The City of Rossford

When Sheridan jogged up the steps to Casey’s house, Logan was jogging down them. He put down his hand and slapped the bill of Sheridan’s ball cap over his eyes.

“Hey!”

“See you later, sport!”

Prying the cap from his face, Sheridan cried, “Where are you going?”

“I got work!” Logan said.

Sheridan stuck out his lip.

“It’s not gonna take long. Really. And this is the safe kind. More or less. I’ll be back before six.”

“Six?”

“Driving out to Libertyville. Now, go on,” Logan said, hopping in his car. “I’ll be back. If you’re still around maybe I’ll take you guys out.”

Sheridan nodded and then turned and headed up the steps.

This was what he couldn’t tell Mathan. How could he explain that one of his best friends now was a sex worker, that when Logan ran off to do a “job” it was prostitution? That Sheridan had come to accept this, almost without comment. That… Logan really was like a brother to him. Or something more.

“Chay!” Sheridan called.

It was time to take things in hand.

Chay had arrived an hour earlier. Casey, who was asking no questions these days, had picked him up from school and brought him to the house. He was at the computer as usual, and he turned around.

“We need to talk.”

“We already talked,” Chay said.

“Well,” Sheridan let the rest of the thought form, “we need to talk again. Right now.”

Chay sighed and saved his work and then came out of the heated solarium.

“Whaddo you want to talk about. You said everything.”

“We’re still… Chay, it doesn’t seem like we’re friends anymore.”

“We’re not friends anymore,” Chay told him.

“We need to take care of stuff. We need to get back to…”

“Where we were?” Chay raised an eyebrow. The small boy folded his arms over his chest. “Let me guess. We need to get back to where you feel comfortable?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you meant.”

Sheridan sighed.

“Everything has to be the way you want it. The way you need it. And I’m not interested in that,” Chay turned around and headed back to the solarium

“Chay,” Sheridan came to him.

“What now?”

“What if… What if I told you I need time? What if I told I was wrong, but maybe we could… Maybe we could work things out. That… I don’t even see Shelley anymore cause I told her…” he whispered, looking around, “that I think I’m turning gay?”

Chay barked out a laugh.

“You french me for my thirteenth birthday, fuck me on Christmas, work in a gay porn studio and you THINK you might be turning gay? That’s fucking funny, Sher.”

“I need time. I need…You could give me time, and maybe one day… we could be something.”

Chay looked at him, his mouth open. Sheridan waited for an answer.

“Chay, say something.”

“Fuck,” Chay said.

“I don’t know. Since I was a little kid I wished you’d turn around and say something like that to me. I used to dream about that. On Christmas I thought… something’s happening. And now, you tell me that one day, possibly soon, something might happen between us.”

“I didn’t mean it that way!”

“After you’ve fucked half of this town. After you’ve made yourself totally happy because it’s all about you, Sher?”

Sheridan didn’t answer.

“I’m glad,” Chay said, “that you came to me. That you said this to me. Because now I know what I wouldn’t have. What I probably wouldn’t have understood even today if you hadn’t just said what you said right now.

“I don’t want you. I had you. What I had was the best part. I don’t want any more.”

Chay turned around, and heading back to the solarium he said, “Now I gotta get back to work.”

The whole time Brendan drove, Layla tried to remember the name of the store. It was on the edge of downtown, right where the most ruinous parts faded into the factories of the southeast side and a few blocks up from the bus depot, the restaurants, bars, library and Saint Agatha’s, whose steeple dominated the distance.

“I don’t think it has a name,” Brendan said, peering out over Layla’s window.

It was very late afternoon, and the curbs were piled with grey snow. People, more than likely homeless, definitely rumpled by life, walked the streets or walked in the streets and as Brendan turned up Reck Street, the Salvation Army and an old tavern across from them, Layla thought that she would not like to be here at this time of day by herself. They parked in the lot behind the long two storey brick building where the strange shop was.

“Here we go,” Brendan said. He almost slipped in the icy slush as he came rounded the car to get Layla, then he balanced himself and offered his arm. They went up the snow covered sidewalk. The first store front window was empty of anything. The next boarded, the third had instruments but seemed to be closed and then here they were at the right shop, and when Brendan opened the door the bell jingled and heat came out and it was the first alive thing they’d seen in that part of town.

“Wow,” Brendan murmured, putting his hands in his pockets.

The main window was half curtained in paisley patterns and there were intricate rugs all over the floor. On stands and on shelves were thick candles, some tie dyed, some ivory colored, some shaped like globes. There were little tea candles in the walls and bags of herbs, shelves with Buddhas, racks of incense. Along the walls hung sheathed swords and on another wall were great tapestries, many wth Celtic patterns, others with patterns Layla didn’t understand. There were reproductions of paintings she’d known from college, posters like Claire once had of Pre-Raphaelite girls, faces lit, maidens ringed about by fairies, witches swooning, Ophelia’s, hair sprayed out in the water.

