Homework
Chapter 17: Toughing It Out
Justin
"Mom! What the fuck are you talking about?"
My own voice sounds kind of squeaky and higher than usual when I try to ask her
what's brought that look of appalled horror to her face.
Tucker glares at me but before he can say anything, Brian's voice, still with
that almost eerie quietness, says, "Calm down, Mother Taylor. What 'can't it
have been'?"
Mom kind of sinks back against Tucker, pressing her hand to her lips.
"I told him. I told him where the fundraiser was going to be. I
"
She breaks off and looks at me, her lips twisted and her eyes full of something
that it hurts me to look at.
It's like she's begging me not to blame her not just for whatever Craig's
fucking done, but for ever saddling me with that prick for a father.
I try to smile at her, to let her know that there's nothing that I need to
forgive her for, that however hard for her it might have been, she was there for
me when it counted, when I really needed her. She even loved me enough to let me
go, to give me into Brian's care when she realized she couldn't help me after
the bashing.
So I don't need to forgive her, but I do need to understand why she would tell
my asshole father anything about the fundraiser, given that he wanted to have my
ass thrown in jail for supporting the cause.
I'm trying to find words that won't come across as totally confrontational when
Brian says, "Jenn, I don't think you need to worry about how the bombers found
out where it was being held, there were posters all over fucking Liberty Avenue
with the change of venue on them."
Mom gives a kind of gasp, like she'd been struggling to breathe until then and
then she nods. "Yes, yes of course." She gives a relieved little grin. "I posted
some of them myself."
Brian nods back at her and smiles and anyone else might be reassured, but my Mom
is starting to know him pretty well now, so she's already kind of stiffening her
spine when he says, quite softly, but with this kind of silky venom in his
voice, "So why the fuck would you tell that asshole anything about the little
soirιe at Babylon that night?"
*****
Brian
Why the fuck would Mother Taylor be talking to that asshole at all, let alone
telling him anything about the anti-prop 14 fundraiser? It was only a couple of
days before the fucking thing that Justin had his last run in with the bastard,
when dear old Craig threatened to have his son arrested for parading around his
store with signs that tried to persuade the great lump of indifference that is
the moronic general public to boycott the place because Taylor of Taylor
Electronics supported the amendment.
Sometimes even now I don't know whether to hug the little twat or slap him silly
when he's so fucking naοve.
But that's beside the fucking point. The point is what the fuck did Jennifer
think she was going to accomplish by chatting to her ex about a fundraiser for a
cause to which he was predictably completely fucking opposed?
Jennifer takes a breath that's a little shaky, but then she draws herself up and
says, "I thought it might do him good to actually meet some of the "perverts"
he's convinced he hates."
She shoots a look at me and I can't help be reminded of where little Sunshine
gets his backbone from, because she goes on, "I knew Brian wouldn't be there,
and I thought if he could meet people like Lindsay and Melanie and Ben and
Michael that he might get his head out of his ass and realize that they're just
people. Some of them are wonderful and some not so wonderful but they're not
monsters or perverts; they're just people who are trying to get through life as
best they can and deserve all the same opportunities for love and support that
everyone else has."
Justin leans closer when she says the bit about me not being there, as if he
thinks I need to be comforted or some shit that his Mom thinks that way, but I
don't. I appreciate the logic. If I'd planned to be there, there was no way that
Craig would have even considered coming and if he'd been hog-tied and dragged
there all he would have been thinking about was his image of Brian Fucking
Kinney de-flowering his 17 year old son.
Now that Gus is getting older, I'm not even sure I blame Craig for thinking of
me as a pervert, although he should also thank his lucky fucking stars that I
was the one who took that tasty little blond morsel home that night. If he'd
gone home with the wrong guy it could have fucked him up really badly; whatever
other fucking mistakes I might have made along the way, at least I made that
first experience good for him.
Of course, with the way that fucking bigot thinks, he would probably have
preferred the whole experience to be so horrendous that it turned his son off
gay sex for life no matter how fucked up that left him.
