The City of Rossford

Choir no longer met in the afternoon. One of the trade offs when City of Rossford Public Schools was going through cutbacks was that certain of the arts would become classes instead of extra curricular activities. So Choir was a first hour course now. Originally this had made the choir twice as large and half as talented. But eventually, as Chad began to re-apply his vigorous standards, the herd thinned, and now things were pretty much back to normal. While he set up the music on the podium, and then went to the piano to make sure the program of practice music was undisturbed, Chad opened his cell phone that had just buzzed.

I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW THIS MORNING WAS EXCELLENT.

-BRY

Kids were entering the classroom; he nodded to them and some said, “Good morning, Mr. North,” as Chad texted.

ME TOO.

He didn’t expect that Bryant would be by his phone, but a few seconds later, as ten or so girls entered, and then Meredith Affren came in with Chay, a new message appeared.

I CAN’T WAIT TO FUCK YOU WHEN YOU GET HOME.

Chad’s face went red.

“I have to take a message out in the hall,” he told his students.

Another message appeared.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT’S COMING OVER US. IT HASN’T BEEN THIS HOT IN A LONG TIME.

Chad’s heart was beating fast. It hadn’t been like this forever. When had Bryant texted him early in the morning to talk about the hot sex they’d had earlier? Since Christmas, things had gotten hotter and hotter. Even now he couldn’t get enough of Bryant. He needed to get back to class, to get back to his job, but he was getting stiff in his pants thinking about a man who was twice as hot as boys half his age, thinking about the exciting lovemaking they were going through all the time, how uninhibited it was, all the fun.

And then a new text appeared.

I MISS YOU. COME BY ON YOUR BREAK AND SEE ME.

-SEAN.

“Morning, Mr. North!”

The last of the kids was coming in. The bell was ringing for class to begin. There was no time to think, only to feel. When he was with Sean it was like being with Bryant. When it was Bryant it was like being with Sean. Sometimes he dreamed that the two of them were making love to him, and then to each other and he woke up in a sweat, hot for both of them, in love—no matter what conventional wisdom said—with both of them, certain that the reason things were so fiery between he and Bryant was because he was sleeping with Bryant’s brother.

So he texted Sean back :

“YES.”

“YOU ARE IN A STRANGELY good mood,” Fenn Houghton observed as he went about the grey living room, opening up the curtains and twisting open the shades.

“One might even say silly.”

Pale gold light entered the house. Bryant, in his track suit, got off of his Blackberry and grinned.

“I just finished texting Chad.”

“You are twice as silly as you were when you were half your age,” Fenn told him.

Fenn’s hair, long uncut, was in cucklebugs and naps, and at eight in the morning he was in a black house coat. With his coffee mug he headed back into the kitchen and Bryant followed.

“Well, I feel half my age,” Bryant insisted. “No. I feel better than half my age!”

“Good, because when you were half your age, you were sort of an asshole. Now do you want one teaspoon or two in your coffee?” He gestured to the sugar bowl.

“None. And I’m off coffee. At least for a while.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s lots of All Bran. Lots of the exercise ball.”

“That ridiculous black thing that looks like a cross between a bowling bag and millstone?”

“You laugh, Fenn,” Bryant told him, opening the refrigerator and taking out a water, “but I’d like to think it keeps me looking good.”

Fenn was about to say, “That and hair color,” but that was going too far and, besides it couldn’t be denied, Bryant, like Tom, looked better than he had in his twenties.

“You know how… sometimes the sex and the relationship cool down…”

“No,” Fenn, admitted, taking out a cigarette. “I don’t know anything about that.”

Bryant frowned.

“Well, good for you,” he said. “But back to me… Anyway, things have heated up. Me and Chad are having the greatest sex in the world!”

“I’m so glad Tara and Tom have the kids.”

“And it’s like… We’re just inspired. To do new stuff. You know?”

Fenn couldn’t pretend to be disinterested. At this, he pushed his glasses up his nose and made to pay attention.

“Yesterday… before church? I’m in the shower. Like this is before ten o’ clock Mass. He walks into the bathroom, takes his clothes off, gets in the shower and just starts going down on me! I mean he’s just deepthroating me! And then I’m doing him, and then he’s fucking me on the floor of the tub.”

Fenn blinked.

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t want to hear this!”

Fenn made a face, and then he laughed.

“I do love a good nasty story.”

“I know you do. This morning before work, I just throw him against the door and start plowing him. And it’s just so hot. He’s like… like the whole time, he’s reaching back and putting his hands in my hair, and touching my back and raking my ass and we’re just crazy!”

Bryant sat there, a monkey like expression on his wide mouth, his elbows touching the table, and his eyes in wide blissful contemplation of the morning.

“It’s almost like we were afraid to touch each other for a long time. And now we can’t stop. I’m so in love with him. It’s like we just met.”

“Except—”

“Except I’m not a professor and he’s not a student. See, after almost twenty years I can anticipate every remark you’re going to make.”

“Really? How?”

“I just think of the bitchiest response possible.”

At lunch she let the cafeteria noise run over her. Once the chatter of her friends would have contributed to it. Mathan tried to make conversation between Sheridan and Chay, and they both gave awkward responses. Meredith kept glancing at her boyfriend.

