Almost But Not Quite

Chapter 11





Spring 2005

Over four years had passed since that fateful night on Liberty Avenue when Brian and Justin first met.

Brian now owned his own ad agency. It was called Kinnetik. He had his office space in what used to be the old bath house just off Liberty Avenue. He had been renovating the place ever since he moved his business in there. There was still more to do to the place, but it looked pretty good. It had been a long, hard road to get to where Brian was today.

After that night when he almost died scarfing, Brian applied himself to his new business. He refused to make any excuses for what had happened up to that point. He started by going after local businesses, convincing them that he could improve their sales if they gave him the chance. Due to his persistence and his flair for advertising, he turned several businesses around. His early successes led to word of mouth about what Kinnetik could accomplish. More and more small businesses started coming to Kinnetik in order to have Brian Kinney turn them into big businesses or even chains. Brian had been able to do that for many of his clients.

Things in Pittsburgh had changed a lot over the four years. Jim Stockwell had been elected mayor. He ran on a platform of family values which basically meant that he was anti-gay. He started by imposing strict regulations on places like the bath houses. They were often under twenty-four surveillance. There were raids. People were arrested and put through humiliating trials. Gradually people became more and more afraid to frequent such places. Reputations would be destroyed and jail was a possibility. The bath houses started to close down. That was how Brian had found his office space … cheap.

Babylon was still open … somehow. It had gone through a bad period, but managed to stay open. The Sap was holding on as best he could. He would have sold out a long time ago, but nobody was willing to buy. A place catering to gay clientele was just asking for trouble in the political climate of Pittsburgh. Nobody wanted to take the chance. Brian still went there frequently, however. The backroom was closed, but it was easy to pick up a trick and go home with him or take him back to the loft. He preferred the first arrangement, because then he could leave when they were finished fucking, and he didn’t have to kick the guy out.

It was increasingly difficult to find tricks these days. Fresh meat was often reluctant to frequent Babylon, since the possibility of arrest or harassment was very real. A veil of fear seemed to have dropped around the gay community of Pittsburgh. Younger kids were scared and men Brian’s age were wary. Brian had even had to rethink his one time only policy. He still relied on sex a lot, but it didn’t hold the same fascination it used to. It was all becoming rather difficult and inconvenient. Brian Kinney never thought he would come to such a conclusion.

Michael told him he was growing up. Yes, that Michael! He had returned from Portland about two months after he left, just as Brian had known he would. He had moped around for ages before finally going back to the Big Q as an assistant manager. He was still working there. He had met a university professor, Ben Bruckner, and the two were currently living together in Michael’s old apartment that Emmett had held onto after Michael moved away.

Growing up! Brian did not want to hear that, because to him it meant growing old. That was the last thing Brian wanted to do. He was now well over thirty, but he used all the anti-aging shit that he could afford to pretend that he was still in his twenties. It was getting harder and harder to hold onto that illusion. That was when he began to consider that maybe it was time for some real changes in his lifestyle and in his life.

His friends had all moved on. They seemed to be handling the aging thing better than he was. Emmett had gotten into the party planning business with Vic. They were just starting to have some success when Vic died suddenly from complications of HIV. That had been devastating for everyone, but especially for his sister, Debbie. She had gone off the deep end, and Brian found himself ostracized from the Novotny home, because of some comments he had made. They were legitimate statements, but Debbie didn’t see it that way. She had told Brian to get out, and he had obliged. They hadn’t talked in months.

Ted was still slaving away at Wertschafter’s. He wanted to do something else, but he liked his lifestyle too much to try something new. He chose to remain in the safety of the job he knew, rather than taking a chance on branching out on his own or with another firm. Good old conservative Ted. Who would have guessed that he would dabble with crystal meth and would have a brief fling with Emmett? They had actually tried to be a couple for a while. That, thank the gods, had been over relatively quickly.

