CHAPTER 13
Mark handed Brad the keys and then said, "Wait. Do you think you will have time to drop me by Rick's house? He will be home soon, and I want to visit with him a while."
"That's fine. Do you want me to come and get you after we are done?"
"Nah, I'll just get Rick to take me home."
"Ok, no problem, but let's ride. We don't have a whole lot of time."
The two rode quietly through town. Rick lived in a small two bedroom house that he rented cheaply on the opposite side of town from his parents. It wasn't really big, but Mrs. Lee had made sure it was nice when he moved in.
Mark kissed Brad, wished him luck and jumped out of the truck. Brad sat there a moment waiting on Mark to go in. Mark waved him on, and then knocked quietly on the front door and just walked in. Rick was across the room with his back to Mark, and he was talking on the phone.
He heard Rick say, "I think they have one over there in Statesboro and that's far enough away that nobody would know you. If it's not then we..."
Mark was immediately concerned when he heard the tone of his brother's voice. He was crying, and Mark knew that Rick never cried. When Mark knocked on the wall to let his brother know he was there, Rick turned around in surprise and motioned for Mark to go into the kitchen. Mark did as he was told, and waited a few minutes for his brother. When he did not come, Mark went back into the living room to find Rick sitting in the floor crying. Mark was terrified. He went over to Rick, and sat on the floor with him and put his arm around him.
"Rick, what's wrong?" Mark asked.
CHAPTER 14
Brad drove Mark's truck over to his father's house in silence. He didn't listen to the radio at all. He was terrified of what his uncle was going to do. When Brad got to his dad's house, he didn't have to wait long because his neatly dressed and sober dad was opening the door to the truck before he came to a full stop.
As they rode through town, Mr. Jones asked, "Are you as nervous about this as I am?"
"Terrified."
"I am to. I don't know how he is going to take it."
"Dad, you have a lot more to lose if he goes crazy. He is bound to find out about me, but only Mark and I know about you, and neither of us will tell anyone. You could be homeless. Let me tell him about Mark first. Then, if you think it is the best thing to do, then tell him."
"Brad, that is such a brave thing for you to do for your dad. You are wrong about one thing. I don't have more to lose. I lost everything a long time ago."
"Well, let me tell him first anyway."
"If that's the way you want it, then ok."
By this time they were sitting in the parking lot of Brad's Uncle Robert's law office.
"Its showtime," Brad said.
They trudged into the law office of Robert Jones. His secretary greeted them as she was gathering up her purse. She smiled warmly at Brad but was somewhat surprised at the neatly dressed handsome man with him. Slightly flustered, she said, "Robert is in his office. I know he is waiting on you."
Brad just smiled and said, "Thanks, I know where it is."
She just smiled and said, "Well then, I am gone. Have a good visit."
"Ok, you have a good night," Mr. Jones said.
They walked to his office and Brad tapped lightly on the door.
"Come in."
"Hey," Brad said.
"Hey, Brad." He paused and said, "Steven?"
"Yes, its me. I know I look a little different than you are used to seeing me, but I am working on turning over a new leaf."
"I am glad to hear it, though I hope you will forgive me when I say I don't really believe you."
"I'll just have to prove you wrong," Brad's dad said defiantly.
"I hope you do," Robert said quietly. "I hope you do for your own sake."
"Well, I hate to interrupt this reunion, but I have a few things to talk to you about, Uncle Robert."
"Ok, what's on your mind, Brad?"
"I need to tell you that I am gay, and I am in love with someone."
"Brad, quit kidding around," his uncle said to him.
"I'm not kidding. I am in love with Mark Lee. It will soon be all over town, and I wanted you to hear it from me before you hear it through the grapevine. I want you to know it is true, and that I truly love Mark and hope you can be happy for me."
"Brad, I can't believe you would march in here and tell me such shit. Do you know how wrong that is? Do you know what you are doing to yourself? You are ruining your life."
"Robert, stop right there. Would you rather he end up like me? Trying to make himself straight when he is not. Ruining his life with alcohol to escape from the problems of his life?"
"Brad's not an alcoholic like you. He is smarter than that."
"Robert, I wasn't an alcoholic until I tried to start being something I wasn't. Until I started trying to be straight. Yes, I am gay. I always have been. I was never attracted to women, but I tried to force myself to be normal. I just dove for the liquor to escape, and look where I ended up. Are you telling me that by facing his problems head on rather than hiding from them, that he is ruining his life? I have ruined my life to date."
