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

Six

(Monday, October 3rd)

As we walk up the steps to the back porch, my mother is puttering around the kitchen. "What the Hell have you been up to?" she starts in, then she sees Raphie and tries for at least a pleasant facial expression.

"Mother," My voice is weary, to indicate that I am not up to her guessing games. "if I've done something to upset you, tell me what it is, and we can discuss it. However, I refuse to participate in your questions and answers session."

"Well, Alma Mae Bottemly called me to tell me what you did at church." She places her left hand holding a wooden spoon demonstratively on her hip. She not only uses her wooden spoons to stir things, she sometimes uses them as weapons to punch and gouge.

"What I did was self defense. Mack Senior wouldn't allow Raphie, Vicky and me into the funeral service. Mack was a close friend to all three of us. And his dad wouldn't let us attend."

"And that's a reason to knock him cold and put him into the hospital?" She's now waving the wooden spoon in my direction.

"No, Mother, that wasn't the reason."

"And the reason being?"

"After he called us all cocksuckers," Now, that certainly gets her attention. "and told us that queers and coons were not welcome." I wink at Raphie. "Vicky slapped him. And he tried to grab her. I took him down only after she'd yelled `rape'. Now, is that good enough for you?" I smile sarcastically; she gets the message.

"Well, Busby says that car privileges are suspended for a month." She chooses not to look at me, trying instead to find something to stir with her wooden spoon.

"Fine with me." I chuckle. "Oh, and would you mind if Raphie stays the night?"

"Well," She generally starts off her restrictive parenting pronouncements with the word, `well', so, it's no surprise that she's going to try to weasel out of this one. "it is short notice. And I'm busy fixing supper for your father, so I don't have time to go up and change the sheets."

Just for the record, I change my own sheets. The last time she ever managed it, was when Raphie stayed the night the first time when we were in the third grade. This is the woman who presented me with a steam iron on my ninth birthday and told me that if I ever wanted another ironed shirt, I'd have to provide it myself. "I think Raphie knows me well enough as not to be offended by my used sheets." I grin patronizingly, and load my verbal weapon for the next volley.

 "Well, that's not the point..."

"And he promises that he is still colorfast and his skin does not fade onto white linen." Three, two, one, liftoff.

"Daniel Aaron Bourke!" She's speechless, or else she wouldn't use my full name, drawn out as if she's saying it for the first time. "Sometimes, I'm ashamed to be associated with you."

"It's a generational thing, Mom. But we will walk down to Pat's Pig for dinner, so you don't have to worry about that." I kiss her on the top of her head in passing, while Raphie and I go out the front to sit on the porch swing.

We sit in silence for a long while, then Raphie whispers: "How do you manage to do that?"

"Do what, Raph?" I smile innocently.

"Manipulate your mother?" He snickers in a whisper.

"I met this guy, Don, who just started helping out with set design down at the Theatre. He helped with the set for Streetcar. He's working on his doctorate at KU in psychology and drama. He's also the one I called directly after Mack shot himself. Don helped to keep me from ... uh... hurting myself."

 "Were you really thinking about killing yourself?" Raphie's whisper fills with remorse.

"Yeah," I look guiltily at Raphie, whose expression is sheer horror. "frightening, huh?" He nods and looks away.

Conversation pauses, while both of us struggle with self-control.

"Anyway, Don gave me some good insight. And besides, I've read the books: Freud, Lorenz, Kant, Bernays and, of course, the Bible."

"The Bible?" He looks at me disquieted.

"Sure. It'll tell you how to manipulate anyone. The god figure does it all the time. You don't even have to read between the lines."

"Okay, give me an example." He raises his left eyebrow.

"God, the guy who knows all, puts the tree of knowledge smack dab in the center of the Garden of Eden. Then he tells Adam and Eve not to go near it, knowing full well what they're going to do. He stacks the deck. Now, he can declare them to be sinners, kick them out of the Garden without telling them that he'd planned the whole thing and that he was just fucking with them."

