Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 21:57:43 +0200 From: Nick Brady Subject: Nicks Story - Chapter 50 - Epilogue Nick's Story -- Chapter 50 – Epilogue This story is about growing up in Tulsa. Part of the story involves sex between boys so you should be 18 to read it. Please send comments to y2kslacker@mail.com and please make donations to Nifty. Copyright 2014 - 2015, Nick Brady, all rights reserved. ------------------------------------ The year is 2013, 40 years since our story first began. Mom and Dad have passed on, Dad in 2005, Mom just two years later. We miss them very much. No one ever had better parents. They loved Joseph, Kevin and myself, and the rest of their 'boys' as they referred to all of us. Jack lived in the apartment house with us until after he finished graduate school in 1981. He and Pablo are still a couple and living now in Florida. Jack became first an engineer with Sun Oil, later an executive with Boeing before his retirement. Pablo did well in college but dropped out before he graduated and found his way into the CIA. Not the government agency, but the Culinary Institute of America, and was a chef, first at a series of nice restaurants then eventually as the owner of his own fine restaurant. Juan married and raised a family, making his living in construction. He was not financially successful, but made a comfortable living and had a good life. Carlos never seemed to recover from his early difficulties and drifted away. We were never sure where he was until we got word that he was killed in an automobile accident in California. Danny and Jermaine remained in the Tulsa Boys Home until they turned eighteen and graduated from high school. They made a reputation for themselves as mentors to a number of struggling boys who passed through the institution. Danny attended Oklahoma State University and majored in Education, eventually teaching, coaching, and becoming a high school principal where he counseled many troubled boys. He married one of his teachers and raised her two daughters and three girls they had together. They invested in property and developed a small real estate company, eventually building a home on 5 acres east of Tulsa. Jermaine went through a technical program and became a successful electrician, married, was divorced, and remarried, this time happily and raised three sons. He coached basketball for the YMCA. Danny and Jermaine remained friends throughout their lives. Tony struggled. He stayed in school and out of trouble, but after high school he fell victim to drug abuse. After several years of near homelessness he was reunited with his brother Pablo and worked for him in his restaurant where he managed to straighten himself out. Bobby experienced a great deal of success with the choir begun by Mr. McNab. He had a beautiful soprano voice and was accepted into the Tulsa Boy Singers. Fortunately, he retained his excellent singing voice even after his voice changed to a lower register. He came to the attention of a musical couple who admired his talent and eventually adopted him when he was fifteen. Although rather old for adoption, he thrived under their encouragement. After high school he attended Oral Roberts University, majored in vocal music, and found a position as a teacher in the same school where his old friend Danny was the principal. He never married. Bobby never forgot his friend Tony but lost touch with him after high school. Some years later he made a concerted effort to locate Tony and found him working at a car wash. Their friendship was rekindled and this time it was Bobby who encouraged Tony to make more of himself and return to school. With his brother Pablo's assistance he went through a culinary arts program and learned to be a fine cook, working in his brother's restaurant. While he found several sexual partners over time, he found it very difficult to make the commitment required to establish a long term relationship. He eventually took up residence with Bobby where they remained steadfast friends, but never lovers. Joseph remained part of our family until his musical career took him elsewhere. His mother was released on parole after three years in prison and set up housekeeping with her sister in Oklahoma City. She had been left financially secure after her divorce from Joseph's father. His father married his long time lover. Joseph's relationship with his parents remained cordial but distant. I never met his sisters. Alice moved to Los Angeles to live with her daughter and spent her remaining days happily spoiling several grandchildren. My younger brother Kevin removed himself from his familiar place on the sofa and attended the University of Tulsa on an academic scholarship and became, of all things, a successful stock broker. I believe he made more money than the rest of us. He married to a lovely girl and is happily childless. Joseph and I remained inseparable. He spent several summers at various music programs, notably in Aspen Colorado, but returned to us when they concluded. By the time Joseph graduated from high school he had already made a name for himself as a pianist of high order. He was offered scholarships at several prestigious schools of music including Julliard and the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. I did not qualify for a scholarship which would allow me to attend college near him, and I was afraid we might be separated for quite some time. However, one of the schools that offered him a scholarship was the University of North Texas. I was not familiar with that school, but Joseph advised me that they have an exceptional school of music and he accepted. At his suggestion we drove to Denton, Texas, to visit the school during the summer after he graduated and I had completed my junior year. During high school I had developed an interest in writing and had edited the Edison Eagle, our school newspaper. I found that North Texas also had an excellent English department and that their writing program was very interesting. I made plans to join him when I graduated high school, and devoted myself to a sterling academic year as a senior. With the help of the Edison administration and Joseph's influence, I was able to qualify for a tuition only scholarship and with some help from my parents, I managed to attend school with him. The nicest part was that Joseph had rented a little apartment and I was able to live with him rather than in a dormitory. While we were separated for most of my senior year, we were finally able to live together in college. I can tell you that there was only one bed, but it was big enough for two. In fact, the distance to the university was close enough to Tulsa to allow a number of conjugal visits during our separation. One of the key considerations when we did our planning was the desire to remain together. North Texas University made that possible. Joseph's practice and performance schedule kept him very busy. To say that he did well would be an understatement. He was brilliant. When I joined him during the summer after my high school graduation, I immediately found a job in the university bookstore. It paid only modestly, but the schedule