Brian had given up his parental rights to Abe to Melanie and Lindsay. He rarely saw his son, mostly when Debbie had one of her get-togethers and the girls brought Abe along. Lately, since Brian and Debbie were on the outs, he hadn’t seen Abe in several months. He sometimes wondered if the four year old Abe even remembered him. He tried to convince himself that Abe was better off without his sperm donor in his life. Brian kept his distance fearful that he would become too attached to something that he could never have. Abe’s life was with Melanie and Lindsay.

And that life wasn’t so great. The Munchers had had their ups and downs. Infidelity on both their parts had caused them to separate a couple of times. They were currently together, but things weren’t all hearts and roses. Brian wondered if they would split permanently at some point. And what would happen to his son if they did?

Brian had simplified his life to the bare necessities – work and sex. That was all that really mattered. He tolerated his friends when they were around. Sometimes they were passable company of an evening. He could shoot pool with them at Woody’s or lean against the bar at Babylon and crack jokes until he selected his trick of the night. They served their purpose.

Sometimes they royally pissed him off, like the time Michael called him an “over-the-hill-club-boy” and told him he should grow up and settle down like Michael had with his professor. That would be the fucking day! Mikey and the prof had even adopted a street kid, who had been a gay hustler when they found him. It was a wonder they had any belongings left. Those kinds of kids would steal you blind. But Brian had to admit, that that hadn’t happened so far. The kid was in school and seemed to be doing okay.

But that kind of life wasn’t for him. He never wanted to settle down. He wanted to be free and easy just the way he was. He could do anything he wanted, he could fuck anyone he wanted, and that was the way he liked it. No ties or limitations or responsibilities other than to himself. And to Abe. He still paid support for the boy, even though he had no legal claims to his son. He wanted Abe to have a better life than he had had. Sometimes Brian wondered what it would be like to have a partner, someone to share his triumphs and successes with, someone who would be there on the evenings he didn’t feel like going out. He thought about that occasionally, but mostly he drove it far back into his mind, and pretended that he liked his life the way it was. And mostly he did.

It was just that sometimes…



*****



Justin Taylor graduated cum laude from Dartmouth. He could probably have done even better, but he didn’t really enjoy his business classes all that much. His art classes which made up his minor curriculum produced exceptional results. However, in his business classes he managed to get very good marks in spite of his lack of interest. Between his two sets of courses he managed to graduate near the top of his class. His father was very pleased.

Justin had spent his four years at Dartmouth in relative calm. He had resigned himself to following the path his father had laid out for him. Once he decided that, he carried it through to the best of his ability, well, as much of his ability as he was able to focus on business. His father was happy with Justin’s results at Dartmouth. He could brag to his friends about how well Justin was doing at university. That seemed to be all that mattered. Whether Justin was happy was totally beside the point. His father never asked and Justin kept his mouth shut.

Not all of his time at Dartmouth was bad. Justin actually enjoyed some parts of it. He made a good friend in a girl named Jodi. She was taking business courses and was really interested in them. They met in the bookstore the first week of the semester when Justin started at Dartmouth. They both reached for the last book on a shelf. It was one they both needed for the same course. As a result they decided to share, until more books came in, and that’s how their friendship began.

They ended up in a lot of the same first year courses. As a result they often studied together, sat together in lectures, and hung out after class. Justin was happy to find a friend. Daphne had ended up at the Dickinson School of Law at Penn State in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Justin knew he would miss her, and he did. Jodi would never be Daphne, would never have the history with him that he and Daphne had shared, but he liked Jodi a lot from the first moment he met her. She made his years at Dartmouth so much easier to bear. Her last name was Tayworth, so they even got to sit together at graduation.

Justin did miss Daphne, and his mother and father, and even Molly, for the first months he was at Dartmouth. Gradually it got easier as time went on. The family came to visit him once during the first term, and he went home for Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Seeing his father so happy about his son being at his alma mater convinced Justin that he had made the right decision in going to Dartmouth.

