The Third Video Watch/redux
“Well, the dead has arisen,” Todd said, breaking a roll and watching the steam come up.
“Huh?” Brendan looked up.
“Well, the dead has arisen. Line from The Color Purple.Paul just bought a copyfrom the video watch.”
“Never saw it.”
Todd shook his head and declared: “That’s kind of a minor tragedy,” while Nell said, “Leave Brendan alone,” and Dena only shook her head.
“I haven’t seen you in half a hundred years is all,” Todd told him.
Brendan opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Dena said, “He’s been working. A lot.”
“Yeah, but I’m back now. We were gonna watch a movie later on,” he said to Dena. “Maybe we should see The Color Purple.”
“You know, Bren, I do sort of have to admit I’m with Todd here. You haven’t really experienced life till you’ve seen it.”
“What’s it all about? It’s a musical right?”
“Fuck no!” Todd said.
“Grief Todd!” Nell put a hand to her head.
“Well, I mean, It’s about Oprah. All fucked up and shit with one eye closed after the white police officer beat her up because when Miss Millie asked her if she wanted to be her maid, Oprah said, Hell, naw. And then all the white people surrounded her, and she was shouting and screaming and trying to beat them with her purse. Then this one son of a bitch knocked her down, and she was laid out on the ground with her panties showing and shit.”
“Well, it’s about a little more than that,” Nell said.
“And then when she comes back Mister’s father—”
“Mr. Who?”
“Mister Mister,” Todd said. “That’s Celie’s husband. Anyway, when Oprah gets back he says, all like this, hanging over the table, ‘Well, my my, the dead has arisen.’ And then Whoopi Goldberg takes out a knife and jumps across the table to kill her husband.”
“Mister?” Brendan said.
“Yes.”
“Why does she try to kill her husband?”
“He deserves it! Then she stands up in the back of the car, and she puts a hex on him, does her fingers just like this… see… like the Hang Ten sign, only a little different. And she says, Everything you do… gone rot. Till you do right by me. And she just fixes him like this:” Todd made a face, “and then she goes away.”
“Does she go away on a broomstick?”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Todd said,
“He might ask you the same question,” Nell noted.
“Actually, we should just go and watch the movie,” Dena told him.
Brendan nodded.
“Everything you do... it gon perish. Till you do right by me…”
Brendan watched the car drive off into the red dust as Danny Glover stood dumbfounded, and Dena looked at him and said, “You’re crying!”
“A little bit,” Brendan admitted. “I can’t believe I never saw this movie.”
“It gets better still. It’s not over. I tried to read the book.”
“It’s a book?”
“Yeah. Famous book.”
“I should read it too. I really ought to read more books.”
“It was hard for me. I couldn’t do it. I’ll try it later. For now it’s the musical. And this.”
Brendan sighed and lay back, and Dena put her head on his shoulder and felt his fingers in her hair. She felt his heart rising and falling under his chest.
“Brendan, I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah?”
“Well…. You love me. And I love you. And, if you think it’s best then I agree with you. We should make love. Let’s do that. Let’s find a time. If you want to.”
Brendan didn’t say anything. He turned to Dena and looked at her very seriously. And then a gentle smile went across his face, and he kissed her on the forehead.
“All right, love. We’ll do that.”
*******
“I’ve been having the best time, Lee. I mean, you and I. Both of us,” said Tom.
“Don’t you think?” he said, frowning, when Lee said nothing.
Lee Philips burst out laughing.
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, that’s exactly what I think. You just made me laugh.”
Tom Mesda rolled his eyes and said, “You always find something funny about me and I swear I’m not funny at all.”
“Not on purpose,” Lee agreed. “But… there is comedy to you.”
With a flip of the hand and a crooked smile, Tom made a mock bow.
“When are you leaving?” he said.
“In a few days.”
“I know I can’t make you stay.”
“We’ve been through that already.”
“Yes,” Tom said. “But, you know the way I feel about you. Even if you don’t feel the same way—”
“Hold on,” Lee said. “I never said I didn’t feel anything for you. I don’t know where you got that from.”
“Because you’ve never said anything.”
