The People in Rossford

The Fall Out

“That is turning me on so much!” the nasal voice said. “It’s just. That is so hot.”

The sound of slapping, slapping slapping.

Kirk Hanley sat on the sofa with the remote control, watching the porno, as he had had already done several times.

“Shut the fuck up,” Johnny Mellow said, climbing off of the ass he was fucking and telling the boy who held the jittery camera, “It’s your turn now.”

And then Johnny, that is Paul, climbed on top of the other one, and began determinedly fucking him, literally riding him, the flats of his hands on the boy’s shoulders, holding him down so he could fuck him harder.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Sheila said, coming into the room. “Just stop watching that. I don’t know why you’re torturing yourself.”

“Take…” Johnny Mellow groaned, slapping harder and harder into him, “fucking that, man!”

“I’m not torturing myself,” Kirk said. “I’m… trying to understand.”

“Well…” Sheila said.

“Well, what?”

“I don’t know,” Sheila said. “I don’t know if you are trying to understand. I mean, it seems to me you’d talk to him if you were trying to understand. Or… Nevermind.”

“Or… nevermind what?” he looked up at her.

Sheila Hanley looked unusually thoughtful, and she put a finger to her chin before saying: “It’s only that… I think, if you were trying to understand him, you would go and talk to him. But you’re watching this…”

“Ah, fuck! Fuck! Fuck me! Harder!

“You like that? You like that, huh… take this!”

“This crazy crap, so I can only guess that you’re trying to understand yourself. How he makes you feel. How all of this makes you feel.”

Kirk looked at her, and then he turned off the movie.

“You should have been a psychologist. Your talents are totally wasted here.”

Sheila frowned at him, and then Kirk said, “Well, hell…

“Maybe you’re right.”

“Well, how do you feel?”

“Oh, don’t ask me that,” Kirk said standing up.

He went to the kitchen and Sheila heard the refrigerator door slam. And then Kirk marched back in and said, “You know what?”

“I feel like I wish he’d come in and asked me to listen to him again. And I wish he’d tell me something that would…. Justify the way I feel about him, how I can’t stop thinking about him. I wish he’d tell me the right thing. And I can’t go to him. I can’t. Last time he came, I turned him away. I cannot go to him.”

Sheila didn’t say anything for a while.

“I know you probably don’t get it,” he said to her.

“No, I get it,” Sheila said. “You’ve got your pride.”

“Is that so bad?”

Sheila shook her head.

“It would be bad if you didn’t have it.”

“He hasn’t said anything about it yet. In fact, he’s been real good,” Todd said. “But I’m pretty sure I should get back to Fenn. You did sort of ruin his life, and the idea that I’m here with you, when I should be with him is sort of… not that great.”

Brian was about to say, “Well, go then.” But he didn’t mean it. And then, he didn’t really want it. He was literally terrified at the prospect of Todd going away.

“I can’t go back there.”

“Well, you can’t stay in this hotel,” Todd said. “Unless you get a job at a college around here, or become the new organist at a local church. Then you can pay your hotel bill and be the weird guy who lives in the Holliday Inn. You’ll start wearing the same clothes and smelling like cat piss and… It’s gonna get ugly, Bry.”

Against his will, Brian laughed.

“I guess then you could do a film about me.”

“Well, I’d have to, wouldn’t I?”

“I’m scared to go back. I’m scared of facing the damage I’ve done, all the people I hurt. And I can’t make it right. How can I make it right? You always hear, you hear it in church: amend, amend. Well, how do you amend? You can’t really, can you? How can I unmake sending out those movies? Or how can I unmake the movie I made? How can I look at people? How can I say… I’m sorry?”

“Are you sorry?”

“God, yes, I’m sorry! I’m sorry for everything!

“And… how will I learn my lesson? How will I stop hurting everyone?”

“Everyone makes mistakes. We all hurt people on occasion.”

“Oh, just stop!” Brian said. “It’s not like what I have done. You know it. How do I stop being that person?

“I used to think that… religion was the cure. Go to confession, go to communion and God would cure me of this mean person, this selfish person. But, no. And I’m scared of him. I feel like he’s living in me and I can’t control him.”

Brian’s voice trailed off.

“You know what your problem is?” Todd said, at last. “I mean aside from the fact that you really need a shave and a change of clothes?”

Brian looked up at him.

“You don’t have friends.”

Brian opened his mouth to say something sarcastic.

“You’re all alone. You don’t have anyone to confide in, to share the stuff inside you with. That’s your trouble, Bry. You don’t have anyone to fight the devils with. And you’ve got a lot of devils, my friend.”

“My friend?”

“We were friends. Once.”

“Yes. But then, when you ended up with Fenn, I backed away from that.”

