The City of Rossford

Todd opened the door to the little library with his foot and entered with the two coffees. Bryant got up to take both of them. Todd shut the door and they both sat on the couch.

“It’s going to snow tonight,” Bryant said.

“It might at that,” Todd said.

“Can I ask you a question?” Bryant turned to him.

Todd took a sip of his coffee and gestured for Bryant to go on.

“Fenn is odd tonight.”

“Fenn is tired tonight.”

“He… When I told him about leaving Chad, he was different.”

“He thinks you should have thrown Chad out.”

“He told you that?”

Todd took out a cigarette from his breast pocket and lit it.

“No, but he didn’t have to. We’ve been together about twenty years. I know.”

“And then when I told him I was staying with Sean… It’s like it was all he could do not to scream. I know him by now too. I know that drove him crazy. Did he want me to stay with you all?”

Todd laughed.

“I’m sure he didn’t. We’ve got more than enough people staying with us. Not—” Todd added, “that you aren’t welcome if it ever comes to that.”

“Then what?”

Todd’s face changed now.

“So you know something too?” Bryant said. “What?”

“Bryant, it’s not my place.”

“Whaddo you mean? I don’t know what you mean.”

Bryant watched Todd’s face. He seemed to be going through a series of decisions, all under his skin, before finally, he sighed and said, “Have you ever wondered… Do you not care who Chad was having an affair with?”

“No,” Bryant said, his voice more fierce than he meant. “Why should I care about…?”

His voice died off.

They were quiet. Bryant felt that as long as they made no noise, time couldn’t go on, and then thought couldn’t go on. If thought didn’t go on one plus one would never equal anything.

But one plus one equaled two.

“I don’t believe it,” Bryant’s voice was small, almost ghostly.

Todd didn’t say anything.

“No,” Bryant said again. “But…” he was talking more to himself than Todd, “How could Fenn know? But if Layla knew. And Layla is… No…”

Bryant had set the coffee cup down, and he was looking from one open hand to the other. Finally he looked up at Todd, his usually olive face whiter than ever before.

“Chad… my brother?” Bryant said weakly. “They’re not… are they?”

Todd had thought he would say yes. Todd had imagined being fierce and full of rage when he declared the truth to his friend. Instead he just looked away, his face prickling with heat as if he was the one who had commited the affair.

Bryant’s voice sounded muffled and far off in Todd’s ears:

“I feel like I have to throw up.”

“Well, you can stay with us,” Todd said.

But Fenn, feet dangling from over the couch, shook his head.

“No,” he said. “No, he can’t.”

Bryant and Todd looked at Fenn and Bryant stood up.

“I understand.”

“No,” Fenn said, making a gesture for Bryant to sit down. “You don’t. You don’t understand at all.”

“I don’t have a right to be here,” Bryant said.

“I don’t follow you,” Fenn said, shaking his head. “So you certainly can’t be following me.”

“This is… fair,” Bryant said. “I would never have dreamed of coming here. I would never have dreamed of burdening you all with my problems. Especially you,” Bryant said to Fenn.

Fenn just looked at him.

“Oh, com’on,” Bryant said, miserably. “Stop pretending. You don’t have to be Saint Fenn all the time.”

He sat up.

“This is payback. It’s karma. You know it. I… I always knew it. I knew sooner or later I would find out how this feels. And it’s the way it should be.”

“Oh,” Fenn said. “Oh, yes. I’ve heard this already.”

“You mean other people told you the same thing?” Bryant said, shaking his head. “Of course they did. How can you sit here and pretend that somewhere in the back of your mind you aren’t thinking that this is just what I deserve? After Tom? I… I didn’t give a fuck about you. I just moved in and did what I did. I was just like Sean. If I were you, I would be happy.”

“Then you wouldn’t be me,” Fenn said.

He sat up.

“Look, I’ve had a long time to be angry and vengeful and all of it, and I’m done. I’ve been with Todd the better part of twenty years and whatever you did to me was before that. And over that is seven years of friendship. You still think I’m hanging on to what you and Tom did?”

Bryant looked at him.

“Everyone thinks I’m holding onto that. Layla and Dena were in grade school back then, not even, and now Dena’s having her first kid and everyone thinks I’m still holding onto it. You think I can’t let it go?”

“I never let it go,” Bryant almost shouted. “I never let it go,” he said. “There isn’t a day that’s gone by I’ve been able to let it go. And… since we’ve been friends, it’s like it all happened yesterday. What kind of person would I be if I put it out of my head? That’s with me always.”

“Well, it’s not with me,” Fenn said.

“There is so much that is still with me. That’s why I understand Sean. That’s why I should have understood everything. I know what it’s like to be someone who doesn’t care, who has no problem trying to ruin something, who goes after someone who belongs to someone else. I know. It was me. It is me.”

