Bird Came Down

Lance Bishop had enjoyed working in Chicago. He’d been working since he was seventeen years old. Very briefly he worked at the Martin’s grocery store in town before he realized he’d rather work at the Abercrombie and Fitch. You could wear flip flops there all the time. In fact you were encouraged too. And the clothes were too small for normal people and snug on him. It was always eighty degrees in the store and there was, in that job, a combination of superiority, masculinity and assured homosexuality that kept him there until he went to college on a football scholarship. Junior year he hurt himself badly and wasn’t really willing to be hurt again. His grades were up by then, and so he could get an academic scholarship. That was easy. He just had to keep a B average. He could work again on the weekends, and soon he was a manager at the Abercrombie and Fitch two miles from his dorm.

In his childhood he had been unsure of himself, unsure of his looks, his popularity, his sexuality. He was uneasy about his big hands and large forehead, his gangly arms and his clumsy body, his clumsy, clumsy feelings, what other boys said about him when his back was turned but his hearing keen. Two years on the football team, two years at Abercrombie and four in the weight room, seeing how others looked at him, taught him that there was nothing like the bad self esteem of others, made small by the sight of you, to increase your own self esteem.

When he would bring home clothes on discount, Elias could easily wear the pants, but the shirts were a toss up. Elias didn’t like labels or snug clothing. For Dylan, compact and broad shouldered, increasingly muscular from weights, the clothes were a joke.

“They just make ordinary people feel bad,” Dylan said, “and I can’t imagine the people wearing them ever feel good enough.”

Lance wondered if that was an insult, but didn’t press it. The truth was he never did feel quite good enough. He knew, because he had been told on My Space, and then later on Facebook, that he was getting hotter and hotter, his biceps wider and wider. But he felt meek, unsure, too tall, too dumb despite everything. Dylan’s family was so smart, both of his dads brilliant in two different ways, though deep inside Lance was sure it was Dylan’s father Fenn who was the smarter. Elias, self contained, was the smartest person Lance had ever known. He always felt strangely left out, strangely strange.

“You need to be reassured all the time,” Elias had told him once as they lay on the couch together, and the smaller, younger man held him, stroking his broad neck. “I wish you could understand how much I loved you.”

Once, Dylan said, “If I had chosen, you and only you, or if Elias had chosen only you, would you feel better?”

“Would you feel better?” Lance asked, meaning if he had done the same.

“No,” Dylan answered honestly. “We’re a family. I would be less without the both of you. There was something missing when it was just you and me, and you were missing when it was just me and Eli. I love us.”

“I love us too,” Lance said, “So why would you ask me that?”

“I think it’s because of those years when you were away from us. When me and Eli were together and you weren’t there. I always feel like we’ll never make that up.”

There were other things Lance knew. He remembered their early years, when he had loved Dylan far more than Dylan had loved him, when Dylan had left him for someone else only to find just what a disaster that relationship was, when there was a horrible violence that had erupted between Dylan and Lance which it had taken several years to get past. And, of course, Dylan understood the terrible depression that Lance spiraled down into now and again.

When Elias brought Felix into their life, Lance liked him a lot and hoped that this person who didn’t know them very well could understand that he felt that way. After all, Lance wasn’t talkative or well spoken, and he wasn’t particularly interfering. He was only too glad to run Felix and Joey up to Michigan, and it was there and in the following days when he met Scott that he knew he’d met someone like himself.

The problem with Scott being someone like himself was that Scott was as likely to talk as he was. The guy slept in the back of the car the whole time they were driving from Michigan, and when they reached town, Felix brought Scott up, seemingly sleepwalking, to his apartment.

It was the day after when Felix went in to teach and Dylan said he had to work, that Lance volunteered to watch Scott. While Scott slept, Lance stayed in Felix’s apartment. The sculptures and all of the books reminded him of Elias and Dylan and of Dylan’s house.

“Yup,” Scott said from the bed, “he’s really sort of brilliant.”

Lance smiled and said, “I’m glad to see you’re alright.”

“Are you the deathwatch?” Scott said, and groaned as he sat up. “Are you here to make sure I don’t do anything crazy?”

“Felix didn’t want you left all alone. I agreed to stay here.”

Then Lance added, “Can I get you something?”

Scott waved this off.