“Well, I’m saying it now,” Lee told him. “Tom Mesda, I really, really like you.”
Tom frowned and said with grimace, “I don’t know what that means.”
“It means what it means.”
“Who says I really, really like you. You’re supposed to say, ‘I love you.’”
“There’re a lot of things you’re supposed to do, and most of them are bullshit. Look, I loved someone once. For a very long time. And things ended badly. I gave up a lot before I realized that it is a hell of a lot more important to like the person you’re with than to say you love them. Just because you want to be caught up in some sort of passion. You can’t make anything last if you’re not fond of someone. I’m extremely fond of you.”
“Well, Tom bumped his shoulder into Lee’s side, “I’m extremely fond of you too.”
Tom slipped his arm around Lee’s and said, “Are you fond of me enough for us to spend the night together?”
Lee looked at him and blinked.
Tom chuckled and shook his head.
“Ah, Lee… I never thought I’d be the one to shock you.”
“I need to run something by you.”
Fenn looked up at his cousin who had just entered the house.
Lee came to the kitchen table and sat down.
“Well, let’s hear it.”
“It’s Tom.”
“Okay?”
“We were talking. You know, this evening. And Tom hinted that… Well, no he said that he wanted us to sleep together before I left.”
Fenn raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yes, Fenn. He said… that he really really liked me, that we liked each other. And… I mean, he hasn’t made a secret of that. And he feels we should…”
“Do it?”
“Yes. Only… how do you feel about that?”
“Because I was with Tom?”
“Well,” Lee nodded, “that is part of it. But, I can’t decide if it’s a good idea or not.”
“Well, Tom isn’t like you,” Fenn said, at last. “Or like us. I should say.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know about Brian.”
“Of course I know about Brian.”
“I mean, that even now… Shit goes on between them.”
“That’s his business. I’ll be gone in a few days.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” Fenn said. “What I mean is that Brian is an anomaly. I don’t know what he is. Before me there was no one, and I think maybe once, out of some sort of desperation there might have been someone anonymous, but Tom’s entire sexual experience is pretty much me and Brian. He’s not a Casanova, I mean.”
“He says he’s alright with me going, and he knows it doesn’t mean I’m staying. If something happens. Or that we’re an item. But you’re saying he doesn’t mean it.”
“No,” Fenn shook his head. “I’m saying that if Tom wants to sleep with you it’s because he really loves you. He’s not going to try to turn you into a couple, but… it means he’d rather you were.”
“I knew that Fenn. I’m not as blind to Tom as all that.”
“I don’t think you’re blind to him at all,” Fenn told his cousin. “That’s why he loves you.”
Rossford was small, but it was the largest city in Somerset County. When they traveled southeast there was a space of country before they entered Southfield, dry and forgotten by God and time, the highway its main street, bordered by old fashioned brick storefronts. After that the road widened, and in the distance there was a car plant, and then the exit read NEXT STOP EAST CARMEL.
“I know you said no Black people live here,” Paul said. “But actually, not much of anyone else does either.
“This place seems so removed from…. Everything,” Paul marveled.
A bridge spanned the highway, and they came up to the right of it, and then headed south, past a truck stop, further up the road, a few old motels, the country cemetery. It was a ten minute drive before Fenn was surprised by a city park and classic stone houses.
“Whaddid you think it was?” Paul grinned at him, “just a trailer park?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, we’ve got that too. Oh, by the way, there is no movie theatre in East Carmel.”
“What do the kids do for fun?”
“Okay, watch this,” Paul said. “You see that tire shop down the street?”
“Um hum.”
“Well, I’m going to stop the car right here,” Paul parked by the side.
That tire shop is on Rigley Street. Rigley is pretty much our main street. Court House, City Hall… it’s a beautiful city hall by the way, and the Dollar Store, the closed down movie theatre. Best restaurant in town. That’s all there.
“Anyway, the kids go down that street, past the ice cream spot and the statue of Joe Gingham, that’s the town founder, but it’s Ginghamville that’s named after him, not us. And then the kids go down the road that turns into route sixty-one and goes toward Rummelsville, and that’s where the strip mall and Wal Mart are. Beyond that is the high school. Anyway, you drive up and down that all night.”
