Chapter 16 - Tell All.

Needless to say, we didn’t make it to the Diner or Woody’s that night after Brian was done with his police interrogation. 

Brian was barely able to walk under his own steam as I led him out of the precinct. I loaded him into the car and then I just stopped. After all the revelations of that afternoon I was almost as emotionally overloaded as Brian. I took a moment, leaning against the car door, trying to catch my breath while my thoughts and emotions whirled around inside my brain.

I felt disgusted and angry and frustrated. How was it possible for monsters like Langley to walk around freely in the world, pretending to be just like everybody else, unhampered by any sense of guilt or shame? How had he managed to escape detection for so long? Why hadn’t anyone stopped him? Yeah, he was personable and superficially charming but hadn’t anyone else seen through that facade before? Didn’t his behavior with the kids he coached ever raise a red flag? Where were the outraged parents? Why had all the safeguards put into place to protect innocent kids from pedophiles like Langley failed? Even if those safeguards hadn’t existed back when Brian was a child, they sure as shit did now, and yet Langley was still finding ways to abuse kids? What the hell was wrong with people?

I suppose, after listening to the stories Brian had told about how he was groomed and sweet-talked into trusting the man he’d known as his coach, I shouldn’t be surprised. Men like Langley were nothing if not cunning. They knew exactly which kids to go after; which ones would be the easiest prey. The ones whose parents weren’t involved. The kids who came from already abusive homes. Kids who were so desperate for attention that they were an easy target.

Kids just like Buddy.

The thought of that nickname, however, brought me back to the present and the man waiting for me in the car. I didn’t have the luxury of indulging my own pent up rage right then. Brian needed me to hold it together. He was the one who’d lived through the horrors we’d just been discussing. He was the one still reliving the nightmare day after day, night after night. I needed to pull it together and take care of him right then, not indulge my fantasies of revenge against Langley. All that could come later.

So I corralled my thoughts into a semblance of calm and walked around to the driver’s side, sliding into the front seat and then looking over towards my passenger. Brian hadn’t moved a muscle since he’d sat down. He was just sitting there, staring off blankly into space. It killed me to see him sink back into that grim semblance of nothingness after our weekend of peace and happiness and shared laughter. If for nothing else, Langley should have to pay for ruining this too. 

“So, where do you want to go next?” I asked, trying unsuccessfully to make my tone sound light. “Are you hungry?” I looked sideways when he didn’t respond and grimaced. “You don’t look like you’re in the mood to hit the Diner, but we could go someplace else. Or, would you rather just head back to Britin and I can cook again?”

“. . . the Loft,” Brian mumbled, barely above a whisper.

“I thought we were going back out to the house tonight?” I prompted, hoping I’d heard him wrong. “You said you wanted to do a second coat of blue in Gus’ room before I pencilled out the mural I’m planning to paint . . .”

“No. I just want to go to the loft,” Brian insisted quietly.

“Are you sure,” I started to argue. He’d seemed so much better out at the house the previous weekend and I didn’t want to go back to where we’d been before. 

“Please, Justin.” Brian rarely used my given name, so when he did I knew he was serious. “Just take us back to the loft.” When I still hadn’t started the car after several long moments, he finally looked over at me with such sadness in his eyes that I almost wanted to cry myself. “I don’t want to take all this . . .” he gestured vaguely at himself, “all this darkness out to Britin. I don’t want to taint the one truly happy place I still have in my life with this . . . This shit.” 

So we went back to the loft.

That’s when the consequences of Brian’s ignominious exit from Kinnetik with Carl earlier in the afternoon finally caught up with us. We had only been in the loft long enough for Brian to trudge up the stairs to the bedroom and crawl under the blankets again before the phone calls started to come in. And, since Brian was clearly out of commission for the time being, I was left to field all the concerned calls.

The first caller was Cynthia. I was tempted to just turn my phone off and ignore the outside world for a little longer but at the last second I decided to answer, primarily because I felt bad that I hadn’t followed through on my earlier promise to check back in with her after I’d found Brian. Plus, Cynthia was, pretty much single-handedly, holding Brian’s business together while her beleaguered boss was incommunicado, so I figured we owed her some sort of explanation. 

“Hey, Cynthia. Sorry I didn’t get back to you earlier. We just walked in the door,” I explained and then proceeded to give her the bare bones story about why Brian had been towed down to the police station that afternoon. 

