MATT WESTHEIM'S POV

remember when the days were long
and rolled beneath a deep blue sky

When Brian Kinney and I were boys, there was no doubt in either one of our minds that we would someday rule the world.  My little brother, John, nine at the time, now a world-class valet and servant to the ‘more rich than he is,’ would be our slave, fulfilling our every need, twenty-four hours a day if he knew what was good for him.  I don’t think anyone expected two eleven-year-old boys that spent the hot, humid days of June, July, and August holed up in old, rusty railroad cars to be rational, realistic global despots, but even I’ll admit now that a world domination strategy that included giving a free ten-speed bike to every boy who agreed to join our cause wasn’t exactly feasible.

Even back then, Brian didn’t have much use for girls.  Neither of us did.  Let’s face it.  Girls were disgusting.

It always amazed me, even as a young boy, how much energy and effort Brian put into our summers on the railroad tracks.  I remember lying on my stomach on top of maps and charts and army men and monopoly houses and bingo counters and Brian’s old game of Battleship strewn all over the inside of one of those cars, but I barely remember actually bringing any of that stuff there.  Over the years, I’ve just decided that we must’ve made John our caddy; Brian and I flew far too fast on our bikes, too busy showing off for one another, to concern ourselves with cargo.  John’s job as the porter was probably his price of admission to our war games.

For as strong-willed as Brian and I both were, we got along great together.  I would spend hours drawing and re-drawing the boundaries of every state and country on our torn and re-taped map of the world while Brian figured out exactly how many troops, tanks, submarines, and missiles it would take to conquer our next enemy and then sent them on their way.  I was too young to understand it then, but Brian desperately needed an enemy he could conquer. 

Back then, it was board games that held our interest.  Today, it’s board rooms.

It’s really not much different.

If on any given day, as I rode up the hill toward Brian’s house, I saw his father’s car in the driveway, I knew to turn around and start heading for the tracks.  His father’s car was a signal to me.  It meant two things:   Brian was long gone, and I’d never beat him to our hide out.  And it meant the minute I got there, we’d go straight to the back door of the diner, Luther’s place, and I’d watch Brian talk Luther into giving him lunch.  When Jack Kinney came home from work for lunch, Brian never stuck around.  I asked him about it one time when we first met, before I knew Brian very well, and he told me he didn’t like what his father made for lunch.

”Why?  What does your father make?”

“Knuckle sandwiches.”

It took me about thirty seconds to realize he wasn’t kidding.

He made that joke in front of Luther once, and every time we knocked on the back door after that, Luther would have something for us without us even asking. 

It wasn’t like I never spent any time in Brian’s house when we were kids.  I did.  Those times were just few and far between.  Usually, we were just there because we needed something to assist us in our execution of The Master Plan.  This was typically something from Claire’s room because she was a girl, and she had everything.  We’d raid her board games for pieces we wanted, her sewing box for buttons and straight pins, and her desk for colored pencils to mark all of our different battle plans.  She knew we were pilfering from her, but she could never prove it.  We were excellent liars, and we never left any evidence behind. 

Which was a miracle actually, because sometimes we were unbelievably stupid.  Like the day we decided to steal Claire’s Lite Brite.  Luckily for us, she was at Vacation Bible School that day, a fate that Brian had escaped that summer because the summer before, he had incorporated Satan into some art project they’d had to do.  After that, Vacation Bible School was somehow always too “booked” to enroll Brian. 

We were standing in Claire’s room that morning when I got this genius idea that Lite Brite was the ultimate world domination planning tool ever invented.  Brian immediately agreed with me and after we couldn’t find the actual box for The Ultimate World Domination Planning Tool Ever Invented, we stuffed all of the colorful, pointy pegs into our pockets and snuck out the back door with the white and black answer to all of our problems hidden under one of Brian’s Vacation Bible School t-shirts.  Brian tied it to his bike, and we flew to the railroad tracks feeling like the most invincible boys in the world.  Once we arrived, I’d never been so glad to empty my pockets in my life.  Those little pegs had practically drilled through my skin as we’d raced to our destination.  They made a wonderful sound and scattered everywhere as we got them out of our pants.

“I can’t wait to hear Claire at dinner tonight, ‘Does anyone at this table know where my Lite Brite is?’”  Brian had his imitation of Claire’s whiny superior voice down to an art form.

“Your sister’s thirteen.  Why’s she still playing with Lite Brite?”

“She’s not.  She just takes inventory of her bedroom three times a day.  She’s a freak.”  I didn’t blame her.  We stole from her practically every single day.

“Um, Brian, where’re we gonna plug this in?”

“Aw, shit.”  He looked around the car like a receptacle was going to magically appear out of nowhere.  “Damnit.  I totally forgot about that.”

“Me, too.  Now we have to pick up all of these stupid little pegs.”

“Where’s your brother?”

******************************
send up a signal
I'll throw you a line

Returning the Lite Brite was more complicated than stealing it.  I had to keep it at my house that night, and then meet Brian at his house the next morning to put it back because that’s when Claire was in bible school.  I showed up around ten thirty, earlier than usual, because I could tell that my mom was getting ready to make me dust and vacuum my room, and I didn’t want to stick around for that.  For some reason, Brian’s father’s car was there.  I contemplated going back home but didn’t want to have to help clean the house, so I stood in his driveway for a minute and tried to decide what to do.  Finally, I went around to the back of the house and started throwing Lite Brite pegs at his window.  After about the tenth one, the window started to go up and his head popped out.

“What.  The.  Fuck?”

“I didn’t want to ring the bell.”  I was whispering.  “I have the Lite Brite.”  I felt so stupid.  So out of place.

“Congratulations.”  I just stood still and stared at him.  I didn’t know what to say.  Sometimes Brian wasn’t a boy.  I didn’t know who he was.  “Leave it.  I’ll come get it.”

I sat it on the grass in front of me, the pegs in a plastic bag and walked away.  I knew that I wasn’t supposed to be there when he came out to get it.  I left, went home and cleaned my room. 

It gave me something to do.

I remember the afternoon that Brian and I were lying in the doorway of the rusty brown car playing Battleship, and the sun was starting to set and shining right in his eyes.  He was squinting and complaining that the only reason I was winning was because he was temporarily blinded.  My little brother John was jumping over rocks with his bike in front of us trying desperately to get our attention.  We were quite skillfully ignoring him.  We had that down to an art form.

”Go home, John.  You’re getting on our fucking nerves.”

“You can’t tell me what to do, Matt.  Mom said if you can be here, I can be here.”

“Then go be ‘here’ over ‘there.’  You’re bugging us.”

“There’s no good rocks over there.”  Brian picked one up off the ground and threw it in front of one of the other cars.

“Now there is.  Get lost, Little John.”  John scowled at us and pedaled away.

I guess I’d always figured that Brian and I would spend our entire lives in those railroad cars, that we’d graduate from Battleship, Mastermind, and War to Chess to video games once we figured out how to steal power from the diner.  I never thought I’d be staring across from him that day telling him what I was telling him,

”Um, my dad told me last night that he got a new job, and we’re moving away.”  He didn’t say anything.  I let him sink my battleship.

“When?”

“Two weeks.  So we can start school on time in Florida.  We’re moving to Florida.”

“Florida’s not in the master plan.  It’s already been eliminated.”  Even at eleven years old, his voice dripped with sarcasm.

“It’s not like I want to go.”

“Well, there’s Disneyworld and shit.”  Brian never lost sight of the important things.

“That was the reason we eliminated Florida to begin with.”  He laughed.

“I guess it is a small world after all.”

Brian and I spent the next two weeks pretending like nothing was different.  We rode our bikes, played practical jokes on John, ate free food from Luther, and stole more pieces out of every board game Claire had just to drive her crazy.  The evening before the morning I was leaving for good, we rode our bikes home from the railroad tracks as usual and stopped in my driveway to plan for the big day.  The day I was dreading.

”I’ll come by your house tomorrow before we leave.  And I’ll bring you all the maps and everything.  You can keep them.  And all the pieces and stuff, since most of them are Claire’s anyway.”  We laughed.  He told me he was going to put them back a little at a time to really drive Claire bananas.  I watched him push off and climb the hill back to his house. 

We were ready to leave around twelve fifteen the next day, a Friday, my family packed like sardines into our Oldsmobile Custom Cruiser station wagon.  My father was anxious to start the long drive to Florida, so he insisted on driving me to Brian’s house.  I couldn’t really argue.  My bike was packed.  We got about a block away from Brian’s house when I saw Mr. Kinney’s car in the driveway, and didn’t see Brian’s bike.  My father had circled around in the cul-de-sac so the driveway was on my side of the car.

”Okay boys, make it quick.  I want to get moving.”  John was pushing me to open the door.  I told him to cut it out.

“Forget it, Dad.  He’s not home.”

“You sure?  Go knock on the door.”  I shook my head.

“I’m sure.  He’s not there.  He went out for lunch.”

