The Prodigal Returns
CLASSES that week were good. I was thoroughly enjoying the classes I was taking. Of course, having done so much advance reading over the holidays certainly helped. While others were struggling to get over some tough concepts, I was gliding along unfazed.
When someone called in sick at Starbucks and I was asked to fill in, I did so without any hesitation. I went to class and worked and got back to my new pattern of running. By the end of the week I was doing damned good. I had phenomenal stamina and was racking up some pretty impressive total mileage. My body was enjoying having the exercise, and it gave me time to lose myself in blasting loud music. The music and the running helped to clear all the extraneous thoughts from my brain. It was good.
On Friday afternoon I worked and then came home to make some food. Slatter had come home with me, and we were cooking some burgers on the grill. We ate inside because it was cool that evening. He had some reading he needed to do for a class he was taking, so while I cleaned up the dishes and the kitchen, he got started on his reading.
I joined him on the sofa to do some reading of my own. Before I knew it, it was ten o’clock and we were both just about falling asleep where we sat.
He started to pack his things to go back to campus, which seemed like a ridiculous idea to me. “Why don’t you stay here tonight? It’s late and we’re both too tired to go out.”
I could see him hesitate, and I added, “It’s not like you’ve got anything I haven’t already seen. Remember Palm Springs?”
The man groaned and buried his head at the mere mention of the name of that place. “I used to like you, but then you had to say that name.”
“Sorry. Stay here.”
“Your couch is too uncomfortable. I’ll sleep better in my own bed.”
“Sleep in my bed. I promise to not molest you in your sleep. Your virtue is safe.”
And he did stay with me that night. He ended up staying the weekend. We went out Saturday and ran along the beach, which was great fun. He showed me some of the quiet, out-of-the-way diversions he had found in his time in the city. We browsed through a bookstore just for fun, drank lots of tea and coffee that someone else made and served to us, and ate lots of good food. All in all, we had a good weekend.
On Monday morning I drove us to class. Slatter stayed at his own dorm that night, but on Tuesday afternoon we found that we were both on the schedule together again. When we finished work, I invited him to come home with me so we could eat together. He did, we did, and then he stayed and we went to bed.
Even though we were both gay men in our prime, we had studiously avoided anything sexual. I was getting there, but needed a bit more time yet before I took that step—it somehow seemed like one I wasn’t quite ready for yet. Slatter respected my unspoken position and didn’t challenge or push me. He was being incredibly supportive, and I would be eternally grateful for his understanding.
The lights were off, and we were both drifting off to sleep, when we heard something. It was the city after all—there were always sounds. Cars. Babies crying. People yelling. Garbage trucks. Horns blowing. That kind of thing. But this was different. This was closer. Both of us stirred from our almost sleep and sat up. Whatever we had heard was replaced by the sound of someone knocking. Knocking? Yes, someone was knocking at my door.
I never had visitors, so I couldn’t imagine what this was. Jehovah’s Witnesses didn’t work this late. My first thought was that Moira was in some kind of trouble and was trying to get my attention to get my help.
I jumped out of bed, grabbed a pair of shorts that were lying nearby, quickly shoving my legs into them. Without bothering with a shirt, I turned on lights in the living room, turned on the porch light to see what was happening—and got the fright of my life. Bill was standing outside my door.
“Mark! My key isn’t working for some reason. Open the door.”
But I didn’t move. How dare he? How dare that son of a bitch come trying to get into my house at this hour—hell, at any hour—of the night?
Moira had apparently seen the porch light come on (it was a very bright light that illuminated from my place all along the driveway up toward her house—it was kind of hard to miss) because a moment later I heard her back door open and heard her coming our way.
Slatter was by my side now, also dressed in shorts but nothing else.
Just about when Moira arrived, I opened the door, and we stepped out. None of us said a word but simply stared at Bill.
“My keys aren’t working for some reason,” he repeated.
“That would be because we changed the locks,” Moira explained patiently.
“Why’d you do that?” Bill asked.
“To keep you out if you ever had the balls to show your face around here again,” Slatter said. I remained silent.
“Huh?” Bill asked. “And who the hell are you? What’s going on? Come on, guys, I’m too tired to think. I just want to go to bed and sleep for a week.”
