If I Should Fall: The Second Book of Geshichte Falls

RENAISSANCE

CONCLUSION

Thom Lewis didn’t go into work that day. His wife thought he did and for some reason Thom let her, but he had gone to his sister Jaclyn’s.

“Did you ever know Dad?” he asked.

“How could I?” Jackie said. “Wasn’t I about five when he left?”

Thom nodded. “Finn wasn’t born yet. Plus, it was kinda Mom who left. Dad had been leaving a lot. He was gone all the time and I guess one day Mom just wasn’t there. She was here. She was through.”

Jackie nodded, grimaced and said, “Thomas, you’ve been my brother for, what? Thirty years? And you’ve never ever mentioned our Father, let alone referred to him as Dad.”

“I had a dream about him last night,” Thom said. “You and Finn just know you had a father and that he was a creep. You all don’t know him. Me and Kristin knew him. As well as you could know him. And I dreamed about when you were real little and he’d gone away for a few days, and he came back to the house and he and Kristin were fighting  calling each other all...”

Thom seemed to loose track of his thoughts. When he spoke again his voice was softer.

“All kinds of names. It was ugly, Jackie. And I forgot all about it. And I woke up just shaking and I was embarrassed.”

“To be afraid?”

Thom shook his head.

“Of what I did. That night Mom told me to take you into the room that we shared. It was like a closet—”

“You used to call it the Wardrobe,” Jackie remembered fondly. “You used to tell me all sorts of stories and sing to me. You used to sing. I don’t think of that a lot, but when I think of West Virginia, that’s what I think about, you singing to me. It makes me smile.”

“Well, childhood’s funny like that,” Thom said.

“I was trying to make things better for you. I remember taking you into the room and being afraid that Dad was going to beat up Mom or Kristin, but the thing that embarrasses me is that I was too afraid to come out and fight him.”

“Thom, you were twelve.”

“Still,” Thom dismissed this, reached for his cigarettes and then stopped.

Jackie grew serious and she said, “I never really thought about what it was like for you and Kristin. Our Father was never a part of my life.”

“Well, I think he’s going to be.”

Jackie looked at her brother, waiting further explanation.

“Jackie, I think he’s back here. I think he’s in Geschichte Falls.”

 

Jackie entered, announcing, in a bad Cuban accent, “Lucy, I’m—” before taking in the sight of Patti and Russell in the living room, sitting with a strange old man. She felt the hairs on her neck rising.

Thom came in behind her, closed the door and looked immediately concerned. He and Jackie walked fully into the living room and Thom stared at the man, his face hard, as if he were trying to figure out what to ask or who he was.

“Tommy,” said R.L. “And you must be Jaclyn?”

Jaclyn cocked her head as if to say, “But who must you be?”

The man got up, walked past Patti to Thom.

Patti spoke softly, “Thom, it’s your father.”

“I know,” Thom said s, “who it is.”

“Tommy,” R.L. started.

Thom said, very quietly, precisely. “Get the fuck out of my house.”

“Tommy—”

“GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY HOUSE.”

Jackie put a hand on her brother’s arm and felt it trembling. Embarrassed for Thom’s pain, Russell turned away.

R.L. looked at Thom a little longer and then said to Patti, “I should have expected that. Ma’am, thank you—”

“What,” Thom cut him off, pushed his hands into the old man’s chest, pushed him toward the door, “Don’t you understand—? ”

“Thom,” Jaclyn said before Patti could.

“About Get The Fuck Out! Get out!”

Russell sat back and saw his father, in black slacks and white shirt and red tie, hair well groomed, nearly out of control, physically forcing an old man out the front door and bawling in his face. It terrified him. Suddenly, he couldn’t stop looking at him.

R.L. got out. Everyone wanted to run to Thom, but everyone was afraid of him as he stood there at the door, no longer looking angry, but forlorn, as if he was afraid of the monster that had just entered him.

