Marc

It was one of the oldest safe houses in Boston. Marc, the director, a balding man in his early sixties with a bit of a paunch, had founded it... when? Had it been twenty years already? How time flew! He’d made it his life.

Funny that Jay Franklin should have called just then. He’d been thinking of him. The new kid, Galen, reminded him of him, and Jay was one of their success stories. He’d first come to the home so guilt-ridden and wounded he wouldn’t even talk about sex, which of course was the other kids’ favorite topic of conversation, both as an affirmation of the sexuality they’d so long repressed and because at that age one’s hormones are in control. Not so Jay. He’d hide his body from the others when he changed into his pajamas and panic if anyone touched him. The other kids understood that and respected his space – they’d gone through similar experiences – but when it came to sex talk they were irrepressible.

In the beginning Marc kept a close watch on Jay, thinking he might try to kill himself, and when he finally learned what he’d gone through he marveled that he’d survived at all. Marc was still uncertain about him when he turned eighteen and left the home, though the boy had made a lot of progress. He wondered what would become of him, if he would ever find fulfillment in a loving relationship with another man. Then, a few years later, Jay came back to show off his partner, a beautiful African-American from Georgia. They were still together, living openly as a gay couple in a smaller Southern city, proud of who they were and unafraid to stand up to the ingrained homophobia of the surrounding community.

Jay had called on business. The woman next door had died and – quite unexpectedly – left her house to be used as a shelter for runaway gay teenagers, naming Jay and his partner as the people who should make the arrangements. Jay thought the house too small and its location in the middle of a residential neighborhood unsuitable, but it could be sold and the proceeds used to purchase another. While he and Baron would gladly volunteer to help with the boys once it opened, neither had the time or expertise to set something like that up. They’d been discussing the possibilities, and Jay had had the idea of calling Marc for suggestions and contacts that might come in handy.

Marc directed him to a couple of organizations in Atlanta.

“There’s something else,” Jay said. “The woman’s daughter is contesting the will. She made quite a scene in the lawyer’s office when it was read. She even went so far as to make the counter-suggestion of donating it to ‘a Christian group that cures those youngsters’. Her very words.”

“I doubt she’ll prevail, but you should get a lawyer right away. Have you called Lambda?”

“It’s the first thing we did, but I thought I’d get your recommendations as well.”

“I’ll give it some thought.”

Marc remembered all the work it had taken to set up his safe house. In those days only a handful existed in cities widely scattered around the country, and he’d just about despaired of getting it done, despite his experience and determination.

He was in Holy Orders then, Brother Marc, assigned by his abbot to work in their shelter for troubled and runaway teenagers. It surprised him how many of them were gay and how brutally the other kids picked on them. He became convinced they needed a home just for them, and not one run by the Church. Lectures on sin and pressuring them to lead celibate lives did more harm than good.

It also led him to confront his sexuality for the first time in his life. Until then he had lived chaste and tormented by his desires. He recognized his own frustrations and incompleteness in the struggles of his gay charges. He left the monastery and went into psychotherapy to prepare himself for what he now knew to be his true calling. He couldn’t help them until he’d dealt with his own problems, which meant exploring gay sexuality as well as his psyche.

He then faced the problem of financing his project, getting it accepted by the authorities, locating a suitable house, finding professional counselors willing to volunteer their time, hiring a cook, handymen, reliable monitors, and all that. He started out on a shoestring budget and could only take in boys where there was clear evidence of physical or sexual abuse in the family or whose parents had disowned them, plus one or two from orphanages eager to hand over their homosexual charges, whose presence only caused trouble. It took years before Child Protection would admit he was doing vital work.

He never regretted his decision to make the safe house independent of the Church. He still believed, but he’d grown away from religion and didn’t miss it. They had refused to support the project and the Bishop had actively campaigned against it, though some of his former confreres in the monastery had helped “unofficially” and the connections he’d made while still a monk had proved invaluable. Later, when so many instances of sexual abuse on the part of the clergy came to light, he was glad he hadn’t involved the Church and that his project remained untainted by suspicion. Until he heard some of the boys’ stories about what priests had done to them, he hadn’t known it was going on. It was, in fact, partly his passing the information on to the police – out of spite, according to the Bishop – that brought the scandal to public attention. Marc sometimes asked himself how Brother Marc could have been so naïve. Or had he, like so many others, simply closed his eyes to it?

Now the idea of safe houses had caught on, and more and more resources were becoming available to gay youth, such as the opportunity Jay had called him about. He wanted to share his excitement with someone, and immediately thought of Ed Blacknoll, another of his success stories, who came once a week to lead a group session and play basketball with the boys. But Ed wouldn’t be in this Friday or the next. He was on his honeymoon.

Ed

Ed and Cameron returned to Boston Sunday night after two weeks in Vermont. They’d spent the first week at a resort on Lake Champlain, where they hiked the Green Mountains, and another week driving home, staying at campgrounds and stopping at pottery studios, glass blowers, and hand-made furniture outlets. They’d picked up a large wheel of Colby cheese, and a maple carving board, the first household item they bought as a married couple.

Monday morning Ed’s colleagues and the staff at the clinic welcomed him back and congratulated him on his marriage, all very low key. It would have been tacky of professional psychologists to tease him about it.

Not so on Friday. After finishing his degree, he’d returned to work one day a week as a volunteer counselor at Pride House, the shelter that had taken him in. He found the place decorated in his honor, champagne corks popping, the congratulations effusive. Marc, the director, warned him about the boys in group. “Prepare yourself for a ribbing. They’re excited and happy for you, and you know how they jump at the chance to make a bawdy crack. Relieves the tension.”

That he blushed with pleasure at the card and flowers they’d chipped in for provided the opening they needed. “Look, he’s blushing! – All wore out from the honeymoon, I bet. – Hey, Ed! Does it hurt as much as they say when you lose your virginity?”

In a sense they were right. Marriage had made a difference; after over five years of living together their honeymoon intimacies had felt like a new beginning. The kids were irrepressible, forgot about their own problems for an hour, and spent the whole session on him. He evaded the overly personal questions, while giving them a glimpse into a loving, stable gay relationship that would make their future seem less bleak. It was no secret he’d been in the same boat when he was a kid.

