“Are you sure about this?”
“Mom, it’s Christmas Eve. I don’t think he would make me come all the way home tonight just so we could argue. I hope not, at least, but I need to go. Can the kids stay here?”
“Of course, do you have your purse? Go out the back door. Go now, and I’ll tell them you ran to the store for me. Call me if you need me.”
“Are you alright?”
“I’m okay. I’m worried about Travis, but don’t let Mark spoil your Christmas. You get out of there if he wants to argue. I don’t want to have to be worrying about you too.”
“Thank you, Mom,” I said kissing her on the cheek.
I said good-bye and quietly snuck out the back door. I left the lights on the car off until I was able to pull out of the drive and onto the road. Back at home, Mark’s truck was in the driveway. I could see the tree lit in the window and the downstairs lights were on. When I opened the door, Mark was lying on the floor putting together an action figure command center for Robbie.
“Hi,” he said looking up from his project.
“Hi,” I answered in a quick short breath.
“I got all the gifts out of the attic. There are still a few to put together, and Rachel’s doll house. I thought you might want to help arrange everything around the tree,” he said, filling the air with nervous words.
I was nervous too, but I didn’t know why. I took off my coat and sat my purse down at the bottom of the stairs. I walked over and sat down on the floor next to Mark to admire his work.
“So, this is what Robbie wanted so badly?”
“Yep, it’s pretty cool. Wish I had one when I was his age. All of these lights really work, and if he pushes these buttons it makes sounds. Here’s the control center, here’s the arsenal. There’s even a little jail where he can lock up the bad guys,” Mark explained while pointing out all the features with just as much excitement in his eyes as Robbie would have when he saw it in the morning.
“Where are all the little men we bought?” I asked.
“In that bag on the sofa. Want to grab them and we can set them up? I’m done with the command center.”
I took the bag and emptied its contents onto the floor. There must have been at least twenty or thirty different action figures. I tore them from their plastic and cardboard packaging and put them all in a pile. Each came with a little gun or accessory. Mark took those and hung them in the command center on tiny hooks and clips to stock the miniature arsenal.
“These will all be lost in a few days,” Mark said holding up a tiny pistol.
“Yep. And these must be the bad guys,” I said holding up a boy and a girl action figure.
They were dressed in punk rocker clothes. The boy had bright orange hair, and the girl had pink hair. Their sleeveless shirts revealed arms filled with tattoos. Their little plastic cheeks had scars.
“I want to be him,” Mark said taking the male figure from me and examining him up closely.
He scrunched his eyebrows at the little man’s tattoos.
“I guess I’ll be her,” I said. “What now?”
“Well, we have the command center all to ourselves.”
“Great. Let’s order a pizza,” I said in my play voice which I used when playing dolls with Rachel.
I somehow doubted this chick figurine sounded like that.
“There are twin beds in the holding cell,” Mark said in his playful voice, walking his figurine through the roofless halls of the center.
“These beds are too hard,” I said.
I reached down and tapped one of the hard molded plastic beds. The sheets and pillow were painted on in the dull gray which was the same color of the walls and the floor of the giant toy, far from the soft elaborate set up of Rachel’s doll house. But then again, I don’t think boys were worried about the sleeping conditions of the action figures they locked up as prisoners.
“Okay, Goldilocks, the three little bears don’t live here,” Mark joked. “How ‘bout a kiss?” he asked walking his figurine up to mine.
“Fresh!” I teased.
“You do know these two are brother and sister, don’t you?”
“Oh no, we’re perverts,” I said pulling her away and laying her down on the bed in the prison. “They should be locked away.”
I started sitting the other figurines up in various parts of the command center, sitting in chairs and standing at the control panels. They were frozen in position, waiting for Robbie’s much healthier imagination to bring them to life. Mark watched with his knees pulled up to his chest. He was still a kid at heart, and I knew he couldn’t wait to see the look in Robbie’s eyes when he saw his new toys. I caught him watching me.
“What? Am I putting them in the wrong places?”
“No, you’re doing great. I was just…watching.”
“Stop it! You are making me nervous.”
“When’s the last time I told you how beautiful you were?” he asked.
I froze like one of the action figures, thinking about what he just said. It was not a question he would want me to answer truthfully.
“I dunno,” I said like a silly blond school girl.
I felt like he should be admiring my breasts and I should be twirling my hair. Maybe he was.
“Well…I’m sorry because I don’t know either. I really should have been telling you that everyday we’ve had together.”
“Mark—”
“Shhh,” he whispered.
He put a finger to my mouth to keep me from talking.
As if some imaginary kid was standing over us and we were his command center toys, Mark held his arms out stiffly pretending to be a little action figure giving a hug. It made me laugh. Then, Mark leaned into me and planted his lips on mine. His face was warm and gentle, not the machine molded parts of a little plastic toy. It was familiar, but sent chills up my back because it had been a long time since he kissed me like this. He stood up and took my hand to help me to my feet.
