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Myrna
Part 8
My senior year of high school was perfect. I was captain of the baseball team
which fuckin' rocked, plus vice president of the senior class which is the most
awesome office to hold because it looked great on my college applications, but
all I had to do was, like, stay awake during the student council meetings twice
a month.
I was pretty sure I wanted to go pre-law which helped narrow down the list of
schools I was applying to. A couple ivy league schools were interested in my
playing ball for them, but let's face it, when Princeton and Brown want you on
a baseball scholarship you're too stupid to get in for real and not good enough
to play for a powerhouse. Fuck that. Besides, it's not like I was gonna play
pro ball or anything. I knew a handful of guys who'd graduated a year or two
earlier and gone on to play ball in college, and most of them hated it. You had
to treat it like a job, and you ended up missing all the good parties and shit,
and for what?
Ma graduated from Columbia, plus I'd made a few more trips to New York with
Justin by then and was thinking entertainment law might be a great field to
specialize in, especially considering I sort of had an in with Justin. My dad
could pull a few strings too, if it came to that, so Columbia seemed like the
right fit for me.
Best of all, my acceptance letter came in the middle of October! That meant I
had, like, a semester and a half to just coast!
Moog, Chewy, Fitz and I spent a ton of time at the loft, hanging by the pool
and entertaining. Dad and Justin left us alone; the fridge was always magically
stocked; and between the hot tub, the sauna and the pool, there was ample
opportunity to, uh, enjoy ourselves.
I didn't think Dad and Justin even noticed us all that much until I stopped by
late one night to pick up some stuff Mom and Ma needed for a party they were
throwing.
Out of habit, I came in down on the lower level and was surprised to realize
Dad and Justin were using the pool.
I feel like an idiot now, but at the time, it never occurred to me that I was
interrupting something intimate or anything. I mean, come on! Yeah, I know
they're always messing around, but I thought it was just to irritate Ma or
stick it in the face of a bunch of straight people, or just, kind of, putting
on a show because it made everyone roll their eyes and throw out insults and
stuff. I never thought they were messing around because they actually wanted to
mess around.
They were in the pool, Justin leaning against the wall and my dad in front of
him, kind of lightly pinning him there with an arm on either side of that wall.
There was a bottle of champagne by the side of the pool and two half-filled
flutes next to it and some olden-days jazz music playing on the sound system
which pissed me off. The last couple of times I had people over, Dad said the
sound system wasn't working. What a fuckin' liar!
The words didn't register at the time, but I heard them talking as I moved
closer.
"I can still fuck you all night long."
"Then quit talkin' about it, Mr. Kinney and get to it."
"You don't want me talking about how slick and tight and hot your
ho..."
"Aw, Jesus! You're naked!" I squawked when I was finally close enough
to see.
Dad and Justin both jumped a foot. "Jesus fucking Christ what the fuck are
you doing here?" my dad yelled. Justin's eyes were wide with shock, but a
second later he was laughing his ass off.
"I told you I was coming by some time to get those tables and chairs for
the moms' party."
"Twelve thirty on a Saturday night is not 'some time,'" my dad said.
"What the hell are you thinking?"
"My date lives over on Canterbury. I sure as hell didn't think you'd be
fucking around, that's for sure. Are you just gonna stand there naked?"
"Back the fuck away!" my dad said, climbing out of the pool and
making a show of really, really slowly wrapping a towel around his waist.
"What are you celebrating anyway?" I asked.
"An empty house," my dad said dryly "No fuckin' teenagers
running in one door and out the other, dripping all over my imported Italian
hard wood floors, blaring ungodly noises that couldn't under any circumstances
be mistaken for music, watering down my whiskey like I'm some fucking backwoods
suburbanite who never..."
"God, all right! Whatever." I followed him over to a storage closet
behind the bar. "Sorry for interrupting. I never thought you'd be
doing...well...that, or I would have..."
My dad stopped in his tracks and slowly turned around, his eyes narrowed?
"What?" he asked sharply.
"What what?"
"What did you just say?"
"I said I didn't think you two would be messing around or I would
have..."
"Why?" He sounded totally offended, like I'd just called him poor or
ordinary or something.
"Why what?"
"Why the fuck didn't you think we'd be fucking around? What the hell else
would we be doing?"
I shrugged at him. "How would I know? Anything?"
"Usually we just hold hands and make kissy faces at each other,"
Justin assured me from the pool. "And that only, like, once a week at
most. Shit, your dad's usually in bed asleep by 9:30 anyway, so how could I
even..."