“Well, don’t let us stand in your way. I assume you’ll be staying in one of your boyfriend’s houses, so you can pick up your crap whenever. Your stuff is all around to the side of the house by the garbage cans. I put it out there when the news broke.”
Bill shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m missing something. I’m not following any of this. I just want to come in, take a shower, and go to bed.”
Slatter moved in front of me, and Moira moved over to join him. “Fine. Go somewhere and do that,” he said. “I can’t believe you have the gall to show up here, especially in the middle of the night, after all the hurt you’ve caused.”
“Wait. What hurt? Huh? What are you talking about? And, again, who the hell are you?”
I had had enough of this bullshit, so I stepped inside the house and grabbed one of the newspapers (I had around three hundred of them), opened it up fully, and walked back out, thrusting it in Bill’s face. He looked at the paper, his eyes grew wider, and I could see the color drain from his face. “What the…?”
“What?” I repeated his question. “Looks to me like you and Derrick, together in bed. But let’s check the accompanying story and see if I’m right. Oh, look at this—I was! It says something about Mr. Derrick St. James busting down the closet doors, leaving his wife, and taking up with a boy toy—hint, that’s you,” I said, pointing to the picture once again. I threw the newspaper at him, stepped back inside, grabbed another one from the next day, opened it up to the bigger spread of pictures, and carried that one out to him as well.
“And look,” I said gleefully, “the next day there’s more! Here’s you and Derrick playing Frisbee. Or, as they report it, ‘St. James and his new boy toy’. Here’s the two of you enjoying an intimate candlelight dinner for two. Isn’t that sweet. That’s my favorite, after the one of you two cuddling in bed together, of course. A lot of people loved this one of you two on a blanket enjoying a picnic lunch, but I told them I just didn’t buy that one. Only got the one copy of this paper,” I explained, folding it back up carefully and tossing it back inside. “But the first one, I’ve got about three hundred copies of that one. So go ahead, take it, add it to your collection. Have it framed and put it up on your and Derrick’s wall somewhere.” I stopped and thought of one thing. “Actually, I started with three hundred copies, but I’ve sent copies to everybody I know so there aren’t as many left anymore. Although I didn’t need to bother, since the story was picked up by every news service in the world and was reprinted an untold number of times. You got some really interesting mail after that one.
“Oh, and speaking of mail,” I stepped back inside the house and picked up an envelope which I took back out and threw at him. “School made it official. Since you were a no-show, they’ve given you the boot. But now that you’re the boy toy of a rich and famous and now out, loud, and proud gay man you don’t need that education anymore. All you have to do is lay back and spread your legs and buy things the old-fashioned way.”
Bill hadn’t said a word, but had tried to take all of this in. He couldn’t have missed my anger. No. No way anyone could have missed my anger. There were people three blocks over that picked up on my anger. I was not being quiet, and I was not being subtle.
“And you know what hurt me the most? Huh? The fact that you didn’t even have the balls to tell me yourself. I had to find it out from the newspaper. You had to have someone else do your dirty work and dump me. You had to have someone else make me feel like crap.”
I paused. “Not one word from you from the time you left the country. Not one word to tell me you got there okay. Not one word to tell me how it was going. Not one word at Christmas. Not one word at New Year’s. Not one word that you weren’t coming back. Not one word. I don’t know how I could have been so stupid! How long had you two been plotting this? Huh? How long have I been innocently stumbling along in the dark under the false assumption that you still loved me? Huh? How long? You know, it does explain a lot about why I never saw you in the weeks before you left. Now I know that you were probably with your boyfriend plotting how it was all going to work. Actually, do I call him your boyfriend? Do I transfer my title to him? You’re his boy toy, but what is he to you? Your sugar daddy? Yes, that must be it.”
We all looked at one another, and then I turned and said, “I’m going to bed. Bye, Bill. Rot in hell. I wish I had just driven away and left you in the snow in that parking lot that night. To think of how my family took you in and did so much for you—and this is how you pay us back. And by the way, if you think I’m pissed, word of advice—you really don’t want to be anyplace alone with my mom or dad anytime in the next decade or two. To think that my mom and I put ourselves in harm’s way to protect you and your mom.” I shook my head and simply went back inside.
Slatter stared at Bill for a minute longer before turning and going inside with me, locking the door behind him.