Fenn Does It
2
Todd and Will were sawing in the plastic covered area off the theatre lobby that would be the poetry room, when he saw Bryant Babcock swing into a parking space and jump out of his car.
“He gets nuttier as the years go by,” Will commented, pushing his hair out of his face.
Todd nodded and indicated for Will to halt.
Bryant was coming into the theatre as Todd was coming toward him, and from beyond the doors into the main auditorium, they could hear a recital.
“Where’s Fenn?”
“In Chicago. With Dylan.”
“School’s not out today, is it?’
“It is for Dylan. He’s having an issue.”
“Is Dylan all right?”
“He’s fine. He’ll be fine. He—” Todd cocked his head. “What are you here for?”
“To talk. I needed advice. This is—”
He dragged Todd across the empty lobby and said, “This guy, the guy I’ve been so excited about—”
“Jazz Teacher Ferguson?”
“Right. Well, I was pretty sure he’d been throwing out vibes at me—”
“Good.”
“No, bad. Cause it turns out he is a very, very married man.”
“Get the fuck out!”
“I wish I could.”
“You all haven’t…?” Todd made a vague gesture.
“Haven’t what? Oh!” Bryant blinked. “No. We haven’t done anything. I just thought—I really thought,” he murmured. “And then you’d think I’d be old enough to know better.”
“Ah, well,” Todd said, shrugging. He was at a loss for what else he could say.
“And then to add insult to injury, you’ll never guess who told me.”
“No, I won’t,” Todd said, not willing to play along.
“Chad. He’s back. He’s back today. I’m his boss. It’s so odd. I don’t know what to do with him.”
“And you were going to tell all of this to Fenn?”
“And you too. But he’s such a good listener, and he always knows what to do.”
“Do you not think it’s a little ironic that you want to tell Fenn how horrible it feels to see the person who betrayed you after you and Tom were the ones who betrayed him?”
Bryant stopped and frowned.
“I was about to brush that off and say it was so long ago,” Bryant explained. “But you’ve got a good point. I should probably never talk to Fenn about this.”
“Agreed. Cause he’s mine, Bri. And I protect him. I’m the gatekeeper. And he’s got a lot to deal with right now.”
“Is it about Dylan?”
“Mostly, yes.”
“Well, can I help?”
“It’s highly doubtful.”
Bryant blew out his cheeks. Will was approaching them, his hair covered in saw dust.
“Well, do you guys wanna get lunch?”
Todd protested: “We’re trying to get things done—”
“Everything’s always better with lunch,” Bryant cajoled.
“Agreed,” said Will.
“It’s agreed if you’re paying,” Todd told Bryant.
“Well, if you’re going to be that way, then yes, I’m paying.”
Will nodded.
“Layla will kill us all.”
When Claire reached the house, her brother said, “Where’s the kid?” And then he added, “Where’s the husband?”
“Julian and Riley went across the street to see Layla.”
“She’s having a poetry reading.”
“Yes, she is,” Claire said, closing the door behind her. “If you know it, I know it. And speaking of kids, where are yours?”
“With Kirk. I’ve got the house to myself. It never happens.”
“You’re never home,” Claire said from the kitchen.
“The fridge would be the first thing you’d find!”
“Are you trying to call me fat?” she asked. But Claire took out the juice, opened the carton, and tipped it to her mouth.
“No!” Paul said, “And,” taking the carton from her, “have you ever heard of a glass?”
“Yes, those are the things you use when you don’t want people to see you drink out of the carton. And by the way, I have gotten bigger, so you don’t have to pretend.”
“Not much bigger.”
“My ass is huge. It’s childbirth.”
“And cheeseburgers.”
Claire slapped her brother’s wrist. “I thought you said I wasn’t any bigger.”
“Well, the moment you shattered that illusion was the moment I could walk away from it too.”
“Honestly,” Claire sat in the chair and tied her hair up, “Layla’s figuring out what she’s going to do with her book. Dena’s figuring out what she’s going to do with Rob—and I think she might be pregnant again—and I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do with my fat ass.”
“Yeah,” Paul said, unsympathetically. “It’s a good thing you married a Black guy.”
Finishing the braid, Claire said, “I don’t know if I should slap you or if I should slap you. While I make up my mind between option A and option B, why don’t you tell me why we don’t see each other anymore.”
“Because I’m in Chicago all the time. Cause I have work, thank God.”
“Well, I object to the whole damn thing, and what time are we supposed to be at Shelley and Matty’s?”
“I think six, and is Bryant going to be there?”
“Probably,” Claire shrugged. “The real question is, will Chad be there?”
“Chad who?”
“Chad North.” Paul frowned.
“Didn’t you know?” Claire was delighted by her gossip.
“No,” Paul said, impatient.
“Chad is back. Before Bryant got the new job as Dean, the department hired Chad. So now he and Bryant are working in the same department and I say… Good!”
“Part of you is very, very vicious.”
“It’s the part you love.”
“I love all of you, Claire.”
“Thanks, brother—”
“Even your fat ass.”
While Claire’s eyes flew open, and she opened her mouth for a comeback, Paul lifted a finger and looked toward the door.
“Noah,” he said.
“I’ll open the door,” Claire stood up to do so, and Noah walked right into the house.
“I’m glad you’re here, too,” Noah said, wide eyed.
