While Brendan drifted in and out of sleep with the baby on his chest, Sheridan sat on the sofa, reading.
“You’ve changed this a bit,” Sheridan said.
“I know,” said Brendan. “At first I didn’t really know where the folks were, or who I was writing about. Now I do. I don’t know if it works or not.”
“Honestly,” said Sheridan. “I don’t know if it does either. I mean, not like this. But you can come back and rewrite and change. That’s what it’s all about.
“It’s only, this one character, Burchett. In the first part of the book, you were writing a little bit about him, and everyone else. And now it’s definitely more about him. About him being gay and everything. Coming to terms with it. Before, it was like you didn’t want to make it important.”
“Are you my psychologist?”
“Am I wrong?”
“No, you’re not,” Brendan told him. “I was trying to be general. I was trying to include everybody.” He stopped.
“Now I think that’s a disservice. Especially to me.”
The baby on Brendan’s chest started to stir, and Brendan sat up very carefully, his hair tousled.
“Until I started writing, I never really understood how I felt about myself. When I sat down to write this, I think maybe what I’ve started to understand is I am apologizing for me. I always have, you know. Telling the world, ‘Gay people are just like you all. We’re just as honorable and afraid of sex as straight people. We’re just as boring. Only moreso. We just want to be married and settle into dull lives like yours.’”
“Now you sound like Fenn or Lee.”
“Well, maybe,” Brendan shrugged.
“And the fact is,” Sheridan said, “We have settled into a dull life.”
“Maybe again,” Brendan told him. “I don’t think we’re dull, though. You’re certainly not dull. You have a rich and varied history, my Sheridan.”
Suddenly it came back to Brendan that once he had helped Sheridan hide a dead body, the body of a man Sheridan had killed for Logan. Officer Sheridan would still kill for Logan, because Logan was not only his old love, but his constant friend. That was why he loved the quiet man who sat across from him.
“I want to tell the truth,” Brendan said, suddenly.
He held Raphael out to Sheridan.
“We need to do an exchange.”
Sheridan put down the laptop, and Brendan handed over their son. Brendan took back his computer.
“We’re going to…” he began, his tongue pushing between his lips.
“We’re going to go over here… and….
“Here! Here. We’re going to start right here. Right here with Burchett. And we’re going to change his name because it’s stupid. And we’re going to tell the truth. The good, the bad, the ugly. No more Mr. Nice Gay. He’s going to be me.”
“But you are Mr. Nice Gay.”
“Nonsense,” Brendan dismissed this.
“He’s going to be me, and we’re going to start with the beginning. I’m going to look inside, and you’re going to see a real character. And when he looks around he’s going to tell everything he sees. The porn, the porn stars, the escorts, the cheating, the stealing, the rage, the murder.”
“Murder?” Sheridan said.
“Yes,” Brendan insisted. “Even that.
“The ways people hurt each other, the secrets they keep.”
“And what about the love?” said Sheridan.
“Yes,” Brendan said. “The love. Definitely the love. That’ll be the most important part.”
Logan woke up the same as always on the morning after the opera. Life was so tedious. When he watched the Valkryie move across the stage, when Wotan boomed woefully about the shortness and despair in life, Logan Banford found in the god’s song the language to express his own pain. When Brunhilde went into that fire, feeling that nothing in this world measured up, singing joyously, he thought, “Yes, yes.”
And then after that, back here, back to the hotel, and back to the terrace top and the early autumn, being above the city that seemed to be above everything. And then to bed, to exhausting lovemaking with Larry. Who knew? Last night they did it twice until he ached. He waked a little to hear the shower water, but as usual, when he woke at last, Larry was gone.
He put on his briefs and stepped out into the large living room overlooking the private park that surrounded the penthouse. This time around he was not as surprised by the dark haired boy in glasses and dress shirt who was sitting on the sofa drinking a glass of orange juice.
“So we meet again.”
“I suppose we do.”
“I hope this is not my father’s sickening way of throwing us together,” Jonathan remarked.
Logan frowned a little.
“That would be sick.”
“Wouldn’t it, though?
“So do you want the limo to go back to Rossville, or is that too ostentatious?”
“Rossford,” Logan corrected.
“Oh.”
“And I don’t know that I feel like going down there just yet. I have friends up here.”
“Like that wonderful Fenn we met.”
“Well, he was visiting his son. But I was talking about other people.”
“How fun!” Jonathan said.
He was sure that Jonathan was making fun of him, and he asked, “Why is that?”
“Well, it depends on who you’re going to see.”
Logan gave Jonathan a strange look.
“I am going to call up my best friend and one time love, Sheridan, and see if he and his partner want visitors.”