******************************
you oughtta know by now…

My dad’s company kept him in Florida until I was fifteen and then promptly transferred us back.  It was easy to fall back into step with Brian.  In many ways, it was like I’d never left.  Brian always joked with me, telling me it was because I’d never actually said ‘good-bye’ in the first place.  The only thing that was really different was that instead of having my little brother tagging along after us, we had Michael Novotny.

At first, I just couldn’t understand why Brian would even want to be friends with this kid.  He wasn’t like us at all.  He was short and not very smart, and he talked all the time about comic books and Superman and the ‘who gives a shit’ details of their imaginary lives.  Plus, he lived all the way over near Liberty Avenue.  Then, I found out that his mom worked at a diner.  For the first month or so that I was back, I was convinced that Brian had befriended this kid just to get free food.  I asked Brian once why he hung around Michael, and he just kind of shrugged his shoulders and said,

“I don’t know.  He doesn’t have a dad.”

“He doesn’t?”

“He’s dead.  And his mom’s nice to me.”

It made a lot more sense to me the night I was supposed to meet them right inside our football stadium for a Friday night home game.  I was early, so I went to take a piss.  Michael was leaning against the outside of the boy’s bathroom.  I waved to him as I got closer and told him I was early.

“Where’s Brian?”  Michael looked guilty of a crime.

“Not here yet.”  I stepped past him.  Instinct, I guess.  He tried to stop me.  Brian was leaning against the brick wall of the building with his hand on the back of Stewart Markham’s head.  He was getting a blow job.  My mouth fell open.  I grabbed Michael’s arm and pulled him in the other direction, out of view.

“What are you?  The lookout?”

“Shut up.  He’ll hear you.”

“How long has--?  This is what you do?  He gives you answers to tests, lets you copy his homework and you make sure the coast is clear?”  I wanted to spit on him.

“Shut up.”  I heard Brian moan.  It made me sick.

“This is sick.”

“Get outta here, Matt.  He doesn’t want you to know.”

******************************
you Catholic girls start much too late

I wish I could say that I remember everything that happened exactly as it happened after that night, but I don’t think I do.  I remember being furious at Brian for not telling me, for making me feel like a fool, for doing shit like that in public, when everyone knew we were close friends.  I remember thinking that everyone was going to think I was a fag, too. 

I remember him telling me that he let our gym teacher fuck him.  More than once.

And that he liked it.

And that I cried.

Mostly because I didn’t understand.  Because I wanted my friend back, the way he was.  Before. 

Before I left.  When it was just me and him and sometimes John at the railroad tracks and the only thing I worried about was whether or not he was going to beat me to the railroad tracks……….because his father had come home for lunch……..and beaten him.

Because that was so much better.  A man touching him like that rather than like this.  At least that for some reason, I understood.  That, for some reason, didn’t make me sick.

Just ashamed of myself.

But back in school, we were just the same.  The three of us, sitting in the back, Brian and I feeding Michael answers to shit he didn’t know, Michael feeding us all the food we wanted.  I became editor of the school paper.  Brian became our sports reporter, his all-access pass to the boys’ locker room.  I pretended I didn’t care.

We sat in the lunchroom one day eating pizza for the thirteenth time that week, and Brian listened to me bemoan the fact that some cheerleader I’d had my eye on for the entire semester didn’t even know I was alive.  As usual, he found my failures with women extremely amusing.

“You have no confidence.  That’s your problem.”

“You’re giving me advice about women.”

“Men.  Women.  It’s all the same.”

“Okay.  We’ll let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that you’re right.  I find some magical confidence inside me, and she says ‘yes.’  Then what am I going to do?”

“Fuck her.”

“Fuck her?”

“Yep.”  He raised his eyebrow at me.

“You act like it’s nothing.  Like I would just do it.  Voila!”

“It’s not rocket science, Matt.  It’s pretty simple.  You make everything so fucking complicated.  That’s your whole problem.  Hell, I’ll fuck her, and you can watch and take notes.  Or better yet, you can videotape it for posterity—“

“That’s what I need.  How to Fuck A Chick by Brian Kinney The Faggot.”  The smirk born on his face after I that said to him would become his trademark.

“Well, it’s sold more copies than How to Fuck A Chick by Matt Westheim the Virginal Piece of Chicken Shit Who Wouldn’t Know A Pussy if He Fell Into It.”

“Isn’t there someone on the faculty you haven’t fucked yet?  Maybe a janitor?”

“There was a bus driver that caught my eye.”

And so it went.  But I realized that day what I was really mad at him about.  He was the one who was supposed to teach me about girls, to pave the way for us while we fondled the female half of the student body.  It wasn’t supposed to matter that I wasn’t the confident one.  It was his job to reel them in.  Not mine.  I was the keeper of The Master Plan; he was supposed to execute it.  But, no.  He had to go be a fag and fuck everything up for both of us.

If I never lost my virginity, I was going to sue Brian Kinney for something.

We spent the summer before college more separate than together, mostly because I was determined to get rid of my virginity before we went and because Michael wasn’t going with us.   Brian and Michael spent most of their time on Liberty Avenue.  I spent most of my time convincing Jan Hershel to let me in her pants.  She did. 

And Brian was right.  There wasn’t much to it. 

It was over in sixty seconds.  A minute of a wet, sticky, rushing urge that made me want to hold her hostage forever in that old, musty railroad car.  Not because I liked her, just because I had to figure out a way to convince her to let me do it again.

That’s the kind of thing I needed Brian for.  He was much better with POWs.

Jan Hershel wasn’t the least bit interested in letting me re-sink my Battleship.

But at least it was over.  I wasn’t a virgin anymore.  It was mind-boggling to me how something that was over so fast meant so much. 

******************************
if it seems like I’ve been lost in let’s remember…
if you think I’m feeling older and missing my younger days…

And then we were men.  College men.  In a world where it didn’t matter if you were straight or a fag or what clothes you wore or if your parents had money.  He played on one field, I played on the other.  We studied hard, drank a lot, and I fucked enough women to almost catch up with him—for about thirty seconds.  He’d see Michael when we’d go home for Christmas, staying with him instead of his family.  There was no going back home for Brian after he left, not once he’d experienced freedom from his father.  I just don’t think he could bring himself to spend another night in that house.  He always felt guilty for not being able to go back there, always telling me that being the youngest in the family was no excuse for not being the strongest. 

I never knew what to say.

Especially when I looked up from our table in the cafeteria one day, and saw two very pretty blonde women sitting down at a table right near us, staring in our direction, but mostly, of course, at Brian.  There was something about one of them that literally took my breath away.  Brian gave them his usual smile.  He was an unconscionable flirt, particularly with women.  He had nothing to lose.  I muttered under my breath to him,

“None of this ‘I bat for the other team business.’”

“Let me show you how it’s done.”

Brian had them sitting with us in less than ten minutes.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of the girl who introduced herself to me as Valerie Simmons.  Her friend, Lindsay Peterson, was pretty hot, too.  We talked about everything—sports, politics, school, careers, you name it.  I found out that Valerie and I were actually in a class together that semester.  Brian found out Lindsay was from Pittsburgh. 

Val’s parents were loaded, and I went to Europe with them when during the summer after my sophomore year.  Brian stayed at school and worked as a gopher at an advertising agency.  Lindsay stayed, too.  Apparently, she hated her parents, too.  When the four of us started our junior year, Val told me that Lindsay told her that Brian had “jumped the fence” while we were in Europe.

“Not for keeps or anything.  I think they were just experimenting.  Lindsay’s decided she’s gay, too.”

“Leave it to Brian to fuck a girl and turn her into a lesbian.  That’s all the world needs.  Brian Kinney fucking everything.  Turning everything gay.”

“Yeah, Matt.  That’s Brian’s super power.”

“He just better stay the fuck away from your vagina.  That’s all I’m saying.”

To this day, Val tells me she has a hankering for some Brian Kinney at least once a year.  Val likes to torment me, and as Brian always says, “And not in a positive, life affirming way.”

By the end of our junior year, Val and I were engaged, or, as Brian so eloquently put it, ‘you finally found a girl who likes the way you do it.’  Brian was the last person I told.  We were sitting out in the quad on an unusually warm day in March during our senior year.  His response was about what I expected.

“Well congratu-fucking-lations.”

“I want you to be my best man.”

He let out the biggest sigh I’d ever heard come out of him as he fell back dramatically on the grass, “Of course you do.”  I rolled my eyes at him.  He pretended to be dead.  I poked him with a stick.  “This is payback for me being a fag, isn’t it?”

“Are you freaking because I’m getting married or because you have to be in a wedding?”

“All of the above.  I’m not making a toast.  I refuse.  You can’t make me.”

“I thought you’d like it because there’ll be an open bar and you’ll get to dress up.”  He thought about that for a minute and sat up.

“I didn’t even think about that.  Can I pick out the tuxedos?”  My future-wife would end up killing me for this.  “And the shoes?”

