CHAPTER 53: WASP WITH A LARGE DOSE OF MICK

JUSTIN:

If someone had told me years ago that I would be sitting here waiting for my childhood hero to enter this particular room, I would have called them a liar. I mean, no way would Craig Taylor EVER be accused of not only ripping off his children, but premeditated plans to ruin a man he barely knew, right? Add to that other multiple law infractions, and I’m still sitting here with more than a little disbelief. Whatever made me want to emulate him growing up? What made me want to make him proud to call himself my father? Would I still view him the same way I do now if I was straight and he had done all of this? The level of betrayal and confusion I feel in this moment… well, there are few words that can actually describe it. In a lot of ways, it’s shaken the core of who I am- or was- as Craig Taylor’s son. Or should I say, his eldest son?

As the door opens while I climb out of my psyche, I am surprised to see the person I least expected enter the room. But I am glad. It’s not that I’m afraid to face Craig alone; just that having Mom here will soften the blow of whatever words he thinks he can say to me at this juncture. I already knew coming here that things were bound to get ugly… the only thing I couldn’t determine was by how much.

“Mom, what are you doing here? I thought you were spending the day with Joan.”

“She’s here, too, Justin. Between Cynthia and Daphne, they told us that you and Brian were coming here. After the run-in with Debra a little while ago, we thought Brian could use our collective support. But then I get here and find out that you are here visiting Craig as well. My automatic response is to ask ‘What are you thinking?!’, but I won’t, for the simple fact that I realize you need to do this.”

I nod. She’s right, I do. “Wait. You said that you had a run-in with Deb. How did that go? Has she begun to change her tune about anything?”

“Well, you know Debra Novotny. If you don’t think the way she wants you to, than you are wrong. She actually tried to make Joan feel bad for trying to restore her relationship with Brian. I think the thing that disappoints me the most about her is that she used Joan’s alcoholism against her, when the important thing is that the woman is recovering and is trying to better herself, which is basically the same thing she is doing. But what the hell gives her the right to sit in judgment of Joan when she committed the same level neglect, in reverse?! Instead of teaching her child boundaries and real-life lessons, like the fact that no means no, even in terms of emotional rape, she was happy to foment his fantasies for her own selfish reasons. Debra is not fooling me one little bit! It’s the same reason I couldn’t accept that you were gay in the beginning.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was afraid of being left out of your life, or more accurately, left behind. It was so easy to negate my own coming of age story, when at the age of sixteen instead of seventeen, I was exploring my own sexuality…”

“MOM!”

“Oh son, get over it! I had sex before I met your father. You were not conceived in a test tube and implanted, nor are you the second coming of Christ and born of a virgin.”

“Okay! I get it! I need brain bleach! UGH!”

Mom laughs at me before growing serious again. “The fact is that I was hypocritical. I wanted you to stay my buddy, and my baby. There was only one problem with that though. Time marches on, and it waits for none of us. So while I was making plans to keep you a child, you were becoming a man against my will. You wouldn’t let me bully you into going along with my wants, needs, and opinions. You had your own dreams, goals, and aspirations. And our thoughts couldn’t be more different! Yet, had you allowed me to stifle you, I would have been happy, but the son I love, with the Sunshine smile, would have been miserable.

"So yes, looking back on it, I’m glad you forced me to make a decision on whether to basically coexist with you or live without you. I’m glad I chose YOU, flaws and all, Justin. You are MY son, and regardless of everything, you are exactly the person I had hoped you would become when I used to dream of you while I was pregnant. I just had to learn how to dream new dreams for you, that’s all.”

It’s hard not to want to hold her and cry after realizing that she finally got it! It wasn’t about me rebelling against the grain so much as just wanting to live my life. Now I understand what she means about emotional rape. All of the ‘you owe me’ and having to bypass what you want in order to keep the love of someone else is exactly that… RAPE! It’s never about love, but control, and it seems that Brian and I weren’t Craig’s only victims.

“I think you need to do this too, Mom.”

“Even more than you do, Son. Even more than you,” she answers grimly, just as the door opens again.

“Where’s Molly?” Craig asks her, not even looking at me.

“I didn’t want her to see her sperm donor in prison orange, unlike you if the roles had been reversed. But even moreso, I doubt she would want to see you anyway, Craig.”

“Well, when are you posting my bail?”