"But if he
" she's going on, but her son cuts in on her.
"Mom
it doesn't matter whether he passed the information on or whether those
assholes saw it on a poster
they could easily have found out where the
fundraiser was shifted to. It wasn't a secret. We wanted people to come."
It's my turn to shift subtly closer to him now; because sure, the fuckers who
planted the bomb could have easily found out about the new venue, so it wouldn't
have made any difference in the grand scheme of things whether they found out
from Craig or saw it on a poster or read it in the fucking tea leaves. But it
sure as fuck makes a difference to Justin. If his father was an even sicker fuck
than we already thought he was, if he'd actively helped the bastards who tried
to kill his son, that's a whole new level of hurt that no kid deserves to get
from their father.
And if Craig was involved in this, I swear to my mother's God, I'm going find a
way to repay him for every single shitty thing he's done to the man he doesn't
deserve to call "son".
I remember watching that Princess Bride movie sometime (I blame Mikey) and
hearing that "to the pain" line. For months I fantasized about fighting good ol'
Jack "to the pain". Those fantasies are nothing to the ones I can see myself
having about Craig.
But I can't brood about that right now. We didn't come here just to fill Jenn in
on what her ex has been up to, we came here to warn her that she might be
subject to a fucking siege if the press decide she's an easy target.
Predictably, she doesn't want to go into hiding; like I said, I know which side
of the family tree gave Justin his strength and his courage. At least we get her
to agree to think about moving to the apartment I rented for Linds if things get
too hot to handle. She knows that she has Molly to think about.
Then we get out of there.
*****
Justin
"So where to, Sunshine?" he asks as he starts the car.
"Home," I tell him. "I want to go home."
So that's where he takes me.
Gus is so excited when he comes running out to us. He's talking so fast I can
hardly understand him, something about a lady beetle and some photos and how he
wanted to keep her but instead she's living in the garden and did I know that
ladybugs are really good to have in the garden because they eat things that eat
plants and, and, and.
I detect Daph's influence in there somewhere. I doubt Brian knows any more about
fucking ladybugs than I do.
I get taken out to the part of the garden where the ladybug lives, but I guess
she's shy because we don't see her. I get to see the photos, though. Millions of
them. Well, it seems like that.
Brian has disappeared and Daph is busy making something for dinner (she'd
already started when we got home, so she just kept going) so it's Gus and I for
a while, and really it's just what I need. I need to be reminded that this is
what a family is and that I'm going to be a better father to Gus than Craig ever
was to me. Because sure there were some times in my childhood that had good
memories of him, but really not all that many. Most of the time he was at work,
or busy or tired or any damned thing except spending time with me or Molly.
Later, after Gus has gone to bed, we settle down in the living room under
Billy's window, the three of us me, my lover and my best friend. There's still
light spilling in from the evening sun; the window is casting a kaleidoscope of
glimmering jewel shades which shift as with every movement, and the room seems
filled with color Daphne's deep purple dress, Brian's red shirt, the rug in
front of the fireplace, the painting of Gus laughing under a huge sunflower,
nearly twice as tall as him, that I finished a few days ago and hung just in
time for our party.
Somehow the colors
if they don't heal the wounds my father has inflicted, they
at least remind me why those pains aren't important; remind me of who I am
Justin Taylor man and artist, Daphne's friend, Brian's partner, Gus's father.
I happen to be gay. If my father can't get the fuck over that, it's his loss.
We talk about the day, about what we might all expect in the next few days,
depending on what comes out during the police investigation. Daph is just about
to leave when Carl calls. They hadn't got much out of good old Dad. Seems like
he lawyered up and pleaded the fifth and all that shit.
Of course all that shit makes it seem like he's hiding something; like maybe he
is involved somehow. But there's nothing any of us can do about that, and
nothing any of us can do to get him talking either.
He certainly won't be moved by any pleas from Brian or me, or even Mom or Molly.