However, since Cynthia - like all of Liberty Avenue, apparently - had already heard the story about Brian’s ‘first time’ in the shower with his gym teacher, it wasn’t hard to convince her that Brian was being questioned about an abusive teacher/coach. Even so, she seemed to understand that there was more to what was going on than just some fifteen year-old blow job. But Cynthia was, if anything, always discreet, and she didn’t question me too deeply about the particulars of the case, for which I would be eternally grateful. She ended the call with a renewed promise to take care of things at the office until Brian returned and made me swear I would let her know if there was anything more she could do. You could always count on Cynthia for her quiet support.

Not so much with my next caller, though; Emmett Honeycutt might be supportive, and had one of the kindest hearts of anyone I’d ever met, but he was rarely quiet about it. 

“Oh, Baby! Are you okay? I can’t believe you’re having to go through all this . . .” he gushed before I’d had a chance to say more than ‘hello’. 

Judging by the disjointed and fantastical narrative Em related - amid the uncounted asides adding personal tidbits and distracting side notes - it was pretty clear that Michael was blabbing by that point. But then again, nobody had expected Michael to be able to keep Brian’s secret forever, so it wasn’t exactly a shock that he’d let the cat out of the bag. It was actually a minor miracle that he’d held out this long. At least so far it seemed that everyone was still focused on the high school blow job part of the story, which was the least intrusive part of the shitstorm we were living through. 

I’d no sooner managed to placate Emmett, thanking him for his offer to ‘round up a posse of Liberty Avenue’s angriest drag queens and hunt down that skanky gym teacher’, when I was interrupted by the ringing of the landline. I quickly said goodbye to Emmett, ended the call on my mobile, and scurried over to answer the phone on the desk before the noise disturbed Brian. Predictably, I suppose, that call turned out to be from Ted, because Ted and Emmett always seemed to come as a pair. 

Ted, in his usual stodgy way, was calling to voice his support and reassure Brian that he would take care of everything at work. I appreciated that he was at least much calmer while doing this than my previous caller. Ted was a total sweetheart, so I knew his concern was sincere and I appreciated the sentiment, but by that point I was getting a bit tired of the repeated well wishes. I knew that Brian relied on Ted’s calm professionalism at work, though, so I didn’t want to alienate the man, and I let him pontificate for a while until he’d said his piece and quietly hung up. Good old Ted.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of my ordeal. No sooner had I hung up with Ted than I heard someone knocking at the loft door. I would have ignored it, but the pounding had that incessant, indefatigable quality that let you know the knocker wasn’t going to give up and go away any time soon. That was a Novotny knock if I’d ever heard one. And when I pulled open the loft door I discovered, to my dismay, that I was getting two Novotnys for the price of one, since both Michael and Debbie were standing there on our doorstep. 

It was all I could do to keep them out on the landing and prevent them from barging inside. “Brian’s asleep,” I stage whispered to them, pulling the door almost all the way closed behind me. “He’s had a long day and I want to let him rest.” 

Deb shoved a casserole dish at me and then hugged me so tight that I could feel the hot dish burning through my clothing into my chest. She made appropriately concerned noises and petted my hair. I eventually managed to extricate myself from her bear hug and thanked her for bringing over the food. 

Meanwhile, Michael was already busy apologizing - talking over his mother as best as he could - and explaining how Ted had called him, worried about Brian after Carl dragged him out of the office, and Michael didn’t feel like he could lie to him directly so he HAD to tell him something . . . At which point Debbie interrupts again, bitching about Carl not telling her about any of this himself . . . Michael replied by standing up for Carl and then arguing that it would have been an invasion of Brian’s privacy for Carl to blab about Brian’s business like that, before turning back to me in order to continue justifying why HE had just violated that same privacy . . . Deb, however, had already moved on to worrying about not wanting Gus to go to any soccer camp run by that kind of person, a position echoed by Michael as they violently agreed with each other for several long minutes. 

I just stood there with a hot casserole dish singeing my fingers, unable to get a single word in, which was par for the course when there were multiple Novotny’s involved. From long experience I knew better than to try to interrupt. It was usually better to just let them get whatever they had to say over with and then quickly get rid of them; discussions with a Novotny went better when you didn’t engage. As soon as they got everything they felt they needed to say off their chest, Deb leaned in to give me another hug and a lipsticky kiss on my cheek while Michael made me promise to call as soon as Brian was ready to talk. Then they left as abruptly as they’d arrived and I was finally able to retreat into the loft and offload the damn casserole. 

