Things Turn
2
What part of he’s fifteen years old doesn’t ring in your head?” Todd asked, sitting down at the kitchen table before his nephew.
“I know how old he is,” Ruthven said. “Why do you think I had such a hard time with it? It’s all that goes through my head.”
Todd shook his head.
“I don’t even know what to say.”
Fenn was coming down the steps, and both Meradans straightened, expecting something to happen, but he seemed serene enough. He looked at Ruthven, but the look implied nothing, and then he went into the living room.
“Todd,” Ruthven began.
When Todd waited for him to say something, Ruthven just shook his head.
“I don’t know. Just… I’ve felt that way about Dylan since we were both little kids and well, it got physical when I was still a kid.”
“That doesn’t make it sound any better.”
“The point is we’re really in love with each other. No,” Ruthven said, hitting the table. “We love each other. We get each other. He’s a part of me.”
“You are eighteen, and he is fifteen.”
“So what?” Ruthven said.
“So what?”
Todd got up and went into the living room. Fenn was sitting on the couch. He looked up and said, “I told you. I told you from the beginning. Him and Ruthven.”
“So…” Todd approached Fenn. “You don’t want to stop it?”
“I don’t think we can stop it,” Fenn said. “We can curb it, and I think we should. Just like I can’t stop Dylan, but I can stop him from killing himself.”
Fenn was quiet for a bit and then he said, “Dylan stood there in front of me and he told that he hoped I wasn’t trying to stop him from ever having sex again. I had to be as honest with him as possible. I’m not trying to get him to not sleep with Ruthven. They’ve done it. They probably did it last night and if they can they’ll find a way to do it tonight. I’m just trying to keep Dylan from ending up dead on a corner or being a paid escort.”
"I feel like I’ve seen too much and been part of too much for one day,” Carol told Brendan as they sat in the living room of Fenn’s house.
“Well, I’ve still got the key to the apartment, so we might as well go downstairs and see Kenny. You can make some breakfast or… Something.”
“It’s pretty much all about something,” Carol confessed. “My life is one big ass something.”
Brendan sighed heavily, pushed himself up and Carol followed him out of the house saying, “Should we tell them we’re gone?”
“No,” Brendan said. “They’ve got shit of their own.”
They walked along the side of the house and Brendan took out his key and opened the door.
The sounds were loud and aggressive and only unknown to Brendan because they were so far from his expectations, but Carol’s ears pricked up and she caught her brother’s sleeve.
“Don’t go in there,” she said.
Brendan shook his sister off and went down the steps descending to the living room, and there was Chad North naked, his head back in ecstasy, while Kenny sat nude on the sofa sucking his dick.
Chad’s eyes flew open and Kenny rose up slowly with a look that was more annoyance than guilt.
“Brendan,” he said.
Carol, at the top of the stairs, just visible said, “I think I’ll go now.”
Chad looked at Kenny, and then bent for the floor, pulled on his Jockeys in one swift move and said, “I think I will too.”
“Chad North?”
“You say it like there’s something especially horrible about Chad North,” Kenny told him.
“It’s not that it’s Chad, it’s that it’s anyone,” Brendan said.
“No, worse, because you can’t fuck the Windy City and it can’t fuck you back,” Kenny said. “You don’t call, you don’t check in. You’re not around when I do. I’ve been gone for weeks, and you don’t give a shit. And then you show up and don’t even knock.”
“You’re not going to apologize to me?” Brendan said.
“Apologize for what?” Kenny said. “Because I know you can’t think that what me and Chad are doing is cheating on you.”
“If you have a boyfriend,” Brendan said, “and you start screwing someone else without telling him, then yes, it is cheating.”
“Yes,” Kenny said, “if I have a boyfriend.”
“What are you saying?” Brendan looked at him.
“What am I saying?” Kenny repeated. “I’m saying a relationship isn’t just I claim you. I own you, now you’re mine and no one else’s forever. A relationship is—”
“This is bullshit.”
