Homecoming

*25*

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Confirmations and Conversations

Brian

I guess I could have given him a bit more warning, but as usual he handled himself like the natural fucking salesman that he is. 

The truth is that when he puts his mind to it Justin is a master manipulator.  And I should know.  I play on people’s feelings, manipulate the way they think, for a living.  But I had to fucking learn how to do it, through four years of college and a hard apprenticeship, starting at the bottom of the game and working my way up as I learned what worked and what didn’t.  But Justin -  he does it naturally.  Look at the things he’s “persuaded” me into over the years - one way or another. 

But it’s not just me; I’ve watched him work Emmett and Ted, Mikey and Vic, his agent, the press … he can be the most persuasive fucker on the planet and cajole people into jumping through hoops for him, while all the time looking like butter wouldn’t so much as heat up in his mouth. 

He’s even been known to game Deb, and that takes more skill than I ever fucking learned.

This talent at playing people is one of the things that is going to make him a damned successful artist. It’s not only part of what makes his work so fucking impactful, but he sells himself like a thousand dollar whore when he needs to; and in his game that ability is almost without price.

Right now, he’s just succeeded in selling himself - and in the process, me - to good old Sam.  So, although I can hardly fucking believe it, instead of being sent packing and told to forget we ever had a kid (which seemed likely if the wicked witch of the north got her way) we walk away with the whole fucking shebang.  We have rights to Gus, rights that no one can just snatch away - not without jumping through some pretty high damned hoops anyway.  And those rights belong to both of us; not just me, but Justin too.  And, what’s more fucking important, Gus has rights to be with us; with me, and with his beloved Dus.  And that cunt Melanie can go fuck herself because there’s nothing she can do about it.

In fact, if I wasn’t reasonably sure that her and Lindsay will be playing some damned movie of the week make up scene before the ink is dry on all the fucking paperwork we’ve just signed, I’d say that we’ve finally got the bitch out of our lives for good.  But at least … at least she can’t elbow me, elbow us, out of Gus’ life.  She had the fucking chance to do that, and let it slip away.  I guess she was scared way back when that if it took a court hearing and visits to notaries to get all the paperwork formally signed and sealed to deliver Gus over to her, I might change my mind again.  So she took the chance that I’d never find out that the whole “signed away my rights” thing was a fucking sham. 

Well, she should have gone ahead with it.  Back then, I might even have been stupid and gullible enough to jump through all the hoops to make it official because like an idiot, I thought that maybe that might give Gus the chance at a happy family that I never had.  Too fucking late now, bitch.  Because it turns out that the best chance Gus has at that isn’t with the merry fucked up munchers, it’s with us - Justin and I.  And who could have fucking believed that?

Well, I wouldn’t have.  Not back then.

But now … now I fucking do believe it.

And the State of good old Pennsylvania agrees with me.  Or at least, they believe that Gus won’t be any worse off having Justin and me in his life, and they’ve just signed off on all the papers to prove it.

Now I want to celebrate in all the ways I do best.

I want to get out of here, and hit Babylon, or the baths, or at least Woody’s; but I can’t see that happening any time soon.  Not only do we have to spend some time making nice with Linds and doing a handover of Gus (which I’m not looking forward to), but for some fucked up reason, I promised that this evening we’d collect the old fossil and get him to his hotel.  And knowing Sunshine. he isn’t going to want to just dump him there.  Fuck!  It’s going to be fucking midnight before I can get the little twat naked and show him just how much I appreciate his salesmanship … and some of this other talents.

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Justin

I know Brian has something else in mind than lunch with Lindsay, but while we might have got the legal stuff all signed and sealed, Lindsay is still the one who has to deliver.  And she needs to know that bailing on the agreements that we signed today isn’t going to be an option.  So we all head out to a semi-decent, but still “child friendly” restaurant, which of course is filled with breeders - a few couples with, presumably, their kids; a couple of groups that look like Mom and Grandma out for the day with the kids, and a whole bunch of Moms with toddlers in tow.  I keep my fingers crossed that Gus being here will encourage Brian to behave in a way that’s not going to set off fireworks right, left and center, but I’m not totally convinced it will be enough.  The place is making my skin crawl a little, let alone Brian’s.

