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--------------------------- TRAGEDY IN THE BLOOD by Steven H. Davis
Chapter 36
We got back to Polk at around 9:45, and -- with appropriate congratulations to the winners and condolences to the losers -- separated for the evening. Mr. McRory offered to let Kathy take home the 3rd place team sweepstakes trophy for the weekend, but she waved him off.
"I'm a grown-up," she said. "I don't need a consolation prize."
Shaking my head, I jumped into Linda's passenger seat and waited while she made out with Carter for a few minutes before joining me and pulling out of the parking lot.
"You two seem to be getting pretty serious," I said.
"Oh, pshaw," Linda laughed with a dismissive wave of her hand. "Carter's fun, but I don't see any future with him."
"Ah," I said, for lack of anything better to say.
"What about you?" she asked. "Do you see a future with Taine?"
"The only future I want is with Taine," I replied. "But we've got a few things to work out."
"The hat thing," she said knowingly. "Do you think that's going to be a big problem?"
"I don't know."
I rolled my head back against the neck-rest, staring out her moon roof at the streetlamps whizzing by.
"I never realized," I said at last, "that he was going to take it as some massive putdown, like his feelings didn't matter to me. Of course they matter to me. They matter more than anything in the world to me. I was just being stupid, and now look..."
"Rick," Linda sighed. "I hate to tell you this, but... listen, let's stop into the Roaring Fifties."
She pulled the car into the ice-cream parlor's parking lot and I followed her inside.
It being 10:20 on a Saturday night, the joint was jumping with Polk students, and a few rowdy kids from Cleary Middle School who were allowed to stay out a little later than usual after seeing a movie at the mall.
We found a corner booth and I ordered a banana split for Linda and a butterscotch shake for myself. No sooner had we ordered than Linda took both of my hands in hers across the table and leaned in so that we could talk privately and quietly.
"What's going on?" I asked her, frowning.
"Rick, remember when I told you the two things that upset Taine the most about the hat thing?"
"Yes," I replied. "You said his hat was his only shield against the outside world, and that I had made him feel as if I didn't care about his feelings. And it kills me, Linda. It makes me really feel like an asshole."
"Oh, boy," she sighed.
"What? Just tell me what's on your mind, Linda. I need to know."
Although Linda had only been privy to my relationship with Taine for a short while, I could already feel that she was crucial to its success. She seemed to be able to see through our emotionally-charged, sometimes cloudy perceptions of each other, and our skittish over-reactions to every slight thing the other one did or said. It was almost as if she was becoming our interpreter, and it was becoming clear that -- at least at this stage of our relationship -- we needed one.
"Well, Rick," she said at last, "it's a little more complicated than just those two things. I have to tell you that I forgot to mention something he said at the end of our conversation. Everything was kind of hectic, and I was getting so mad at you for not seeing what was so clear to me... shit, I guess you two are so head over heels with each other that you don't see these things sometimes..."
"It's true," I admitted. "Whenever he's talking to me, it's like I'm blinded by his light. It's white and brilliant and glows all around him when I look at him, and sometimes I just lose his words in that brilliant, beautiful light, and... I sound like an idiot, don't I?"
"No." Linda rubbed my hands gently. "I know what you mean. Love is like that. But... Rick, you can't be like that with Taine. You have to listen to his words. He doesn't say much. You know that. But when he says things, they're not just filling space in the air like the way you and I sometimes talk. Every word is critical, and you've got to get them all."
"It's hard," I said. "When I look at him, I just go stupid. I go 'tharn' like that book about the rabbits."
"Watership Down," she said. "That movie gave me nightmares when I was thirteen. That scene with the fields of blood... who makes a movie like that for little kids?"
I smiled, nodding. "Anyway..."
"Yeah," Linda continued, regaining her train of thought. "Anyway. You have to pay close attention. I know it's hard with the light and the... what did you say... brilliance and glow and all that. But you have to. There are a lot of times when he's not talking. You can go tharn then. When he talks, you have to take it all in."
"Got it," I said, "but what did you not tell me? What did we both miss?"
"Oh, I didn't miss it, Rick. I just forgot to mention it." Linda dug into her banana split as soon as it arrived. "What I need to tell you is... well, it's hard to find a nice way to put it. Taine thinks you're ashamed to be seen with him."
