Okay, this is not a story with a whole lot of sex. Some will come in here and there, but it is not the central theme. It's a story about love between men and self-acceptance, kinda like all of my stories are.
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Sorry this one took so long, but I am still writing!!!
IMPORTANT!!! This story includes excerpts of Paul & Morgan's memoir, which I will separate from the rest of the story with asteriks like the one's below. If this is confusing, e-mail me and let me know and I will try to figure something else out!
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Part Seven
I decided that the best plan of action was avoidance. I needed to avoid Skit. I didn't really know what was going on with my feelings. I was feeling all kinds of wierd things and decided that it would be stupid of me to try to act on them. Besides, I had no idea what to do.
I wasn't gonna be mean to Skit anymore, but I wasn't gonna be his friend, either. I mean, the guy wanted me. He'd made that plain...and every time I got near him, I felt like I wanted him, too. Which I didn't feel like was all that much of a good thing, either.
So, I went into the gay antique shop that day and I worked like a dog. Fuck all the social shit, I stuck by myself and talked to Misti and that was it. When she left for the day, I was on my own.
Then, Drew came into her workroom.
He sat down on a crate and watched me as I was hauling things around. I took it for a minute, but when I was covered with sweat and he stayed there smirking at me, I started to get pissed off. I mean, there's no lost love between me and the guy, okay...and I'm working my ass off while he sits there and watches me like I'm some kind of fucking show. He was pushing buttons I didn't even know that I had.
"Asshole, watch yourself," I told him as I pushed a crate full of plates or some kind of crap onto a high shelf.
"Naw, I'm watching you," he told me, smirking.
"You're gonna watch my fist smash you're fucking face in a minute, dude," I warned him.
"Try me," he taunted me and I flew across the room at him, slamming my fist into his face before he could react. He was sprawled out across the floor, half of his face was blood red. He tripped me up with his feet and got on top of me, trying to hold me down, but he wasn't having much success.
"You lucky motherfucker," he hissed at me and his words slowed my actions. I met his eyes, he was fucking pissed.
"You don't even know what the fuck you have in Skit," he told me and I watched him, blood had started to gush out of his nose. "He loves you, you worthless piece of shit. Fuck it up, I'm waiting."
A tear dropped out of his right eye. I realized then and there that Skit would have been more than a fuck to him. He felt something for Skit...but I didn't even care. I had no sympathy for him. I pushed him off of me and landed a couple of blows across his chest and stomach before Morgan and Paul came rushing into the room and pulled us apart. They'd probably caught sight of everything on the security cameras. Morgan held me back roughly.
"What the hell is going on here?" he snarled.
"It's no bashing shit," I told him when he started squeezing my neck like a vice. "That fucker started it!"
"Is that true, Drew?" Paul asked, but Drew was still looking at me.
"Fuck it up, Eric, I'm waiting," he repeated at me and I tried to get out of Morgan's arms to go and knock his teeth down his throat, but Morgan held fast.
Paul hauled Drew up and took him out of the room, away from me. Once they were out of sight, Morgan let me go, pushing me away roughly. He was staring at me with fierce eyes. I stared right back.
"I was doing my fucking job," I told him. "He came in here and started this shit."
"What's this about?" Morgan asked quietly and I looked away from him.
"Nothin," I said and tried to go back to unloading stuff. He didn't move or try to stop me.
"What's it about, Eric?" he asked, his voice low and measured, in the kind of authoritative tone that you just didn't ignore.
I stopped moving, my back to him.
"Skit," I said and my voice wobbled dangerously.
Morgan came closer to me and walked around me so that we were face to face. The expression on his face was a lot like Deneghy's that time in the freshman gym. I exhaled noisily.
"If you need to talk to me, Eric, I'm here," Morgan said quietly and I was silent. "Do you understand?" I nodded. He kept staring at me. I looked him in the eye and I nodded firmly...and he did a weird thing. He put his arms around me. I hugged him back.
I walked out of Misti's workroom with Morgan to find a small crowd around Drew, with Sheena pressing a cold compress to his nose. They all looked at me like I was a monster. I resisted the urge to say something, I didn't have to defend myself because of that asshole.
