chapter eleven (part TWO): UNDER WATER
“I love Addison,” Balliol said, stiffening suddenly. “But not his routines. Every time someone tries to impersonate one particular gay person they do this long lisping cliché, and I don’t know any gay people, so I can’t say. But it seems wrong to lampoon a group of people just because you don’t get them. Or because they scare you. Which is is probably more the truth than anything.”
Mason said: “Sully, I’m going to ask you something.”
“What!” Sully jumped up.
Mason cocked his head at Sullivan Reardon: “Only... Balliol didn’t want to tell you. But I will—”
“Mason!”
“Matt Mercurio asked him to be his junior in the passing of the torch and Balliol thought he couldn’t tell you.”
“I think that’s great, Balliol.”
Sully told him, genuinely pleased.
“Oh,” Balliol said, sounding a little gruff.
“He thought that since you and Matt were friends then you’d be hurt-”
“I’m not. It’s just neat seeing you and Matt get on. He really respects you. Always has since that day during Christmas. I think it’s because I told him that you used to fight a lot back in school. Matt kind of identifies with aggression. Oddly enough, he’s turned into a really nice guy. I mean he always was, but—”
“He came to me,” Balliol said. “Right after everything happened. He came to me and asked me about and we talked for a long time. About responsibility and.… Things like that. I think we became friends then. Maybe we always wanted to be. Maybe that’s why we were snapping at each other all the time.” Balliol shrugged. “Who knows?”
“Que sera!” Mason said in a Mexican accent, and then added, “Sera!”
“What?” they looked at him.
“There was this old cartoon with these two little men... or maybe they were mice in Hell. I can’t remember. Anyway they would go, “Que Sera... Sera!” Mason began to laugh to himself.
“It was really funny.”
Sully and Balliol just stared at him.
“You’re weird,” Balliol declared at last.
“I don’t think you’d have me any other way.”
Sully was glad when he came to the pool. He was glad for the water. This is exactly what he told himself. He was glad to cut through the smooth
water, feeling the light come through the dome over the swimming pool of Saint Vitus.
But when it was over, when it was time to shower and go home quickly before heading over to Mason’s he was trembling violently. He felt sick, but it wasn’t sickness.
When he pushed open the locker room door he did it quickly, and heard nothing. It was empty. There was no one here.
He’d wanted to see him, just to see him. He’d never seen a body like Justin Reily’s. He’d seen Chris and that was it. He didn’t want to think about Chris. He was actually learning to erase the memory of Chris Power’s body and this was another reason to think on Justin. The more he thought on the exquisiteness of Justin Reily, the more he was completely unable to picture Chris. Sully turned on the shower water and stripped totally, he stood under the showerhead letting the water beat down on him. He dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt, stuffed his uniform in a duffel bag and headed out of the pool room.
On his way out, through the trophy hall that led to the parking lot, Sullivan Reardon gasped.
To his left, through the gymnasium, in the Saint Vitus uniform, pretty, with pressed curls, he might have been mixed like Balliol only you couldn’t tell Balliol was mixed, was Justin Reily.
Justin gave him a smile, and then kept walking to the pool room.
When the doors of the pool room shut, for just a second, Sully thought of running back in to watch Justin. To talk to him. He stood there for a minute or two. Was it really a minute or two? And then he looked at his watch. He estimated that he had an hour and a half to get to his house and then get to the Darrows for dinner. If he took his bike instead of riding a bus from his house to Mason’s then he would cut down on time considerably. He could do this.
Why am I doing this?
Because you’ve never done it before. Because you want to.
He went back into the chlorine scented pool area. No Justin. He stood before the door of the locker room. He could hear the water pouring ,the pipes screaming. He shifted his bag from his shoulder and went in.
Just to see him. He saw him.
He saw Justin, turning and twisting in the water, not in his trunks like you would at swim class when you were in a rush and didn’t really want to be seen, but twisting full and golden brown, like a little faun, covered in light hairs. Twisting, oblivious to Sully’s gaze.