“It’s not you,” Todd said, slightly angry. “Not anymore.”

Fenn said nothing.

The house was quiet. Outside they heard the sound of a car, which indicated Brendan and Kenny returning.

“All I know,” Fenn said, “is that the snow is getting worse and worse, and you need to get up because you can’t stay here.”

“Why?” Bryant’s voice was suddenly angry. “If you don’t care about what happened—”

“I didn’t say,” Fenn’s voice was even, “that I didn’t care about you fucking Tom in my bed. What I said,” Fenn continued, “is that I’m not angry about it. It doesn’t haunt me. But what does is the idea of taking abuse. I understand you want to keep punishing yourself for every bad thing you’ve done and, let’s be honest, between two old friends, you’ve done plenty. But what’s yours is yours. And that apartment is yours. I’ve got too many people walking in and out of this house for you to be sleeping in a spare room I don’t have, or a couch where everyone can see you look pitiful.

“Now I’m going to get dressed, and you’re going to put some shoes on and take that sad look off your face. You,” he turned to Todd, “are going to gas up the car. And then we’re going to your apartment, and we’re going to throw Chad the fuck out.”

IF SHE WAS HONEST WITH HERSELF, that day in November when he had shown up at the house, Layla knew she was in trouble.

The thing is, Will Klasko was, flatly, not all that. In a way his younger brother was much cuter, and then Aidan Michaelson had actually been fine. And after him, Kevin had been beautiful. If she’d had some sense, Kevin would have been exactly what she wanted.

But she didn’t have sense, what she had was Will in her system and so that Thanksgiving morning when he had shown up at her grandmother’s house, she had pretty much known it was all over. But then when he had stood up at the wedding, before her mouth could say a thing, her actions apparently already had, and that was the end of her engagement.

Layla Lawden was angry with Will, and that was that, until he’d shown up at the house again, and then they’d gone to the mall, and then she had made the decision. A few moments later, and only a few hours after he had knocked at her door, a few days after he had come back into her life, Will Klasko stood before her in the hotel room.

“Take off your clothes,” she said.

Like someone half hypnotized he had, his thick, floppy, slightly wavy hair in need of cutting, hanging in his face while he undressed, and then he stood before her naked and she commanded, “Now mine.”

Slowly, reverently, he undressed her, his eyes settling in sacred contemplation over every part of her brown skin, and then they stood like that and inside of her, deep in her she was shuddering, and she placed her arms around his neck and drew him to the bed. She wanted to be covered by him. Eight years since he had slipped a note to her back in high school, and now she wanted to be entirely covered by his flesh. She wanted the weight of his body upon her. Her hands moved up and down his shoulders, his sides, his ass, his thighs. They moved like that, sighs escaping Will’s mouth, Layla closing her eyes in pleasure.

After all the years, and after a great deal of tension since he had returned, she was just relieved when she placed her legs around him and let Will fuck her. He came in her like lightning, like some force that touched her clit and made light and music spring up. His touch, deep in her, went off like a telegraph through all the nerves in her body, shook her like a stone being dropped in water. She clung to him, her legs tighter around him, her hands in his hair, opening her eyes to see his face, almost frowning in concentration, reddening, perspiring. She closed her eyes to see him in her mind, and feel his mouth on her body.

With all the stresses of life, and there were many, and with all the times Will still managed to drive her crazy, and those were many too, there was this new thing which seemed like it had gone on forever. They had been associated so long with each other, but unlike Milo and Dena there was no marriage and unlike Kenny and Brendan there had been no sex. She wondered if people could tell, if they could smell the change once it had happened. What were they thinking when they thought of the two of them? Early in the morning, late at night, like right now, they moved together, her hands in Will’s hair, Will thick and firm deep inside of her, the drop of sweat she pursued to the tender cleft of his buttocks.

Will shuddered and spilled, and her body was already rocking. So often they rode on the orgasm like this, still surprised by it. She opened her eyes to see Will holding her, Will above her, his mouth opened in amazement and love as he climaxed.

They lay together.

“Are you still on the pill?” he asked her.

“Does it matter?”

“I was wondering,” Will said, his hands under his head after he lay back, “you don’t feel like getting married right now, do you?”

“I just escaped getting married.”

“That’s what I thought,” Will said sitting up.

“Are we having a Parisian relationship?”

“What’s that?” Layla lay on her side with her fist under her head. “Never heard of one of those.”

“Well, that’s because I just made the term up.”

Layla made a face. That was very like Will.

“It’s where you all are pretty much sure you’re staying together, but you don’t formalize it. You just keep on screwing without contraceptive and whatever happens happens.”