As soon as I got rid of the Novotny Contingent, though, I started to think about Deb’s parting comments regarding Gus and the soccer camp. I realized that I didn’t know if Brian had ever got back to Lindsey about that or explained to her completely why he was so against Gus attending that particular camp. It was more imperative than ever before that the girls know what was up and why Gus’ summer soccer plans would have to be changed. 

I reluctantly picked up my phone again and tapped at the icon in my Contacts list for ‘Mel & Lindz’. Lindsey answered on the second ring. She’d obviously already heard something about what was going down here in Pittsburgh, and was starting to freak out, so it was a good thing I’d preemptively called her. I explained it all again, giving Lindsey more details than I’d given the rest because I figured she deserved to know just how close Gus had come to being exposed to a dangerous pedophile like Langley. Lindsey was shocked, to say the least, and understandably worried about Brian. She went into full mother hen-mode for a full thirty minutes or more. She repeatedly offered to fly back to Pittsburgh and it took all my diplomacy to curtail that impulse. Brian clearly wasn’t in the mood for company right then, no matter how well meaning, and a visit from an overbearing, meddlesome well-wisher like Lindsey would probably drive him around the bend. It took me what felt like forever to calm her down and assure her I had things in hand here, at least enough so she would finally agree to remain in Toronto. I can’t tell you how relieved I was to end that call.

Then, just to make it a clean sweep, I decided to call my mother too. She would no doubt eventually hear some warped version of what happened from Debbie, so it was better to beat her to the punch. Luckily, mom’s country club manners would never let her pry or ask uncomfortable questions. She listened politely to my abbreviated explanation of what had happened, was generally supportive, and asked if we needed anything. Mostly, though, she was too elated by the news that I was permanently back in the Pitts to worry too much about the outfall from Brian’s predicament. That had been the easiest phone call I’d made all night. 

After all that, not to mention the harrowing experience back at the police station, I was exhausted. Unfortunately, I wasn’t done. There was one more phone call that came in a few minutes after I hung up with my mom that I had to take. 

This time, when the phone rang, it was accompanied by a picture of a happily grinning six year old. 

“Hey, Gus!” I greeted him enthusiastically, always happy to talk to Brian’s adorable son. “Long time no talk! How ya doing, kiddo?”

“Hi, Jus,” Gus replied, sounding a lot more reserved than he normally did. “Is my Dad there? Can I talk to him, please?”

“Umm . . . Yeah, your dad is here, but I think he might be asleep right now, Gus,” I explained hesitatingly.

“Why is Daddy sleeping in the middle of the day? He’s not sick is he?” Gus asked, sounding concerned.

“No, he’s fine, kiddo. He just had a hard day and is taking a little nap right now,” I replied, trying to relieve his fears without giving too much away. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t work. “I heard the moms talking about Daddy,” Gus pressed. “Mama said she wasn’t surprised that Daddy was in trouble with the police. And then they were whispering for a long time and I saw mommy crying. Then I heard her say, ‘that might explain the strange phone call we got when Brian was in New York last month and how he ended up in the hospital’.” I could tell by the trembling in the child’s voice just how upset Gus was getting by that point. “Is Daddy okay, Jus? I don’t want him to be in the hospital . . .”

“Oh, Gus, I’m sorry you’re so upset. But don’t worry, your dad is fine. He’s not in the hospital anymore,” I rushed to reassure him; I hadn’t realized that nobody had told Gus about Brian’s prior injury. “Brian just had a bad reaction to something when he came to see me in New York and he fell and broke his wrist. But it’s already getting better. He had a hard cast on it for about a month but the doctor took that off last week and now he only has to wear a brace. He’s going to be just fine. I promise.” 

“A ‘bad reaction’? Like when you have allergies to stuff? That kinda reaction?”

“Sorta,” I hedged, trying to figure out just how much I could tell Gus without totally freaking the kid out. “But instead of a reaction to something he ate or touched, your dad had a reaction to something he saw; a picture that frightened him.”  

The intelligent child wasn’t buying my half-assed explanation, though. “I wanna talk to Daddy,” he demanded.

What could I do? Gus clearly needed the reassurance of hearing his father’s voice. Plus, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure how much to tell him about why Brian had gotten hurt. That should be Brian’s call, as Gus’ father, not mine, right? So I was left with no other alternative but to intrude on Brian’s self-imposed solitude and get him to talk to his son. 

