thom scowled and played with his food. Jackie slapped his hand. She was bigger and taller and wilder than him. He was so little and cute, Jackie thought, that it sometimes felt like he was the younger sibling and not the other way around.
“I never knew how to get to Russell,” Thom said. “Russell’s different. He’s like Mom. He’s like you when you were a kid. Just all over the place and you don’t know where he’s coming from.”
“Is that what I was like as a child?”
Thom nodded.
“No one knew what to do with you. Except Mom cause she’s just as crazy. She just laughed.”
“But you and Kristin...”
“We’re different,” Thom said.
“You all are normal. You all are so conservative and in control and well bred and... Republican!” Jackie laughed. “And then Mom turned around and had me and Finn.”
“Have you heard from Finn?” Thom had started eating now.
“Last time I heard from him he was in Texas. In jail again, I think.”
“And then,” Thom said. “I had Russell and who knows where Russell’s headed! He’s nothing like me. Sometimes....”
“He disappoints you?”
“No,” Thom sat up and shook his head, shocked. “Does he think that?”
“Maybe a little. That’s how I used to think you and Kristin felt about me.”
“No,” Thom said more gently. “Jackie, sometimes I’m afraid... that I disappoint him.”

Geoff Ford walked into the church that morning to prepare for eleven-thirty Mass and heard piano music playing.
To the right of the tabernacle was an altar to the Blessed Virgin, votive candles in blue glass under her feet, but to the left of it was a smaller chapel, with pews and a smaller tabernacle, Mary and Joseph standing together off to the left. You had to step up into this chapel, and before it, turned to the major part of the church was an upright piano where Russell Lewis was playing.
As Jeff approached, Russell did not notice him. He switched to another hymn, this played haltingly. He tried to sing it to himself.
“Dada dada, da da da da dada. Dada da da da dada.... shine in my heart, O, Jesus! Um,” the boy frowned.
“Russell,” Jeff startled him.
Russell looked up at the priest. Geoff Ford was a young man with thick, gold-brown hair and a sort of firm roundness to him, his face, his lips, even his hands. His blue eyes seemed mildly concerned.
“Father Ford?”
“Shouldn’t you be in school?”
Russell stopped playing.
“I guess you could say that. But I’d rather be here.”
“Russell, you ought to be in school.”
“I need to be here even more,” Russell told the priest. “A lot more. Do you know this song?” Russell tried to play the song again.
“No, Russell, I don’t.”
“Father Ford?”
“Yes?”
“Why did you become a priest?”
“Are you thinking about becoming one, Russell?”
“No,” Russell replied frankly. “I was just asking, really.”
“Well,” the priest looked plussed. “There were many reasons. That’s a very difficult answer. God... called me to it. We do the things God calls us to.”
“And everything is God’s will?” Russell’s voice was blank.
“Yes, Russell.”
Russell shrugged and got up, sliding his backpack onto his shoulder again.
“I better go to school,” Russell said.
“Good idea, Russell. Have a good day, Russell.”
“You too, Father Ford.”
The church was bright and full of sunlight. Walking out onto Kirkland it was even brighter. Oppressively so. Russell was one of those people who wished for winter. Summer had gone on too long. This September Russell was holding out for the first autumn leaf. He did not turn right, in the direction of Lincoln Street. He turned left, for Curtain Street, and Chayne’s house.

The bell went off again, and Jeff Cordino and Chuck Shrader had to maneuver their way through the halls full of shouting boys, many bumping into them saying, “Sorry, Mr. Cordino. ‘Scuse me, Mr. S.” Jeff was setting up for class, and Chuck Shrader was wasting time when as the first students were coming in and along with Tommy Dickenson entered Doc Brennan.
He was an ugly little man, but had been at Our Lady of Mercy long enough to have his own classroom, something Jeff could only dream of right now.
“Jeffrey,” began Doc Brennan. “You know Russell Lewis?”
“Yes, he’s one of my best students.”
“He’s in my homeroom. I’ve been hearing that even though he’s on the attendance records he can hardly stay in school a whole day. That he’s not even really here today. But he’s marked on my list for being present. Is he really in school or does he need to be reported?”
“Oh, he was here,” Jeff said, adding a laugh. “How could Russell be the student he is if he wasn’t here? I only wish I had more like him. Why today... he gave one heck of a presentation on the Reformation, and we’ve hardly been in school a month! He could really teach the rest of those blockheads a lesson.”
Jeff listened to himself lying in amazement. Chuck Shrader did too. He had heard Jeff go on about this kid never showing up. Russell had been pointed out once to him, and once pointed out, was never to be forgotten. So Chuck added, figuring there had to be some reason for the lie:
“Well, he was in my consumer-ec class today is all I know, and kids were making fun of how he’d done in Jeff’s class earlier,” Chuck said. “Just saw him a few minutes ago.”
“Just checking,” Doc Brennan nodded. “Yeah, you guys are right. Russell’s a good student. I had just heard a rumor and had to check on it.”
The class was filling up. Some of the boys looking at the three teachers.
“I better get going.”
Doc Brennan left.
“Yeah, me too,” added Chuck Shrader, getting off the corner of the desk and looking at his friend before he left.
“I guess you know what you’re doing?” Chuck challenged.
Jeff raised his eyebrows and said, “No. not really.”