Whenever Justin returned to Pittsburgh for a school break or over the summer, he never returned to Liberty Avenue. Something deep inside him caused him to believe that he would never find his Brian from that first night on Liberty. He had a certain dread about going back to the gay district of his city and being proven right. He tried to analyze why he felt that way, based on a first year psych course that he had taken. The best he could come up with was that he harbored some distant hope that he would find the man of his dreams again someday, and his brain was doing its best to fight that unlikely hope and protect him from disappointment by keeping him away from Liberty Avenue. Whatever the cause, Justin Taylor did not return to Liberty.

Justin worked in his father’s electronics stores when he wasn’t at school. His father had made it clear that he expected Justin to begin taking his place in Craig’s little empire as soon as Justin finished his degree at Dartmouth. Craig now had two stores in Pittsburgh and was seriously investigating expansion to Harrisburg and Philadelphia. He had already taken the first steps to do so.

Even though Justin knew that working in his father’s business was not what he wanted to do, he didn’t tell his father that. Justin’s dream of becoming an artist was dimming as time went on, and Justin couldn’t decide what else he might do with his life. He left open the option of taking over the family business, never telling his father he would, but never saying he wouldn’t either. He knew that was what his father expected him to do.

Craig Taylor’s expectations for his son had proven to be a very powerful factor. Justin knew he was denying some part of himself, and was also deceiving his father by not telling the man that his son was gay. But Justin never found the right moment. That night almost five years before when he had mustered the courage to go to Liberty Avenue, he had truly believed that he could take his place in the world as a gay man. He almost felt like it was his destiny calling to him, and then it had all fallen apart. It had a lot to do with the handsome man named Brian. Somehow Justin felt at that moment, and every moment since, if he was honest with himself, that his future was tied to that man. When Brian had turned away and gone off with his friend, he had changed everything. Justin had lost the drive and confidence that he had felt when he had gone to Liberty Avenue that night. Even though he had been scared shitless, he was sure he was doing the right thing. He had rarely felt that certainty about anything since.

A similar feeling had come to him for one semester at Dartmouth. With much prodding from Jodi, Justin had joined the gay alliance that was active on campus. There were about fifty members, but Justin was pretty sure there were more gay students at Dartmouth than fifty. However, they either had no interest or were afraid to be associated with the gay movement. Truthfully, Justin was a little afraid to join too. Jodi had convinced him to go to a meeting during his second year at Dartmouth. She told him he needed to meet some other gay guys. Maybe he’d find someone. So Justin had gone.

The meeting was pretty boring, but he did scope out the room. There were a couple of cute guys. It got Justin thinking. After the meeting they served coffee and cookies. That was when Justin met Trevor Ballantine.

Trevor was almost six feet tall with a swimmer’s body. He had blond hair which was a little darker shade than Justin’s. It turned out he did belong to the Dartmouth swim team, which wasn’t very good, but Trevor seemed to enjoy it. He had approached Justin who was standing by the coffee perk sipping his coffee from a styrofoam cup. He made some comment about how he wished the gay guy running the shindig would learn to make decent coffee. Justin had laughed and they had started talking. Trevor wanted to be a high school history teacher. He was also hoping to couple that with being the swim coach for whatever school he taught at.

Justin had liked Trevor immediately. They had gone out for coffee at Starbucks, deciding that the stuff they were serving at the meeting would rot their guts. They did a lot of things together for the next few months, before they realized maybe they should be a couple. It started with a stolen kiss that Trevor managed to grab one night. Justin kissed him back. They ended up in Justin’s dorm room sucking each other off. There was a rosy hue around the young lovers for the next couple of months. They experimented a bit with sex, but Justin was reluctant to go all the way to penetration. Something held him back. Maybe that’s what led to their downfall. Justin was never sure.