So all we can do is thank Carl, and be grateful that we have a friend "on the
inside" as it were, who's prepared to at least let us know what is going on.
Carl does have better news about the rest of the case, however. Seems like
they've found physical evidence that ties in with some of the stuff they
retrieved from the bomb site. Plus there's a couple of emails, some of the calls
and texts, and better yet, the people they arrested are getting scared and
starting to turn on each other.
So with or without anything Craig might say, they reckon they've got a pretty
good case. They can't prosecute it as a hate crime, of course, because gays
aren't covered under the hate crimes legislation in Pennsylvania. Carl says the
prosecutor could try to sneak it through, argue that the definition of hate
crimes relating solely to ethnicity is too narrow. But the risk is that if they
do that and get a conviction, it would almost certainly be appealed, and then
the sons of bitches could wind up walking.
Instead, it's likely it will prosecuted as an act of domestic terrorism.
Hopefully if we get a decent judge, everyone on the jury will still be shaken
enough by 9/11 for that to resonate.
That's pretty fucking huge, really. Even bombing of abortion clinics don't
usually wind up with that charge. But apparently because the fundraiser was
specifically about a political activity the referendum on Prop 14 that means
it can be argued that it falls under the " influence the policy of a government
by intimidation or coercion" clause. Deekins is leaning on the city police to go
that way, and someone in the government is leaning on the DA. Could be Senator
Baxter, I guess.
So that's some good news at least.
We have another coffee and talk about that for a while, and Brian and I both try
to persuade Daphne to stay the night, but she heads off a little after 11 and
we're both wiped out, so we just go up to bed.
To my surprise, I realize as soon as I get my clothes off that I'm really tired.
I make a kind of half-hearted offer to blow Brian but he just laughs at me and
tells me that our relationship is tough enough to survive most things, but he
doesnt think it would recover from me falling asleep with his cock in my mouth.
It probably wouldn't either.
Or at least, his ego would be so dented, my jaw would ache for weeks trying to
make it up to him.
So I pull the covers up and am trying to get comfortable so I can sleep when he
slithers closer and wraps himself around me and then I can relax. Whatever
happens, this, here with him, is my safe place.
And on that thought I feel myself drifting off.
*****
Brian
I don't expect to get to sleep any time soon, but it's actually not long after
he zonks out on me that I find myself drifting off.
Waking up is not a pleasant experience.
Gus is pulling on my hand, demanding that I get up so I can get him to school
because Heaven help us if he misses a single second of the time he plans to
spend telling every single fucking person he meets about his party, about our
party, about the boat trip on Saturday and even about the fucking ladybug.
And Justin is nowhere in sight.
I should go into the office this morning. Fuck knows I've missed so much time
there, we seem to be doing some campaigns for clients that I know absolutely
fucking nothing about.
But
I know him. He'll find a way to blow the thing with Craig way out of
proportion. I don't mean that his daddy isn't a total asshole. But if Craig's
involved with the bombers, Justin will try to find a way to blame himself for
the fact that people died that night.
I have no fucking idea how to handle this. I can't fucking wrap him up in cotton
wool. He'd cut off my remaining ball if I even hinted at it.
But I know the little fucker too well. If the news media pick up on even a hint
of Craig's involvement, he's going to find it fucking hard to behave as if it's
nothing to do with him.
Every time he goes to Woody's or Babylon or even the fucking diner, he's going
to see faces that were there that night, faces of people who were hurt that
night, even people who lost someone that night, and he's going to feel like he
has to fucking apologize to every one of them for his prick of a father.
I wouldn't blame him if he took off back to New York, except that he won't want
to leave me alone to manage the whole 'daddy' thing with Gus. Of course, I can
handle that. With Daphne around, and with Mother Taylor on hand, even I can
manage for a few days at least. But of course a few fucking days isn't going to
solve this.
I've got no fucking idea how to solve this.
Unless
there's an idea that I've had in the back of my mind for a while now.
So maybe this is the time to see if Cynthia and Ted can make it all come
together.