Chayne was on the roof of his house looking toward sunset on Reynold Street when he heard a knock at the door far below. Carefully, Chayne went along with ridge of the roof and shouted down the covered porch. “Be there in a moment!”
Russell stood at the door, his bags before him. Unceremoniously he walked into the living room and set his things down.
“I’m here, now.”
He told Chayne about the situation at home and then said, “I’m out of the nuthouse. Mom can have it. Come to think of it, the world is the nuthouse. I’m out of it. Out of it all!”

MORE THURSDAY NIGHT

 

[CharmedFan28]

Well it looks like Russell's parents have definitely split. I hope he ends up ok despite that. I guess I will just have to wait and see. This new story is very interesting and I am enjoying it! Great writing and I look forward to more in a few days! I hope you have a nice night!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, Matt, you all already know how Russell ends up. Glad you could read. It was a great cap to my birthday.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Happy Birthday!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Oh, Thank you!

 

[ChrisGibson]

WHY WAIT TILL THURSDAY?


part four: conclusion



“Dada da da, dada da da da da—” Chayne cut hismefl off and put down his notebook.
“Damnit, Russell, now you’ve got me doing it, too.”
“Sorry, Chayne.”
To Chayne, Russell seemed a little more sorrier than he needed to be.
“I want to walk...” Chayne began. “dada da dada da... I want to follow Jee-sus... um um ummmm.... shine in my heart, Lord Jesus!”
“Chayne, I hate my life,” Russell said suddenly.
Chayne’s ears pricked up because there was no bitterness or exaggeration in friend’s voice. There was fear and desperation. It called to the teenager in Chayne.
“I hate it,” he said. “My parents are morons. I have no friends—but you. And that means everything. But still, I wonder if there’s something wrong with me. Nobody my age likes me. I hate getting up to go to school. I went to Saint Adjeanet’s this morning, but Father Ford practically threw me out and I just sort of panicked because I didn’t know where else to go or what to do. I couldn’t go to school. I couldn’t really hang out. there’s no out but here and I can’t just keep coming here.”
Chayne put his hand on Russell’s arm and said firmly, “Yes—you can. You can come here whenever you want to, and stay here as long as you want. Whatever.”
“Chayne,” Russell’s voice broke a little, and he hung his head so that his red hair was in his face. But he did not weep. He lifted his head up and pushed his hair back. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.” He was panicked his voice was filled with fear. “I don’t think it’s ever going to get better,” he whispered.
Weeks ago Chayne would have assured him that it would. But now here he was, half a country away from his dead job, living in a half furnished house. He was out a small fortune. Chayne didn’t have it in him to tell Russell it would get better. So he said, “Get up.”
“Hum?”
“Get up,” Chayne said. “Let’s walk.”
There were a few kids playing on Curtain Street at this hour, a little past eight o’clock, and the sky was a rich blue. A sliver of new moon was appearing high in west. Chayne could smell the flowers of late summer, their scent baked and diffused by the heat of the day though now it was only warm enough to walk without a coat.
A small breeze picked up as they crossed Reynold and kept on going down the the cobbled street until they reached More Street and Saint Adjeanet’s school, the rectory and then the church, facing Kirkland.
“It’s so cold and empty looking,” Russell said as they went to the side door, near the little chapel.
“And it’s locked,” Chayne swore.
“Oh, well—” Russell began.
“No, oh well,” Chayne shook his head. “Enough oh well’s.”
He went down the steps and marched next door to the brick rectory where he knocked on the door.
A few minutes later, a small, badly formed woman with slightly crossed eyes and scraggly hair answered.
“Chayne,” said Ann Ford. “Why, hello! And Russell! Come in. Come in!”
They did. The rectory hadn’t been refurbished since the nineteen seventies and harvest gold was everywhere along with orange carpet and wood paneling. In its own ugly way it was quite pleasant, Russell thought.
“Father Geoff! Father Geoff!” Ann shouted.
Soon the priest was down.
“Chayne! Russell!”
Chayne had gone to college with Geoff Ford and noted that his old colleague was still round, his butt too big. Oh, well, he was celibate so it didn’t really matter.
“We need the keys to the church.”
“But it’s locked.”
“Yes, Jeff,” Chayne answered, “which is why we need the keys. We need to go pray. The church shouldn’t be locked anyway.”
Jeff shrugged, reached into his pocket and gave Chayne the keys. “Just bring them back before the night’s over.”

