The City of Rossford

Dan Malloy brought out the silver tray with its teapot and coffee cups, its porcelain bowls of sugar and cream.

“I haven’t used these in a very long time,” he said.

“And just for us,” Paul Anderson commented, while Noah looked curiously at the table service.

“For you,” Dan said with a shrug. “And for me. Possibly.”

They looked at him as Dan sat on the other side of the old, deeply polished table in the rectory of Saint Barbara’s.

“We once had a maid,” Dan noted, fingering one of the buttons on his bulky cardigan. “We felt really posh.” He laughed a little. “These days it’s sort of like I’m just hanging on until the end. How strange.”

While he talked he poured tea for Paul and Noah and said, “Now what brings you here?”

“It’s Noah, really.”

Dan looked at him.

“You gotta tell him, Noah. Dan is our friend. Dan is really the only person you could tell this to.”

“We could tell it to Fenn.”

“No,” Dan and Paul both said, and they looked at each other.

“I don’t even know why I said that,” Dan said. “I just… is it a delicate matter?”

Noah nodded.

“You have to talk,” Paul said.

Noah looked irritated, and then he said: “You know Casey Williams?”

Dan’s eyes narrowed. “I know of him,” he said, cautiously.

“You know he has a studio and things. Here, in Rossford?”

“I know enough. I know he and Keith took up with each other,” Dan murmured Keith’s name and hung his head when he spoke it. “And so Casey ended up staying here.”

“My son works for him,” Noah said.

“That is a problem,” Dan said.

“No,” Paul shook his head, “that’s not the problem.”

The priest blinked, waiting.

“I couldn’t much stop him,” Noah said. “Chay’s not my natural son anyway. And… he knows what I did. It excited him. Casey was always around, and Casey assured me he would watch after him. And a lot of those fellows I trust. If Chay’s going to be curious about stuff like that… well, then, it’s best to be curious there. And for me to know about it.”

Dan nodded. Noah could not tell if Dan agreed with him or was convinced by his argument. The priest had an excellent poker face.

At last, Dan said, “Noah, it seems like you’ve reasoned all of this out, then.”

“No,” Noah shook his head.

“You’ve changed since I first knew you,” Dan told him. “You were a boy. You thought you were so old and so jaded, but you were this wild boy and now…”

“And now I am the father of a wild boy. And… he’d do the same thing I would do. And I know Casey… I know him, He’s not bad. But…”

Dan’s eyes narrowed. Paul leaned in.

“Chay is gone all the time. Chay doesn’t come home. He says he’s at the Klaskos—you know—”

“Will and Sheridan’s parents.”

“Right. And Sheridan’s his best friend. But… What if he isn’t there?” Noah said, at last.

“You’d know if you called,” Dan told him.

“Yes,” Noah agreed.

Dan said, “You think Chay is spending too much time with Casey Williams?”

Noah said, “I think Chay is sleeping with Casey Williams.”

Distracted by fiddling with his broken glasses, Fenn looked up at them from across his kitchen table and said, “Then what the fuck is the problem? There’s one way to figure it out. Ask him.”

“Casey or Chay?” Paul said.

“Who cares?” Fenn said. “That boy is banking on you not asking any questions. Be his father, or sit around and be worried.” Fenn shook his head. He watched Dylan walking around the kitchen to the refrigerator. As he looked at the tiny version of Tom, he said, “Nip that shit in the bud.

“Dylan?”

Dylan was in the midst of tipping the milk to his mouth.

“I forgot,” the boy said.

“I doubt that,” Fenn told him. “But it’s irrelevant.” He stood up and got a glass, and then reached out for the milk.

“Irrelevant,” Dylan repeated, testing the word on his mouth and deciding he liked it.

Fenn handed the boy the milk glass and said, “Where did you get that sweater from?”

Dylan looked down at it.

“Dad got it for me.”

Fenn tilted his head and said, “That doesn’t look like Tom’s style.”

Dylan looked at him.

Fenn shrugged. He put a hand in the boy’s hair.