“Sure.”

“Deal.”

******************************
rebels been rebels since I don’t know when

Lindsay’s job at my wedding was to be Brian’s date and to use the stun gun we provided for her if he got out of line.  She threatened him with it when he stood up and announced that he did want to make a toast after all, something about how happy he was that Val and I were finally married and getting our own place, so that he didn’t have to listen to us fuck anymore.  He was extremely drunk by that point and although we understood what he was saying, we were fairly certain that no one else could.

“Okay, Brian, that’s enough.  Everyone was very touched by your kind words,” Lindsay pulled him back down into his chair.

“Well, all I’m saying is that one mustn’t forget that I’m that one who explained to Matt how to fuck a girl in the first place.”  By this time, Brian was half lying in Lindsay’s lap. 

“We know, Brian.”  Even though she didn’t.

“If it wasn’t for me, he wouldn’t even know where to stick it.”  He was more or less talking to the tablecloth while Lindsay stroked his hair.

“Your altruism knows no bounds.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?  Considering I’m such a tremendous homosexual.  Oh, fuck-“ He slid off of Lindsay’s lap and ended up more or less under the table.  My wife told me to leave him there.  We did, until it was time to cut the cake.

******************************
I don’t care what you say anymore
this is my life

My degree in telecommunications wasn’t going to take me very far in Pittsburgh, and I knew it.  When I got a job offer in California, I took it.  Brian was less than thrilled because he knew that Val’s rich and powerful family had pulled strings to get it for me.  As far as he was concerned, they owned California, and by default, me.  But that didn’t really matter because my married life in Pittsburgh and Brian’s gay single life in Pittsburgh just didn’t mesh.  We’d meet for a drink after work, talk the talk, and then have this awkward “see you later” thing because I was going home to my wife, and he was going out to the bars.  We just didn’t have anything in common anymore.  He didn’t want to hear about decorating my new house, and I didn’t want to hear about the two guys he took home last night and how one blew one while the other rimmed him.  We were painfully out of sync.  But for some reason, we kept trying.

Until the night I told him about the job offer, which he wasn’t thrilled about, and then topped it off by telling him that Val was pregnant.

“You fucking dumb ass.”  That was about the reaction that I expected.  “You’re twenty-two years old.”

“We didn’t exactly plan it.”

“Were you using birth control?”

“No.”

“Then you planned it.  God, you are so fucking stupid sometimes.”

“You act like you thought I wasn’t going to have kids, Brian.  Did you think I was just playing house?  This is what I want.  Duh.”  He just kept looking at me like I was the dumbest person he’d ever met.  And then it kind of all clicked into place in my head.  “That’s what it is, isn’t it?  You don’t think any of this is for real.  That we’re just playing.  That I don’t really love Val.  That I didn’t really want to get married.  That I don’t like my life.  Well, you’re wrong.  I love it.  I love her.  I love the fact that she’s pregnant.  In fact, I can’t wait for the baby to get here, Brian.  I can’t wait to be a father.  So, fuck you.”

He looked at me like I had slapped him.  “Tell Val I said congratulations.”  He threw twenty dollars on the table, grabbed his leather jacket, and left me sitting there, all alone.

******************************
don’t wait for answers, just take your chances

Twins run in Val’s family.  Information that would’ve been nice to have before I got her pregnant.  I think it was this information that broke the stalemate between Brian and I.  He enjoyed a hearty laugh at my expense when I told him the news and then asked him to please meet me for a drink because I was in no way, shape, or form ready to be the father of two twin boys.

I let him laugh at me for a good fifteen minutes.

And then I told him to shut the fuck up.

“Matt, you can’t remember to feed a dog.  How are you going to keep two little babies alive?”

“Okay, first of all, Rusty was John’s dog, not mine.  He was not my responsibility.  And secondly, I don’t have to feed them.  I just have to make the money.”  Brian nodded, downing his whiskey.

“Well, that you can do.  That I’m not worried about.  But, shit, twins?  And your first time out.  God, just think what you might get the second time.  You need to lock your penis up and throw away key.”

“Shut up.”

“Have you thought of any names?  I vote for ‘Big Mistake Number One’ and ‘Even Bigger Mistake Number Two.’”

“That’s too long to stitch on a blanket.”

“Good point.”

******************************
closed the shop, sold the house, bought a ticket to the west coast

As a new husband and expectant father of twin boys, I did everything I was supposed to do.  I found a house for us in L.A.  I scheduled my start date at my new job to be about three months after my boys were to be born.  I hired movers to get us out of Pittsburgh. 

Val did everything she wasn’t supposed to do.   She went into labor early, while I was in L.A.

When I finally got back to Pittsburgh later that day, I was already a father.  Lindsay had pushed with Val.  Brian had paced in the waiting room on my behalf.  I saw him before I saw anyone else.  He looked completely wrung out and exhausted in his suit, his shirt unbuttoned, his tie wrinkled from where he’d been pulling on it.

“Oh my god, where is she?  They’re okay, right?  They’re okay?”

“They’re fine.  They look just like me.”  Right then, Lindsay popped out of a room near the nurse’s station.

“You’re here!  Congratulations!  Come on!  Come on.  Hurry up!  They’re about to take them to the nursery.”

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw them.  Alex and Tyler Westheim.  Screaming their heads off.  They did look sort of Brian.  It was kind of funny.

Well, not to my wife.

******************************
they say there’s a heaven for those who will wait
some say it’s better, but I say it ain’t

Brian said the only reason he spent his week of vacation in L.A. helping me get our house ready was because he was running out of people to fuck in Pittsburgh.  We spent our days building two of everything, cribs, dressers, changing tables, high chairs, you name it.  Val would call three times a day to add things to the list.  Brian and I were baby furniture professionals by the end of the week.  And he was totally fucked out.  I don’t think he slept more than two hours on any given night.  The scene in L.A. was completely irresistible to him.  He reveled in the anonymity of it all.  Nobody knew him, nobody needed to……..he was in heaven.

Strollers by day.  Trolling by night.

“You should move out here.  You belong here.”

“By the time this week is up, I’ll have fucked everyone in this town, too.”

“I’m serious.  You don’t think you could make serious money out here?  Fuck Pittsburgh.”

“It’s too expensive to live out here.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it.  Plus, you can stay with us for little while, find a place you like.”

“You want her to divorce you?  Take your precious bundles of joy and leave your ass?”

“All right.  I’m just saying you’d have friends out here.”

“I have friends back there.”  I dropped the subject.

“Once we finish this last bookshelf, we’re done.”

“Explain to me again why a three-week old needs a bookshelf?”

******************************
but somewhere back there in the dust
that same small town in each of us

And then Val and I and my precious bundles of joy were gone.  No more Pittsburgh, no more cold winters, no more drinks with Brian after work, nothing.  Val had her family in California, she had the twins, she had me.  I didn’t know anyone.  I missed Pittsburgh.  I missed Brian.  Hell, I even missed John and Michael sometimes.  My job was great, but I missed having a friend that would just insult me all the time. 

That was so pathetic.

I kept in touch with Brian, mainly through email, talking on the phone with him once in a while, listening to his stories about his wild nightlife and how his nightlife had somehow morphed into him fucking people in his office during the day. 

“You’ve lost your fucking mind, Kinney.”

“Why are you calling me ‘Kinney’ all of a sudden?”

“I don’t know.  It just suits you.  Why are you fucking people in your office?”

“I’m entitled to a lunch break just like everyone else.”

“You are seriously fucked in the head.”

“Does seem that way sometimes.”

“By the way, Val’s pregnant again.”

“You just never learn, you do?”

“Must be fucked in the head.”

“Apparently.”

******************************
’cause he knows it’s me they’ve been comin’ to see
to forget about life for awhile

When my son Jake was born, he almost wasn’t.  His umbilical cord collapsed during delivery, denying him oxygen for a few minutes.  It wasn’t anybody’s fault.  It’s just something that happens.  Jake has ten fingers and ten toes and cerebral palsy. 

It broke my heart.

Alex and Tyler were two when Jake was born, our other huge mistake.  Talk about hell.  I think the only reason I got through those first few months was because I could pick up the phone and call Brian and rant about how totally fucking unfair it was that some completely random act had done this to my son.

And on an unrelated note, all two-year-olds should all be locked up.

“Does Jake look more like you or more like Val?”  Brian asked me one night on the phone while I was feeling particularly sorry for myself.

“More like me, actually.”

“Damn, that kid can’t catch a break, can he?”

“I really hate you sometimes.”

“I told you to put your pecker away.  You just didn’t listen.”

“He’s smart as hell, Brian.  He just can’t control his muscles.  He’s nine months old, and he can’t hold on to anything.  Not even my finger.  But he understands everything that goes on around him.  Everything.”

“Then go with plan A and lock up the other two so they can’t hurt him.  I might actually like this one.”

“You’d love him.  He reminds me of you sometimes.  He talks with his eyes.  He has no other choice.”

