Alas, this chapter is devoid of sex. The characters took over and insisted I get a bit of their stories out before they'd agree to hop back in the sack. I don't have readers to spare, so if you're looking for a quick rise (and aren't we all at times) feel free to skip this chapter and pick us up in Chapter 5.
For those of you in for the long haul, I hope you enjoy. If you don't, let me know what went wrong. That's how I learn.
Thanks to LarryInSeattle for helping make my little tales readable.
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I should have learned, a long time ago, to never
ever
imagine that life can't get any worse. I had that very thought last night, standing in the shower. Every single fucking time I have ever had that thought, my life found a way to burrow a little deeper into the shit pile. Apparently, that trend is to continue. I am so fucked.
I'm no longer hungry but I need time to think. I grab the thin-sliced honey roasted turkey that's been my standard lunch for a decade or so, the Miracle Whip, and pepper jack cheese. I make a sandwich, the way I always do, atop a paper towel - less mess and no dishes to wash except the knife for the Miracle Whip.
"You want a sandwich or anything?"
"No. Pop, it's 2:30 in the morning. Why're you up and eating a sandwich?"
I put the Miracle Whip back in the fridge and decide to indulge in another Rolling Rock, or ten.
I polish off half the bottle on the way into the living room.
I pull an old comforter off the end of the sofa and toss it on the seat of the recliner and sit down. I take a bit of the sandwich. It tastes like cardboard soaked in sour milk but I chew and swallow. I've finished half of it before Liam speaks again.
"Since when do you walk around naked?"
"Since I became an empty nester," I reply around a bite of sandwich. I wash it down with a swallow of beer. My stomach does a slow twist and for a second I'm afraid I'm going to throw up. The small window in the front door and the edges of the drapes glow with the sinister yellowish light that is the standard for streetlamps. My imagination adds a chill, smothering fog, and the lurking hunched figure of a man, standing half in, half out of the spilled circle of light. The hand with the straight razor is in the light. The barking dog isn't my imagination. That'd be Mrs. Larson's mutt. He's more senile than she is and yaps just as much.
I finish the beer.
We're too far out of Cleveland to be a suburb but too large for any hope of quiet. I can hear the traffic on 6
th
. A distant siren moans its way through the dark somewhere to the north where the neighborhoods become ones you really would be a fool to leave your door unlocked in. Liam's wrong; this neighborhood isn't very good. The whole town has been on a slow slide since the Ford factory packed up. Elm street isn't poor enough or dangerous enough to make the news but too poor for anyone to stay who can afford to get out. We've become irrelevant. We don't matter. I shake my head. The ass end of the night is no time for such contemplation, not unless you want to think even more seriously about the old .38 in the bedroom closet.
"Hmm," Liam mutters. "Nest isn't empty though, is it?"
I look at him, not so much confused as lost in thoughts of irrelevance.
"Matt," he adds, clarifying. "Matt's here. The nest isn't empty."
"He got into a fight with his folks. I offered to pay him to mow the yard. He was upset about the fight. I let him stay." The lie rolls out of my throat with no real thought behind it.
"You offered to pay someone to mow the yard?" Liam scoffs. "That's harder to believe than Matt getting so pissed at his parents that he decided to sleep naked in my bed."
"Loads of people sleep in the buff," I retort in what I hope is a convincing get-real-already tone.
"Yeah, that's true," Liam concedes. "But most of them undress in their bedroom. Matt's clothes are lying in the kitchen. I suppose he might have had the munchies in the middle of the night, went into the kitchen to make his own sandwich and, getting hot all of a sudden, stripped in the kitchen and then went back to bed. But, call me skeptical, that sounds like bullshit."
"I sucked his dick," I intone. "I told him to go home. I thought he had."
My son stares at me. He shakes his head.
"Wow, to be honest I didn't think you had it in you."
"What the fuck does that mean?"
"Relax, pop. I didn't mean you're too old or incapable of hooking up. I meant I never thought you'd work up the nerve to admit you were gay."