I start working out what kind of “G” rated distraction I might be able to pull if either of us starts getting too antsy.  Maybe if I ...

I’m given something else to think about though when, just after we’ve sat down, Lindsay starts her little games, saying something about knowing that she’s agreed “in principle” to Brian having more of a role in Gus’ life, but that he needs to respect the fact that she’s Gus’ mother, so she gets the major say in how he’s brought up.  Fuck that!

It’s time somebody told her a few home truths and I’m just about to do it, when Brian says quietly, “This isn’t the fu … the time or place for this.”

And he glances sideways to where Gus is looking round the place with an expression so like Brian’s when he’s about to utter one of his infamous critiques that I have to stifle a laugh. 

“There’s lots of babies here,” Gus says in a voice that makes it totally clear that he doesn’t think they improve the place.

Brian also looks around, and for a moment the identical expressions of disdain on their faces makes me totally want to laugh.

Or to grab a pencil and try to capture them on paper.

But then my attention is caught by the look on Lindsay’s face - that mask of carefully moderated disapproval that I’ve known all my life; my mother and her friends used it constantly and totally eroded its affect on me through sheer over-use.  Like they say, ‘Familiarity breeds contempt’.  No shit.

But the look unsettles Brian.  Probably no one else would really notice that; but I do, and so does Lindsay.  That look is one of the subtle ways Lindsay uses to control him.

I’ve thought about it a lot - especially during those long lonely months in New York - the relationship between Brian and this blonde woman I used to think of as a close friend.  This lesbian who has always had not-so-secret yearnings for my fucking partner.

I mean, that fact that I was in New York at all had a lot to do with Lindsay.  If she hadn’t got in Brian’s ear about my “great opportunity”, I might have had some hope of convincing him it was really not the right thing for me.  But once she’d done her sales job on him it was just a matter of time before he pushed me off one of his fucking Kinney cliffs to go seek my fortune in the so-called Big Fucking Apple.

Dick!

I guess it turned out okay.  Because I did get noticed - enough to get a good agent; and I have sold some stuff; and now I have the show coming up.  And all that meant that I could come home and make it clear that I am home without Brian freaking out.  Because all that was enough to convince him that I can have it all - a successful career and a life with him, and that that’s what being the best fucking homosexual I can be is all about.

But Lindsay didn’t know that it would play out that way.  In fact, all the evidence says she thought that once I got on that plane, I’d be gone for good.  But she still did her best to push me on board - or at least to fuck with Brian’s head so he’d do the pushing. 

But one thing she totally didn’t count on - being away gave me a chance to really think about the fucked up dynamics of our little family.  And especially about Lindsay, and her thing with Brian. 

See … some lesbians really hate men.  Completely.  Just despise them; think the world would be a better place if the whole male population got wiped out.  But Linds isn’t like that.  One of the things that I came to realize about Lindsay is that while she pretty much wants to fuck women, she still wants men to notice her; wants their admiration and attention.  Maybe she didn’t get enough from her father.  Who the fuck knows?  But she craves male attention.

And in college she met Brian; who was, like he is now, beautiful, brilliant, but from a working-class background and, no matter how much he might deny it, he was painfully aware of that, aware of the limitations it placed on him in some really subtle ways. 

In some fucked up way, it probably even helped that he was gay.  It meant she didn’t have to compete with other women for his attention.  He could help her come out - at least help her deal with her own gay-ness, and she could help him fit in.  She could teach him a whole lot of stuff that you can’t learn from books, no matter how brilliant you are, and you sure as hell don’t learn in the kind of schools Brian went to; she could pass on the kind of stuff Lindsay and I learned growing up the way we did.

