This is a work of fiction. Names of characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously; any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2011 by Dennis Milholland – All rights reserved. Other than for private, not-for-profit use, no part of this work may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means, other than that intended by the author, without written permission from the copyright holder.

 

Careful! This is a work of fiction containing graphic descriptions of sex between males and critiques of religion and governments.

 

Love It or Leave It

by Dennis Milholland

questions and comments are welcome. www.milholland.eu / dennis@milholland.eu

 

Twelve

(Wednesday, October 5th)

 

The walk home from the park is effortless; the three of us are gliding along. Fellow students from East High have mostly dispersed to their respective homes. Only a few stragglers are strolling down Van Brunt; no one we know, and no one in a hurry. Mellow, half-past-five sunlight is glowing along 23rd Street. Our white clapboard house is giving off a rose-ivory color in the lazy light. We walk up to the back porch from 23rd. And wham, bam, the magic is over.

Mildred’s shrill voice snags the soft texture of mellowness like a rusty nail ripping through the tissue of pure silk: “Where the Hell have you been? I have been looking everywhere for you. I was worried sick. Your car is here, but you were gone. I thought you had left me. You know how something like this depresses me. You just don't care about me.”

And how long have ya been back from church?” Joey baits the trap.

Over half an hour.” She’s starting to sound defensive; she knows where this is leading.

And where exactly have ya been looking for me?” He sounds tired, weary; he sets the picnic basket down onto the counter. next to him

Well, upstairs…”

The phone rings, and Dad answers: “It’s yer nickel.” His face brightens. « Ah, bonjour, Madame Mongrain, comment-allez vous ? » He motions to Raphie, « Oui. Il est ici. Un moment, je vous le passe. » and hands him the receiver.

« Bonjour, Maman… »

Raphie’s soft voice is blanketed by my mother’s harsh one: “You still haven’t answered my question.” She continues to nag, following us into the dining room. “Where the Hell were you?”

Dad smiles weakly, as if he’s basically too exhausted to answer. He gestures at me. ”In the park with my two boys.”

You were in the park with Busby and Dan? He didn’t say anything about that, when I called him to see if he knew where you were.”

"Do ya seriously believe that Busby would go on a spur-of-the-moment picnic with Dan and me?" But ta answer yer question, I was with Raphaël and Dan.” He sits down at the dining-room table and takes a deep breath and lets out a heartfelt sigh.

Well, if that ain’t just peachy dandy; now, you’re calling that darky your son.” She doesn’t even look embarrassed, when she sees Raphie standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

Wow, there it is: the proverbial turd in the punchbowl. The blunder I’ve been dreading for nearly all my life. Dad and I look horrified and saddened at Raphie.

Oh...” Raphie says quietly and shakes his hanging head. “...that is extremely disappointing.” He shrugs and looks up. “I thought I rated at least ‘jungle bunny’.”

It takes a second for that to register, but when it does, Dad looks at Raphie in surprise, and they explode in laughter. Mildred turns coronary red and rushes out of the dining room, headed for parts unknown.

I’m still too stunned to laugh, too stunned to react at all. All I’ve ever known in my life is how to react violently. And then it hits me. He’s defused a potentially explosive situation with intelligent humor. He can put my mother out of commission with a joke. It doesn’t make me laugh; it makes me so damned proud of my guy, I could bust a gut.

So, I kiss him. On the mouth. In front of my father. Raphie looks surprised. And I do it again. Hell, I would have done it in front of anybody.

Ya handled that with style, Son, ya did, ya certainly did.” Dad has his arms around us.

And just how far is this supposed to go?” She’s back, and her voice sets my nerves on edge, sort of like dragging fingernails across a chalkboard.

Considering what she called Raphaël, I simply cannot take any more of her bitchiness. “Well,” using her own favorite introduction to any self-righteous remark. “if you stick around long enough, you can probably watch me suck both their cocks.”

And since she loves rhetorical questions, I add: “That is what you wanted to hear, isn’t it?” I regroup and explode again with our ‘little secret’. “And I’d be doing it of my own volition, as opposed to when you used to force me to lick your pussy until you came.”

In fact, I can’t believe I just said that. It more than just sort of slipped out, though. But it is, most certainly, a show stopper. Raphie, Dad, and most of all, Mother look as if they'd just been hit.

Since I know where her buttons are, I am unable to stop. My mouth has taken on a life of its own. ”And you know what, Mother?” I lower my almost invisible pale eyebrows to ineffectively glare at her. “You are the single most prominent reason I want to puke at the thought of ever even touching another pussy.”

Of course, she was never important enough to me for her to have influenced my sexuality. But she doesn’t know that. And I will probably never tell her differently. She’s caused me enough grief over the years to deserve whatever torment she gets. But then again, she’s too self-absorbed to think about the pain she’s caused others.

