“It’s so beautiful out here,” Logan said while they drove through the back roads back toward Wallington and toward Rossford.
“Sometimes everything is just so beautiful none of the other stuff matters.”
Even though Ruthven’s eyes had been following the dark view, the trees with their leaves fallen, the reservoirs on the side of the roads, and the back yards of peoples’ houses, he said, “What other stuff?”
“I was going to tell you about my whole life, about my whole history, everything I had done. I was going to come clean.”
“I know everything you’ve done,” Ruthven said.
“Well, not everything.”
“You did porn. You were an escort. You don’t have to spell it out.”
“No,” Logan said. “I guess not.
“And then,” Logan added, “When I think of it now, it just isn’t that interesting. It really isn’t it. This night. Right here. Us. That’s interesting. And it’s over now. I mean, the way it is for Casey. I don’t think I’d ever be completely out of it. I don’t think I’d stop running Guy’s place. But I haven’t done one of those movies in a long time and… I don’t want to be kept by Larry or anyone else. I want my life. I want my lovers. I want something new.”
Then Logan said, “I want me. For the first time I want me.”
“When you said what you said, earlier…” Ruthven told him.
“Said what?”
The car moved over the bumpy road, and Ruthven leaned in to turn on the radio.
He heard:
Ooh baby I love your ways,
Everyday.
“I haven’t heard that shit in a long time.”
Ruthven had interrupted himself.
“Nobody loves my ways,” Ruthven cackled.
“Ey!” Logan sounded a little offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I dunno,” Ruthven shrugged. “It’s just…People don’t love me.”
“Can I love you?”
When Ruthven didn’t answer, Logan said, “Can I love you?”
“Are you fucking serious?”
“Is it—” they ran over a bump, and Logan hit the horn. “Is it a fucking crime? I mean, whaddo you say? Can we at least… try?”
Ruthven looked out of his window and watched the shadows moving over the dirt road, the sliver of moon coming through the black trees, turning their limbs blue.
“I lied,” Ruthven said. “When I said, once, that when love is over and you know it, you move on, I lied.
“I loved that boy,” Ruthven said, at last. “I loved that boy so much, and he left me—and he had a right to—and I watched him go off with that fucking blockhead, Lance Fucking Bishop. And with Elias. Fucking two boyfriends. All I thought was, you fucker, it took two men to replace me. But I loved him. Goddamn, I loved him.”
Ruthven sighed deeply, he breathed through his nose and looked out of the window. They kept driving and Logan said, “Do you still love him?”
“No,” Ruthven said, honestly. “But I did, and I had to come clean with that.”
“Well, then what about us? Could we give that a try?”
“The way The way you looked at me this morning…” Ruthven shook his head. “I liked that. I never feel like that. And… they way I feel when I look at you…
“Yes,” Ruthven Meradan decided. “I think I’d like that.”
Lance Bishop had gotten used to Dhan Teras. The first day of Divali was on a Sunday that year, and Fenn had come up the night before. All the evening he and Dylan cleaned the apartment, aired out the rooms, and set sticks of sweet incense burning everywhere. Old curled up pictures which had been printed out on the computer were taken down and now, on the walls, fresh pictures of the woman in red, crowned in gold, holding pots of flowing gold, gold coins scattered from her hands, smiled. Lakshmi, the Goddess of Fortune, the Mother of the Universe.
About midmorning, Radha arrived from Aurora with her three children and with Matt Turner, her Catholic husband. He and Lance exchanged looks. It wasn’t that they were so Catholic, or that they had much of an investment in Jesus. Only, they had been taught there was one way no matter how drab that way might be. They would have felt a little squeamish in a mosque or a synagogue or possibly even in a Protestant church, but every religion they knew at least made a concession to being almost, kind of sort of Christian only in need of some correction. Jews and Muslims had one God, but a little trouble with his son.
This apartment, hung with Lakshmis and Vishnus, where Elias was putting out little clay lamps for the woman in red, and lights and incense were being set up before a bronze image of a four armed goddess, made no concessions for that God at all. He could be a god, an interesting idea for other people but, Lance considered, that downgrading pretty much ceased to make him God. Radha, dressed like something out of Gandhi, looked like a real Indian for once. He couldn’t say that out loud. She let Dylan place cum cum on her head and then she took a diaphanous shawl, placed it over her head and whole body like a tent, and sat down before the image of Lakshmi.
Some folks were still in the kitchen when she began to sing, not in that high reedy voice of the Indian women Lance had once heard when he’d gone to the temple in Lamont with Dylan, but in an American alto.
Bal budhi vidya dehu mohe
harahu kalesavikaar
Jai Ma jai jai ma!
And then here came Dylan, who was not dressed in anything Indian, just barefoot in a white shirt and baggy khakis. He came out of the kitchen with an unlit aarti tray singing:
shri guru charan saroj raj nij mane mukure sudhaari
varnao raghuvar vimal jasu jo daayaku phal chaari
budhi hin tanu janike sumirau pavan kumaram
jai ma, jai jai ma!
Now you couldn’t just run up and put your arms around Dylan, not in the middle of puja. But Lance wanted to. Dylan had the sweetest voice. He was the sweetest boy in the world. When he woke up with him he wanted to pull him close and lose himself in the sweetness of Dylan Mesda. When he woke up alone he wanted to go to Dylan, when he woke up beside Elias, amazed by his love for that boy, his first thought was of them going to keep company with Dylan. Dylan sat down while Fenn lit some of the little candles and placed them on the altar before that crazy Ganesh image, and the woman with four arms and the guitar. Elias was playing the guitar and Dylan had taken up the drum.
