The People in Rossford

Something New

THE NEXT MORNING, Noah shook Claire awake and she sat up.

 “Thank you for coming with me. And, I’m sorry for being a jerk last night.”

 “You weren’t a jerk.”

 “I think I was. I never have to explain anything to anyone. And I was embarrassed the way she just told you everything.”

 “You’re never embarrassed,” Claire said, shaking her head and hugging him. “Nothing embarrasses you.”

 “Nothing after I left this town embarrasses me. Being a little boy who got used under bridges embarrasses me.Giving blowjobs to basketball players and getting my ass beaten behind the school gym embarrasses me. Just…. Thinking about my life in this town makes me sick.”

 “Why did we come back?”

 “I don’t exactly know,” Noah shook his head.

 “But I’m glad you came with me.”

 Clare nodded.She was glad she had come too.

“Milo, the car is dead.”

 “I’ve noticed that.”

 “And it doesn’t matter how many times you start that engine back up,” said Dena, “the car will still be dead.”

 Headed tilted in exasperation from behind a dark bang, Milo Affren looked at her.

 “What we need is a jump start.”

 “How about,” Milo said, sense there was no car on the highway between here and Port Ridge, to jump start them, “I get out and look under the hood, and you… stick your thumb up.”

 Dena was about to say, “We could get killed,” when she realized they’d better do something, and from the sound in Milo’s voice, she’d better damn well stop complaining.

 They both got out of the car, and Milo opened the hood. Dena knew, as she stood on the side of the road, cars roaring by, that Milo believed in the near magical power of sticking your head under the hood. If you stuck your head under the hood and hemmed and hawed and touched things, then the car would start. The truth was, Dena realized, she believed in this power too. A man, especially one near six feet tall, with his head in the hood of a car, was a reassuring thing.

 “Try it now,” Milo said.

 Dena skipped away from the side of the road—she was tired of running out there, people were so mean these days they might actually run you over—and she closed the driver’s door before shouting out, “Move away from the car, baby!”

 Milo obeyed, and Dena started up the car. Who knew what could have happened if Milo had stayed there, looking into the hood? It could have exploded. The car could have lost its bearing and run him over. Anything could have happened with Milo’s head under the hood while she started up the ignition.

 Instead nothing happened. The engine gave a sad, tired growl, and then it rolled over and died was what happened.

 “Try it again,” Milo said, and Dena did not argue because she knew it wasn’t worth it. She started it again. Nothing happened. In fact, she did not even wait for Milo to ask, she started it a third time, and when nothing happened a third time he said, wiping his dirty hands on his dirty jeans: “Well, I guess we better keep on working at this.”

 Dena got out of the car. Without air conditioning she was starting to feel the heat. It had been chilly the last week and everyone had said, “Falls coming, she’s on her way.” No one ever notices we have the same weather every year. Every year a nice little chill before things heat up again. This was the heating up again.

 This time a car did approach as she thumbed up, and she moved out of its decelerating way, and then as the car parked, and Milo said, “Oh, thank God!” Dena said, “Oh… Fuck… ME.”

 She knew that car, and as it stopped and the passenger came out, she knew whom the driver would be. The back of the car was loaded up, and the trunk was up, filled with shit, and the passenger, in some old worn jeans and a snug yellow tee shirt, showing of his shoulders, was Kenny McGrath. The driver…

 “Dena!”

 Was: “Brendan.”

 “God, are we guys glad to see you,” Milo said.

 “What’s going on?” Brendan approached the car.

 What’s going on? A car with the hood up on the side of the road, and you ask what the fuck is going on? How could you? And how could Milo be glad to see them? Well, of course he was, the very fact that Brendan had gone for a five foot eleven boy with curly dark red hair over… well, her, was the reason Milo was with her now. Dena was not glad. If Dena Reardon had fallen into the river Styx and been ass poked by demons when Brendan came riding by on Charon’s raft to offer her safety, she would have chosen the demons. She would have let Cerberus bite off her head.

 “…. Yeah your engine’s out,” Kenny was saying.

 “You guys got jumper cables?”