“Where do they live?”
“Evanston.”
“Oh, great! Let’s go!”
“Let’s? As in let us?”
“I’m bored,” Jonathan said. “Let’s go.”
“No, no! No!” Logan said, holding up a hand and remembering that he was still in his underwear.
“We cannot just go. Give me your phone.”
Jonathan reached into his pocket and handed it to Logan who, in his Jockeys, sat on the edge of the sofa and dialed a number.
“Yes. It’s me. What were you all doing? I was coming up there this afternoon. What’s that? Huh? Oh. I guess. Alright. Yes. Um hum. Alright then. Goodbye.”
“Well?” Jonathan looked at Logan.
“Apparently they’ve decided to come down here for the day.”
“Oh?”
“Well, obviously not here exactly. They’re going to visit my friends Casey and Chay.”
“They sound interesting.”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Casey Williams—”
“You gotta be kidding me,” Jonathan put his orange juice down, for the first time looking genuinely excited. “You KNOW Casey! Well, of course. You’ve been in the movies. You’ve fucked Casey Williams.”
“And he’s fucked me. Sheridan, the boyfriend I used to see used to be with Casey’s boyfriend. For a while Sheridan was sleeping with me and Chay, and Chay was sleeping with Casey and him.”
“Very… avant garde.”
“If that’s what you want to call it,” Logan shrugged. “But anyway, I’m about to go over there. So I guess you can come. But I need to shower.”
Jonathan smiled at him and said, “I’d love to get in that shower with you.”
With the non chalance of someone who had lots of sex and had spent a life time seeing hair raising things Logan said, “If it suits you.”
He just looked at Jonathan.
Jonathan’s gaze slipped away with a nervous laugh.
“As I thought,” Logan said, pulling off his briefs and leaving them on the floor.
He despised Jonathan a little bit. He saw that lust in him, the desire to get down on his knees and suck his cock, to run his hands all over a pornstar’s body. But he was a good little gay, all sarcastic, witty remarks, and a stash of porn to beat off to.
Logan turned around, and headed for the bathroom.
“Logan, man!” Casey greeted him. “You never come around anymore. And you brought someone,”
“I’m Jonathan Lodgrant.”
“The only Lodgrant family I know, is rich as fuck,” Casey said, taking Jonathan’s his hand, “and there’s only one rich Jonathan Lodgrant I’ve ever heard of so I guess you’re him.”
“You guess right.”
“Well, don’t leave them out on the porch,” Chay shouted from the living room.
“Manners,” Casey shrugged, holding the large oak door open.
Casey and Chay lived in a large brick townhouse on State Parkway. It was three stories, and the last one and a half stories were dedicated to what was left of the Casey William’s empire.
The living room was enormous, white carpeted and well appointed letting onto a dining room that Jonathan suspected was never used. Most incongruous, on the couch sat too very ordinary looking men with a brown baby they must have adopted.
“This is Sheridan Klasko,” Logan said to Jonathan as Sheridan stood up. He was tallish and thin and his brown hair was in a sort of military cut. He was nice looking, but not… Jonathan couldn’t explain it.
“And this is Brendan,” Sheridan and Logan said.
Brendan was almost a magazine cover for excepting that his tie was over his shoulder because of the baby in his arms. There was something in him though that Jonathan had never seen in a model, had rarely seen in anyone, and he couldn’t quite figure it out, but he thought it was connected to happiness, or peace or something like that.
“I’m pleased to meet you,” Brendan said.
“You look like Chicago,” Jonathan said.
“What’s that?” Brendan laughed.
“Jonathan is actually not from here,” Logan said.
“Who is?” Brendan chuckled.
“I just meant you look very businesslike, very marketing major in college.”
“Not even,” Brendan shook his head.
“Brendan is a great writer,” Chay enthused.
It took him a very long time to forgive Logan for taking Sheridan, but Brendan had taken Sheridan long after Logan and, what was more, both Sheridan and Chay had grown up with an almost reverence for Will Klasko’s slim, contained, best friend.
“I’m a decent writer.”
“No, Man,” Casey said. “I read that first thing you did. It was pretty bad ass.”
They all moved to take seats in the living room while Casey continued, “And now the Goodman Miller has undertaken a new novel where it’s gay, gay and more gay, and he’s going to tell the good and the bad and the ugly.”
“Really?” Logan looked at Brendan.
In order of age Casey, around the same age as Chay’s admittedly still young father, was the oldest. He was forty-one, but still boy faced. Brendan and Logan were in their mid thirties. Sheridan hung on to the end of his twenties and Chay was twenty-seven.