"So? How does that apply to manipulating your mother ?"

"Same situation. I'm in the middle of my homework and she tells me to take out the trash before Dad gets home, knowing that I'm busy and will likely fart it off until the last minute. So, if I wait for more than a couple of minutes, even though Dad won't be home for at least another hour, she will have already taken it out. That gives her an excuse to ground me. She stacks the deck, just like god did in the story. Then, she doesn't have to reveal her true reasons for not letting me do something I really want to do, like going to stay at Mack's for the weekend when his parents are down home in Arkansas."

This analogy stings when I realize that those weekends are gone forever. I sigh, regaining control. "So, I take the trash out immediately then she's stumped. Just think what would have happened to god's plans, Raph, if Adam and Eve had ignored the apple. Or had chopped down the tree, to use as firewood.

"That would have fucked with god's head for eternity. No original sin. No son of god necessary. And snakes would still have legs." I stifle a laugh, when we hear ruckus inside the house.

From the animated discussion coming from the kitchen, we can hear that Dad has arrived. There's the clank of his setting down his metal lunch pail on the counter just a bit too hard, and we hear him yell: "I'll take care of it."

The screen door to the front porch opens. He closes the door gently and says: "Whaddya say we go for a walk, Lads? I could do with stretching me legs a bit after the long drive from Grandview."

We mosey, as Dad likes to call it, down 23rd and cut diagonally across Denver Avenue to the Presbyterian Church and get to the vacant lot at the corner of Van Brunt before he says anything. "Heard what happened at Mack Junior's funeral this morning." Neither Raphie nor I respond, so he continues. "Have to say, Lads, you did me proud. I'd a broke the wee fecker's neck."

Now, talking about a surprise. Raphie looks as if Dad had just pulled a fuzzy, cuddly bunny rabbit out of his baseball cap. And not for the first time in my life, I think my dad's kind of cool.

"Ya see, Lads, I know what it's like to lose yer best mate. Happened to me back in Dublin durin' the War of Independence. And I know that a man needs another man's company, if yer ever going to work things through. Ya have to share the burden."

Then he turns, cocks his head at Raphie and gives him his intense Irish look. "And as far as I'm concerned, Son, ya never have to ask permission to be in me house. Yer welcome for as long as ya care to stay." At that, he hands me ten dollars. "So yus can get more than just onion rings."

"Thanks, Dad." Those cursed tears are back.

"I don't know what to say, Mr. Bourke."

"There's nothing to be said, Son. But ya could call me Joey, if ya like." Dad hugs Raphie and then me. "See yus tomorrow." He touches the bill of his baseball cap, smiles, and off he goes, meandering into the sunset down 23rd Street, back towards our white, two-storey clapboard home on the northwest corner of Quincy Avenue.

Seven

(Monday, October 3rd)

Raphie and I are still at Pat's Pig, and the waitress is starting to hover. I pay with the money that Dad gave us, pocket the change, and we leave for home. The night air is starting to get chilly, so, we walk at a good pace. We've managed to skirt the topic of queer for the entire evening. Of a sudden, Raphie sighs with sort of a growl, a quieter version than earlier today, and blurts: "What's it like?"

"Uh? Sorry, Raph, you'll have to be more specific." I shiver slightly when a gust of wind catches me unawares.

"What's being queer like?" he insists.

"You want to hear about the bright side, first, or the side of it no one wants to talk about?"

"Let's start at the beginning." He looks exhausted. "When did you first notice that you like guys?"

An unintentional sharp laugh escapes my throat. I stop in the middle of the sidewalk in front of the filling station, where Van Brunt and Hardesty fork. "When I first laid eyes on you." I chuckled. "When Miss Waldon appointed me to be your protector, after you got beaten up by that Italian kid and had to be transferred to our class."

"Shit, Dan, are you trying to tell me that you had the hots for me in second grade?"