“I’m supposed to be offering you something. I mean I guess this is sort of like my place.”

“I’m fine. I just had a Five Hour Energy, and I got a Gatorade.”

Scott got out of bed not sure of protocol. He was in his underwear and, grabbing his trousers, went to the kitchen to change and then reported, “We’ve got ice cream, junk, junk and more junk, so it’s a good thing you brought your own stuff.”

Lance heard the faucet running.

“Standard Felix junk.”

Scott came back with the water and he said to Lance.

“So I’m sorry I haven’t been any use. Felix told me about you guys, but I didn’t really get to meet you like I wanted to. Sorry about that. I’m Scott, you know that, right?”

Scott offered a large, slightly rough hand, and Lance shook it heartily saying, “Yeah we gathered. And I’m—”

“I know you’re Lance Bishop. I’m good with names. Plus, if I’m not wrong, you played for Tamsin for a couple of seasons.”

“Right!” Lance smiled, pleased. “And then I got hurt and was too much of a pussy to go back.”

“I played in high school. It was no joke. I can imagine college would be even less of a joke, and if I broke my legs and could get school money somewhere else I would have done it too,” Scott said. “And I bet if your guys are anything like my guy they wouldn’t let you keep playing.”

“Well there’s that too,” Lance shrugged. Then he laughed and said, as Scott pulled on his Hollister tee shirt, “I feel like we’re going to have a battle of the mall shops.”

“What are you—” Scott started and then looked at Lance’s shirt.

“Oh, you’re Team Abercrombie.”

“I was the manager of two Abercrombies,” Lance said.

Scott rolled his eyes. “Of course you were.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Lance laughed, “And your American Eagle Outfitter three hundred thread count blue checked shirt.”

“Is everyone who shops there gay?” Scott wondered.

“Nope,” Lance said, “Just the dudes.”

Scott laughed and shook his head.

“I’m so new to this,” he said. Then, “I’m so new to not being in the shadows. They call it the closet but they should call it the shadows.”

“I haven’t been in the shadows since I was in high school,” Lance said with a crooked smile. “In college I was with Dylan. Then came Eli. I lived away from them so no one really knew us as a unit. I didn’t feel in the shadows, though, then. I just felt lonely.”

“Well, that’s part of it,” Scott said. “But I’ve never been out in the open, or been able to live with the person I love. And I don’t feel like I fit in. All that stuff gay people are supposed to do. I just want to raise my kids and go to work. And take them to church on Sunday. And be with Felix.”

“I know what you mean,” Lance said. Then, “You Catholic?”

“How’d you know?”

“Takes one to know one.”

“Kinda like gaydar? Uh, I went to Saint Casimir’s over on the East End.”

“Is it nice?”

Scott shrugged. “It’s pretty Polish.”

Then he sang:

“Serdeczna Matko
Serdiczna Matko, opiekunko ludzi.
Niech Cie placz sierot do litosei wzbudzi.
Wygnancy Ewy do Ciebie wolamy.” 

Lance blinked at him before saying, “What the fuck was that?”

“It was a Polish hymn.”

“My family’s Irish,” Lance said. Then added, “And Hungarian. I think.” He shook his head and realized, “I’m really just a hillbilly.”

Scott chuckled and said, “Every white guy two generations in the Midwest is a hillbilly.”

“And your last name is Flowers?”

“Not very Polish.. I wonder if Felix would research my family for me. He likes stuff like that. I like other people to find out that stuff for me.”

“German,” Lance remembered. “German too. I think we’re just mutts. My mom’s maiden name was Lagger. I dunno.”

Suddenly Scott said, “Felix doesn’t want kids. He likes my kids, but he doesn’t want to be a stepfather.”

“Do you need him to be?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think I did, but that’s what he’ll be if we’re together. But I can totally understand him not wanting to. He didn’t want kids, and out of all the kids in the world he could raise, why would he raise mine? Especially when I think about how they came about. I mean, Jen sort of got pregnant to keep me away from Felix.”

“Your wife knew Felix?”

“She knew there was someone who wasn’t her. Who wasn’t a woman. She knew I wasn’t sure about myself back then.”

“And are you sure now?

Scott chuckled and then sang:

Zmilujsie zmiluj niech sie nie tulamy. 

Do kogoz mamy, wzdychac nadzne dziatki. 

