The City of Rossford

DRIVING BACK INTO TOWN, everything was quiet in a hellish sort of way. By the time Sheridan got to his house he was glad to see the olive green siding and the screened in porch. He just wanted to go to bed.

He parked the car in the driveway and walked tiredly across the brown lawn, up the steps and into the house.

Mom and Dad were sitting on the sofa, and so were Layla and Will, and they were all looking at him.

“What?” he said.

Will just kept looking at him.

“What’s going on?” Sheridan became more irritable.

It was Layla who stood up. She came across the room, put her hands on his shoulders and looked at him tragically, like Layla never looked, and then she pulled him forward and held him.

At Saint Agatha’s Father Frank got up and, with the help of his great nephew, began turning the lights on, lighting candles and preparing for arrivals. As the lights of the old church came on, first over the altar, and then in the corners of the sanctuary, next all the way down the nave, Frank thought of saying something darkly sober about how good Robin Netteson was for the Catholic Church of late. But he left off. Unconsciously he was fingering the large beads of his rosary and in place of his own clever words he began to pray the Hail Mary.

Soon the bells were tolling from high above, and it was Sean who came running down the long aisle.

“It’s Dan Malloy on the phone. Over at Saint Barbara’s.”

“I know who Dan Malloy is,” Frank said and, making a small reverence at the altar, he turned, and holding the long brass lighter like a banner, went through the sacristy and back to the house.

“Yes, Daniel,” Frank said. “I know. I’ve opened the church. It’s a real mess is what it is.”

“Some days I want to give up the God business,” Dan said.

“Is that what they’re calling it these days in seminary?”

“I dunno. I haven’t been in seminary for twenty years.”

“I’m just waiting for folks to arrive,” Frank said. “Maybe if I left it open all the time, then I wouldn’t have to open it just tonight because it would make people different.”

“I don’t know what to say to them when they come,” Dan said. “What am I supposed to tell people?”

“The truth.”

“That I don’t know? That I don’t understand?”

“Yes.”

In the distance, Frank could hear Sean begin to play the organ. It wasn’t Catholic. It was from the Anglican requiem. I Know That My Redeemer Liveth. Frank resisted the urge to hum along and returned his attention to Dan Malloy.

“I don’t think uncertainty is what people want to hear,” Dan said

“I don’t think it’s your job to tell people what they want to hear,” Frank Slaughter differed. “As a priest of Christ, you are a witness to truth. Every Christian is. Forgive my preaching, I know you feel old and wise. But I’ve been a priest longer than you’ve been alive.”

“The truth will set you free,” Dan murmured.

“Yes. That’s right. It will. Jesus wasn’t bullshit when he said that. He was never bullshit.”

“But the truth is that I am confused and disheartened.”

“The Lord did not say happy truth will set you free, or what you wish was true will set you free, Daniel.”

Frank shook his head though, of course, Dan Malloy couldn’t see it.

“Truth it truth,” the old priest concluded.

When Bryant’s cell phone rang, Chad picked it up because it was on the table before him.

“Hello?”

“Where’s Bryant?”

“Nice to talk to you too, Sean.”

“Sorry. It’s nice to talk to you, Chad.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“Please don’t do that.”

“You’re the one who started it with what you said around the Christmas tree last week.”

Sean took a frustrated breath then said, “And what I said still stands. The only difference between you and me is I’m not harping on it. Now can I please talk to my big brother?”

Chad flipped the phone shut.

A second later it rang.

“Sorry,” Chad said. “I do that all the time.”

“You’re lying and that was petty, and—”

“Bryant!” Chad put the phone down and called his partner.

Bryant came into the living room from down the hall and Chad told him, “It’s Sean.”

“Oh,” Bryant leapt over the couch like someone fifteen years younger, all arms and legs, and Chad commented, “if you’re not going to keep your phone with you, what’s the point in having it?”

Deaf to it, or simply ignoring him, Bryant said, “What’s up? No, we’re listening to Christmas music and… what?” Bryant’s face changed. Chad wanted to grin for a moment. Bryant always looked like a boy, and he was so beautiful. That was the thing; he seemed to have only gotten better in the last decade.

He turned around and told Chad: “We gotta go to Saint Agatha’s.”

“What for?”

“You don’t have to. You have to teach in the morning.”