The director asked him over lunch, “Do you remember Jay Franklin?”

“I’ve heard the name, of course. One of your success stories...”

“Like you.”

“Like me. But I never knew the kid personally. He arrived after I graduated high school, and by the time I got back he’d already turned eighteen and left. Why do you ask?”

“He called us about the time you left on your trip.”

“It’s nice when they keep in touch, isn’t it?”

“I’ll say, and Jay especially. I’ve never seen a kid as fragile as he was when he first came to us. I wondered if he’d ever heal.”

“Traumatized, eh?”

“Many times over. It took weeks before he’d open up to me, and when he did... But we won’t go into that.”

“Of course not; I know you don’t betray confidences. How’s he doing?”

“Good, I assume. Still with the same partner. That’s longer than you and Cameron. But he called about something else.”

Marc explained how one of Jay’s neighbors had passed away and left her house for him and his partner to turn into a home for gay teenagers. Her daughter was contesting the will, and they were afraid a small town Southern judge would rule against them.

“He needs a lawyer? Why not go directly to Lambda?”

“Because he values my opinion. If it weren’t for us, he says, he’d be dead now.”

“Me too.”

Yes, he thought, he and Jay had survived; but how long had they been on the streets? A couple of weeks? Cameron, his longtime partner and now his husband, was a born survivor. He’d lived there for years, when he wasn’t in reform school for hustling or vagrancy or petty theft, where the toughs would bully him, beat him, rape him. The cops knew him as Cory Smith. They’d release him to a foster home since they couldn’t locate his parents, he’d run away, take another name, and the cycle would start all over. After he turned eighteen he somehow managed to stay out of trouble, and in his mid-twenties he pulled himself together, moved north, and became Cameron again. Fortunately, he’d committed all his offenses as a juvenile, and since his record was sealed he was able to go from junior college into law school. He could be raking it in right now, but he’d chosen to work for Lambda Legal, taking cases pro bono and earning a risible salary.

“He mostly wanted advice on setting up a safe home,” Marc was saying. “They might have to sell and get another. Zoning regulations. Are you listening?”

“Yeah, I’m listening. Any idea what the house is worth?

“At least 75 thou, he estimates.”

“Not bad, but they’ll need more than a house. Getting it set up for the kids will cost a bundle.”

“Another reason he called – to help him raise money.”

“So what do you intend to do?”

“I called Lambda to ask if they could recommend a lawyer in Georgia.”

“Cameron’s from Georgia.”

“I didn’t know that. I guess I noticed a bit of an accent, but I never thought about it. Hey, do you think we should ask Cameron, him being from Georgia and all?”

“No way.”

“I’ll give him a call anyway.”

“Good luck. He swore he’d never set foot in the South again.”

That much was true. Cameron had put that part of his life behind him, wouldn’t talk about it. Even Ed didn’t know much of what had happened to him. Funny thing – initially it was his longing for a father figure that attracted him to a man nearly ten years his senior, but when they got married Cameron had taken his last name and become Cameron Blacknoll. He hated his childhood that much.

* * *

Ed intended to stick to the kids’ problems during the afternoon one-on-one sessions, but the business with the will had brought back memories of his stay at the shelter, and he easily fell to reminiscing. Much had changed since then. They handled more kids now, placing some in foster homes once they were over the worst of their depression. They’d come back for group sessions and counseling once a week, more often for recreational activities. Ten years ago the State would never have placed a kid with a gay or lesbian couple, and finding a heterosexual couple, especially one with children, who’d take in a gay teenager was a lost cause. For him it had been little more than a safe home, a place to come back to after school and his afternoon job, with minimal counseling and not much socializing.

Face-to-face, several boys again raised the subject of his marriage, but with a different tone. They challenged him on it, said “it just seemed wrong”. In other words, they felt tainted. Behind their ribbing that morning lay the all-too-familiar lingering self-hatred. “It’s hard to accept yourself when your family rejects you,” he reflected. “Self-worth comes with love.”

Cameron

Having spent most of the day talking up his relationship with Cameron, whether to satisfy the kids’ curiosity or respond to their doubts, Ed left work elated and more than a little horny. One look at Cameron deflated him. He was visibly shaken, his face haggard and white as ash.

“Cameron! – Mr. Blacknoll – you look awful. What is it? Has something happened, baby?”

Cameron smiled. “It’s nothing, Mr. Edward Blacknoll.” His smile faded. “Yes, you’re right. Something’s upset me. I have to go back to Georgia. Will you come with me?”

“So Marc called after all. Sure, if that’s what you want. To see to that old woman’s will?”

“You heard about that?”

“Marc told me about it. You sure you’re up to it? Look how it’s affecting you.”

“I have to go. I won’t be handling the case since I’m not licensed to practice law in Georgia, but I still have to go. Don’t worry, I’ll be OK. I just don’t think I can face those people alone.”

“What people?”

“The people in Macon. That’s where I grew up.”

“As if anyone will remember you! It should be easy enough steering clear of your parents, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

“No chance of running into them. They’re both dead now.”

“I didn’t know you kept track.”

“I didn’t keep track. I just know.”

“So, is the case all that difficult?”

“Hell, no. With me there we’ll win in five minutes flat, and then we’ll come straight home. They don’t have a leg to stand on.”

Cameron wasn’t making sense. He wouldn’t be representing Jay, but he had to go and he’d win the case for him. Ed could see something was upsetting him, but he didn’t dare press him on it. He’d find out soon enough. “On what grounds are they contesting it?” he asked.

“That she’d become senile. That Jay and his partner talked her into something against her principles. That everything she owned she’d inherited from her husband, and he’d turn over in his grave if it were used that way, which is right enough.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because I know what people are like down there. I was the local faggot, remember? Can we leave tomorrow, or do you need time to reschedule your appointments?”

“Don’t worry about my appointments. I’ll phone the secretary at home.”

“Then I’ll book us a flight. I’ve already called Jay Franklin, one of the guys she left the house to, and he says they have a spare room where they could put us up.”

“Why impose on them? We can stay at a hotel.”

“I’m going to need all the moral support I can get.”

“Look, if it’s going to be that hard on you, why don’t you just refuse? Surely they can find someone else to send if the case is that easy.”

“You’re not listening. I have to go. I could wrap it up in five minutes.”

