It's History

The guys were settled down on the floor gazing at the flickering flames as they darted about the fake fireplace. Justin wasn't sure how to say what he was going to say. He decided to just say it.

"OK, Brian," he began. "I'm going to tell you something because I want you to know it. I am not trying to get you to do anything. I have no hidden agenda. I just want you to know. OK?"

"Of course it's OK," Brian answered. "Why would I ever think you might be trying to get me to do something - or have a hidden agenda?"

"I'm ignoring you, Kinney," Justin told him. "You are just trying to get me irritated and I'm not giving you the chance. I am just telling you this and that's that. Malcolm wants to go to Ft. Necessity and he wants me to go with him."

"Ft. Necessity," Brian seemed surprised. "That dumb old excuse for a fort down on Route 40 that George Washington built, like overnight, when he had to do that quick retreat from the French army. That Ft. Necessity?"

"That's the one," Justin confirmed. "Malcolm didn't grow up here so he didn't know about Ft. Necessity till he heard about this one-day tour the Historical Society is doing."

"And Malcolm just decided he had to see Ft. Necessity?" Brian didn't seem to get the point.

"Right on, Kinney," Justin affirmed. "There's this friend of Malcolm's named Hix. He's in playwriting out at Carnegie-Mellon and he's writing a play about young George Washington. Malcolm thinks it's going to be pretty good, and if Carnegie-Mellon doesn't put it on, Malcolm would like to. So he wants to see Ft. Necessity."

"He's going to be disappointed," Brian decided. "There's not much there. Have you ever been there yourself?"

"Gee whiz, Brian," Justin smiled. "There isn't a kid who went to grade school around here who hasn't been on that field trip. Yeah, I saw it - and I know it's not much. But there's going to be some big historian on the Historical Society bus and he's going to tell us all about it."

"And you think that pedagogue on the bus will know more about George Washington than Brian Kinney who wrote a paper about George in high school and used the same paper in college and got an 'A' both times?" Brian asked the kid.

"I am surprised and humbled," Justin replied. "I didn't know about your Washingtonian expertise. You never told me."

"I'm real good at history," Brian stated confidently.

"I never knew," Justin smiled at him.

"There are a lot of things you still don't know about me," Brian informed him. "And you're going to have to stick around fifty or sixty years if you want to find all of them out."

"If that's what it takes," Justin replied. "It'll be worth it, but can I ask now: 'Did you really use your high school paper on Washington in college and still get an 'A' on it?'"

"Well I added a few things to it in college. George Washington had done some more stuff after I wrote the high school paper so I put that in too," Brian told him.

"Cut it out, Bri," Justin protested. "You're putting me on. You'd have to be real old to have lived in Washington's time - like fifty or sixty - and if you knew him when he was young, you'd have to be like eighty. And you aren't a day over forty."

"No I'm not, Twink," Brian admitted, "But I'm gonna get there - yes, I am - no matter how hard you try to kill me off before I make it…. So what you're telling me is that you want to go to Ft. Necessity and you don't want me to come along."

"Oh my poor neglected Brian," Justin grinned. "You know that's not it at all. We'd love to have you come but I know you don't want to go and we're not going to push you. Of course, now that we know you're the outstanding expert on GW in this area…."

"So you do want me to go?" Brian conjectured.

"Of course we do - if you want to," Justin enthused, "But we wouldn't like you to give the Historical Society's guru on the bus a hard time."

"Well, I don't know if I can promise that," Brian thought out loud. "If he makes some egregious error, it would be real hard not to correct him. Maybe we should just drive down ourselves instead of taking the bus. It's only a little more than an hour's drive and I know some good places to eat along the way."

"Yeah," Justin responded. "That would work. And we'll have time to eat. We won't need to spend the whole day on history - especially with you along to answer any difficult questions we might have."

"One other thing, Bri," Justin continued. "Hix might want to come along too. We probably ought to ask him if he wants to come along with us. After all, he's writing the play. OK with you?"

"Will I like Hix?" Brian asked suspiciously. "Some of your friends are a bit hard to take sometimes."

"Well Hix is not exactly a friend of mine," Justin pointed out, "And I don't want to say too much about him so that you could complain incessantly afterwards, so I'll just say that you'll like Hix better than you like Rodney."

"I'd like Hitler better than I like Rodney," Brian told him. "Maybe we could get Mikey and Ben to go. I bet Hunter's coming."

"Nope," Justin said, "Hunter said that one trip to Ft. Necessity was way more that enough for him. Mikey said he'd go if the remnants of the cherry tree was still there but I told him the cherry tree was in Virginia somewhere and Mikey lost interest. I think it would be just you and me, Malcolm and Hix. Brian, you really don't need to come if you don't want to. I just didn't want to say 'No' to Malcolm and that's why I'm going."

"I'll bet this Hix guy is real hot and you're afraid to have me meet him," Brian decided. "That's why you don't really want me to go. So maybe I need to go."

"Yes, you do need to go," Justin agreed. "You absolutely do need to go. If you suspect that I'm trying to keep you and Hix apart for my own benefit. You need to come. You might have more confidence in me after you get a good look at Hix."

Brian looked self-satisfied so Justin went on: "Of course Hix will also get a look at you, Sweetheart. If Carnegie-Mellon does the play, they'll use their own dramats in all the parts - but if Malcolm does it at the Community Theater, they'll need a George Washington, won't they? And it would be neat if the actor knew a lot about George and was good in history…."

"Twink," Brian warned him, "If anything remotely like that ever happens, you might have to make a quicker retreat out of here than George Washington did. You better remember the way to Ft. Necessity."

"But I can't leave town, Bri," Justin reasoned. "I have to stay fifty or sixty years to learn all the things about you that I don't know."

"Damn," Brian agreed, "But yes, you do."

The conversation died out at this point but the guys just sat there, looking contented and staring at the flames.

Finally, Justin broke the spell. "You know what, Brian," he told the big guy. "Sometimes I have a short attention span. I'm tired of talking about history. Do you suppose you and me could make some history now?"

"Yeah," Brian considered. "Maybe we could. I'm real good at history making too."

"That I already knew," Justin told him.

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