The City of Rossford

The Monday after Christmas, Sheridan was on the clock. In fact, he had promised Casey that he would work all day as long as he was on vacation. The work was almost backbreaking, but it was always exciting. He was around this energy, this sex, this honesty. And he never got tired of it.

He did worry, however, about seeing Chay. He didn’t want to see him. He didn’t want to discuss what had happened. Often as not though, he rarely saw Chay who was usually on the first floor, answering phones and editing Casey’s page.

Will tapped on his door and Sheridan, brushing his hair, said, “It’s open.”

Will entered, handing his brother the phone.

“It’s Noah Riley?” there was a question in Will’s voice.

“Hello?” Sheridan said, taking the phone. Depending upon what capacity Noah was in, sometimes he was Mr. Riley, but usually he was Noah.

“Chay needs a ride to work,” Noah told him. “And he didn’t want to call you for some reason.”

“Oh,” Sheridan said, feeling much less confident than he sounded. “Well, I’ll be around in a few minutes, then. I’m just about ready.”

“Is there a reason I had to call you and Chay would not?”

“Uh… Stuff. You know?” Sheridan said.

“I guess,” Noah allowed, and then said, “Well, I’ll see you soon. Thanks, Sheridan.”

Will had been standing there the whole time, and he said, “Is there a reason Noah called?”

“Is there a reason you’ve been staying at Layla’s for the last three nights?”

Unfazed, Will said, “Yes. The reason is because I’m moving in with her.”

When Sheridan reached James and Noah’s little yellow house, Chay came out right away with a hard look on his face and his bag tossed over his shoulder. He rounded the car and as Sheridan leaned to open it, fell in.

“Hey, bud,” Sheridan greeted him.

But Chay only grunted, and Sheridan’s greeting sounded lame in his own ears.

They drove on in silence and Sheridan wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what to say. Anything that came to him sounded….dishonest, really. It had snowed over the weekend and the streets were grey and white, the ground crunchy and sometimes slick under the wheels of the old car as they went further and further out of the city to Casey’s house.

When they arrived in silence, Chay got out. Sheridan expected him to walk quickly. In fact Sheridan hoped for it and planned, himself, to be as slow as possible in following. But the whole time they walked up to the house together, as far apart as possible, up the steps on opposite sides of the porch.

Logan was standing in the large living room turned lobby that let onto the solarium where Casey and Chay usually worked.

“What’s cracking, peoples!” he greeted. “Happy holidays.”

Sheridan returned the greeting lamely, and Chay grunted something while retreating to the solarium.

Logan, folding his arms over his chest so that the tattoos of his muscled arms rippled, looked after Chay, and then looked to Sheridan and said, “What the fuck was that all about?”

Logan was busy doing a photo shoot and an amusing online interview that day. Burt was visiting from Florida, doing a film up in Port Ridge for Guy McClintock, and he shot the video and did the interview, porn star to pornstar. Logan’s jeans were on, his shirt was off and he was lifting weights, trying to sound affable and attentive, but as soon as Burt was done, he put the weights down and approached Chay.

“So… What’s going on?”

“Whaddo you mean what’s going on?”

“You’re snappish. You’re mean. You’re mean to Sheridan.”

“Sheridan deserves whatever he gets.”

“Well… maybe,” Logan allowed. “I just want to know why he deserves it.”

Chay was mum.

“Did he kiss you again?”

Chay gave Logan a hard look.

“Hey, Short Man—”

“Don’t call me that,” Chay warned.

Logan put up his hands, only half in mock defense.

“Just… Let it go.”

“Fine,” Logan said. “That’s how you want it. That’s how it can be.”

And that was exactly how Chay wanted it.

Logan Banford only halfway meant what he said. He didn’t really have that many friends and Chay was the closest thing he knew to a little brother. What was more, even though his life was the stuff of drama for some, personally, Logan had very little drama. There wasn’t much “he said” “she said” in his life. He couldn’t help himself. Curiosity got the better of him. He went to Sheridan.

“I don’t really want to talk about it,” said Sheridan who was decorating a room for an orgy that Logan would be participating in.

“You film me pulling a train on some dude. You know the size of my cock and even the pills I take sometimes to keep it up. You’ve cleaned up my ass water, but you won’t tell me a about your little bitty teenage dramas?”

“It’s gotta do with Chay,” Sheridan said, ducking away and making entirely too much of a fuss over a fake bonsai plant.

“Well, duh, yeah,” Logan said.

“And I don’t feel like I should share it.”

“Did you kiss him?”

Sheridan looked at him. Sheridan frowned.

“Did you make out with him?”

“It’s not that,” Sheridan said, irritably, making to resituate a bed pillow. “Not teally.”

“Did you fuck him?”

Sheridan stopped with a jolt.

“Oh, my God!” Logan said, all glee gone from his voice.

Sheridan took a long time in turning around. He looked stricken. Logan suddenly felt very sorry for him.

“I don’t want you bringing it up again,” Sheridan said. His voice very heavy. He sounded like he was doing a lot to keep it together.

“Everything’s ruined between us now,” he continued. “I tried to stop myself, but I got weak. I always knew. I always knew that would happen.”

