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BEYOND THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD

CHAPTER 24-CONTRITION

JUSTIN’S POV

you had a bad day

Your morning had gone to shit the minute Brian left for work, and there’d been no stopping it ever since. The refrigerator had beeped at you when you were getting Brian’s coffee, but you’d ignored it. This apparently drove it to call all of its friends and launch what was nothing short of a mutiny. When Brian called, you ran up the stairs before answering your cell so he couldn’t hear the mechanical insubordination ensuing. And then you hung up the phone, went back downstairs, took a deep breath, and re-entered the kitchen—doing your best not to show any fear. You were going to settle this man to machine.

You stood in front of the refrigerator, the obvious ring-leader of the bunch, and began to shout at it, hoping that something that came out of your mouth would qualify as the ‘administrative password.’ It seemed to need this worse than a junkie needs another hit. So you began with the obvious:

“Fuck.” No dice.

“Suck.”

“Blow.”

“Rim.”

……

“Fellatio.” The beeping got louder, as if you were offering.

……

“Sixty-nine.”

“Babylon.” The dishwasher started, but it was false hope.
……

“Justin.”

“Justin Taylor.”

……

“Ass.” (Admittedly, that was just name-calling.)

……

And then you brought out the big guns; it gave you no other choice, “Sunshine.”

Nothing.

……

“Shutthefuckupyoumotherfuckingpieceofshi

t.”

Not even close.

*******************
ZEEK ZIRROLLI’S POV

mama told me not to come

You smoked three cigarettes on the way to West Virginia trying to figure out if you should quit your job, let Kinney fire you, or just let him sucker punch really hard. The third option was preferable because if he lost his temper, you knew you could take him. Kinney might be rich and smart, but he was no match for you in muscle mass. He couldn’t bench press your arm.

But somehow, none of that made you feel any better.

When you arrived at the house, Justin was standing outside in something that looked exactly like what a Kinney harem-member would wear, barefoot on the brick steps. You followed him into Kinney’s kitchen and became an immediate witness to nothing short of an electronic coup d'etat. You stood in the doorway, right on the edge of the black and white checkerboard floor, almost afraid to go any further, “Oh my god.”

“No shit,” Justin told you, bravely walking around the island as every appliance cursed him, “It’s some sort of kitchen collusion or something. They fucking hate me.”

“Well, if worse comes to worst, I’ll just cut the power to the whole house.” That’ll show ‘em.

“The hell you will. That’ll probably trigger the F.B.I. It’s bad enough that they’re already calling Brian…damn tattletales.”

You made your hand into a pistol that you couldn’t control as you walked from appliance to appliance, “All right, damnit, which one of you called The Wizard?”

By that time, Justin had fallen into a chair at the kitchen table in defeat, “It was the fridge. Trust me.” You called the fridge a traitor and blew it away. Justin wasn’t very impressed, “Don’t you have some real ideas?”

You wielded the screwdriver that lived in your back pocket and prayed for inspiration.

*******************
JUSTIN’S POV

these are the days it never rains but it pours

When you looked up and saw Brian standing in the doorway of the kitchen, drops of rain coloring his shirt, your first reaction was to look out the kitchen window and ascertain that it was, in fact, raining. He followed your gaze and then told you, “I couldn’t park in the garage.”

Zeek answered him, “I’m in the way.”

“Yeah, you are.”

“I’ll go move.”

Brian was still looking at you when he replied, “I’m blocking you in.”

“Right.”

……

No one was going anywhere.

……

You stared at Brian, at his blank, expressionless face, a fight or flight urge building inside you. You made a fateful decision…to fight. “This isn’t his fault, Brian. It’s mine.”

“Oh?”

You wanted to smack him as he stood there, tell him that coming home from work because of a fucking appliance had to be the stupidest thing you’d ever heard. But there was a part of you that found an angry Brian slightly terrifying, and that feeling wasn’t the least bit abated by the almost cowering posture Zeek had adopted. You wanted to smack him, too—for being a chicken shit. But instead you told Brian, “He’s just putting it back the way it was.”

