The City of Rossford

I don't know what's happened in the last few days, what with section two of The Blood, which should have come out on Fridayor Sunday, needing to be completely reposted it, but it may have screwed upthe story vibe, and if did so I apologize. Yesterday I was going to present the beginning of The Book of the Blessed, but that must be postponed, and today we return to Rossford.

“It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, which means the semester is nearly over.”

“I know,” Shelley said.

“Tonight we’re going to get up with Sean and your uncle-”

“Sean is my uncle.”

“Don’t be cute, and we’re going to go to Pennsylvania, and I’d just as soon have this discussion with you before we get on the road.”

Shelley nodded across the desk and pressed her fingertips together.

“You might as well not even come back, you’ve missed so much. And I just want to say that I’m surprised you thought you’d take advantage of our relationship to slack off. I would have thought that, because we are family, because I am, and I believe you said this, Shelley, your favorite uncle, you would respect me and my class.”

“Uncle—”

“Don’t,” Bryant Babcock put up a hand, and stopped doodling at his desk, “Uncle Bryant me.”

“I’ll be ready in a minute,” Chay said to Sheridan, who sat in the windowsill. “But I need to go talk to my Dad.”

Sheridan nodded, and Chay went out of the room.

He went downstairs to the kitchen and called, “Dad? Noah.”

Noah Riley, who was bending over the counter, breaking off bits of carrot and staring at a cookbook looked up.

“Hey, Guy.”

“We’re going to the hospital, alright?”

“Yeah,” Noah said. “Alright.”

When Chay continued to stand there, Noah said, “Is there something else?”

“Just… the way you were last night? When I got in.”

“I’m a parent.”

“James wasn’t like that.”

Noah put down the carrot.

“James is a much calmer person than I am,” Noah acknowledged.

“But it was more than that,” Chay said, approaching his father.

Noah seemed to be making a decision and finally he said, “You know what? It really doesn’t matter. Does it? Last night was a horrible night for all of us, and now it’s over, and you’re fine.”

“But Robin isn’t.”

“No,” Noah said, putting on a smile. “So you and Sheridan go down and make sure she’s alright. Help her get through it.”

Chay was quiet for a while and finally Noah said, “You have another question.”

“How did you get through it, Dad?”

Noah didn’t look shocked or hurt. He only said, “Very slowly. And somewhat painfully. And James helped. So, see, friends are everything.”

Chay said, “If you all hadn’t—”

Noah said, “But we did.”

The door opened and Danasia Burns entered.

“Does anyone ever knock?” Noah lamented.

“Maybe Anyone does, but I don’t know that bitch,” Danasia said. “Hello, Mr.Chay.”

“Hey, Danny, I’m on my way to the hospital.”

“Well,” she said, “you can’t get there if you don’t leave.”

Chay nodded and Noah shook his head.

“Sheridan!” Chay called, heading out of the kitchen.

“Kids,” Noah said, shaking his head.

“What…” Danasia rounded the island and came to stand beside her friend at the counter, “the hell are you making?”

“Carrot cake. Or trying to make it. For dinner tomorrow night.”

“Trying to make is right. You ever heard of a grater.”

“We don’t have one.”

“Well that’s just goddamned pathetic,” Danasia said. “How about this? Howabout we go over to the diner and steal one? Unless you want Fenn to talk about you real bad come tomorrow.”

“No,” Noah said, reflexively. “That’s something I probably don’t want.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Whaddo we do with this?” Noah held his hands out of the mixture.

Danny put her hand in the bowl of broken carrots. “Snack. You still have that porn star body, right?”

“Shut up!” Noah put his finger to his lips and Chay shouted“We’re gone.”

The door slammed.

“He doesn’t know?”

“I never told him everything. He shouldn’t know. He’s my son. And yes, I still have the body. More or less.” Noah shook his head and smiled, wistfully, “the way James looks at me when I take off my clothes…”

“Better than back in the day when all of those men did?”

“Actually?” Noah raised an eyebrow, “yes. And only because it’s James. I don’t know, Mr. Lewis always had that hold on me. I feel like the sexiest man alive when… Well,” Noah blushed and bit into a carrot. “Enough of that!”