“A cruise lap?”
Paul’s eyes lit up.
“You know what a cruise lap is?”
“Rossford isn’t that big. But in Rossford we have more than one.”
“Well, then you are high fallutin! Okay, now the area we came through before we got downtown… that’s one neighborhood. And then past downtown, to the… I guess it would be our left, so it would be the town’s…east, is another neighborhood, newer houses, the county hospital where you go if you’re not too sick and don’t need good medical care,” Paul laughed. “And behind the strip mall there are a lot of new houses too. But basically what we came through just now is the oldest part of town. I’d say we’ve got four, maybe five thousand people tops. The center of the town, where we’re coming now—”
“Is that a gun shop?”
“Yes,” Paul looked across the street where there was no traffic, but where they were still sitting still for the red light and read, “Guns and Liquor.”
“Now the town is sort of off center because downtown is back there, right?” But this road right here is the midpoint. If we go straight its south, other way, north, other ways west and east and all of those turn into the highway.”
The light went green. Paul made a left and they passed the Guns and Liquor shop and a few rickety shotgun houses, and then they bumped over train tracks and there were some old ranch homes. Paul turned into them, into a small neighborhood, and stopped in front of a white two story salt box.
“This is the Anderson household,” he said. “This is the place that gave birth to Johnny Mellow.”
There was a red haired girl leaning in the doorpost of the house as they approached, and she murmured: “Well, look what the cat drug in.”
“Not you!” She said almost offhandedly to Fenn, “We’re glad to have you. But sorry you had to come with this one.”
“Are you almost finished?” Paul said.
“Almost, Big Brother, but it’s so seldom I get to make fun of you. You’re never around.”
“Claire!” a shout came from the kitchen. “Is that your brother? Bring him on in.”
“Well,” Claire shrugged, “you heard the old lady.”
She moved lazily for Paul to come in, and he caught her in a quick headlock, then noogied her.
“You are such a SNOB, you know that?
“Hello,” she said holding out her hand, “You must be Fenn Houghton.”
Fenn shook her hand upon entering, and Claire said, “We can’t thank you enough for taking this burden of a brother off our hands…”
“You haven’t changed a bit,” Paul said.
“I’ve changed a little.”
“What’s going on in East Carmel?”
“You’ve seen it,” Claire said, shutting the door, and tugging at her shirt.
“New stoplight. Meth lab got busted. Oh, yeah, and I lost my virginity.”
At the look on Paul’s face she said, “Chill out. I was so not serious.”
“Yeah, who would hit that, anyway!”
A boy, visibly Paul’s brother, was coming down the steps. He was more wiry, less filled out, and in need of a hair cut. On him, the Anderson nose seemed even larger.
“Well, Fenn,” Paul announced, “you have met my sister, and my brother, Matty.”
“It’s Matt now,” Matt Anderson offered his bony hand with a jack-o-lantern smile.
“Yes,” Claire said. “One of his bonehead friends informed him that Matty made him sound like a girl.”
“He said fag.”
“I was trying to have some class,” Claire told him. “I can’t stand ignorant people.” She turned to Paul, “And that’s all this clown hangs out with.”
“My friends are not ignorant.”
“Your friends are hillbillies.”
“We’re all hillbillies,” Matt said.
“Speak for yourself—”
“What’s all this speaking for yourself about?” a new voice demanded.
Now Paul’s mother came out of the kitchen. She shook Fenn’s hand first, and firmly. Then, instead of embracing Paul, she caught his face in her two hands and, looking up at him said, “You are forbidden to go so far away for so a long time. And why the heck have you taken so long to visit?”
Paul, looking vaguely lost and a little ashamed said to this woman, whose grey hair was tied in a bun: “Well, I’m here now, Mama.”
“He’s even got his accent back,” Claire observed to Fenn. “I never even got mine. I wonder why.”
His mother still held his face. When she smiled it looked like it hurt.
“Paul!” she said. “Paul.”
And then she kissed him.
“So how was California?”
“And why are you back?”