"I'm not," I snap. "I'm bi."
"Mom says that's bullshit. That men that say they're bi are really gay but won't admit it."
"Uh-huh, your mother has, over the years, claimed to have been mugged how many times, as an explanation for why she has a black eye or bloody nose and no money? She doesn't have a very large balance in the I-know-what-the-fuck-I'm-talking-about bank."
"Yeah, yeah. Sure, she tells some whoppers but you're changing the subject, pop. This isn't about whether mom lies about her own life. This is about whether she's telling the truth about you."
"You imagine she is interested in the truth about me?" I shake my head. "I've heard that bullshit before and I'm telling you there are bi men just like there are bi women. I wasn't forcing myself to fuck your mother. I loved it. I loved her, too, for what it's worth." I pick up what's left of my sandwich, perched on the arm of the chair atop its paper towel, and head for the kitchen.
"Mom says you used her; that finding out you were gay is what pushed her over the edge and into hard drugs."
"That's not true. She was snorting smack before we married. That should have been a big enough warning flare for anyone but not for me. I thought getting married would settle her down." I continue into the kitchen and toss the sandwich and paper towel into the trash. I twist off the top of the small bottle of Prilosec that I stock up on from Costco. I pop it in my mouth and wash it down with a palmful of water from the sink. I rinse the bottle and drop it in the recycle bin, doing my duty to save the planet.
There's a tiny hallway, past the backdoor, that leads from the kitchen to a half-bath. The half-bath connects to my bedroom. I don't have my own shower but I do have a semi-private place to take a dump. That's not my purpose at the moment. At the moment I simply want to get to my bedroom without dealing with my son. I kneel on the floor of the small bedroom closet and work my fingers behind the access panel, for the bathroom plumbing, at the back of the closet. It looks as if it's screwed to the wall but the screw holes were stripped long ago. The panel pulls off. Wrapped up in a plastic bag are two old tapes and a DVD. The tapes were high tech back when they popped out of a camcorder that was one of the first not to use a full-sized VHS cassette. I wonder, not for the first time, how much of the home electronic industry is driven by amateur porn. I copied the tapes to the DVD a few years ago. I still watch them sometimes. That's pathetic, I know.
I fish out the DVD. This is probably a bad idea, but given all the shit of the last twenty-four hours I don't fucking care anymore.
I walk back to the living room, using the hallway this time. I toss the DVD into Liam's lap and go back to bed.
***
When my alarm goes off at 5:30 I smack the top of it with my palm to shut it off. It's old-school. Fuck, it's just old. Wind up. Two off-tone bells and a clapper. Loud enough to wake the dead. No snooze button on that old son-of-a-bitch. I stumble into my small bathroom and piss without really waking up. That being said, I managed to hit the fucking toilet. No one around here is going to clean the bathroom but me. That right there is a great aim improving incentive, my friend. I pad on into the kitchen and call in sick to work. I rarely call in. I never take vacation. I have PTO out the ass. Mission accomplished, I stagger back to bed.
Later, when I crack an eye open, the little hand is almost at "X" and the big hand hovers over "VIII". The clock gives me a disgusted look.
I hear muted voices from the living room. I get up, pull on a pair of sweat pants and piss again. As I'm about to flush the toilet, one of the voices becomes clear. It's Matt. I pretty sure he said "holy shit".
I wash my hands and make my way into the kitchen. Thank God Liam has made a pot of coffee. I pour a mug and head toward the living room, wondering what they are up to. Fortunately, the coffee was too hot for me to have taken a drink yet, otherwise I'd have sprayed it over the carpet. It's an earth tone shag, original to the house. It hides stains well enough but still.
On the TV is a close up of me. I'm sucking a dick. Mary Beth's voice should be audible, encouraging me, but the sound has been muted. I set the mug down on the end table and stride across the room and punch the eject button. The scene scrambles as the DVD is ejected.
When I turn, Matt's hands fall over what is clearly an erection under his shorts. Liam doesn't bother. He glares at me, daring me to say something.
