Bird Came Down

“Daddy! Daddy!”

Nathan and Taylor ran down around the porch and down the steps racing into Scott’s arms, and he lifted them up as they shouted.

“My boys,” he kissed them both, and setting them down.

“The boys are getting so big!” Scott enthused. “And Nathan’s going to be the lead in the Easter play. It’s not religious though, because Kim didn’t want them going to Catholic school.”

“What?” Matt said, “is he a bunny?”

“He’s The Bunny,” Scott chuckled. “Taylor is an egg.”

Matt burst out laughing and clapped his hands.

“Kids,” he said, “they fucking change you.”

Scott nodded, though he wasn’t entirely sure how his kids had changed him. They had changed his life. They were the reason he and Matt were having drinks with these clients, the reason he was in a suit and tie or paying for a house where his ex wife lived..

“Alright,” Matt said, “let’s straighten up our ties and look like the bright young things these old fuckers want us to be.”

While Scott and Matt waited at the train station with Jack Cromwell and Arthur Beaman, the older man said, “You guys like what you do?”

“I love it,” Matt said with so much joy Scott wondered if he was joking.

“It’s a good life,” Scott said.

“You’ve got beautiful children and a great wife,” Cromwell told him.

“Yes,” Scott nodded.

“You kids’ll go far in this life,” Arthur Beaman added.

“As long as you want to,” Jack Cromwell said as the train pulled up.

“What’s that, sir?” Matt said.

“As long as you want to,” Jack said. “You could find yourself forty and regret everything you’ve done.”

While Matt was blinking, Jack Cromwell said, “Have a good night, boys.”

Arthur Beamon affectionately shook Scott’s shoulder, and the two older men got onto the train leaving Matt and Scott staring at the ground.

Even though he didn’t really have a home anymore, being away from home gave him that old need. Even though he loved Matt, as soon as those old guys were on the train and their business meeting was done, he’d wanted to contact the guy he’d emailed the night before.

As the sky darkened and the green ears of corn on either side of him darkened while he sped down the country road with the boy in his car, he remembered what Matt had said to him after Larry and Jack had left on the train.

“You in a hurry? I saw you check your phone.”

“I’m gonna meet somebody before I head out. About something.”

“That’s vague.”

“Yeah,” was all Scott said.

“I won’t ask then. Do you have to go back tonight?”

“I…” Scott thought on this then said, “I got someone back there.”

“Guy or girl.”

Scott looked at him.

“A guy,” Matt said.

“He’s awesome, and I want to sleep next to him tonight.”

“You were always better at being yourself than I was,” Matt said.

“Not that much better,” Scott said as they walked off of the platform, “or else I wouldn’t be in this situation.”

Suddenly Matt said: “You love those kids?”

“Of course I do.”

Matt nodded as they went to Scott’s car, “Then before you meet whoever you have to meet, we need to go over some shit so you can have your kids near you and sue the shit out of that bitch.”

Before it was liquor that Scott couldn’t get enough of, but the first time he’d had sex with another man, it was like a drug for him as well. When he’d started he couldn’t stop. He spent nights online and on the phone looking for the next fix, the next fuck. It happened in benders and no sooner had Scott left the train station and Matt, then he’d gotten a message from this hot thing with the almost beard riding beside him.

“Right here, good?” Scott asked.

“Yeah,” the kid said dumbly. He had the look of someone who needed a fix and didn’t want to look at his supplier. Scott shrugged and they got out of the car, pushing through the cornstalks. He was already ramrod hard and the kid had a nice ass. He grabbed it. Against a fence in the midst of the field, the boy turned around got on his knees and pulled at Scott’s trousers. Scott threw his blazer on the ground. It got stuck on the stalks as the boy inhaled his cock.

“That’s it. That’s it,” Scott said. “That’s just right. Fuck.” Scott closed his eyes.

None of it mattered now. Kim and the kids didn’t matter. The car by the road didn’t matter, just this kid’s tight hot mouth on his cock, just his tongue licking up and down his shaft, just his hands on his ass. He was so hungry.

“Fuck me,” the kid commanded, thickly.

He stood up and Scott turned him around to grip the fence. Scott spat on his hand and rubbed his dick and then they both groaned as Scott entered him.

“Aahh,” the kid’s voice grew louder as Scott pushed deeper into him.