It was a lie and you knew it. You and Zeek had given up on that half an hour ago; now you were just trying to find its vocal cords and yank them out. Zeek was facing you, away from Brian, and his eyes began to plead with you like a defenseless puppy that’d just been spanked with yesterday’s newspaper, so you added, “Because I told him to.” Zeek looked immediately relieved, as if you’d let the puppy out to piss all over those obnoxious statues in the garden.

“So if you want to be mad at someone, you’re just going to have to mad at me.”

“Consider it done.”

You glared at Brian when he said that, putting your hand on Zeek’s shoulder as you told him, “Just go.”

“He’s blocking me in.”

You’d had enough of this week’s episode of Alpha Males Gone Wild, “Brian, go move your car and let him out.”

At first, you didn’t think Brian was capable of moving an inch in his frozen state, but then he surprised you, nodding at Zeek to follow him out.

“Just leave your tools, okay?” you told him. “I’ll put everything away.”

“I’m sorry,” Zeek said.

“It’s not your fault. It’s okay.”

Zeek was giving you an apologetic look, when Brian hollered from the front door, “Any day now.”

“This is bullshit,” Zeek mumbled as he walked away, leaving you standing by yourself in the kitchen.

*******************
ZEEK ZIRROLLI’S POV

your future’s so unclear now,
what’s left of your career now?


A man and his tools should never be separated.

The sky opened up when you walked outside with Brian, the weather precluding conversation as much as anything else. Consequently, you were soaked as you drove back to Pittsburgh, blasting the heat to help you dry off while you navigated the back roads. The visibility was so bad it took you over an hour to get back. Once you crossed back over into Pennsylvania, you’d already made the decision. You were going back to the city.

Arriving at Babylon, you’d never been quite so happy that your best friend of late was a bartender. Rube served while you drank, with no mention of the fact that it wasn’t even lunch time yet. He sympathized with your situation, but became immediately melancholy when you told him you were leaving.

“But I just bought a house. You can live with me if you want, if you don’t want to live with your brother.”

“Can’t. Boss Man’s got me on the black book now—"

“You mean ‘black list.’”

“Whatever. I’ll end up as the ‘Assistant Manager of Dog Crap’ or some shit.”

“Brian doesn’t have a dog.”

“Not yet.”

*******************
JUSTIN’S POV

you just did just what I thought you were gonna do

Brian came back in the house through the kitchen while you were putting Zeek’s tools back in his toolbox. He said nothing, and you listened to his footsteps as he went up the stairs. You carried Zeek’s tools down to the basement and put them by the cellar door, called his cell and left a message, telling him he could come get them whenever he wanted. When you went upstairs to your studio; Brian was in the shower; you could hear the water running.

The next time you looked up, Brian was standing in the doorway of your studio, a towel wrapped around his waist. He leaned against the door frame, lit a cigarette, and asked, “What’re you doing?”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” you answered. Half the mural was already covered in a primer coat.

“It looks like you’re painting over something that cost me a lot of money.”

“Well, you shouldn’t have bought it,” you told him. It was the first time you’d spoken about the mural since the fight that, oddly enough, launched your honeymoon.

……

He changed the subject, “Why didn’t you tell me Rocky was your pity fuck?”

“He wasn’t my pity fuck,” you told him, walking across your studio and cracking two windows. The smell of the primer was getting to you.

“It’s raining, Justin,” he scolded you, walking across the room and started to close them.

“Don’t shut them. It’s my studio, and I want them open.” The sound of the rain was the only thing keeping you calm.

……

“He’s just not your type, that’s all.”

You laughed, “Right,” and switched to a clean brush. “A tall, dark top who’s rough around the edges. Don’t tax your brain trying to figure that one out.” Brian had taken a seat on a stool across from your art table, his legs open, when you rolled your eyes and told him, “Go put your clothes on.”

……

He ignored your request, so you repeated it, “I said, ‘Go get dressed.’”

“Why the fuck do you care?”

“I’m not having this conversation with you and your dewy, glistening chest. That’s why.”

“Whatever,” he said as he walked away, yanking his towel completely off before he was out of sight: It’s customary for the alpha-male to bare his ass when challenged by a smaller member of the pack…

(Sometimes Brian moved in metaphors that you weren’t even sure he was aware of.)
……

When he returned, he modeled a gray knit shirt and blue jeans for you, and asked, “Does this meet with your approval?”

“That’s better.”