"When Brad came to me and told me he was gay, I picked a fight with him and ran him out. It was a sobering experience for me. I mean that literally. That is why when I tell you I am turning over a new leaf, I mean it."
"If you want me out of your house and out of your life, then I am prepared to do that. I had hoped that you would allow me to get my feet on the ground, but I have lived through hell, and I can live through whatever you throw at me, and if I don't, well then, at least I was for once honest with myself and the people around me."
Robert just sat there silently for a moment.
"My son is gay, and I am proud of him, and I love him."
"And for the first time in my life, I actually feel like I know my father," Brad said.
"As touching as this is, I still can't believe I have not one but two fags in my family," Robert said.
"You always were a sarcastic sumbitch," Steven said, slamming his hand onto the desk.
"And apparently you were always a fag."
"Both of you, stop it!!!" Brad screamed. "If you can't accept me and my dad for what we are, then I don't have anything else to say to you. Have a good night."
With that, Brad stormed out of the office and shouted behind him to his dad, "Come on."
"One day you will realize how wrong you are, and you will regret this," Steven said to his brother.
"One day when you are dying of AIDS, you will regret this conversation too. That is God's way of punishing sinners," Robert said.
"That sentence applies to homosexuals as well as heterosexuals. Think about that for a while."
"But being gay is a sin."
"I have spent the better part of my life wondering why God created me to be something he hates. I finally realized that maybe it's men who are hating what I am and not God. God also hates lying, which actually made the ten commandments. Gay men didn't make the list. You might not understand this, but by that definition, you are damning a whole bunch of people to hell no matter what they do. They can choose to live a lie, which is definitely a sin, or they can be gay which may or may not be."
"You may or may not have a point, but I still don't agree with it."
"I have about had it," Brad shouted. "I have learned a few things lately, and the number one thing that I have learned from my dad is that before you judge somebody, you need to at least think about what its like to walk in his shoes. Maybe even try and understand that you may not exactly know the reasons for what he does. So, until you have walked a mile in my shoes, I am going to tell you to take your judgements and go to hell," Brad exploded.
Brad took a breath and continued, "My mom hates me. My step dad hates me. Now my uncle hates me. The ONLY family of mine who has come through for me on this one is my dad, whom I thought would never come through for me on anything. You can sit there in your leather chair and tell us we are going to hell, but if I remember my Sunday school lessons well, that is a job that isn't exactly reserved for you. Go visit my mom and the both of you can go to the country club and look down your noses at people. I am out of here. You can come or not, Dad."
"Brad, stop right there."
Brad stopped as his uncle demanded him to.
"I have never in my life been talked to like that by a kid."
"There is a first time for everything. Don't count on it to be your last."
"Well, I don't like it, but you are right. It isn't my place to judge, and family should stick together. Sometimes I need to be reminded of that."
"I grew up with my mom. I don't know a hell of a lot about what families are supposed to do, but I do know right from wrong."
"Well, I guess that explains her call yesterday."
"What are you talking about?"
"Well, I should have been on this a little sooner than now, and this probably isn't the best of times, but when your grandparents were killed, the estate and the settlement were divided equally between your mother, you, and your half brother."
"I never got any."
"No, you were purposely not told about it. It was placed in trust for you. When you turn 21, then you will be able to break the trust. Should you die before you reach age 21, then it is broken and divided evenly among your heirs, which with no will would be your parents."
"I don't want my mom to get any if I die. Where is this trust?"
"I am the trustee, actually, and if you don't want your mom to have any then we need to create a will."
"That's easy."
"Don't you want to know how much it is?"
"Ok, but it is not necessary."
"Well, just so you know, it is currently worth about 6 million dollars. Your mom invested well, but when I took over as trustee, I sold most of the stock in your portfolio and replaced it with tax municipal free bonds just before the stock market crashed. I was looking out for you. The bonds are of staggered maturity, but most of them are yielding about 5%. That means you have a steady income of about $300,000 a year, tax free."
"You are kidding?"
"Those are not exact numbers, but they are fairly accurate."
"Well, I want that will now. I want 25% to go to dad, and 75% to go to Mark."
"Mark?"
"Yes, Mark. He is the best person I have ever known. If it weren't for him, that trust would have been broken a long time ago."
"What?"
"Yeah, I was going to kill myself. Mark saved me without knowing he did it."
"I just don't believe it."
