The City of Rossford

Eleven

Night Falls in Rossford

DAN MALLOY GOT OUT of his bed to answer the door. As he did many times these days, he couldn’t help but think of when he’d first come here, when he had been young and full of the belief that he could do anything and this rectory was the most important place on earth. He was the youngest of the three priests living here, and there had been a maid, Mrs. Recklahn. She was one of Barb Affren’s sisters, long gone now. So if there was ever a knock on the door at night, and he closed his eyes and pretended not to hear it, he knew someone would get it. Now there was just him.

Again came the old idea of him as the last man on a sinking a ship.

I don’t even really know what I mean when I say that.

Stuffing his feet into slippers and wrapping his housecoat around himself, he crossed the threadbare carpet of the living room, and looking through the curtains and glass panels of the old oak door, he saw Keith McDonald.

“I’m out of control.”

“Yes, you are,” Dan said. He stood up.

“I’m so mad at you. I’m so disgusted with you.”

“Don’t say that, Dan.”

“Seven hundred dollars. Are you serious? Seven hundred dollars that your church pays you—and I wish that I had seven hundred dollars to spare—and you use it on that? My God!”

He stopped. He looked at Keith.

“What?” Keith McDonald looked up at him.

“And you still don’t get enough. It’s still not enough for you.”

“I came back for Casey. And Casey doesn’t want me. Casey wants… Some boy. Everything he used to do to me, everything he’s… having done to him, is with this boy. And what about me?”

“And what about me!” Dan said.

When Keith didn’t say anything, Dan continued. “What about me? All here, all alone. And you come back to town for… a man who is practically a prostitute. What about me! Keeping my vows, keeping my peace, always a listening ear. Going to bed untouched, half losing my mind, but having to listen to you. You and how you can’t keep your clothes on! Did you ever think about that? About my needs? My wants?”

At last, Keith said, “Poor Dan.”

“Don’t you patronize me!” Dan Malloy snapped.

“No one’s patronizing you,” Keith said. “I mean it. Poor Dan. Poor…”

Keith stood up.

“I’m a man,” Dan said, his voice thin. “I’m a man too, you know.”

“I know that,” Keith said. “But I was thinking how you were more than a man. How you’d gone to a place I hadn’t.”

They were facing one other.

“The only place I’ve gone to is being so alone, and so cold that I don’t even remember what it is to touch someone.” He looked around the kitchen. “I don’t even remember why I’m here. Why I came. I…”

Dan’s voice fell.

Keith looked at him uncertainly. And then he leaned forward and kissed him.

His mouth was on Dan and he murmured, “Do you want me to stop?”

Dan knew that he should say no, but he didn’t say anything. Keith’s lips were good on his, and he was shaking.

“Don’t shake,” Keith said tenderly. “Don’t shake. It’s just me. Of course I came back for you,” he was murmuring more to himself than anything. “Why would I come back for Casey? Why would there be a Casey?”

Dan started as Keith took hold of his sex and began caressing him there.

“Do you want me to stop?” Keith murmured, kissing his throat.

Dan made a small noise that was like, “uh uh.”

“You’re so rigid,” Keith said, his arms around Dan, kissing him, running his hands up and down his body through the old housecoat.

“I haven’t been with anyone in almost twenty years.”

“I know,” Keith was taking off his housecoat. Dan stood there in his pajamas, his ash colored hair sticking up.

“You want this?” Keith asked him. “I want this.”

“I’m just… I…” Dan began. “Yes.”

“Can we go upstairs?”

Dan cleared his throat, and then he nodded his head.

“Yes,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“I’m about to take you home,” Logan murmured, running his hand along Sheridan’s shoulder.

“I’d rather stay here.”

“If you want.”

“I do.”

“I don’t want to keep you. I don’t… If there’s things you want to do, I don’t want to take up your time.”

Logan was spooning him, his arms around Sheridan, and Sheridan looked out of the window.

“What else is it I would have to do?” Sheridan said, reaching back to touch Logan. “Dylan really liked you.”

“And I liked him. He’s a nice little guy. What did you tell him about me?”

“That you’re my friend. Because you are.”

Logan kissed his shoulder, and kissed up his neck.

“You didn’t say special friend or anything like that?”

“I didn’t say this is the friend who fucks me, no,” Sheridan said. “Did you have a job today? Is that why you were late?”

“Yeah,” Logan said.

“Did you make a lot?”

“You seriously want to know?”

Sheridan turned around in bed.