“It will be a story,” Brendan said to Logan. “It’s not a tell all. I couldn’t tell it all. And if I did, then a lot of us might go to jail. But I think I could up the ante from my first story.”
“Jail?” Jonathan said.
“Oh, yes,” Brendan said to him, placidly. “You don’t know us yet.”
“Say,” Jonathan said, “I’m not a writer writer, not like you. I’ve just done things in my college newspaper. I’ve wanted to be more open. More… gay I guess. Less apologetic—”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” Brendan said.
“No holding back, no making the story less than it can be, no covering up unpleasant truths. And no, no, absolutely no apologies.”
And then Brendan added, “Except to the people who probably should get them.”
“So you think I should get an apology?” Dena Affren said while she was driving to Merton Street.
“Of course,” Brendan said. “You were the first person I wronged.”
“I’m sure I’m not the first person you wronged, Bren. And I don’t like to live in the past.”
“You love to live in the past.”
“Well, not about that,” Dena said. “Besides, I have my own brand of apologizing to do.”
“Really, you? I can’t imagine that.”
“You know, you’re just as much of a smart ass from fifty miles away as you are up close. When are you coming home?”
“I am home. When are you coming up here?”
“As soon as I… uh, hold on, I shouldn’t be driving and talking at the same time. And I’m at Maggie’s now.”
“What happened between the two of you this time?”
“The same thing that happens every time. Only... Well, this time it should be the last time. And by the way, Bren, why in the world are you so into apologies and everything, lately?”
“I’m going to write a book.”
“Well, you already do that.”
“But this one is going to be more honest. It’s going to have everyone in it. Sort of. And everything.”
“Well, leave me the fuck out,” Dena said. “Or at least change my name. Hell,” she added, “you can even change my race.
“Look, I love you, I gotta go.”
“Alright, Dena,” Brendan said as she hung up.
Dena straightened her back and straightened her short dress. She pushed back her hair. Maggie was someone you had to get ready for.
Dena opened the door and went up the steps to the apartment. She tapped on the door and a few moments later Ed answered it.
“Hi… Dena.”
There was an uneasiness between her sister’s stepson—who had smashed out all of the front windows in her house three years ago—and Dena.
“Is Maggie here?”
“Maggie’s at class.”
“When do you think she’ll be back?”
“Oh, it’s hard to say.”
“Guess!”
“I’d say around four-thirty.”
It was amazing how quickly Ed sobered up.
“Thank you, Edward,” Dena told him.
“Sure,” Ed said, still uncertain. “No problem.”
He looked like he really wanted to close the door. So she turned around and let him.
Maybe have her over at the house… But no. That was the scene of the crime. The whole reason Dena had decided to come here was to give Maggie some power.
“Doesn’t she have enough power?” the voice in her head whispered.
Dena whispered back: Stop being a bitch.
“Where’s Todd?” Elias asked.
“Upstairs with a nervous tick your brother gave him,” Fenn said. “He’s really no fun right now.”
In the living room, their bags before them, stood Dylan and Elias.
“Dad, I was thinking about Thackeray,” Dylan began. “I hardly know him yet. It’s wrong to leave.”
“What was your other option?”
“Maybe I should take him with me?”
“To live with you and Elias and Lance? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It sort of does.”
“No it doesn’t,” Elias said, simply.
Dylan looked at him, but Elias said, “It doesn’t. You feel guilty. You feel like you should be raising him.”
“Yeah, a little.”
“But he’s your brother, not your kid. And the three of us have a ton of drama going on anyway. Then add your brother, who has never known a home, let alone a gay home, let alone a gay polyandrous home.”
“Don’t worry, Dylan,” Fenn told him. “We’ll take care of him like our own. Because he is.”
Thackeray bounded down the stairs, and then looking at Fenn said, “Oops.”
“Forget about it,” Fenn said even though he’d already talked about running down steps just that morning..
Thackeray threw himself on Dylan, who clapped his back and held onto him, and then he hugged Elias for good measure.
“Chill, Thack,” Elias said, though he smiled and hugged him back, “we’ll be back this weekend.”
“And this time we’ll bring Lance,” Dylan said as if this were a big surprise.
Apparently, from the look on Thackeray’s face, it was.
Fenn yawned and reminded them, “You all need to go if you want to pick up Lance on time.”
“That’s right!” said Elias.
“And I need to go see Dad before we leave.”
“And I need to go to sleep,” Fenn added.
Still the leave taking went on a little longer, as if Chicago was more than fifty miles away and they didn’t see each other all the time. When Dylan and Elias were gone, Thackeray turned around and said to Fenn, “Well, it looks like it’s just us, Kid.”
