The People in Rossford

“Barb, I’m so sorry,” Brian said, offering his hand to her.

“Thank you,” she said.

“If there is anything I can do…” Brian said.

“Thank you,” Barb said again.

Barb Affren had three sons and one daughter. After Kurt came Jeff who was in his late thirties and a little gone to fat and Brian murmured the same: “My condolences.”

“What do people mean when they say that?” Tricia hissed to Barb. Tricia was Jeff’s wife and the one who had been Barb’s daughter-in-law the longest. “I think people just show up to say trite things, and they have no idea you’ve been having to listen to it all day. We should just shut down the house and get drunk.”

Barb snorted.

“What we should have done was have a good old fashioned Irish wake,” Jeff said.

“Any excuse to drink,” Barb said to him. “You’re a closet lush, Jeffy.”

“Can’t be in the closet if everyone knows, Mom.”

“You’re really horrible, you know that?”

“Tina’s the one that’s horrible,” Tricia said. “I can’t believe that bitch.”

“She just wants to look out for Milo,” Jeff said.

Tricia shook her head and scowled at her mother in law. “No she doesn’t. She’s never cared for anyone but herself.”

“Hello,” Keith said to Brian.

“Hi,” said Brian. “You’re the new priest.”

“Yes. Keith McDonald. Just visiting. But the way things seemed to be going, I think the diocese is going to leave me here for a while. You were the organist, right?”

“Why, yes,” Brian said. “No one notices that the organist.”

“I notice all the members of my congregation,” Keith said with a smile.

“See,” said Brian, “you’ve already made the church your own.”

Keith shrugged.

“I guess. Or maybe it was just seminary talk.”

“Hum?”

“That’s pretty much how everyone talks coming out of the seminary,” Keith parodied himself: “I know everyone in my congregation.” He shook his head. “I don’t know anyone . I want to though.”

“Well,” Brian said, “you already know Barb. I heard you were here for the Affrens the whole time.”

“Barb’s a good woman.”

“And now,” Brian said, thrusting forward his hand, “you know me. Brian Babcock. AKA, the church organist.”

“Pleased to meet you church-organist-with-the-lost-look-on-his-face.”

“I have a lost look?”

“A little. I noticed when you came in. Are you alright? I am a priest. You know it’s my job to ask.”

Brian smiled sort of apologetically and said, “I think I’m alright enough. Just… strange things. Romantic things if I’m not saying too much.”

Keith nodded. “I think you said just enough.”

Lee sidled up next to his daughterwho was at the broad picture window overlooking the Affrens’ yard.

“Would you like to tell me why you’re here?”

Danasia looked at him.

“You’re my father,” she said. Then, “Aren’t you?”

“Yes. But I was your father last year and the year before that and I didn’t see you. I’m not faulting you,” he said when she opened her mouth. “I was all over the place and as hard for you to find as you were for me. But you did find me, and that begs the question how and why?”

“That sounds suspicious,” Danasia said, crossing her arms over her chest.

“It is not suspicion. It is concern. If I can help I want to. If you need to be protected that’s what I’m here for. That’s why I’m your father.”

Danasia nodded and played with the buckle of her belt.

“Daddy, right now what I need, and all I need, is to be your daughter. Lemonade is undependable and my mother is twice as worse and things have been… bad. I needed to feel like I have someone.”

“Well, of course you do,” Lee said. “And someones. I noticed you’re very good at making friends. And there is Fenn. There’s our whole family. And Tom.”

“Tom?” Danasia said. “He seems a little…”

“Watch yourself.”

Danasia nodded, took a sip from her drink, and nodded again.

Brian was about to leave his classroomwhen the door opened and Chad North came in.

“Chad?”

“Were you…?” Chad turned around and headed for the door, “about to go? I mean… I’ll go.”

“No, no,” Brian said. “This is the usual time for our private lesson.”

“Right,” Chad nodded.

“I just… see, I thought you wouldn’t come. You weren’t in class.”

“It’s because of the whole… Of what happened the other day” Chad said. “I shouldn’t have… I’m so sorry.”

Brian stacked his papers and came around his desk, sitting on it with his arms folded over his chest.

“I asked what was wrong, and you…”

“I kissed you,” Chad said.

“Yes,” said Brian.

“I didn’t even have any idea,” Brian said. “Or… Did you know…? I mean…”

“I knew you were gay,” Chad said. Then he said, “You’re a church organist with a degree in musicology.”

Brian grinned indulgently. “Yes. That is a tip off.

“Chad, is that what you were trying to tell me? How long have you had these feelings?”

“You mean gay feelings?” Chad said, unbelieving.

“Yes.”

