The People in Rossford

Todd decided it was time to check in.

“Hello?”

“Baby, it’s me.”

“Where the hell are you?”

“Somewhere near Parma.”

“What?”

“I won’t be home tonight. I’m going to Pittsburgh.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m sure he’s there,” Fenn.

Fenn held his tongue.

“I know how this seems,” Todd said.

“The man that ruined my life almost a decade ago, sets out to ruin other peoples’ lives and then runs away when the damage is too much for him, and the one who chases him is… Oh, that’s right—my husband.”

“Do you want me to come home?”

“No, Todd, I really don’t. I don’t completely understand why you have to go after him, but I wouldn’t want you to turn around now. Especially since you’re already in Parma.”

“I gotta tell you, Cleveland sucks.”

“Get off the phone now,” Fenn said. “You know how I feel about people talking on cellphones and driving.”

“Or talking on cellphones period.”

“I confess, until today I thought there were pretty useless.”

“What happened today—oh, watch yourself you son of a bitch! Sorry, babe.”

“You watch yourself,” Fenn said. “And never mind what happened today. You’ve got your quest and I’ve got mine. Or something questlike. Well, anyway, you just take care of yourself and call me when you get… wherever you’re going.”

“I love you, Fenn.”

“I love you too,” said Fenn. “Goodbye.”

“What about me?”

Fenn, on the bar stool, looked up and said, “What about you Todd?”

In the kitchen that was now Nell’s, Todd had been stretched out back then, swinging from the lentil, the black line of hair down from his navel and to his shorts exposed. He wore and tank top that read Saint Barbara’s Basketball, and he hadn’t shaved in days.

“What about you taking a chance on me? That Tom isn’t worth crying about anyway.”

“Firstly,” Fenn said, lifting a slightly drunken finger and putting the drink down as the storm door opened and Adele and Nell came in for hamburger buns, “I am not crying over anyone. Trust me.”

Adele raised an eyebrow, and then left. Nell grabbed the relish and Fenn waited for her to depart before turning around and saying, “And secondly, I make a point to never tap someone’s ass if there was a point in time that I wiped it.”

“Ouch, Fenn, that’s harsh,” Todd came down from the door post and approached him. “I mean I just think you like me a little, and I already told you I like you a lot.”

“See, I don’t know where the fuck you came up with that. I don’t know when you decided that I was… what? Your dream man?”

“We don’t have to dream, Fenn.”

“Stop that. And stop using that… voice.”

“Is it sexy?”

“It’s stupid. You’re—”

“I’m not stupid.”

“No, but you are a child.”

“I’m twenty.”

“And I…” Fenn began, “am… not.”

“I love older men.”

“Hold the fuck on, I’m not that much older.”

“But you keep saying you are.”

“I just…” Fenn started over again. “I just think it’s not a great idea. I think—”

“Hold on,” Todd said.

And then suddenly, Fenn’s face was in Todd’s large hands, and the boy, Todd had always been a boy to him, had pressed his wet mouth to Fenn’s. His tongue touched Fenn’s and for the first time in a long time of prickly resistance, Fenn Houghten did something like melt.

When Todd pulled away, Fenn resumed: “…Think… that… You are…”

“Whaddo you say?” Todd say.

“I still say no.”

Todd shrugged. It wasn’t a real shrug. It was a high school shrug, like I don’t care, when really you care all too much. Fenn wanted to call him out for that, to say, “See, that’s why we can’t have anything.”

Have anything.

Why, for this brief second, in the aftermath of Todd’s kiss, did having something seem a little believable?

“Todd,” he said as Todd was walking away.

Todd turned around.

“What I should have said is not now. Whatever is later, not now.”

Todd came back and approached him.

“It has nothing to do with you. Or almost nothing,” said Fenn. “I don’t want a boyfriend like Tom.”

“I’m, not like Tom.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant, a serious one. Someone who was… a soulmate and shit. And I just don’t see how we wouldn’t be that.”

“It could be light. It could just be fucking.”

“Okay, no it couldn’t,” Fenn said. “Cause that’s not us. I mean, it’s you and it’s me, but together…” Fenn shook his head. “That’s how you know soemthing’s real. I mean with you and me even just fucking wouldn’t be just fucking. You’re in love with me.”

“And you’re not in love with me? Just a little?”

Fenn took a breath. He touched Todd’s cheek.

“I love you,” he said. “And not just a little. And for the time being I’m not ready for that, so go fuck some dumbass and then come back to me in a year. I’m not going anywhere.”

