These are the people in the houses of rossford, indiana
Fenn Houghton
Layla Lawden
Todd Meraden
Dena Reardon
Adele Lawden
Nell Reardon
Brendan Miller
William Klasko
Tara Veems
Thomas Mesda
and
Paul Anderson
What the Kids Are Watching
“Okay, now you have to watch this!”
On the large bed in his attic, Brendan Miller wrapped one arm around his girlfriend, and the other reached for the remote control, then slapped the back of it to make it work.
“Dumb batteries. We’ve got to turn the volume down,” he told her.
“Who the heck…?” Dena Reardon began, “I’ve never heard of Eagle Studios.”
“They’re not like Paramount or anything,” Brendan said, grinning at her.
“Is this a—”
But then the cheap music began, and there was some innocent, All American looking guy with marmalade hair driving a car with a sign that said Pizza Queen on it.
“A porno?”
The credits were running and the movie starred Bick Throbbing, Dirk Thrust and Johnny Mellow, all in various stages of nudity.
“Yeah. It’s really cool. It gets me hot,” Brendan said, snuggling up to her.
The Pizza Boy, played by Johnny Mellow, drove up to the house and stepped out of the car with a happy go lucky look on his face. A baldheaded, ripped man answered the door and let the Pizza Boy in and then, when the door shut, the man’s housecoat fell off and a enormous erection was revealed. As Johnny Mellow placed the pizza on the table near the door and dropped to his knees, Dena said:
“Why are we watching this?”
“Does it get you hot?”
“It’s not even a straight porn.”
“It’s the whole naughtiness of it,” Brendan said, his eyes fixed on the Dirk Thrust being blown by Johnny Mellow. “Doesn’t it just make you wanna… Doesn’t it just shock you?”
“I think this is really weird,” declared Dena.
“Hold on,” Brendan seemed to come back to himself a little. He fast forwarded the DVD and Dena saw bits and pieces of Johnny Mellow being blown now, Johnny Mellow and Bick Throbbing in a Sixty-Nine, Bick Throbbing’s roommate or something joining in. Then it stopped.
“Okay,” said Brendan. “Here it is.”
Bick and Johnny were on a bed now, and against her will Dena thought Johnny had a sweet face. She wondered how the fuck he’d gotten here, to sucking dudes’ dicks in porn. While she was wondering, Brendan’s voice in her ear said, hotly, “There’s something about this guy… Isn’t there?”
And then Bick Throbbing produced a dildo. Wait! Yes, a two headed dildo. And the two of them got onto the bed. They were ass to ass, and Rod fitted one end of the dildo into his ass and then, with it, approached Johnny and next, the two of them began to fuck each other with the dildo while Brendan laughed ghoulishly and said, “This kinda shit gets me so hard!”
“Bren,” Dena tilted her head while she spoke. “Do we need to stop seeing each other?”
“Uh huh,” Brendan said dumbly. Then, coming to himself, he shook his head and said, “What?”
“I said are you trying to tell me something?’”
“Like what?”
“Brendan, we’ve been sitting her watching gay porn. That you’re into—”
“You read Anne Rice.”
“Not, really—” Then she shook her head and said, “What the fuck does that have to do with anything?”
“Just,” Brendan said defensively, getting up to take the DVD out of the player, “you read about vampires. But it doesn’t mean you want to drink the blood out of someone.”
“Look, Bren. My mom’s single because she found my dad in bed with my uncle. I’d be stupid not to wonder.”
“Well, you can stop wondering,” he said angrily. “I’m not a faggot, all right.”
“My father is not a faggot.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“He lacks judgment,” Dena said, getting up off the bed, and smoothing her hair back. “And so do you. But he’s not a faggot.” Then she said, “No one’s a faggot.”
“Deen… look…”
“Brendan, it’s getting late. I need to go, all right?”
Brendan’s face was red, and he looked confused. He said, “Look, I just… you’re my girlfriend. That’s why I showed you. No one else knows. No one else has seen. Don’t let anyone. All right? I mean…”
“Sure, Bren. But I gotta go right now,” Dena told him.
Because she pitied him a little, she kissed him. And then she was down the attic steps and gone.
“ARE YOU SERIOUS?”
Dena fell across the kitchen table and, lifting her forehead from the surface, declared: “Yes!
“What should I do?”
Her best friend, Layla Lawden decided: “What you should do is find someone else to date. Preferably someone who isn’t gay.”
“But he says he isn’t.”
At this moment Layla’s uncle was making his way to the refrigerator and Layla said, “Fenn? What does it mean if you sit around watching gay porn?”
He turned from the refrigerator with a raised eyebrow.
“It means you’re not getting enough sex.”
“What I meant,” Layla rephrased it, “is does watching gay porn make you gay?”