“What you do with other guys doesn’t have anything to do with me. I’m not stupid.”

Logan looked at him strangely.

“What?” Sheridan said.

“It’s just… I don’t know,” Logan went deep into the covers. “I’ve never known anyone like you, Sheridan Klasko.”

“I’m an ordinary white kid from Indiana. There are tons of me.”

They were silent, and the sound of their breathing deepened for a while and then Logan murmured, “No there aren’t, Sheridan.”

He leaned on one elbow looking over Sheridan, marveling over the gentleness of his face, the softness of his short cut hair, the tender shell shape of his ears.

“I hadn’t planned for this to happen, but I think I’m falling in love with you.”

One of Sheridan’s blue eyes flew open and shocked the hell out of Logan.

He said, “And I’m falling in love with you too. But let’s go to sleep and talk about it tomorrow.”

And then Sheridan closed his eyes, and was snoring.

Bryant got off his cell phone and returned to the kitchen where Fenn and Brendan sat at the table looking up at him.

“Call him again in a few minutes,” Brendan said. “I’m going up to say goodnight to Dylan.”

“It’s strange for Chad to be out this long, though,” Fenn said. “He’s not with Layla or any of them as far as I know. Maybe he’s with Claire.”

“No he isn’t,” Bryant said, irritably.

Fenn looked at Bryant.

“I’m not an idiot, Fenn. I know where he is. He’s fucking his boyfriend. I just don’t know who his boyfriend is.”

It was dark grey, nearly black outside when Dan opened his eyes. His face was crushed into the pillow and his arms spread out across the bed, spread over the neck and the back of Keith McDonald.

“What time is it?” he said.

Keith turned and the bed moved, and then he said, “5:45.”

“That makes it time for me to get up,” Dan decided. “Since it’s Sunday.”

Keith yawned a long time. He stretched and the bed groaned with him as he crawled out of it.

“It is Sunday.”

“There is a six-thirty mass,” Dan said.

“Do you want me to get going?”

“I think we’d both better get going.”

He heard Keith’s feet pad across the old carpet, and then the door opened and there was a thread of light. Keith was going down the hall to the bathroom.

Dan Malloy lay there, yawned and looked through the curtain on the small patch of black day-night. He stretched, curled into a ball and stretched again. When he was crawling out of the bed, Keith was coming back in. He hadn’t wanted to look at him. He was beautiful though, all of his body beautiful in the darkness, though his face was barely visible.

“Are you alright?” Keith said.

“I’m fine,” Dan said, though he was hugging himself.

“You are a man, Dan,” Keith said. “You are a human being.”

“What’s that mean?”

Keith was pulling on his underwear. He was pulling a tee shirt over his chest.

“You’re not some automaton, or some plaster virgin. You shouldn’t feel bad for last night.”

“Who says I feel bad?” Dan sounded a little defensive. He looked around the floor, searching for his pajamas, and then, quickly, came out of bed and pulled them on. He left his bedroom quickly, heading downstairs. Amazing how when he woke up alone he had such a hard time getting up. Now he couldn’t have slept if he tried. He needed to turn the bright white light on and make coffee. He needed to get Keith out of here.

Keith was already dressed and already beautiful when he came down the steps into the kitchen.

“Can I grab a cup of coffee before I go?” he said.

“No,” Dan said.

“What?”

“No,” he said again.

He stared at the coffee pot as the dark liquid brewed.

“In fact you probably need to go.”

“What’s that?” said Keith.

Dan turned around.

“We are very different people.”

Keith waited for an explanation.

“How can you be so… light hearted? And happy? That’s what it is for you, Keith. You just do what you want to. You… made porn when it suited you. Had an affair with Dena’s father when it suited you. Took up with Casey, again when it suited you. And then you hire prostitutes. Whatever floats your boat. And now me. Well, that can’t happen.”

“But it did happen,” Keith said. “It happened all night long.”

Dan grimaced, and put a hand up.

“There is such a thing as forgiveness and moving on.”

Keith moved closer, but it wasn’t really to Dan. He was looking out the window.

“The lights are on in Saint Barbara’s. You’re lying to me, aren’t you? You’re not doing the six-thirty.”

“Bryant Babcock’s uncle took it off of my hands.”

“But you want me to go.”

“Yes. I do.”

Keith shrugged. He thought of saying something untoward, but simply said, “Fine.”

And then he turned around, heading through the living room to the front door.

He shouted back, “I’ll let myself out.”

And then Dan heard the door close.