I picked Skit out in the crowd. He was standing a bit off to the side. His eyes met mine and they were all mad and accusing. Fuck. He had on all white again...like a fucking angel.
Morgan just acted like nothing had happened. He gave Paul a look and Paul followed suit.
"I think these two need the rest of the day off, huh?" Paul suggested lightly and Morgan nodded.
"Sounds like they do," Morgan agreed. "Eric, come with me and I'll give you something to take home with you." ********************************************************************************* Paul & Morgan 5:
Paul:
The last letter I got from Morgan while he was in Vietnam was dated August 17, 1968. His correspondence was sporatic at the best of times, so I didn't realize that it was the last letter he was going to write to me until several months later.
I should have seen the signs, but I was looking at the world through the cliched rose-tinted lenses. I had loved Morgan Anderson from the first moment that I laid eyes on him and I hoped and prayed with all of my heart that whatever it was he felt for me could sustain us. I didn't want to live without him.
The day that I figured out that something was wrong came four months after that last letter. I had been writing him diligently, almost religiously. As I lay in my bed at night, I reasoned with myself that he was dodging enemy gunfire or carefully picking his way through minefields. That didn't leave a lot of time to write...and what if he didn't know what to say? How could I relate to the horror that he must have been witnessing every day?
These thoughts comforted me, lulled me into a sense of safety that I didn't want to imagine being without.
I will never forget sitting in the living room on that cold day. It had snowed the night before, covering the streets in a thick blanket and rendering us all immobile. I had a book in my lap while Louisa watched the television. When the mailman dropped our mail inside, Louisa went to get it and I stayed where I was, wrapped up in my book. She returned some time later, a few minutes or a half-hour, I can't remember exactly, and her eyes were shining. She held a letter in her hand, on the same grayish-colored stationary that I lived for the sight of.
"Did Morgan write to me?" I asked, my heart pounding inside of my chest, on the edge of my seat.
"No, no," she said, plopping down on the couch a little ways away from me. She peered down at the opened letter happily. "He wrote to me. He's coming home in two weeks!"
Morgan had written to us all, at one time or another. Louisa had received letters and so had my mom and dad. We'd all written to him, thinking that we were doing what we could to help our troops... besides, he was like family. I'd never thought much of his friendship with Louisa. They'd been in the same class in high school and circled around with the same group of friends. He was our brother's best friend, it just seemed natural.
But as I sat there and watched her face, I knew. There was something to the story that I had yet to find out...and I still denied it.
*** Morgan:
I arrived home from the war in Vietnam in January of 1969. I had several months of leave that was owed to me...and I came home with a plan. If life went the way that I chose, I would die in Vietnam before anyone would ever miss me...and I told myself that the pain wouldn't be so bad for Paul because in all likelihood, I would die while he still hated me. If things didn't go to my liking, at least we would always be as close as brothers.
I could offer you every excuse in the book but the bottom line was that my mind I knew I could never have the one thing that I wanted more than air. In the 60s in Michigan, you just weren't gay...and if you were, then nobody knew it. Nobody was ever going to know that I was gay.
My mother organized a big, welcome home dinner at the Langleys for me. It was fitting, I guess. I wanted Paul to hate me. I wanted him to give up on me...on us ever being the dream he'd expressed to me in the letters he wrote. He wanted us to one day be in some kind of gay domestic American dream, with a glistening two-story and a white picket fence with tons of little ones underfoot... and I just wanted my feelings, my desire for him, to go away.
So, I greeted everyone and I swallowed the food that was put in front of me and I smiled as Paul sat across the table from me, his eyes confused and devouring. Underneath the table, Louisa's hand was clasped in mine.
And we did it. In between dessert and coffee, we announced our engagement. I'd asked her some time ago in a letter that I'd sent from Vietnam. I had told her not to tell me her answer until I got home and when the bus had pulled into the depot and I saw the look on her face, I knew what her answer would be.