“No,” Chad got up, walking toward the closet for his coat.

“It’s horrible. One of the students at your school died. Maybe you know her?”

Sean’s conversation had made Chad irritable, and while Bryant handed him his coat and pulled out his own, Chad said, “Not if you don’t tell me.”

“Robin Netteson.”

“Bullshit,” Chad dismissed this. “Lightning can’t strike twice.”

“It can,” Bryant said, knowingly. “In nature and in life.”

Chad was incapable of tying his own scarf or buttoning his coat.

“And that,” Bryant told him, “is why we’re going to Saint A’s to be with our family.”

After that, phones began ringing all over town. It became important that everyone know where everyone else was. The only one unaccounted for was Chay, and Sheridan said to Will and Layla:

“If anyone asks where Chay is, he’s with me.”

Layla opened her mouth, but Will said, “Where is he?”

“He will be with me,” Sheridan said, heading out of the house.

“I think that’s the only answer we’re gon get,” Layla told Will.

“And…” Sheridan added. “When Meredith and Mathan get here, if they get here, tell them I’m going to be out a little while myself. Tell them me and Chay are out.”

“You want us to lie?” Will said.

“To the appropriate people,” Sheridan said. “Yes. Besides, it won’t be a total lie. I’m bringing Chay back.”

Before they could ask him any more questions, Sheridan went out the door.

His mother came back into the kitchen with a tray of tea.

“No one’s going to sleep tonight, are they?” Mrs. Klasko said.

“No, Ma,” said Will.

It was Layla who thought it made sense to tell Meredith and her cousin Mathan not to come, seeing as Sheridan and Chay weren’t there. But Dena told her that they were already on their way.

“Meredith is a real mess,” Dena said. “She fainted at the house. And she just spent the afternoon with Robin. She watched after that girl so carefully. I think she thought that the only way to make sure nothing ever happened to her again was to watch her at all times.

“And then this happens.”

When Meredith and Mathan arrived, the very tall boy led his girlfriend in carefully, and the blond girl sat down on the sofa beside Will, her eyes clearly some place else.

“It just seems impossible that so much tragedy could happen to one girl so quickly,” Will was saying, and, “How in the world did she not see the train? What was she doing at that time of night?”

“Of all the awful accidents,” Mrs. Klasko said.

Meredith looked up at them. She came to life enough to say: “You’re joking, right?”

They looked at her.

“Getting attacked by a group of boys she didn’t understand was an accident,” Meredith said.

“Walking to the train tracks when you knew the train was coming and getting run over?” Meredith shook her head. “She told me goodbye before we parted. Only I didn’t understand. She told me I love you and goodbye. This was no accident.”

When Sheridan arrived at the house he parked further away and then walked close to the porch before deciding against knocking, and simply seeing if he could get in.

It was open, and so he walked through the large old house, following the noises, heart palpitating to the feeling of being an intruder. It made sense. Nothing was right this night. Everything was wrong. He followed the sound and went down the side hall. Gold light came down the corridor and led to the bedroom.

He lay against the lentil, lightly. Not even believing he would be caught, entranced by what he was watching. Though he was larger, and though he was older, on the bed Casey was on his hands and knees, his head down, and little Chay, on his knees, his small buttocks flexing and unflexing, his hands planted on Casey’s perfect ass was fucking him. Sheridan felt his mouth dry. He was harder than he’d been in a long time. He watched and watched, his balls aching, his penis throbbing, and then he turned around, very slowly, while Casey gave a high, soft moan, and Sheridan left the house.

CHAD HAD BEEN SILENT the whole car ride, and now, as they parked across the street from Saint Agatha’s, its alcove lit golden in the late night, Bryant touched his wrist.

“I had her in my music class,” Chad said. “She was in choir last year.”

“It’s hard,” Bryant began, climbing out of the car and rounding it to open the door for Chad, who had gotten used to this over the years.

“A kid, so full of life. And then gone.”

A car came down Meridian, and when it had passed, they crossed.

“But she wasn’t full of life,” Chad said.

“I know you’re supposed to say that,” he continued as they crossed the street together, Chad looking both ways for vehicles that weren’t coming. “But she wasn’t lively. She wasn’t really pretty. She didn’t have a lot going for her. And then…. Everything happened to her.”