“I am too listening. It’s you who aren’t making sense. I’m trying to be supportive, but how can I be when you’re holding something back?”

“I’m sorry. You’re very supportive. I just can’t bring myself to talk about the things that happened to me then. I want to, but I can’t.”

“Just blurt it out.”

“Not now. Later, when I’ve calmed down.”

* * *

For the rest of the evening Cameron kept his emotional distance, so it surprised Ed when he snuggled up to him as soon as they were in bed. Though Cameron usually took the dominant role, he made it clear by his movements that he wanted Ed to penetrate him that night. Lying underneath him, he pulled Ed’s arms around him and hung on to them. He sucked on his fingers, pushing back into him and whimpering, “Make love to me, Ed. Fuck me hard and long.”

When he rolled off him, they lay panting for five minutes or so till Cameron again set about caressing him, nuzzling him, running his fingers up and down his body. Then he put his hand on his penis and said, “Let’s do it again.”

Startled, Ed looked at his lover. “Now? So soon?” he asked dubiously. “Didn’t I satisfy you?”

“It was wonderful. You were wonderful. But I need you in me.” He sounded not so much aroused as desperate. “I feel safe with you pressing down on me, covering me, holding me in place. Do you think you can get it up if I go down on you?”

“This is about that Georgia thing, isn’t it? That’s what has you so upset. Really, Cameron, I don’t think you should go.”

Cameron sat up in bed. He spoke nervously, without looking at him. “I didn’t want to, but they kept insisting, so I said I’d think about it, and they made me jot down Jay’s address and phone number. It was the address that decided me.”

“What about it?”

“It’s right next door to where I grew up.”

“Jesus! But that doesn’t necessarily mean... I mean, how can you be sure they didn’t sell the house long ago?”

“No, it’s my mom’s will. I knew it couldn’t just be a coincidence, so I asked for her name. And the woman fighting it must be my little sister, Livvie.”

Ed put his arms around him and held on tight. Cameron was trembling and had broken out in a cold sweat.

“That’s why she’s leaving us the house. Because they threw me out of it. Maybe she’s been looking for me all along. I should have tried to contact her.”

“Don’t start blaming yourself. You did nothing wrong.” Like the kids that afternoon – the hurt never goes away.

“I’m so scared, Ed, just like the day they threw me out.”

Ed had lived through the same trauma. Just remembering it was enough for the panicked child to rise up inside him, and with him the guilt, the feeling it was he who had betrayed them.

“I’ll be there with you,” he said.

Liv

Liv poured herself a tall glass of lemonade, her third that morning. She’d forgotten how hot Macon could get in summer. Unless the heat affected adults more. The kids didn’t seem to mind as much, playing out in the back yard. “Hotter’n hell, and a helluva lot less comfortable,” Daddy used to say. “Thank God for cold beer!” Of course she remembered about the heat; only her body had forgotten how it felt. Had July always been this hot? Maybe those activists were right about global warming.

She looked out the kitchen window to check on them before returning to the pile of half-packed boxes in the living room. She saw that one of those men next door, the white man, had come out to work in the garden. No harm in that other than his apparel – a tank top and one of those skimpy Speedos men like him liked to wear. He wasn’t paying them any attention, and they’d been warned not to talk to those neighbors. That black cat of her mother’s, the one she called Ronnie, lay curled up in the sun. How fitting that that cat had attached itself to them!

The thump-thump of Li’l Eric’s ball on the back of the house blended in with the familiar sounds of a Macon summer – beside the flies and the whirring of the ceiling fans, absolute quiet in the street outside on a scorching day. What other physical memories had stayed with her? The sour odor of beer on Daddy’s breath and the sweat sticking to his body when he’d hug her close. “You like the feel of a strong man’s arms, doncha Princess? Nothin’ queer about you!” Her brother, Ronnie. No one ever mentioned his name. Had Daddy been that attentive when he was around? She only remembered wishing for a brother or sister to share in those hugs.

Now she was sweating like Daddy. Why hadn’t Mama put in central air like those men next door? It wouldn’t have surprised her to learn it was the heat that killed her. She’d refused an autopsy when the police called, out of consideration for the doctor who’d have to perform it. She’d been dead for a week when they found her... and in this heat!

The heat. She’d have visited more often after Daddy died except for that. Only their summers were free since the twins started school. Christmas was for Eric’s family – dozens of people from all over the country, while in Macon there were only Daddy and Mama, and Eric loathed Daddy, loathed him from the very first, even before he got drunk at their wedding. “Thank God for cold beer.”

They’d come home to ask permission to marry. She wasn’t quite eighteen yet. She’d gone to Atlanta with a girlfriend to take some secretarial courses so she could land a decent job, and never really came back. She signed up for a course on investments, thinking it would come in handy, but it turned out to be corporate investments – not much use. The instructor, though, was a young man out to earn a little money on the side while he finished up his MBA. Eric – so smart, so worldly. A few weeks into the course she found herself shacked up with him. Then, towards the end of the semester he was offered a good job in Idaho. She figured she’d never see him again. She never expected him to propose. So they went to Macon and he met her father.

Now she was back home, after all this time. At a hotel, rather. Who owned the house was up in the air; she was only allowed in to pack up the contents. That much Mama had left her, though she couldn’t sell them off yet.

She remembered her surprise at seeing those two men, Mama’s neighbors, there when Evan Marker read them the will. He said they’d helped her with the house after Daddy died. She thought maybe she’d left them a token something to thank them. Some token – the whole damn house, and to turn into a home for queers! What had gotten into Mama? It was like a slap in the face. She nearly sank through the floor.

She’d left the office fuming, but Eric shrugged it off. The house was peanuts, he’d said. He’d even laughed.

“What’s so funny?” she asked. “People like that make me sick. You suddenly approve of homosexuals?”

“Are you kidding? You know what I think. I just wonder what made her come up with that one. Gay teenagers – what a kick in the balls to that redneck father of yours! Alma finally had the guts to spit in his face. Can’t you appreciate the irony of it all?”

“No, I can’t. What does Daddy have to do with it anyway? It’s not your name that’ll be dragged through the mud if this house thing is upheld. The local papers will have a field day.” And all the time she was thinking: “They’ll dredge up Ronnie.” Eric only knew that she’d had an older brother who died when she was four.