The smile was plastered on my face as we received our congratulations and my father uncorked a bottle of champagne. Louisa beamed at everyone, her face glowing with happiness and I stood tall in my uniform and accepted that this was the way I would build my life. Paul had slipped out of the room, his face almost ashen in color.
*** Paul:
Morgan was resplendent in his uniform. He was so handsome when he came through the door that every thought of his possible betrayal flew from my mind. The fact that he hadn't written to me in months was like ashes under my feet. He was alive. He was whole...and he was home. I beamed at him as he came into the house.
He never even looked in my direction. His eyes never met mine. The entire time that he sat those few feet away from me, he didn't even acknowledge my presence. I had written to this man twice a week regardless of my doubts and fears. I had given up going away to college and spent two years after high school in the stockroom at Miller's Market, waiting for him to come home. He was the center of my world...and he didn't even acknowledge my existence.
That alone crushed me as I sat at the dinner table, moving the food back and forth on my plate. I was blind-sided by what happened next. I watched him as he ate, using only his left hand to lift his fork to his mouth. I watched the intimate little smiles that he sent in Louisa's directions. I saw all of this and still what happened next was unfathomable to me.
They lifted their hands from under the table to reveal that they were tightly clasped together. My stomach dropped down to my toes and I set my fork aside. He sent her a beaming smile and cleared his throat. Everyone at the table fell silent.
"Louisa and I have an announcement," he called out in a loud, strong voice to everyone at the table. He slowly rose to his feet and turned in the direction of my father.
"I asked Louisa to marry me a few months ago," he said and there was a loud exclamation of surprise. "And she said yes." My soul sank like a stone in muddy waters. I was frozen in my seat as they were embraced and cajoled. I sat there for an endless moment, in total shock until Ryan put his hand on my back and brought me to the realization that this was not some kind of nightmare I had conjured up.
"You okay?" Ryan asked me and I turned my face away from his prying eyes. I nodded and stood up. I walked away from the table and the surge of excitement at the fact that the Andersons and the Langleys were going to be joined in wedlock. I walked slowly up the stairs and into my bedroom, where I closed the door and lay across my bed.
In minutes, I was drowning in tears and my thoughts were almost dizzying. The noise and commotion was still going on downstairs, but it only intensified my sadness. Morgan was marrying Louisa. Morgan was marrying my sister. Morgan, who had spent countless hours inside of me, was going to be my brother.
"I love him," I whispered aloud to myself, my voice thick with tears. I wanted to yell it from the rooftops, to lament over my woe, but even that was stifled. There was no one, not a single living person, that I could turn to. Sammy had given up on me and moved away when I dumped him for Morgan several years before. The friends I had were all from the neighborhood and well-connected to my family in some way. My anger and sadness was all tangled up inside of me and it had nowhere to go.
I sat up frantically on my bed, my mind whirling and my heart pounding unsteadily in my chest. I thought of my father's pistol...and just like that, I went for it. I stood up and stalked out of my room and down the hall to my parents' room. I rifled through their closet until I found the gun and I held the cold metal in my hand. I released the safety on the gun. I put it in my mouth. I pulled the trigger.
There was a loud click but nothing happened. The gun was empty. I pulled the gun out of my mouth, exhaling harshly as I dove back into the closet for the bullets.
"Give it to me," a voice behind me said and before I could blink, Morgan had his hand on the gun and pulled it harshly out of mine. I stood very still, afraid to turn around. I could hear shuffling behind me and I turned slowly, curious. Morgan was walking around the small room on wobbly legs, waving the gun like a madman.
"You stupid asshole," he said so lowly that I almost couldn't hear him. "You tried to kill yourself over me. What kind of dumb shit is that? You...you..." He was out of words, breathing heavily. I closed my eyes.
"Please, Morgan," I said quietly, trembling. "Please don't do this. I'm begging you. Morgan, please. Please, please, please, please."
"Shut up," he was angry, his voice was barely above a whisper but it resounded through the room, snapping me out of the trance I had fallen into. "Paul, I've watched people die. You don't want to give up your life...over something trivial like this-"
"I love you," I told him firmly.