Alma Mae told me that you were the one who turned Mack Junior queer. But I didn’t want to believe her. I told her that no son of mine is ever going to be a fairy.”

Mildred is slavering into my face at close range. “She said that you are why her son killed himself. You are a sinner, Daniel Bourke, and you have committed an abomination before our lord. You are going to suffer Hell, and I’m going to see to it that you do.” She sniffles for effect and produces a blue lace hanky from the top of her brassiere to blot her eyes.

You think I’m a sinner, Mother? Did Alma Mae bother to tell you that she would hold her four-year-old son down while his old man fucked him in the ass?" I pause, to let that gem sink in. "Oh, and did she mention that, at least back then before they had me as a scapegoat, they were blaming all their problems on Mack? Yeah, and that was because they claimed that their four-year-old kid was in league with the Devil?”

While I've got her thinking, or maybe she's just in shock, I pull my wallet out of my right hip jeans’ pocket and extract Mack’s letter from its envelope. I hand it to Dad. While he reads the intricate, small writing, his face expresses a mix of rage, sorrow and repugnance. He hands back the slip of paper, and I return it to my wallet.

Stop yer infernal blubberin’, Mildred;. Dan had nottin' ta do with it.” He moves toward her.

She keeps him at arm’s length and raises her shrillness to glass-shattering pitch. ”Oh, yes, he does!” She points a threateningly righteous forefinger at me. “He is evil! Satan has him under his control just like Mack Junior! And you…” Now she has Dad in the crosshairs of her forefinger. ”And you condone his sinful behavior: ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination.’”

Raphaël has his arm over my shoulder and pulls me out toward the back door. He whispers: “Come on; let’s go.”

Dad follows us out onto the porch. “I don’t know what to say, Danny. 'Xcept that I love ya.”

The edge to Raphie’s voice is back: “He’s coming home with me, Joey.”

I know; he’ll be safe with ya, Son.” Dad kisses me. His sadness is palpable, as he opens the kitchen door to return to his onerous, child-abusing wife.

I pull the keys to the Impala out of my front jeans’ pocket, open the trunk and remove my green-and-white letter jacket and put it on since it is getting colder. I hand Raphie our dark-red, thick flannel shirt, we always keep in the trunk for such occasions. I open the driver’s door and lean over the seat for the blanket and retrieve the dope and cigarettes from under the front seat; I roll them into the blanket. While still sitting on the driver’s seat, I light up a cigarette.

The keys seem to be unduly heavy in my hand, a burden, a source of bickering, disagreement and emotional extortion. As I toss them onto the metal dashboard, stand up and push down the button to lock the door, the burden lifts. Busby and Mom can fight over the use of the car. I’m no longer a part of it.

We walk down Brighton and reach 24th Street just in time for the bell at St. Michael’s Catholic church on the opposite corner to start ringing for whatever they celebrate at six o’clock. Raphie still has his arm around my shoulder, and I’m clutching the blanket to my chest.

We cross Brighton, and I hand Raph the bundle and hurry into Whaley’s drugstore to buy an enema bag, glycerin and a tube of lidocaine, that I’d recently heard about, just as Mr. Whaley is about to lock the door. I return and take the blanket, wrap the paper bag into the woolen roll, and we continue along the north side of 24th, past Joe’s barber shop next door to the drugstore. Joe waves, after he lets out the last customer of the day, and before he starts sweeping up the hair-strewn floor.

The sun is setting beyond the horizon, and some clouds are gathering. It’s that eerie time of day at the edge of darkness, shortly before the streetlamps come on, when humans are more susceptible to melancholy.

Again, Raphie drapes his arm over my shoulder, not letting me escape his question: “What’s on that piece of paper, Dan?” Raphie’s still edgy voice is asking for an answer that I’m not sure he wants to hear. So, I stall. He squeezes my shoulder to prompt a response.

You sure, you can handle it?” My breath is deep and the raspy sigh loud.

We belong together, Dan. I have to know.”

It’s Mack’s suicide note. Mailed it the day he shot himself.” I murmur.

Shouldn’t we turn it over to the police?” He seems vague, as if he’s not quite sure about the right thing to do.

I’m saving it as proof, in case this whole mess turns to real shit, like my mother just promised me that it would.”

May I read it, mon amant?” Raph’s tone is soft; the edge has gone. It’s as if he’s trying out words of endearment, to hear how they sound. Probably for the first time in my life, I truly realize that English is not a romantic language; Anglo-Saxons are not romantic people.

I don’t respond verbally; I just hand him my wallet. We stop while he opens the envelope, addressed to me in Mack’s small, left-slanted handwriting. He takes out the note, and I watch the pain of a tortured soul fade from the page onto my lover’s face. His eyes are plagued with the torment they are trying to decipher.