Trevor was two years ahead of Justin in his courses and graduated from Dartmouth at the end of Justin’s sophomore year. When Justin left for the summer break after his sophomore year, he and Trevor pledged to keep in touch. Trevor went to Wyoming where he was from, and Justin went to Pittsburgh to work for his father. There were a few e-mails and some phone calls, but when junior year started, Trevor stopped calling. All Justin’s e-mails bounced back, and his phone calls to Trevor got the “no longer in service” message. Trevor was gone.

Justin took it hard. He moped around at the beginning of the year, until Jodi was ready to throttle him. She dragged him to movies and book signings and chamber music recitals. It took a lot of effort, but gradually Justin began to return to some semblance of his old self. He started to make the effort to do a few things himself. His marks which had taken a nosedive began to recover. Jodi breathed a sigh of relief.

The best sign of all came when Jodi realized what Justin was doing with all the hours he seemed to be disappearing off the face of the earth. Justin had bought paint supplies with any money his father sent, and he painted out all his anger and frustration onto the canvases he had in his cubicle in the Fine Arts building. The day Jodi discovered his stash of paintings was a real revelation for her. She told him he should be in an arts course fulltime, not in business. Justin had merely sighed and shook his head. But after that, Jodi encouraged Justin to paint. Justin seemed to be returning to his former equanimity as time had gone on. The painting helped. But it didn’t solve the problem.

Deep inside Justin felt like he was doomed to live his life alone. Any guy he was interested in let him down, turned their back on him. And worse than that, he would never be a real artist. He thought his artwork was good, but even if it was better than all the other art students at Dartmouth, he doubted it would measure up to the students at PIFA.

And Justin felt like any personal life he might have had was gone too. He thought Trevor might have been the one, even though Trevor had never made him quiver like that guy on Liberty Avenue had. Justin doubted that anyone would ever be able to make him feel like that again – scared and hopeful and sexy and totally out of control. He had been so young and naïve. He wasn’t sure he ever wanted to feel like that again. The only thing he was sure of was that his life was a mess.

Justin wasn’t sure how he would have got through the rest of his sentence at Dartmouth, if it hadn’t been for Jodi. She encouraged him with his art, helped him with his business courses, took him places to meet people, tried to get him to date which he did a few times, and generally was there when he needed to vent his frustrations about his fucking life.

Somehow with Jodi’s help, Justin survived his four years at Dartmouth. He came out with a business degree, good marks, a truckload of paintings that no one would ever see, and the realization that his life would never be what he wanted, if he stayed in the closet with his family and went to work in his father’s business. And yet that was what awaited him after graduation.

On the day he left Dartmouth, Justin resolved to tell his father that he was gay and that he didn’t want to work in the family business.



*****



Justin came home from Dartmouth with his parents. They had the station wagon stuffed full of his belongings from his dorm room. On the long trip to Pittsburgh, Justin debated about springing the news that he was gay to his parents. Molly wasn’t there, having opted to spend time at a friend’s house, thus freeing up more space in the car to transport Justin’s belongings. Justin sat in the back seat of the car, crammed in beside boxes that wouldn’t fit in the back of the family car. He had arranged to have his paintings shipped to a storage unit in Pittsburgh. He might like to look at them one day.

His parents sat up front, smiled happily and made chit chat. Justin couldn’t find the words or the cruelty needed to ruin their good humor on the way home.

He moved back into his old room in the family home, feeling mildly ambivalent about the whole process. He had graduated from university. He should be going out on his own. Instead he was living with his parents, in the room he’d had since he was a baby, and he was about to go to work for his father. How fucked was that? It made him feel like an inexperienced and naïve teenager all over again. He would have to correct that situation as soon as possible.

Justin was to start work at his father’s office right after graduation. He knew he needed to tell his father that he was gay … and also tell him that he really didn’t want to work in the family company, but somehow he never got around to it.

On the first day he was to start at Taylor Electronics, he arrived at work early and walked into the office that his father had told him would be his. He smiled just slightly as he looked around. If this had been what he wanted to do, he would be off to a really good start. But it wasn’t what he wanted, not even close.