"You're only twenty, you're going to love other people," he told me. "You're going to get out there and find a woman...in time." I let out an hysterical laugh.
"Not my sister, Morgan, don't marry my sister," I demanded and Morgan turned away from me. "Not Louisa, Morgan. I need...I need my family. I don't have anyone else."
"I'm going to be your family now," Morgan said, turning back to face me. "If you need me for anything...anything at all, I'll be there for you."
"Like a brother, Morgan?" I asked with a cynical smile. He nodded.
"Like a close brother," he said fervently.
"But what if I need you to fuck me, Morgan," I asked harshly. "What do we do then?"
He paled visibly and I smirked, moving past him and out of the room. I forced myself to calm down. My emotions had gotten so far out of hand that I was sure that at any moment, I was going to lose my mind.
"You're okay," I whispered to myself. I repeated it in my mind like a mantra as I made my way to my room. I slid my suitcase from under my bed and opened it, lying it flat on my bed. I went to my closet and started grabbing everything and tossing it in the case.
Morgan stood in the doorway, watching me, the gun still clasped in his hand.
"What are you doing?" he asked from the doorway, but I ignored him. I continued to pile my things in the case.
"What are you doing?" he asked louder, almost yelling.
I stopped for a moment and looked at him. "Do you think I am going to sit by while you marry my sister and just watch it?" I asked him calmly. "Do you think I can handle that? You're a worthless piece of shit, Morgan, on so many levels. If you can't handle this thing...us, then, you just dump me, okay? You just call me up on the phone or write me a letter and say Dear Paul, it's been great fucking you these last few years...and its quite nice of you to sit around waiting for me like a sick, sad puppy, but you know what, I can't handle this. I don't want you.
"What you do not do, Morgan, is you do not take everything that I have away from me. You want out of this relationship, so be it, but you don't take my family away from me as well."
"How?" he exclaimed. "How am I taking your family away from you? I'm making sure that we can always have a place in each other's lives. As brothers."
"Please, Morgan, can the brothers bullshit," I said, stuffing the last of my things into the suitcase and zipping it shut. "I will never be your brother."
On top of my dresser, there was a tin can and I pried it open and pulled out a wad of cash, practically three years salary from Miller's Market. I had been diligently saving for Morgan's return, certain that we could get an apartment together and build our life together. God, was I naive. I stuffed the money in my pocket.
"Where are you gonna go?" Morgan asked harshly, his face almost puce in color. "Do you really think that money is going to last long? Do you really think a few years in a supermarket stockroom is enough to go out and build a life on?"
"I'll find a place where being queer is blase," I told him curtly, then smiled. "And if I can't make a living the honest way, I can always make a living off of my ass. You were always raving over how tight it was." With that, I grabbed my suitcase and pushed pass him. He grabbed my arm and yanked me around to face him.
"Paul, please...don't..." he started, swallowing hard, his eyes glossing over with unshed tears. I had never seen him look so vulnerable. Even with all of the pain, my heart softened. I still loved him.
"I'm so glad that you made it home safely, Morgan," I told him softly, ditching the tough facade for the moment. "I prayed for you every n-night."
He leaned down and kissed me, sucking the life out of me for an endless moment. I let him until we heard a sharp sound and broke apart. There, at the top of the stairs, stood my brother Ryan. He stared at us, wide-eyed. I threw him a sunny smile.
"A goodbye kiss," I said, blazing pass both of them. "From your queer brother."
*** Morgan:
Paul wrote to his family from San Francisco. I married Louisa Ann Langley on June 14, 1969.
Thanks for all of your support so far, guys! The story is coming much easier now. I hope that you've enjoyed this installment, there is, of course, more to come. Mannie will be updated very soon, I promise and I know I am bad, but I've started a new story that is a bit different than my others called Mack and JD which I will be posting very soon.
To be continued.......................virtualinsanity78@yahoo.com
I am Virtual Insanity and my other Nifty stories are: Wade and Christian - high school 2004 The Prick - high school 2004 Mannie the Marine - military 2005
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