“Well,” Fenn pulled out the pitcher of lemonade and closed his sister’s refrigerator door with his foot, “being gay makes you gay,” he explained in a very Fenn manner all while reaching for a glass and sticking it under the ice maker. “But if you weren’t gay, then why would you be watching gay porn? What are we talking about by the way?”
The two girls were quiet a second, and the only sound was the chunk chunking of falling ice.
“If you don’t say anything, I can’t help you,” Fenn told them.
“My boyfriend showed me a gay porn tonight, and told me it made him hot.”
“Really?” Fenn poured his lemonade, his eyes full on Dena.
“So what does that mean?” Layla demanded.
“I think it means you need to get a new boyfriend,” Fenn said, heading out of the kitchen.
And then he stuck his head back in and said, “Before your boyfriend does.”
And was gone.
“This has been one weird night.”
“Tell me about it. Are you as weirded out about Brendan as I am?”
“Girl, fuck Brendan! I’m thinking about my life.”
Dena pulled her hair out of her face and looked at Layla.
“What?”
“After prattling on about being the strong African-American family all this time, my mother is leaving my father.”
“Why?”
“Because his bank account says he’s been sending half our income to charity.”
“What the hell charity is that?”
“Oh,” Layla grinned weakly, “his mistress and illegitimate kid.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
“What?” Fenn put down his lemonade.
“You know,” his sister said, “ the first time Nell told me about Kevin, told me they were over, I just thought to myself, ‘how could you be so stupid?’ I’d always known. I mean, you told me, but I knew before that. I always thought that I would know better. I’d be smarter. But my husband had not only…” Adele counted on her long fingers, “A virtual second wife. But a child on the side. My daughter has a sister. Or a brother.”
“You don’t know?”
“Hell no, I don’t know!” Adele snapped. She caught her herself and repeated:
“I don’t know.”
Fenn, unruffled, said, “Well, do you know if they’re entitled to anything?”
“What?” Adele looked at her brother sharply.
“Look, you get to be sad. You get to be mad. But it’s my job to be practical. For your sake and Layla’s. When that divorce comes through what are the two of you going to be getting?” He reached for his cigarettes and lit one. “Or is the court going to be thinking about the whore and her bastard?”
Adele shook her hair out and put her hands through it. Just like a white woman, Fenn reflected.
“Well, I have faith in the justice system.”
“You shouldn’t,” Fenn reflected. Having spent his twenties being tied to trees and standing outside of military bases, hauled in and out of court and fined mercilessly, he had a different take on the way government worked.
“Government’s a real motherfucker.”
‘Is that a Katherine McKinnon quote?”
“I think so. From the phase when she was Black.”
Adele cracked a smile at her younger brother, and then laughed brokenly and reached across to catch his hands.
“What am I going to do, Fenn?”
“Don’t ever do that shit.”
She looked at him.
“You say what are we going to do? We’re a WE, Adele. Always will be. By the way, speaking of Nell Reardon?”
“Um hum.”
“The child of Nell Reardon—”
“Dena?”
“Has a gay boyfriend.”
Adele cocked her head.
“Fenn, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“He just showed her a dirty movie.”
“Wait a minute?” Adele said, reaching for her brother’s cigarettes while he handed her the lighter, “Are you trying to tell me he was dumb enough to… To what? Why would he do that?”
“You know people. You know men. Half the time you don’t know why you do something until you’ve done it. I’d like to think if more people read the Bible and studied Greek philosophy, more people might know what the fuck they were doing. But what I really think it means is that more people would be professors. Which isn’t the same thing.”
Adele inhaled and blew out a gush of smoke.
“Goddamn,” she said.
Fenn shook his head.
“Is there really anything else you can say?”
“I don’t remember it being like this for you,” she said.
“You mean…?”
“I mean all the gay drama. You didn’t have a girlfriend you were showing porn to. Or a wife you cheated on. Or strange affairs. Or if you did, I didn’t know about it.”
“I was a grown up,” Fenn said. “I was living my life when I met a man and thought… I couldn’t do that. And then I was like, well, why the fuck not. Nowadays—well, hell, probably they had something like the Net in every decade. But there were always people who were half assed getting curious, flipping through porn, leading a secret life for ten years, or not knowing themselves well enough to make a smart choice. Or not knowing anything. I had a life to lead. For a long time I thought I’d be a virgin for the rest of my life and never fall in love. And then Thom came along and I thought. A man, interesting. Okay, I’ll go for it. And then Thom left and I thought, well, hell, I’ll go for it again.”
“And now Todd.”
Adele said: “Are you going to tell him about Dena?”
“Well, shit, I’d rather not. But I should, shouldn’t I?”
Adele looked at him mercilessly, and nodded her head.