“My whole life,” Chad said. “I mean… I know what I am. It’s not good for me to admit it on campus. I… I keep it quiet here.” Chad turned red and said quickly, “I thought, for a moment, you meant my feelings for you.”

“Chad?”

“I do have feelings for you,” Chad said. “I… I… We’ve already got everything else out on the table. That’s why I did what I did. It’s not any more excusable, but I just had the feeling so strong. You know?”

Brian nodded.

“I do know,” Brian said. “But, you just can’t go around kissing your professors.”

“I know,” Chad said. “I’m sorry.”

Brian nodded.

“Let’s practice,” he said. “You wanna start with what we did last week?”

Chad nodded.

“That’s good.”

“How was your recital?”

“It was great,” Chad said, glad of the normalcy. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Of course you could have,” Brian told him. “Now let’s sing, young man.”

“You do the harmony.”

“Of course,” Brian said, and sat down to the piano.

They sang together, Chad surprised by the smile on Brian’s face, by the boyish happiness in his eyes when he threw back his head and sang.

Brian’s hands fell on the piano with a ringing, and he threw back his head, and laughed.

“But do you know this one?”

Brian began playing and Chad began singing, haltingly at first then:

“Chain chain chain

Chain chain chain

Chain chain chain

Chain of fools!”

“That’s it!” Brian said. They sang:

“For five long years

I thought you were my man

But I found out

I’m just a link in your chain.

You got me where you want me

Ain’t nothing but your fool

You treated me mean

Ooh, you treated me cruel

Chain chain chain

Chain of fools!”

Laughing, Brian stood up and came to Chad.

“That song is older than me. You… have a very old soul.”

Chad shrugged. “My parents have old souls. I was just this skinny gay white kid that grew up on soul music. And you know what, I only know one Black person, and not very well.”

Brian grinned, and Chad said, “What?”

“I liked the explanation that you had an old soul. I liked that better.”

And then Chad stood up straighter, and kissed Brian again.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Brian told him softly.

Chad kissed him again, and this time Brian’s mouth pushed back. Chad’s small hands were in his hair.

“We better not get caught,” Brian murmured through the kiss.

“No,” Chad told him, his mouth on him. “We better not.”

TODAY IT WAS ABOUT sixty, and the grass was green. Brian noted that he should not have been surprised. It never got permanently cold until well after December. Flurries were always followed by sunlight. Kids trotted across the campus below, their jackets swinging behind them. One boy, foolishly, rode his bicycle bare-chested and a part of Brian hoped he’d get pneumonia.

When the door closed Brian turned around, shocked, and saw Chad.

“Let’s talk,” Chad said, shutting the door behind him.

“We need to talk about the other day.”

“Chad. I got silly.”

“No,” Chad cut him off. “Listen to me… Brian. I’m not stupid. If I wasn’t your student, you’d be all over me. You can’t tell me you wouldn’t be with someone who was twenty-one.”

“You’re twenty-one?”

“Not yet. But almost, and you can’t tell me you wouldn’t be with someone that age.”

“You’re my student.”

“So what?” Chad said.

Brian stood up and Chad came around the desk.

“I’m in your space now,” Chad said. “No… teacher there and student here. I’m in your space.”

“What,” Brian said, “do you think I can be to you? Your boyfriend? Your lover?”

“Lover, maybe,” Chad said.

“All I know is I’m sick of wanting all the time. And yesterday you gave. I wasn’t just wanting. I wasn’t just craving. You can’t do that to someone. Give them what they want, and then just take it away.”

“Chad.” Brian said again.

“Let’s go back, let’s go back, let’s go way on back when...” Chad sang.

“Chad?”

Chad continued singing:

I didn’t even know you,

you came to me and too much

you wouldn’t take

I ain’t no psychiatrist,

I ain’t no doctor with degree

It don’t take too much high IQ’s

to see what you’re doing to me!

Murmuring, Chad got to his knees and, carefully, began to unzip Brian’s khakis, while Brian trembled.

“You better think,” Chad hummed, “think about what you’re trying to do to me.” Suddenly he looked up at Brian, and flashed a smile. He sang low: “Let your mind go, let yourself be free.”

His mouth was on Brian, and Brian’s head arched back, his palms lightly clutching the sides of his desk while Chad brought his mouth up and again, still humming, he came up to kiss Brian on his mouth savagely.

“Chad—”

But his voice stopped, caught in the pleasure, and he closed his eyes and pulled Chad’s head closer, thrusting lightly, and hearing Aretha, singing over and over again in his head:

Oh freedom,

freedom,

freedom, yeah freedom

Freedom,

freedom,

ooh freedom!