“Maybe he is a genius.”

******************************
he sees angels in the architecture

For a while, as my boys started to grow up, I spoke with Brian less and less.  Life is like that, I guess.  I was constantly chasing after Alex and Tyler, and Val was enrolling Jake in every program she could think of to help him conquer his disability.  Our kids were just like everyone else’s kids.  They went to preschool, including Jake; they got hurt, drove us bananas, broke shit in our house, got in trouble in school, played baseball….  The list goes on.  I saw Brian somewhere in the middle of that whirlwind when I returned to Pittsburgh with the family in tow to attend my brother John’s wedding to Melissa, a marriage that wouldn’t last for long.  It was the first time Brian got to see Jake.  He was three.  My twins were five.

I was in the empty sanctuary at the church, squatting down in front of Jake’s chair, asking him if he wanted to sit in it for the ceremony or if he wanted to sit in the pew.  I didn’t know that Brian was watching me at the time.  Jake’s chair is adaptive.  It straps him in, helps him sit up.  Without it, he tends to fall forward.

“Do you want to sit in your chair while Uncle John gets married or do you want to get out of your chair and sit on one of these benches?”  He signaled to me with his hand that he wanted the second option.  Jake can speak, and I can understand him, but he doesn’t usually like to speak in public.  He knows he doesn’t sound like other people.  “Okay.  You’ll have to sit next to your—“

He started shaking his head.  He didn’t want somebody to have to hold him up.

“You can’t sit completely by yourself.  You’ll fall.  And I’m in the wedding, and so is your mom.”

“He can sit with me.”

I turned around and saw Brian standing behind me. 

“Hey.  I didn’t know you were there.  Jake, this is Brian.  He’s my friend.  We went to school together.”  Jake’s head hit the back of his chair as he tried to look at Brian, at all of him.  “Can you bend down?  You’re so tall, he’s straining.”

“Sorry.”

Brian squatted down beside Jake’s chair, his hand on the tray in front of it, and Jake immediately saw his watch.  He slapped his hand on it.

“Wa.”

“He likes your watch.”  I looked at mine.  Time to go see if Alex and Tyler were ready to walk down the aisle as John’s ring bearers. I think I’d actually promised each of them a thousand dollars if they could do this without killing one another.

“Jake, Brian said he’ll sit with you for the ceremony.  Do you want to do that or just sit in your chair?”  He looked at Brian and slapped his watch again.  “He wants to sit with you.”

“Sounds good to me.”  Jake smiled.  That he can do. 

“Then you’re going to stay with Brian, and I’m going to go check on your brothers.  Okay?”

“Kay.”  Jake fell forward onto me as I removed his tray and loosened his seat belts on his chair.  I picked him up and handed him to Brian.  I gave Brian my cell phone number in case Jake changed his mind.  He didn’t even know Brian.  I wasn’t exactly sure this was a good idea.

“Jake, I’ll be back in a little while when Uncle John is ready to get married.”

“Bye.”

“Thanks, Brian.”

“No problem.”

I looked at them one last time and ducked into the back of the church to deal with the rest of my brood, leaving Jake’s chair just inside the door.

******************************
he doesn’t speak the language
he holds no currency

Three weeks after I got back to L.A., I called Brian and told him I needed a picture of him.

“Why?”

“For Jake.  He’s been talking about you non-stop since the wedding.”

“He doesn’t really talk.”  Always the smart ass.

“I’m speaking metaphorically.  He uses an eye gazing system to communicate, has a chart with about thirty pictures on it.  We can tell what he’s saying by what he’s looking at.  He’s talking about you.”

“Okay, now I’m really confused.”

“He made me put a picture of a watch up there, and that’s all he’s talking about.  I need a picture of you.”

“Okay.  Okay.  I’ll send you one.  Jake’s a piece of work.  He laughed through that entire ceremony.  I like that kid.”

“And he loved you.  He keeps saying something about your arm.  I have no idea what he’s talking about.”

“My arm?”

“Or sleeves?  Sometimes I think he means sleeves—“

“I was wearing cuff links.  Maybe that’s what it was.”

“That’s what it is.  He’s completely enamored with ‘man-jewelry.’  No wonder he won’t stop talking about you.  You should see how excited he gets when we take him shopping.  It’s disturbing.”

“Oh, man, your kid’s a fag, Matt.”

“I knew I shouldn’t have let you near him.”

“I’m gonna put him on the Armani mailing list.  Immediately.  You’re never too young for Armani.”

He did.  And Prada and Gucci.  And any other primarily homosexual male name brand he could think of.  Jake’s eyes practically rolled back in his head every time he saw the mailman.  Because of course, they were all addressed to him.

******************************
It's a little secret,
just The Robinsons' affair

I found out Lindsay was pregnant from Val over dinner one night.

“That’s a miracle of modern science.”

“It’s Brian’s.”  I almost choked on my meatloaf. “Turkey baster, Matt.  Calm down.”  Eight months later Brian had a son.  I called to tell him I was proud of him.  He told me I was a lesbian.

“Does he look more like you or Lindsay?”

“Me, actually.”  He sounded proud.  It’s impossible not to, even if you are Brian Kinney.  Made me smile.

“Then he must be pretty ugly.”  He laughed.

“Yeah, maybe he’ll grow out of it.”

“I hope he grows up to be straight, just to spite you.”

“As long as he’s not a lesbian.”

******************************
O beautiful, for spacious skies
but now those skies are threatening

The first time I heard Justin Taylor’s name was on my answering machine at the end of a very long day at the office and an even longer evening spent at Alex and Tyler’s school at one of their baseball games.  There’d been a picnic afterwards and keeping track of those two and trying to feed Jake at the same time while my wife socialized was enough to put me in a pretty shitty mood.  My wife spent her days catering to Jake’s every need, and she needed to converse with other adults, other parents.  I felt like I just needed a beer, a blow job, and maybe some Leno.  Definitely, not all this crap.  But this was my life, so whatever.

Alex and Tyler thought it was their destiny to race in the house whenever we got home from anywhere and see who could get to the answering machine first.  That night it was Tyler.  I was upstairs patiently explaining to Jake that he was going to take a bath, no matter what.  I was pretty sure he had potato salad in his pants.

“No.”

“Yes, you are.”

“No.”

“Stop arguing with me.”

“Dad?”

“Tyler, not now.  You and your brother need to take a bath and go to bed.  It’s late.”

“Dad, there’s a message on the machine for you.”

“I’ll get it later.”

“Somebody’s dead.”

“What?”

“Somebody’s crying and somebody’s dead.”

“Stay with your brother.”

******************************
you are still the victim of the accidents you leave

His voice was almost impossible to understand.  I had to play it back three times.

Matt, you don’t know him.  I didn’t tell you because.  I don’t know why.  I think he’s dead.  Somebody, this kid, hit him, hit him in the head with a bat, a baseball bat because I, because I showed up at his prom …I shouldn’t have, oh god, I shouldn’t have.  I’m pretty sure he’s going to die.  He’s going to die, he’s eighteen.  Eighteen.  He might already be dead.  Fuck.  I don’t know.  I should go back in there; I shouldn’t be standing out here.  His mother.  Christ……….  I don’t know what to do.  Justin Taylor, that was his name.  If he dies, Matt, if he dies, I’m coming out there.  I can’t stay here.  I killed him.  I think I killed him.

******************************

and I see losing love
is like a window in your heart
everybody sees you’re blown apart
everybody feels the wind blow

That was four years ago. 

In the entire time I have known Brian Kinney, I have known two different people.  He’s been these two different people since the day I met him.  A boy who could lose himself in a fantasy world he created, in something that gave him nothing but pleasure, and a man who could brace himself against any amount of cruelty that was thrust upon him.  When I was a boy, I always felt cold and alone when the man in him came out.  Brian’s transitions between the two were rarely smooth or expected.  They were just necessary.  As a man, the boy in him fascinated me and drove me crazy at same time--his endless pursuit of pleasure for pleasure’s sake, his rejection of responsibility.  It frustrated me sometimes.  I didn’t understand it.

What struck me, though, after I’d been a very tired father for a few years, was that for all of Brian’s bitching and moaning, he had a very distinct air of responsibility about him.  From taking Michael under his wing, to helping me prepare my house for my early birds, to fathering Lindsay’s child.  Brian protected, almost coveted the people he chose to have around him.  He was creating his own family, I’d decided.  A family he could love, but more importantly that he could define, package, and shield.  And control.  One that he could practice on, to prove to himself that he could do it, that it was safe to care for other people.  That maybe it was safe for other people to care for him.

He was trying, desperately, to fix things, to fix himself.  One very small step at a time. 

Just like our afternoons at the railroad tracks, when I’d draw and re-draw our plan of attack at his request, his demand, over and over and over.  There was always a better idea, a better way.  A route or configuration he’d just come up with.

I loved to watch his mind work.  Marveled at how he could hover in that constant state of impatience for so long. 