They all waited for Thom to say something. When he finally spoke it was to Jackie.

“He didn’t even know you. How do ya like that? You’ve got a personality so big the Pope even knows you, but he didn’t.”

Thom finally succeeded in taking his cigarettes out. There were, he noted dismally, very few in the pack.

“I need to walk,” he said.

Then Thom headed out of the same door he’d just thrown his father from.

 

When the phone rang, Russell picked it up immediately.

“Hello.”

“Russ.”

“Ralph?”

“Yeah, what are you doing?”

“Nothing, I guess.”

“Wanna get a bite? My treat.”

“Alright.”

He had thought coming home would make the night before normal, but nothing was normal.

Maybe a burger would ground him.

Ground beef ground him.

He would keep that joke to himself.

On the other end of the line Ralph said, “I’ll be there in about twenty.”

 

When Ralph got to the house he was in shorts and a tee shirt. He’d bothered to comb his off blond hair, shaven to the sides and parted in the middle as usual. Ralph was always a little vain about the wings he let fall in his face. He and Russell were about the same height. Russell would get taller. But Ralph’s calves and shoulders were wider, and when he was trying to be exciting, he looked bigger. And tonight he was trying for some reason. He looked eager to please, a little like a dog, and a little distressed and Russell was worried. He thought, and felt guilty for the thought, I wish you had something good to tell me. Something wise. If you were Gilead you would. I bet it’s something weird. I can’t take anymore weirdness.

They got in the car and drove to the Noble Red.

 

Whatever Ralph had to say, they were through a second Coca Cola and half a basket of fries before Russell reminded him, “You’ve got something to tell me.”

Ralph looked a little startled.

:”You’re acting weird,. You’ve got something to say. Just say it. It’s been a long day.”

Ralph looked concerned. “Russ, what happened?”

“My grandfather—my father’s father—”

“I’ve never heard about him.”

“Well, neither have I. Not really.”

Russell reached into his pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. “He left my family when my dad was twelve and they all lived in West Virginia.”

“You all are from West Virginia?”

“My Dad’s family. Now could I get on with the story?”

“Alright, already.”

“Anyway, this old guy pops up at the door, and it turns out he’s my grandfather.”

“That’s so,” Ralph started, then shook his head and said, “fucked up.”

“Yeah, a little bit,” Russell agreed, turning his head to exhale a jet of smoke. “And now what did you have to tell me?”

“I had sex with Cody.”

Russell nearly gagged on the smoke. He tried to look sophisticated.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Ralph said quietly, playing with the rim of the fry basket. “I haven’t told anyone yet. I want to tell Jason, but I haven’t. I didn’t really want to tell anyone, but… I thought that if I didn’t tell you it would be like... keeping secrets. You know?”

Russell nodded, feeling suddenly very tired and sullen. He wanted to go home now. He wanted to turn out the lights on the world. Why did Ralph have to say this in the Noble Red, he wondered looking up at the high, raftered ceilings? Brad and his band would be playing in an hour. Russell thought how the Noble Red had been a haven until now.

“So,” Ralph said after a few seconds.

“Huh?” said Russell.

“How do you feel?”

“Confused as fuck,” Russell said, “cause I don’t understand you. Or Jason. I don’t get what you’re playing at.”

“I’m not playing at anything,” Ralph said, sounding a little angry. “And…. I’m confused too.”

“Should we even be talking in here?”

Ralph looked around sharply, then said, “Nobody’s listening. Not over this shitty band.”

“Explain it to me,” Russell said. “You have to explain stuff, because the world just got too big.”

“Jason kept saying he liked you, and I kept saying I understood, cause, cause I liked you too. And then he came back from India and he was really quiet and he just told me…. That he was gay. And that he’d been with a guy. And that all that teasing he did was because he liked you. Liked you liked you. And please don’t tell anyone, and I said of course I wouldn’t.”

Russell nodded, his body trembling, his head feeling light and weird.