She laughs. “Selective memory again, I see. Or is it that you’re trying for an insanity verdict by claiming dementia, or is it schizophrenia this week? Either way, you’re not getting out. To refresh your memory, the judges- ALL of them- denied you bail. As for your favorite crony, Russo, you would do well to remember that he is being held on bribery charges, witness tampering, and my favorite so far, abusive use of power. So it seems all of your past, present, and future allies are in the same boat you are.”

“So you’ve come to gloat?” he asks her, still trying to ignore my presence. It’s not working too well.

“Gloating is more your style than mine. However, there are some things that Justin and I would like to say to you, and to have some questions answered.”

“Why, Craig?” I speak my first words since he entered to him.

“Why what?”

“Why did you target Brian?”

“He’s a fucking child molester and a pervert!”

“Don’t play fucking DUMB!” I raise my voice, before lowering it again. “You and I both know this attempt at sabotage didn’t just begin. If it helps you to keep your story straight in your head, I spoke directly with one of your very first mistresses...”

“And?”

“Lindsay- you remember her, right Craig?- had some very interesting information to share… well other than the information that between Mom and I, we figured out on our own.”

“And you would trust that lying bitch over me, your own father?!”

“Consider me an orphan, which you have constantly told me to do since coming out, because yes, I do. In fact, I would trust your little fag-in-crime, Michael, before I ever trust you.”

“Then why are you here then?”

“Because I want to compare notes with Brian.” At his widened eyes and curled lip, I continue. “You see, right now he is down the hall visiting his former best friend, who is going to be so happy to see Brian that he will tell him just about anything. In fact, I wouldn’t doubt that by now, he’s wiggling his ass in the chair like a puppy about to pee on himself in his excitement.”

“UGH! Such vulgarity! This is what you get for hanging around lowlife pedophiles like Kinney!”

“I would think you should know, since your second mistress is his sister. But Brian isn’t like the crude bimbo you traded your own class for. In fact, my husband is refined…”

“HE IS NOT YOUR HUSBAND, OR ANYTHING ELSE BUT YOUR FUCKING ABUSER! DON’T YOU EVER SAY THAT SHIT AGAIN!”

I place my hand over my throat as if clutching a set of pearls, while Mom contains her laughter. “Craig, such language! You ought to know better! And yet you call my husband a lowlife. But here’s the thing… which one of you is sitting in jail right now?”

“HE SHOULD BE!”

“Not at all, since he hasn’t done anything illegal. I don’t know how many times it needs to be explained to you… I’m sure your lawyer even tried, but well, stupidity is a disease, isn’t it? So, for the last time, for the lone person in the cheap seat with the orange jumpsuit and state-issued bracelets, the legal age of CONSENT is SIXTEEN. So therefore, there was no molestation. It can’t even be considered statutory rape since I knew exactly what I was doing when I pursued him. And you know what, Craig? For a chance to be bedded and wedded to Brian Aiden Taylor-Kinney, I would do it all over again. Did you hear it all that time?”

“Justin…”

“That’s Mr. Taylor-Kinney to you. Say it with me… TAaaaYLOR-KINNnnnEY…” Yes, I know I’m tormenting him, and I won’t deny that I’m having a bit of fun doing so. But not only does he deserve it, it’s also the only way to get information out of him.

Craig Taylor has the most annoying habit, much like Michael Novotny. If you want him to shut the fuck up about something, he opens his mouth. But as soon as you need to know something important, he shuts the fuck up. I have often wondered if there is some sort of disconnect when the synapses are supposed to be firing within their brains. I mean, it can’t just be ignorance and arrogance, right? There has to be some sort of impulse control issue or something.

“That’s enough, Justin!”

“As my HUSBAND says, there is no such thing as enough. But I might be willing to compromise if you willingly start talking about your involvement in this whole mess. OR, I can just go back to singing the praises of my wonderful and marvelous- husband, lover, and best friend. As a matter of fact, last night, Brian had me bent…”

“ARGH!!! Okay, ALRIGHT! JUST STOP IT!”

“The truth, then! And not one fucking tangent!” Mom orders. Somehow she’s managing to contain her laughter, while all I want to do is continue acting like the brat Brian calls me sometimes. But if he doesn’t adhere to what she says, I’ll be happy to give him all the illicit details of the gay sex I’ve had. It will not only include the sex I’ve had with Brian, but the nameless, faceless men I’ve fucked, too. We could call it a tutorial of what might be expected of him when he’s firmly planted in the Big House.