“Hello!” a gentle voice spoke in Layla’s ear, and she jumped up in surprise.

The girl laughed, but she wasn’t a girl. She was something like thirty and she looked so much like Adele, that Layla knew this was her sister.

“Welcome,” she said. “This must be your first time.”

Layla nodded, and then remembered herself.

“Yes.”

“Well, feel free to look around,” she said.

Layla had imagined this woman in flowing robes, but now she saw it was only a flowing, shimmering scarf around her throat. She had wild, beautiful hair like no Houghton woman wore, and glasses hanging from a chain around her neck.

She added, “Feel free to do… whatever.”

Brendan laughed at this. It was a strange laugh, not mocking. More like relief, and Layla looked at him. He looked very different. He was holding a little green tea light in his hand and a stick of incense in the other.

“I haven’t felt free to do whatever in a long time is all,” Brendan said. Then, “It was sort of like you were giving me permission.”

The woman laughed then too, and she clapped her hands and Layla did the same.

“We’re alike,” she said. “My name is Caroline.”

“Layla,” said Layla. But Brendan said, “My sister’s name is Carol.”

Caroline looked from Layla to Brendan, her face smiling as if she could barely suppress her joy.

“You all are a beautiful couple.”

“Oh…” Layla said, startled. “We… I have a boyfriend. Brendan and I aren’t… boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“How could you be?” Caroline said. “He’s gay.”

Brendan blinked.

“Don’t worry,” Caroline said to him. “There’s nothing… gay about you. I know how you all feel in the Midwest. I just… I just know. There’s a beautiful boy with red hair beside you. He’s strong and handsome and he’s always with you.”

Brendan looked at her narrowly, his head turning, curious.

“But,” Caroline said to Layla, “that doesn’t mean the two of you aren’t very much a couple. He’s been your faithful friend since… since you all were children.”

“You can’t know all that,” Brendan said, keeping a check on his voice, feeling, actually, a little violated.

“I can,” she said. “But I don’t know how. I know what I know, and I used to think everyone was like me.”

Caroline shrugged.

“It took me a very long time to figure otherwise.”

Brendan said nothing.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” she added.

Brendan shook his head.

“It’s alright,” he said. “It’s… we all want to believe so bad. And then when something out of the ordinary really does happen, we shut it down. His name is Kenny. The guy with the red hair. He… was out of the ordinary. Not in the plans. I shut him down once. I screwed a lot of things up.”

Caroline nodded, knowingly.

“I know what it’s like to not be like everyone else,” Brendan went on. “To say things you think everyone knows. Or feels, and then find out they’re wrong. Different.”

He added, pointing to Layla, while Caroline smiled: “So does she.”

“And me?” Layla said, almost desperately, “What do you see in me?”

“That you came to me for a reason.”

Layla waited, knowing she wasn’t finished.

“You think you know,” Caroline continued. “You think you know why you’re here. But you don’t.”

Sheridan was half asleep on the couch in the first filming bedroom when he got a nudge and blinked.

“Hey, sleepy head,” Logan looked down at him.

“I was done and I waiting for you,” Sheridan sat up, knuckling his eyes. “How did everything go?”

“Only in Indiana!” Logan said. “It was truly… strange. You and Chay wanna go out?”

“Firstly,” Sheridan sat up, “Me and Chay will never go out again. He doesn’t want anything to do with me. He’s made that very clear.”

“Aw,” Logan said, then put a hand over his mouth because he hated people who said “Aw.”

“Well, we can go out,” Logan said, touching Sheridan’s knee. “Least I can do after you waited up for me. And we can both talk about our crummy days.”

“You have crummy days?”

Logan, who was already standing up, raised an eyebrow and frowned. “You’re joking, right?

Sheridan followed him out of the room. It was grey and black alternately, no lights on, and the sun definitely down.

“Where do you want to go?” Logan asked. “Some nice little restaurant on Main?”

Sheridan shook his head. “Someplace like where we went before. Some little hole.”

Logan told him. “I know just the place. It’s between a hell hole and a cozy spot. Not far from my apartment. Okay?”

“Do I get to see your apartment?”

“Sure,” Logan said. “If you want.”

“I could drop my car off at my folks,” Sheridan said. “So we can go in the same one. It’s no sense taking two cars. We can’t really talk to each other on the way if we do that.”

Then, standing in the grey blackness, looking out of the window over the landing where the sun set deep fiery tangerine into a blue black sky, Sheridan said, “You know, I always get scared… at twilight. I don’t know why. It makes me cringe a little.”

“Me too,” Logan said in a light voice.

“But not with you,” Sheridan said. “I never feel scared with you.”