THE CONTINUING ADVENTURES OF MASON, BALLIOL, SULLY, ADDISON AND TOMMY
AUNT CHLOE HAD BEEN TASTELESS. She was what people now called ghetto fabulous. Everyone was using that word now and no one knew what it meant. Once, Mason Darrow had been watching an award show and, affront of all fronts, a Black woman had misused ghetto fabulous. She had a voice like a valley girl and Mason didn’t think she was really Black anyway, but she had shown off a bedazzled, expensive cell phone and said, “Isn’t it ghetto fabulous!”
No, to have something ghetto fabulous, you couldn’t know it was ghetto fabulous. Someone else had to point it out to you. In your mind it had to be fabulous, but your mind was ghetto. That’s why you thought it was fabulous. Really it was tacky and gaudy, but you were tacky and gaudy. That’s why you didn’t know any better. That’s what made you ghetto.
Well, Aunt Chloe had been ghetto. She’d lived on the South Side in an old apartment building with a flaming homosexual black as pitch who had a mouth full of gold teeth and all of her furniture was gold cloth, and gold painted wood covered in plastic, Mason remembered she had an imitation gold lamp on a table of curlicued gold with a velvet red shade trimmed in gold. Over the couch had been a great mirror, with a gold backing that looked like something Louis the XVI’s poor Black relatives would have owned, and it was this mirror that Mason was staring into.
After Chloe died, Sidney had to have it. Mason didn’t know what had been done with the other furniture, but his father had taken the mirror and hung it above the couch. He didn’t care that it didn’t go with the rest of the house, or that the gold trim was ugly. Mason had complained about it and finally he’d just stripped off the gold. It wasn’t so bad now. It was pretty good for contemplating yourself.
Which is what he was doing.
Mason Darrow, fast approaching seventeen was average height, about five eight. Not as thin as he would have liked, not as thin as Balliol, but a good size. And he was attractive. In fact if you thought in terms of cuteness he was definitely cuter than Balliol, and maybe cuter than Corey and Chuck. Balliol was distinguished and handsome, Chuck was… Well, how did he get so many girls? And Corey was undeniably good looking. Beside Corey Mason could feel, at times, a little insignificant.
But he was good looking... Wasn’t he?
He was so engrossed in looking at himself that when he noticed a new reflection in the mirror he jumped a little and tried to recover himself. Cigarette in hand, arms crossed over his chest, Sidney Darrow stood in jeans and a tee shirt. If a son was the image of his father, and if he knew Keisha was short, then Mason could count on growing no taller. He was already the same height as Sidney. At least he wouldn’t look much older, though. Most people didn’t believe Sidney was his father.
“Can I help you?” Sidney said. “You know, anything you’re waiting for that mirror to tell you I can probably tell you quicker.”
“Can you tell me what’s wrong with me?”
“I’m sure I can’t,” Sidney said. “Nothing’s wrong with you as far as I can see. You look just like me, and for that you should be grateful. You inherited my temper and your mother’s flightiness, so you might not want to thank us for that, but otherwise—”
“I feel like I am doomed to be alone,” Mason said. “I don’t mind ending up a twenty year old virgin. In fact, that’s pretty much in the cards. But I do mind being a sixty year old one.”
“Is this coming from any place?” Sidney said, sitting down on the coffee table and stretching his bare feet out in front of him.
“Dad, can I ask you a question?”
“Ask me any question.”
“How old were you when you lost your virginity?”
“Don’t ask me that question,” Sidney drew his feet in.
“You’re always telling me all this important stuff about sex.”
“I’m not telling you that about sex.” Sidney’s voice rose higher. “There’s a fine line between being a liberal father and being an exhibitionist. Ask another question, Mason.”
“What’s it like? What’s it feel like?”
“Ask another question.”
“You just said—”
Sidney Darrow crushed out his cigarette. “Ask any question that doesn’t have to deal with my penis. ” He shrugged. “You can even ask a question about your penis.”
“I just...” Mason blew out his cheeks. “I have this feeling that I’ll always be alone. That I won’t find someone I can deal with. I...”
Suddenly Mason didn’t see the point in hiding his smoking habit from his father, who probably knew anyway. He reached for his father’s pack of cigarettes and his lighter and lit one then took a long drag.
“Holy shit,” Sidney murmured.