Did you know any of this beforehand?” His tone seems to beg me to negate the question.

I shake my head sadly. "If I had, we could have found someone, like Don, to help him.

He’d told me that the scars around his asshole were from an accident, not from his parents’ trying to drive out Satan with a curling iron.”

What do you think your mother’s going to try?” Raphie seems a little edgy again.

Who knows? Looks like the sad ol’ bitch has finally flipped. But I’m more than sure that she and the Bottemlys will come up with something, now that all their little secrets are out in the open.

Did she really force you to lick her down there?” Raphie belches, as if he were about to be sick.

Yeah,” I shake my head sadly, looking helplessly into his eyes, hoping that he won’t reject me because of it. “she said it helped her depression.”

And how long did that go on for?” Raphie still seems to be in shock.

Until about the time I was in the second grade and met you." I try not to sound exhausted. “I think that that’s part of why I’m always so angry. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about it. The school nurse said that I was making it up. Mothers don’t do things like that.”

Raphie takes me into a hug, in the middle of 24th Street. “Why didn’t you tell Joey?”

I didn't want him to send me away." I press into my lover with the blanket roll between us. “Mom, said that he would send me to reform school, if I told.”

When Raphie doesn’t comment, and I feel a tear drop onto the back of my hand, I decide that I have to change the subject. "Will it be all right with Maman, if I stay a while at your place?” Not knowing where else I’d go, if it isn’t.

Uh, yeah, sorry, I didn't tell you.” He smiles and squeezes me again. “When she phoned, she told me to ask Joey if it would be alright to bring you over for the next five or six days, since the state teachers’ meeting is being held in Wichita because of tornado damage in Topeka, she’ll be extending her stay through the weekend to visit with Papa’s relatives. Jordan is going with her as sort of a reward for winning that big game last spring.”

Another burden lifted. No school, no Mildred, no bother, at least for a while. I am starting to relax.

Raphie senses it and he relaxes his hold on me, leaving his arm draped across the Raglan sleeve of my letter jacket. « Est-ce que tu m’aimes ? »

« Plus que ma propre vie. » I tell him truthfully. And I do love him more than my own life; I would gladly give it up to save his.

***

We walk in step, listening to one another breathe. Our heads are closer than usual and we hear the telltale honk of a VW beetle. Sounds remotely like the rubber duck I had as a kid. And the voice is unmistakable: “You two look cozy. Killed any Baptists lately, Dan?”

Hey, Vicky, how’re they hangin’?” I laugh at the thought of Vicky’s being one of the few females on the planet, whom I could even stand to talk to at the moment.

The right one’s higher than the left from all the gear shifting. And I’ve been looking all over for you.”

Any reason, other than to deliver a hit list of your favorite Baptists?” I glance across the street at the Kensington Avenue Baptist church, basically to see if anyone is hiding in the shadows.

Yeah, get in.” which is a command seriously easier said than done when involving two six-foot wrestlers and a VW beetle. But we do our best with me in the back and Raph on the passenger side of the front. “Where can we go to talk?” she demands.

We’re on our way to my house up on Norton.” Raph says softly. “We’ll be alone.”

She puts the car in first gear. “I know exactly where you live, Yves-Raphaël Mongrain, sexiest hunk I ever laid…uh...eyes on…” We laugh a little nervously, not sure where she’s going with this, until she adds: “That is other than our Dan back there. You guys look really good together.” Now, it’s not clear how much she knows, or thinks she knows.

She pulls up in front of the Mongrain house and kills the engine. “You sure there’s no one there, Raph? This is important. And I don’t want anyone, and I mean absolutely no one to overhear this.” Vicky sounds serious; not one of her usual modes.

Yeah.” he confirms before straining to extract himself from the confines of the post-war German engineering masterpiece. It’s easier for me to get out of the back seat, but I do have to surrender our dusty woolen bundle. Vicky manages to bounce out of the car. After all, she is wearing her white and green cheerleader sweater and culottes. And she bounces up to the front porch.

My mother is going to hear about this.” Raphie grumbles under his breath. “Two blondie whities: one letterman and a cheerleader.”

Yeah, and a redneck black guy in a flannel shirt.” She giggles. “Think the neighbors’ll call the cops?”

Pssst. Don’t even think that, Girl.” Raphie almost freaks, fumbling to get the front door open.

We get inside to find the light in the dining room on. Maman always leaves at least one light burning, when everyone’s away. Raph tells Vicky to have a seat and points to the dining table and goes to the kitchen to get three bottles of cola and tall water tumblers and ice. I run the blanket upstairs to our room. Vicky gets the coasters off the buffet and distributes them.

When I come downstairs, Raph and Vicky have just taken a chair, and she starts off a bit too cheery. “Of course, it’s none of my business. But, uh, well, uh, rumor has it at school that, uh… you know…”

No, Vicky, we don’t know.” I give her a smile guessing what she’s driving at.