When the work day was over, and Sheridan had gathered his courage to meet Chay and prepare for the long drive home, he came down the stairs and was greeted by a much subdued Casey.

“Chay’s gonna stay with me a little bit longer,” Casey said. “And then I’m going to bring him home. I already called Noah. Okay?”

Sheridan was caught off guard by this. His eyes swept the large room for his little friend and, upon not seeing him, he said, “Sure. Yeah. Thanks.”

As Sheridan was walking out, Casey called him.

“Yeah?”

Casey gave him a brave smile and said, “You’re a real good worker, Sheridan. You’re a good guy.”

“Thanks… Casey.”

Sheridan headed out of the house, not entirely sure if he was relieved or not about going home without Chay. Everything was all fucked up inside of him. He needed to talk. To Will? No. Mathan and Meredith? It didn’t seem likely. Why would he talk to a shrink? Logan seemed the best candidate. And Logan wanted to hear him out.

Logan took his clothes off for people all the time, and had sex with complete strangers. Sheridan, for all of his sexual experience, was intensely private. He didn’t know how to share, and he was scared now as he started the car because, as he turned around carefully and pulled out over the gravel and the snow, he realized he would die if he didn’t open up to someone.

The spring semester had just begun at Loretto, and Sheridan was sitting in his bedroom talking on the phone to Shelley who had just returned.

“I don’t know when I’ll be over. I’ve been busy a lot. I’ve been doing a lot.”

“You know what, Sheridan?” Shelley returned, “I’ve been busy a lot too. I mean, that’s what being in college is. And I have to take my Uncle BJ’s course over again—”

Sheridan laughed in the middle of this.

“Uncle BJ.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

That joke had died for her a long time ago.

“The point is I shouldn’t sound like some dejected bitch. I’m actually pretty good looking, if you hadn’t noticed that.”

“I do notice. Believe me. I notice.”

“I’m not asking for your hand in marriage. God,” Shelley added, “I thought high school boys were supposed to like sex.”

“I do,” Sheridan said, pushing himself up off the bed. “I’ll be right over. Alright?”

But when he got off the phone he noted that he was saying it the way he would tell Chay he’d be right over, or the way he would tell it to Meredith. A few months ago, he would have leapt out of bed and gotten in a car accident over the chance to get laid.

“That was…” Shelley said.

Sheridan climbed off of her and lay on his back.

“That was…”

“That was what?” said Sheridan.

Shelley turned and looked at him.

“It was the way it’s been a lot, lately. It used to be magic. That night… But your friend died that night…”

“When I couldn’t perform?” Sheridan said, an edge in his voice.

“No,” Shelley shook her head. “Afterward. When you did. When you did real hard. That was… It was wild, but it was like I had to catch up with you. It was like you were some place else. And I haven’t had sex with you since then. And I haven’t had sex with anyone since then. And… this time you were somewhere else too. Not with me.”

Shelley seemed to be debating something, and then she said, “Well… I hate to ask it.”

A sharp chill went up and down Sheridan.

“Is it us? I mean… Is it me? Is there something you don’t like about me?”

So Sheridan told her:

“I think I’m turning gay or something.”

When he was gone, Shelley Latham sat in her room, in a housecoat. She analyzed her upset. It was the upset that you get when you’ve taken a good long bath and then the phone rings or someone knocks on your door, and ruins your rest and your cleanness by making you do something long and arduous. It was like the bath never happened. All the effects of it are gone.

Well, that was how it was when you thought you were going to be having good sex. When your clit really lit for it and then it was over and the sex was crappy and you were as stressed out and angry as before.

Years ago, before Sean had come out, she had been eavesdropping on a conversation with his then fiancé. She had been talking to Shelley’s mother.

“He told me… that he wants to be with guys sometimes. He told me he has these… he called them homosexual tendencies.”

“Oh, damn, he’s gonna be like BJ. The Babcock name will die in this generation,” Shelley’s mom paused over this. “I never really liked the name Babcock anyway.”

“No, Sean’s going to be straight,” his fiancé went on to the surprise of Erin Latham. “I told him it was alright. We would work it out.”

Well, they didn’t work it out, and Shelley was angry. She felt slapped in the face. Her face was heavy. Her eyes stung. She wished she was one of those bitches who just knew how to cry, who could just sob. Those girls could cry in front of their girlfriends. She didn’t have any girlfriends.

Sheridan was never her boyfriend. She couldn’t imagine that even if he was, she would invest so much in a man that if he said he was gay, she’d keep him. The truth was she was offended. She was pissed off. How many faggots could there be in this city, for Christ sake? What did a bitch have to do to get laid? She would not see him again.

She didn’t ask how he knew, or what made him feel gay, or what was going on inside of him. She didn’t offer to be a friend. Fuck all that. She got in the shower, and she stayed in the shower for a very long time until it was alright to let go because if the water falling over her lips tasted like salt, she could blame it on the weird conditioner she was using.

In her room and in her right mind she knew what she needed. She opened up her little black book, which was a blue steno notepad, and grabbed her cell phone, which didn’t hold numbers, because she had never learned how to install them, and she called up an old friend.

“Hey, Matty. What’s going on?”