“What the hell? You’ll be far away.”

“I mean to contest it. You won’t stand in my way, will you?”

“Do as you like, but things like that drag on forever.”

“I’m not budging till it’s settled.”

“What about your job?”

“I’ll get another.” Eric was the big earner.

“Then you’ll have to stay without me. I’m not hanging around here.”

They’d had the same argument two or three times before he left and since then had thrashed it out over the phone more than once. She’d never known him to be so stubborn. At least he’d promised to come back for the hearing.

In the meantime she was alone. Those men gave her the creeps. In spite of that, she dragged out the packing, coming over for a couple of hours every day to check on the house. Her house. She couldn’t live there, but she had to pay the electric bills if she wanted cold drinks in the refrigerator.

She went back to her packing.

Li’l Eric

The lemonade was almost gone; she’d been gulping it. Had she been this thirsty as a child? Probably. The kids kept coming in to ask for something cold to drink. Bet they’d be wanting more any minute now. What were they up to? It had been a while since she heard Li’l Eric’s ball. She started back to the window to see what was up.

She wasn’t really worried. Eric was right about those men – they did keep to themselves. Liv picked the vegetables now, though she couldn’t use most of them and they were piling up in the fridge, and the weeds had started to take over. Those men might not come into the yard, but it would still be irresponsible not to keep an eye on the kids with people like them living next door. She wasn’t too concerned for the twins. They were older and always together. One of them wouldn’t go off on her own. Also, they learned about not trusting strangers in school nowadays, and girls were naturally more obedient than boys. Li’l Eric, now, had only done first grade. No telling what he might do. An overly sensitive child – sometimes willful, sometimes timid and fearful. And besides... She’d wished his sisters would include him in their games. She didn’t feel comfortable with him playing alone.

The boy had evidently mastered bouncing his ball against the wall to his satisfaction. Either that, or he got bored doing it, because now he was throwing it as high as he could and trying to catch it. She smiled. He missed every time. He needed his father; Eric would have played catch with him, taught him, if he were here. He’d have said something to that man too, told him to put on a pair of shorts. Perhaps she ought to say something herself. No, better not to acknowledge him; he might think she was ogling him.

The sweat glistened on his body. He’d taken off his tank top and was standing in the middle of his yard, swigging down his pretentious bottled water with his head thrown back and his shock of straight blond hair hanging loose – and wearing next to nothing, no doubt to show off that indecent bulge of his. Did he have to make a display of being thirsty? People like that had become shameless, making a spectacle of themselves, flaunting their gayness as if it were something to be proud of!

As she was turning away from the window, she saw the ball go over the fence. She was about to tell Li’l Eric not to touch the allamanda – she’d warned the children several times already, but kids forget these things when there’s a ball involved. The man noticed it too. He walked over, picked it up, and tossed it back to Li’l Eric, who fumbled it and had to run after it. The man smiled and said something. Liv flew to the door.

“What did you just say to my son?”

“Not much. I just said, ‘You’re welcome.’” He must have thought her a mother hen.

“He remembered to thank you, then. That’s good.”

“Not exactly. I said it as a reminder. He wasn’t rude, really. I think your children are afraid of me, you know.”

“It’s safer when kids are a little distrustful of people they don’t know. We’ve told them to keep their distance. That’s all.”

The man frowned. “Don’t you think it would be better not to involve your children in this unpleasantness about the house?” As if it were any of his business how she brought up her children!

He must have caught on as soon as he said it, because a look of anger flashed across his face and his body stiffened. Liv was prepared to stare him down, but he simply turned his back on her and walked away. “And I’ll thank you not to walk around like that when my children are here,” she called out after him. “I don’t want them staring at you.”

He ignored her. His rudeness rankled. She almost wished he had answered her back so she could give him a piece of her mind. On the other hand, if they got into an argument there was no telling what he might say, and in front of the children too! She’d said too much already. The girls had paid them no attention, absorbed in their game; the boy had taken it all in. It made her nervous. Such an observant child, always wide-eyed, always watching.

“Come inside, sweetie,” she said. “We can play a card game. Mommy needs a break.”

He followed her into the house.

“My, but I’m parched! I think I’ll have a glass of cold lemonade. How about you, sweetie? Would you like one too?”

He nodded.

“It’s all right to thank people if they do something for you,” she said while she filled their glasses. “That isn’t what we meant by not talking to them. We just don’t want you having a conversation with them. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Mommy.” He hesitated. “Mommy?”

“What is it, sweetie?”

“The man, the one who threw me the ball... I think his name is Jay.”

“How do you know that?”

Li’l Eric looked alarmed. “I heard the other man call him that,” he explained.

She must have spoken curtly, with an edge to her voice. “It’s not nice listening in on other people’s conversations,” she said gently.

“I wasn’t trying to listen. They were talking loud.”

“Just keep away from them, OK? Pretend they’re not there. Let’s forget about it now. It isn’t important.” She handed him the lemonade. “That’s a very full glass I gave you. You be very careful carrying it into the living room, OK? I’ll go get the cards. You see what I meant about them not being nice people?”

Li’l Eric nodded gravely, but Liv could tell he had no idea what she was talking about.

Jay

Jay heard a car pull up in front of the house. That would be Baron back from the airport with Ed and Cameron. Ed had called to say that they should take the pro bono lawyer Lambda had found them; Cameron would not be representing them. For one, he had no background in Georgia state law. But they’d come down anyway, and they should put off meeting with the lawyer until they got there. They’d explain why when they saw them.

Jay was curious to hear what they would say. It sounded so mysterious. He also looked forward to meeting Ed, who’d graduated from the same safe house that had taken him in and now did volunteer work there.

As for Ed, he tried to imagine the frightened, traumatized teenager Marc had described in this slender, blond young man who seemed so relaxed and outgoing, bubbly almost, his eyes so full of love for his partner. Baron, on the other hand, a dark-skinned, solidly built man with broad shoulders who towered over them all, was serious and soft spoken, the kind of man, Ed thought, who likes to get down to business.

“Let me show you your room,” he said, “then I’ll give you a run-down of where we stand. Or would you like to unpack and rest up a bit first? We have our work cut out for us, that much I’ll tell you.”

