The People in Rossford

“I’ll wait out here,” Claire said from the Jeep.

Paul sat beside his sister, twiddling his fingers.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“I’ve never done anything like this,” Paul said. “I always have my stuff under control. When I need to be Paul Anderson that’s who I am. He’s nice and… cornfed. Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He’s not even remotely sexual. He’s just a really nice boy that people want to help. He knows how to… get what he wants.

“But Johnny Mellow. He’s the opposite. All the way to the part where he knows how to get what he wants. In the movies, if you saw them.”

“Not really, Paul.”

“Good. Well, in the movies, he’s kind of dumb and gee willickers and… you know. But then later on he was just my stage name, movie name. And he was the exact opposite of who I grew up to be. He was… sometimes he was mean, Claire. The same way I want people to see the nice Paul when I’m in public, he’s the one I don’t want people to see. And now Kirk’s seen it all. And…”

“You know what?” Claire said. “We’re wasting gas. Go inside, Paul.”

Paul knew that Claire understood his fear. He also knew that she knew he was hoping she’d say, “Don’t worry about it, then. Face your fears later.”

Paul nodded, climbed out of the car and said, “Don’t drive off without me.”

Then he headed across the car lot to Hanley’s.

Kirk wasn’t at the desk near the floor room. Paul put his hands behind his back, tapping his foot, wondering where he was. If he’d come back, He didn’t want to be surprised by Kirk coming from behind.

He came from the hallway looking the way Paul liked, with those little glasses pushed up, his pale blue shirt snug around his chest, his khaki’s fitting well, somewhat satisfied with his work. He must have just gotten off the phone. And then he stopped, and his expression changed as he saw Paul. It was angry at first, then he looked more like he was trying to find a way to escape.

Paul approached him.

“Look, Kirk, we need to talk.”

“No we don’t.” Kirk screwed up his face into a hard expression. “We have nothing to talk about.”

“I’d say we have a lot.”

“You’d say?” Kirk said. “You’d say, Paul, or Johnny or… whoever you are! You don’t get the say.”

“I want to see you.”

“You’re making a scene,” Kirk hissed, leaning forward. “You’re making a big scene.”

“For the… three customers in here.”

“It’s late afternoon. Things always get quiet.”

“That’s not what I was saying. I… I want to see you,” Paul made to touch Kirk’s shoulder, but Kirk pulled away.

“I want to touch you.”

“You don’t want to touch me,” Kirk said. “What you want to touch is that… vile—God, you made me use the word vile—that vile, vile Brian with his slick hair and his… God, what a gross asshole! And you were letting him fuck you. And fucking him! You’re… vile too. And that’s without the Pizza Slut and Boffer King and… whatever other stuff you’ve—”

Kirk stopped.

“Wait, come, I want to show you something,” Kirk said, his voice changed.

Paul, as doubtful as he’d felt before, was truly nervous now.

“All right,” his voice wavered. He followed Kirk.

“Check this out,” Kirk said opening his laptop. It must have already been on. It whirred to the Internet and Kirk typed in something.

“Johnny Mellow in…. and this is because I forgot all of them,” Kirk said to him, before clearing his throat, “Pizza Slut, Boffer King,uh…Anal Bell, now that is cute… and there’s a clip—”

“Don’t look at that!”

“Oh, and then the other ones, GILF and BILF, that means,” Kirk said in an aside, “Gay I’d like to fuck, and Boy I’d like to fuck, and boy it’s a lot of people who’d like to fuck you, and don’t you think you might have told me that?”

“When?” Paul said, suddenly feeling defenseless. “When could I have told you that?”

“Everytime!” Kirk realized his voice had risen, and he brought it down.

“Everytime I almost kissed you and you told me you weren’t ready and pretended to be—”

“I wasn’t pretending anything. I wasn’t. And… all of that is in my past. That’s the past.”

“Really? Because… wait.”

Kirk clicked a few more buttons.

“Here, on this little amateur site there’s you and this buddy of yours, Noah. And it’s… well, it’s in your bedroom. It’s in Fenn’s house, and wow, I saw this a few times. And it’s a couple of months ago. And then… a three way in Georgia! That’s a few weeks ago.”

“What?”

Paul’s face went red. He was hot and confused, and the floor was moving. “There wasn’t a camera there,” he whispered.

Kirk laughed and nodded his head.

“Wasn’t a camera there… so, it’s real? Of course it’s real. Just like that little silver DVD is real. And you know? That’s a couple of days ago. That’s—wow—that’s when you were telling me how we were falling in love and I was… dumb enough to believe it. So, that’s definitely not in the past.”

Kirk, winded and tired and angry, something sharp in his throat, stopped. Paul, standing over the desk, didn’t say anything.

Finally he spoke.

“Kirk… please. Look…”

“You look,” Kirk said. “I… You know what it’s like to find out what you are? You must. Even someone, even an asshole like you, must know what it’s like to know you’re not like everyone else. You’re not going to have… the wife, and the kids. I mean, this is before you figure out that it’s lots of guys just like you who have kids and the wife anyway. It’s long before you find out you can have kids too. You just think you’ll never find love.

“And then you do. Some son of a bitch sees something in you, and he preys on it and, because you’re young and stupid, you open up and tell him you love him. And then you let him make love to you. That’s the… That’s the thing. I mean, me, not like some nelly guy in church choir or, or… in the band or the drama club. That’s how I saw myself. I was the athlete, and here I am, letting it happen to me, letting myself fall in love, giving myself to someone else.

“And so when he says its over, it’s… it is absolute shit when you see him get a girlfriend and pretend nothing ever happened with you two. And you say it’ll never ever fucking happen again. You will never let another man do this to you. You almost go straight. You know why so many guys do.