“And are you back for good? Claire demanded.
“Well,” Paul tore a roll in two and said, “I can’t answer if you don’t let me breathe.”
“Yes, let him alone,” his mother said.
“Mama, you were asking just as many questions.”
“I am here,” Paul said. “To stay.”
“Right on!” Matt clapped his hands.
Claire said to Fenn, “Who says ‘right on’ anymore.”
“I say it, wench.”
“Did you just call me a wench?”
“You heard it, didn’t you—?”
“You!” Mrs. Anderson snapped her fingers. “And you. Enough.”
Paul resumed, “I’m here to stay, Mama.”
Mrs. Anderson crossed herself and Paul added, “Well, I mean, I’m going to stay in Rossford. Not right here in East Carmel.”
“Well, why would you?” Claire dismissed the idea. “Tell us about the play?”
“Oh, yeah. It’s this coming Saturday night. The first run.”
“Let Fenn speak,” Mrs. Anderson said. “He hasn’t said a word.”
“And that’s not like him at all,” Paul smiled in his friend’s direction.
“Tonight I’ve got competition,” Fenn said, grinning at Claire. “But, no. The show’s Saturday and Sunday, and then we’ve just started doing things in the middle of the week, so it’s going to run until Wednesday.”
“Yeah,” Paul chimed in, “We’re going to try—the playhouse is going to try—I should say Fenn’s going to try.”
“Well, you’re part of the playhouse too, now,” Fenn observed.
Paul nodded. “We’re going to try to do plays all through the week. Eventually. But right now we’re just getting the momentum going.”
Matt was toying with his butter knife, his bottom lip sticking out, and Mrs. Anderson took it out of his hands and placed it on the plate while Claire said, “Of course we’re going to the play, right?”
“You are?” Paul blinked.
“Don’t be a goober, of course we are.”
Mrs. Anderson sat back and smiled with pleasure.
“I think it’s so good,” she said. “How things work out. You know, you went so far away, but the closer you came the more you did. You had those little infomercials in Port Ridge, and now you’re here, doing what you always wanted to. It’s like a dream.”
“Yeah, Ma,” Paul said, tearing off a piece of chicken. “It is.”
“Infomercials?” Fenn said on the way home.
Paul spared the highway a glance to eye Fenn and then chimed in a merry voice: “Honey, what are you doing in Port Ridge? Oh, nothing Mom, just getting fucked up the ass in gay porn videos. Doesn’t sound so great, does it?”
Fenn chuckled. “When you put it that way…”
“Yeah. Actually, when you put it any way. Except for to call it an infomercial.”
“So that was your family. I really liked them,” Fenn said. He rolled his tongue in his mouth. “I just wish I had a toothpick. I got some of that chicken stuck in my back teeth.”
“You and Claire hit it off.”
“Claire’s fun as fuck.”
“Yes,” Paul nodded his head. “She is.
“There’s so much I don’t know how to say to them though,” Paul said. “I mean, the bulk of my life. It’s not just, they don’t know what I did in California and here too. I mean they don’t even know I’m gay.”
Fenn looked at him. “I guess they wouldn’t.”
“No. I never had a gay life outside of my porn life. The two were pretty much the same thing. I don’t know how to tell them. Hell, I don’t even know if I want to tell them.”
“But if they’re going to be a part of your life…”
“I know,” said Paul. “They’re gonna have to know. I mean, if they meet you and Todd and… Tom too, I can’t really pretend that I’m just this straight person that knows all of these people who aren’t. I’m gonna have to own it. Only I don’t really know how to.”
“Well, you at least have to tell Claire.”
“Yeah,” Paul acknowledged, his brows drawing together. “That much is true.”
He was quiet awhile, and then Paul said, “Fenn, I loved tonight. Really. But I also felt like I was pretending to be someone I’m not. I just wanted to say, actually, I did do some stuff in California. I was a pornstar, and I’ve fucked a lot of dudes. Part of me was so happy to be there, and I wanted to be this good little boy. But…” Paul frowned, trying to make sense of it as they went down the entry ramp onto the highway, “Part of me…I wanted to… do something bad.”