“Oh, an English marriage!”

“I never heard of that.”

“That’s because I made it up,” Layla said.

She lay on her back again.

“I hadn’t planned to have a baby. But… I hadn’t planned not to. You know? And with Claire and Dena, well, it does seem in vogue. I’m just… yeah. That sounds right. If it’s alright with you. I had planned to stay with you. That was my only plan.”

“Good,” Will said, sinking back into the bed. “I realized that I had a very hard time being happy without you.”

They heard a thump.

“What the hell was that?”

“The east gutter fell in the last snow storm. I think it may be hitting the wall again.”

There was another thump.

“No,” Layla disagreed. “I think it’s the door.”

“Who the…?” Will began.

Layla got out of bed, pulling on the satin gown Todd had bought her that Christmas.

Will pulled on his pajama bottoms and came after her, sweeping his hair out of his face.

“Hello?” Layla was saying when Will came into the living room. “Is someone there?”

“It’s me,” a miserable voice said on the other side of the door.

Layla, hearing the misery, did not wait to figure out who the ‘me’ was. She opened the door and in astonishment pulled Chad into the house.

“Chad?” Will began.

“It’s over,” Chad said, miserably. “It’s very much over.”

THE NEXT AFTERNOON THEY sat at a booth in the Lamage,the cars of downtown Rossford passing by. Ron Lewis looked prim and proper, surrounded by young men, one of whom was Logan Banford.

Ron looked at the first young man, who reminded him a little of Noah, and said, “How much of a percent did Casey take?”

“Thirty,” the boy said, and the one with the clean shaven head who was beside him confirmed this.

Everyone was dressed in shirt and tie, as Ron had ordered. No more showing up in wife beaters wih all your tattoos for the world to see. No more, in fact, going to Casey’s house. All of that was over.

“I don’t want thirty,” Ron said. “But like they say, people don’t appreciate free. I’ll take twenty. That means you owe me,” Ron looked down the list, “One hundred fifty.”

The first boy nodded and Ron looked at his nephew and told him, “Chay, order another bottle of wine.”

Chay nodded and was gone.

“You’ve paid me, Logan? Yes,” Ron pushed his glasses up, “I see you have. Alright, now here are four names for you. I’ve had them all checked out. Thoroughly. I’ve a friend in law who helped me. And you know the drill. When you get there, you hit that phone,” Ron gestured to Logan’s side, “and I’m going to call.”

“And if I say alright, then it’s alright,” Logan remembered.

“And—?”

“And if I say okeedokee, it means send in someone.”

“That’s right,” Ron nodded. “I’m not going to have anyone getting hurt anymore. Now, Justin, give me your money. And here are some names for you and… here’s Chay and the waiter with a bottle of wine.”

“I don’t think I can stay,” Justin said. “I got a client in an hour.”

“The bottle isn’t for you,” Ron told him. “Yes,” he said to the waiter, “sit it right here.”

Ron yawned, and after the waiter had uncorked the bottle Ron poured a glass then pushed it toward Logan. Chay sat there with a Coke.

“It was the only way,” Ron said. “When I saw you come in two weeks ago like that, I knew I had to kill two birds with one stone so to speak. I’m sure Casey’s a nice enough fellow, but he makes enough doing what he does. His escorting was irresponsible. I had to take it from him.”

Logan grinned. “I told some guys out in Merrillville about you. They’ll be coming to you soon. Your business will be expanding.”

Ron made a face. “That is…” he began, and settled upon the word “disturbing.

“It’s the only way to keep you out of mischief too,” he looked at Chay.

“If you can’t stay away from the bad life, I guess I’ll just have to come into it and watch you.”

“Do you want me to do websites for you?” his nephew offered.

“Don’t be disgusting,” Ron said. “You manage books; that’s it. I don’t know why your parents couldn’t have figured this out. Too close, I suppose. Too afraid. Even I can think out of the box, and it seems I’ve spent my whole life in one.”

“Oh, gosh,” Chay looked at his watch, and hopped up.

“Uncle Ron, can you give me a ride? I have to meet…” his voice dropped.

“Sheridan,” Logan said. “It’s alright. It makes sense. It’s what should be.”

Ron said nothing.

“Sheridan said he wasn’t going to make a choice,” Chay explained. “Sheridan said it could just be whatever, and we’ve always been friends, and…”

“Sheridan is seventeen,” Logan said. “And maybe he isn’t as flexible as he thinks he is. If he can’t make a choice, maybe I better do it for him.”

“If you love something, let it go?” Ron said.

Logan folded his arms over his chest and muttered: “Something like that.”

How can a story like this not have an epilogue? All will be tied up in our final segment: When the Morning Comes.