Works and Days

Cowboys and poets

Conclusion

When Thom Lewis knocked on the door for the second time that day it was Chayne who answered, and all the things he’d thought of saying changed when he saw the other man. Beyond Thom the sky was filled with late day light and a cool breeze blew the cidery smell of autumn apples into the house. Chayne realized that although he joked about Thom being short, he himself was actually not that much taller.

“Thom, I think it’s the stupidest thing to intrude in a family, and even though Russell’s been staying with me I don’t really believe I’ve stood in the way of your authority as a father. But Russell’s gone to visit you twice, at my encouragement, and every time he comes back sad. Then I have to wait to hear the story. I don’t know what you did today, but I don’t really think I want to let you into this house to do anything more.”

Thom did not try to fight Chayne. He just said, “I fucked up. I fucked up really bad. You’re right, Chayne. Tell him. Tell him I’m sorry. And tell him I love him. That’s what I was going to tell him, but maybe it’ll be best if you tell him.”

Thom turned around and Chayne said, “Thom?”

Thom turned around.

“Is that the reason why... you’ve been the way you’ve been?”

“Been?”

Chayne cleared his throat and said, “You say you love Russell. I think you love Patti, but you haven’t really tried that hard to make it known. You... you give up too easily, Thom.”

Thom’s jaw hardened, and then he came back up the stairs and because Chayne didn’t move to stop him, Thom entered the house and went up the stairs. He passed the open door to the room were where Russell lay, hands folded behind his head, on the bed.

Whatever Russell was about to say, Thom put out a hand and begged, “Please don’t say anything yet. Please. Let me talk.”

Russell shut up, but he turned to look out of the west window and let Thom talk to the side of him.

“Look at me, Russell.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Okay,” Thom sighed. “I’ll talk to your side.

“When you told me... what you told me—”

“I said I hate you,” Russell repeated in case Thom had forgotten it. “Since you don’t seem to actually hear anything anyone ever says to you, for future reference, I said ‘I hate you,’. And you said nothing.”

“What did you want me to say?”.

“I don’t know,” Russell said, turning to him. “I wanted you to display emotion.

“Look at you. I don’t believe you have a single real feeling. You’re so cold. You’re so fake. I wish you’d be fake on your own time and leave me the hell alone. You never wanted to be bothered with me so don’t bother with me. I’m not your pal. I’m not your buddy. I’m not your stupid friends that respond to your… twenty-five cent smile and your perfect hair and I can’t be like you—”

“And I can’t be like you either!”

Russell’s open mouth froze.

“I can’t be you, Russell. I’m sorry. I don’t know how to talk to you. I don’t—Russ, I know this isn’t an excuse, but I never had a father, not really. I don’t have anyone to tell me how to do it, I don’t know how to do it! I’ve never known how to do it, and you have always blamed me for it. It’s not easy to be your father!”

Russell raised an eyebrow.

“That,” Thom said, “is not what I meant. What I meant… is… I love you.

“The moment I became your father, the moment I held you in my arms was the proudest moment of my life.”

Russell turned back to the window.

“It was easier,” Russell said, “when I thought you didn’t care.”

 

“Chayne,” Thom said, putting on his jacket as he went to the door. “I want to tell you something.”

“Yes, Thom,” Chayne bit his lip.

“Since I suppose I’ll be saying it for a while... I should say it to you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for getting in your face earlier this week when what you really should have done is decked me.”

“I did hit you with a tile.”

“Well, yes. I’m sorry for being an asshole. I was... afraid. I still am a little.”

“Of?”

“Of... That I ruined everything. And I’m sorry for saying that you’re envious and jealous and everything I said. I want to thank you for not listening to me. I’m sorry for…

“I’m sorry for a lot of things that I’ve done to you over the years. I can understand if you still hate me in the morning.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t like me.”

“You haven’t made yourself very likeable.”

“I can’t really argue that. Well,” Thom blew out his cheeks and looked around the room. “I had better be going.”

“Drive safe.”

“I walked.”

“Walk safe.”

Thom nodded.

“Alright then.”

He headed down the stairs.

“Thom?””

Thom Lewis looked back.

“How’s Russell?”

Thom came back up the stairs and confided in Chayne, “I told him I really love him and I’m sorry, and he’s not taking the news very well. He said it would have easier if I’d just kept acting like I didn’t care. Maybe he’s right.”

“It would have been easier, but not better.

“Good night, Thom.”

“Good night, Chayne.”

Thom Lewis went down the porch steps, and up Curtain Street in the approaching evening.

“Cowboy Dan hasn’t been by in a while,” Russell noted while they were washing dishes.

“He comes and goes,” Chayne said. “Which is inconvenient for someone like me.”

“Do you miss him?”

“I miss parts of him,” Chayne smiled mischievously and took a  plate from Russell.

“Are you and Faye still going out?” Chayne said.

“You mean to give you space? Yeah. Faye’s taking me to the Blue Jewel.”

“I wish I could come up with someplace more appropriate for a fifteen year old,” Chayne said, “but there it is.”

It was times like these that Chayne wished Russell had friends his age and could go where fifteen year olds were supposed to go. Still, he supposed things would come together one day. They had for him.

There was a soft knock on the storm door. The main door was open. Chayne called, “It’s open.”