"Believe it. I love him, and I want to share it with him even if I am not here to do it."
"Come back up here tomorrow morning when my secretaries are here. I need two signatures of people not beneficiaries for it to be official."
"Thanks for being so good about this."
"I haven't been really, and I really hate it, but there ain't a hell of a lot I can do about it."
"Well, Thanks. I appreciate it."
"I do need to tell you one thing. If you need money for survival before the trust runs out, call me. I have discretionary power to pay out some of the earnings to you. Now don't get excited, there will be no checks for $300,000 or anything, but if your mom cuts you off or something, you are still going to be able to get an education."
"She might do that. She said something about paying me to stay away from here so that she wasn't embarrassed. I don't intend to do that, but I do intend to stay away from her."
"Well, the reason I mentioned it is because you need to be aware of this, but she called me this week and asked how she could take your money out of trust. I had no idea why she wanted to know this. I just assumed that she had blown through her money, but after what you just told me, I think that the motive might have been to better control you. Unfortunately what she apparently didn't think about was the fact that you had no idea you had the money. She also didn't count on the fact that her call would prompt me to inform you about it either."
"I guess she didn't. I am still really in shock about even knowing I have that money."
"Well, just to put your mind at ease, there is no way that she can get her hands on it. She never had any right to it. The payout from the lawsuit went into the estate, and in your grandparents' wills, you, your mother, and your half brother were each given one third of an interest in the estate."
"You mean the estate was 18 million?" Brad asked.
"No. First of all your grandparents had quite a bit saved over the years. They had at least $2.5 million after estate taxes on their own. At the beginning, when the money was in the estate, your mother was picking stocks to put it in. She did VERY well. She more than doubled your money when it was there. When it was transferred into the trust, I became the one making the decisions as your trustee. When I took over, I was not comfortable with the idea of having the money for your future in something I viewed as so volatile. By the time everything went bad after September 11, I had managed to sell most of the stocks and purchased municipal bonds."
"Is that good?"
"Well, I think it is," Robert said grinning. "If it was still in the same stocks your mom had, you would have about a million and a half instead of three million. I told your mom to do the same, but I don't know if she listened to me."
"She probably didn't. She never listens to anybody. If they cut me off, then I am going to have to see about getting insurance and another truck -- not necessarily a new one, but I am sure they will take that if they get around to it. Do you think I could have that?"
"I am sure we can find something for you. You don't need to worry about that. We will also have to find you some health insurance."
"Maybe I can help with that. If I find a job with insurance, I would be glad to carry you on my insurance," Steven said.
"That is going to cost a lot to you."
"Well, I don't really have anything I would rather spend it on than you."
"Thanks, Dad," Brad said. "I think I would prefer to keep this conversation a secret for the time being, but even if they don't cut me off, I would rather stop taking their money. I had thought about just getting a job and telling them to go to hell anyway, but I didn't think I could afford to."
"You can. I will see about getting you a truck and insurance and will give you an allowance of whatever they were giving you, but you don't need a job. Just don't think you are going to be able to just be sorry."
"Oh, I am not. I am going to be just like when I was on their payroll. I just won't have to worry about how I am going to eat when they find out I am gay."
"You need to worry about your school and not that now," Steven said.
"Mark had helped me through that. He was somehow certain his mom and dad would continue to support him, but I sure didn't realize it. He said we could both get jobs to take up the difference in what they were giving me."
"He must love you, Brad," Robert said, amazed at the realization that these two guys felt that kind of love for one another.
"I'm sorry for my reaction."
"No need to be. You made up for it with your news."
"There is one other matter of business that I need to attend to. I have the power to designate who will become the trustee should something happen to me, and the way it is set now, that power goes to your mom. I don't think that is in your best interests right now. I am going to ask you who you are most comfortable with doing it."
"Well, I think..."
"I want to suggest Mr. Lee, Mark's dad," Steven broke in.
"I don't think that is a bad idea," Brad replied.
"I don't know," Robert said.
"I think it is a great idea. He and Mrs. Lee were the most accepting of this of anyone we have told. I worked for them for years and I trust both of them probably more than anyone other than Mark."
I hope that you have all enjoyed this part. I have another part coming soon. We will get to find out what is wrong with Rick and will visit a few more people who have learned of Mark and Brad's relationship. As always, I welcome all comments and really appreciate hearing from readers. I do my best to respond to all emails as soon as possible. Thanks again for reading, and I hope you continue to enjoy my story.