I don’t mean to sound like a snob, and I don’t mean things like which fork to use, and that sort of shit.  Brian was way smart enough to pick that stuff up without any help from anyone.  I mean things like how to play the subtle power games that go on when people of a certain type get together; how to smell those out and finesse your way through them, and, most importantly, how to make sure that all the right people know that you’re part of the game.

From Linds he would have learned all the little signals that tell anyone who’s in the know when moves are being made and who’s winning and how to make sure you’re not on the losing side; or even worse, that you’re not left clueless among the oblivious masses.  The sexual power games at places like Babylon I think Brian was born knowing.  But with this other stuff, with all the little things that send the right signals that get you accepted as part of the power group where money and prestige, not sex, are the measures of status, with those things I think he might have needed some help.  And there was Lindsay, ready, willing, and with her background, more than able to help him acquire the skills and … veneer … he needed to pass as one of the privileged. 

But being the one who got to teach him that stuff has encouraged Lindsay to always feel a little superior to Brian, and somewhere in his psyche there’s a tiny sliver of himself that agrees with her.

Mostly Brian doesn’t have any time for all that bullshit.  But in business, dealing with some of the people he deals with, the things he learned from Lindsay have been really valuable to him.  He might spend most of his time just bull-dozing his way through all the nuances and subtleties with his usual combination of arrogance, brilliance and sexual magnetism, but he can do that with confidence because he doesn’t do it blindly; when he crosses a boundary, stomps it to pieces under his Prada boots, he does it knowing to an inch where the boundary is, and knowing exactly what buttons he’s pushing by ignoring it.

It’s like in art.

You can’t afford to ignore perspective and draftsmanship until you’ve got a really good handle on them.  There’s a difference between someone who can’t get perspective right, and someone who can, but chooses not to; and the difference is obvious to anyone who knows anything about art as soon as they see the piece of work.

It’s the same with what Brian does.  Ignoring convention is completely different from being ignorant of what the convention is; and the difference is obvious to all the people playing the game; the people that, in business, Brian needs to impress.  Being ignorant makes you look foolish and incompetent - like a bad artist; but ignoring convention can, if you do it right, make you look both brilliant and powerful.  Brian, with his intelligence and skills, he tends to come out looking like a genius.

So in some ways he feels indebted to Lindsay, kind of the same way he does with Mikey and Deb.  Because in some hidden corner of the heart they all seem to forget he has, he still feels like the Mick kid with the black eyes and bruises whose drunken father and bitch mother made it clear that they considered him a fuck up; thought that the best that could be expected of him was to join them in the ranks of Pittsburgh’s working poor - and he’d probably even fuck that up and wind up a totally screwed up loser in some doss house somewhere.  He saw himself then (and I guess in some way still does) as someone very different from Michael with his loving family, and certainly different from Lindsay with her country club background.  Part of him, no matter how much he might fight this, really believes that because Lindsay’s family had money, and Michael’s family had love, that they are, they must be, better than him, who grew up with neither; part of him still believes that somehow the difference must be his fault, must be because of something in him that didn’t deserve those things.

And that means, in the fucked up world of Brian Kinney’s deep secret soul, that Lindsay and Michael who, in different ways, shared with him at least a little bit of those things, are in some ways better than him, because not only were their lives better than his, but, even more so, because they were willing to allow a loser like him into those lives.

So when Lindsay pulls that fucking disapproving WASP shit on him, that affects Brian.  Whether he shows it or not.  And Lindsay fucking knows it does.

But so do I.  And I am getting seriously tired of her shit.  I’d like to really let her have it, but Brian’s right, Gus is here and that means it’s not the right time for that.

Instead, I fall back on my own WASP upbringing; she’s not the only one who learned how to smile while you slip the dagger in between your opponent’s ribs.

“Brian,” I say, all innocent enthusiasm, “We should contact Mom and get her to start looking for a place for Lindsay and Gus.”

He gives me a look, and his tongue slides into his cheek for a moment, but he nods agreement without saying anything.