“What about Rachel’s doll house and the rest of the toys?”
“It can wait. We have all night,” he said.
And with that, he led me upstairs to the soft double bed with real sheets and pillows, in our bedroom where no make-believe was needed.
Mr. Black
An overdose would be easy, planting too many of her pills in a pot of coffee, but Helen didn’t trust me to make a pot of coffee right or to even pour a cup for her. She’d take one sip and pour it out, saying it was too strong or too weak, even if I measured it exactly the way she did. She would stomp into the kitchen and pour the whole pot down the drain and remake it her way just to be spiteful.
I could strangle or suffocate her, but that would require sneaking up on her and touching her while she was still living. I abhorred the thought of having to touch her right before killing her. Plus, she had more energy than me and might be able to fight me off and escape.
An ax or large butcher knife would suffice, but it would be awfully messy. I’m accustomed to cleaning up her messes, but all the blood would require bleach water and soap. Depending on what room it happened in, the carpet might have to be removed or the walls scraped and repainted. Such activity might draw suspicion to the house because I’d have to haul away the old carpet and buy supplies. As much as I dreamed of hacking her to pieces, it would be too risky.
Fortunately, there was an old box of arsenic powder at the school used to lace rat traps in the boiler room. I had scooped a few spoons of it into a bag several weeks ago and hid it in the basement inside one of the small model homes on the train set. Helen never went down there. I was hoping to taint her food with it, or possibly sprinkle some in her pill bottles.
&
nbsp; Helen had just gone upstairs. I’d slept downstairs on the sofa or in the spare bedroom for years now. I was still sitting on the sofa contemplating Christmas when there was a knock at the door.
“Helen? There’s someone at the door,” I called out, forgetting for a moment that there was no way she could hear me upstairs with her door closed.
I lugged myself off of the sofa just as the knock came again. My knees popped from the agony of standing. I grabbed the arm of the sofa for support to turn myself around and go toward the door. I had no idea who would be knocking on the door at this hour, much less visiting us at all. To my surprise, it was Travis.
“Travis? I thought we wouldn’t see you till tomorrow.” I stood aside so he could come in.
“Sorry it’s so late. I hope I’m not intruding. I knew that you and Mrs. Black kept late hours and I saw all the lights on. So, I thought I’d stop by since I was out,” Travis explained.
“Oh, you aren’t intruding at all. It’s always good to see you. Helen just went upstairs to bed a few minutes ago.”
“Don’t wake her just for me. I could come back tomorrow if that would be better,” he said.
“No, no, please come in.”
I gently tugged at the sleeve of his coat to urge him to come in. Some friendly company and conversation would be nice. This house had not seen any in several years. I knew that Helen had just locked herself in her bedroom and would be reading for several hours, but I chose not to disturb her to tell her Travis was here. If she overheard us talking, she’d mistaken it for the television anyway. Besides, it would be nice having a guest all to myself for a little while.
Although I was blatantly looking Travis up and down and admiring his lean physique, I would have to try hard to control myself and not look too eager in front of him. Just barely touching the back of his hand when I pulled at his coat would have to be sufficient. There was so much I would love to talk to him about concerning the love of men but given the circumstances, Travis was not the person I could confide in.
“Thanks, Mr. Black,” Travis said as I took his coat and scarf and hung them on the back of the door.
“So, how’s the family?” I asked.
“Fine.”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
“Well, you know how the White family is. It’s a never ending soap opera.”
“I’ve seen your siblings’ names in the paper a time or two, but it’s no different than anyone else in this town.”
“Oh really?”
“Sure. Town Secure Bank’s president was just arrested on charges of credit card fraud and embezzlement. That tells you how secure they are! The bank will probably close because of the number of accounts that have pulled out. About thirty people will lose their jobs. Most of their employees have already relocated. And one of the private practitioners just skipped town. Did you read about that? He was being investigated for some huge pharmaceutical drug deal that went down on the internet.”
“Things never get boring in this town, do they?”
“The Dreg’s dirty laundry sure keeps the newspaper in business. And the dry cleaners too, I guess.” I laughed a little too loud at my own joke. I stopped when I saw the expression on Travis’s face. He looked like he was wincing in pain. “Is everything okay, Travis?”
“My mother is seeing someone,” he said.
“Oh yeah. What’s his name, from church?”
“Calvin,” he said in a sigh.
“That’s it. Calvin. He’s a real nice fellow, crazy about your mom too. I take it you aren’t too crazy about him.”
“It’s not that I don’t like him. I don’t know the man; I just met him for the first time tonight. As long as he’s good to Mom, it shouldn’t matter what I think, but she didn’t tell him about me.”
“Tell him what about you?” I asked. Travis gave me a hard stare with his eyebrows raised as if I should already know. It finally registered with me. “About that—if your life could be any easier…would you—”
“Do you consider your life to be easy?” Travis asked.