Justin made coffee and had a pot ready when his father’s secretary arrived. She accepted a mug of coffee gratefully.

“Justin,” she said, “your father’s so proud of you. He’s been waiting for four years to have you come work with him.”

Justin smiled wanly. What could he say? “Joyce, I…”

“Morning all,” Craig Taylor said cheerfully as he entered the office area. “I see you’re getting an early start, son. Just what I like to see.”

“Dad, I need to talk to you,” Justin said quickly, deciding it was now or never.

“Sure, pour me a cup of that coffee and come into the office. I’m sure you have lots of questions about the business.” Craig disappeared into his office.

Justin sighed and picked up the coffeepot. He grabbed a mug and started to pour. Joyce looked at him with a small smile playing on her lips. Justin filled the mug and added a bit of cream, the way his father liked his coffee. He carried the mug to the door of his father’s office. He straightened his back and stepped inside.

“Dad,” Justin said.

“Thanks,” Craig replied reaching out for the coffee.

Justin handed it to him. “Dad, we need to talk.”

“Don’t be nervous, Justin. You’re going to do fine here. You’ve had more training than I ever had, and look what I’ve accomplished. We’re expanding to Harrisburg, and I’m negotiating for a property in Philadelphia. We’ll have four stores, son. I really need your help.”

“But…”

“No, buts! I know you can do it.”

Justin heaved a sigh and gave up his attempt to talk to his father. Maybe it was for the best. If he worked at Taylor Electronics for a few months he could save a nest egg to go out on his own. At least that was what he planned to do.



*****



Justin had been working for his father for six weeks. He had learned a lot about the business, enough to be completely certain that this was not for him. He had tried to tell his father a couple of times that he didn’t want to work at Taylor Electronics, and more importantly, he wanted to tell his father that he was gay. He wanted to live his life in a truthful way, and so far all he had done was delay and prevaricate. Something had to change.

Once again Justin resolved to have the talk with his father. He knocked on the door to Craig’s office and stuck his head inside. “Got a minute or four?” he asked trying to be cheerful.

“That’s about all,” Craig said. “Come in.”

Justin entered and sat across the desk from his father. “Dad…” he began.

“I have a meeting later this morning with the ad agency that has been largely responsible for the expansion of Taylor Electronics and the surge in profits that we’re experiencing,” Craig explained. “I want you to sit in on that meeting, get a feel for what’s going on.”

“Um … sure, I guess I can.”

“Of course you can.”

“Dad…” Justin tried once again.

The phone took that moment to ring. Craig picked it up. “What is it, Joyce? I’m in the middle of something with Justin. What? Shit, I’ll head out right now.” Craig slammed the phone down onto the base and rubbed his hand over his face.

“What’s wrong?” Justin asked.

“It’s the building I’ve rented for our new store in Philly. There’s some kind of problem with permits, and we’re supposed to open in less than two weeks. I’m going to have to head over there right now and see if I can get things back on track.”

“Yeah, I guess you better go.”

“Take the meeting with the advertising people at eleven,” Craig stated.

“Okay, but I…”

“You don’t have to agree to anything. Just find out what their ideas are for the expansion and let me know.”

“Okay,” Justin said uncertainly.

“Tell your mother that I’ll probably stay overnight in Philly. It’s one helluva drive.”

“I know. I’m sorry you have to go.”

“Me too. Just take that meeting, and try to keep everything on an even keel while I’m gone. Joyce will help you. She’s a gem.”

“Okay.”

And with that Craig swept out of the office leaving Justin with all his resolutions unresolved.



*****



At 11 a.m. Justin stood at the door to the small conference room where Joyce had told him that Mr. Kinney from the Kinnetik Advertising Agency was waiting for him. Justin drew in a breath and opened the door. The man was arranging some boards along the windows of the room. He turned when he heard the door open.

“You!” Justin gasped when the realization of who he was looking at hit him with a huge impact.