“I like to be alone. I like to be single,” Mason said.
Sidney watched his only son, who would turn seventeen in about a week, blow smoke out of his nostrils and cross his arms over his chest the same way Sidney knew he did. The same way Sidney’s grandfather did.
“Well,” Sidney said, thinking that whatever came out of his mouth next would get to the heart of the problem. “If you like being alone... then you shouldn’t complain about it.”
Mason’s eyes flashed at his father.
“But I don’t want to like being alone!” he snapped.
“It wasn’t loaded!” Sullivan Reardon bellowed with James Dean. “It wasn’t loaded!”
It should have been funny to Tommy, and halfway it was. It was meant to be. But watching movies with Sully was always more intense than comical. Sully knew every movie between 1950 and 1975, but detested musicals though he’d managed to learn all the songs to Gypsy, something he was halfway embarrassed about. As James Dean wept over the body of Sal Mineo, Tommy thought he might cry too.
As the movie ended and Sully got up to open the curtain, he murmured, “Fuck.”
He was opening the curtains.
He covered his mouth, shook his head and said, “Sorry, Tommy, I don’t mean to curse around you.”
Tommy Dwyer shrugged.
“It’s just,” Sully said, “Every time I see that movie I wish there was a different way it could end, but I can’t think of what would have done it without making it hoaky. I know he’s not real... Plato, I mean, but I still feel like his life got cut short. And you know what? I feel like he is real. When I’m writing a story, my characters are real, so why isn’t Plato real? One day, I’m going to write a book, and I’m going to dedicate it to him, and my character’s going to be saved. He’s going to live. He’s not just going to go into darkness. That’ll be my gift.”
Sully grinned and said, “I’m rambling.”
“No,” Tommy shook his head. “You’re just an artist. You remind me of Mason. I wish I was an artist. I don’t’ know what that’s like.”
Yes, Tommy loved Addison, and Balliol was his dear friend, but Sully and Mason did something to him. They were both so on fire all the time. Sully, pale and blond, slim and.… graceful was the word, that’s how he moved, worried Tommy because he always looked like he was incandescent, like at any moment he would explode.
“What?” Sully grinned and cocked his head, looking at Tommy looking at him.
“Nothing,” Tommy said.
“Well, no,” Sully said. “There was something. I saw it in you.”
“I was just...” Tommy asked, “Do you ever feel like you’re going to explode? Like there’s too much inside of you?”
Sully let out a sigh, a little laugh: “Yes.”
“Could I read one of your stories?” Tommy pressed on. “I don’t read much. Or quickly or... I’m sorry. You don’t have to show me if you don’t want to. It’s just...”
“No,” Sully said, collapsing on his beanbag, his legs folding quickly right under him. “It’s just no one has ever asked. I mean, I know Balliol does read my stuff. But...”
His voice changed: “Yes, Tommy. You can. If you want to. I’ll dig up something. Don’t hold your breath for too much. I’m not great yet.”
But Tommy disagreed. Tommy thought Sully was great. He didn’t say that though. That would have embarrassed both of them. He just said, “Aren’t we supposed to meet Balliol in a half hour?”
“Should we pick up something?” Sully wondered, going to his wallet. The phone rang and Sully said, “Let me get that.” He dived across his bed and called, “Hello!”
Tommy watched the look on his friend’s face that went from happy to... not happy.
“No,” Sully said, sternly. “No. I can’t do that. Not now.”
Chills went over Tommy. He thought the sky had gone suddenly cloudier, the room darker. It hadn’t. But that’s the way he felt.
“Yes,” Sully said, sharply. “Well, I don’t know. Well, call later. Not now. At night. I don’t know. Yes. Yes.” There was a long pause and then, “Goodbye.”
When Sully hung up he sat up, his chest heaving, his face suddenly stern.
“What’s wrong?” Tommy said.
Sully seemed to notice Tommy again. He didn’t try to deceive him by smiling, He just shook his head, still looking gray faced, and said, “It was nothing, Tommy.”
He stood up, dismissing the whole conversation, but still shaken.
“We really ought to go,” he said.
Tommy didn’t press it. He knew when not to press it. They had bonded in a bathroom with Sully bawling his eyes out, but Sully was proud and had his secrets. Tommy understood. He had a few of his own. He nodded, reached for his jacket, twirled his keys on one finger and clapped his friend on the back.