And then Justin turned in the water. Sully was looking at his sex, looking at it brown coming out of the black hair under his belly, when Justin opened his eyes and looked at him. He looked like a poster of Duke Ell... no, that was Langston Hughes, a young one, that Balliol had on his wall. That’s what he looked like. And in a jarring instant he’d caught Sully’s eyes. Sully’s stomach turned with fear and sickness, and he looked wildly around and saw a shirt hanging on a hook. It was not his. It was not Justin’s. Justin’s things were near the shower. So Sully took the shirt and shouted in mock recognition, “Oh, here it is!”
And then he was gone.
“You want me to what?” she said.
“You heard me,” Seth said. Then, at the look on her face:
“Besides, you said you’d do it. You said you’d like to.”
Bonnie crossed her arms over her chest and said, “It’s because of this new girl you’re with. Right?”
“And what if it is?” said Seth. “Yes, as a matter of fact that’s exactly who it’s about.”
“So you want me to—?”
“I want you…” Seth whispered catching her wrist and drawing her close: “to put me out of your head and go fuck Addison Cromptley.”
She looked at him incredulous.
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“The same way you fuck everybody. And you do fuck everybody. Don’t even pretend I was a special case.” Seth was leaving her room.
“You were, Seth,” she said sounding hurt. “I can’t believe you didn’t know that.”
Seth cocked his head. He couldn’t beleive she didn’t know she was lying. Well, she was.
“How about I just... bring Addison to you?”
She looked at him.
“Like I’m a whore?”
Set shook his head.
“Whores get paid. Plus, you were thinking about it, weren’t you? You talked about it. About Addison.”
“He’s nicer than you,” she said. “I bet he’d give a girl a nice time.”
Seth was about to say, That’s not what his ex-girlfriend would say, and then he remembered that Addison was his best... No, that sounded like bullshit right now, considering what he was doing.
Seth took his hands through his thick hair.
“You know damn well that I was the one that showed you a good time. I showed you a good time on that bed, in your windowsill and against the door three or four times. So don’t tell me any shit about how you think Addison’s going to show you a good time.
“I’ll bring him by tonight. When he gets off of work. I’m picking him up from the gas station. I’ll bring him by.”
“What—”
Then she stopped.
“What? What?” said Seth.
“Nothing,” Bonnie murmured.
“I was just wondering... What if he says no?”
The thought hadn’t occurred to Seth. Seth would never say no to free sex.
“I’ll make sure he says yes,” Seth told her.
Dinner had been the worst.
Sully had gone straight to the Darrows to let the chatter drown out any fears, fears that Justin knew what he was up to. Justin was not the biggest fag at Saint Vitus. Sully now knew that was him. What if, fag or not, Justin didn’t like being followed into the shower room and ogled? Wasn’t he a senior, wasn’t he going to graduate? Why had Sully done it? He could write in his journal later on about healthy curiosity. He’d tried to put it out of his head. He wanted to hear Mason’s chatter. The only problem was that Mason didn’t chatter, not really. Nothing got by him. He really was as clever as Balliol. And Balliol was there too, and then Tommy had his whole sensitivity radar. So each one of them asked him what was wrong. Addison had no sensitivity radar, and Sully was glad for that.
When dinner was over Tommy rose up and said, “Anyone who has to leave can leave with me. First stop, Addison’s job. Second stop?”
“I need to go,” Sully said. “It’s about that time. Are you coming, Bailey?”
“I can’t let Mason wash dishes alone,” Balliol said. “I’ll take my bike back home.”
Sully had come here straight from school so he’d never gotten his bike.
In the truck Tommy decided, “Actually we’ll reverse the order for the stops, Since Sully’s house is closer.”
“Can you do that Mr. Busdriver?” Addison said.
Tommy lifted a finger.
“Just this once.”
“HEY, MOM, I’M HOME.”
“Did you have a good day?
“Yeah,” Sully said heading up the stairs to his room. He went into his room, throwing his bag down. And a few minutes later there was a knock on the door.
“It’s open.”
Tina Reardon came in.
“Do you see Chris anymore?”
“No, Mom.”
“Oh,” she said. “That was fun wasn’t it? Hanging out with Chris and those guys?”