 “No,” Brendan said, sadly. “We don’t. We could give you a lift back into town, though. We’re on our way to Holy Name.”

 “That would be great, wouldn’t it?” Milo looked at Dena.

 Dena smiled weakly. If there was ever a time to pretend she wasn’t petty, this was it.

MISERABLY, Dena Reardon sat beside Milo, squeezed in the backseat of Brendan Miller’s Ford Taurus.

 “Were not gonna make you guys late, are we? Milo said.

 “No, we started out early,” Kenny said. “And Holy Name isn’t that far off. We’ll get there in plenty of time.”

 “Plus, it’s not like we could have just left you guys on the side of the road,” Brendan said.

 “Where were you all going?”

 “We were looking for the Butter Burger in Palatine.”

 “I saw the commercial last night,” Dena volunteered, “ and thought we should find it.”

 “I’ve seen that commercial,” Kenny said. “How is it?’

 “We don’t know, Kenny,” Dena said, watching the acid content of her voice. “We never made it.”

 “Oh, well, I can take you all back to the Affrens or back to your mom’s house,” Brendan said. “And then I’ll come back later and help you all with your car.”

 “That won’t be necessary,” Dena said. “You’ve got to get Kenny moved in and everything. We’ll manage.”

 “Are you sure?” said Kenny. “You know what we’re going to do?” He turned to Brendan. “We’re going to get some jumper cables, and then get back on the road and start their car. We’re just gonna do that now. I don’t know if my folks have them, though.”

 “My uncle does,” Dena said. “We’ll stop at my uncles.”

The look Fenn gave them when he opened the door made Dena say, “I’ll tell you later.”

 “I’m sure you will.”

 “We need your jumper cables,” said Dena.

 “Is Todd in?

 “Upstairs doing work. He was about to go out; it’s a good thing you made it here. The cables are in the back of the Land Rover.”

 Milo went out to the car, and Dena said, “Me and Milo were on our way to Palatine when the car broke down and then, Brendan showed up. It was… very lucky for us.”

 “Yes,” Fenn said with a merciless smile. “I’m sure it was just what you prayed for.”

 Brendan, returning, looked as if he’d missed some joke and knew it, said, awkwardly, “How are you?”

 “Fine, Brendan. And this…?” Fenn gestured to Kenny.

 “Is my… boyfriend.”

 “Um,” Fenn said.

 “We got the cables,” Milo said.

 “Well, then lets go. Thank you, Fenn,” Dena bowed out. “Tell, Todd—”

 “Tell, Todd what?” said Todd who had come down the steps.

 “Uncle Todd. Todd…”

 “Milo… Brendan...?”

 “Kenny,” Kenny supplied his name.

 Todd nodded.

 “We’re bumming your jumper cables,” Dena said. “We’ll be back.”

 And then they were gone.

 “I’m missing something.”

 “Dena and Milo were on an outing,” Fenn explained, lowering the shade, “when their car broke down and who should rescue them but Brendan and his new man.”

 “Oh… Ugh…! Oh. That’s….” Todd began, rubbing his jaw.

 “Fucked up?”

 Todd decided on an answer.

 “Yeah.” He said, at last. “Yeah.”

She sat in the car while they jumpstarted it. She loved Milo. He had done what he had to do, so she shouldn’t have been upset with him. What was more, she should have been grateful to Brendan and Kenneth. But what she thought was: Brendan, tall Brendan of the long legs and squared shoulders who, only a few weeks ago, yes, it was only a few weeks ago, had been putting his arm around her, had been slipping his arm through hers and kissing her, had been in bed with her, had been sleeping with her—

 “It’s all done, Dena,” Brendan stuck his head through Dena’s window.

 “Yeah, we’re ready to roll,” Milo said, hopping into the driver’s seat. “You guys have a good trip to Saint Anne’s. I hope we didn’t take you too far off your path.”

 “We’ve already crossed that bridge,” Kenny said. “We’ll see you guys later. Later, Dena.”

 “Um hum,” said Dena.