They could hear the organ music now, as they went up the old marble steps crusted in salt and rimed in old snow.

“It’s just not fair. And it’s Christmas next week.”

Passing through the vestibule, they entered the nave. Chad watched Bryant dip his fingers in holy water and cross himself, and then they traveled the long aisle until they found Uncle Frank sitting in the front pew, arms folded, one leg crossed over the other.

“Dan,” Bryant said in surprise to the priest beside his uncle.

“Your uncle was just putting things into perspective for me,” Dan Malloy said. The younger priest and the older priest were looking at the old lit altar, as if it were a movie screen.

“Whaddid he say?” Chad said.

“He said he didn’t know.”

Frank Slaughter shrugged elegantly to display this.

“Go up and visit Sean,” the old priest said. “Relieve him for awhile. You always have something nice to play.”

“An organist is a organist,” Chad said.

“Not so. And your repoitoire is better.”

“Sure,” Chad shrugged and jammed his hands in his pockets. “Maybe I’ll do some show tunes.”

“Something from Le Mis would be nice,” the old priest told the departing organist with not a hint that he was joking.

Up in the loft, Sean Babcock gave only a nod to recognize Chad and kept playing to the end. He thought of giving a long inappropriately triumphant finish to the hymn, but stopped. He had learned how not to act from a Trappist organist when he’d stayed in a monastery. He didn’t like the man and thought he was a prissy homosexual, the kind that never had sex and was filled with resentment over it.

“Well, when did you all come here?” Sean said, coming toward Chad.

“A few minutes ago,” Chad shrugged. “Bryant thought we should all support each other at a time like this.”

Sean snorted and Chad said, “What?”

“You know exactly what. It was in your tone. Support each other at a time like this…” he shook his head.

“It’s kind of funny,” Chad agreed. “To be in a church. Around this time. Makes you think about… God. I try to pay attention now whenever I play organ here or at Saint Barb’s.”

“You do?” Sean raised an eyebrow.

“You’re a Catholic. Your uncle’s a priest. I mean… you must believe a little bit.”

Sean shook his head.

“They could be talking about Zeus. This is a job.”

Sean looked at Chad, gauging the look on his face.

“So much disapproval.”

“No…” Chad checked himself, and saw that it wasn’t disapproval. Not exactly. “Just… Sometimes I think you’re so like Bryant. You look like him.”

“Do I feel like him?”

“Please stop,” Chad said. “But… you’re not him.”

“No,” Sean looked down at the nave of the church. “I’m not BJ. Did you think I was? Is that why you came to me?”

Chad didn’t answer.

“You used to love it.”

“That’s done now,” Chad said. He sat down at the organ shaking off one shoe and then using his toes to pull off the other. He began pushing the pedals with his socked feet.

He was humming to himself as he played.

As his fingers moved up and down, and his shoulders lifted and fell, suddenly he felt Sean’s mouth at his ear.

Chad tried to shake him like he would a mosquito, to concentrate on playing, but Sean’s hands fell over his hands, Sean’s arms over his and he whispered.

“You miss it.”

There was the familiar smell of Sean’s breath and the cologne that Bryant never wore, that was like cinnamon.

“You miss me against you. You miss me inside of you? Don’t you?”

SHELLEY LATHAM OPENED THE DOOR and was surprised to see Sheridan Klasko, red faced, and furious looking. Before she could say anything, he kissed her hard on the mouth, and then when she understood what was up, she closed the door behind her and they moved to the bed undressing.

His shirt still on, his underwear and pants around his knees, he began fucking her. She was just in her tee shirt and the nightlight was dimmed because she’d been getting ready to go to bed. Her thighs were tight around him and she bit her lip as he moved up and down, in and out of her. And then he moved up and up, his face getting redder, his eyes glinting with tears, and he was like fire, or like lightning. She kept catching her breath, her hand reached up like a claw as they jolted together, and there was a scream. She was surprised that it was her own. Only a second later, Sheridan moaned and wailed, shaking between her legs. It was over nearly as quick as it had begun.

They parted and Sheridan lay on his back beside her. Sweat stained his pits and soaked his tee shirt. He didn’t want to pull his pants up. Shelley, almost demure, pulled her long tee down.

Sheridan said, “Robin Netteson is dead.