I take a look at Craig. There’s no doubt that he’s trying to figure out what he can get away without telling us, so I decided to direct this inquiry with two very pointed questions that he’d be a fool to try and dodge. “Since you’re reluctant of where to begin your confession, I think we should start at Lynette Peterson’s sweet sixteen party and then you can fill in the blanks both backwards and forward from there. That said, what exactly do you have against Brian? Was it that you assumed he’d replaced you in Lindsay’s bed, or were you acting in Ron’s best interests in trying to get rid of him?”

Mom gasps beside me. “Justin?”

“That’s right; you missed that part of Lynette’s retelling of the situation as she knew it. So Mom, Craig was Lindsay’s first lover.”

Mom shook her head sadly. “I would love to say that I’m hurt or surprised by that, and maybe a few years ago I would have been. But it kind of sheds a little light on something.” She looked at my father with a small smirk on her face. “It’s funny how you continually call Brian a child molester, when in fact you must have been as well, Craig.”

“Mom?”

“Do the math, Justin,” she tells me before clicking her nails on the table. “There are twelve years of age between you and Brian; four years between you and Lynette. Lindsay is the same age as Brian, only older than he is by six or seven months. Lindsay Peterson left for college when she was eighteen years old, which is when Craig traded her for a new, but older, downgraded model of whore…”

“Claire?”

“Yes, Claire Kinney. But when I think back to that time, I remember when Lindsay tried to cry rape against my brother. She was so convincing that of course, Nancy took her in for her first OB-GYN appointment, and was all over the club before the appointment even finished. It was quite controversial back then, because as far as our society went, good girls weren’t even really suppose to be knowledgeable of any other use for their vaginas besides the standard things that go along with having one. So the fact that Lindsay knew the term of forcible sexual congress when Nancy hadn’t yet had the ‘sex talk’ with her… well, it was automatically known that Lindsay was fast.”

I smiled at my mom’s way of putting things. Her inopportune primness always astounds Brian and I, especially since we’ve heard more litanies of profanity fly out of her mouth without conscious thought in recent days. “How old was Lindsay when that happened?”

“A week shy of her sixteenth birthday. I also remember Nancy complaining that no boys would willingly associate with Lindsay unless they were mandated to by their teachers. Ironically, my brother was the same way, saying that any association with Lindsay Peterson without her father being present was asking for a world of trouble. So imagine all of the surprise when she publicly accused him of taking her virginity. It was also an open secret that she was pregnant, although none of us knew who the father was. We just knew that the accusations against Charles couldn’t be true. So although, Ron and Nancy socially recovered from the accusations levied at my family, they did so only by disassociating themselves from Lindsay as much as possible.”

“How did Uncle Charles end up getting involved with Lindsay going to Penn State?” I ask, completely fascinated by this information from my mother. While the information is somewhat different from what Lynette told me, the underlying alliances are making sense now.  

“That was actually a favor to Ron Peterson.”

“What do you mean? Why would he be willing to do anything for the man whose daughter tried to publicly humiliate him and defame his character?”

“I suspect Craig actually knows the answer to this, don’t you Craig?” Mom turned her eyes onto him. Somehow, my father suddenly looked older than I’ve ever seen him. “I also suspect that Ron’s involvement in all of this is a form of payback to both Craig and Lindsay.”

“FUCK!” he yells. “I only wanted what was my due for marrying you, Jennifer!”

“Your due?” I ask.

“YES! MY FUCKING DUE!” Craig yells again. “My whole purpose in marrying your mother and spawning you was to reach the level she was born to. The problem is that while she was still welcomed in the creme de la creme of the top tier of our society, I was still being excluded because of her asshole brother! Lindsay’s family was being excluded because of her…”

“So you align yourself with a fifteen year old…” my mother began, but I couldn’t help but to interject…

“In more ways than one...”

“...to accomplish what?” she asks.

“To force Charles’ hand. The Petersons were content with their stations within the Country Club set; they were considered new money, after all. But Lindsay was ambitious.”

“And so were you,” I say. “WOW! Such history, Craig. So who exactly is the pedophile now, huh? And after all those times you measured Brian by your own yardstick…” I shake my head. “When did you start fucking her?”

“Justin!” Mom admonishes me.

“What? It certainly wasn’t making love, as neither of them are, or ever were, capable of the emotion at all.”

“That’s not true, Justin. I love you,” Craig tells me.