 “I was thinking,” Brendan said, his head still in their window, “since school starts in a couple of days, maybe we can all go out together.”

 “Yeah, that’d be cool,” Milo said at the same time Dena said, “I don’t know.”

 They both looked at her.

 “I do know,” she said then. “No. No, I don’t think so.”

 “I’ll talk to her,” Milo whispered.

 “I’m right here, you idiot,” she said to him.

 “I don’t have to be talked to,” she told Brendan. “We’ve hung out. We spent the whole morning hanging out. Now… let’s not. We’ll see each other all the time anyway. Milo, let’s go.”

 Milo shrugged and whispered, “Sorry,” to Brendan, and then Milo pulled away slowly, and headed up the road.

 “The important thing,” she said, “is to stay ahead of them long enough that we don’t even meet. And we better turn off at the first exit. We’ve got to. I mean, I can’t stand this shit another moment.”

 “Dena, they really helped us out.”

 “All, right, firstly, they screwed each other while Brendan was dating me, and then he asked for my virginity after he fucked Kenny, and then three weeks into screwing me, told me he was gay. So jump starting the car is sort of small change.”

 “I know,” Milo said. “I just thought, or hoped, that you’d be a little bit past it.”

 “I thought I would be,” Dena shrugged. “Guess I’m not.”

 “I mean… I think they’re really sorry… And Brendan’s a good g—”

 “If you say, ‘Brendan’s a good guy’, I’ll cut your fucking neck.”

 Milo decided: “I’ll just drive.”

 “Just drive.”

“How long are we going to sit in this car?”

 “Until they’ve kinda… gone away,” Brendan said. “I don’t think we’re meant to run into each other.”

 “Well, I’m glad we did that,” Kenny said.

 “I thought I was going to die.”

 “What?”

 Brendan turned the ignition.

 “Fasten your seatbelt, Ken.”

 They pulled back onto the highway.

 “The whole time I felt like Dena was putting a curse on me.”

 “I thought she was all right.”

 “You did?”

 “Well… not like she might have been. I mean, she didn’t scratch your eyes out. And you were so… chipper.”

 “I was so ready to shit myself.

 “You know, I used to think maybe one day we would all be friends again, but… I don’t know. I thought… Great, jump start you car, that’ll make up for… lying, cheating, taking something important from you. And then we can be friends.”

 “Well, are you sorry you told her the truth?”

 “No, Kenny. I’m sorry for the months I didn’t tell the truth, and what I did to her to keep the truth from me. And I’m sorry because we used to be best friends, and now we never fucking will be again.”

As they drove onto the campus, Kenny said, “Look at it. It’s just like something off of TV.”

 “Is that the church?”

 “Well, what else would it be?”

 “Everything’s so golden,” Brendan marveled. “Well, except the grass.”

 “Even the grass at this time of day,” Kenny noted as they emerged from an avenue of trees.

 “Okay, which way do we go?”

 “We… go… that way,” Kenny pointed to his left. “I remember that from my last time here. I’ll be in Edwin Hall.”

 Edwin Hall was easily the size of Saint Barbara’s and built of golden limestone with white bay windows and trim.

 “This is like a little dream or something,” Brendan said as their crowded car maneuvered the other crowded cars.

 “What floor is your room on?

 “The fourth, I think.”

 “That,” Brendan said, parking the car, “is not dreamlike at all. It’s more like hell.”

 “Maybe they’ve got an elevator.”

 Brendan looking at the old hall, doubted it, but said, “Maybe they do.”

 As the two of them began unpacking, Kenny said:

 “Look at those folks coming up. They brought a U Haul.”

 “They are going to have a very rude awakening,” Brendan declared, grunting, as he pulled a bag out of the trunk.

 “I wouldn’t be surprised if he got a dorm on the first floor. Life!” Kenny exclaimed.

 Coming up the hall, they made way for boys coming down the hall.

 “Sorry.”

 “That’s all right.”

 “Welcome back.”

 “Yeah, thanks,” Kenny said, as they departed.

 Brendan peered into the open doors of some of the room. TVs were already on, some friends were sitting around talking, reconnecting he guessed.