“Well, I’m glad we got that out of the way,” he said, lighting another cigarette from his location on the opposite side of your art table.

“You know, I wish you wouldn’t do that,” you told him.

“What? Look so fucking hot when I smoke?”

“I’m trying to quit.”

“Since when?” he wanted to know.

“Since now.”

“Well, far be it from me to get in the way of any of your personal endeavors,” he replied, letting the cigarette extinguish in your coffee from hours earlier. “That better, my fair—?”

“Just shut the fuck up, okay?”

“Is that another order?” You shook your head at him in disgust. “’Cause I want to make sure I’m three for three.”

“You’re batting a thousand, Brian, don’t worry.”

“Well, that’s a relief,” and he stood up, pacing back and forth in front of your table. The sound of the rain insulated the two of you in the studio, a silence that was so quiet it made your ears hurt, interrupted only by the smack of your brush on the canvas.

……

“I don’t give a shit who you fucked, Justin.” You didn’t doubt the veracity of that statement. You knew he didn’t give a rat’s ass. “I just don’t get why you didn’t tell me.”

“It was none of your business?”

“None of my business?”

At that point, you’d moved to the sink to wash the pile of brushes you’d dirtied, so you were turned, almost with your back to him, when you began, “The last time I fucked Zeek was on October 13, 2007. It was a Saturday…at a wedding reception. He wore one of those ribbed condoms—the ones you hate; we fucked in the coat closet. I was wearing a tux and my pants were in a heap around my ankles. He took me from behind, and it lasted maybe seven to ten minutes. When he came, he said, 'Goddamn Eg—'"

“Okay.”

“I told him to be quiet. That someone was going to hear us.”

Brian walked away from you, “You made your point.”

But you didn’t care, “And then Harper’s brand new husband, Sam, flung open the closet door and saw us, and said, ‘Jesus, we haven’t even had cake.’”

“I get it.”

And you weren’t done yet, “And then Zeek said, ‘I just had mine,’ and left. And then I cleaned my cum off Daniel’s wall before he found out and had a coronary. The end. Do you see now why it’s none of your business?”

He did.

……

“You better not fire him, Brian.”

“Yeah, well, that’s none of your business.”

*******************
I know what you’re doing,
I see it all too clear


You’d been home for exactly thirteen days at that point. It seemed like so much longer when you looked back over your shoulder at the distance you and Brian had traveled. Sometimes you wondered if the two of you were walking in circles. You were about to find out.

You were slapping your paintbrush on the mural, back and forth, back and forth, watching your hand move when you spoke, “Well, since we’re on the subject, is the fact that you’re paying for Molly’s education none of my business, too?”

“You went in my desk,” he replied, his jaw starting to set firm.

“Only because I was trying in vain to save your precious life-bots.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“But, you know, Brian, I’m glad I did. Because if I hadn’t, I would’ve never known that my father has written you three letters asking you to call off the dogs. One as recently as two months ago.”

He stood up that time and walked to the window, staring at the wet trees, “Your father’s an asshole.”

“What’d you do to him?”

“Nothing. It’s just business.”

You crossed the studio and were standing behind his right shoulder when you asked again, “What did you do?”

He turned around and looked you right in the face, unashamed, and confessed, “I bought up all of the property next to, in front of, behind, anywhere near his store and sat on it. He has to expand to stay in the game, to be able to compete with the big boys. He can’t expand, so he can’t compete.”

“You’re going to put him out of business?”

“More or less.” You threw your hands up in defeat, but he just kept right on talking, “And I’m paying for your little sister’s education because your father’s in no financial shape to do so, trust me.”

“Jesus, Brian.”

“He had it coming.”

“I can’t believe you would do something like this.”

It wasn’t exactly a true statement. You could very easily believe it; you just really didn’t want to. You watched him walk across the hall into his study and close the door. You slammed yours, and collapsed on your futon, steeling yourself against the claustrophobic sadness overtaking you. The fabric still smelled like the city. Cigarettes and turpentine.

*******************
but the black holes that surround you are heavier by far

The quiet that fell over the house for the next hour or so was stifling—heavy like the cold, humid air still pouring into your studio. You refused to close the windows, preferring to add injury to the insult. The stack of blank canvases leaning against the wall next to the futon looked so perfect, descending dimensions precisely arranged, the lighting above your head, each track head facing the same direction. Everything prepped and ready for the moment that wouldn’t come. Or couldn’t come. The disappointment of realizing that semantics were the only thing rising to the surface…

“Just remember, the only difference between good art and love—"

“Is that art lasts longer.”


