They fought about it a little bit, but in the end, despite Dylan loudly insisting they were guests, Sheridan and Brendan stayed to clean as it went darker outside, and in the end, Brendan said, “See, wasn’t that a lot quicker, and as he wiped his hands off satisfied, they had to admit that it was and there was no getting away from the fact that, no matter how old they became, Brendan was always the oldest, and he would always have his way.
“Make sure you call when you get home, though,” Elias demanded, and a look past between him and Brendan, acknowledgment. Elias was the youngest, but he and Brendan were the same. He would always have his way too.
Later, after he had put coffee on, Elias stood at the doorway into the living room watching them. Dylan and Lance on the sofa. He looked to Lance, tree tall, long limbed and then to Dylan, only a little taller than the spare Elias, but well muscled, his hair shaved low along his head. The two of them were busy in thoughtful conversation and he wondered, “What if I wasn’t here?” What if I hade never come along?”
He did not believe, though he tried to tell himself he did, that they would be together if he were not with them too. He knew better. They might not even be peacefully in the same room if not for him. Elias, like Dylan, was a second generation homo. He had grown up the only gay child out of the three children of a gay couple. He understood men very well.
Unlike professional east Coast and West Coast homos, his fathers were very Catholic, and very bland, and his redheaded, long nosed all American dad, Paul was full of prim thou shalts and thou shalt nots. Paul was an actor on the stage and on television, and was now hosting a game show, out and proud. He loved his father, but years ago the older man had been called into the spotlight for his past in porn. So, yes, Elias’s father had a long history, and one Elias didn’t care to look at, in adult film, escorting and, to some degree, sexual addiction. He also knew that when he was around eight or so, his father had been in an affair with another adult film star, a friend of the family. And Elias knew that his dark haired father, his biological one who felt like a mother, had retaliated by engaging in a series of affairs. Elias was a twin. His brother Bennett had the same mother as himself. Bennett, redheaded and long nosed and clearly an Anderson, perceived nothing and Matthew, who may have been the smartest of them all, was too young to understand what had been happening. Elias had born those whispered fights, door slammings, weepings, sneakings away to therapy, alone. In time his parents had come back together. They never talked about the past.
Like many boys who were small for their age, and who would end up queer, Elias was “strong.” He had to be. And people applauded this. The whole family commented on this. The only person who seemed not to be fooled was Dylan’s adoptive father, Fenn.
“No twelve year old should be that strong,” he cautioned Paul. “And smart. He’s smart. You don’t think he knows about what’s happened with you and Noah? When you and Kirk were split? And who will he share it with?”
“We’re a private family, Fenn,” Paul said simply.
“Your shame,” Fenn said, “should not effect your son’s happiness.”
There had been quiet for a while and then Fenn said, “Why don’t you let him stay over here one night when Dylan is here? Dylan could use a friend.”
“Dylan has friends.”
“Yes,” Fenn allowed. “That Lance. But… there’s something off about him. I think they’re too close.”
“You think Lance is his boyfriend?”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Fenn brushed that aside. “But Dylan has too many secrets. He’s too quiet. He love me but there are things he won’t say.”
“You think he’ll tell them to Eli? And Eli will tell them to me? And then I can…”
“No, no,” Fenn brushed that aside. “I’m not that devious. But I think Dylan needs to tell them to somebody. I think those boys are alike.”
Back then, Elias was not sure why he was so thrilled at hearing this, or knowing that he would be spending time with Dylan. Dylan was fourteen at the time, and he quickly took Elias under his wing. He didn’t tell him anything, but Elias opened up to him. He had never had a big brother. He had never been able to rely on anyone, and soon he was with Dylan and with Lance, who was fifteen. His parents were poor and Lance grew so quickly that his uniform pants ended over his ankles. He had a big forehead and there was a weird awkward grace to how he walked. He was terrible at basketball, but the boys kept trying to recruit him for the team. He wore glasses, and one day Tyler Ovington hit him in the face and broke them with a basketball, Elias knew it was on purpose.
Lance left the schoolyard and went down the road, and Elias saw Dylan following him, and then he sneaked out of the yard to follow them. In a corner, his legs sprawled out like a grasshopper, he saw Lance Bishop sobbing in Dylan’s arms. At first Elias was afraid to follow, but he joined them, hanging at the corner
“They just think I’m a faggot!” he wept. “That’s what they call me! That’s why he did it.”
Now Elias came to them. As if he were a mother and not a twelve year old, Elias removed Lance’s hands and winced.