“Let’s go,” he told him.” And they were off.
Firstly, Balliol had thought it would be Mason at the door, so when it was Addison Cromptley, who showed up with Bonnie, he was taken back just a little bit.
“Hey, Balliol,” Addison entered the house, his hand steering Bonnie in by the small of her back, “This is Bonnie.”
Balliol opened his mouth, shut it and opened it again.
“I think we met.”
“Yeah,” Bonnie, said. “At that one guy’s grave.”
“Yes,” Balliol said, closing the door, “Andy Rathko.”
“Yeah,” Bonnie was saying, “That was him. That was a shame. Not the whole by the grave thing. That was awesome. And the way that one guy just got down and started crying...”
“Matt Mercurio?”
“Yeah,” Bonnie said. “That was deep. Real deep. But the whole kid getting shot business... Now that was a tragedy.”
What would Andy Rathko say if he knew this girl was standing in this house giving perhaps the stupidest, commentary on his death that could ever be delivered? Lincoln Balliol shrugged and figured Andy would probably laugh.
“Is this all your house?” Bonnie said twirling around the large parquet floor, looking up at the portraits on the wall, up at the skylight.
“Well, my house and my parents’.”
“Wow,” Bonnie said. “I thought I had a big house. This is just like a castle. I wonder if I could have a great echo in here.”
Before they could stop her, Bonnie shouted “I’m here!”
Her voice echoed back.
““Here! Here! Here!”
Suddenly, at the top of the staircase appeared a tall, chocolate dark woman with black hair falling down her shoulders and oriental features who looked down at them.
“It’s nothing,” Balliol shouted, and she turned around and disappeared.
“My mother,” Balliol explained.
Addison had heard Balliol talk about his parents, and of course, everyone had to have them, but the idea of Balliol ever having actually been born still seemed impossible to him. In a way he’d just thought Balliol was making them up to seem more normal.
“That’s your mom?” Bonnie said.
“Yes,” Balliol said.
“She’s so hot,” Bonnie him. “You know, if I was a dyke I’d totally jump on her.”
Balliol raised an eyebrow, Addison colored, but the only thing Balliol said was, “Well, she was a model back in Great Britain.”
“She’s English?”
Balliol nodded.
“Balliol’s Scottish,” Addison supplied.
“That’s so cool,” Bonnie told him.
“I’d like to think so.”
“Say, Balliol,” Bonnie caught his arm. “I have to ask you a personal question. Where’s your bathroom? You probably have a bunch of ‘em in a place like this.”
“Go straight to the end of the hall and right before the kitchen—to your left—is a little side one. No one ever uses it so it’s always clean.”
Bonnie clasped his hands, kissed him and said, “That’s great. That’s just great,” and then waltzed off in her tight jeans and poncho.
Addison watched after her, murmuring, “Girl likes her bathrooms.”
Her feet were still clattering on the wood floor when Balliol said, not looking at his friend, “Addison, can I ask you a personal question?”
Addison raised an eyebrow, cleared his throat and said, “Sure, Bailey.”
“Where the hell did you get her from?”
This time when the doorbell rang it was Mason. Addison and Balliol answered together, Balliol saying, “Wait till you meet this.”
“This—” Mason began.
“I wish you wouldn’t refer to my girlfriend as This.”
“Your—” Mason began. “Is that Bonnie girl here?”
“Yes,” Addison said.
“I didn’t know she was your girlfriend. I thought... Well, never mind what I thought. I wasn’t quite clear on the nature of the relationship. In fact, these days it’s not a lot I am clear about.” Mason had been about to say, “There’s not a lot about you that I’m clear about,” but that seemed cutting it too close.
Bonnie came waltzing down the hall with her arms outstretched.
“Hi-ii!” She said it just like that, two syllables, the last higher than the first.
She kissed Mason. He wondered if she was high. Maybe this is why he was still a virgin. Were all women this crazy? Were all men who had them as horny as Addison? She hooked her arms around the tall young man’s neck and swinging from them told him, “Addison, do you know how many places we could—” she leaned in and whispered into his dark hair, but Balliol and Mason turning to each other, heard her distinctly say, “FUCK,” “in a house this big?”