And lately even that was fleeting.

When you tired of the standoff and crossed the hall to Brian’s study and knocked on the door, he didn’t answer. You opened the door, expecting to see him at his desk, but instead your eyes wandered to the floor, to his body propped against a wall of bookcases, an almost depleted bottle of Scotch stuck between his legs. He was asleep, his fingers still wrapped around his cheap, instant-salvation. Then the bottle stood guard on the corner of his desk watching as you sat down beside him and put your hand on his shoulder. You’d hoped to convince him to go get lunch for the two of you, unwilling to tackle the ever-disobedient kitchen right then, but he was in no shape to do so. Nudging him awake wasn’t easy, but when his eyes opened he smiled at you and slurred, “Sunshine.”

“Come on. Get up.”

You led him to your bedroom, told him to lie down, and went back to his study to order lunch in, rattling off Brian’s credit card number as if it was your name, rank, and serial number.

“I ordered a pizza,” you told him, rejoining him on the bed and still trying to figure out how to get them to just deliver it straight to the bedroom.

“I’m not supposed to have pizza today,” he told you.

“It’s not for you.”

He laughed and then fell back asleep, and you sat beside him just watching him snore, your fingers playing with his hair as if they were unaware as to the rest of you felt right then. You ate your lunch in bed next to him, downing half the pizza, two reruns of Fraiser, and half of a very cold two-liter of Diet Coke with Lime.

When Brian awoke about an hour later, you were back in your studio covering the mural, and you jumped in your skin when you looked up and saw him in all of his bed-head glory standing in the doorway.

“You’re up.”

“It’s fucking freezing in here,” he responded. You’d gotten used to it, but you walked across the room anyway and shut both of the windows.

“Better?” you asked.

“Yeah. Did you eat pizza in our bed?”

“Yep.”

“Any left?”

“Half of it. I slid it under the bed. I’m not going back downstairs until you quell the robot-riot in the kitchen.”

……

He was gone for about ten minutes and then returned with a cup of coffee, “All quiet on the Western front.”

“Good.”

……

……

“You want me to leave you alone?” he asked.

“I want you to undo whatever you did to my father.”

“It’s not that simple.”

“Well, you’re Brian Kinney. I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

*******************
under the bridge downtown
is where I drew some blood


He gave you a less than flattering look and disappeared from the doorway. You were tiring of the smell of paint, so you washed your hands and found him in your bedroom, your brushes left behind soaking in the sink. Brian was sitting in the chair by the window, his bare feet propped up on the table next to it, his empty coffee cup in his lap. You sat in the chair opposite his, your legs tucked underneath you and watched him as he circled the rim of the mug with his fingers. Minutes passed in silence until you found what you wanted to say. Brian’s eyes lifted when he heard your voice,

“Your father’s dead, Brian. Don’t punish mine.”

He was so still, you weren’t even sure if he heard you.

……

When he spoke his voice was low and quiet and almost seeped in resignation, “I used to sit by your hospital bed for hours every night when you were in a coma.” You were ready to tell him that you knew, that your mother had told you right before your wedding that never was, but he didn’t seem interested in your response. “I always came late, right after the shift change because your parents would be long gone and so would the nurses that knew them better than they knew me. It wasn’t even visiting hours anymore, but I befriended one the nurses so she’d let me stay. There was a boy in the room next to yours who was also in a coma. Car wreck or something. He died the first night I was there.”

“You never told me—"

“It was awful. He arrested and everyone was panicking and suddenly it was like you and I were the only two people on the floor who weren’t in that room trying to make that boy live. I got really nervous, worried that if something happened to you, there wouldn’t be enough people left to help you. So I just kept staring at the monitors, praying that the beeping I was hearing stayed exactly the same.” He drew a sine wave in the air.

“Did it?”

“Yeah”

“You thought I was going to die.”

“I thought your body would, but I knew the rest of you would just keep on going.”

“Haunting you?”