“Fucking listen to me,” Kenny said a little more frantically. “A relationship is you fucking being there. And you’re not there. What the fuck else did you expect me to do?”
Brendan didn’t answer. He only said, “So we’re done?”
“You’ve made us done, Bren!” Kenny shouted, turning to the refrigerator and pulling out the milk.
“Shit, Bren! I haven’t felt anything like a man in months. I just pine away in that apartment and take bullshit jobs while you have this interesting life. And you come home when you feel like it—”
“It’s not when I feel like it! I’m a lawyer, Kenny. From Valpo. With something to prove. The law has to be my priority.”
“I thought I was your priority.” Kenny said. “I was supposed to be your priority. And until I am, I don’t have anything to say to you.”
Brendan looked like he was trying to stop himself from saying something angry. He took a breath and then said, “Alright, Ken. What, do you want me to do? To prove that you’re a priority.”
“Leave Chicago and come to a law office around here.”
Kenny shrugged and put the milk back in the fridge. “Then get the fuck out.”
When Laurel showed up it was with a tall gawky boy that reminded Dylan of Will Klasko, even though they didn’t really look that much alike. She sat down on the bed and immediately asked how long the punishment was.
“It’s pretty indefinite,” Dylan shrugged. “But sooner or later my sin was going to find me out.”
He tried to grin.
“When you look at all the stupid shit I’ve done, it’s amazing all I got was grounded. And of course I’ve got to face my dad tonight. Tom. I’m not looking forward to that.”
“What all happened?”
“We really fought, and… I’m not used to that.” He didn’t want to say that Tom had slapped him. That sounded too victimy, and the truth was he would have slapped himself too.
“I did not help matters by running away. But enough about me,” Dylan gestured to the boy beside Laurel.
“This is Alex,” Laurel said.
“The protector of my cousin and possible one day cousin-in-law,” Dylan held out a hand.
Alex shook it and said, “That’s too much to predict.”
Dylan looked at him knowingly and said, “Laurel tells me you’ve got the Gift.”
“Laurel told me everyone in her family had the Gift,” Alex countered. “You included.”
“Can you guess what I’m about to do?” Dylan asked him.
“No,” said Alex. “But I can guess your gift.”
Dylan waited.
“Charm,” Alex said. “You’ve got good looks, but you’ve also got charm and you try to use it on men. It almost always works. You don’t trust other boys, and that’s why you don’t have any for friends. Just the ones you have sex with. That charm is your gift, but if you don’t watch out it’s going to kill you.”
Dylan sat up straighter and his face turned red. Laurel was looking between both of them, afraid of some danger. But Dylan looked embarrassed now and he said, “That’s about the shape of it.”
“Carol, where were you going?”
She was surprised because she had been walking to her car when the front door opened and there was Fenn.
“I was just going to my parents.”
“Well, you could. Or you could hang out a little longer.”
“My brother might need me. He’s still downstairs.”
“All the better for you to stay right here,” Fenn told her. “Never think that just because everything in this house is falling apart there’s no room for courtesy.”
Carol nodded and Fenn said, “You might think I don’t get it but I do. From what we talked about last night, the last thing you need to do is be stuck in your mother and father’s house.”
When Tom arrived with Lee, he was followed by Danasia and Mathan.
“You need an entourage?” Fenn addressed his ex, sitting on the old sofa.
“We just came to see you,” Danasia said. She cocked her head and looked at Carol. “I’ve seen you before.”
“She’s Brendan Miller’s sister,” Mathan said.
“That’s right,” Carol smiled. “And you’re with Dena’s stepsister. Right? We don’t really know each other. Carol.”
“I know,” Mathan told her. “And I’m Mathan.”
“Mathan is my cousin,” Fenn explained. “Lee’s nephew.”
“And speaking of relations,” Tom said, putting his hands together grimly, “where is my son?”
“Upstairs,” Fenn told him. He gave a slight gesture to Tom and called him into the dining room.