Mason didn’t look at his friend. Balliol did. Balliol wanted to observe the embarrassment. And it was there, red, all over Addison’s face.
“You missed Balliol’s mom,” Bonnie went on. “Or have you seen her already?”
Mason nodded.
“She’s totally hot,” Bonnie said.
“Yeah,” Balliol told Mason, dryly. “If Bonnie was a lesbian she’d have sex with her.”
Bonnie nodded serious. “Totally do her. I bet she could teach me some stuff.”
“I bet we should change the subject,” Addison smiled nervously and touched her on the shoulders.
Mason smiled up at Addison and said, “I bet we should have a very long best friend talk later on.”
Addison looked at him and said, “I bet I’m not going to get out of this.”
“I bet you won’t,” Mason told him.
But he did then because the doorbell rang.
Balliol sprang to get it, but Bonnie was right behind him.
Hi-ii!—” she shouted. “You all must be Sully and Tommy.”
The two boys, who had never met her, just blinked.
“Mason, I expressly forbid—”
“Expressly forbid?”
“I expressly forbid you,” Addison continued, “to comment, criticize or... anything else my relationship with Bonnie.”
“Firstly,” Mason said, “since you’re seventeen years old, I expressly forbid you to use the phrase expressly forbid. Secondly, since I’m your oldest friend I have to ask you what the hell this is all about? You know I’m thinking it. It’s all that’s going on between us right now. Me thinking it, you knowing I’m thinking it.
“I thought she was... Just… You know...?”
“Free sex?”
“Well, “ Mason opened and closed his mouth. “Well, that’s a good word.”
“Actually it is two good words, and maybe that was true. At first. But also, since the start we’ve been good for each other. What’s wrong with a relationship that’s sexually satisfying and emotionally happy?”
“Where the hell are you getting all this lingo from?”
“I’m not?”
“You’re watching that one sex doctor on TV. Doctor... Doctor... Whatever the fuck his name is. I can’t remember. Sexually satisfying and emotionally... Oh, Addison, come on!”
“Listen,” Addison said. “Bonnie is the best thing that’s happened to me. And I’m lucky that she just fell onto my lap.”
“Onto your dick more like it.”
“Well, yes,” Addison said. “That is more like it, actually. But however it happened, I’m lucky it happened. She really is the best thing that ever happened to me... Romantically.”
Mason said nothing, but Addison could tell he was about to.
“Say it.”
“Say what?”
“Say what’s on your mind. Just get it out.”
Mason sighed, shook his head and said, “Addison, she’s really the only thing that’s ever happened to you romantically. Except for Becky, and that was such a disaster it doesn’t even bare comparison. I’m not trying to lecture. I may like lecturing. I may like the sound of my own voice. I may be mildly neurotic, but I’m just concerned about you is all.”
Addison nodded and put a hand on Mason’s shoulder. “Well, don’t be. I’m a very big boy now.”
Mason was about to say, “if only it were that easy.”
But then something happened. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he realized Addison was a very big boy now. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Mason knew he had his own issues. Probably it had to do with how long he had devoted his young life to worrying over his friends. But in that moment Mason knew Addison was right, and his friend could make his own choices no matter how stupid they were.
“You’re right,” Mason said, “I shouldn’t be concerned.”
And then he wasn’t.
When Seth McKenna swung by to pick up Rebecca, there was a look that wasn’t quite a pout on her face. It was a brood, an extremely unhappy brood and Seth finally said, “Are you going to tell me what’s up, or am I going to have to beg you? Or do we go with option three where I just pretend nothing’s going on?”
“I have seen,” Rebecca said, all too happy to say what was wrong, “not once or even twice, but several times, Addison Cromptley running around with that Bonnie girl.”
“So? I used to run with Bonnie.”
“You used to fuck Bonnie,” Becky said pointedly.
Seth shrugged. “True, that’s true. Everyone fucks Bonnie.” He wasn’t going to apologize for something that had happened before he was with her.
“That’s my point.”
There was a stop light as they came to Armory, which was convenient because now Seth could throw up his hands.
“Wait a minute!” he said.
“What?” Rebecca looked at him.
“Are you dating me or are you dating Addison?”
“You know what?” Becky told him. “I don’t know because you won’t let me tell anyone we’re together. And we’re not exactly dating. We’re just crawling in and out of bed together.”