“So much so that you tried repeatedly to kill the man who holds my heart? You love me so much that you ordered me to change who I am or get the fuck out of your house? You love me so much that when I was bashed you celebrated that bogus verdict with my attacker’s family? And you love your family so fucking much that you siphoned both mine and Molly’s inheritance so that you would financially cripple us into doing exactly what you wanted? If those are manifestations of your so-called love, you can stick them into a diseased dildo, turn them son-bitches sideways and shove them straight up your candy ass!” Yes, I’m channeling the Rock. Blame Brian and his WWE habit!

Mom clears her throat as I sit there fuming. “So Craig, when did you start sleeping with Lindsay prior to her accusation against Charles?”

“It was just before she made it.”

“Lying fucking liar!” I yell, before lowering my voice to address my mother. “According to Lynette, it was about six months before the accusation was made. Whereas Lindsay was enrolled in school, Lynette was actually homeschooled up until she was fourteen. It’s how she knew Craig and Lindsay’s favorite meeting place was the shed in their backyard. Lindsay and Lynette are eight years apart in age. Because Lindsay was considered socially inept in school, Nancy thought it was better for Lynette to be taught and well-traveled by the time she reached high school. It didn’t help that Lindsay was displaying lesbian proclivities since she was thirteen. Nancy was just as ignorant about the scientific explanation of homosexuality as you still are even now, Craig.”

“If you have all the fucking answers, then why does anything I have to say matter?” he huffs and attempts to fold his arms. Well if that isn’t proof positive that he’s spent entirely too much time with Michael Novotny, I don’t know what is.

“It matters, Craig,” Mom tells him. “It’s funny how you only remember you have a daughter when she can be of use to you. I need to do damage control before all of this comes out at your trial.”

“Why would she even be there?”

“Perhaps for the same reason Justin and I will be there. Closure; making sure you pay with every fiber of our beings; the need to see our individual and collective revenge complete; take your pick. But the fact still remains that Molly is just a girl and this may affect her own social ties. For once, think of the child you profess to love, you selfish moron!” Mom yells at him, which surprised even me. The fact that he cowered under that harsh tone of voice makes me wonder what else he knows about my mother. The Alwin reach is long and strong, and although my mother rarely uses that sort of power, I think Craig has an idea of what would happen if she did.

“Fine. I started screwing Lindsay just after her fifteenth birthday, but we had to change the venue where we did it once Nancy almost busted us. Of course, at the time, Nancy was having her own assignation with her tennis instructor, but Lindsay didn’t want to blackmail her mother into going after Charles to advance the Petersons. Her father had already yelled at her about trying to waylay him every chance she could get. It was often easy to forget that she was underage, since her mind worked like someone born to the upper tier of society. Not only that, she was tall and more proportioned than the other girls.”

“So basically, she was jailbait and you thought with your dick. Happens to millions of men,” I say in a bored tone. “So that takes care of when the affair started... and ended? I imagine it did when she had no more use for you.”

“Lindsay is a born-whore. When she ended up pregnant, she threatened to name me as the father since it was obvious that we could no longer entrap Charles. But by then, Lynette’s nosy ass had told her father the truth. However, it didn’t stop Lindsay from blackmailing me. She told me that she would call in a favor from me someday, and I would either deliver or she’d come clean about the abortion…”

“Let me guess. Brian?” I ask. “Also, where does Claire fit into this scenario?”

“Lindsay wanted Kinney, and Claire wanted her brother to suffer. I didn’t like the way he gave you a second glance during Lynette’s party, even though what were the odds that you two would meet years later? When I asked for some of her time, she turned me down. I knew Lindsay was bisexual; had known it for years. I fucking abhorred the fact that he was so obviously gay and yet Lindsay wouldn’t have hesitated to pump her pussy for him. So Claire and I had decided to bring Lindsay into the bargain that she had going with Novotny, figuring that once she got the message that he didn’t want her, she would be happy to play the part of a scorned lover. But no...The bitch just had to meet that dyke and then have a kid with fucking Kinney!”

“Somehow I get the feeling that you’re pissed off she aborted yours?”

“You’re damn fucking right I am!” Craig said before he caught himself.

“And so your vendetta against Brian is multi-faceted, why?” Mom asks him. “From what I can see, Lindsay is the one you should have been trying to ruin, not Brian.”

“It all stems from that bastard! He made Claire’s life a living hell!”

“And that’s where you have been grossly misinformed Craig,” I interject. “Thanks to Michael and Claire, Brian was chronically physically abused by his father. First it was just Michael wanting to keep Brian tied to him, but then it was Claire trying to keep Brian from succeeding at anything which shed light on what a lazy, conniving cunt she is. It’s your own fault for believing her, but I digress. When did you and Michael decide to fuck me over?”