Well, Ron Upton’s, my sister’s fiancé’s parents” Yeah, that’s the guys name. The reason the cast party for Skin of Our Teeth was held at Vicky’s house. “go to Greendale Baptist along with Principal Nixon and the Bottemlys.” She takes a deep breath and a deep drink of her cola. She swirls the glass; the drink releases fizz, and the ice cubes pop. “Shit, I don’t know how to put this, you guys.” She's approaching serious panic. “Oh, fuck it! Old man Bottemly is spreading it around that you two were sexually harassing Mack, and that’s why he killed himself.”

And why do you want to talk with us?” Raph’s edge is very apparent.

Here’s the plan.” She finishes her drink in one gulp, and pours herself the rest of the bottle. “I talked to Wanda after cheerleader practice today. She still likes you a lot, Raph.”

So, what’s the plan?” I try to keep her on track.

Well, Wanda and I think that you guys could be, well, lovers. And we want to be your kind of camouflage. There I’ve said it.” Vicky sighs in relief.

Yeah, Vicky, you’re right about Dan and me. We are much more than just friends and have been all our lives.” He looks at me, and I feel tears again, so I nod. “So, you want to be our girlfriends, now knowing what you know?”

Those damned Baptists are after your asses. And Wanda and I are willing to say, under oath, if necessary, that we’ve been fucking you two for years.”

And what do you want in return?” I know that this is going to cost something.

Tit for tat.” she giggles.

Huh?” Raphie growls.

That you cover for Wanda and me, in front of our parents and at school.” Raphaël and I look at each other, puzzled, then the inevitable slowly dawns, and we look stunned at Vicky. “Yeah, we got to know each other a lot better last summer, after I came back from cheerleading camp.”

You and Wanda are girlfriends?” Raphie asks looking as if the proverbial light bulb is appearing over his head. “Then, she didn’t break up with me because I told her that I was a virgin?”

Hmm,” she takes another swig of cola. “Raph, she broke up with you because of me. Sorry, Hunk Man. And I did feel a little guilty about it. That is, until I just saw you two walking along 24th.

Anyway, Guys, we’ll swear on a stack of Baptist Bibles that we’re banging you, if you’ll swear that you’re banging us. Deal?”

That’s a deal, Vicky.” I verify.

Yeah, I’m in on it.” Raphie grins.

Oh, and Wanda thinks, It’d be far out, if we switched sides.”

Do what?” I snicker with a sneaking suspicion of what she‘s talking about. Raphie freezes in anticipation.

She thinks I should be Raphie’s mattress and she should be yours, Dan. That would really fuck with their minds. Two mixed-race couples having a foursome. Whatdya think, Guys?”

I think that this is so fucking cool." I enthuse. "When did you two come up with this?”

While eatin’ pussy, this afternoon.” She roars. “And if worse comes to worst, we’ll get married.”

Raphie shakes his head. “Interracial marriages are illegal in Missouri.”

I know, but not in Kansas.” Vicky beams. “I’ve got a cousin in Overland Park who’s a dyke lawyer with a fake black husband.” We look bewildered. “No, I mean, he’s really black but not a real husband. Anyway, I certainly wouldn’t mind being another Madame Mongrain. Of course, I’ll have to do better in French than an M minus.” She shrugs her shoulders as only Vicky can.

I feel pensive, good but pensive. “What’s Wanda’s last name?” I’m thinking of maybe taking her surname, if it’s something as exotic as Wanda.

Brown.” Raphie and Vicky say in unison.

Guess I’ll stick with Bourke, then. The relief that I’m feeling comes to an abrupt end when Vicky asks about the real reason Mack killed himself.

Don’t ask, Vicky. You just don’t want to know.” But she insists as everyone does, until they are sucked into that horror of knowledge that they can never undo.

Go ahead, Dan. She and Wanda are part of it now. They have a right to know.”

I pull Mack’s suicide note out of my wallet and slide the envelope across the table to the still naive Vicky. She takes it with her last ever simplistic look, as if posing for a yearbook photographer, as if daring herself to do this. She takes the dare and opens the envelope. She will realize soon enough, that it is precisely this moment, which can never be undone.

She reads; tears shoot out of her eyes as if they were blue geysers. Makeup smears. Wrinkles appear on her fair seventeen-year-old face as Raphie and I watch this extremely pretty teen girl age years in a matter of seconds, while being introduced to the harshness of adulthood. Her youthful naiveté is gone. Forever banished. As if it had never existed.

Everyone always underestimates to what extent they themselves identify with the horrific plea for help and rescue, the last plea for love, received too late, received the day after the futile, avoidable suicide has been irreversibly committed. And there’s not a thing anyone can do. Not even anyone’s god.