He’d catch me sometimes, staring at him, his straight hair hanging in his face as he noticed that I’d stopped doing whatever I was supposed to be doing, whatever correction to The Master Plan I wasn’t making.

“What?  What are you staring at?”

“Nothing.”     

“Fix it.  Hurry up.  We have to go home in forty minutes.”

And that was it.  The reason he could monitor every breath I made from clear across our hideout.  Because it was a survival skill for him.  He woke up watching his back and never slept with it to his bedroom door.  I spent the night at his house once and ended up leaving—riding my bike home after midnight because Brian was so uncomfortable having me there. 

I told my mom that Brian and I had a fight, that that’s why I came home in the middle of the night.  I don’t know why I lied.  I guess I didn’t know how to tell her that I couldn’t sleep because Brian couldn’t sleep because for some reason his father wasn’t asleep.

I wanted to tell my mother that I didn’t think Brian ever slept, except when he was at my house.  When he was at my house, he slept like a rock.  He snored.  He kept me awake.

I’ll never forget that bike ride home that night.  It was eerie, almost threatening, the air so thick and heavy.  The swoosh of my tires, for some reason, making me feel like someone was behind me the whole time, chasing me, making me feel like I couldn’t get home fast enough.  The downhill run to my house always felt so good to me.  I always loved riding home from Brian’s because I got to fly down that hill, the wind in my hair, but that night I felt like I was cheated out of something that rightfully belonged to me.  I abandoned my bike the second I hit the edge of my driveway, before it’d even stopped moving.  The tires were still spinning. 
 
******************************
if you’ll be my bodyguard
I can be your long lost pal

The second time I heard Justin Taylor’s name, out of Brian’s mouth, was when he called me a few months ago to tell me Justin had a picture deal and was moving to L.A.  Brian knew that I knew about Justin.  Women talk. 

“I want to give him your numbers.  He doesn’t know anyone out there.”

“John just called me an hour ago.  It’s no problem.  He’s coming Monday, right?”

“Yeah, Monday.”  It was Friday.

“It’s no problem.  Glad to do it.  He can come to our house, have dinner once he gets settled, if he wants.”

“I’ll tell him.  But, I should warn you, he eats a lot.”  I heard him smile.

“No more than my boys.  I promise you.”

“Yeah, right.  He’ll eat them under the table.”

“I’ll make him run a tab.”  He laughed.

“Don’t bother.  It’ll just come to me.”

“In that case, I’ll charge him double.”

“I appreciate this.”

“When my mistress is in Pittsburgh, you can wine and dine her for me.”

“I had her last night.”

“You know, I can call you an asshole and mean it because I’m doing you a favor this time.”  He ignored me.

“She was hot and all, but hearing, ‘Oh Brian, sink your battleship!’ just kinda kills it for me, ya know?  Teach ‘em something else, please.  It’s getting old.”

“You fucker.”

“I mean, for Christ’s sake, Justin laughed so hard he fell off the bed.”

“I rescind my offer.”

“And he bruises easily, Matt.  I don’t need that.”

“Unless you’re the one bruising him, right?”

“Exactly.  Is that so much to ask?”

“Just wait ‘till you get my bill.”

“And you mine.  I charge seven hundred and fifty an hour to sink my battleship into—"

“All right, you win.  That’s enough.  Don’t you have work to do?”

“That’s what your wife wants for her birthday, you know? A gift certificate from the Brian Kinney—“

“Battleship Collection?”

“All the rage this year.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Thanks again, Matt.”

“Don’t mention it.”

******************************
she's a rich girl
she don't try to hide it
diamonds on the soles of her shoes

The day Justin landed in L.A., I paid him a visit at his office.  Brian had emailed me that morning and asked me to do him a personal favor.  I didn’t mind.  I was extremely curious to actually see this kid.  He was a four year mystery to me.

“Can I help you?”  Blond, blue eyed, perfect body, and Brian had obviously consulted on his wardrobe.  You’d never know from looking at him that he’d been struck in the head with a baseball bat, suffered brain damage, and lived to tell about it.  Unbelievable.  He stood up when I walked in his office and handed him my business card.  The name didn’t ring a bell right away.  “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“I’m a—"

“You’re Brian’s friend.  He gave me your name and number and everything.  I’m sorry.  It’s been a really long day, the flight and all.  Sit down.”

“Not a problem.  It’s nice to finally put a name with a face.  I’m under orders to bring you a cell phone.”  I put the three boxes I brought on his desk.

“Brian told you to do this?”

“Yep.  It’s what I do.  I have about fifty of these in my office.  Top of the line.  Pick one.  I’m not allowed to leave until I program it for you, and you’re all hooked up.”

“He bosses you around, too?” 

“Makes him feel important.”

“Tell me about it.” 

******************************
we'd like to know a little bit about you for our files
we'd like to help you learn to help yourself

Justin came to our house for dinner after he’d been in L.A. for about two weeks.  You would’ve thought Santa Claus had just come down the chimney by the look on Jake’s face.

“Wa!”

At six years old,  Jake’s language skills had developed as much as they were going to.  He did have a giant notebook with pages and pages of pictures and photos in it, though, that he could flip through if he thought he wasn’t being understood.  Jake has no patience for not being understood.  He slammed his hand on the kitchen table a second time because I wasn’t responding fast enough for him.

“Wa!”

“Justin, this is my son, Jake.  He would like to see your watch up close.”  Justin gave me a hesitant smile and walked over to Jake to show him.  “Jake has cerebral palsy.  He has very little control over his gross and fine motor skills and way too much control over his intellectual skills.  Right, Jake?”  Jake nodded and laughed.  He knows he’s the smartest person in our family.  “He’s also a fashion connoisseur with an extreme fetish for accessories.”

Justin laughed.  “I have a belt on.”

Jakes eyes lit up.  “So.”

“He wants you to show it to him.”  Justin stood up so Jake could see it, and Jake immediately opened his binder and started flipping through pages.

“What’s he doing?” 

“He’s finding it.”  Jake turned to a whole page he had of belts that Val had helped him cut out of all the catalogs he gets from Brian.  He slapped his hand on the picture of the one Justin was wearing.  “Is that it?”  Justin bent down and looked at the picture more closely. 

“Yeah, that’s it.  It’s just black, not brown.  It’s Armani.”  Jake smiled.  “I can’t believe he—"

“Talk to him.  He’ll answer you.”

“I can’t believe you have all those pictures, Jake.  Where do you get them?”

“May.”  Justin looked at me, not understanding.

“Mail.  He gets them in the mail.  Brian put him on a bunch of menswear mailing lists.”

“You’re kidding me?”

“Sometimes I think he’s not my kid.” 

My wife answered me, coming in the house with Alex and Tyler who were covered in mud and fighting with each other.  “He’s not Matt’s son.  He’s Brian’s.”  She introduced herself to Justin and then ordered Alex and Tyler upstairs to take a shower.  “Believe me, Matt couldn’t match a shirt with a pair of pants if his life depended on it.  Jake’s either Brian’s son or he’s an alien.”

Jake pointed to a picture of a martian in his book about a minute later.  “Very funny, Jake.  You’re much smarter than a martian.”  He laughed.

******************************
you give us those nice bright colors
you give us the greens of summers

Not being able to physically do something has never prevented Jake from wanting to do it anyway.  When he was born and I realized that he was never going to walk or run like every other boy and that he had brothers who could, I just assumed that he’d want to be an athlete.  I had visions of the Special Olympics, nights of trying to figure out ways to adapt a basketball net or a bike or even a video game so that he could do all of those things just like my other two sons and not feel any different.  But then Jake kept growing up and was never interested in any of those things.  He wanted to be read to, constantly.  He wanted to play with playdough and clay and water and sand.  He was fascinated by these things.  Other children didn’t really interest him that much.  It was as if there was so much going on inside his own imagination that he didn’t really have room for other kids.  He was fine if they were playing beside him, but he didn’t want to be interrupted.  He had important work to do.

The day my wife put finger paint and a piece of paper on the tray attached to his adaptive chair was the day I saw my son come alive.  It was as if all that important work that had been going on inside his head had finally poured onto this piece of paper that he could keep.  That we could display.  That had his name on it.  He was somebody.

He was an artist.

He was almost three.

The first time that Justin had dinner with us and he talked about what he did for a living, about his art, Jake couldn’t take his eyes off of Justin’s face.  I don’t know why I’d never thought about letting Jake meet a real artist before.  It’d just never occurred to me.  I had to keep reminding him to eat his dinner.  He was spellbound.  He hung on Justin’s every word.

When we finished with dinner, Jake hit me on the arm repeatedly.  He was afraid that Justin was just going to get up and leave. 

“He’s just going to the bathroom, Jake.  He’ll be right back.”

Alex and Tyler were already beating the crap out of each other in the backyard when Justin came back to the table.  Jake started hitting me again.  He didn’t have his book.  I asked him if that’s what he wanted, and he shook his head in frustration.