“Yes?” Tom replied upon entering.
“I’ve grounded him, and if it’s alright with you, I want him grounded here.”
Tom looked at Fenn.
“It just seems like moving him from house to house is the opposite of grounding.”
“And you think you can look after him better.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you think it.”
Tom shrugged. “Well, I can’t argue that. Hell, I’m afraid of you. Alright, he stays here. Plus, I’ve lost parental points. I totally lost it.”
“He’s your son.”
“He’s yours too.”
“Not my blood. Not my genes. Doesn’t look like me.”
“You think that makes a difference?”
“I think you see yourself every time you see him, because he is you. He’s me too, but not in looks. I don’t know if that makes a difference.”
“I wish you had told me when you first found out.”
“All I knew about was Lance Bishop.”
“Still, Fenn.”
Fenn nodded, but he said, “As much as my parents loathed each other, when I told one a thing they always told the other. It was like talking in stereo and I never liked that. I swore I’d never do it to my children if I had them. Dylan didn’t want either one of us to know about Lance. But I found out by accident. I thought it was his secret to tell. Not mine.”
“But, Fenn—”
“Go see your son,” Fenn told him.
Tom realized that pursuing this was useless. He nodded, and turned to go up the stairs. Fenn turned around and came back to the living room where the first person who came up to him was Carol Miller. She dragged him back into the dining room and said, “Did you know that this Meredith bitch just dropped Mathan for a convict?”
Fenn frowned. “I think I knew something like that. Apparently I’m not involved enough in my family’s business.”
“Well, never mind that,” Carol brushed past Fenn’s guilt. “The real question is: Am I too old for Mathan?”
“Yes,” Fenn said.
Carol blinked, and then she pushed up her breasts.
“I think, Mr. Houghton, that what I’m going to do is pretend you didn’t say that, and make a stab for that very fine, very tall, very black man.”
“You don’t even have to worry about that,” he said to Chad.
“I thought you were in trouble or something,” Chad said. “You have to admit, what we’ve got going on here is pretty precarious.”
“No it isn’t,” Kenny disagreed. “At least not anymore. I like being with you. I like us being together, and we work really well. I haven’t felt like this in a long time.”
There was so much silence, Kenny was about to check the phone for reception, and then Chad said:
“Me neither. You know, this is the first time I’ve felt sane. If that makes any sense.”
“I’ve seen all the mess you’ve been involved in for the last ten years, so yes, “ Kenny said, drawing a curve, “it makes sense.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Chad laughed.
“Gladly. Tonight. All night if you want.”
“So, we’re still on?” Chad said.
“Yeah, Chad,” Kenny told him. “We’re definitely on.”
“I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS,” Brendan was saying.
Cup of tea in hand, Dena Affren walked back into the living room, rounded the coffee table and put the cup before Brendan as she sat down.
“You can repeat that phrase as many times as you want,” she told him, “and it won’t change a thing.”
“I don’t see why you can’t believe it,” Milo said. Brendan looked at him.
“Bren, how many times have you left Kenny in the lurch, and how many times has he been there, waiting for you?”
“Milo,” Dena began in a low voice.
“No,” Milo shook his head. “Now you’re gonna hear this, Bren. You’re my friend, but Kenny’s by best friend, and he deserves to be happy. You haven’t been making him happy. He’s been suffering in a way I never want to see him suffer, and if this thing with Chad helps him, well then I say good.”
“What thing with Chad, Dad?”
They looked up and Rob was standing in the living room.
“The grown up thing you’re not supposed to be hearing about, Boyo,” Milo said. “Now go find your cousin Meredith and have her take you to Great-Grandma’s.”
“You always don’t tell me stuff,” Rob said, walking away.
“It’s because we love you,” Dena murmured to her departing child, and then Milo said, “I don’t know if this thing with Chad’ll last, Bren, but one thing I think it will do is make you take Kenny a little more seriously.”