 “People actually go off,” Brendan said. “And live here.”

 “It’ll be you next year,” Kenny said, as they pushed open a swinging door and heading up the stairs.

 “Yeah,” Brendan said. “That’s right. It’s not really real yet.”

 “They say you should have started getting your applications ready this summer.”

 “Is that what you did? Get ready a year and a half in advance?”

 “No, I think that’s for people going off to Harvard or someplace like that. Some place like this? It’s sort of spur of the moment.”

 A lumbering, bear like creature was coming down the stars.

 “Hey, guys!” he roared. “What floor are you on?”

 “Fourth,” Kenny said.

 “Oh, Freshmen!”

 “Yeah,” Kenny nodded, putting a positive face on it, but not entirely sure what the bear’s voice meant.

 “Actually, I’m just visiting,” Brendan said.

 Kenny dropped the heavy bag, to breathe.

 “I don’t know why they do it, put the freshmen on the higher floors. Maybe they think your knees get weaker the older you get.”

 He let out a roar of laughter, and Brendan and Kenny felt obligated to laugh, and then he said, “Well, I’m the RA on the fourth floor. Vance. If you need anything. Just ask for Vance.”

 Brendan was tempted to ask for an elevator or a dorm with less floors. After six amazing and arm killing trips they made it, and Kenny collapsed on one bed while Brendan, heaving, collapsed on another.

 “If I were not so tired, I would get up and close those curtains.”

 Kenny, who was tired too, got up and shut them, and returned to bed.

 “My God!”

 “It was lifting the refrigerator that was the real killer,” said Brendan.

 “Imagine those poor fucks with the U Haul.”

 Brendan chuckled and groaned. “And the flat bed with the fu-tons and the sofa!”

 “God,” Kenny looked around his room. “I feel like I don’t have enough.”

 “I don’t really know about college,” Brendan said, “Chiefly because I haven’t been. But I think you’re supposed to accumulate shit as time goes by, not come with half of IKEA in your trunk.”

 “Did you know in real IKEA stores there’s no furniture?”

 “What? No.”

 “Yeah. They just have pictures of the shit. And if you like it, you point to it.”

 “Then they send it?”

 “Yeah. I mean, I guess. Isn’t that wild?”

 “This is a big ass room,” Brendan said.

 “The ceilings are high.”

 “We’re still waiting for your roommate, right?”

 Kenny nodded.

 About five minutes later, the door flew open and a tall kid in glasses carrying a large box said, “You must be Kenny! Well, one of you must be Kenny. I’m Laramie.”

 “I’m Kenny. This is my friend, Brendan.”

 “Pleased to meet you,” said Brendan from his bed, offering a hand. It did not occur to him, in his tired state, to get up.

 “Oh, cool. Well, I’m only bringing this up right now,” he set the box in the middle of the floor. “My mom went to school here like a thousand years ago, and she said there wasn’t anything in Saint Anne’s, but there’s a lot of stuff, and I want to see, so I’d rather just do that and look around town a while. You guys look exhausted.

 “We are,” said Kenny.”

 “I see,” Laramie said, his mouth hanging open. “Yeah. You guys brought a lot of stuff up here. Four floors is so high. I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help. I hope you won’t mind helping me, Kenny.”

 “Not at all. Not if we’re doing it later.”

 “Oh, much later. Like tomorrow.”

 “Great.”

 “I’m going out,” Laramie headed out of the door, then he turned around, closed the door behind him and said:

 “It’s totally none of my business, but are you guys gay together? Cause you just look like you would be.”

 “What?” Brendan sat up.

 “I dunno,” Laramie shrugged. “Well, I was just going to say, I’m not coming back anytime soon, so,” he slipped his key to Kenny, “I’ve got the utmost faith in you, Kenny, and if you all wanna have some private time for goodbye sex, well then that’s totally cool with me. I’m from Chicago.”

 Kenny opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, Laramie was gone.

 “He’s from Chicago,” Brendan mouthed.

 Kenny smirked.

 “His name is Laramie.”