A LONG WAY HOME By: Julien
This story is 100% fictional and is by no means depictive of the life of any person, place or thing. It contains sexual activities between males and should only be read if it is legal to do so in your area. Read at your own risk and enjoy. Comments are welcomed and would be very much appreciated. ENJOY!
I had been thinking about doing this for weeks - WAIT! - Who was I kidding, I had been thinking about doing this for three months. Three months of nothing but sitting in a lazy boy chair (similar to the one my father used to own!) and watching the sunset with my partner, George by my side. Romantic? Yes. But try doing that all night, every night and see how well you like it. And even though I had what seemed like an entire lifetime invested into this, I couldn't sit around and allow MY life to pass me by. I wouldn't be like George.
"So you finally decided to wise up eh?" I looked towards Greg and shook my head.
"Whatever man, just hurry up before he gets home."
"What's the big deal Danny? He's gonna find out what's up no matter how you play it."
"Well I don't want to be here when he does, is that ok with you?"
He held up his hands in mock defense, "ok, ok, don't chew my head off man, your life, your wife."
"Fuck you Greg!"
"You wish man, you wish." And that was the end of that as we quickly loaded the remainder of my things into Gregs' SUV and drove away from the place I had come to call home.
As I sat in the passengers seat, I stared out the window and watched as my neighborhood passed me by. This was the place that I had grown up, this was where I went to school, this was where I fell in love the first time with the man I thought I would spend the rest of my life with.
It had been the summer of 1998. I had been living with father for three years following the untimely death of my mother, a woman we both loved and missed. We had spent that summer once again taking countless trips up to Norfolk, Virginia to watch the naval carriers as they docked in the harbor. That day, of that summer of that year, 1998 we had been returning from one of our Virginia trips, this one lasting more than two weeks. My father had entertained me with the idea of maybe changing venues next summer.
"What about Orlando Danny? I hear it's great in the summer. Me and your mama got married in Orlando, you weren't born yet, remember."
"Yeah dad, I remember but why not stick with Norfolk."
"Because we've been up there every summer since your fifth birthday. Don't you ever get tired of it?"
"No." And I hadn't. That was my childhood haven.
"Ok then, your call. I'm thinking we could drive up that way next summer. You'll have your drivers' license and you'll drive us up there." The thought of cruising around in a brand new car had me on a high.
"Sounds good."
"Good." And I had made my way to my room to lie down only for a minute. A minute that turned out to be the longest of my life.
"Dad. Dad! Something's burning." I could smell the smoke and as I turned into the entrance way I saw the black tar that it let off.
"Dad!" I called out once more, before running into the kitchen. The bacon on the stovetop resembled a cross between black ashes and cigar tar. I shut off the pilot and as quickly as I could, threw the debris into the trash.
"Dad!" I called out walking from the kitchen towards his bedroom. I knocked once,
"Daddy!"
Twice,
"Dad! You left the stove on again."
And a third time before turning the doorknob.
I gently pushed open the door not seeing him at first and I almost walked out until:
"Daddy!" I cried as I noticed a pair of feet sticking out from the side of the bed. The feet belonging to my father.
"Daddy wake up, please wake up." I sobbed as I shook him hoping to get a response but greeted with only disappointment.
I picked up the phone and dialed the only number I could remember then and there.
He picked up on the first ring, "Hello."
"George, it's me."
He cut me off, "Hello Daniel, how are you" and then realizing the initial panic in my voice continued with, "what's the matter?"
"He's not breathing! I don't know what to do, he's not moving!"
"Ok, ok, calm down Daniel, calm down. Are you sure he doesn't have a pulse."
"Yes!" I answered franticly.
"Ok, hang up and call 911."
"I can't! I can't! I don't know what to do." By this point I had started to sob.
"You can do this Daniel, you can do this. Hang up and call the cops."
"George...."
"Do it Daniel, call 911 and stay with Dale ok, stay with your father. I'm on my way over." And he hung up leaving me with a dial tone.
And for ten minutes I did absolutely nothing but cry, I was immobile. I couldn't move. And then I heard the front door open and then someone walk into the bedroom.
"Daniel. Jesus Christ Dale! Did you call 911?" I couldn't answer, instead, I cried harder than before. He held me in his arms and cradled me. "Shh, don't cry Daniel, it's going to be ok, it's going to be ok."
And he hung up the phone, picked it up again and dialed 911, all the time never letting me go. And even when the ambulance arrived to take my fathers' body away, he didn't stop holding me, if anything, he cradled me tighter.