“Then what?”

“Pay.”

“Paper?”  He nodded.  I got up and got him a legal pad and his art box and brought it back to him.  “Here.”  He shook his head and looked at Justin.  “He wants me to give this to you.  He wants you to draw.”

“He does?”

“Is that what you want, Jake?”  His eyes opened wide, and he smiled.  “That’s what he wants.  Jake loves to paint and loves to draw.  When you were talking about your comic book and your art, he was very excited.”

“Okay, Jake,” Justin got comfortable in his chair with the pad of paper and opened Jake’s box of crayons and pencils.  “What do you want me to draw?”

Jake looked around our back yard.  “Te.”

“Tree.  Draw the trees.”

“Okay.”

Justin ended up drawing our entire backyard and both of our neighbor’s backyards and everything else Jake could point to.  He wore Justin out.  I think it was actually the first time Jake had ever actually seen something actually take shape like that on paper.  Justin came inside after about an hour and told me he had to stop because his hand was giving out.

“I’m sorry.  After I work all day, it just doesn’t cooperate for very long.”  I felt terrible for making him perform for my son.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry.  I didn’t realize—"

“It’s okay.  It’s okay.  I had so much fun.  He’s so funny.  He gets so excited.  I started drawing his brothers, and he could not stop laughing.  And then I couldn’t stop laughing.  He’s hilarious.”

“He doesn’t have a very high opinion of his brothers.  It’s pretty funny, actually.  He likens them to cavemen.”

“I can tell.  I’d love to come back sometime and work with him.  I tried to get him to draw some for me, but he seemed really shy, like he didn’t want to.”

“He’s embarrassed because he can’t hold crayons very well, and probably because he can’t draw as well as you.  But, yes, you can come back anytime.  I’ve never seen him so enthralled with someone in my entire life.  Well, except Brian.  I’ll tell you that story sometime.”

“I can’t wait.  I’ll go tell him good-bye.”

******************************
and I’ve been waiting such a long time for today

And Justin did come back, several times.  He helped me fashion an easel for Jake that I could attach and detach to his chair that made it easier for Jake to paint and draw.  He searched online and found adaptive paintbrushes with flat handles that were easier for Jake to grasp and made it possible for him to control his strokes.  He helped him make another book of his artwork so that over the span of three months since Justin’s been here, Jake can actually see his progress.  He can see that he’s getting better.  I think that has meant more to Jake than anything else. 

I watched my son watch Justin draw, color and paint.  He started out mimicking him, his eyes so intent on Justin’s every move that I worried sometimes that he was going to burn a hole through him.  Justin would lay his brush or his pencil down sometimes when his hand tired and Jake would do the same, thinking it was part of the process.  It became a game between them.

“You don’t have to stop just because I stopped, Jake.  My hand is just tired.  Keep going.”

“No.” 

Justin’s explanation of why his hand was tired, and why he and Jake wouldn’t be tired at the same time didn’t matter to Jake.  He wanted to be Justin, to the extent that he could.  Justin would tease him sometimes, pretending to stop, and Jake would get the joke.  Eventually, Jake would pull the same trick on Justin.  They were good for each other.

One day while Jake was sitting on the deck in his chair painting on his easel, Justin was sitting beside him sketching.  When Jake finished, he showed Justin what he’d painted, a tree or something from the backyard, and Justin showed him his sketch of Jake at his easel, painting.  I was standing on the stairs to our deck while this was going on trying to decide if I wanted to mow the grass or not.

“Da.”  Justin had gotten pretty good at understanding Jake.

“You want to show your Dad your painting?” 

“DA!” 

“I can hear you, Jake.  You don’t have to scream.”  When I went to look at his painting, he shook his head and pointed to Justin.  Justin handed me his sketch pad.  I looked at the amazing sketch that Justin had done of my son, the artist.  “Jake, look at you.  Wow.”

“I pay.”

“Yeah, you sure do, Jake.  You paint.”  And then I stopped looking at Justin’s sketch of Jake and really looked at my son, the artist.

Those were the first two words he’d ever strung together in his entire life.

******************************
and I’m not ashamed to say the wild boys were my friends

The third time I heard Justin Taylor’s name out of Brian Kinney’s mouth was after Justin had been in L.A. a little over three months.  Brian called me out of the blue on day at the office.

“Matt Westheim.”

“Greetings King of the Lite Brite and Master of All Really Dumb Ideas.”

“Touché.”  The more things change with Brian Kinney, the more they stay the same.

“How’s your pre-pubescent Picasso?”

“Not quite as talented as yours, but he’s getting there.”  He laughed on the other end of the line.

“Give him time.  Give him time.

“To what do I owe the pleasure of this phone call?”

"Are you free next weekend?”

“Are you asking me out?”

“We do threesomes, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“He’s my kid’s hero.  Do you mind?”

"You and I have more in common every day, Matthew.  It’s starting to freak me the fuck out.”

******************************
he says, "son, can you play me a memory?”

It was like time picked up right where it left off when I picked up Brian and Lindsay at the airport after lunch on Thursday, except that Gus was there, four years of proof that time had passed. 

“Lindsay, he’s beautiful.  And you look great.  You haven’t changed a bit.”

“Neither have you.  I can’t wait to see Val and the kids again.  It’s been so long.”

“Hey, what about me?”  Brian can’t tolerate not being the center of attention for more than thirty seconds.

“What about you?”  I hugged him.  Gus was in his arms.  “I can’t believe you made something this cute.”

“Yeah, well, just wait until the jet lag hits him.  Then you’ll be sorry you agreed to this.”

“Daddy, where’s Mr. Justin?” 

“That’s the eighty-fifth time he’s asked me that in the last half hour.”  I laughed.  Mr. Justin?

Gus repeated his question several more times on the way to my house, and Brian answered it in between telling me that this had also been Gus’ first plane ride and that he should have never let Gus have Coke on the plane.  Lindsay told him Gus was fine, that he was just excited, and to stop queening out. 

“Gus is convinced that every plane he sees takes him to Justin.”  Gus was asleep before we even got home.

Jake eyed Brian like an animal zeroing in for the kill while Brian helped himself to a beer from our fridge.  “Jake, do you remember Brian from Uncle John’s wedding?  Brian’s the one that sends you all of those catalogs.  You sat with him remember?” 

“Wa.”  Brian’s face lit up.

“You remember me.”  He went over and sat on the floor in front of Jake’s chair, so he could be eye level with Jake.  “Yeah, you liked my watch.”  Jake flipped through this giant black book on his tray and pointed to Brian’s photo, the old one Brian sent me years ago.  “Yeah, that’s me.”  Jake pointed to his other book, his art book, and I switched them for him.  He flipped through pages until he found the picture he wanted.  It was a sketch of Brian that Justin had done.  I’d never seen it before.

“You.”

“Yeah, that’s me at the airport in Pittsburgh.”

“Justin’ll be here in half an hour, Brian.”

“I’m gonna take a shower then.”

Jake looked at me, “Si.”

“What’s he saying?”

“Outside.  He wants to go outside.  He and Justin usually draw outside.  Jake’s more of a landscape artist.”  Jake laughed.  He’s always had a sense of humor about himself.

******************************
come out, Virginia
don’t make me wait

The minute Justin arrived, he headed straight for the backyard.  He knew that’s where Jake would be, waiting for him.  He usually helped him put on his smock, set up his easel and his paints, and then talked with him about what he wanted to paint or to draw if Jake was in a more patient mood and felt like tackling pencils.  But for some reason that day, Justin had some new idea he wanted to try, and when Brian came downstairs, ready to surprise him on the deck, he wasn’t on the deck.  He was rolling Jake’s chair and his paints and his paper and everything else into the backyard.  Brian’s stood inside the sliding glass door that leads to our deck, his hand wrapped around his second beer, shaking his head. 

“Matt, what the fuck is he doing?”

“I have no idea.”

“This was not the plan.”

“I know.”

“You were in charge of the plan.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“Well?”

“I don’t know what to do.”

So we stood there, watching, mind-boggled, trying to figure out what the fuck Justin was doing.  I think Jake was, too.  He was completely intrigued.  Justin stopped pulling Jake when they got to the biggest tree in our backyard.

“My son loves to draw trees.  He’s fascinated by trees.”

“That’s great, Matt.  That helps me a lot.”

Justin put a piece of paper on the tree, reached down for Jake’s hand, picked it up, and put it on the paper.  Then he got his other hand and did the same thing.  So then my son was sitting in his chair with both hands pressed against a piece of paper on a tree.  Justin got out a pair of scissors and picked up a roll of duct tape.

“Where’d the duct tape come from?” 

Brian laughed, “You’re asking me?”

