BEFORE I LET GO: BOOK II: CHAPTER 6: THE WISEST COURSE OF ACTION
DUKE:
Just before receiving the phone call from Drew, he sent me the soundbyte that must surely have them all reeling by now. Hell, I think we’re all as shocked and angry by Deb’s words as they are, with the exception of her son. Even though we all knew she felt this way about their roles in the continual Novotny drama, it’s jarring to hear it shouted out that way. There can be no more excuses given, or blatant disregard about her intentions to ensure Michael’s life ended up the way she’s been designing it since the first lost boy named Brian Kinney showed up on her doorstep. So now, we’re all gathered in the conference room before meeting with our clients to discuss how we, as their counselors, are going to proceed with them.
“I vote for kicking his militant midget ass off the island immediately!” Bernard says, and I have to admit that I am shocked, as I thought it would come from Barry since he has to work with him. “It’s clear that he isn’t going to play by the rules. Hell, he learned not to at his own mother’s knee. Keeping him here, in the same place, and space, as our other charges is bound to be detrimental to their collective and individual sanities.”
“But aren’t we supposed to help them, and by them I mean even him, too?” Alex asks. “By not doing so we allow him to keep repeating the cycle on other unsuspecting people.”
“But you know as well as we all do, Alex, that a person has to want help for any of this to work. It’s beyond clear that Michael Novotny-Bruckner is NOT such a person,” I say.
“Not Bruckner, any longer,” Barry utters his first words since entering the room.
“What?” We all ask, not sure we heard correctly.
“Ben is making the divorce official as we speak. I stopped by the villa he’s staying in, even before hearing the recording that Drew forwarded. I wanted to see for myself how he is settling in since he’s still in relatively close proximity to Michael. I honestly thought they would at least be arguing or something, but instead, Ben answered the door, dancing around in the buff.”
“Must have been a sight.” I smirk, imagining what that would have surely looked like. Benjamin Bruckner is a damn attractive man with a body that has been the subject of many a man’s wet dream. At their silence, I look at each of them. “What? Don’t tell me that you all have never wondered, no matter that two of you are joined at the dick.”
Alex smiles, and clears his throat. “That’s beside the point. But now basically, there is no reason to keep Novotny here on the island, since the initial goal was to save his marriage. Has Ben been thinking of this for a while or is it something that just got solidified because of the recording?”
“Trust me when I tell you that it’s been awhile… more like years, to be quite honest.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, since this is the first time I’ve heard of it. Pittsburgh’s gay community is a fairly small one, so even the hint or whisper of divorce travels fast through the Tell-A-Queen network.
“He was thinking about it about four years ago…”
“Only a year after they had gotten married in Canada?”
“Yes. But he just thought it was nerves, not something that he was seeing as a warning sign of things to come. Ben just told me that last bit. So he had the papers drawn up, but never acted on them. His attorney just continued to add to his file since Ben had paid him for the service, but never used it. Now though, Ben is looking at his marriage to Michael as an extreme case of buyer’s remorse and has asked Phillip Marchand to make the divorce happen, like yesterday.”
“Novotny’s going to fight him,” Alex said, but Barry shook his head.
“That may be, but in truth, the man doesn’t have a leg to stand on in any capacity.” He sighs. “Because of Michael’s mooching tendencies, he’s either put, or kept, everything in Ben’s name. It was his way of ensuring that he could spend whatever money he made as a result of Rage and the shop on the things he wanted, as opposed to paying his bills. Well, that way of thinking is now leaving the man up shit’s creek without a paddle, since technically Ben owns everything.”
“Everything?”
“EVERYTHING!”
“The shop?” Alex asks.
“Ben’s,” Barry answers.
“The house?” Bernard asks.
“Ben’s.”
“The collectibles?” I add.
“Only anything bought before the last five years belongs to Michael. All the rest- both comic and action figure alike- all belongs to Ben, since it was his money that really bought it all.”
“What about the money from Rage?”
“Michael used it to go to comic cons across the globe. Stayed in expensive hotels, ate at the finest restaurants, along with adding to his less than stellar wardrobe. I mean, doesn’t every grown man need character tee-shirts from Captain Astro?”
“I swear this guy is like a poor man’s Milburn Pennybags!” I exclaim, causing the others to laugh. We are all avid players of Monopoly so the comparison was not lost. “So how do we combat this latest mess from Thimble-brain’s Ma?”