“He kept asking if I could make it so you all just had time to hang out, to know each other. I… It’s not that we thought you were gay. We thought you were… open. Different. I thought, Jason’s great and you are too, and you just need to talk to him for a while and let things happen. Whatever happens.”

“Alright,” Russell whispered, nodding.

“And so, while you and Jason were in Chayne’s house, last night, I started telling Cody about it, and he asked if I was…. That way?”

Russell turned his head to Ralph, frowning while he waited for an answer.

“And… I said,” Ralph was looking at the table and picking at the fry basket, “I didn’t know. I didn’t really know anything. I had a girlfriend but I wasn’t sure. Cody said he wasn’t any kind of way and that he liked the idea of guys and guys, and we should hang out together while you and Jason were hanging out, and we’d give you time to do whatever you all wanted and we could do… whatever we wanted.”

The band played on, the guitar was annoying, the lead singer trying too hard.

“The funny,” Russell said after a time, “is I thought I had more of a bond with Cody… Than you did, I mean.”

Then he said, “Did you like it?”

“I dunno,” Ralph said. Then, “Yes, But I don’t know if I like that I liked it.”

“I don’t know if I like the fact that two people who made my life a hell just decided they were going to be gay, and here I am, still a virgin,” Russell said. “And a confused one at that.”

“Do you like Jason a little bit?” Ralph said, ignoring this. “Or do you want Cody, because—”

“I like Jason a lot bit,” Russell said. “I always did, but I couldn’t know it because when I tried to know it, I just saw the two of you calling me a faggot.”

“Russell, I’m sorry for that,” Ralph said, emphatically. “You’ve got to believe that. It was a fucked up thing. Everything we did was fucked up. Clearly.”

“Are you…. Are you going to see Cody again?”

“I don’t know,” Ralph said, hugging himself a little and looking confused.

“I love Vanessa. I do. For real. She’s my girlfriend. And I can’t ever tell her about what happened last night.”

“But if you… If you liked it,” Russell said. “And if you liked Cody—”

“I don’t like Cody. Not like that. He wanted some fun. He likes you, like in a real way. He said that. We fucked. I fucked him first and then he fucked me. I liked that, but that’s not love.”

Russell’s mind reeled. All day he had been thinking not only of the night before, but of all his meetings with Jason, and the jarring events of the party last school year.

 

“Ralph!” Gilead started.

“Shush!” Ralph warned, “I’m keeping guard.”

“Over?” Gilead said.

“Jason,” Ralph hissed and pointed into the pantry.

Russell heard it before Gilead looked into the darkness. Russell’s eyes adjusted to Jason, in the back of the pantry, his trousers down around his ankles, his white boxers around his knees, fucking some girl, her legs rising to encompass his waist, falling, rising up again as he drove himself steadily into her and she cried out in light pants. Russell could not stop looking. There was fierce concentration and loveliness on Jason’s handsome face, a light trickle of sweat. The girl’s hands were pushing frantically through his black curls. Her pale hands were pulling up his shirt, reaching down to caress his ass. Russell saw his ass.

His dick was hard.

Russell felt himself breathing harder and was embarrassed to realize Ralph was right beside him, watching.

Jason’s grey-green eyes turned to them, while he was fucking, looked fiercely on Russell while the girl moaned, and Russell felt his face heating, his erection shrinking. Where was Gilead?

“Ey, Lewis, you like?” Jason’s voice was cruel as if he had caught Russell and not the other way around. “Watch this, Lewis.”

Jason, put his hand to the girl’s face so that she was turned away from him, and then suddenly he pushed her down into the floor and started jackhammering her so she cried out frantically.

“You like?” Jason hissed. “You like? You like?” And Russell didn’t know who Jason Lorry was talking to. “You like it, Lewis? How’s it feel, Russell Lewis? Take it, Russ! Take it, Russ. Take my cock! Take my fucking cock, Russ! Take it! Take…Oh, God! Jeeeesusss—”

And then he shouted, gasped, and Russell saw Jason’s eyes widen, his face lose control. Russell felt Gilead’s hand tug at his wrist and pull him away. Everything was dizzy to Russell.