"Yeah. I was fascinated with the shape of your butt." I laugh to spite myself, since I think Raphie is probably taken aback, which makes me feel more self-conscious than usual. I hesitate, but manage to continue. "Hmm, I would fantasize about it in bed at night."

Whenever he thinks that he may get an answer he doesn't want to hear, Raphael tends to speak very softly. "And when did you get over me?"

"What makes you think I ever did?"

"Oh, shit, Dan..." He starts hiccupping. "I don't... hic. I mean I... hic. I can't... hic."

"HEY!" I shout and clap my hands, startling him out of the hiccups. "Have I ever made a move on you?"

"No." He looks down at his feet.

"And why should it happen now, Guy?" I sigh again since I realize that there's quite a bit of ground we still have to cover. "I have no desire to force myself onto you."

"I'm sorry, Danny. I know you don't. I trust you. Damn. I trust you more than anyone, more than myself even. But this whole business is just so, so, so overwhelming." He pauses to think. "It's like what I used to do as a kid. I'd sit behind the couch and run my finger over the electrical outlet, and it would shock the shit out of me, make my balls tingle. Then I couldn't resist doing it again, even though it scared me."

"Can't say that I ever did that." I catch his look of vulnerability. "But, yeah, thinking about guys makes my balls tingle. Does it scare me? No. Look, if this is making you anxious, Raph..."

"I gotta know about this." His urgency is just a bit too charged. He thinks about it. "So far, none of it has made me change the way I think about you. And I want to be there for my baby brother, when the time comes."

"Jordan is hardly your baby brother." I almost laugh, but I sense his concern. "He's what? Two years younger than us? And what makes you think he might be queer?"

"It's hard to pinpoint. He's just... Sometimes... Well, you know what he's like."

"You mean he can be effeminate?"

"Yeah."

"That's not really any indication. You even admit that you'd never have guessed it about me. What about Mack?"

"Naw. Never. No way." Then his voice loses its emphatic intonation. "I still find it hard to believe. Christ, this is so fucking confusing."

"Now, let me tell you a story to make my point." I look for acquiescence; he nods. I continue. "Remember Mack's and my friend, Chris, who graduated a couple of years ago, back in '64?"

"What a fairy. That's exactly what I'm talking about."

"Except that he wasn't." Raphie flashes me a look of pure incredulity; I can't quite manage to suppress my laugh. "Chris and Mack were coming by the house to pick me up for a Saturday night at the Heart Drive-In. They were playing one of those dusk to dawn marathons with all the crap Hollywood couldn't get rid of anywhere else. Entrance was only a buck per car load.

"My parents and I were finishing up dinner just before Mack and Chris were to arrive. Mother was at her usual post at the head of the table, Dad across from me." I have to snicker again to let out the emotional pressure. I light a cigarette and take a deep drag and click my Zippo shut.

"Anyway, Mom clears her throat and starts in: `You know? I really don't think you should be hanging out with these older boys.'. I looked at Dad with raised eyebrows. He was looking at her with raised eyebrows.

"Old Mildred sitting with an ultra-straight back and her index finger extended but not raised before she decided to drop the proverbial brick, when I asked her why not. `Well, I don't know if you can understand this, Danny, but I think Chris is a homosexual.'"

"And what did you say?" Raphie tenses in grinning anticipation.

"I told her that she was out of her tree. And, of course, she wanted to know how I could be so sure. So, I told her that I'd already put the make on him, and he'd told me that he was sorry, but he was sticking with girls."

To judge by the look on his face, Raphie was really enjoying this. "And then?"

"Needless to say, Mildred blew a gasket. And Dad only smiled and winked at me."

"Your dad is so neat!" Raphie enthused.