Once the paper was taped to the tree, he helped Jake let go, helped him with his smock, set up his paints, and then taped another piece of paper to the tree right above Jake’s.  Justin ran his brush over the paper, and Jake’s arms start to flap up and down.  When the outline of the bark started to appear through the paper, Jake got so excited, he almost tipped his chair over.  Justin anchored it with his foot.  I could see Justin saying, “You do it,” to Jake.  Jakes strokes were broad and coarse and sloppy, but it didn’t matter.  He got the same effect.  He could paint just as well as Justin.  He covered the whole piece of paper in less than two minutes and was ready for another one. 

“You know he’s an artist in the bedroom, too.”  Brian lifted his beer to me.

“You just had to ruin this moment for me, didn’t you?”

“I came to California to come.”

“That bed upstairs is an antique.  Don’t break it.”

“I’ll take the toolbox with me.  That’s the best I can do.”

Brian informed me of the new master plan to lure Justin into the house since mine had so dismally failed.  I had to admit, his plan was better.  I guess I’m just out of practice when it comes to snagging tail.

“All right, Kinney, let me go have my moment with my son before you go have your moment with yours.”

“I’ll gladly wait my turn.  Mine’s gonna take a lot longer.”

******************************
I’d rather laugh with the sinners
than cry with the saints
the sinners are much more fun…

It was everything I could do to keep from laughing when Justin’s cell phone rang in the backyard about five minutes later.  No matter what he said to Brian, Brian just kept repeating that he couldn’t hear him.  Over and over and over.  Finally, after yelling into his phone, Justin looked at me, frustrated, and said, “Can I just go in your house and use your regular phone?”

“Sure.”

He opened the sliding glass door and walked right into Brian.

“Brian!”

“Justin.”

“Oh my god.”

Justin’s feet were at least a foot off the ground when Brian shut the door.

A little over two hours later, my cell phone rang.  It was Brian.

"Where’s Lindsay?”

“Standing right next to me in the driveway.”

"Can you please tell her that Gus woke up from his nap and he’s crying?””

“Lindsay, Gus woke up from his nap, and he’s crying……………….It is interfering with your ambiance?”

“It’s making Justin’s maternal instincts kick in.”

“Will you be ordering room service later or will you be coming down for dinner?”

“Send up a menu and the tool box.”
 
******************************
you say your mother told you all that I could give you was a reputation

It was obvious to me, when Justin and Brian showed up at my house at eight a.m. on Saturday morning, that they’d been fucking non-stop since we left them at the restaurant Thursday night, but taking Gus to Disneyland wasn’t my idea in the first place.  It was Brian’s.  Something about making a promise to Gus to show him where Mickey Mouse lives and where rockets take off, and since there was no way he was going to Florida, Gus would have to settle for Mickey Mouse and Mr. Justin.  It made no sense to me, but most of the things Brian does don’t make much sense to me, so that was nothing new.

Gus and Jake had gotten along great together at my house all day Friday since Gus loves to draw and Jake loves to show off.  Jake was thrilled to have a mobile friend who he could order around.  He basically spent the day just pointing to things to see if he could get Gus to actually bring them to him.  Jake actually got Gus to bring him my wallet.  I had to pull Jake aside and have a conversation with him at that point.  I worry about him sometimes.  He’s a little mastermind.  Every time I’m missing something and he’s had a friend over, I think I should frisk him.  Val lost her wedding ring once, and I spent half the day looking for it all the while thinking Jake probably had it.  He didn’t.  Val found it in her purse.

Our day at Disneyland was more or less like I expected it to be.  Insane.  Every time Jake leaves the house, he wants to be dressed to kill, so I had to spend the night before and that morning explaining to him why it’s inappropriate to wear a shirt and tie to Disneyland.  Brian’s menswear catalogs have completely poisoned him.  He believes everything he reads.  If the description beside a sport coat says it’s ‘for any occasion,’ then Jake thinks that means he should wear a sport coat to Disneyland.  I admire the way his mind works sometimes, and then sometimes I just want to take Brian somewhere and beat and the crap out of him.  Him and the mailman.

Ironically, though, it was Brian who saved me that morning when he and Justin showed up in regular clothes.

“See, Jake, Brian and Justin aren’t wearing shirts and ties to go to Disneyland.  They’re wearing regular clothes just like the rest of us.”

“My clothes aren’t regular.  This is a Prada shirt.”  I almost punched Brian.  Justin intervened on my behalf.

"No, it’s not, Brian.  You got that shirt at the mall.”  Brian was about to object when Justin did something to him that, quite frankly, is none of my business.

“Um, that’s right.  I got this shirt at the mall.”  Brian looked like he wanted to vomit after the word “mall” came out of his mouth.  “You owe me for that, Sunshine.  Big time.  I don’t even buy my hangers at the mall.”

“Shhh.”

Jake’s favorite ride at Disneyland or anywhere for that matter is bumper cars.  There aren’t many rides he can ride, but he loves that one, mainly because he can control it well enough, and he feels like he has power.  We spent about forty-five minutes taking turns in the car with Jake letting him slam into each one of us.  It’s therapy for him.  It’s worth it. 

Justin and Brian’s favorite ride was each other behind the defunct Frozen Lemonade shack about five hundred feet away from the bumper cars.  They rode that ride more than once, too.  Brian looked just as happy as every little kid at Disneyland each time he got off.  I stood next to him in disbelief as he smoked a cigarette.  I think that came with his ride, too.

“You are unbelievable, Brian Kinney.”

“I paid for my ticket just like everybody else.”

“I’d love to fuck Val behind that abandoned lemonade shack structure thing.”

“So do it.”

“Oh, yeah, right.  I can see that now.  ‘Val, honey, you wanna fuck behind that thing over there?’  Brian’ll keep an eye on the kids for us.”  Brian flattened his cigarette on the cement.

“No, no, no Matthew.  You’ve got it all wrong.  You don’t ask.  You tell them.  That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for what?  Some twenty-some million years now?”

“At least.”

“It’s all in the voice, Matt.  Trust me.  Watch this.”  Justin was about forty feet away from us, looking in the opposite direction, totally oblivious to what we were talking about when Brian called him, “Justin.”  He turned his head immediately.  “Come here.”  Justin walked over, put his hands on Brian’s waist, and Brian leaned down and basically gave him a tonsillectomy right in front of me.  I looked in the other direction.

“What was that for?”  Justin asked him when Brian finally let him come up for air.

“This is just such a magical kingdom.”  He kissed him again, turned him around, slapped him on the butt and sent him on his way. 

“You know, when we were kids and I moved away to Florida, I always wished that you’d come visit me and you and I could do the Disney thing.  I never once imagined I’d be standing in a Disney establishment watching you play tonsil hockey with your freakishly young, yet oddly mature, very pretty boyfriend.”

“If you play your cards right, you might be able to lure Linds behind that shack.  She likes it up against a wall.”

“Do you listen to yourself or are your mouth and your brain just no longer connected?”

“It’s intermittent.  Probably needs a tune-up.”

“Ya think?”

I tried that 'say your name, come here thing' with Val that night when we were done with dinner.  She came right over.  After I kissed her, she said, “Thanks, now do the dishes,” and left me standing there with a dish towel in my hand. 

He makes everything look so damn easy.

******************************
he’s a smooth operator

I had the utter good fortune of getting to witness their good-bye at the airport that Sunday.  Brian’s final intimate moments with Justin were punctuated by a very long kiss that belonged in L.A. because it belonged in the movies.  It landed me in less than warm water with my wife.

“Why can’t you kiss me like that once in a while?”

“I tried to kiss you like that last night after dinner, but you just wanted me to do the dishes!”  She shook her head at me like I was hopeless. I was tempted to grab her, throw her back, and plant one on her, but I was afraid she’d make me get on a plane afterwards.  So instead, I gave Brian the finger.  He returned the favor, the same hand groping Justin’s ass at the time.

Justin had tears in his eyes as he walked back toward us.  Val grabbed him and hugged him as tight as she could.  She has no problem being affectionate with Justin.  I tried to make myself cry so I could get in on it, but it just wasn’t going to happen.

“Oh, Justin, that was the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen,” Val consoled him.  Justin had just been fondled to death.  He didn’t need any more affection.  I did. 

Justin wiped his eyes over Val’s shoulder.  “Yeah, he’s a really good kisser at the airport.”

….and in my kitchen, and my guest room, and the back seat of my car, and my backyard, and especially behind the now defunct Frozen Lemonade Shack at Disneyland………….

******************************
I thought our little wild time had just begun

We didn’t know it at the time, but that visit marked that halfway point of Justin’s time in L.A.  Three months later, we were at the airport telling him good-bye.  Two weeks before that, I was trying to break the news to Jake.  He took it about like I thought he would.

“No.”

“I’m sorry, Jake.  But he is.  He was only going to be out here for a little while.  It was only temporary.”

“No.”

I didn’t know what I was going to do.  My entire family was practically in mourning.