“Yes,” Danasia smiled and turned around, resting her elbows on the counter.

“When I heard about the rape last night—”

“You thought it was Chay?”

“I know it’s stupid, but I thought it was,” Noah said. “And here’s the worst part—”

“When you heard it was Robin, you were grateful.”

“You know me too well. I just… You know how it was when we got him.”

“You and James, young swinging foster parents. This cute kid, a lot like you—”

“Even looks like me. And then I knew he’d been abused. Well…”

“And then you adopted him.”

“And turned into an old man who worries too much. I feel like I’m forty-five and not thirty. I feel like he really is my little boy.”

“Well, he is, Noah.”

“I wonder if sometimes he thinks, chill out Noah, you’re not my real dad.”

“Actually you’re more like his mother.”

“Thanks.”

“Everyone needs a mother. Lee was the only mother I had that ever counted, and I bet Chay feels the same way about you.”

“And then when I knew he was gay. Well,” Noah bit into a carrot and began chomping on it, “I just saw me all over again. The risks he takes, the stuff that was done to him before we got him. And I just get so afraid sometimes.”

“Aww,” Danasia put an arm around him.

“Don’t you dare make fun of me, Danny Burns.”

“I’m not,” Danasia kissed him on the cheek. “I’m in awe again.”

“Of me?”

“Everyday for… how long have we known each other?”

“Eight years?”

“About,” Danasia said, taking her arm from around him.

Noah wiped off his hands and took the metal bowl to the refrigerator.

“Cover that in Saran Wrap first.”

Noah nodded but said, “All we got is foil. You ready to head out?”

“Yeah.”

“How was Layla?”

“Happy about that dress.”

“Did you join the betting pool?”

Danasia raised an eyebrow.

“Did you know about it?”

“Hell, yeah I knew about it.”

“Did you vote for or against?” Danasia demanded.

“With Will Klasko in town?” Noah said, shutting the door with his hip. “Against. Definitely against.”

“Do you ever think about being more famous?” Todd Meradan began, sitting down across from Fenn. “Do you ever think about more movies, or wish you had done more films? Bigger films?”

“Bigger than this one?”

“Fenn!” Paul said.

Todd smiled ruefully, “I’m used to it.”

“You can just edit the shit out,” Fenn told him.

“I think I will,” Todd told him.

“Ask him the question again,” Paul Anderson said, sitting down beside Todd. “You always ask different questions. Those weren’t the ones I got at all.”

“Well,” Todd replied, “your life has been a considerably different one.”

Paul shrugged. This was true enough.

On the coffee table between Fenn and Todd was a canister that read: Modern Actors, a documentary away from the Silver Screen.

“I guess I’m surprised I ever did a movie at all,” Fenn said. “And no, I don’t ever wish I had become extremely famous. That would mean lots and lots of people would identify with me, and I don’t think that many people can. That would make me easily accessible, and whatever I did would appeal to either some large group or some small group that had decided it was special. I’m not for anybody,” Fenn shrugged. “Not really.”

“Some actors say they went into it to make people happy. To entertain.”

“Oh, I have no objection to happiness and entertainment,” Fenn said. “I like to make people happy, or at least be around happy people. You know. But… ”

Fenn stopped.

“You know? I think there has to be something in you that wants to be liked, that really wants big attention. There has to be something in you that really thinks the world out there is a big important world and you’ve got to make yourself really loveable for it. To succeed in that grand way.” Fenn shook his head.

“I could never be like that.”

The phone rang and Paul got up to answer it.

“You are the only guys I know,” he said, “who still have a landline.”

Todd shrugged. “A stage actor and a film maker. We’re antiquated like that.”

“Hello,” Paul said. Then, “Fenn.”

Fenn got up and crossed the living room entering the kitchen which was just receiving the noon light.

“Hello?” he said. Then, “Oh… shit. Hell… Well, alright. I’ll be there. In a minute.”

Fenn hung up the phone.

“Todd,” he said. “That was Tom. We gotta go. Our kid’s in trouble.”