A moment later, right when Chayne was entertaining the thought that a polite murderer might be walking through his house, Ted Weirbach appeared in the kitchen.

“Ted, hello,” Chayne said, and Russell said hello as well.

“Grab a dish or a pot and make yourself useful,” he said to the tall man.

Ted still looked young, Russell thought. He would have been Chayne’s age, and Chayne had said something about he and Ted going to college together. He was goodlooking in a professor kind of way, and strangely obedient to Chayne’s command to start cleaning house.

“What brings you around here?” Chayne asked. “There’s no meeting tonight.”

“Oh, I know,” Ted said in away which really answered, no questions. He took up an old skillet and held out his hand for the scrub brush.

In a sort of comfortable silence, the three of them continued washing dishes, and Russell supposed that the tall man with the prominent nose, sandy hair and glasses would be staying for a while.

“Well,” Patti said, “if Chayne was impressed, then I’m impressed.”

“Do you think you’ll be coming to the literary society?” Chuck asked her.

“I was never a literary woman,” Patti said, taking a sip from her wine glass.

“Patti—” Chuck began.

“I feel like you’ve wanted to ask me something,” Patti lifted a finger. “I feel like like you’ve wanted to ask me something, and you’re a gentleman so you don’t know how to.”

“Patti,” Chuck cleared his throat. “Please.”

“Or am I wrong?”

Chuck stopped himself from looking away.

He said, “You’re not wrong.”

Patti nodded, pleased.

She said, “Oh, here isn’t the right place for it… No. But, would you like me to come home with you?”

“Yes,” Chuck said, his voice thick with emotion he hadn’t expected.

Patti felt strange and solemn and beautiful. She leaned into Chuck and kissed him on his cheek. It was soft and she could feel just a little bit of stubble, she pushed his blond hair from the side of his face and stood up.

“Give me a few minutes. Let me get an overnight bag. I don’t like going out for breakfast. You can cook?”

“I can make an omelet out of this world,” he grinned at her.

“Great,” she said, heading up the stairs and feeling her whole body tingle.

“I love a good omelet.”

Chayne Kandzierski was not in the business of giving speeches to teenagers, but then he had not been in the business of having teenaged godchildren until recently.  Russsell was off with Faye right now, but he thought, if there was anything he had to tell the boy he would say, you have to know that you exist. Part of him suspected he would share this philosophy soon enough.

Chayne had not known he existed because he lived in his own mind, same as anyone else, and it had taken a while to realize how unlike other minds his mind was. The world he had been brought up in was the same world everyone else was brought up in. There were movies and books and television shows where a boy showed up and met a girl, and you knew they would be together.

Chayne makes lists now and again. Mike, KJ, Andy. Andy, Andy, Andy! Boys who looked at him and something went through him, but he didn’t understand it. Hopes he partially had that were barely understood. How late he was to the game, and how he kept meeting men who were late to the game too. Desire was like a fish in deep water. You had to see that lure. You had to see that shiny thing that made you swim up. And that shiny thing was a mirror. You had to see yourself. Now this was supposed to be a new day. Ten short years ago everyone had been afraid of having AIDS. Now the world was so togther, even progressive Christians were talking about gay marriages.

Chayne had no tastes for marriage. He thought marriage covered up the thing that everyone did have a taste for. Marriage was a good way to cover up what had so recently been uncovered, that men desired other men. That was the flashing lure, the mirror in the deep. When Chayne learned desire, he felt like he had learned everything. So whenever someone seemed to be interested, he cncouraged it. He now knew that anything, or anyone was possible.

So Russell was gone tonight, and Faye was gone tonight, and they would not be home. Faye would be kind enough to get herself drunk enough to stay at Jewell’s, but return around eight so they could all dress for church and choir. Tomorrow, ten o clock Mass could belong to Saint Adjeanet, but tonight, when he cried out, when he shouted and wrapped his legs around Ted Weirbach’s waist, when he let the quiet, tender man fuck him, quietly, tenderly, shuddering while Chayne caressed the side of his face, belonged to them. When he thrust his fingers into Ted’s hair, and ran his hands down his strong, long, damp back, this time belonged to them. When, in the dark, Ted long legs, surprising strong arms, frogstroked, breaststroked, moving up and down, in and in like a swimmer, when he murmured, sucking on Chayne’s throat, this time was theirs. And when Chayne gasped and then he gasped and trembled the way gentle men did, tonight, Chayne thought, as his mind left words and reflections, retiring to that shimmering, shuddering place, and his finger slipped inside of Ted, pressed, made Ted shudder and fuck him deeper, tonight was theirs.

 

The moonlight shone on rowing shoulders, straining back, flexing buttocks. His knees gathered strength as he thrust deeper. As his body, white in the moonlight moved, under him he heard cries that urged him on, that made him fuck harder, deeper, past himself. Hands buried themselves in his thick dark hair as, in the warm starlit night, like kids, they made love on the pier jutting out into the black waters of Lake Choctaw. Her name was Stephanie Evans, and her fingernails raked his ass and made him shudder. He’d told himself not to come, but as Thom Lewis’s neck arched, and his eyes were filled with starlight, orgasm pulsed through his whole body, and still, as he thrust into the woman he’d met that morning, he was hard as ever, and she didn’t stop shouting, and he didn’t stop fucking her.