As long as we had to be around for the fucking social worker's visits, it wasn't
workable, but if she's really going to more or less cancel those
Maybe, just maybe, we can stage a summer getaway somewhere.
It might even get me out of that fucking summer program at Gus' school.
We can make it a family affair.
Jenn, if she can get some time off, Molly, and of course young Daphne. With them
there, if we can find the right place, Justin should still be able to paint, and
if we can get one of the places I've been looking at I should be able to
commute. At one there's a heliport less than 15 minutes drive away which would
put me within an hour's travel time to the office. And of course I can work
remotely as well so it's not like I'd have to go in every day.
One thing about these new campaigns that I haven't really been involved with is
that they're bringing in a shitload of money. Time some of it was put to good
use.
I'll make sure that little Sunshine is holed up in his studio or somewhere
equally safe, and then I'll get to the office to see what magic Cynthia can work
with dates and bookings. Hell, if we can find somewhere we like, we could even
buy the place.
Pittsburgh isn't the best place to spend the summer. It wouldn't hurt to have a
lakeside getaway somewhere.
All I have to do is to convince little Sunshine that it's not just for his
benefit.
Who am I kidding? He'll fucking know what I'm up to. But if it looks like it's a
good way for Gus and the rest of the family to have a nice summer break, he just
might go along with it.
All I have to do is find the right place.
Except fuck that! I'll make it part of the package that he finds the right
fucking place. That will keep him out of mischief and give him something else to
think about other than this whole fucking mess.
I really need to call him, but I'd better get Gus to school first or there might
be another queen out in the family.
First things first. Breakfast. Then school. Then track down the missing artiste.
Then sell him on the idea. Then work. Then
oh, fuck it, after that I'll just
wing it.
*****
Justin
Brian has his head in the fridge looking for milk for Gus' cereal when I walk
in. The cereal bowl is on the table, filled with cereal and a neatly sliced
banana, Gus is sitting ready, spoon in hand, but Brian's shit out of luck if he
thinks he's going to find any milk.
"We were out of milk," I tell him. "I had to go down the road for some."
He jumps about five fucking feet into the air, just missing banging his head on
the top of the fridge.
He says a couple of words that we try not to use in front of Gus, and then gives
me a really weird look.
I guess I should have known he'd freak out if I wasn't here when he got up. He
probably thought poor little Sunshine couldn't cope and had run off like that
dumb kid I used to be would have done. Fuck that!
I've been awake for hours trying to work out how to handle things. I even
thought about going to New York for awhile. With Daph around to help Brian it
didn't seem like such a bad idea. I could get my face seen round a bit, do some
more painting Charis, my agent, would probably be able to find me some
temporary studio space somewhere. And knowing that I've got a New York show
coming up, no one would have questioned that I needed to spend a little while
there.
But there are so many reasons why it's a totally horrible idea. Gus is just
getting settled, just starting to feel that he can rely on Brian and me to be
there for him. What kind of father am I if I abandon him at this stage just
because my life is a little complicated. And it's not just him I'd be
abandoning. Aside from Gus, and even Brian, I'd be abandoning Mom and Molly too.
If Dad is in any way involved in all this shit, they're going to have to deal
with all that fucked up shit as much as I am. They're going to have to face
friends and neighbors and maybe even the press. I can't shield them from that,
but the least I can do is share the burden with them, not go running off to hide
like some fragile little Princess.
They deserve better. Gus deserves better. And the one who's still giving me
these kind of sideways looks like he's working out how to deal with the fact
that I haven't run off in the night sure as Hell deserves better.
Uh-oh.
He's doing the whole sucking the bottom lip thing. He thinks he's come up with
some fucking solution to help me escape and he's trying to work out how to sell
it to me.
Silly fucker!
I can't believe I ever forgot how to read him like this.
I wait, part of me just enjoying the moment, because he's twisting himself in
knots trying to help me without me knowing he's doing it while being totally
transparent if you know how to read him; and partly because it hits me all over
again how much I fucking love him. Even when he's about to launch into control
freak extraordinaire mode.