My wife was crying because before Justin came, she’d never been able just to walk down to the mailbox or run to the store or anything without Jake in tow or threatening Alex and Tyler within an inch of their lives if they left his side.  The boys resented having to look after Jake, and Jake hated being looked after.  I rushed home from work to relieve her many a night because she was at her wits end.  We’d had many a sitter or aide come in to help, but Jake hated every one of them and made their lives miserable.  No matter what, Val or I had been by his side since he was born.  Jake just hadn’t enjoyed anyone else’s company outside of this family until he met Justin.  And now he had to leave.

Jake’s one of the smartest children I’ve ever met, and one of the proudest.  He was determined not to let Justin know how upset he was that he was leaving.  Instead, he just became more and more interested in whatever Justin was showing him how to do that day and tried even harder.  I think he thought that if he just kept drawing and painting and laughing with Justin that he wouldn’t leave. 

Ever since Justin had drawn that picture of Jake painting that day, Jake had gone from being fascinated with trees and backyards to people.  Justin had shown him some comic book sketches he’d done that were child-appropriate, and Jake seemed to enjoy the different ways that Justin could portray people.  He drew a comical sketch of Jake once wearing his suit and tie, and Jake laughed for twenty minutes.  It’s still hanging over his bed.  There’s a bubble over his head that says something like, ‘I’d rather be in Gucci.’ 

He’s drawn pictures of all of us for Jake, pictures of Val on the phone in the kitchen, Alex and Tyler doing their homework, and even one of me kissing Val when I got home from work one day.  Jake calls that picture:  “Oooo.”  I told Justin I was going to send it to Brian to prove to him that my wife really does let me kiss her. 

“I’ll make you a copy, but I already told him.” 

“What’d he say?”

“He said you paid her.”

Jake and Justin dissolved into laughter. 

“Oooo.”

“Be quiet, Jake.”

From clear across the country, Brian Kinney had somehow turned my own son against me.

******************************
how about a pair of pink sidewinders
and a bright orange pair of pants?

Jake’s good-bye with Justin at the airport did not involve cinematic kissing, but it did involve Jake wearing a shirt and tie and a sport coat because Jake knows that people dress up to go to the airport and there was no way I was going to convince him otherwise, and it was a real tie, too, not a clip-on.  Jake’s no poser.  He’s the real thing.  Hell, I dressed up, too, because once I got him dressed up, I felt pretty stupid in a t-shirt and jeans.  We had a bit of time to kill once we got to the airport, which was fine with Jake.  The only thing that makes him happier than looking at pictures in catalogs, is actually seeing the real thing.  He was like a kid in a candy store watching so many men come and go in so many different suits and ties and, lo and behold, briefcases.  About half an hour before Justin had to go, he told Jake he had something for him and pulled a small box out of his pocket.  He had to help Jake open it.  Jake smiled from ear to ear when he saw what was in it.  They were small, silver cuff links.

“Jay!”

“Yeah, ‘J.’  They have a ‘J’ on them for ‘Jake.’  They’re from me and Brian.”

“Juh.”

“Yeah, and for ‘Justin.’  Don’t want you to forget me.”

My son waited until Justin was long gone, and we were back in the car before he said anything to me.  He was so quiet, I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep.

“Da.”

“Hmm?”

“Bye, Juh.”

“I’m going to miss him, too, Jake.  I really am.”

******************************
don’t you know about the new fashion honey?
all you need are looks and a whole lotta money

Right before Justin left, I enrolled Jake in an art class that met on Saturday mornings.  It was a class for regular kids; he was the only handicapped child enrolled.  I didn’t want him to lose the spark that Justin has ignited in him.  Jake was excited, mostly about what he was going to wear on his first day.  We went through our usual song and dance.

“You can’t wear a shirt and tie to art class.  C’mon, Jake.  You need to pick something else.”

I let him ponder his alternate wardrobe choice in front of his closet while I went to his desk to get his art supplies.  The community center wouldn’t have the brushes and other adaptive tools Jake needed, so he’d have to bring them.  I opened his drawer where we keep his smocks, and found this on top:




It was one of Justin’s dress shirts that I’d seen him wear.  One that I think he told me Brian had given him.

“Jake, I think I found something for you to wear.”  He recognized it immediately.

“Juh.”

“It’s your new Armani smock.”

Jake felt like the king of the world when he rolled into that classroom.  He dove in and never looked back.  It was like Justin had never left.

******************************
nowadays you can’t be too sentimental
your best bet’s a true baby blue Continental

Except he had.  And things were back to normal.  And my wife, through all fault of my own, was pregnant again about two weeks later.  We kept it quiet.  After what happened with Jake, Val was worried, pensive during this pregnancy, unlike all the others.  For some reason, it made her seem even more beautiful, this secret we were sharing, until, of course, we couldn’t anymore.  By five months along, everyone knew.

I called Justin, once we settled our daughter into our home, to tell him the news.  He was at the loft.  I figured I’d let him break it to Brian. 

“We’re home.  It’s a girl.”

"No way!  And everything’s fine?  She’s fine?”

“She’s perfect.”

"Now, are you going to put your pecker away?”  Brian had picked up on the line.

"Brian, hang up.”

"Hell, no.  I won’t hang up.  Who’s she look like?”

“Val, actually.  All Val.  Big blue eyes.  Blonde hair.”  Okay, so Brian’s not the only one with a thing for the classic blonde.  If we’d both been straight, we’d’ve been in the parking lot beating the shit out of each other over the same girl.  Trust me.

"Justin, did you fuck Val before you left L.A.?”

"Brian!”

"If she grows up to have a very fuckable ass, she’s Justin’s.”

"Hang up!”

“Her name is Taylor Westheim.”

"No way.  Oh, that’s so-“

"Are you gonna call her ‘Sunshine?”

"Matt, just ignore him.  How’s Jake taking it?  Is he okay?”

"I’m not taking this well at all.”

“There isn’t one picture we’ve taken of Taylor that he hasn’t been in.  Just this itty bitty baby and Jake’s huge smiling face.  He’s such a proud big brother.”

"At least someone with fashion sense is in the family portrait.”

"Seriously, ignore him.  Oh, that’s so great.  I’m so glad.  Tell him to paint me a picture.”

“All you’ll get is this big blob of pink.”

"That’s okay.  That’s what I want!”

"I’ve got a big blob of pink you can have.”

“I know, in your own way, Brian, that means, ‘congratulations.’”

"No, it means Justin needs to get off the phone and –“

"Matt, send me a picture and tell Val I said ‘congratulations.’  I’ve got to put Brian down for his nap.”

“Justin, you’ve got the biggest baby of the whole bunch.”

"And I’m a single parent.  Go figure.  Talk to you soon.”

"Your life is so har--    Ow!  Fuck!  That’s child abus--_________________”

I don’t believe in corporal punishment, but sometimes……..you have no other choice.

******************************
only the good die young

When I was a boy, the days I went to the railroad tracks and Brian never showed up were always the worst for me.  My mind filled in the blanks of everything I didn’t know.  I would play games with myself, setting time limits……

if he’s not here in five minutes, then……

if he’s not here if fifteen….

If he’s not here in an hour….

until the afternoon had gone by….  while I’d done nothing but try to figure out how to break a marble and why a grown man needed to use a skinny, smart-mouthed kid as a punching bag…..why nobody did anything……..

why I didn’t do anything……

why I couldn’t do anything……

why somebody cared enough to hurt him but not enough to help him.

When I was a father, and my son was born, I wondered why I couldn’t fix everything.  Why, no matter what I did, no matter how many suits and shirts and ties I bought him, Jake would never rule the world.  Why loving him just wasn’t enough.  Or was it?  Or maybe I was doing it wrong.

The picture that sits in my office today of Jake and my daughter, a disproportionate amount of pink in the lap of young man in a beautifully tailored navy blue suit, a mauve tie in honor of his sister, and a beautiful pair of monogrammed cuff links with a ridiculously joyous smile on his face, is a picture I didn’t think anyone could paint.  Brian Kinney, like my son, needed to control his world, to make sense out of the cruel, unfair cards he was dealt.   And I suppose the irony in all of this is that Justin Taylor, a boy who’s barely a man, who was taken down with a baseball bat and stood back up again, did that for both of them.  He gave something to them that they’d never had, that they didn’t even think was possible.  Certainly, in the case of Brian Kinney, something he’d never even known.

And now, just like my son, in his own stubborn, roughly sophisticated, dressed to kill way, Brian Kinney was going to gather and guard those close to him and make damn sure that he did rule the world.  Free and clear, on his own terms, and without once looking over his shoulder.

But if he did, if he faltered and looked back, he wouldn’t have to fear what was behind him.  Not this time.

Not anymore.

Well—

………..not as long as he stayed on the East coast. 

The West coast is my territory.  I have proof. 

The maps from the railroad tracks, torn, taped, faded, littered with pin holes and all of my drawn and re-drawn boundaries…even all of Claire’s junk…..he wasn’t home that day.  I never got to hand it over.

So our stuff, the West coast, and I guess any women that'll have me, all of that belongs to me.

The end.  Really.