“And then, you meet somebody else. You open up… the same thing happens again. And this time you say you’re wiser—”

“Kirk—”

“SHUT—the fuck up. I am talking,” Kirk said.

“And then,” Kirk resumed, “when you finally think you’re impervious, it happens again. I’m thirty years old, Paul, and I thought, I knew, I’d experienced more pain and betrayal than I ever could. I knew that nothing worse could happen. I could never be more hurt and feel more lied to, and betrayed and… stupid…”

Kirk shrugged: “And then you proved me wrong.”

This was all going wrong. There was nothing he could say. Paul closed and opened his fist. He ran his hands up and down his jeans.

“I was stupid,” Kirk said, in a tone of realization. “I mean… I don’t even know you, not really… We just met. How… could you possibly love me even a little?

“Please… go away. All right?”

Paul was out of himself. Someone, maybe Fenn or Lee or even Todd should have been there to save the day. Make him do something else. But Kirk had just told him to leave, and he had to leave. It was just going to hurt Kirk more the more Paul spoke. Nothing could be done. Nothing he knew. If only he could show Kirk the years on the streets, the fear when dirty old men touched him and he put his mind out of his body. If only he could somehow share with Kirk what Kirk had just shared with him.

But Kirk was so angry and so hurt, hurt and crushed. And he had asked Paul to go away.

So he did.

When Paul and Claire stepped into the house, no one was there, but blood was on the kitchen floor and there was an energy to the place. The basement door was wide open, and they could hear an older woman’s voice saying, “Right over there. Yes. There.”

“What the?” Claire murmured. The toilet flushed upstairs, and at the same time Fenn came up from the basement calling, “Paul! Is that you? Claire?”

“What’s going on?” Paul said.

“Oh,” said Fenn. “Well, Joe Callan—that’s the guy whose money we had—he came after Noah and tried to kill him—”

“Oh, my God—” Claire began, but Fenn put a hand up and murmured: “Just listen.

“Anyway, we came back to the house and one thing led to another. Well, you know, he just wouldn’t give up and he put Barb in danger.”

“Barb Affren?”

“Yes, Barb’s downstairs with the quicklime.”

“Why was she in danger?”

“Because she came into the house and had him at gun point. Joe Callan, that is.”

“Why,” Paul shook his head. “I mean, how did she have him at… gunpoint?”

“With her gun,” Fenn said, impatiently, and then, anticipating the next question, “of course she carries a gun. She’s Barb Affren. But the man tried to shoot her anyway, so that’s when Lee killed him.”

“Lee killed—”

“And now we’ve got the body in the basement and we’re pouring quicklime over it.

“Oh, by the way Claire, Tom and Lee are going out for chicken, so you’re welcome to stay.”

“I think Claire had better go,” Paul said.

“I think I should stay,” Claire differed. “And I think I will. Only, I guess I can’t tell Julian about the dead body thing.”

“No, I’d rather you didn’t,” Fenn said. “You or anyone else.”

“What are we gonna do?” Paul lamented.

“We’re doing it,” Fenn said.

“I had better call mom, and tell her I’m staying here another night,” Claire said to her brother. “I’ll even let her speak to you so she knows I’m not fooling around.”

Claire took out her cellphone and Fenn said: “Did you go to see Kirk?”

“I did.”

“And?”

“It was a disaster. I really, really screwed up.”

“Damn right you did,” Fenn said with empathy. “But at least no one got shot where you were.”

“All right, Mom,” Claire was saying into the phone. “Here he is.”

She handed the phone to Paul and said to Fenn, “I don’t know what to do. About him and Kirk. I don’t even know this Kirk, but he seems like he really made him happy, and now it’s like that Brian ruined it all. I could… I could really punch him.”

“I know what you mean,” Fenn said.

“Where’s Todd?”

“He went to go find Brian, now that he’s disappeared.”

“Disappeared? You mean he ran out with his tail between his legs.”

“Yeah,” Paul was saying to the phone. “Yes. I love you too, Mom. G’night.”

“Pretty much,” Fenn answered Claire.

Paul clicked off the phone, and from the basement Barb’s heavy footsteps came up with her voice declaring, “I need a goddamn drink. And fast.”

“Coming right up,” Fenn stood up and motioned for Claire to follow.

“There’s no pop in the fridge?” she said as Fenn left the room.

“That’s not even close to what she was talking about,” Fenn said, opening the liquor cabinet.

“So, Todd went off in search of Brian?”

“Todd has a very big heart.”

“I guess,” said Claire as Fenn took out the Scotch and searched for glasses.

“Could you get me some ice?”

“Sure,” Claire said.

When she returned she said, “Is it distance?”

“Whaddo you mean?”

“I mean, you and Todd can be nice to him, to Brian, because of distance from the situation.”

“Claire.”

“Yes?”

“You see Tom in there?”

“Lee’s Tom?”

“Before he was Lee’s Tom he was my Tom. For ten years. Out of college. Brian seduced him. Tom wasn’t innocent, obviously, but Brian ended that relationship. This house you see around you, Tom and I bought it together. It was supposed to be ours. I… I have no distance from the damage Brian Babcock can do.”

Claire’s face was filled with so much horror that Fenn felt like he had to smile.

“It’s in the past.”

“But, Fenn.”

“And you can’t take it out of the past or change anything around.”

“I guess,” Claire said. “I mean, I guess that’s what they mean when they say being forgiving or being Christian.”

“It doesn’t make any sense to keep holding on to shit,” Fenn said. “I’ve thought for a long time being Christian is just a sanctified word for being a grown up.”

Claire laughed, and then she made a face.

“Fenn, I still wanna kick him in the jaw. I don’t want to be a grown up.”

He gave her a crooked smile and said, “To tell you the truth, most of the time neither do I.”