“That’s a lie,” Seth almost snapped. “It’s more than that.”
And then he said, “Isn’t it?”
“Well, yes,” Becky said. “It is. It’s just... I want it to be more than what it is now.”
“Well, hell, that’s why Bonnie’s in the picture.”
“What?”
“I introduced Addison to her. I’d already told her to fuck him. I told her he’d like it. At the end of last school year I brought him over to Bonnie’s house.”
“Then he is fucking her?”
“You knew that.”
Becky sighed at the look of disgust on Seth’s face. Yes, she had known that. But she didn’t want to know she knew it.
“I thought more of him. I didn’t just jump on you cause you were there. I can’t... Addison’s not the kind of person to just jump on girls and screw them. I mean, he talks a good game, but he’s gentle. He’s romantic. If there was anything I miss about him it would be that.”
Seth was quiet a moment.
“That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be with you,” Becky said, misunderstanding the reason for his quiet. “Addison’s someone I wish I was friends with again. Maybe one day we all can be. But I’m not sure that’s possible. You... I’m in love with. I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with anyone before. It’s different.”
“I know,” Seth said, quietly.
Then he said, “I... Addison didn’t do what he did on his own. I mean, I helped him to it.”
Becky nodded. “You introduced him to Bonnie.”
“I slipped him something and got him high.”
The breath went out of her. She shouted. She said, “Fuck! Seth, are you shitting me?”
He’d almost lost control of the car. They were nearing his father’s apartment now.
“No,” Seth said. “I wanted him... I wanted to have him with someone else so I could come out into the open with you.”
“So you got your best friend fucked up and them pimped out one your ex’s for him?”
“I didn’t—”
“Seth, yes you did!”
They were on Harcourt now. Only a few house were here, all of them run down bungalows. But mostly there were apartment buildings, brown and red brick with screened in porches at their fronts or sides. It wasn’t quite run down. There were a few trees on the sidewalk, patches of grass. A few yards. Harcourt wasn’t quite run down. But it was close.
“Seth, you listen to me,” Becky said. “You don’t have to listen to your dad and the things he said to you, but listen to me. I have done... things that I shouldn’t have, things that I regret. I am not pure as the driv—fuck that, I hate clichés. I’m not pure, all right? But, I try to do right. I fuck up, but I try. If you’re going to be with me you’ve got to try too. I can’t be with you if you’re going to do shit like this.”
“I didn’t do it to—”
“Seth, did you hear me?”
He didn’t say anything.
“I’m serious. I love you, but I can’t be with you if you’re going to be... someone I can’t trust.”
They were both quiet, and then she said, “Now go in the house, get your shit and let’s leave. I’ll be here in the car.”
Seth nodded, and opening his door, crawled out of his truck to meet his father.
At twenty-eight, Savannah Darrow wasn’t the only one of her friends who dreamed of going back to school. She was, however, the one who was realistic about the whole state of affairs. After years of trying to get out of school and jumping up and down at the graduation party where you held your bachelor’s diploma, rolled up, aloft for everyone to see, you realized that the thing called the real world, that you were in such a hurry to get out into, wasn’t that great. And then you thought, “Well, I’d like to go back to school again.”
The problem with Savannah was she didn’t deceive herself. She never said she was going to do a thing unless she did, or unless there was a good chance that she might do it. As wonderful as the idea of “going back to school” was, and she could afford it, she remembered what most of her friends did not. That they had been in no way academic and for them school had been nothing but a chore.
So Savannah chose to read a lot instead.
She had quit her job and was working at her aunt’s boutique, spending money out of her account. She’d thought of moving into her own house, but instead moved into the carriage house behind her parents. She lived in their wearing the hell out of her housecoat, drinking wine and reading whatever took her fancy. One day she very well might go back to school, but for now, it was the library she was in love with.
She had started wearing her glasses again, black square framed spectacles, and taken to wearing men’s clothing, clothes which wouldn’t any men including Adam, who things were currently slow with. She’d been busy attracting bad men for the first part of her life. Now she wore baggy jeans, fat woman sweaters, a thick scarf around her neck because summer was slow in coming. She didn’t have her hairstyle beyond the regular process, it was back in a ponytail like those black girls that got brought up around white people and didn’t know how to maintain their shit. She had left go. She had reduced. She did not give a fuck.