"Shut the fuck up," my dad said. "I'm glaring at you, Asshole,
and I look fuckin' menacing."
"Really?" Justin said, as if Dad had just passed on some interesting
bit of trivia. "I probably look worried, like I'm afraid you might really,
really be mad at me. You know how I hate that so very much."
"Do you always fuck around in the pool?" I had to ask. "Because,
like, fuckin' gross, man."
My dad snorted at that. "Like you drain and sanitize it after you and
Susie Whoever are done?"
"Dad! God, shut up!"
"Please. You haven't screwed one yet who's remembered to take her pretty
little undies with her. I know they're not Justin's 'cause he likes the ones
with the pink roses on the front."
"Fuck you," Justin called, lounging against the side of the pool and
sipping his champagne. "Jesus, you two, I could find that shit quicker
than you. Move it."
"Well if someone had moved their crap out of the storage cabinet like they
said they would, it'd be going along at a faster clip," my dad said.
"Oh, right. Sorry. Need some help?"
"No!" I said quickly. "Just...keep your naked self right where
you are."
"How did Brian Kinney's son get to be so prudey?" Justin wonder aloud.
"He's not a prude, he's a hypocrite," my dad said. "When he's
getting' some it's all hunky dory, but when it's dear old dad, all of a sudden
it's..."
"Is it that you don't think I'm warped enough already? Is that why your
torture me?" I asked.
"I think you're warped enough," Justin said, sounding all hurt.
Dad carried a couple of tables toward the back door, while I wheeled out a cart
filled with folding chairs. As I walked by the pool, Dad shoved me, and I
almost fell in.
"Don't!" I said, laughing in spite of myself. "I don't want to
bathe in your orgy water."
"Shit, Brian," Justin said. "The boy's graduating from high
school and he thinks *this* is an orgy?"
"Where did I go wrong?" my dad moaned. "I know it wasn't that I
didn't set an example."
"Did we not read aloud to you enough?" Justin asked, feigning
terrible concern. "Do you think that's what it is?"
"All right!" I yelled from the door. "I'll call next time,
okay?! Jesus!"
My dad helped me load the tables and chairs into my car, then moseyed back
toward the door.
"Hey, Dad?" I said.
He was leaning against the doorway, arms crossed in a studied pose of
nonchalance. "Mm hmm?"
"If you ever want, like, some pointers or anything, just ask okay? 'Cause
that 'I'll fuck you all night long' shit is, like, totally lame, man."
My dad nodded slowly, then carefully studied his nails. He'd probably had a
manicure that morning. "Gus, because you're my son, I'm going to give you
'til the count of two to get your sorry ass out of here. Then I'm drowning you
in the orgy water."
"Later!" I said, and ran for the car.
Sometimes I think that if I hadn't had so much fun my senior year, maybe I
would have been more anxious for it all to be over so I could move on. I wasn't
in that much of a hurry.
There's something awesome about being so on top of your game, something about
that feeling that you can, like, totally go forth and conquer that is so
fucking great.
And there was other stuff, too. It just sort of happened that I ended up doing
a lot of stuff with Justin. Helping out and shit. Justin had an administrative
assistant and an attorney and an editor, and they did all the work stuff, but
even though my dad was always after him to hire a true personal assistant,
Justin refused. It wasn't even about being blind or anything. I mean, my dad
had assistants who did practically everything for him. Michael always joked
around that they probably wiped his ass after he took a shit, and Ma always
said the way Dad acted, you'd think they shit for him.
But Justin said he didn't need someone, especially because he had me. It's,
like, I knew when to give him a hand and when to lay off, and it was no big
deal or anything if he had to ask me to do something. I knew when to tell him
there were three steps coming up and when to just offer my arm. I knew when
people were staring because he was this blind guy walking around and I knew
when they were staring because he was 'Justin Taylor' walking around. I could
tell the difference between an excited fan who'd read Justin's books enough
times that they could quote favorite passages and a fucking psycho who thought
Justin was sending him secret messages in the pages of his books.
I just knew this stuff, and I was the only one who did.
And the more I thought about it, the more concerned I got about leaving. How
was Justin going to get around without me? What was he going to do?