“You sound panicked as hell,” Claire told him. “And I’ve seen you right after someone’s shoved a gun in your mouth.”
“I just lost a student,” Noah said.
Claire and Paul looked at him for further explanation, and Noah said, “Steven. Steven’s mother said I couldn’t tutor him anymore.”
“That dumb kid—?” Claire started, but Paul said, “What for?”
“You don’t know?” This was Claire.
“No, I wasn’t concentrating on the specifics,” Noah said. “But Mrs. Rouse said, and I quote, ‘I have no problem with a homosexual liftestyle—’”
“Well, that’s fucking gracious of her—”
“‘But I can’t have my son taught by someone who has made those type of movies.’”
“And you put your real name to everything,” Paul remembered.
“Yeah!” Noah’s voice was a little high. “Noah Riley has always been Noah Riley. There’s no Johnny Mellow for me to hide behind.”
Claire shook her head and tried to find something sane and reasonable to say.
“This could mean nothing. This could be one woman’s overreaction.”
“Or it could mean the beginning of people finding out all sorts of things I don’t need them to know or remember.”
“Or,” Claire rejoined in an even voice, “it could be nothing. Let’s push for nothing. Let’s go to dinner at my future sister-in-law’s, laugh at Bryant Babcock’s misfortunes, and push for nothing.”
“I love coming here,” Fenn said as he preceded Dylan down the semi darkness of the train platform, surrounded by the other travelers.
“Should we get our ticket now, or later?” Dylan said, pointing to the ticket machines.
“Later. You have to use them the day of, and we don’t really know when we’re going back.”
“We don’t?”
“Oh, Dylan, you’ve got shit to work out. Kenny’s got shit to work out, and I know Bren does.”
“Chicago is the perfect retreat,” Fenn insisted. “Did you grow up here?”
“No. We lived in Evanston up north,” Fenn said. “We can go, if you’d like.
“Of course, no one really comes from here. This is downtown. Half of these stylish people walking around come from Hegewisch, Hammond and Miller. Maybe Oak Park. Definitely not the northern suburbs. Quit gawking or you’ll fall over yourself.”
Dylan didn’t talk while they went up the steps to Randolph, and stepping into the mix of pigeons and people, Fenn commented, “It smells a little bit like piss, and a lot like home.” As Dylan stepped up beside Fenn and they went down Randolph, he was captivated by the sheer energy, all the bikers whizzing up and down the street, the walkers who paid no attention to the lights, the high buildings reaching up and up. Even the filth entranced. And there was a delicious chill in the air. Overhead he could hear a voice booming, “Randolph and Wabash, doors closing.” And then the bell, the rattle and the thunder of the L train. “Are we catching that?”
Fenn looked up. “We’re catching what they now call a Red Line. That’s underground. We’re going to walk to State for that. There’s a bookstore on the way. Do you want to go?”
“I’m good on books,” Dylan said.
“When we were a little older than you, but a lot younger than I am now, me and Adele would catch the train and come back here for the day. The train was a lot cheaper then. It was just what we needed to sort of remember there was more to our life than Rossford.”
“You just hopped trains?”
“Well, it was hardly hopping trains. The South Shore isn’t dangerous, and Chicago isn’t that far.”
“But I never come.”
“That’s my fault. I should bring you.”
He reached into his pockets and put a few coins in the man’s cup.
“God bless you.” Dylan nodded.
“Well, you can think of it now.”
“Everyone says I’m your son—”
“Well, that’s because you are—”
“But I’ll never be like you. I can’t think of neat things to do.”
It came, then, to Dylan that he had done things he would never tell Fenn. His risks were all sexual, and all dangerous, but out of the dark he was tame, and he was afraid.
“You went to California last year.”
There was that. And he remembered that night at the house when he and Ruthven’s friends had done what they did in the dark. Thinking of being in that bathroom with Robb, his thighs open while Robb took him in and his body trembling while he came in Robb’s mouth often filled him with a sort of pride and a shivering lust. Now it made him feel stupid, and he wanted to block it out.
“Yes,” Dylan agreed as they turned north on State Street. “But it was a one time thing.”
Fenn, not knowing where to go with this, and having passed the Borders bookstore, the shiny Red Line exit, and three canvassers in front of the Macy’s, took Dylan by the shoulder, and guided him down into the subway.
“I think you put far too much on yourself, my son. So take it off. It’s time to go see Brendan and Kenneth.”
Kenneth McGrath was walking toward home, thinking of how, though a lot of these blocks all looked the same, they looked the same in a beautiful way. He passed the CVS looking at the high price of cigarettes, glad he’d given them up. Rows and rows of sedate three and two story brick apartment buildings, some that stood out with stone or concrete blocks and this one, that he fantasized about living in with the large windows trimmed in green, the great porch, the creamy yellow façade. In the distance the El rattled, and a police siren wailed off of Rosemont. A single pillar stood before his building, naming it. RACHEL. What was the whole idea of that brick pillar with the letters descending that called this place home? He shifted the messenger bag on his shoulder, and coming down the little walk between Rachel and the building next door, jiggled his key to enter, checked his mailbox, and then lost his breath when he was about to head up the steps.
Dylan Mesda was sitting there reading a book, and he called up: “He’s finally here!”
There was the sound of descending feet, and then there was Fenn Houghton.
“Kenneth,” he said, “I was wondering when you’d get here.”