Craig smirked at me. “When do you think?” At my silent and unrelenting stare, he continues. “Claire kept calling Michael because he was late with his payment for the month of September in 2000. He kept going on and on about Kinney’s son being born and the blond boy ass that wouldn’t go away. He didn’t know you were my son until the night your mother told me you were spending time with Brian Kinney. I called, and he answered the phone saying he had a twelve inch dildo he was going to use to open your ass up with. I hung up the phone and immediately called Novotny.”

“Wait, Brian actually said that about the dildo?” I couldn’t help the feeling that came over me in that moment.

“Justin, focus!” Mom admonished me even while chuckling. “You’ll have time to ask him about that later. In the meantime, I think we now know just why Craig was so determined that you go to Dartmouth and how he planned to accomplish that.”

“Indeed, Mom. Thanks for that, Craig.”

“What the hell are you thanking me for?!”

“For giving me the exact timeline between three major plot points in yours and your co-conspirators’ dramas.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” he asks me, and I can’t help the smile that widens at his nervousness.

“First, the night Gus was born is also the night that Brian and I officially met. Secondly, the day after the loft was robbed, there were security cameras found, but the funny thing is that the police also know the time Michael’s code was entered. I saw you peak from behind the curtains when I arrived. You were in the upstairs den on the phone. We now know it was a three-way call with Michael and Lindsay. Lance, of course, was minding the cameras from his home in North Carolina, which is who you called after you spoke to them. And the third, which actually used to hurt, but right now I just feel numb, is that you used Ron Peterson’s name to get Lindsay’s car from the garage where I was bashed back to her house the day after the bashing.”

“How did you…” Craig began only to be stopped by the murderous look which enters my mother’s eyes.

“WHAT?!” Mom yells, and I have to hold her down in her seat.

“Dad," I sneered, "couldn’t get me to do what he wanted, which was to leave Brian. Guilt over the end of your marriage didn’t work; him busting up Brian’s car didn’t work; and Brian chasing me down in New York didn’t work either. The only people who knew Brian was coming to my prom were Michael and Lindsay. After all, they were still his best friends at the time, and no doubt told him what a fool he was for even considering it.

"Michael already had an alibi since he was supposed to go with David to Portland- something you not only sanctioned, Craig, but arranged with our travel agent to have the tickets upgraded as a parting gift. So Lindsay is the one who called you, and in turn, you called Chris Hobbs to let him know I would be there that night with Daphne, even though you knew of his threat the week before of what would happen if I showed up. You couldn’t have known that I’d decided to go since you and Mom weren’t speaking about anything outside of Molly’s concerns at the time. She wasn’t volunteering information on me any longer, right Mom?”

“That’s right, Justin. To him, you no longer existed, or at least I thought not until now.”

“So by deductive reasoning, Craig, that only left Lindsay to keep you informed of my whereabouts, since the both of you shared a common goal. Only, the gay son you wanted erased from your family tree, didn’t die. The man she wanted still isn’t into pussy. The man your lover wanted bankrupt and cowered, is on his way to be richer than he’s ever been, as is the son you stole from. The man you used to keep tabs on Brian and me is probably wishing he’d never met any of you. The best friend and whiny brat who thought to finally be rid of me, will see me in his nightmares every single night as I go on with my life and my lover as if he’s never existed. And you all are now in jail with multiple charges, and facing years. Was it all worth it?”

Mom and I don’t wait for him to answer. Instead I knock on the door, and we’re let out of the room where Craig is still sitting with his head down on the table. My eyes alight on the only man I have ever loved- the only one I will ever love- and I know that just as Mom and I have been through the emotional ringer, so has he.

"Mom, about Peterson's involvement..." I begin, but she cuts me off with a hushed tone and a smile.

"Russo," she says just before she kisses Brian's cheek, advising that she will call us later to check how we’re doing.

She and Joan leaves us alone in the corridor, while I watch in amazement as they walk over to DA Linton. I didn't even know he was going to be here, or that he knew my mother. Smiling serenely, Mom hands him the microphone I didn’t even realize she had clipped to her purse.

“I…” Brian says, but I just hold up my hand.

“Not here, Bri. I just... I just need to be with you, without interruption or conversation for a little while. Can we do that?”

He grabs me close and squeezes me to him. “Yeah, we can.”