“Do we ever!” Jay exclaimed. “That woman! She’s so rude!”

“Who?” Cameron asked.

“Next door – Alma’s daughter.”

“She’s living there?” He sounded stunned, and turned pale.

“No. She’s over all day, every day, cleaning the place and packing it up.”

The man turned to his friend. “We can’t live here, Ed. Let’s get a hotel.”

“But why?” Baron asked. “You’re more than welcome to stay here.”

“Let’s sit down,” Cameron said, and he told them his story.

* * *

Baron called and reserved them a suite in a hotel near the center of town. The four of them drove there together and had lunch in a restaurant. They arranged to meet their lawyer at a café the next morning and go from there to Evan Marker’s office, where Liv and her lawyer would be waiting for them.

Jay stayed home from the meeting. He’d turned the legal side over to Baron, finding it all too painful to cope with. Liv’s opposition to using her mother’s old house as a safe home made his blood boil. He owed his survival to one of those shelters.

It must be the same for Cameron, only more difficult, and at the same time, thrilling. As bad as he’d had it, Cameron had been through worse than him, living on the streets for years, stealing and turning tricks. He couldn’t have managed it.

He spent the morning standing in front of the window, looking out, wondering how it would go. Well, no doubt. Mrs. Redding might simply cave in and give up. Maybe finding her brother would get her to question her homophobia.

Alma’s legacy now made perfect sense. What guilt and sorrow she must have lived with all those years, and how tragic she hadn’t lived to be reunited with her son! But perhaps she was better off not knowing what he’d gone through. Did his parents feel the same, if they were still alive? Not at all likely, and he was an only child, no brothers or sisters to reunite with.

His mother had found him sucking a friend off in the garage when he was fourteen. She’d dragged him to his room by the hair, cursing him and screaming like a banshee. The last words she ever spoke to him were “I’m going to leave this to your father.”

She did. Jay remembered the sound of his steps coming up to his room; he could see him standing in the doorway. Sometimes he had nightmares about it and woke up in a cold sweat, his body aching from the blows. He’d go to the mirror to see if the livid welts still covered him. But no; it was all in his imagination.

In the middle of the night he took what he’d saved up out of his allowance and climbed out the window with the idea of hitching to Boston from their small town in western Massachusetts. The cops picked him up almost immediately and drove him back home, though he showed them the welts and bruises from his father’s beating. “You won’t be able to make peace with them if you run away,” one of them had said.

But his parents refused to have anything to do with “that filthy faggot”, and the police had to take him down to the station for the night before handing him over to Child Protection in the morning. When the officer in charge of watching him went to get him something to eat, Jay slipped out the door. He hid in the alley. They passed within a few feet of him without seeing him. He made it as far as the woods, spent the whole day there, then went to the road to start hitching as soon as it was dark. He was terrified that any approaching headlights would turn out to be a police car.

A man picked him up, brought him to a motel and raped him twice, Jay’s first experience with anal sex. When he woke up, the man had left. He didn’t know if he’d paid for the room. If not, the motel owner would call the cops. He sneaked out, walked to the nearest town, and took a chance, using his money for bus fare to Boston. He arrived with less than ten dollars in his pocket. A street kid directed him to Marc’s shelter a week later.

He never had sex again until he met Baron. He couldn’t even bear to listen to people talk about it. Baron had opened him up, physically and emotionally, to love.

They’d been friends for about a month when Baron came out to him.

“I am too,” Jay whispered. He still had trouble saying the words.

“That’s marvelous! Now if we fell in love we wouldn’t worry that sex was the only connection between us.”

Jay hedged, and from then on drew back from any contact that seemed remotely physical. Baron thought that his race was an issue, though nothing had stood in the way of their quickly becoming close friends.

Then one night when Jay had drunk a little more wine than usual, he found himself in bed with him. He thought “No” as Baron led him to the bedroom, but the word didn’t come to his lips. He thought “No” as Baron slowly unbuttoned his shirt and unzipped his pants, and he trembled with fear – of his own nakedness, not of Baron.

Then his kisses, everywhere, and the agonizing temptation of a man’s hardness pressing on his leg, larger than he thought possible... and then Baron’s mouth around his penis. Jay’s hands reached down of their own accord, and he felt the short, tight wool of his scalp and skin sleeker than satin.

Baron bent his knee up against his stomach and was licking every inch of his groin. Then he pivoted him on the extended leg, and before Jay knew it, he’d slipped on a condom and entered him. It didn’t hurt. He received in joy what he had longed for.

After he ejaculated, Baron asked if he wanted to take him too. But Jay was soft now, and the sheet beneath him was sticky with his semen.

* * *

He heard the door open and Baron come into the living room, but he didn’t budge from the window. Baron came up behind him, put his arms around him and kissed his neck. Jay pressed back against him.

“Horny?” Baron asked. “Do you want to make love?”

“Not now. First tell me how it went.”

Magda Caille

Meeting his sister had been very unpleasant, but not as traumatic as Cameron had feared. As he’d expected, one would scarcely have called it a reunion. Had their mother left her money to any other charity, Liv would not have contested the will. She eyed them with distrust in the lawyer’s office, and when she’d got over the shock of finding out who they were, with disgust.

For if anyone found the brief meeting traumatic, it was Liv. When she got to Marker’s office and saw three people there with Baron, she thought, “They’ve hired a whole team of lawyers!” She hadn’t expected three. Mr. Worthy had told her that someone called Magda Caille, from Lambda, would be representing them.

She had to be told what Lambda was. “A lesbian,” she said, making a face.

“Not necessarily. I’ve no idea what her sexual orientation is. I only know her professionally, and I can assure you that she’s top-notch.”

“Why else would she work for them?”

“Because someone in her family is homosexual. Because she has homosexual friends. Because she believes in equal rights for everyone, whatever their sexual orientation.”

“They have all the same rights we do,” Liv had commented. Seeing her now, though, a petite woman with curly blonde hair and wearing a very feminine skirt and blouse, she thought he might be right. This Ms. Caille didn’t look like her idea of a dyke.

The two men with her, it seemed, were not there in a legal capacity. Baron introduced them both as Mr. Blacknoll.

“Brothers?” she asked, being sociable.

“No,” one answered. “I took Ed’s last name when we were married.”