“Fair enough.”
I didn’t consider my life to be any easier. As a matter of fact, it was probably a lot more difficult. At least Travis had experienced true love with the type of person his heart really desired. Just for that, I was jealous of him. Despite any small joys masked by my own ignorance in life, I still always longed to be somebody else.
“Have you been to Justin’s grave any?” Travis asked, changing the subject.
“No, I haven’t.” I looked down at my feet in shame.
Travis kept quiet and just nodded. His silence was punishment enough. I don’t really know why I had not gone to visit Justin’s grave. I don’t think Helen had gone to the cemetery since the day we buried him. Time just slips away from us. It keeps moving, and often we forget to stop and take time for the things in our life that aren’t going anywhere.
“I’m going to go tomorrow, and then head back to Memphis,” Travis said after a long break of awkward silence.
“You’re not going back to your Mom’s?”
“No. I made quite a fool of myself back there, said some things I shouldn’t have and then stormed out. I’m pretty embarrassed about it.”
“What did you say?”
“A few things I’d be more embarrassed to repeat. Calvin was making some friendly jokes about pretty girls and such, and so I told him I don’t like girls. I said it right there in front of everyone. It had already been pretty obvious that everyone had met him before. They all knew about him, but Mom never told me. “
“So your Mom kept both of you a secret from each other, huh?”
“I guess. He knew who I was, but he didn’t know everything about me that he should have probably known.”
Travis’s words made me think of Justin and how hard it must have been for him to carry the burden of his secret for as long as he did. How long did he know he was gay before he told us? All of his life, perhaps? I wondered if he would have ever chosen to tell us at all had he never met Travis. Helen and I both admitted that we never suspected anything about Justin. Neither of us had a clue until he told us. It broke Helen’s heart. She really wanted grandchildren. It didn’t bother me as much, but it was as if suddenly Justin was a completely different person whom I’d never known at all.
“And you blame your Mom for not telling him?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t blame her.”
“Think about how hard it must have been back when she first found out about you.”
“She forbade me to tell anyone else.”
“But eventually she came around, right? I mean, the rest of your family knows now, don’t they?”
“Yeah, eventually her embarrassment subsided and she was ready to talk about it. She even let me bring someone home one Christmas for everyone to meet.”
“I wouldn’t call it embarrassment, Travis. It was probably more like anger. As a parent, we do our best to raise our children the best way we can. Finding out one of them is gay all of a sudden makes us think we did something wrong. We think it’s our fault.”
“Is that how you felt about Justin?” Travis asked.
I paused and gave it some thought.
“Yeah, I think it was how we felt. You think you know a person, Travis, your own flesh and blood. Finding out something like that doesn’t make you love them any less— it shouldn’t—but it sure makes you wonder what else there might be that you don’t know about them. You blame yourself for having missed out on who they really are.”
“It still doesn’t explain why Mom didn’t tell Calvin that I was gay.”
“Sure it does. Think about it. You have an advantage over your Mom. You come home to visit her as much as you can, but then you get to leave. You get to go back to Memphis where you are more comfortable being yourself, where it’s more accepted in a big city, I bet. You can forget all about the hold this small town had on you once. You broke free long ago. Your Mom isn’t so lucky.”
“I don’t think I understand what you are getting at, Mr. Black.”
“Well, look at it from your younger sister’s point of view. No offense at all toward her little baby. He’s as cute as a button, but people talk. I don’t know what they say to her face, if anything, but I do know what they say behind her back. It’s just like that gossip in the paper. Now, you think your sister would be talked about if she lived off somewhere in a big city?”
“No, probably not. Things like that are just more accepted.”
“Now, think about it from your Mom’s point of view. She has a gay son. No big deal really. She still loves ya with all of her heart, I’m sure of that. But she lives here too, just like your sister, and—”
“And when I’m not around she can pretend I don’t exist?”
“Travis, that’s a bit harsh. Let’s just say your Mom would never parade around town screaming at the top of her lungs that she has a gay son, but in a town like this there’s nothing wrong with being reserved about such things.”
“Is that how you were with Justin?”
“No. We never knew about Justin till after he met you. He moved away right after that.”
“I’m always the one to blame.”
“I’m not blaming you, son, please don’t look at it like that.”
I wanted to slap some sense into him. I just couldn’t get the words to come out right. I wanted to tell him how he should respect his mother for not wanting to necessarily discuss her son’s sexual preference when he’s not around. She was a loyal and well-known citizen of this community, and she’d been through enough with her other kids.
She had a mixed grandbaby, a druggie son, a daughter who got raped by her boss, and a son who cheats on his wife with his student who she probably doesn’t even know about. A gay son was just the icing on the cake. Sometimes I was glad Helen and I didn’t have any other children. Raising Justin was hard enough. I could only imagine the hardships of raising five in the White house, had their sufferings not already been quite publicly known.