Lindsay looks rattled though.

What did she think?  That Brian was going to pay for her to stay at the Marriott forever?

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea to rush into anything,” she says.  “Perhaps Gus and I could stay with you for a while.”

Both Brian and I stare at her.

“I don’t think the loft’s really cut out for family living, Linds,” Brian says drily.

It’s her turn to stare at us.

“But I thought …” she stammers, “You’re moving into your house.”

That’s when the penny drops.  She listened to us tell the guy at the courthouse about the house … about Gus having his own room, and fencing off the swimming pool and stuff, and she thinks we’re moving into the mansion.

Fuck!

She probably thinks that once she and Gus move in there with us that she’ll be able to persuade Brian to let them stay … a nice cozy little family.  She’d be getting all that support money and not having to lay out a red cent of it for accommodation - or even food and stuff, probably.  Plus she’d get to play Lady of the Manor.  And maybe even find a way to get Brian to push me off another cliff or two, so she could totally live out her little fantasy.

Oh, I so don’t fucking think so.

 

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Brian

What the fuck?

She thinks we’re moving into the manor and she can just move in with us?

I’m sure Sunshine would just fucking love that.

But anyway … not happening.

“Sorry, Linds,” I tell her before he can open his mouth and deliver the slap down that’s trembling on his wicked little tongue.  “We sold that place.”

“But …”

“We’ve bought somewhere else,” Justin cuts in, and there’s no fucking mistaking the smugness in his voice.  “It’s great.  Much smaller and more suitable for us.”

“Well, I’m sure …”

She’s still trying to find a way to make this fucking disaster happen.  Have to head that one off fast.

“Lindsay, we’ve just signed the contracts,” I say.  “It’ll be weeks, maybe even a month or two, before it’s ready for us to move in.”

She doesn’t look happy but says, “Well, I don’t want to disrupt Gus too much, so …”

I glance at Justin and see he’s thinking exactly what I am.  She didn’t fucking hesitate to “disrupt” Gus when she hauled him off to Toronto, and then let his security be sacrificed to the fucked up games that she and Melanie have been playing.  Fuck!  She wouldn’t even let me come and see him, let him know that at least he had one person in his life for whom his welfare came first.

But I bite my tongue for once.  Gus is sitting right here next to me, and I suddenly realize that he’s wriggling around on his chair in a way that makes me think …

“Gus, do you want to go to the restroom?” Lindsay asks before I can say anything.  She starts to stand up, but he slides down off his chair and grabs hold of my arm. 

“I want to go with Daddy,” he says.

“Gus, don’t be silly,” Lindsay starts.

But before she can go any further, I say, “How about if you take Dus with you?  I think he wants to go too.”

“Dus” gives me a look that should be registered as a lethal weapon, but he softens when Gus says anxiously, “You stay here and wait for us?”

“Of course,” I tell him.  “Mommy and I will sit right here till you get back.” He looks into my face for a moment, and I ruffle his hair.  “I promise,” I tell him.  “I’ll be sitting right here when you bring Dus back.”

He smiles then and takes Dus’ hand, and as they walk off, I hear him telling his new Dus-daddy that he’s a big kid now and doesn’t need to go with Mommy like a baby.

As my two guys walk off together, I enjoy the view for a moment or two and then take advantage of the few minutes that Gus’ absence gives me to make sure Lindsay understands that I’m not prepared to stand by while she plays the games she has in the past.

“You should have thought about fucking disrupting Gus’ life before you carted him away to a place where he had no family, no friends and you had no fucking jobs, permanent place to live or support system.

“That isn’t going to fucking happen again, Linds.”

She tears up then, of course, and starts saying about how she felt that she had to make the effort to make things work with Melanie and all that bullshit, but I cut her off.

“Whatever,” I tell her.  “But right now we have to make sure that Gus gets out of that damned hotel and into some kind of decent home environment as soon as we can.  And then you can take your time to find the right place to live permanently.”