You are so good. I need you to stay good. I left that diner last night wanting to throw up at the idea of men. I hate men so much right now. I need to hang on to something. I need you be who you are, Mate. I need you to keep on being ten times the man all these fuckers are. I need to remember Dad. I need to remember all the good men I know. I need my friends back. I need them to stop this. To stop this silence. I need Chay and Sheridan back.

“Mere?” Mathan said, turning to her.

“What?”

“Your breathing,” he said.

She raised an eyebrow.

“You were breathing real crazy,” Sheridan said, leaning forward.

“I’m so tired of you,” Meredith lamented. She looked at Chay now. “I’m so tired of the both of you. If you could just understand…” she began.

Then she got up, stepping over the bench.

“I’m sorry, Mathan. I can’t take this right now.”

Meredith got up and began making her way out of the cafeteria.

Before class began, Mathan turned in his desk toward Sheridan and said, frankly: “I might as well let you know, you’re driving her crazy.”

Sheridan blinked.

“In fact, you’re driving us both crazy. You and Chay. First it was just you, but now it’s you and Chay.”

“I have a lot on my mind,” Sheridan said.

“Well, we all have a lot on our minds,” Mathan dismissed this. “The point is: we’re friends. And friends are supposed to share the shit on their minds and not shut each other out.”

Sheridan shook his head.

“The stuff on my mind… You wouldn’t get it.”

Mathan looked at him.

“Do you know the family I come from? Your brother walked in and ruined my cousin’s wedding.”

“Yeah,” Sheridan said. “I know that. Half the town knows your family history.”

“Then you know there’s nothing I don’t get. There was a time when you told me everything.”

“I know,” Sheridan said. Then he continued.

“Look, I don’t even get what’s going on in me. When I get it, then I’ll tell you all about it?”

“Is it about Chay?”

“It was. It might have been. He’s part of it.”

“Are you messing around with him?”

“What?” Sheridan looked shocked. “No! I mean… It’s complicated.”

“It’s not that complicated,” Mathan muttered.

Mathan stopped, because Sheridan seemed something like beaten down, and also because Mr. Sinclaire was coming into the classroom.

“Look,” Sheridan whispered, “When I figure it out, then I’ll tell you everything.”

“Well,” Mathan muttered. “You better figure it out damn quick cause I’m getting tired of the new Sheridan Klasko who keeps everything to himself.”

“Hey, there,” Brendan found her in one of the lounges, eating a sandwich, with a book open on her lap.

“Hey, yourself,” Layla said.

“How is your first day back in academia?”

“I know that I’m happier taking classes in the day than in the night,” Layla said. “And that’s a good thing.”

She frowned at the book and showed it to Brendan. “I know that I hoped I’d never have to read The Handmaid’s Tale again, and that’s kind of wearing on me. A semester of Women’s Lit; Joyce Carol Oates, and Margaret Atwood. And I kind of hate them both. I don’t know if I’ll keep this shit up.”

Brendan, at a loss for what to say, nodded his head. Layla continued: “This class has a lot of undergraduates. For them it’s an upper lever course. For us, we’ve got a few more things tacked on, and we each have to teach one of the classes. That’s the way it’s going to be. Did you know you wanted to be a lawyer right away? Did you like it right away?”

This was something Brendan could talk about, and he sat down across from her.

“It’s so exhausting. Going over the cases, memorizing precedents is so exhausting. It’s like a big game.”

“That’s what I don’t like,” Layla said. “My legal rights as a game.”

“Well, I’m not sure I really like that either,” Brendan confessed. “But there it is.

“For almost an entire year I was terrified I couldn’t rise to the challenge. There were a lot of people who just dropped out. I really kind of hated it.”

“And then…”

“And then I loved myself as a lawyer. I began to believe that I was going to be really good.”

“What are you going to do,” Layla said. “When you’re a lawyer? What kind of lawyer will you be?”

Brendan looked surprised at this.

“One that helps people,” he said. “I guess.”

“Are you saying that because it’s what you’re supposed to say?”

Brendan sat up.

“Is this really about me? I thought it was about you.”

“It’s about thinking we know what we’re doing,” Layla said.

“This time a year ago I thought I’d be a married woman. This time a week ago I thought I only had one sibling. Now neither one of those things is true.”

“I’m going to help people,” Brendan said, more to himself than Layla.

“I don’t know how this Masters in English is going to help anybody,” Layla said. “And… do you like your classmates?”

“I feel like we’re all in something together.”

“I don’t think I like my classmates,” Layla confessed.

She looked up at the clock on the other side of the empty lounge.

“I have a creative writing course to go to,” she said.

“That should be fun.”

“It should,” Layla told him.

Brendan rolled his eyes and stood up.

“Howabout after my last class lets out, we can go by that shop and meet your sister?”

Layla looked at him.

“And say what?”

“And say nothing,” Brendan grinned at her. “We can… just meet her. Have her do a Tarot reading or something.”

“Oh, Bren, I don’t know.”

But when he was grinning at her that way, she had to shrug, and in the end she had to say:

“Alright.”