His eyes shifted, looking at you for a moment, but they went right through you, almost a clean slice. “And then afterward, I’d go to Babylon to get my dick sucked because it broke the mood I was always in when I left you.”

“It made you forget.”

“Yeah.”

“You felt guilty.” You were asking, but it didn’t really sound like a question.

“Helpless,” he admitted.

“Right.”

……

“I was Brian Fucking Kinney, and there wasn’t one fucking thing I could do to make you wake up.” He laughed, but there was no joy in it, “Once I had this dream that you sat up in that bed, opened your eyes, looked at me, and then slapped me across the face.”

“Brian.”

“It wasn’t a nightmare. It felt really good. I’d want you to keep hitting me, but I’d always wake up.” He leaned forward, sitting the coffee mug on the desk and then sat back again, his fingers curling around either armrest, “And then the club blows up, and all I could think was that that was the slap. That was what I’d been waiting for.”

“Stop it.”

……

He stopped, falling silent again at your request.

“I don’t want this to haunt us for the rest of our lives, Brian.” He smirked at your suggestion. “I’m serious. It’s not your fault that Chris hit me, and I don’t need you to fight my battles. They’re my demons, and I can deal with them.”

His eyes narrowed, coming back to the moment as he looked at you, no longer through you, “Right, Justin. That’s why you’re in there painting over them.”

The rain stopped.

*******************
thunder only happens when it’s raining

Brian left you alone in your bedroom minutes later, and the next few hours passed slowly as you wandered back and forth between your studio and your bedroom—moments of slippery inspiration routinely followed by moments of exhaustion. One seemed to feed the other, and it left you restless, unable to settle down or accomplish anything. Around dinnertime, you ventured back into the kitchen, no evidence left of its earlier tantrum. You made yourself a salad and poked your head out the kitchen door into the garage to see if Brian’s car was still there. It was, but there was no sign of him. You left your salad bowl in the sink and took the stairs down to the basement to see if Brian was taking up residence in the wine cellar, but like the pricey bottle of wine you’d downed more than a week before, you came up empty. When you looked toward the door that led from the cellar to the driveway, you noticed immediately that Zeek’s tools were gone.

Back in your studio, the mural was completely covered and almost dry, no evidence of its former image remaining, yet it didn’t feel like a blank canvas to you like you’d hoped. An hour later would find you covering it again, the tarp haphazardly thrown over it on the table where it would remain for a while. You sat down at your computer and began to doodle, the process of creating something and then erasing it completely compelling you to sit there for almost an hour and half when it felt like fifteen minutes. It was still February, but you suspected your muse of spring cleaning on the sly.

It was almost eleven o’clock when you finally turned off the lights in your studio, closed the door, and began to put some effort into looking for Brian, the house always an imposing presence when the lights were off.

……

“I didn’t even know we had a tanning bed,” you told him when you found him in the sauna, sitting in a corner in the dark with a white towel draped over his lap, the built-in widescreen TV making the air look blue and misty. He muted the television when you walked through the door.

“What?”

“I said, ‘I didn’t even know we had a tanning bed.’”

“Oh…yeah. We do.”

……

“What’re you watching?”

“I don’t know. Some dumb ass movie-of-the-week. It’s kind of like the Amy Fisher story meets Ghost.”

He bent his knees when you walked the steps to the top row and sat down beside him, the blue light from the television casting shadows on his chest.

……

“It’s hot in here,” you announced once you’d been sitting for all of fifteen seconds.

“Yeah, well, it’s a sauna.”

……

……

Brian’s foot nudged its way behind your back, so you turned your eyes from the television to him. “Come here, Justin.”

You moved closer to him, leaning back against him when his arms slid underneath yours. He held your hands as he held you, pressing them against your stomach. He was kissing the back of your neck when he urged your right hand inside your pants, peeling your underwear away from your damp skin as the spirit-Lolita walked through the wall of her lover’s bedroom so she could watch him fucking his wife. Brian’s hand was wrapping yours around your dick and then leaving it to its own devices as it slid between your legs, smoothing along your inner thigh.

“Undress,” he told you, right as the cheating husband stopped moving, swearing to his wife that there was someone in the room. Sprit-Lolita was suddenly wielding a knife.

“I don’t like this movie,” you said.

“Turn it off.”