was flexible and it gave me a discount on books. My tuition was paid and Joseph was covering the rent. We lived modestly but fairly well. I tried to see to it that he ate properly. Left to his own devices he tended to skip meals and was too thin already. I even learned to do some basic cooking, although for someone who had grown up on Alice's cooking then my mother's, it was surely a disappointment. He never complained, but thanked me daily. We made it a point to go home whenever we could manage for holidays and during breaks in the academic year. Mom and Dad's apartment was now home for both of us, and quite comfortable after the remodeling made possible by Joseph's father. The highlight of every visit was the private performance Joseph gave for our parents on his old Steinway. We would claim it years later but it lived with my parents for many years. During the time that Tony was still living in the apartment with his brothers, he introduced us to his old friends from the boys home: Danny, Jermaine and Bobby. Joseph's homecoming was the catalyst for a reunion of sorts and Mom supplied us generously with delicious treats to accompany the music. It was a nice time. After Joseph received his bachelor's degree, he stayed on for two years of graduate study, while I finished my degree then had a year off. I continued to work but spent most of my time writing. I focused on submitting to magazines; articles, essays, and short stories. Anything that I could get published. I acquired a collection of rejection letters, but was able to sell a few things. My break came when one of my stories found publication in the New Yorker magazine. It was not a great deal of money but it earned me some favorable attention and there was more to follow. It was not steady, but it was a modest living. When we were ready, Joseph began to accept the numerous offers he was receiving to perform with various orchestras. Since my office was a portable typewriter, I was able to accompany him and we covered a good bit of the United States and later Europe and Japan. This became our career, Joseph performing and me writing. When there were gaps in his schedule we could travel for pleasure. Joseph's career began to pay us rather handsomely, and my writing was paying better than I would have expected. I began to have some success with fiction, and the experiences encountered in our travel enhanced my stories. We were not rich, but able to live quite comfortably and enjoy some of the good things that life offered. We had occasion to travel to Los Angeles several times to play with their symphony. Joseph located Alice and visited her, bringing her roses. She embraced him and wept. From that time forward until her death, he sent her roses every Mother's Day. We lived for a time in Paris, then in London. It was a grand time for us both. Joseph had grown up with a certain amount of luxury and took it all in stride. For me, it was a fantasy world of travel to famous places. We had many opportunities to philander, both of us, and were offered many temptations to indulge in expensive bad habits. We shared these experiences and were amused by them, but never indulged. Throughout all these wonders, we were true to each other, and steadfastly in love. As we grew older we wanted to travel less often and found a lovely place in upstate New York where we bought our first house. It was quaint and comfortable and I took to growing roses. Joseph discovered a talent for painting and we spent our leisure time puttering with our new hobbies. He still toured occasionally and I still wrote. We worked less often and were paid more it seemed. We were enjoying a comfortable middle age. My hair began to turn gray, his was still dark. We watched our weight and enjoyed sex as much as ever. It was a good life. In the summer of 2001 we traveled to the Netherlands and were married in the first country that allowed it. In actual fact, it made little difference as we owned everything jointly, and the circles we inhabited had accepted us as a couple for some time. But it was very important to us. We had both grown up churched, albeit as very liberal Episcopalians, but we had always suspected that we were somehow living in sin. Now we were legitimate, at least in Holland. Many other places began to follow, of course, and we privately celebrated as first one county and state and then another began to recognize our union. At one point we even considered adopting a child, but decided that we were too old for that sort of thing. That was best left up to younger, more energetic folk. Then our parents began to fall. First Joseph's mother then my father passed away. He attended his mother's funeral while I remained in New York. I offered to join him, but he requested that I not attend. It was only a formality in his mind and he wished to make a quick trip of it. When my dad died however, he wept at the news and insisted that we go together and spend some time with my mom and help her adjust. My parents had been more mother and father to him than his own had ever been and he loved them dearly, as of course did I. We helped my mother with the sale of the apartment building and moved her into an assisted living center, one with lovely gardens and a good staff. She had grown rather frail and I felt somewhat guilty that I had not spent more time with them in recent years. Visiting the old apartment was a very emotional experience for both of us. It had been a place of warmth and love for so many years. Mother was very brave but devastated by my father's passing. They had loved each other dearly for just over fifty years and she was somewhat lost without him. She lived on for several more years but seemed quite lonely, although of course she insisted she was just fine, thank you. We made it a point to visit more often and tried to provide what support we could. Financially she was comfortable, but emotionally she was bereft. I believe Joseph's father is still living, but we have no contact with him now. I suppose Joseph and I are as much in love now as when we were in our teens. Our love life is perhaps less vigorous, but still very satisfying. I am quite gray, he is becoming rather stooped, but neither of us has grown fat. We still tell each other that we are beautiful. He still plays, I still write. We have moved his Steinway into our cottage and he plays for me daily. Occasionally he will rip out Gershwin's Rhapsody just for old times sake. I still love it. Some things change, some things never change. We are blessed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thank you dear reader. It has been a long story and like life itself, sometimes happy and sometimes sad. May you be blessed with love and good fortune. Nick ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Email comments to y2kslacker@mail.com I love email. Your comments are what keep me going. Really. Nifty needs contributions to continue to publish the stories you enjoy. You may contribute at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html Special thanks to Nathan F. who patiently edits the text of this story, and makes helpful suggestions. He has been very patient indeed.