She starts going on about how she can’t afford this and that fucking thing, but I cut her off.  “That’s bullshit.  With the money we agreed on today, you can afford to pay rent on some kind of decent place, even if you can’t afford to buy.  And once you get a fucking job, you can start saving for a deposit if that’s what you want to do.  So don’t give me any shit about money, Linds.”

I take a breath and say, “Any extra money will be going straight into an account for Gus, or into a college fund.  You’re not going to get money just to play around with.  If you want more than you can afford on what I’ll be giving you, you’re just going to have to get your ass into gear and find a job.”

She looks at me like she can’t believe what I’m saying, and I reach across the table and cover her hand.

“Lindsay, you’ll be fine.  You know that I’m not going to let you and Gus starve in the gutter.  But you have to start taking responsibility for yourself, and not expecting me, or Mel or anyone else to support you.”

“That’s not true,” she says.  “I had a good job before Gus was born and a better one before …”

“Before you fucking threw it all away because the bitch-queen wanted to get out of Dodge and away from the evil Kinney monster,” I say.

“Brian,” she tries to soothe me, “It wasn’t about you.  It was about us not feeling safe after the bombing.”

It’s her turn now to take my hand.  “I know the timing was bad for you, with Justin going at the same time, and the way things were with Michael, but you shouldn’t personalize it.”

“Shouldn’t I, Linds?  Shouldn’t I “personalize” the fact that you persuaded me that I had to let Justin go to New York, that you practically packed his bags for him, and then as soon as he was on the plane, you announced that you were leaving as well, and taking my son with you.  Because I’d had my chances, but it was too late to make up for the time I missed with him after I gave him up to Mel to help stop you from making the biggest fucking mistake of your life with that Gui sleaze?”

I stop then.  I’ve said way more than I ever meant to, revealed much more than I intended about how fucking much she hurt me when she told me that.

She’s about to say something else, when the cavalry arrives and I get to spend a few moments helping Gus settle in his seat.

Fuck!

I hadn’t meant to go off on that tangent.  I’d meant to discuss with her the anxiety Gus is showing about being separated from me, and from Dus.  That he needs her to make sure he knows that she’s not going to be hauling him off away from Daddy again any time soon.  That Daddy is going to be a permanent part of his life from now on. 

But it’s too late now because he’s back.

So instead I tell Justin that we’ve been talking about finding some kind of short term lease accommodation for Lindsay and Gus.  An apartment at least, even if we can’t find a house. 

He nods.  “I’m sure Mom could find something,” he says.  “Somewhere you could move in right away while she looks for something more permanent.”

Lindsay, of course, has got her nose right out of joint by now, so predictably she bristles at this.  “I just don’t know if your mother is the right person,” she starts.

So before little Sunshine can burn her to ashes, I cut in, “Don’t be stupid, Linds.  Jenn will get you a better deal than you’ll get from some stranger who’s just in it for the commission.”

“Sure,” Justin nods.  “After all, she’s finding a home for her grandson.”

I give him a look at that, and he smiles back at me blandly.

Brat!

I suppose he’s right though.

Fuck!

What have I done?

Oh, well, too fucking late to worry about all that now.  Right now I have to stop Lindsay having conniptions and deal with separating for a while from my son without him having a meltdown.

Of course, it’s right then that Justin’s cell rings.  He glances at it and says, “Sorry, I have to take this.”

He mouths “Charis” at me before he walks away, holding the phone to his ear.

Charis is his snotty agent.  She’s so New York blue-blood that it’s probably even her real name.  The question is, what the fuck does she want?

His show’s not till October.  He’s just got home.  Why the fuck is she calling him now?

 

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Justin

Walking back to the table I’m shaking with excitement.

I know my cheeks are flushed; hell I can feel even the tips of my ears burning.

I wish to fuck Brian and I were alone at home, or somewhere I could throw myself into his arms and squeal like a little fucking fan-girl.

But I can’t.