That was easier said than done since both of your hands were in your pants at that point. He laughed when you cocked your head back and gave him a and just how am I supposed to do that look, and turned it off with his foot, kicking the remote so that it spun across the wooden slats and ricocheted against the far corner. Seconds later, your clothes joined it on the other side of the sauna.

You felt yourself wetting your lips as his hand ran down the side of your body, as you could hear his arousal stitched into each breath, feel him hard against your back. His fingers tucked your hair behind your ear before his lips were behind it, his kiss making a feathery chill spread beneath your skin.

The television was still glowing when he told you to lean forward on your knees, pulling your thighs apart and toward him as you felt him licking you, his tongue soft enough to drive you mad yet hard enough to fuck. He was more than generous with his mouth, never discouraging you when your body took over, demanding things from him. It wasn’t long before you needed to come just to justify the warmth flooding you, the sweat beading down your chest. You watched it, your hand wet with it as you fucked it, a frenzy you were trying desperately to steer. You heard yourself grunting, panting, telling him not to stop—still begging him as you came in your hand, a pearly-white heat bleeding through your fingers.

He rose behind you when you were trying to swallow, to catch your breath, inviting himself inside you, his breath hot as he wrapped himself overtop of you, his forehead bearing down on your back. He fucked you like that, cowering over you, one arm snaking around your waist, hand curving around your thigh.

It went on forever, that sensation of being fucked and sheltered at the same time, a symbiotic relationship thriving between the two. Every forward motion you were forced to make corrected with his grip. It was almost more than you could take and yet, not nearly enough.

……

The sauna was completely dark when he came, completely dark when he released you, completely dark when you fumbled for him, not ready for it to be over. You fell against his chest as he circled you with his arms and then his legs, and then closed your eyes so you could really smell him, the scent feral and comforting—a blanket woven of jagged teeth.

……

……

“Bed, Sunshine,” he whispered, pushing you to your reluctant feet, your clothes dangling from his fingers as the two of you abandoned the sauna and went up the stairs.

*******************
BRIAN’S POV

when the rain washes you clean,
you’ll know


Back in your bedroom that night, he rode you, the roaring fire a cheap mimic of the sauna’s heat, and what you remember most about it were the shadows his body cast looming large against the wall and halfway onto the ceiling, the way it changed as he got closer to closer to orgasm. He didn’t see you smiling at him when his pace increased because he was staring at his hands, and then so were you--at the indentions they were making in your chest.

“Fuck me, Justin.”

And then there was only one hand pressing against your chest as he jerked off on top of you. You came holding his hips against you as hard as you could, your head back as he soaked your chest. He lay on top of you when it was over, keeping you inside him for as long as he could, and when you felt the evidence of your encounter making itself known on your thigh, you realized that it wasn’t affection keeping him there but rather sleep—a sweet, sound sleep. You closed your eyes and joined him, and although the sun rose on the two of you no longer entwined, neither of you would have any memory of how or when that separation occurred.

*******************
you’re burnin’ up the quarter mile

“Good morning, Mr. Kinney. Today is Thursday, February 23, 2011. The time is seven forty-five a.m. The current temperature is fifty-seven degrees under partly sunny skies. You may enter your destination now.”

“KINNETIK.”

”Thank you. Kinnetik is entered as your destination. Have a safe trip.”

You started your day internalizing the smooth acceleration of the Mercedes, letting it pulse through you as you drove, propel you into your company, your office, your productive day. But after only half an hour, you felt more like Sisyphus than Superman, one rock after another getting in your way. It started when Rube called in sick for the first time ever in your employ, which led you to radio Zeek and tell him that you needed him to manage the club that night. A chaotic Thursday night would set the stage for an unprofitable weekend. Zeek agreed with much less bravado and more information than you were expecting,

No problem, but Friday’s my last day, Boss Man.”

“What?”

You heard me.”

“Friday is tomorrow, Zeek.”

Shit, you’re right. Sorry. Tomorrow’s my last day.”

“Zeek.”

”Rube’s sick?”

“Yeah.”

”Gotta go. But I’ll be there tonight. Got it under control.”

“Zeek, tomorrow is not your last day. You can’t just—"

You threw your cell phone on the desk. He’d already hung up.