“Yeah,” Scott panted. Above them the sky was going darker with rain clouds, and Scott began to fuck him gently.

“That’s it,” the kid said. “Hit it. Hit it.”

That was it. It felt so good. So basic, so… tender. There wasn’t anything more tender than this. He’d be home tonight, in Felix’s arms, and one day they’d have this. All the things they wanted to do in the dark that he had to do right here, all the tenderness and love he felt for him. How he wanted to give this to him.

“You know,” Scott said in a shallow voice while he fucked him, “You’re a really nice guy. You got some really pretty—”

Scott was disconcerted as the kid pulled away from him, unscrewing himself and his pants down, he looked at Scott in anger.

“What did I say?” Scott demanded. “You’re a really beautiful—”

And then the kid punched Scott in the face and while Scott groaned and tried to pull himself into this pants, the kid kicked him in the gut. Scott heard the sounds of jangling and realized, blinking, the kid had stolen his keys.

With the mind of a business man, Scott remembered his blazer and moved through the cornfield, beating back the cornstalks that threw themselves in his face. But they got in the way of the kid too, and just as he was coming to the car and out of the fields, Scott tackled him and began to beat the shit out of him.

“Stop!” the boy wailed. “Stop.”

Scott stopped and the boy looked at him.

“What are you…?” the boy caught his breath. “What are you going to do to me?”

Scott looked equally winded and like he couldn’t decide either. And then, suddenly he pushed the boy’s legs in, bending him like an accordion, and while the boy’s eyes went blank with fear, Scott began to fuck him.

This time while the boy cried out, his voice broken like a sob, the more he screamed, the harder Scott fucked him. This wasn’t like being with Felix at all. This wasn’t like how he wanted to be with Matt all those years ago. This was sex. Sex was violent. When Kim had poked holes in condoms, gotten him drunk, screwed him and then trapped him into marriage it was just—

“Oh… God—”

AS

“Please—”

VIOLENT

“Fuuucccccck!”

AS

They both shouted as Scott lost balance and came inside of the kid.

THIS.

Scott stopped for a moment, waiting for his balance to return, caught in the triumph of sex. This was the most triumphant, the least confused he’d ever felt with another person. And then he realized that the last time he’d forgotten himself with this boy, he’d nearly lost his car, so he climbed off of him, and while the kid was still accordioned on the ground. Scott staggered to his car and climbed in.

As he put the key in the ignition the kid shouted, unfolding himself painfully from the dirt.

“What are you doing!”

Scott waited for the boy to stagger to the car, and when he hung from the side of the door and demanded, “Town’s thirty miles away. What the fuck are you doing?” Scott looked at him impassively and said, “Leaving you here.”

He turned the key, and the ignition growled, and then the car sped down the road. The boy chased it for only about ten paces before collapsing in the road, and when Scott turned on the radio he heard Korn roar:

I'm coming undone

One looks so strong

So delicate

Wait

I'm starting to suffocate

And soon I anticipate

I'm coming undone

One looks so strong

So delicate!

“What the fuck!”Felix cried when he opened the door.

“Whaddo you mean?”

“Have you seen you face?”

“No,” Scott shook his head.

“What happened?”

“I got into a little trouble,” Scott said. “And no, I don’t want to talk about it.”

When Felix just stood there, he said, “Can I come in?”

“Oh!” Felix remembered himself, and he pulled Scott in saying, “Let me get a cold cloth. I don’t keep ice in the house, but I’ve got a half frozen jug of water. Just let me… Get that.”

Felix was headed to the kitchen when he turned around and said, “Does it hurt?”

“Not really,” Scott said. “I’m just… I’m glad to be home—I mean, here.”

Felix opened his mouth, then he nodded and went to the kitchen.

While Felix was handing Scott the cold cloth, Scott said, “Your head’s covered in soap.”

“Ah, that’s right. I was shaving my head. I do it every four days. I need to get back to it. Can you mind yourself?”

Scott, cloth pressed to his face, nodded.

Felix went into the little bathroom, turned on the hot water and began to wet his hair again and then, turning it off, took the razor to it. A few moments later he said, “Scott, I feel you breathing on my head.”

“You do that every four days?”