Before saying: “I’m not sure.”

That night Lance got off the phone and Elias asked: “Was that Scott?”

“Yeah. He wanted to know what we were doing this weekend.”

“You know what?” Elias said. “I think you have a crush on him.”

“I do not!”

“Then why are you blushing?”

“Stop it,” Lance said.

“I think it’s just a little crush. Like a friend crush. I’d say it’s a man crush, but we’re all gay, so…” Elias shrugged.

“Well, fine,” Lance said, sitting on the bed beside Elias, “then you have a crush on Felix. You and Dylan.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Elias agreed. “At least I can own it.”

“You know,” Lance began, “I really don’t like it when you talk this way.”

“Lance,” Elias replied, kneeling so that he leaned over his beloved, “my dear Lancelot…”

“That’s a really stupid name, and I hate that it’s on my birth certificate,” Lance interrupted. Then: “Scott was going to ask Felix to look into his genealogy.”

“Why can’t Scott do that himself?”

“I was going to ask you to do the same for me, actually.”

“You’re a quarter Irish, a quarter Magyar and half German with a bit of Dutch thrown in.”

Lance parted from Elias, looking up at him.

“How did you even know that?”

“We already knew Dylan’s family tree. I wanted to find out mine a few years back, so while I was working on it, I did yours too.”

“Magyar’s Hungarian, right?”

Elias held Lance by the hair, placing his fingers in his dark waves and kissing the top of his head.

“Yes,” he said, and he wrapped his arms about Lance, feeling the strength of his arms and the warmth of his body, kissing his head in affection.

* * *

When Rob opened the door and saw Felix, he said, “We’re not being loud, are we?”

Felix shook his head and walked into the apartment which smelled faintly of weed and Nag Champa and came to the middle of the living room.

I'm gettin' sad alone
Dancing with myself
Greedy go-getter goal
The luxury of stealth
I'm seedy and the whole

“Hey!” Kevin came out of the bedroom, bare chest lightly haired and lightly muscled, his waist wrapped by a towel under his tight belly. “You just come to visit?”

“Yeah. Least I could do after the last time you came and I was occupied. I’ve been occupied a lot lately. So now I’m here.”

“Cool,” Kevin smiled. “I’m hopping in the shower. Have a seat.”

Rob pulled out a baggy and rolling papers and dimmed the room to blacklight

“Have some of this, too.”

Cigarette smoke floated in the apartment along with weed, Felix had consumed half a bottle of Jim Beam. The album was on its last song, and Felix was in the place where shit did not matter,.

Kevin had been in the shower a long time, swilling on gin, puffing on weed while he sang to himself, and thinking about composing some lyrics of his own because he’d stopped doing that a while ago. Kevin wrapped the towel about his waist. He came out of the bathroom, pulling a comb through his wet, cinnamon colored hair after he’d sprayed it with detangler, a little proud of it and the thin beard he was growing.

“Look at you too, shitfaced already,” Kevin said, looking at Rob, long and tall, grasshopper legs splayed open. Felix eyes were half closed.

“As shitfaced as you,” Rob said.

Kevin chuckled, taking a hand through his hair and muttered, “You’re right. You’re right. You’re not wrong.”

“So,” Rob said, looking to Felix, then Kevin, “what are we getting up to tonight?”

It was as if, no matter how high they were, something heavier than the smoke was hanging in the air. The music had died and they were in total silence. Felix stood up and, slowly, he began to unbutton his shirt, and then placed it on the chair.

“I don’t get… What are you…?” Kevin’s words faded. He put his brush down on the little table by the hallway.

Felix pulled down his trousers, and he stood before Rob, underwear red as crime the only thing on his brown body. He pulled them down and then sat back down on the open futon.

Rob, without looking, put his long, veined hand between Felix’s thighs, and Felix turned, tilting Rob’s face, and kissed him for a long while. Rob stood up like one hypnotized, undressing slowly, his jeans making a dull sound as they, with the weight of their belt, fell to the floor, and he pulled off his tee shirt, swiftly, standing there, tall, a little hairy, his penis arching up.

Kevin opened his mouth in mild surprise, and Felix gestured to him. Unwrapping his towel to reveal a cock thick and stiff, sprung up from a cloud of copper hair, Kevin came.