Liv’s lip curled in disgust. “I told you they had equal rights already,” she said to her lawyer.

“Only in Massachusetts,” the man said. Then he dropped the bombshell. “Before we got married my name used to be Cameron Enslik.”

“Ronnie’s dead,” she snapped back.

“Ronnie’s dead, but I’m still very much alive.”

“Who’s Ronnie?” Mr. Worthy asked Liv.

“Her brother,” Cameron said.

“I think it would be best if Ms. Caille explained the situation,” Marker said, and in a few brief sentences Magda sketched in the story of the gay son Bill and Alma Enslik had chased from their home a quarter century before.

“Let him prove it! I dare him to prove it!” Liv cried.

“That will be easy. And let me tell you this, Livvie...”

“I don’t want him to call me that! I’m Mrs. Redding.”

“...that I’m going to fight for this will with all the strength I have. I’m not going to let go of it. It’s the only thing I have that tells me Mama loved me. And if we lose...”

Magda Caille put a hand on his arm, and he fell silent.

“If you’ll excuse us a few minutes, I’d like to have a word with my client,” Worthy said.

She knew what those few words would be: “I asked you specifically if your mother might have had any reason for leaving the house to a gay organization. Why didn’t you tell me?”

* * *

“I thought there’d be two of you,” Magda said when she arrived at the café where Baron had arranged for them to meet. “Which of you is Baron and which is Jay?” Her manner was brisk, and the rapidity of her speech clashed with her Southern accent.

Baron introduced himself and explained Jay wouldn’t be coming.

“And who have you brought with you?” she asked casually

“They’re from the safe home in Boston my partner once lived in. We contacted the director about an organization to give the house to. I think you should hear what they have to say.”

“I’m listening.”

When she’d heard him out, in place of the jubilation they’d expected she asked cautiously, “Can you prove who you are?”

Cameron hesitated. He had his passport and driver’s license, but he’d gone by many names during his years of living on the streets. He’d been arrested under some of them. His record had been sealed when he turned eighteen. Would his sister’s lawyer be able to dig up his past? It could hurt him professionally.

“If not, and you’re absolutely certain you’re her son, there’s always DNA,” Magda went on.

“I’d have thought this made it an open and shut case,” Baron said.

“Probably. We had everything in our favor before this came to light. What interests me is that it gives us a new tactic to pursue, if it comes to that. I don’t mean playing up the human interest angle in the papers. If we lose, we can try claiming that it renders the entire will invalid and sue to have half the estate go to Cameron. Am I right in thinking that you would use that money to finance a shelter for gay youth as your mother wished?” That was what she had wanted to keep him from blurting out in front of Mrs. Redding.

“Absolutely. I don’t want any of their money for myself, but I’ll fight tooth and nail anyone who wants to get in the way of my mother’s attempt to make amends... beyond the grave.”

“Beyond the grave? Your mother was very much alive when she made her will.”

“Not her; me. She thought I was dead.”

* * *

“With luck, that will wrap it up,” Marker said when they were gone. “You’ve won, you know. She has to realize that.”

“Don’t count on it. She reminds me of my father.”

“I’ll see what I can do to make it clear, though if Mr. Worthy can’t talk some sense into her I don’t imagine I’ll be able to either. If she loses, the court costs will come out of her part of the estate. Do you think that will sway her?”

“Not if she’s like Dad, prejudiced and pig-headed.”

When they came back into the office, Liv sat rigidly in her chair, staring straight ahead, her lips pursed and her knuckles white. She would not allow her eyes to focus on her brother or his so-called husband.

Worthy did all the talking, explaining that from her point of view she had no brother. Whoever this man was, her parents had disinherited him years ago, so his existence was irrelevant and he had no claim on the estate.

“You know that’s rubbish,” Magda said. “I hear it in your voice.”

“Mrs. Redding,” Marker said, “don’t you see what a coincidence this is? It seems that fate meant to reunite you with your brother.

Liv answered, cold as ice, “I don’t believe in fate,” and she stood up to leave. She’d spoken no other words for the entire second half of the interview.

As she walked out, Cameron said, “Why so unforgiving, sister?”

Aunt Sadie

Baron knew every detail of Jay’s story: the brutal beating, the name-calling, how they’d locked him in his room and he’d escaped through the window, his week of living on the run, finding his food in dumpsters and hiding from the cops, afraid they’d take him back home.

As for Baron, he’d had the good sense not to come out until he’d grown up and was ready to make a life for himself. When he did, Aunt Sadie had not rejected him, so maybe it would have been safe to come out. Then again, maybe not. She’d have had to deal with the neighbors, with her church. They didn’t have to know once he wasn’t living with her anymore.

He thought it a miracle that Jay had come through it relatively unscathed, that he’d become such a caring individual and so successful in his work. His own brothers, who’d had the advantage of a loving home, hadn’t fared nearly as well, getting hooked on drugs while still in junior high, running around with a gang, stealing cars, and worse. Now Orville was dead, the victim of a drive-by shooting in retaliation for something or other; and Shel had spent the last ten years in prison for rape and wouldn’t be up for parole for another ten. He doubted Shel could make it on the outside. He’d seemed harder than ever the last time he’d gone to see him.

“Guess now I know why yo’ was always such a goody-goody,” Shel had said when he learned Baron was gay. “Good thing you don’ look like no fag. Jesus, if the guys in here foun’ out my bro was a pussy boy, the whole lot of ’em ’d be after my black ass. Don’ you go prancin’ aroun’ none with yo’ cocksucker frien’. Word gits aroun’.”

Baron had ignored the bad-mouthing. “Not as much a goody-goody as you think. I smoked pot.”

“An’ did yer homework too, and sucked up to the teachers. Hey, you still smoke? Think ya kin smuggle me in some shit?”

A loving home did he say? Was he so sure of that? He was the youngest, less than five years old when Aunt Sadie took them in. He scarcely remembered their father, and didn’t understand what his mother was doing with those men she brought home every night. It all made sense to him the night Orville had called her a hoe. Aunt Sadie had slapped him across the face. “Yo’ watch yo’ mouf, boy. She yo’ Mama.”

“Well, ain’t she ?” Orville answered, rubbing his jaw.

“She a hoe awright,” Shel agreed.