At the funeral, a week later, he sat in the family section next to me, his arm securely over my shoulder as I leaned into him as associate after associate spoke of my father. What a highly regarded man he had been, how he had run his business with kindness and yet, neither one of them knew the man that I knew. They had never seen my father, the way he was with me and it hurt me even more that I had to let strangers speak on my behalf because I was too caught up in my own selfish grief to give a eulogy for the man that was and always would be my hero.
And as they lowered the coffin into the ground, I broke down and began clawing at it crying to be put in with him. And George had been there holding me back, telling me that it was ok to grieve, that it was ok to be sad. He had been there to see me all through that.
And when the time came to assign me a guardian, there was no question as to who it would be. George accepted me into his home and allowed the time that I needed to grieve. Those first three months were the hardest. Having to say thank you every time someone offered their condolences and having to put on a smile whenever my friends were around. And then I would go home and contemplate suicide.
"Daniel you have to eat something."
"I'm not hungry."
"You haven't had anything except toast for three days. You're going to get sick."
"I don't give a flying fuck!" He had had to put up with my bantering and these sudden outbursts.
"You have to eat Daniel. You want me to make you something?"
"No! Just leave me alone, leave me alone!" And I had threw the glass that I was holding into the wall, adorning the floor with its' pieces. George hadn't even blinked
"Say something!!!" I screamed expecting a reaction out of him. Instead he got up, took a napkin from the table and walked up to me.
"It's ok." He dabbed at my eyes and all I could do was break down into his arms.
"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" That was all I said while sobbing for the next few hours until I fell asleep in his arms.
My cell phone rang and jolted me out of thought. I looked down at it and saw his number come across the screen in neon lights.
"Shit!" I called out.
"George?"
"Yeah. Here." I said handing the phone to him, "You answer it."
"Fuck No, that's your mess, you answer it."
"Please Greg, you know I would do it for you."
"I don't bring my tricks home to roost."
"You're a real sorry son of a bitch, you know that." I hissed before pressing talk.
"Hello."
"Daniel?"
"Hi George. How are you?"
"To tell you the truth Daniel, I don't know." He paused and then continued, "Is there something you want to tell me." His voice sounded so tranquil and for some reason it pissed me the fuck off.
"No, nothing at all." And I hung up. I just hung up on my lover of three years.
At a stoplight Greg turned to look at me. "What'd he say?"
"Nothing."
"What'd you mean nothing? You fucking walk out and he has nothing to say, unfucking believable."
"Yeah." I agreed turning my attention back to the window. Only this time, I had a completely different view. I was out of my comfort zone and entering into a whole new territory. And I realized that this was what I wanted. I was almost twenty-one for Gods sake. I couldn't sit around and waste my life with George, and even as I thought that, I knew I was being unfair to him, not giving him a chance to talk me out of it, and after all he had done for me.
"You like?" Greg asked as we stepped through his house situated on the outskirts of the Conduit.
"Yeah! I know you didn't do that shit your self."
"And you better believe it."
"I like it, who's the designer?"
"Your boy Tim. I called him up when I was in Washington and he offered to fly down and take a look." I was surprised that Greg would let Tim into his house after what happened the last time.
"Well I gotta call and tell him what an awesome job he did. How much did he charge you?"
"Not a dime. That muthafucka wouldn't dare, not after the stunt his ass pulled last year."
"You know you're lucky, don't you."
"It ain't luck Danny and the sooner you learn that, the better."
And I had to remember that we couldn't all have it like Greg. The only child of a down south teacher and a mystery sperm donor that didn't want a kid. His father had forked over half a mill just to get rid of him and his mother. That half a mil invested in the right places turned into two million pretty quickly and Greg grew up living the life. Always getting what he wanted, when he wanted it, most people thought he was a selfish son of a bitch and he was. He tended to keep his enemies far and his 'friends' even farther never yet spending a penny on anyone but himself and using every man he could without thought or consequence. And yet we had hooked up and became somewhat friends. I mean now that I was single again I would need a coach to show me the ropes of cruising, someone to show me what I had been missing out on.
"Whatever you say coach. Where we heading tonight?"
"We are not heading anywhere. I'm gonna give this guy a call." He said holding up a telephone number, "and you my friend are gonna call your man and sort out this shit."
"I don't need to call him." I declared.
"You do and you will. I don't want your man drama coming up into my neighborhood and into my house. I know how jilted lovers can get."
"George is not like that."
"And what makes you think that?"
"Because...because he just isn't."
"Wake up Danny and smell real good because I'm gonna wise you up by the time you leave here." I hadn't even thought through things that far.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"You know shit man. Just do what I tell you to and call him and handle your business and maybe just maybe I'll let you tag along with me tonight, see how a real mack works."
"Whatever."
"Fine, your missed opp." And as he turned to walk away I called him back.