“You need to get that cut.”

“Dad doesn’t think so.”

Fenn nodded. “He’s wrong about a lot of things. Have Lee take you to the barber’s tomorrow.”

“Sheridan’s taking me to the movies.”

“Well, then Sheridan will take you to get your hair cut first. Now go and drink your milk. We’re having grown up talk.”

Dylan looked at him forlornly, as if waiting for something and then went away and as the boy was leaving the kitchen, Fenn said, “Foolish me. Dylan, come back.”

Dylan came back to him and tilted his face up. Fenn bent his head and Dylan kissed the top of it.

“I forgot,” Fenn said to his son. “How rude of me. Now, go play.”

As Dylan left the kitchen, Fenn sat back down looking after his departing son and said, “Of course, you might want to take it up with Casey directly.”

Paul and Noah looked at Fenn waiting for an answer.

“I mean children lie,” Fenn said. “I did. You did. And Dylan just did too. About that sweater.”

Fenn’s bottom lip jutted out and he murmured, “I just wonder why.”

“Mom, can we get this?”

“No.”

“What about this?”

“No,” Tara said. She frowned into the grocery cart and said, “And what is this? Maia!”

She took the bag of cookies out of the cart and thrust them toward her daughter.

“Put this back.”

Maia frowned.

“You can frown if you want to,” her mother told her. “It’s alright. I don’t mind.”

Maia began to tramp back down the aisle dramatically.

“And Maia?”

Her daughter turned around and came back.

“You know prices now. So boxes of cereal over four dollars are out, boxes of cereal that look like desserts are out. Boxes of cereal with cartoon faces are out. Rice Krispies are out cause I don’t even like them.”

“I should just go help Dad shop.”

“Alright, go find him. He’s in the houseware aisle,” Tara motioned for her child to depart.

It had taken a long time for Tara to allow Maia to go off on her own in the grocery store and even now, with Todd only a few feet away, she had to fight off mortal terror that someone wouldn’t leap out from behind the mousetraps and take the child who had been forty years in the making.

When Maia was out of sight, Tara reached into her purse, took out her phone and dialed Todd.

“Tara?”

“Yes.”

“Maia’s coming to you. She’s going to try to get you to buy alot of this shit for her. Stay firm.”

“I’m always firm.”

“That’s such bullshit. All she has to do is bat her eyelashes for you.”

“She’s actually the only female who can do that—oh, here she comes. Here’s my girl!”

“Goodbye, Todd,” Tara said somewhat sourly, and hung up the phone.

She was coming down the aisle, scanning the cart for crap Maia had snuck inside it, and deciding to relent and get the cookies for her, that would be a nice surprise, when her cart nearly crashed into someone else’s.

“I’m so sorry—” she began.

But the other woman was saying the same thing.

The first things Tara noticed were her breasts, which were round and ample under a snug blue sweater. She knew those titties. She looked up.

“Tara,” the blond woman said, uncertainly.

Not knowing if she could still bare to say her name, Tara tried anyway.

“Melanie Fromm.”

“Where’s Brendan?” Caroline asked.

“He decided to stay home today.”

Layla sat down.

Caroline opened her mouth and then closed it, shaking her head and smiling.

“He feels like he’s not spending enough time with Kenny,” Layla explained.

“But then, you were going to say that. Weren’t you?”

“I think so,” Caroline told her with a smile.

“Mom!” A voice came from the back of the store.

Running her way around the tapestries, through the bookshelves and toward them, a light skinned girl in pigtails came up and Layla blinked.

“Can you say hello?” Caroline said to the girl, touching the top of her head.

“Laurel, this is Layla. Layla: my daughter, Laurel.”

Startled, Layla nodded her head and reached out to shake the little hand of the little girl.

The girl put a hand on her hip.

“Um um um,” Laurel said.

Layla blinked at her.

“You sure are pretty.”

“Thank you,” Layla said.

The girl nodded, “Mom, I can’t find the toaster pop ups.”