“It put food on de table,” Aunt Sadie said. “She do what she have to, Lawd forgive ’er.”

She’d done her best, Aunt Sadie had. The oldest of eight children, she’d pretty much brought up her brothers and sisters single-handed, including Baron’s father, and held down two jobs at the same time. She never married, had no children of her own. Her solace in life, she’d always said, was her church. That, and how Baron had turned out. She never tired of bragging about him. The members of her congregation must have known he was gay, but they ignored it out of consideration for her. How often did they see him? Once or twice a year? Now if he lived in Atlanta...

He’d brought Jay to meet her when they first moved in together. She was more than polite to him, but when they left she told Baron, “I lak yo’ frien’. He nice. But it don’ do to bring him here. Make folks suspicious, seein’ you with Whitey.”

He thought about what Magda had said, how the fight over the will might make the papers. It’d be an embarrassment for the old woman if his name were mentioned in connection with it. Well, that couldn’t be helped – if it happened, it happened – but he ought to warn her.

He drove up to Atlanta. She looked the same as ever, but her movements were slower. A big-breasted, pockmarked, very black woman with swollen ankles and varicose veins, always neatly dressed in a simple gray skirt and blouse.

Her face lit up when she saw him. “Honey, why you ain’ tol’ me yo’ comin’? I’d ’a baked a cake. I’d ’a fried up some chicken. They ain’t nuffin’ to eat in this house.”

“I’m taking you out to dinner, Aunt Sadie. Somewhere nice.”

“Someplace dat serve dem foreign foods, I s’pose.”

“Wherever you like, so long as it’s nice.”

“I got a letter from Orville las’ month,” she said when they were in the restaurant. “He need money.”

“I told you, Aunt Sadie. If he asks for money, you let me know.”

“I figger if he ask me fo’ it, he don’ wanna ask you.”

“He doesn’t know my address. I don’t want him trying to get in touch with me where I live.”

“He yo’ brother. But I s’pose y’all gotta watch out livin’ wif de Whities in dat nice middle-class neighborhood. Sorta like me not wannin’ ya to bring Jay when ya comes to visit. Now you tell me what brung ya here t’ Atlanta.”

“A nasty business, Aunt Sadie.”

“Y’all in trouble?”

“Hardly.”

He told her about the will and how his name might get in the papers.

She shook her head. “Dem people, so col’ an’ unforgivin’. An’ her own brother too!”

“You know, Jay spent three years in one of those safe houses.”

“Y’all do what ya hafta. I don’ see no problem dere.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“I ain’t gonna git hurt. Anybody gimme lip, I remin’ ’em what Jesus say. How yo’ lives is between you an’ yo’ God. Ain’t none o’ dere damn business.”

“You’re so good, Aunt Sadie. I know what I am goes against your religion, but you’ve always been so accepting of me.”

“Acceptin’ o’ ya, chile? Why, you my pride an’ joy!”

Timmo

The dry irony of Cameron’s “Why so unforgiving, sister?” hit home, and increased Ed’s determination not to renew contact with his family. There was too much resentment and hurt on his side, too much hatred on theirs. The only one he cared about was his little brother, Tim. Timmo, he used to call him. He must be grown up by now. He hoped he hadn’t turned out gay and had to go through the same pain he had. No, he wanted nothing to do with them.

Still, he was curious. What had happened since then? And all those unanswered questions that had nagged at him over the years! Without telling Cameron, he went to the computer and did a name search.

First his father. If the old man were still alive he would go no further. The names popped up quickly, lots of them. He had to read down a long list to find the right one. Check birthdays, addresses, things like that.

His father had died some eight years ago, and his mother shortly afterwards. And Tim? He found him – he felt fairly certain it was him – still living in New Hampshire, in a small town not far from where they’d grown up. A “Janice Blacknoll (Mrs. Timothy)” also popped up. So he was married.

Should he contact him? Part of him wanted to, part of him didn’t. He couldn’t talk it over with Cameron, not yet, not in the middle of the dispute over his mother’s will and with Liv behaving the way she was.

The part of him that wanted to know wouldn’t go away. There was a phone number, but he didn’t have the courage to call. He waited two days, then sent an email.

Dear Timothy Blacknoll,

I think you’re my brother. I hope I’m right. I’ll be pretty embarrassed if you’re not. It all fits: name, age, birthday, parents’ names, town you live in. I see you’re married. That’s cool.

I haven’t forgotten you, Timmo, and find myself thinking about you a lot lately. I wonder how you’re doing and what your life’s been like. I found out on the Internet that mom and dad are dead. I couldn’t go back to them after everything that happened. None of that involved you, and I thought maybe... If you want nothing to do with me, I’ll understand. It’s been 18 years. I just wanted to let you know I’m alive.

I live in Boston now. I went there after I left home. I’m pretty happy. I have a good job and lots of friends. What else can I say? I don’t know how much you want to know about me.

Your brother (?)

Ed Blacknoll

He thought a moment, added “Eddie” in parentheses after his signature, and sent the email.

* * *

Janice looked up from her magazine when she heard him come into the room. She’d never seen Tim so shaken – trembling, his face blank, disturbed, and at the same time she could sense his excitement.

“What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Not seen; heard from. I just got an email from my brother Eddie.”

It took a few seconds for what he said to sink in. “How is that possible? You told me he was dead.”

“It seems he isn’t. He lives in Boston.”

“But wasn’t there a funeral? Didn’t you bury him?”

“No. He ran away when he was teenager. About a month later my mom told me he’d died. That’s all I know.”

“I just assumed... I mean, you never talk about him.”

“What’s to say? I was just a little kid when he died... or disappeared. Whatever.”

“Do you remember him?”

“Every detail.”

A short silence, then she said, “After all these years... You’re sure it’s him?”

“Absolutely. He knows too much about us. He called me Timmo. No one else has ever called me that.”

“Are you going to answer him?”

He nodded. “Just as soon as I compose my thoughts. I have so much to ask him, so much I want to find out about. I want to meet him, Janice. Boston’s only an hour and a half away.”

She stood up. “I could use a drink. Should I make you one?”

“No thanks. I think I’ll go out for a walk. I need time to think.”

“Good idea. Take the cell phone. If it looks like you’ll be out really late, call.”