"Greg, hold up."
"What."
"I wanna go."
"You gonna handle your business and come correct?"
"Yeah."
"Cool." And as he walked in the direction of the bathroom, I picked up my cell phone and found our home phone number and activated it. Once, twice and then, "Daniel."
"Yeah, it's me."
"Where are you?" He sounded worried or maybe it was just my over active imagination.
"I'm with a friend."
"Oh, ok. Are you coming back...at all?"
"No George, I won't be back."
"Why?"
"Because...because we just don't...I can't talk about it, not right now. Maybe later but not tonight."
"You love me don't you? I mean it's not because you fell out of love with me is it?" And even though I had the urge to tell the truth, I suppressed it and went with the most convenient thing.
"No George, I don't." There was silence on the telephone for a while and then he spoke up.
"When did you decide that..."
"I said I don't want to talk about it now!" And once again I resorted back to my childish ways.
"Daniel."
"What!"
"Why are you mad at me? What have I done to make you so angry?"
"Fuck! Why the fuck do you have to be so god damn rational all the time." By this time my once quiet tone had risen to a noticeable scream. "You want to know why I'm so god damn angry?"
"Yes." There he went again with that tranquil voice and it was if an unseen force were pushing me to say the things that I did.
"Fine, I'll tell you. I have wasted three fucking years of my life on a man that thinks that watching the fucking sun go up and down is enjoyable. Fucking unbelievable, not to mention the fact that we haven't fucked in god knows how long, I mean I'm lucky if you even get it up. And to top it all off, people are starting to ask me if you're my father and that erks the shit out of me. You will never be my father and you'll never fucking replace him !"
"I never wanted to replace Dale, Daniel and I've never tried to assume that role over you, never." I could sense that his resilience was wavering a little and for some reason I wanted to push him off and over the edge.
"Well it doesn't matter anymore because I'm through with you."
"Is that how it's going to end?"
"Fuck yeah man. I got a life and I'm fucking gonna live it. I gave you the opp to be apart of it but you refused..."
"I always tried to be apart of your life Daniel. How many times did we go to Norfolk just to see the ships in the harbor?"
"And you think that things that I liked when I was seventeen would still appeal to me at twenty, get real! The bottom line is that we don't mesh ok. I'm gonna be twenty-one in a few months and I need to take advantage of my life. You're heading towards fifty and still haven't done a god damn thing with your life, I don't want to be like you, I don't want to be you and I definitely don't want to be with you." And to my surprise he hung up on me.
"How'd it go?" I turned around to see Greg towel drying his hair.
"He hung up on me!"
"George getting ballsy now. It seemed something good did come out of this." And he laughed while walking away into his bedroom.
And even though I should have been relieved that it was over, I wasn't.
"Shit!" I whispered to myself as I picked up the telephone and dialed the number again. This time he was on the line on the first ring.
"Hello." His almost always cheery voice was reduced to a mundane monotone.
"It's me." He didn't say anything but he didn't hang up either.
"I'm sorry about the way I said things before." Still no answer. "George are you there?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
"I heard."
"Is that all you have to say."
"What do you expect me to say Daniel. First you move out of our home without even telling me then you tell me that you don't love me then you try and make it seem as if I'm not good enough for you. What the hell did you really expect me to say?" I came to realize that that was the first time he had ever cursed.
"I know it's hard for you to understand right now George..."
"Hard, Hard! I have done nothing but take care of you Daniel. All I ever did was do for you!"
"And I appreciate it but..." I didn't know what else to say, what do you say to the man that took care of your needs for so long and now you more or less tell him that he's disposable. No words could be used to soften that blow.
"I have to go."
"No, please finish what you were going to say."
"I have to go George, please don't call me anymore."
"But."
"Bye." And I hung up before he could get in any other words.
"Good fucking job! I knew you had some guts." I turned around to see Greg dressed to the nines in a two-piece suit with top hat to match. The charcoal color complemented his brown skin and I came to the conclusion that I would be looking like a dud next to him.
"Yeah guts." I responded getting up and heading to the bathroom to get ready.
PART 1 OF A CONTINUING STORY ABOUT HOW COMPLEX RELATIONSHIPS CAN BE AND HOW SOEMTIMES IT IS POSSIBLE TO MAKE DECISIONS THAT ARE REALLY SHITTY BUT AS ALWAYS, WE LIVE AND LEARN - HOPEFULLY. IF ANYONE LIKES IT OR HATES IT, PLEASE EMAIL ME AND LET ME KNOW. THANKS. FOR THOSE THAT ARE FOLLOWING THE STORY OF US, I WILL BE SUBMITTING A NEW PART SOON SO CONTINUE TO LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK. THANKS