“I say the first thing we do is call all the guys together, sans Thimble, of course. I think at this point the only weapon they have is full-disclosure of all the facts, bared at the same time,” Bernard suggests. “By now, Emmett, Ted, Brian, and Ben should have had time to look over the packets of messages that were deliberately kept from them. So it stands to reason that we should do this as a group, since their partners need to be told they were justified in their collective anger. Doing it this way will keep anyone from walking out.”
“But are we being fair to Ben, since his partner is the culprit?” Alex asks.
Barry nodded. “I think we are. Although his marriage to Novotny is ending, he still needs all the facts, and to voice his opinion on his friends’ plights during that time. He was just as affected as the others by Novotny’s actions… perhaps even moreso.”
“How do you mean?” I ask.
“He could no longer do what he always did to protect Michael. He had to acknowledge, if only to himself at first, that the man he thought he married was very different than the reality of who he got saddled with.”
“You make it sound like he didn’t have a choice.”
“If you think about it, he really didn’t.” Barry shrugs. “Ben fell in love with a myth. The heart wants whom it wants.”
“True, but willful blindness is a choice,” Bernard interjects.
“Exactly,” Barry agrees. “But how many times in our own lives did we try to justify what we were seeing when it was in direct opposition to what we wanted to believe? Speaking for myself, I can honestly say thousands of times before I got my degree, and only about a hundred times or so since then. We’ve all been guilty at one point or another of seeing what we wanted to see, and then disregarding the rest. It’s no different for Ben where Michael is concerned.”
“So how do you want to play this out, Duke?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Well Drew called and said that Emmett requested that he call you. So it’s up to you when we address this situation,” Bernard answered.
Alex nodded in agreement with him, before adding, “From the sound of it, Emmett is ready to address the things he doesn’t talk about. What are the odds that he will be ready again after this meeting with the others?”
I think back to all I know of Emmett, and I have to admit that I’m in a quandary about what to do. Emmett Honeycutt has never been a coward. Yet he’s afraid of what all of his secrets could do to him, Drew, and even Justin and Brian. The truth is that Justin’s possible reaction may make meeting with all the others more difficult. I know for a fact that although Brian knows something happened at Sap’s party years ago, Justin has never said what it was aloud to him. The fact that Emmett was there that night could make or break the young man’s resolve to fix things between him and Brian; much like Emmett is worried about what his own secrets can do to him and Drew. I sigh deeply before finally making a decision that could go one of two ways: Either Emmett will clam up again, or he’ll still be willing to finally unload the emotional baggage that has been stopping him from living his best life with the man he loves.
“I think we need to get all of this out into the open before I have my private session with Drew and Emmett.”
“You’re willing to take the chance that Emmett will still be open to talking about what’s been eating at him after the meeting about the Novotny faction?” Bernard asks me, surprised. In all honesty, I am too so I don’t take offense.
“I have to, since there’s a good possibility that another member of the group will have their own issues going forward,” I tell them. I intentionally didn’t mention Justin’s name, but I think Alex heard it anyway. What does he know about that situation already?
“Okay,” Barry says. “So where do we do this? It has to be somewhere not easily accessible to the meeting being interrupted. But we don’t want it to feel like a full-on session either, do we?”
“No we don’t,” Alex concurs. “Let’s make it at the Pelican, since it’s in the center of town. We’ll use the outdoor conference room since it’s cliffside. It will not only give a modicum of privacy, but allow them to get up from the table should they need a breather without leaving the space. That’s been a major source of trouble for all of them. And our resident unfriendly neighborhood pest, has been able to play on their penchants for detachment and escape for far too long.”
“Okay the Pelican, it is.” You all make your calls, and I’ll make mine to Drew, with the assurance that once the meeting is over, we’ll address Emmett’s concerns. It might be the only way they will get any sleep tonight.”
“In the meantime, what do we do about Novotny? When he can’t find anyone, probably most especially Ben, he’s going to either tear through the island looking for them, or he’ll start sowing his seeds of discord. He needs to be contained somehow,” Bernard tells us.
I think about it for a moment before responding. “After I call Drew, I’ll make the call to Ellis. Even though his key services have not been needed of late, with Novotny on an island with the unknown variables, it’s better that we have Ellis watch him so we can be forewarned if he makes contact with any of them, not to mention the staff itself.”
The feeling of relief that we have a plan amongst ourselves is palpable. This is the one time that Novotny will not have an island of sitting ducks to pick off or pick on. As Diane said on the recording: The reign of Novotny terror is OVER! And we’re going to do our part to see that it remains that way.