It was completely dark inside of Saint Adjeanet’s. Russell and Chayne moved along the walls, bumping into statues, hitting knees on pews, searching for the lights and when they had found the switches to light the chapel, decided that was enough.
Chayne disappeared into the dark to pray before the Blessed Virgin while Russell sat at the piano, plucking out tunes. His mother had insisted he take piano lessons and he had been disastrous, then, when Chayne had come home from school and his parents still lived in the house on Curtain and owned a piano, he had heard Chayne playing and had learned from him, more from watching than formal instruction. Now, somehow, he could place all of his emotion into the music flowing from the wooden machine. Somehow it served for voice when his human voice didn’t do it, played all of his pain and all of his joy though, for sometime, it had mostly been pain.
Russell was so into the music, that Chayne’s return startled him, more for its quietness than anything. The older man had a song book with him, and he placed it in front of Russell, who looked up at Chayne in bemusement, and then, in understanding.
The first note began to pour out, firm drops of music in the darkness of the church. Russell did not launch into the song immediately. He played at the melody for a while, falling in love with it before singing.

I want to walk
as a child of the light
I want to fol-low Je-sus
God made the stars to give light to the world
the star of my life is Je-sus
in him there is no darkness at all
the night and the day are both alike
the lamb is the light in the city of God
shine in my heart
Lord Jesus

Russell’s voice was at first small and shaky as much with emotion as with the newness of this song. It began to pick up volume and confidence, and Chayne went to the tabernacle and lit first one candle and then another and more and more in a wild joy, filling the church with light. It should have been filled with light. The once darkened tabernacle was bright and the gold glinted over the altar. Still, Chayne lit more and more candles and while the music played, stars budded in the dark and in the darkness Russell knew he couldn’t do everything, but he could do some things, and he could not deliver himself from school or from his family, but Chayne had delivered him and maybe, when he left Chayne for a bit, he could find a way to deliver this friend too.


As Sharon Kandzierski stirred her grits she smiled meditatively. This was the first time she made grits in twenty years because Graham didn’t like them. Graham didn’t really like anything, and for some reason just his not liking grits kept her from eating her own. But this morning, on her way back, her heart feeling lighter, she had picked them up from A&P.
Patty Lewis was getting divorced. That’ what Felice said, and Felice was really the way Sharon knew Patty best. Tom and Patty were her friends and Chayne’s. They’d all gone to school together, and the little boy Russell she hardly knew at all. This is why she’d been so surprised and a little convicted when he’d shown up last night simply saying, “You need to give that seventy five thousand dollars back.’
Russell had gone on in a bristling rage that the two aging Black people had never seen about how when you have one child who struggles, and you haven’t done a thing to support them, not pay a penny for college, not offer a graduation car or trip, you owed a little something. You owed some money back. And there was the embarrassment factor, that all of these white people knew Sharon and Graham had done so little, that it was talked about, that this boy knew. And Graham always had such a difficult relationship with white people, his father having been one back in the time when you didn’t talk about such things.
They had fought and Sharon, who had never though much of white people, thought Patty Lewis might have had the right idea, but in the end she had taken that check that weighed heavy on her, that she’d left sitting under a glass paperweight shaped like an iceberg and since she had left it at her son’s house with the deed and bill for ten dollars to make the exchange of a house legal, then bought those grits at the A&P, she felt lighter than she’d been in twenty years.

 

[CharmedFan28]

That was a great conclusion and you are right I do know what happens to Russell. I hope we get to see more of these characters sometime.

 

[ChrisGibson]

There will be a lot more. These are older than the other stories nd I've just not gotten around to working with them until now. Chayne was originally in the story about Jill, but because he hadn't been explained, I took him out of it, so everyone will come back and we'll find out more about Thom and Patty who only made an appearance in the past.