 

When Russell had finally gotten home from his night in Barrelon with Gilead and Anigel, he told himself he needed to shower, but all he’d done was pee and then climb into the deep covers of his bed. It was barely spring and cold then, and he’d spent the morning masturbating to the memory of the look on Jason’s face. Every time he’d come in his hands or on his bed sheets, he’d been humiliated that the person who despised him so truly made him come so quickly. But he hadn’t stopped masturbating, and now Jason liked him, had always liked him, wanted Russell to come to him and spend the night in his bed.

Russell’s face was hot and he felt almost sick because the moment Ralph had said he’d fucked Cody, he had wanted to fuck Ralph. He wanted to fuck Cody too. And remembering last year, he knew, he knew, he knew, he wanted Jason Lorry to fuck him before the night was through.

“Jason kissed me.”

Ralph blinked at Russell.

Ralph had looked confused, upset, offended, worried. Now he looked soft.

“Russell, don’t hurt him,” Ralph said.

“What? What are you….?”

“I don’t know if anyone could survive you. You…. People love you. I love you. And you’re kind of a hurricane.”

“I am not. You… You don’t have the right to say that about me,” Russell said.

“I would never hurt… I never could. I would never… not love him.”

“But I think your love is strong,” Ralph said.

“Everything you do is so strong. The way he feels about you…. You’re a lot for a tiny mortal.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Ralph. And… I’ve never been strong.”

Ralph grunted in disbelief.

“You’re a moron, Lewis. Except for maybe Gilead, you’re the strongest person I know.”

    

By the time Ralph had dropped him back home, Russell was lss confused and more decided than he’d been all day. There was the possibility of bed that called to him even as he heard Ralph’s car rumbling down Breckinridge, and yet the night was still alive. The house was not. It was all in darkness. Mom must have gone to bed. Upstairs Dad was working at the computer in his little side office. Russell entered.

Thom continued to type a little, and then he turned around and said, “Russell, if I’ve ever hurt you—no, scratch that. I’m sorry for all the times I hurt you. I want you to know that. I love you.”

“I love you too, Dad,” Russell said.  

Thom said, “I need a cigarette.”

He rattled his empty pack of Reds.

Thoughtlessly, Russell took out his and handed them over, and only when he saw the look on Thom’s face did he realize he’d given away the habit he’d been hiding.

“Well,” Thom looked as if he’d given up on discipline, “you picked the right time to let me know.”

He took out one of Russell’s cigarettes, lit it, inhaled, took out another, put it in the other corner of his mouth, lit it, inhaled until the tip glowed red, and then took it out and, sacramentally, placed it between the lips of his son, handing Russell the rest of the pack.

Thom leaned back in his office chair, stretching full out, his head looking at the ceiling while he watched smoke tendril from his mouth and make greyish patterns on the white plaster. Russell sat on the floor, back against the wall, knees to his chest. Thom pushed over another ashtray for his son.

If I actually think about what we’re doing, I won’t be able to believe it anyway, and as if he’d been doing it a lifetime, Russell smoked in his father’s presence.

“Life doesn’t make any sense,” Russell said.

“No,” Thom agreed.

“The thing is,” Thom said, “you have to make it make sense for you.”

“I might as well tell you I’m probably gay.”

“Well….” Thom exhaled again, “Well…”

“What?”

“I guess I won’t be counting on you for grandchildren.”

“Do you mind if I go out?”

“Tonight?”

“Yes,” said Russell.

“Is it to make the world make sense?”

“Yes.”

Thom nodded, still looking at the ceiling.

“I can accept that.”

---

The night isn't over, but for a while our storytelling is. We'll return in a few days to Michigan, but for now there are other stories to post.