“Yeah, Mom, I guess. Well, tonight, I was with Balliol and Mason.”
“I don’t know Mason.”
She always wanted to talk at the oddest times. Sully was feeling short with her.
“You don’t really know Balliol either,” he told her.
Joel McKenna went to do what he did before all of his son’s birthdays. He stopped in his room to make sure he didn’t already have what he wanted to get him.
This place was a mess. Seth kept the rest of the house pretty clean, but not his own room. Plaid shirts and different blue trousers and blazers were scattered all over. The bed didn’t look like it was just unmade. It looked like it had exploded. Bed sheets were on the floor. The room smelled like old pizzas, something was rotting somewhere. Windows needed to be opened. Joel thought, Maybe what I should get him for his birthday is a cleaning service? I wouldn’t be surprised by anything I found in here…
And while he was saying that he was surprised.
On the old dresser with the vanity that had belonged to his wife and before that his mother, which had found its way to Seth’s room like so many old things did, he saw it.
What he saw were stacks of money, stacks of small bills. But Seth didn’t work. Or, at least, Joel didn’t think Seth worked. But he was gone all the time. Stay out of your son’s life. Don’t be nosey. He’s almost an adult. Yes but not quite. And so Joel went to the money pile and looking, but not touching, he saw how a stack of bills covered a plastic bag. And then he lifted the bag of marijuana and he twirled it and twirled it as if it might tell him something. Hopefully it would turn out to be oregano on close inspection, and then he’d learn how Seth had started selling Italian food out of his room.
“Well...” Joel began.
Now he’d have to tear the whole room apart.
So he opened the first drawer, which was underwear, and then he opened the next drawer which was more condoms than Joel himself could ever hope to go through. And then the next drawer, which was porn. Observing a big breasted woman with a chain hanging between her pierced nipples, Joel thought that he would actually, against his better judgment, not bring up the porn when he raked Seth through the coals.
Raked him through the coals... It was too late for that.
“I should have...” he began.
The phone rang. Joel had something in his hands
The phone rang again.
Seth might come back. He didn’t want Seth to know he’d been in his room.
He closed the drawers and tried to rearrange everything and then picked up the kitchen phone.
“Joel?”
“Sidney?”
“Yeah. Do you—?”
“Sidney, I have a question for you.”
“What?”
Joel examined what he held in his hands.
“Is there a drug ... that looks like... sugar cubes?”
“Yes,” Sidney said. Trust Sidney Darrow to know drugs.
“There is?”
“Yes. They’re called sugar cubes—”
“Oh,” Joel relaxed and laughed a little. Sidney was telling him a joke.
Sidney concluded: “But they’re really acid.”
Joel stopped laughing.
“What’s up, Joel?”
For a while Joel just stood with the bag in his hand
“Joel?”
“Sid...” Joel mumbled. “I need to stay here a while. I gotta talk to my kid.”
Sidney’s voice changed.
“All right... If you need anything… You know... like support... Call.”
Joel nodded, forgetting that you couldn’t hear a nod over the phone, and hung up.
“I’M ALMOST READY,” Addison told Seth. “Just get us a few pops for the way back.”
“You need to get back home right away?”
“I’m a little tired, but you got something in mind?”
Addison was behind the counter, getting things ready for the night manager.
“Yeah. I was actually going to your neighborhood to hang out with Bonnie. You ever meet her?’
“No, you just talk about her.”
“Sierra Mist?’ Seth said, looking into the glass doors. “How’s that sound?”
“Two Sierra Mists,” Addison said, brightly.
When they got into Seth’s truck and headed down Bancroft Street, he said, “You do have a license. How about when we get to the light we switch sides?”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” said Seth
They actually drove for two blocks before they met a red light. They switched sides and Addison said, crawling over Seth. “It’s busy out here.”
“You just pay attention to the road and not the crowds,” Seth told him.
They drove for a while, Addison paying so much attention to the road as they headed into his neighborhood, that he paid no attention to Seth, dropping what he dropped into his drink. It wasn’t anything serious, just a sort of.... help.