The Houses in Rossford

TODD LOOKED AROUND the large door as if he expected a cop to be hiding inside of the foyer. But Fenn simply walked in.

“Goddamn,” he muttered.

The leftovers of the party were still there. A wide screen TV played a porno. Over and over again someone was being fucked in the ass, and under that was a litter of clothing, cups, and what Fenn thought was a bong.

“You do know the police will come back pretty soon,” Fenn said. “I mean, they’ve got too. Nothing’s cleaned up.

“Well, then let’s find Noah,” Todd was already in the living room, his foot poised on the stair.

Paul danced ahead of him. “He’s in the bedroom you all had. He was there with one of the Chicago Friends.”

“The one we saw today?”

“No,” said Paul, hopping up and down on one foot like he had to pee as he waited for Fenn and Todd to come up the steps. 

“No,” Paul repeated, leading them down the large hall. “That’s the one I think turned Guy into the police. I don’t know all what went on there, though. I think Guy might of cheated him, or he thought he was cheated.”

Paul entered the room Fenn and Todd remembered, and then he went into the closet and was gone along time. Briefly Fenn remembered Narnia. Then Paul was tugging Noah out whispering:

“Oh, Noah! Noah, be all right.”

Noah was passed out on the floor, twitching a little. and Todd got down on the floor beside him and murmured, “It’s alright, Noah. We’re gonna go now, all right?”

Todd clapped his hands and pleaded: “Open your eyes, Noah. Co’mon! Noah.”

“We need to call the hospital,” Fenn said. “We need to call the hospital, and drag his ass out of this house.”

“You got a cellphone?” Paul turned to Todd.

Todd shook his head, and Fenn said, “I don’t believe in cell phones. Let me check this bag here. Hell, maybe it’s got medicine. It looks like a doctor’s—”

“What?” Paul said.

Fenn had stopped in the middle of talking, opening up the large black, doctor’s bag.

“Oh…” he murmured, “shit.”

Todd moved away from Noah and looking into the bag, gasped.

“What is it?”

Fenn reached his hand out and pulled up a stack of bills.

“That’s got to be…” Paul began.

“Ten thousand dollars,” Fenn finished. “I was always good at practical math. Now,” he continued, trance like, “Paul, go find a phone while I collect some of this.”

“You can’t take that,” Todd began as Paul left the room.

“One, two, three, four,” Fenn stuffed his pockets, methodically. “That’s for the house.”

“Fenn Houghton.”

“Five,” he stuffed his breast pocket. “And these three more should cover the theatre.”

“Fenn,” Todd said, snatching the bills out of Fenn Houghton’s hands.

“You can’t do that.”

Fenn snapped to. He shook his head. “You’re right. Of course, you’re right.”

He took the bill stacks out of his pockets, and put them back into the leather bag, and then said, hefting it: “This is much more sensible. If you’re going to do something,” he lugged the bag in both hands, “Do it all the goddamn way!”

“Fenn!” Todd said.

“Look,” Fenn said, sharply. “You can be the Boy Scout and say No, No, No. But that’s only because you know I’m gonna keep saying Yes, Yes, Yes. Now you know me. I can’t turn away from this. I can’t have this fall in my hands and walk away from it. So either help. Or get the fuck out of the way. Lover.”

Todd opened his mouth, shut it, and then helped Fenn lift the bag. Paul was running back in.

“The ambulance will be here in a moment,” he said.

“All right,” said Fenn. “First thing’s first. You two carry Noah, and I’ll go ahead with this.”

Fenn marched ahead of them, heading down the steps, imagining the blue-white and red of ambulance sirens, or the return of the police and determined to be ahead of them.

“Fenn!” Todd shouted after him. “Aren’t you even a little terrified.”

Fenn set the bag down. Kissed the crucifix around his neck and the then crossed himself before grinning idiotically.

“Terrified,” he said, and continued lugging the bag down the stairs.

“So I was hired to tape this party,” Todd said, and that was true enough, “and I was coming back with my partner and—”

“This is your partner?” the police officer, who had arrived after the ambulance said, pointing to Paul.

“Yes,” Paul said, at the prompting of Fenn, who was behind the officer. “We came, and that’s when we found our friend Noah at the door. Mr. Houghton pointed him out to us.”

“A friend,” Fenn said. The less important they were the less it mattered that they were lying.

The ambulance was already going away with Noah, and Fenn said, “I’ll follow it. Where’s it going?”

“Good Samaritan Hospital.”

“Meet me there. Or can they come with me, officer?”

“Uh,” the policeman said, absently. “I guess. You all can’t tell us anything more. Thanks for being good citizens.”

Paul and Todd nodded dumbly, and Fenn was already at the Land Rover.

“Time to get the fuck out of here,” he said, crawling into the back and hovering over the bag.

“Follow that ambulance,” Paul sang in a slightly weary voice.

The Land Rover jumped with the pull of the stick shift and Todd, turning the car around, said, “You can’t seriously be thinking of keeping that money.”

“I’m more than seriously thinking about it,” Fenn said. “But the point is we couldn’t even think about it if we’d just left it in the house. Or all we could do was think about it. Think about… If only we’d taken the money. If only…”

“That’s called imagination, Fenn,” Todd said. “That’s what people all over the world do to stay out of jail. If only I’d killed my mother-in-law. If only I’d slapped that cop. If only I’d bombed my high school class reunion. We imagine. We don’t act.”