“Okay, Gus. Hang on a sec. I’ll go see if I can wake him up for you.”

I put the call on hold and then trotted up the steps to the bedroom. As expected, Brian was lying on top of the duvet, looking like he’d just plopped down as soon as he’d made it as far as the bed. He hadn’t bothered taking his clothes off. He was curled up on his side in an almost fetal position. But he wasn’t asleep; just staring at the wall with the same blank expression I’d come to hate over the past several weeks. 

“Brian?” I got no reaction when I said his name, so I sat on the edge of the mattress and ran my fingers through his hair, my touch finally getting his attention. When he looked up at me, I forged ahead. “Gus is on the phone for you. He overheard his mothers talking about you being hurt and he’s upset. Apparently they never told him about your broken wrist. Can you please talk to him and let him know you’re okay?”

Brian huffed a sad breath but rolled over and reached for the phone - a good reaction, I thought. “Hey, Sonny Boy,” he said as soon as I pushed the button to reconnect the call and handed my phone over to him. “What’s this I hear about you being upset?”

“Hi, Daddy. Are you okay? Justin said you had a bad reaction and it made you break your arm. Does it hurt?” Gus’ little voice came out of the speaker loud and clear.

“I’m fine, Gus. It hurt a little at the beginning but it’s almost all better now. I just have to wear this brace thing for another two weeks or so and then I should be good as new,” Brian quickly reassured the boy.

“But Jus said you broke your arm cuz of a scary picture? What kind of scary picture? Was it like that bad clown movie - I saw a picture of that clown one time and it scared me,” Gus asserted with obvious six-year old logic.

“No, Sonny Boy. It wasn’t a clown.” Brian actually chuckled at that analogy, which was a welcome sound coming after the day we’d just had. “It was just a picture that brought back some bad memories.” Brian paused a moment, took a deep breath, and then continued on. “They were bad memories about one time when I was a kid and I went to a soccer camp that had a mean coach. Which is why I don’t want you to go to that soccer camp you were talking about with your mom, okay? I don’t think that camp would be a good one for you.” 

“But, Dad . . .” Gus began to protest but Brian immediately cut him off. 

“I promise you can still go to soccer camp this summer, Gus, but just not that one. I’m going to find you an even better camp.”

“But my friend Anthony is going to go to that camp and I want to be with him,” the little scamp argued.

“Well, once I find the right camp for you, I’ll make sure to call Anthony’s parents and arrange for him to go to the good camp too. How’s that sound? I promise that the camp I find will be the best soccer camp ever. Deal?”

“I s’pose.” Gus sounded reluctant but at least open to the change. “As long as Anthony gets to come to the other camp with me.”

At that point Gus harred off onto a completely different subject, talking about some field trip his class went on earlier in the week, and I left Brian and Gus to continue talking on their own. The crisis seemed to be averted for the time being and that was all that I cared about. But I was happy to note that Brian and Gus continued talking for a good twenty minutes more and there was even some laughter coming out of the bedroom during the conversation. All good signs.

When I heard Brian saying goodbye to his son, and a minute or so later coming down the steps from the bedroom, I realized how much talking to Gus seemed to have helped. My traumatized partner was actually up and moving around, heading to the kitchen and pulling beer out of the fridge before joining me on the couch. He was still quiet and introspective but at least he didn’t have that same scary, blank, haunted look about him. So, yay, Gus!

Brian didn’t even run away when I got up and brought Deb’s casserole over to the coffee table. He nodded at me and took the fork I offered him without even one comment about the carbs involved. 

“You do realize that, despite Deb’s continued insistence, tuna noodle casserole is NOT really my favorite dish, right?” he commented after a few bites, offering a faint hint of a smile with his words. “It’s just that every time Deb brings one over, she always talks me into getting her stoned, and after that I just can’t resist because of the fucking munchies. But now, she brings these damn casseroles over every single fucking time she thinks I need comfort food and I can’t bring myself to tell her off.” 

I just smiled back at him and scooped up an even bigger forkful for myself because, personally, I loved Deb’s casseroles. 

And so we finished out the night eating casserole and watching old movies and it was okay. Even though it had been a bitch of a day. Even though everyone now knew at least some version of the story about what Brian was going through. Even though he wasn’t going to be able to hide this any longer and nobody knew what the fallout would be. Because at least we’d made it through another day.