Maybe especially when.
But in the end he actually manages to surprise me.
*****
Brian
He blinks and looks kind of shocked when I ask him if he can get Gus to school
today.
I guess he was thinking that I was about to go into mother mode and demand to
know if he's okay and all that shit. He should know better.
"You going to be in your studio today?" I ask him.
He nods.
"Yeah. I'll check on Mom and Molly some time, but mostly I want to work on a
couple of things that I've been thinking about."
My turn to nod.
"Did I tell you Charis wants to include the sunflower painting of Gus in the
Roget show?"
Roget is the pretentious fucking name of the New York gallery. But they're not
having that painting. Before I can protest, he reassures me.
"She says I can have one, maybe two "from a private collection" pieces. So with
the two Warhol pieces that means that I'll only need about another dozen. And I
can use a few that I did in New York, so I'll probably only have to paint six or
maybe seven in the next four months. It will still be a bit tight, but I can do
it, I think.
"It might even be less because she's going to lean on them to display some of my
sketches and some of the Rage artwork. She says it won't hurt to let people see
my versatility really early. In fact it will help, because it will mean that
they don't always expect my work to be in a certain style or even format. It
will give me more freedom. She says it might take a little longer to establish a
consistent following, but it will pay off in the long run, because my base will
be more widespread and that will give me a chance to build it up in other
directions, not just one interest group."
I don't say anything, just watch as he gets the coffee I put on earlier and
pours us both a cup, and then potters round making toast and asking Gus if he's
got his lunch, and his bag and the photos of the parties and the boat and the
ladybug that Daphne printed out for him yesterday while we were at his Mom's.
Something way deep inside me is soothed, maybe even healed, by the knowledge
that he's happy doing this shit. That, his fucking father aside, he's happy with
his life. That he enjoys being here with Gus and me. For a moment, I feel my
throat tighten for some ridiculous fucking reason, then he turns his head and
smiles at me and all I can do is smile back.
I can't find it in me to say those words every fucking day, but it's like he
hears them anyway, because the smile turns into a full on Sunshine spectacular
and then he laughs, puts down the toast and comes to me.
"I'm done running away," he tells me. "If my father has fucked things up then
we'll just have to tough it out, I guess. You and me and Gus and Mom and Molly.
"That's what families do, right?"
He's asking me? How the fuck should I know?
But I guess somehow I do know, because I find myself nodding.
"Then that's what we'll do," I tell him. "We'll tough it out."
I can talk to him about my summer plan later.
We can't go till after the Warhol thing in early July anyway, because they want
him to be available for pre-publicity for that.
So we'll have a month or so to tough things out, and then a few weeks five,
maybe six, when we can get the fuck out of Dodge.
He can probably even do his art week fucking thing at Gus' school. But with any
fucking luck, I'll be able to dodge the bullet on my stint. Or better yet, leave
Cynthia and Ted to deal with it.
Meanwhile
I grab him and lick at his lips, enjoying coffee and toast flavored Justin, as
he sucks my tongue into his mouth. It's developing into a very nice makeout
session when my
our son starts clamoring to be on the move and he pulls away.
"Sorry, Dad," the little twat says. "I have to go or Gus will be late for
school."
He's halfway to the front door when he turns with a grin. "Wanna meet up at my
studio for lunch?"
I grin back at him and give him a look, letting a little of what I'm thinking
show in my face. Enough for him to know that he'd better eat early because I'm
not planning on wasting our lunch date consuming food.
"Later," he laughs.
"Later," I echo.
"Come on,
Dus," Sonnyboy demands. "Bye, Daddy."
He consents to be delayed long enough to give his old man a farewell hug, then
Justin is swept out the door by a Gus shaped whirlwind and I head up to finish
dressing.
I am going to get on top of every single fucking thing that's going on at
Kinnetik today or kill every asshole there trying.
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