“That’s because there aren’t any. Go get yourself some cereal, and then you can go out with your friends.”

She nodded, and then she smiled at Layla and went away.

“She’s already made friends, and we’ve just been here a few weeks,” Caroline marveled.

“So what’s going on, Layla?”

“I’ve been having dreams,” Layla said. She sat down. “I suppose I’ve always had dreams, but I never paid attention to them. Now they’re very real. Things that weren’t real, that I didn’t pay as much attention to I do now. And I just keep remembering the way I felt the first time I came here. I felt right. But… Before I go on, I have to tell you something.”

“Alright,” Caroline said. Her face had been growing excited. But now she looked serious.

“Especially seeing Laurel, I have to tell you the truth.”

But just then the door opened with a loud clatter of the bell and both women shot up.

In walked a tall, bald man in a suit, and he blinked at Layla as she blinked at him.

“Layla!” he said, looking from her to Caroline, and Layla said:

“Dad?”

“Casey, it’s someone here for you,” Logan said, leaning against the lentil of the door.

“Uh… A’right.”

Casey was actually doing to a film today. This was a rarity, and under a housecoat he was wearing red Jockeys a size too small. He’d been oiled down already and just popped a Viagra. Casey was in the zone, and didn’t want to be interrupted. And then he turned around, and there was Noah Riley standing before him, arms crossed.

“Can I help you, Noah?” he said.

There wasn’t much point in saying anything like, “What’s up?” or “How’s it hanging?”At any road, Casey was already sure he knew.

Noah shut the door behind him.

“I trust you to tell me the truth,” Noah said.

“Alright,” said Casey.

“What’s going on between you and my son?”

Casey didn’t say anything.

“I told you,” Noah repeated, “I expect you to tell me the truth.”

But Casey didn’t say anything.

“Is he here? Right now?”

“Actually, no,” Casey said.

“Are you sleeping with him?” Noah demanded. “Are you fucking a fifteen year old boy? I wanna know. I want you to tell me.”

Casey’s face looked hard. Not angry, but suddenly, somehow, more solid than before.

“You don’t want to know,” he said. “And you don’t want me to tell you. You can’t understand. You couldn’t.”

Noah didn’t say anything.

“Whatever you’ve known you always knew,” Casey went on, his voice a little unsteady. “You must have known. But you didn’t ask. You didn’t want to ask.”

“He’s my son.”

“I know.”

“He’s a kid.”

“No,” Casey said. “He’s not. He’s nothing like a kid. You know better than that. And… He’s not even fifteen anymore.”

Noah wasn’t looking at him.

“Noah,” Casey’s voice was quiet, but frantic. “He’s not a kid. And I can’t explain. He… he told me if someone didn’t… if someone wasn’t with him, he’d go and turn tricks. He’d be an escort or something. He told me he just wanted to be touched. He just wanted to be with someone. He asked to be with me. Cause he knew I wouldn’t hurt him.”

“And you think you didn’t hurt him?”

“Yes I do,” Casey said. “I wouldn’t do that. And… You don’t want to hear about this.”

“No. No, I don’t,” Noah said. “But you will tell me.”

“He said he wanted to be loved. He didn’t want me to be mechanical about it. And… I wasn’t. I told him it would be just once.”

“But it wasn’t just once.”

“No.”

“And now you, a grown man, are sleeping with my son.”

“Yes.”

Noah didn’t say anything for a while again, and then he said, “Does he love you?”

“I… don’t know.”

Noah nodded.

“Do you love him?”

Casey didn’t answer.

“Do you?”

“Yes,” Casey said. “Yes, I do.”

Noah nodded again, and then he turned around to leave.

“Noah!”

Noah turned around.

“What are you going to to?”

“Do? You mean like, am I going to shut all your shit down and turn you in to the police for statutory rape? Am I going to ruin your world? Am I going to take Chay away and send him off with James’ family? He’s got their last name after all. Or… will I just take off my belt and beat my slutty son within an inch of his life?”

Noah shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said.

And then he opened the door, turned around, and left.