“You need to get that treated and stop worrying about what people call you.”
Dylan turned to Elias and smiled.
“He’s right you know,” Dylan said. “It’s alright to cry cause it hurts, but don’t cry cause someone called you what you are.”
“I’m not a fag—”
“You are,” Dylan said. “We are.”
And Elias knew that he was too.
“What’s the problem?” Fenn demanded after they had told him the story. He was preparing dinner. He looked at Lance.
` “You’re six foot three. You’re at least one seventy.”
“I’m one sixty.”
“Fucking scarecrow,” Fenn marveled. He said, “Changes nothing. Go kick his ass. Dylan, you go help him.”
It was not at the time common knowledge that once upon a time, Fenn had sent his godsons, Chay and Sheridan, to rough up some kids who had been bullying Dylan and his stepsister, Maia. It was well known that once Fenn had come to school and, when a little boy had destroyed Dylan’s science fair project, had retaliated by setting the little boy’s project on fire. Liberal Democrat that he was, Fenn believed there was a roll for moderate violence in childhood. He did not know then how good two strong, emerging queers in the Midwest would feel burning off steam. He did not know that in a year Dylan and Lance would bash in someone’s car, or that they would hurt each other, or else he might not have been so cavalier about sending them out to Tyler Ovington. But the next day, Lance, face still purple, put on his spare glasses and, followed by Dylan, found Tyler after school and kicked the shit out of him by his locker. They had told Elias to stay out of sight and as Elias watched his two gentle friends grimly kick a boy in the stomach and then leave him gasping on the ground, he felt sick. When they turned to him he was afraid, and so he ran away. Lance made to run after Elias, to apologize, to say that wasn’t the real him, and he could tell Dylan wanted to do the same. They must have, but no one could remember for sure what had happened afterward. The look of terror and revulsion in Elias’s face had been too much. None of them ever spoke of the event again. Elias, Lance and Dylan decided without speaking, would have to be protected from the more fiery demons of their nature.
There was never a time when Dylan or Lance told Elias that the two of them were lovers. Elias just sort of understood it. And then there was the year when Dylan had come completely wild and suddenly he and Lance were no longer in each other’s lives. Lance had set out to make himself rugged, and he was dating a girl, and Elias’s parents wanted him to go to the public high school, so Lance was gone from his life now. Dylan was seeing Ruthven and being grounded and Dad implied that maybe Dylan wasn’t the best person to be around and so, suddenly and sadly, Elias lost his two friends.
Paul was old friends with Fenn and his spouse Todd, and that was one of the bonds that held the families together. But Paul’s sister was married to Fenn’s nephew, and that was another bond. Elias’s younger cousins were mixed, and one night the two families were eating and Fenn said to Elias, “It’s been a long time since you’ve stayed here like you used to.”
Elias said, “You’d have to take that up with Dad.”
“He’s got high school now,” Paul said.
“He goes to school at Rossford Public,” Fenn returned pleasantly, “not the moon. Surely in a town with less than twenty-two thousand people there’s no reason old friends shouldn’t see each other.”
“Well, you know,” Paul shrugged. Dylan was staying with his father that night, “things aren’t always stable here. And Dylan’s been having problems.”
There was silence. Todd’s fork clattered against his plate. Fenn looked at his plate.
“I hope,” Fenn began, in a measured voice, his knife point planted in the surface of the table, “you are not implying that your children and the people in your house are too good for mine?”
“Certainly—“ Paul began.
“Espccially,” Fenn continued, voice still gentle “when you consider that once upon a time—”
Fenn stopped himself, clearing his throat.
“Todd, pass the bread.”
He did not look at Paul, but Paul sat still, staring at him, and then finally Paul cleared his throat and pushed the butter toward Fenn. They went on eating, neither talking to the other.
“I didn’t mean it,” Paul said, later on when Todd has led everyone else out so it was just the two of them, washing dishes side by side in the kitchen.
Fenn rinsed a plate and handed it to Paul to dry.
“Look,” Paul said, “I know that a long time ago one of the unstable troubled people living in this house was me. I know that, alright. And I have every confidence in you. I… you are my best friend.”
“I worry about Dylan too,” was all Fenn said. “But he’s my son. And Elias is his friend. And… I think Elias is lonely too.”
“I know he is,” Paul said in a small voice while he lined up the glasses Fenn was handing him, and then began to dry the forks.
“Let’s not fight,” Paul said. “Alright.”
“You’re right,” Fenn said. “You’re right.”
END OF CHAPTER