And then one afternoon, we were at the mall and this guy came up, all out of
his mind because Winter Never Came was his most favorite book ever next to Almost
Summer. He wanted to know when Andrew Kent was going to realize his secretary
Hamish MacDaley was his One True Love and why did they have to put all that
promiscuity into the movies and wasn't it a little unrealistic for Ken
Wellstock to have purchased the automatic rifles from Caribbean gunrunners when
he was heading for Europe in just a few days anyway? The guy kept crowding in
closer and closer and if I hadn't been there, Justin would have taken a header
down the escalator with that fucking idiot shouting down plot suggestions as he
fell.
I decided then that it made more sense for me to go to Pitt, at least for a
year. That way, Justin would have time to hire someone to take my place, and I
would still be there to show them the ropes and everything.
But when I told Justin, he just kind of chuckled. "That's sweet of you,
Gus, but I'm okay."
I tried to reason with him, but then he just got stubborn and refused to even
talk about it.
"How are you going to go places?" I finally yelled. "Sarah won't
have a driver's license for another year and a half, and, I mean, God, she's an
idiot! She'll be putting on make up and end up plowing into a school bus or
something! And...and how are you going to go to the fucking store and...
and...Christ, you piss off dad, and he'll, like, just leave you somewhere,
and..." I stopped at the totally soupy look all over Justin's face.
"Fuck! Would you stop it! I just..."
"Awww, Gussy!" Justin said, and laughingly wrapped me in a bear hug.
"You're worried about your step-daddy, aren't you!"
"Get off me! Get off!" I said, which just made Justin laugh harder.
"Brian, your Sonny Boy loves me sooooo much!" Justin called to my dad
in the kitchen. "He's going to go to school in town just so he can drive
me to the grocery store and the stylist and Hector's office and..."
"Shut up! Let me go! God, you're nuts, you know that?" I finally got
Justin off of me, and I glared as he stood there smirking at me. "Fine!
See if I try to do anything nice ever again!"
My dad and Justin took turns giggling through dinner. There's no other fucking
word for it-they were fucking giggling.
"Just when I think this isn't the hugest lamest suck ass place in the
universe..." I muttered.
"What?" Justin asked.
"I remember this is the hugest lamest suck ass place in the
universe!"
That just made Dad and Justin laugh more.
"After I leave for school, I'm never coming home again, you know that,
right?" I said. Dad had left to make calls or check his vid mail so Justin
and I were cleaning up. "Maybe a post card at national holidays, but other
than that, I'm out of here."
Justin just laughed easily. "Then your dad will only dole out tuition
checks in person. You'll have to demand an audience with his royal highness to
get your pittance."
"I'll find a part-time job," I said with a careless shrug.
"Right, right. And save money by buying all your clothes at the Big Q. I
know how that works."
"I'm not going to become some caveman, J," I said haughtily, and we
both started laughing. "Shit, can you imagine Dad's face if I came back
dressed in some fine Big Q ensam. And told him that designer labels were just a
way for the rich and powerful to oppress those less fortunate through the
reinforcement of negative self-esteem."
"He'd sue the university for ruining you beyond repair!" Justin wiped
his hands on a dishrag and tossed it on the counter, then turned around and
leaned against the sink. His head was cocked a little to the side, listening.
It was his version of an assessing stare.
I sighed finally. "What?" I said.
He smiled and briefly shook his head. "Nothing," he said.
"Just...you're gonna do fine at school. You're gonna do great. You're
smart as hell; ambitious, hardworking. Everything it takes to succeed."
"Jeez, whatever," I said.
Since Justin wouldn't listen to reason, I thought maybe I could at least remind
my dad of how you have to do stuff. He was in his study reading the proofs of
Justin's latest book. He had his red marker out, which meant this was his
second or third read-through.
"Dad?"
"Mm."
"Okay, so, if you're driving Justin to Hector's, you know how there's an
entrance to the office on Hibbert and Croft??
"Mm hm."
"Well, all these trucks are always stopped unloading stuff on the Croft
side of the street. Like Fed Ex and the mail and stuff, you know?"
I stopped talking, and it was like a full minute before Dad said,
"Mm."
"Dad!"
"What, I'm listening!"
"You can't just stop the car on the corner, all right? You've got to pull
around into the parking garage, by the elevator door. But if you've already
gone in the parking garage, you might as well get out and walk Justin to the
elevator, right?"
"Gus?" He said my name slowly. Almost...dangerously.
"What?"
"Are you instructing me in how to drop Justin off for an
appointment?"
"Dad would you just pay attention!" I said.
"Oh, even better, you're going to whine me my marching orders. How
lovely."
He was like that every time I tried to tell him the littlest thing, so finally
I just let it go. I let go talking about it with him, I mean. I couldn't stop
worrying about what was going to happen without me there to take care of shit.