I can’t even tell him what Charis said, because I want to share it with him … just with him, I mean.  Not with anyone else listening in.  Not even Lindsay.  Well, in some ways, especially not Lindsay.

This is a major thing for me, and it is for him too, because he’s so fucking determined to give me every opportunity to find success in my profession, and he’s been so damned supportive and although this isn’t, you know, an exhibition at MOMA or anything, it’s still, to me, pretty fucking big.

I want it to be just us, when I tell him so I can see his eyes light up, and see him realize that things are going to be just great with me coming home to Pittsburgh.

But first we have to get through the rest of our lunch, and then we have to collect Gus’ stuff from our place, and drive them both to the hotel, and Gus starts crying and holding on to Brian like he’s terrified to let go.  But we get him calmed down eventually.  We promise that he can come and see us soon.  We promise to take him to the house again on the weekend so he can pick out the colors he wants his room painted.  We try every fucking thing, but what really seems to work is when I take him aside and remind him that it’s Daddy’s birthday in two days - two more sleeps away.  And that he has to help me buy a cake, and candles and get everything else we need for his “birthday party”. 

Brian’s going to fucking kill me, but it works, which is the main thing.  Gus gets really excited and I promise I’ll come and get him first thing on Wednesday morning so that we can get it all organized. 

So when we come back to Brian and Lindsay, Gus is all giggly and keeps whispering to me about the things we need to do to surprise Daddy and he waves us off without any more tears or apparent fears.

Poor kid.

He really has been through a lot of shit lately, and in some ways I really wish they could stay with us, just so Gus will feel better.

But at least he seems reassured that he’s going to see us again soon, and that’s the main thing.

So having pacified him, I can turn my attention to pacifying the other Kinney.  The tall one, who’s been biting his lip, in fact practically crawling out of his fucking skin, not to demand what the fuck Charis wanted, and has probably got me mentally packed and on the road back to New York by now.

I wait until we’re in the car, then just before he turns the key in the ignition, I say, “They’re having a special exhibition at the Warhol Museum.  It’s in July.  One of the artists they were negotiating with has pulled out, and they’ve offered me a slot.  Just one painting, but …

“Oh, my God, Brian.  It’s the fucking Warhol Museum.  Most of the other artists are already fairly well known.  I can’t believe that they’ve offered me a spot.  But the theme is sort of art in response to violence.  Something like that.  And Charis said when they were looking for someone to fill the spot, someone mentioned me, and that I’m local, and you know, all the survivor bullshit, but …

“Fuck!  It’s the Warhol.

“I don’t care if they’ve offered it to me because they think I’ve got three heads.

“It’s the fucking Warhol Museum.”

I know I’m babbling, but shit, I’ve been keeping this news bottled up for hours.

He’s sitting there really still, staring straight ahead through the windscreen, but I can see the corner of his mouth turn up, and when he finally turns to me, although he’s allowing only the tiniest glimmer of his sweet Brian-smile to show, his eyes are shining with love and pride.  And relief, too, I suspect.

He doesn’t say anything, just reaches out to squeeze the back of my neck, but I laugh, and use my own hands to pull him close enough to kiss.

“My own fucking little genius,” he breathes into my ear, before his tongue finds other things to do than talk.

Later I’ll tell him the rest.  That Charis says that the gallery who’s doing my show in October is “completely thrilled” and are already planning the publicity around my inclusion in an event at the Warhol, and that she expects calls from a few other galleries once word gets out.

But the best thing, the absolute best thing, for me, is that this first really big event in my professional life … the first one that’s about me being presented as someone who’s starting to become at least a little bit known in the art world - is right here in Pittsburgh.

If anything was needed to make sure Brian knows that I don’t have to sacrifice one atom of success to be with him, this is it.

That’s what I want to celebrate with him.  Right now, in fact.  We’ve still got an hour or two before we need to pick Dan up and take him to his hotel. 

And I know just how I want to spend it.

May 30^th , 2010

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