“You think I’m the devil, don’t you?”

“I don’t think you’re anything at all.”

“Oh, touché, touché!” Brian Babcock murmured. He was away from the rest of the partygoers, in a clean white shirt, rolled up at the sleeves to reveal the dark hair going up and down his arms. He had on black round sunglasses, which Todd mistrusted.

“I don’t even know why you’re here.”

Brian shrugged. “You know what? Neither do I. Tom brought me. That was a mistake.”

“You’re damn right it was. Why would he show up with the guy he was fucking—?”

“I’m not fucking Tom,” Brian shook his head with mild irritation. “I’m not fucking anyone.”

“Well… neither am I.”

Brian laughed and slid off the banister.

“Wanna talk about it?”

“About what?”

Brian slipped off his glasses and put them in his pocket.

“About how I’m here and you’re here and we’re both here because we don’t fit in… In there.”

“I fit in just fine.”

“Maybe,” Brian shrugged. “But you don’t think you do. You… You’ve got shit. Inside of you?”

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“Uh,” Brian said. “I know I do, and you do. But, does everyone? No. Or at least not so far as I know. I don’t know a lot of people who have a hard time looking at themselves in the morning. I don’t know a lot of people who hate who they are. That’s generally my department.”

“I don’t… hate who I am.”

“But you wish you were someone else. Sometimes? Right? Someone with less baggage?”

“I guess,” Todd said.

“I’m not asking you to talk about it,” Brian told him. “I’m just asking if, like, you wanna walk or something?”

Todd nodded, and then climbed over the rail, and they set down the street.

“I didn’t ask him to do it, you know, but I didn’t tell him not to.”

“You were a kid,” Brian said.

“I was a teenager.”

“When it ended. And teenagers are kids. What the fuck could you do?”

“I go to horrid man after horrid man thinking that this dick’ll fuck me so hard it’ll get all the bad stuff out of me.” Todd added in a small voice. “Or get the part of me that liked the bad stuff out of me.”

“Fenn’s not that man?”

“What?”

“I’m just saying,” Brian said, “I know how you feel about him. I don’t know if anyone else knows,” he said at the surprised look in Todd’s eyes. “But I see it. I think there are two sorts of guys you need. The love of your life, and the fix it guy, the one who sort of… preps you for the love of your life, or does what the love of your life can’t do.”

Todd looked at him.

“I’m just saying,” Brian said again, “you wanna be with a guy who isn’t horrid. I mean, I’m not terrific, but I’m not… what do you mean by horrid?”

“I mean I know I keep on ending up with people like… that first guy.”

“You’re really not going to elaborate on that are you?”

“Not right now,” Todd said.

“I’m tired of being with… scary men, men who are not men. Men who… would prey on a kid if they could. Men who’d rape you if they could. Low lives.”

“Has anyone ever made love to you?”

Todd turned his head away, sharply.

“Have they?”

“Has anyone ever made love to you?” Todd said back.

“No, not really,” Brian admitted. “But… we could make love. If you wanted to.”

There was no seduction, and no begging. It was just a statement.

“You just said you knew about Fenn?” Todd said. “Do you… do you get a pleasure in taking stuff from him?”

“I never took anything from Fenn,” Brian said. “I tried. I failed. I knew Tom didn’t care about me, and when Fenn left him, Fenn was all that was on his mind. Fenn IS all that is on his mind. And you, you’re in love with him right now. But he’s not going to have you right now, is he? And he’s not going to make love to you all night, is he? Not now.”

Todd said nothing.

“But I’m here,” Brian said. “I’m here, and I’m willing, and I get you, and I… this’ll sound strange, but I want to do something good.”

“You want to pity fuck me?”

“No, cause I don’t feel sorry for you. I just get you. And I think you get me better than you think and… call it fucking or whatever, but loving is something people need. To pretend it isn’t is just bullshit, and if we can offer it to each other we should. I want to offer it to you. I want to sleep with you, Todd. All right?”

Todd’s mouth was filled with saliva, and the blood rushed to his groin. He was dizzy with need and desire and Brian wasn’t begging or lying or being suave. He smelled no perfume. He smelled Brian, the sweat in his shirt, his breath, not bad, but strong. Brian very real and flesh and blood, his long hand placed lightly on Todd’s, the first beautiful man who’d ever offered himself, the first true and beautiful gentleness.

Todd caressed Brian’s hand and then their hands folded firmly together, and Todd Meradan said:

“All right.”