"There's a saying in Ireland: The only difference between a happily married man and a raving queer are the first five bottles of beer. So, I'd imagine he's been around the block once or twice. Anyway, he's fathered four kids, and I'm guessing that he feels way ahead of the game with having sired only one queer. And at his age, he doesn't have anything left to prove. Yeah, he's a good friend to have. But you never, ever want to get on his bad side."

"I can imagine..."

"No, I don't think you can. He's very fair, and he's got a heart the size of the universe. If he likes you, and he always has, Raphie, he'll literally give you the shirt off his back. On the other hand, that genuinely nice guy is connected to a fuse that's shorter than my dick after an icy swim." We wait for the traffic lights to change at the corner of Van Brunt and walk briskly down 23rd.

 "Uh..." He seems to ponder. "Wasn't there something about him getting arrested in the Principal's office a couple of years ago?"

"Yup, that was him. You were out of school. That was one of the weeks you were off when you had your tonsils out and got circumcised."

Raphie growls somewhat.

"Sorry to bring that up, Raph."

"No, go on. I want to hear this."

"Anyway, what's-his-name, Mr. Gore, that bastard who was our geography teacher until he got fired."

"Yeah, you never told me about what happened."

"It wasn't that important and I decided you had enough to deal with, just then." I pause to change sides and flip my cigarette into a storm drain. "We were going over European geography and he said that Germany is called Duitsland in German. And when I told him that Duitsland is Dutch, and the German name is Deutschland, he hit me with his ruler for being a smart ass."

"I'm not quite following you. Usually, the teacher can do no wrong."

"Hmm, seems that after he hit me, I sort of reacted hastily."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that I, as Dad would put it, `broke the wee fecker's arm." I giggle sheepishly.

"Holy shit!" Raphie wheezes; trying to gasp with apprehension and laugh at the same time is a very difficult breathing exercise.

"Yeah. So, I got suspended on the spot, and Dad had to take off work and accompany me back to the Principal's office."

"And?" He giggles nervously. "Keep going." Raphie is so keyed up that it looks as if he's about to pee his pants. We sit down on the front steps at the house, and he's jiggling his leg.

"Anyway, the next day, faithful ol' Joey, dressed in his work clothes, goes busting into Laverne C. Nixon's office with me in tow. He grabs Nixon by his neck and informs him that if he, that is Nixon, can't keep his staff from beating up on students, his, Joey's, oldest son, Busby, who's one veritably nasty, litigious, son-of-a-bitch lawyer most certainly can. Then he let Laverne C. drop like the sack of shit he is."

"Whew. Has Joey always protected you like that?"

"Yeah, he has." Raphie appears as if his understanding is deepening. "There's something about Dad and me, Raph. It's a lot like you and me. We may scrap amongst ourselves, sometimes even a lot. But, we stick together come Hell or high water."

Raphie sighs, obviously under the burden of feeling responsible for his mom and brother without this kind of support since his dad is no longer there for them. His shoulders droop forward as he rests his elbows on his knees.

I realize that there's something I have to explain to him. Something he doesn't yet completely understand: "And since Dad has always called you `Son', that's all the proof you need that you're one of us."

"Even if I'm not white?" He sounds slightly dejected.

"Dad always says that colored folks are, in fact, Irish who just choose to wear their skin the other way round." I relish at how intrigued Raphael appears by this concept, so I continue. "Earlier this evening, he didn't say that I'd done him proud. He said that we had." At last, I can see it on his face that he no longer feels left out as he had, when I'd told him about Mack.

"Does Joey know about what you feel for Mack and me?" I detect some uneasiness in Raphie's voice.

"Dad differentiates between knowing and understanding. He understands that I had a very special relationship with Mack." The past tense causes me to stumble emotionally. I catch my breath and regroup. "And he's fine with it. Just like he's okay with you and me. But, having said that, he doesn't care to know the details."

"Did he call..." Raphie lets his voice trail off.

"Did he call Mack `Son'?" I finish his question and put my hand on Raphie's shoulder. "No, as a matter of fact, he didn't. Just you."