*******************
if you wanna be happy for the rest of your life,
never make a pretty woman your wife


Zeal was fairly busy when you stopped by for lunch, hoping to talk to Gabe, but were greeted by Emmett instead.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Kinney? Table for one?”

“Cut it out. Where’s Gabe?”

“Dentist.”

“Right.”

Emmett shrugged and led you to your table. Erica waved when she saw you, engaging in her perfectly executed hair flip when she smiled. Emmett sat you, handed you a menu (as if you needed one), and then leaned down to whisper in your ear, “Don’t tell her, but she’s wearing one navy pump and one black pump today. I swear to god, she can’t tell the difference.”

“Well, just keep her behind the hostess stand then.” (He laughed and then realized that you were serious.)

……

“Can I get you something from the bar, Mr. Kinney?” His eyes never left yours while you were ordering, a technique you knew only too well. It was a Gabe Zirrolli trademark.

“Sapphire and tonic.”

“Excellent choice, sir.”

“Would you cut it out?”

“Be right back,” he chirped, sliding your menu out of your hand.

“I can’t wait.”

……

Emmett returned moments later with your drink, a glass of water, and the salad you always ate, and then invited himself to dine with you. His knees bumped yours under the table, and the two of you jockeyed for space and eventually got comfortable again. Em’s face was resting in his hands while you ate, drinking the glass of water that you thought was for you. To your recollection, the last meaningful conversation you’d had with Emmett consisted of him explaining to you why he was going to spit instead of swallowing from now on because, “Spunk is giving me love handles.” You told him that was called the ‘Fellatio Fifteen,’ and he believed you.

“So why are you dining alone today?” he wanted to know.

You felt defensive all of a sudden, but weren’t exactly sure why. “I’m not. There’s this really annoying Assistant Manager Wannabe who won’t leave me alone.” You stabbed your lettuce as if it deserved it.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Brian. It’s unbecoming.”

You pointed to the glass of water he was sipping, “I thought that was mine.”

“Don’t like to share?” Your eyebrow arched at his suggestion, albeit without your permission.

Erica was wafting by at that moment, and you tried to look covertly at her shoes. Emmett called her name and when she turned around, asked, “Erica, sweetie, can you bring Brian his own glass of water? He wants to have one all to himself.”

“Certainly.”

When she was out of range, you told Emmett, “You’re right. Her shoes are different.”

“It’s sad, really,” Emmett bemused. “It’s like she’s a fag hag without a fag.”

“Tragic.”

……

“So how’s Justin?”

“Fine.”

“What’s he doing today? Anybody special?”

You put your fork down with more emphasis than that salad merited, “Well, since you asked. Me.

Emmett sighed, “Must be a slow day, huh?”

*******************
Mr. Wizard can’t perform no god-like hocus pocus

It’s fair to say that you’ve spent your life and made your fortune managing relationships, knowing which ones deserved massaging and which were inconsequential. But even the fact that you’d survived marriage for an entire two weeks couldn’t have prepared you for the fiasco that’d befallen your first-string management. It was a certified, grade-A, cluster fuck that made your previous adventures in Lesbian Relationship Counseling seem like child’s play.

It started with your second Sapphire and Tonic at lunch…the realization that maybe if you were a bit more charming with Emmett, his mouth would run like melted butter. So you schmoozed him a little, just enough to learn that Rube wasn’t exactly sick, but rather, was taking a ‘mental health day.’

“He’s depressed,” Emmett told you.

“Why?”

“Zeek’s leaving, going back to the city.”

“Where’s Gabe?” The two were rarely that far apart.

“Probably in some confessional somewhere begging for forgiveness.”

You believed that; Gabe can’t function unless he’s on good terms with his soul. And that worried you because you needed him at work, not at church.

“Where’s Zeek right now?” you asked.

“Not sure. But I can guarantee you it’s not West Virginia.”

You tossed your napkin on the table, thanked Emmett for the service, and drove to Ruben’s apartment. Zeek’s van was parked outside. When you knocked on the door, Zeek was the one who opened it, a frightened expression filling his face when he realized you weren’t his little brother. Ruben was sitting in the middle of his living room floor putting his dominos in their box. You slid your hands in your pockets and relaxed your posture as you walked up to him, “Thought you were sick.”