Laaye sanjivan lakhan jiyaaye
shri raghuvir harashi ur laaye
raghupati kinhi bahut badhaayi
tum mam priye bharat-hi sam bhaai
jai ma, jai jai ma
There was a light, but only symbolic tap on the door, and then Laurel and Moshe came into the apartment. The first day of Divali was food day, was gift giving day, and they wouldn’t be left out. What was more, since Laurel was no Hindu that meant she could do some cooking and light work.
“Well,” Matt Turner gestured to Lance as Radha took up the singing, her children clinging to her and giggling.
And so Lance and Matt went to sit down on the floor.
Dylan was the love of his life. Years ago when his father had caught them together and Dylan had gone off to Chicago, to this city, it was when Dylan came back that Lance knew how he loved him. They’d gone out and had sex in the grass and Lance pressed himself deep inside of him and wanted to stay there forever, laying in that grass, the wind on his naked body, his hair, his back, his ass, the back of his thighs, his penis firmly in the tight hotness of Dylan, Dylan’s arms holding him, his hands gently stroking him, That’s when he knew Dylan was the love of his life. The heartbreak between that moment and this meant nothing. Jai, jai, jai ma.
When he thought he’d never find friendship or love, Elias, almost three years younger, showed up. He was so much older and so much braver than Lance, and one night Elias had made love to him. It wasn’t like anything else, because the other people he’d been with hadn’t loved him. Up until that point even Dylan hadn’t fallen in love with him. The experience of the younger boy, hands on his cheeks, coaxing love out of him, his seed shooting into him, his body trembling with passion under the first person who had ever said, “I love you,” was the most important moment in his life. And it would have been Elias and Elias alone if not for the oddness that followed, the fear that Elias was too young, the feelings Dylan began to have, the dread that the new intensity would turn into the violence that had marked the end of the first relationship. And then there again, Elias, who was very like them, and very unlike them, very like no one but himself, had brought them all together.
Peter Bishop did not go to college. He grew up on a farm and was a volunteer firefighter. He thought of himself as a very simple man, and this was probably why he was so easy with his oldest son. He just wanted Lance to be happy, which is what he told him when everything with Dylan had happened, that explosive year when they were fifteen and sixteen. When, a few years later, Lance had told his father that he and Dylan were together, his father had been overjoyed.
“He’s a good boy. He’s a solid man, and he’s always made you happy,” is what Peter said. It was his mother who was flabbergasted, but Peter just said, “Now, Ellen you leave him alone and stick to your own business.”
Having told some of the truth, he had to tell all of the truth, and so he’d told his father about Elias as well.
“Don’t tell your mother,” Peter said. “She won’t be ready for that.”
In Peter’s eyes Elias was “A solid young man with a good head on his shoulders,” and that was all that mattered. The three boys “were better than brothers and made each other happy.” Still, Peter had long ago decided that Fenn Houghton, with his theatre company, city upbringing, and education, was someone worth consulting. He wasn’t like those academics that made you feel low, and he wasn’t a lady. He was, “a real solid man.” Solidity mattered to Peter Bishop.
The farmer’s son was deferential and at Fenn and Todd’s house said, “I understood when it was just Dylan. I think Elias is a good guy, but I wasn’t ready for that.”
“Neither was I,” Fenn said. “I can’t run my son’s life though, and this time around I don’t think he’s making a mistake. He’s just doing something I never could.”
When Fenn admitted that the boys’ living arrangement was just as strange to him, but that the happiness of his son was all that mattered, it was a relief to Peter Bishop. He didn’t know Elias’s fathers. He knew of them, that they were not pleased with Lance, but this could not be helped. He didn’t let it bother him. Lance Randolph Bishop was good, manly, handsome, sweet, honest, honorable, the light of his father’s eyes. He should have whatever he loved. If Peter could be right here to see the look of love and happiness on his leggy, athletic, deep foreheaded twenty-three year old son, he would be most pleased.
The singing had stopped and now the living room was very quiet. It was filled with the smell of incense, and little lights burned pale in the morning light.
“Uh, Thackeray has something to say,” Dylan said. “Thack.”
Thackeray cleared his throat, looked around and took his hands through his dark hair.
“Well, Dylan and me lost our mom. I mean, we never knew her, but this is the start of a new year and, we’re together and that’s the one thing she did, and so we just wanted to… remember her for a moment.”
“There is a song,” Radha said. “I learned it when my grandfather died. It was what we sang for my great grandmother. Would you like me to try it?”
“Yes,” Thackeray said. But Dylan said nothing.
“Thank you, Mom,” Thackeray continued, “for giving me life, and giving me my brother, and doing the best you could. Thank you.”
Thackeray turned to Dylan. Dylan looked like he really didn’t want to do this, but he said as if forcing the words out, “Thank—you—Eileen.”
Thackeray nodded and then suddenly, Dylan said, “You fucking, crazy bitch! You irresponsible monster.”
He stood up.
“You fucked me up. Every fucked up thing I blame on you. You showed up for five seconds and then you left and never came back. You hid my brother from me. I am sick that I’m even related to you. I am sick that you gave birth to me. You—are—not—my mother. I don’t believe in hell, but I’ve been there, and I hope you go there too. I hope you are rotting there right now. I hate you. I hate you I—“
Dylan broke off, shouting, “Goddamnit I hate you!”
He turned on Thackeray.
“Why did you make me do this?” he shouted at his brother, and then turned around and left them all. His door slammed shut.
Elias and Lance were getting up, but Fenn put up a hand and shook his head.
Thackeray looked at him.
“Go to your brother,” Fenn told him.
Thackeray nodded and went down the hall. Fenn watched him and nodded. Thackeray made a small fist to tap on the door, but Fenn shook his head.
Thackeray turned the knob, and went in, closing the door behind him.
“It’s about their mother,” Fenn told Lance and Elias. “Only his brother can fix it.”