“I guess I did too,” Todd said. “Loyalty and everything. But apparently I came back. I came back when I thought someone needed to find you. So, see, I’m your friend. We’d all be your friends if you wanted.”

“All?” Brian looked at him.

“Fenn, at least.”

“That’s the worst!”

“He’s serious, though.”

“I know,” Brian said. “But I was so, so awful. I know it’s over, but it’s not over for me.”

“Well, don’t you think it should be?”

“Yes,” Brian said, tiredly. “I think everything should be over. All of the old things, I mean. All of the bad things.”

“Milo, there’s someone here for you,” Barb Affren said when she tipped into her grandson’s bedroom.

“And by the way, a rather pretty someone.”

Milo raised an eyebrow and stood up. But as his grandmother went away, she was replaced by Dena Reardon.

“Oh… hi,” he said.

“Hi,” said Dena. “Can I sit?”

Milo nodded and patted the bed.

Dena sat down next to him, and she said, “Well, you know, I was just thinking that…”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering. You know what?” she said. “I know what I want to say. Only… I don’t know how to say it.”

Milo’s face changed, and then he said, “I bet you do know how to say it.”

“Yes,” Dena said, at last. “Are you going to make this easier for me?”

“No,” said Milo. “I won’t.”

“Will you go out with me?” Dena said at once. “Would you like to do that?”

“Yes,” Milo said. “I would have liked to do that a long time ago.”

“I know,” Dena said. “I know I should have asked a long time ago. I should have… realized something about Brendan.”

“You should have realized something about me,” Milo told her. “You knew how I felt, and you went back to that… drip.”

“Bren’s not so—”

“He’s a fucking drip, and you and Kenny… I don’t get it,” Milo shook his head. “I know this sounds vain, but I think I’m hotter than him.”

“I went to Brendan because I was loyal,” Dena said. “Not because he was better. I thought we’d always be together.

“Maybe that’s how it was with my mother. I never understood how she could make that mistake with my dad. And then I turn around and do the same damn thing. I went to him. I believed in him. I think I wanted to help him.”

“Well, now do you think we could help each other? Do you think we could… try to be something?”

“I’d like that, Milo.”

“What are you doing now?”

“Nothing.”

“Let’s go out. Let me take you out.”

“All right. I walked.”

“We’ll take my car. Where are we going?”

“I have no idea.

Milo sang:

Take the throttle o’er of my hand
If I can’t have you no one can
Lock the doors and seal the hatches

And Dena smiled because she knew the song, and sang along,

Break my heart and burn this mattress
Take the throttle o’er my hand
If I can’t have you no one can!
Da da da dada da da
Da da da dada da da!

“We’re going out, Grandma,” Milo said.

“Are you all going to start dating each other?”

Dena had never seen Milo go red until now. He went completely crimson.

Layla squeezed his hand and said, “Yes. We are.”

“Good,” Barb told them. “Because Dena, that last boyfriend of yours…. He’s a big homo!”

“I saw you driving around.”

“You knew it was me?”

“I saw your head in the car. Besides,” Ralph said, leaning on the side of his door, “you had Hanley license plates. That was the tip off.”

Kirk smirked and Ralph said, “You wanna stop standing there like an idiot, and come on in?”

“A pornstar? Fuck!”

Kirk nodded his head.

“So, what are you gonna do?”

“There’s nothing to do. I… I ‘ve watched it a couple of times. That’s what I do, watch the porno over and over again. The second one, the one that bastard made, where he was fucking that guy—I can’t watch it.”

“Well, you know, once a pornstar, always—”

“I didn’t know he was a pornstar. I just thought he was a nice guy coming in to buy a car. I thought… I thought he might be the one.”

“Remember when you thought I might be the one?”

“Yeah,” Kirk said. “When you put it that way it seems like I’m really at fault.”

Ralph shook his head.

“We just didn’t work out.”

“I just…” Kirk said, “I just keep thinking about… those movies, seeing him like that. Part of me actually wonders what it would be like to be one of those boys.”

“In the vids. Getting fucked.?”

Prickles went up Kirk’s body.

“Yeah. A little. I just feel so weird. Half angry.”

“And half horny.”

“Yes,” Kirk admitted.

“Is that why you came?” Ralph came.

“Huh?” Kirk shook his head, as if he’d been distracted.

“I mean did you come just to talk, or did you come cause you wanted to fuck?

“Sex clears the head,” Ralph said while Kirk’s groin flooded with blood, while he felt himself getting harder and tried to stop his foot from doing that automatic tapping. The promise of sex always made him like Thumper in Bambi.

“You wanna fuck?” Ralph said again, quietly.

His throat a little dry, Kirk realized why he had come and looked up at his old friend.

“Yes.”