Tim went to sit on a bench in the park a few blocks away. So many questions back then, and so many questions now! One learned early not to ask questions in his family, at least not certain questions. He’d asked anyway: “Where’s Eddie?” He’d asked at supper the night before he disappeared, and his mother said he was in his room, being punished; and he’d asked again at breakfast the next morning.

Other questions followed. Why had he run away? Why didn’t he say goodbye? When was he coming back? Shouldn’t they go looking for him? Those questions he could ask, and he did. They either brushed them aside or told him to shut up. “Quit harping on it!” his father had finally roared. “Can’t you see how it upsets your mother?” He’d never forgotten that answer. The look on his father’s face had terrified him.

Then there were the questions he couldn’t ask. What had that fight been about? He’d heard it all from his bed, not their words, but the crying, the yelling, the fists banging on the table, the slaps. He didn’t dare go see what was going on. And other, more frightening questions. Why wouldn’t they talk about Eddie? Why didn’t they seem to care? It was as if they’d cut him out of their lives. Would they do the same to him if he made them that angry? He’d been scared ever since.

Eddie he could ask, even if he was a stranger when you came right down to it. But did he want to know?

He had to. He’d send an email. But what would he write?

The Blacknolls

Ed sat staring at the computer screen in the front room of their hotel suite, uncertain how to answer Timmo’s message.

Eddie,

Your email came as a shock, to say the least. I thought you were dead. As far as I knew, you ran away and then got killed somewhere. Mom & Dad never talked about it, and I was afraid I’d upset them if I asked. What happened?

How could you even think I wouldn’t want to meet you? You’re my brother. I want to get together as soon as possible.

Yes, I’m happily married to Janice Walker. We were in grade school together. Our little girl, Kendra, will be 2 this fall. I run my own insurance agency. Janice works as a real estate agent. What do you do for a living? Are you married? Answer soon. I’m dying to know all about you.

Timmo

“Hey,” Ed thought, “I’m an uncle.” That didn’t help him know what to write. Best be blunt and get it over with.

Timmo,

I didn’t run away. Mom & Dad found out I was gay and drove me to a Christian rehab center in the middle of the night to be “reprogrammed”. I ran away from there. Do you still want to meet me?

Eddie

He was still at the computer, wondering if he’d been too blunt, when Tim’s reply popped up.

That explains a lot. Do I still want to meet you? More than ever. Can you come up to New Hampshire some weekend? Bring your significant other, if you have one. Or should I come to Boston?

Still your Timmo

So his being gay didn’t turn Tim off, unless he had a little reprogramming of his own in mind. It didn’t sound like it, though.

Actually, I’m in Georgia right now. On business. I don’t know how long we’ll be staying. Cameron’s here with me. My husband. We just got married a week ago. Call the hotel if you want to talk. We’re usually here in the evening.

He glanced at the phone, typed in the number, and clicked “send”. The phone rang before he got to the bedroom.

“For you,” Cameron said. “Someone who calls you Eddie.”

“I know who it is. My brother Timmo. I’ll explain after I speak to him.”

“Do you want me to go somewhere else?”

“No, stay here. I have no secrets from you.” He sat down in the armchair to take the call, and added, “Except that I got in touch with my brother yesterday.”

* * *

They both imagined they would talk about themselves and how they’d spent the eighteen years since they last saw each other. Instead, most of the conversation centered on the night Ed had disappeared and their memories of their father, Herb.

“It makes sense that Mom and Dad were homophobic, not that we ever talked about it at home. I had no idea.”

“But you knew instinctively. I wish I had. How could you tell?”

“By seeing Dad’s face when there was anything about gays on the news. You could feel it in the air when something made him really angry. And I remember Mom saying to him once, ‘How can they put this kind of stuff on the television, Herb? Don’t they realize how offensive it is?’ – or something like that.”

“And it didn’t affect you?”

“Nah, I just shrugged it off as something that didn’t concern us, not anything worth getting all bent out of shape over. When I first found out about gays and what they do from the kids at school, I thought it was kinda funny, only being attracted to girls and all, and I took their snickering in the same way. I didn’t realize how vicious it was till much later.”

“Did you ever say anything to Mom and Dad about how you felt?”

“Are you nuts? I knew better than to open my mouth about something that would get Dad going. It was bad enough if I said something positive about a Democrat. But as I said, we never talked about it.”

“Did they ever talk about me?”

“Never, and that was so scary.” Although Ed didn’t know what he looked like, he could imagine the pain on his brother’s face as he spoke. “I missed you so much, Eddie, and they didn’t seem to care. It was as if you never had been. And I knew something had happened, something terrible, and I couldn’t imagine what. I heard that fight you had the night you disappeared, not the words, just their yelling and you crying and the noise of him hitting you.”

“Yeah, Dad beat me up pretty bad.”

“I hid my head under the pillow so I wouldn’t hear. I think I was crying as much as you. It scared the shit out of me. So I became their good little boy who did everything they told me and agreed with everything they said.”

Ed felt he ought to say something encouraging. “But you grew up to be your own man.”

“The resentment kept building, and in the end it turned me against everything they stood for.”

Cameron leafed through a magazine so as not to listen to what Ed was saying, but he looked up now and then, watching his expression for signs of distress. He saw none, only a mixture of gladness, sorrow and regret.

“I used to wonder if you missed me,” he heard Ed say. “I wondered what they told you about me and what your life was like. I don’t believe in God, but I used to pray you weren’t gay too. I was afraid for you.”

“It hurt that you didn’t say goodbye to me, but somehow I knew it wasn’t your fault. Do you know what I want now, more than anything?”

“What?”

“A hug from you.”

* * *

They talked for hours. Finally, Ed said, “I guess it’s time we said goodbye for now.”

“Your, er... husband, is he there? I forget his name.”

“Cameron. Yes, he’s right next to me.”

“Can I say hello to him? I’d have you say hello to Janice, but she went to bed over an hour ago.”

Ed choked up; the request was so unexpected.

“My brother wants to say hello to you,” he said, holding the phone out to Cameron.

“I can’t say I’ve heard a lot about you,” he heard Cameron say, “but I can tell you that I’ve never seen Ed so happy. Thank you.”

“I love you,” Ed whispered from his place in the armchair.

---