Zeek was standing so that Rube was essentially between the two of you, and Rube didn’t even look up when Zeek spoke, “Leave him alone, okay?”

You pointed to Ruben, “He’s not at work because you’re leaving. Gabe’s not at work because you’re leaving. I’m not at work because you’re leaving. See a pattern here Zeek?”

“I just think it’s better if I go. You understand.”

“Why? Because you fucked Justin?”

Rube muttered to the dominos he was painstakingly arranging, “Uh oh.” He had a tendency to embody Rain Man when he was anxious, and you had to fight the overwhelming urge you had to send him to his room.

Zeek continued, “I didn’t just fuck him, man. I fucked him a lot.

(“Oh shit.”

“Rube, calm down, man.”

“Okay.”)

“I swear on my mother’s lasagna; I had no idea he was your piece of ass.”

“He’s not my ‘piece of ass,’” you replied. And then, “Okay, well, sometimes he is.”

“Don’t blame you, Boss Man. Don’t blame you one bit. Ass like that’ll keep you coming back for more.” He immediately clarified himself, “But not me. Won’t be going anywhere near it. Absolutely not.”

……

……

“So, you’re staying then?” you asked.

You saw the relief in Rube’s body when Zeek agreed, “Yep. I’ll stay.”

“Good because you’re the only one that knows the ins and outs of the club and the restaurant—"

“’Ins and outs.’ Bad choice of words, Boss Man.”

Rube was laughing, so you kicked his leg, “Put your toys away and go back to work.” And then you turned to Zeek, “Where’s Gabe?”

“Hell if I know.”

“Well, I expect you to find him and resolve this shit between you by tonight. I’m not gonna have my interests jeopardized because you guys want to win first prize in a drama queen pageant.”

“You’re here, too,” Zeek reminded you, his fearless disposition returning.

“Shut up.”

……

You walked back to the parking lot with Zeek, and when he got to his van and was about to hop in, you stopped him, “If you ever touch anything in my kitchen again, you’ll need to go a lot farther than New York City.”

“You’re kind of weird, you know that?”

“I’m serious.”

“I know, Boss Man. That’s why you’re weird. But don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson: what’s yours is yours and what’s yours isn’t mine. Deal?”

“Deal.”

You rode back to the office trying to figure out why that made perfect sense.

You spent the rest of the day returning phone calls, mending fences that had fallen in your absences, shaking your head at the ad copy that was landing on your desk. The longer you were gone, you concluded, the sloppier they got. The only person who never did anything differently, regardless of where you were or what you were doing, was Theodore. That’s what happens when you start bumping into forty; you realize that what you used to think was ‘boring’ you now appreciated as ‘consistent.’ And because of Theodore and his never-ending attention to detail, you’d signed, approved, and vetoed everything that you needed to by three o’clock and were able to focus your attention on your last task for the day.

*******************
I'm just a man whose circumstances went beyond his control

When you arrived home that night, there was a non-iWWINN® dinner and a fuck for dessert, both on the kitchen table. While Justin was cleaning up from both, you brought your briefcase in from the foyer, laid it on the kitchen counter, and snapped it open. You waited until his domesticity was winding down before presenting him with an envelope.

“What’s this?” he asked as you closed your briefcase and sat it on the floor.

“You told me to figure it out. So I did.”

Justin turned the envelope over and began to open it, letting the documents unfold in his hand. “What is it?”

You gave him a minute to read what was in his hand, and then told him, “It’s the deed to all of the property I bought around your father’s store.”

He looked confused, “But it’s in my name.”

“That’s right. It belongs to you now. What you do with it is up to you.”


Lyrics taken from Daniel Powter’s Bad Day, Three Dog Night’s Mama Told Me Not to Come, David Bowie featuring Queen’s Under Pressure, Frankie Avalon’s Beauty School Drop-Out from the movie Grease, Barenaked Ladies’s One Week, Duncan Sheik’s Barely Breathing, Red Hot Chili Pepper’s Under the Bridge, Fleetwood Mac’s Dreams twice, John Travolta’s Grease Lightin’ from the soundtrack of the movie Grease, Jimmy Soul’s If You Wanna Be Happy, Smashmouth’s Walkin’ on the Sun, and Styx’s Mr. Roboto.

Chapter End Notes:

Original publication 5/18/06

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