“And that’s why people have nothing,” Fenn said. Fenn reached into the bag and handed two stacks of bills to Paul. “And now you have twenty thousand dollars.”

“Fuck…” Paul murmured.

“And see,” Fenn said. “If I reach into this bag then… Here! You have ten thousand more.”

“Fenn—”

“But you have to act,” Fenn continued over Todd. “If you don’t act, then you ain’t got shit.

“Now,” Fenn began from the backseat. “We have to decide if we want to keep all of this, or if we only want about half. Half sounded right to begin with, but really I think I was just being skittish. If you’re going to take. Take.”

“Take?” Todd said. “You mean steal.”

“Steal from who? A drug lord?”

“That’s right!” Todd said. “A drug lord. Probably. We don’t even know whose money it is. A drug lord might come after us.”

“A drug lord, whatever that is,” Fenn said, “might somehow believe that his bag of money he brought to a pornographer’s house to get drugs or for drugs he’d given along with, probably a little sex and a little porn, was taken by Fenn Houghton and Todd Meraden?”

“And me?” Paul added.

“And Paul Anderson, of East Carmel, Indiana? He’d think that, Todd? Instead of thinking the police took it along with everything else, and the money went back to the government? And you think it was the only money taken?”

“You’re right, Fenn,” Paul said. “It wasn’t. This was the money you found. But they found other stuff. Not as much as in your bag—”

“It’s not his bag!” Todd cried.

“But, baby,” Fenn leaned over the seat to kiss his irritated lover, “it’s not anybody else’s either. When a major drug bust goes down the money is pretty much up for grabs. That’s where dirty cops come from.”

“And you think…” Todd said, shaking his head as they turned into the hospital behind the whirring ambulance, “that we can just… take this money and not…”

“What?” said Fenn. “Be punished. Be punished by God who is some white man in the sky that says good little boys turn in bags of money to the cops. Hell no!

“Todd, haven’t you read the Bible? Abraham passed off Sarah as his sister to get into Egypt without being punished. God was cool with it. Jacob lied to his own daddy to get Esau’s blessing and later on Joseph fucked his brothers over just because they deserved it. ”

Todd stopped the car and turned around on Fenn.

“You’re saying… this is a sign from God? This is a gift from God. You get on your knees and pray for enough money to pay your rent and God sends you a job. That’s a sign from God. God does not drop bagfuls of drug money.”

“Apparently he does,” Fenn said, hoisting the back. “Because apparently he did. What I’m saying is you think the universe works because some stingy hardworking God tells you keep your nose to the grindstone and I’ll give you just enough to squeak by whereas I believe in luck. And I believe in lots and lots of good and not just crumbs and I believe if you reach out your hand to take, good things will be there. And, I am sure,” Fenn laughed, running his hands over the stacks of bills, “That God is one beautiful, crooked ass motherfucker, and he has given us this money to do with as we please!”

“You’ll be all right. Noah. You’ll be all right.”

“Won’t he, doctor?” Paul looked up.

The doctor was an aging man with a paunch, and gray hair at his temples.

“He’ll be just fine,” he told Paul. “But we need to get him hydrated. I’d recommend he stay the night.”

Paul nodded.

He almost laughed thinking that the last doctor he’d seen was Doctor Stiffrod in Johnny’s Deep Check Up, and he hadn’t looked anything like this old man. He’d been dark haired and deep chested like Brad Carlton from Young in the Restless, in the old days when he’d been eye candy instead of a middle aged business man. Guy had been directing this movie. This was how he’d met Guy, and he said, “We want to keep this as real as possible. Age the doctor up a little bit.”

The doctor, who was wearing a thong under his white coat with the stethoscope hanging around it had submitted to having his temples artfully silvered.

“Just a touch of daddy bear,” Guy had said.

“Not too much daddy bear,” Brad Carlton told him. They all chuckled.

“Rehhh—”

Paul bent down. Noah was opening his mouth to say something. He looked like a baby bird.

“Rehhh—”

“Noah,” Paul said.

Noah blinked. He croaked.

“Here,” Paul reached for the cup of water on the table. “Drink this.”

Noah nodded, and the water ran down his chin as he tried to drink.

“You remember Todd and his… Fenn? Well, they were coming after the cops had left, and they helped me bring you here. They’re in the waiting room.”

Noah nodded for a long time before he croaked:

“Johnny.”

“Yeah?”

“What happened…? To everyone?”

“Arrested,” Paul said. “We were the lucky ones.”

Fenn came into the room now, and propped himself against the frame. Todd entered now, standing beside him.

“What do we do now?” Noah said.

Paul looked up at Fenn and Todd.

“Noah had come out here for a few weeks to do movies for Guy. But Guy probably won’t be making movies anytime soon.”

“Not on Monday he won’t be,” Fenn said.

“And whaddo I do?” said Paul. “I was working there. I was staying there.

“Well, you’ll just have to stay with us,” Fenn said.

Todd looked at him, surprised, and then said, “Well, that would make sense. If you wanted to.”

“Where else is he going to go?” said Fenn. “Especially at this time of night.”

“What about Noah?” said Paul.

“Tonight Noah is in the hospital,” Todd took over the thinking. “And tomorrow we can worry about tomorrow.”

“But,” Fenn said, looking at Paul and Todd, “We’re not going to leave him all homeless and shit.”