It wasn't just Justin-there was tons of stuff at home that Mom and Ma had no
idea how to do, and it's not like Gran and Gramps could do their own yard work,
and leaving Sarah to deal with Ben and Michael by herself just seemed mean.
Maybe I zeroed in on Justin because, being blind, he seemed the most
vulnerable. Maybe it was some residual guilt about being shitty to him when I
was younger. Who knows. I just knew I had to somehow make sure his back was
covered.
One afternoon after school, I met Dad at his office. He made a big deal about
showing me around and introducing me to some people. Justin didn't like it much
when we went to his editor's office, and they made a fuss over him. My dad
expected a big deal to be made over him, especially at his own company.
Everybody was all "Mr. Kinney this" and "Mr. Kinney that."
I think I'm more in the big deal camp myself. Everyone was running around
getting me something to drink and a candy bar and telling me how great I was.
Nothing wrong with that if you ask me.
I roamed around my dad's office while he made a bunch of phone calls about
buying some company that makes something that has to do with the software that
runs his virtual lounges. I didn't understand most of what they were talking
about, but it was totally cool to hear him throwing around millions of dollars
like they were nickels and dimes.
"So, like, how come you and Justin never got married?" I asked as he
was hanging up on some banker guy.
Dad sat back in his chair staring at me like I was an alien. Finally he leaned
forward, offering me his hand. "I'm Brian Kinney," he said. "I
don't believe we've met."
I sighed and pushed his hand away. "Well, what would happen if you split
up?"
My dad gave me this look of exaggerated concern. "Why, have you heard
something?"
"I'm just asking what would happen. Where would Justin live? How would
he...
"This is fucking unbelievable. So what is this, you're asking me what my
intentions are toward the fair-haired boy, is that it?"
"Can't you just tell me what would happen?"
"Well clearly he'd be too devastated to get out of bed, so it wouldn't
matter where he lived so long as there was a bedroom."
"Be serious for a minute! Why don't you have more permanent stuff between
you? Why make it so you can just walk away and leave him with, like,
nothing?"
"Jesus Christ!" my dad said. "Is Justin getting this third
degree shit? What about poor, old heartbroken Dad, huh? Are you worried about
me at all? What if I start putting on weight or crying over your moms' cheesy
vids? Who's worried about that?"
"You just called yourself old!" I pointed out.
Dad just gave me this look and started packing up his brief case. "Let's
go," he said, shaking his head at me.
We'd been driving for a few minutes in silence when he cleared his throat and
said, "I'm going to tell you something, and you are just going to nod your
head, all right? We're not going to talk about it, and you're never going to mention
it again."
I rolled my eyes at him and nodded.
"I'm not going to bail on Justin," he said. "That's not the way
it works with us. So would you quit this bug up your ass about my leaving him
begging with a tin cup on some fucking street corner?"
"Dad, I just..."
"Shut up. One more thing, and I am fucking serious about this. Not a
fucking word ever again, all right?"
I nodded, but it was a minute or two before my dad finally spoke. "Okay,
so, here it is. In a mediocre year, when he doesn't have much going on, Justin
could buy and sell my ass twice over, all right? That's a mediocre year for
him. I am not supporting Justin. He does not need me to put food on his table
or a roof over his head. Justin is not with me because he needs some fucking
sugar daddy taking care of him. He's with me because I am, without question,
the most amazing fuck..."
"Dad! God! Shut up!"
"What? If you're gonna waste all this time and effort fretting over who's
going to take care of poor little Justin if you're not around, you better get
your facts straight."
"You know what's amazing? That I can function in society, that's what. You
are so off your rocker..."
Dad just chuckled as we continued home. "You're nervous about leaving
home, that's normal. Columbia is going to challenge you a lot more than high
school ever did. You're right to think about that, but you've got to stop
inventing a bunch of shit as an excuse not to face that challenge, all
right?"
I sighed, but didn't say anything, but my dad grabbed the back of my neck and
shook me a little. "All right?" he said again.
"All right!" I said.
"And if you are gonna invent shit, would you kindly invent something that
doesn't cast me as some fuckin' loser villain of the piece?"
I just sighed and looked out the window while he muttered the rest of the way
home. "Fucking 20 years, I'm the one putting up with all the shit, but do
I get any credit for that? Of course not. You spend one or two years fuckin' a
few hundred men without dinner and a movie first, and you end up with some
fucking reputation..."
"Dad! God! Shut up!"