“Alopecia runs in the family and a few years ago,” Felix explained, running the razor down his scalp, carefully, “a patch disappeared from the back of my head. It came back, but now and again little patches would disappear. And then, this year, three patches just fell out and I was like… fuck it. I can’t deal with that shit anymore. So… And maybe it will come back, and maybe it won’t, but…”

“I like it,” Scott shrugged. He put his hand out.

“What?”

“I’ll finish it for you.”

Felix looked at him.

“I promise not to cut you up.”

“It’s not that,” Felix said. Then he handed the razor over, and Scott dipped it in the water, then began to shave his head.

“It makes life a lot easier,” Felix said.

Then he said, “You know when you said it’s good to be home?”

“I didn’t mean it,” Scott said. “I mean back in town is home, not like, this is my home. It’s your home and—”

“I’m glad you’re home, too.”

Scott smiled.

“Did you get my message?”

“Which one?”

“I think I said something to the effect of I love you.”

“Yes,” Scott said. “Yes, I got that.”

“And I think you said—”

“That I love you.”

Scott dipped the razor in the water and finished shaving. Felix took the bottle of alcohol from the sink, and with a bit of toilet paper, began to dab it all over his head.

“A minimum of blood,” he smiled, satisfied, looking at the wet paper.

Felix put the cold cloth on his head and then he said, “Would you go into that cupboard and hand me the Vaseline?”

Scott nodded, and then he crossed the small space to lean into the hallway, reach for the Vaseline, and hand it to Felix. Felix took a small dab and began to rub it into his hands and then over his head.

“Felix?”

“Yes?”

“You know what I would like you to do?”

“Huh?”

Scott handed him the razor.

“No!” Felix shook his head. “I love your hair! It’s great hair.”

“I never had it like this until Jen. Cut it off, for me. I look like a tool.”

Then Scott, with his black eye laughed, “We can look like twins.”

“You’re going to look like something from a concentration camp. Go in the kitchen, and I’ll get the scissors and do it. If you’re serious.”

Scott nodded and left the bathroom, and Felix turned out the light heading after him.

Scott sat in the chair, and Felix wetted his hair and then, hesitating at first, he lifted a wet lock of Scott’s hair and cut it.

“And now the rest,” Scott directed.

Felix obeyed, and heard his sheers cut through Scott’s hair.

“Are you going to tell me what happened in Michigan?” Felix asked him.

“No,” Scott replied as the sheers cut the last of the hair they could cut, and Felix reached for the clippers.

“But if you ask nicely,” Scott said, “I’ll tell you a lie.”

Felix did not answer as he snapped on the clippers and they whirred over Scott’s scalp, as he pulled back Scott’s ears and shaved behind them. This was quick work. He said, “We’re done now, my sometimes glum friend.”

It was after he had washed Scott’s hair and Scott had swept himself off the floor, holding one of his fuzzy brown locks in his hand and thinking, “It looked better on my head,” that Felix finally spoke.

“I think this time I do not want a lie. This time I think I want truth.”

They sat on the futon together and it made a mild squeak beneath them.

“We’re so fucked,” Scott said, at last. “Or I’m so fucked.”

“You’re getting divorced and I’m looking for work that isn’t there yet, so… True,” Felix said in a tone which seemed not to greatly care that this was true.

Scott turned to him, his smile looking very wolfish.

“I want you so bad,” Scott said. “I am a bad man who wants you bad. Right now. That’s the truth.”

Felix pulled Scott to him, held Scott’s head to his. In the year they had known each other before, close, laughing together, feeling affection, they never touched. But now they touched all the time and he could feel Scott, taller, broader than him, longer, crying in his arms. Suddenly Scott looked up at him and kissed him on the mouth. He did it again, and it felt right to have Scott’s mouth on his, to press himself into Scott and Scott to press into him. They held on greedily to each other’s faces, and ran their hands over their shaven heads, Felix feeling the softness of Scott’s shorn hair. They looked at each other, blinking, and Scott bit his lips, looking grim, and then he pushed Felix gently down and lay on top of him kissing him. Without words, he began unbuttoning Felix’s shirt and Felix began to pull up Scott’s. The two of them clung together. Felix scrambled from the sofa, going down on his knees to unwork Scott’s belt and Scott said, “Do we need to take the bed out?”

“Yes,” Felix said, signaling for Scott to stand up, and when Scott did, Felix unbuckled his trousers and pulled them down.