"WHAT?" I nearly spit my butterscotch shake all over the table. "What the hell are you talking about? He's the person I most want to be seen with for the rest of my life! I sit with him at lunch every day... I fought for him in front of half the damn school... I invited him to the tournament so that he and I could be together... What makes you think that Taine believes I'm ashamed of him?"
"Think about what I said, Rick." Linda took a forkful of banana split, licked the fork clean and waved it slowly in the air as if drawing me a chart. "The hat is Taine's shield. The hat is part of Taine. It's his image to the world. You told him not to wear the hat. Thus, you don't accept the image he presents to the world. Thus, you are ashamed of the image he presents to the world. Thus, you are ashamed to be seen with him."
I just stared at her, dumbfounded.
"That's the craziest thing I've ever heard," I said.
"Rick," Linda berated me, "you are a Drama kid. You deal in emotion and feelings and 'brilliant white lights'. You need to start thinking like a debater. You said on the bus that you were going to take Debate in spring. Act like you can follow a logical progression, for Pete's sake! It makes perfect sense. Maybe not to you, or me, because we spend most of our time socializing and performing and screaming 'Hey, world! Look at me!'...."
"Dancing around the maypole," I said sullenly, starting to get the picture.
"Yes, Rick. But Taine is different. Taine doesn't want to be on stage hamming it up for the crowd. Taine only takes that hat off for you, and now maybe me a little."
"I know, Linda."
"But you have to respect the image that he wants to present to the world. I know you love the 'real' Taine. But he doesn't, and that's what's important to him. This isn't about you, Rick, it's about loving Taine and making him feel comfortable and letting him know that you support him in every way."
I sucked noisily on my straw, considering what Linda was telling me. After a few moments, I nodded and looked across the table at her.
"Love him, love the hat," I said. "I get it."
"I don't think you really do, Rick," Linda persisted. "It's not really about the hat either. It's about you accepting Taine for what he is, who he is, and who he chooses to be at any given time. You and I wear different masks to feel comfortable with the world, too, only we call it acting, you know what I mean?"
I nodded, sipping my shake.
"Okay," she said. "How would you like it if I called you out in the middle of a performance and said, 'Hey, Rick, could you not act that part? Could you just say it like yourself?' Or what if I told you not to wear your Izods and designer jeans and TopSiders? 'Hey, Rick, what are you wearing those for? You didn't go to prep school! Take those off!' You wouldn't do it, and you would be angry and hurt at me for even suggesting it. Is any of this making sense to you?"
"Well, yeah," I said. "Once you put it that way. What you're trying to say is that everyone wears a lot of different faces, and loving someone means accepting that and -- if not loving every face equally -- at least respecting them and honoring the person you love when he chooses to wear them."
"Now you're getting it," Linda exclaimed happily, making me feel even more retarded than I already did. "Let's get you home to beddy-bye."
"I will smack you so hard," I laughed.
But the person I really wanted to smack was myself.
So hard.
As Linda drove me back home, she asked about Blaine and listened carefully as I tried to tell her the shorthand version of the story.
Like myself, Linda found the whole 'detective' aspect to be rather inconsiderate, as it had scared the three of us for days, only enhancing our already sky-high paranoia.
"That really sucks," she said.
"I know. That's what I said to Sly. He admitted that he could have found a better way."
"To say the least!" Linda exclaimed. "What the hell, Rick?"
But when I explained about Blaine's acceptance of my relationship with Taine, and how he wanted to join Sly in taking a larger role in Taine's life, Linda seemed pleased.
"It's about time," she said. "Wait, no... Shit, Rick, I don't mean to sound nasty about it. Everyone has to deal with their own demons in their own ways... even Sly and Taine's brother. I'm glad he's going to try."
"Me too," I said, hugging her goodnight as she pulled up in front of my house.
I took my trophy and briefcase and headed inside the house through the back patio door, tiptoeing carefully past Rex, who had fallen asleep on the floor in front of the TV, a beer can by his side.
He almost made me scream in surprise when he spoke.
"How'd you do, Whod?" he asked.
I turned so that he could see the trophy.
"Mighty fine, mighty fine," he said, turning over on his side and closing his eyes again. "Good night, Whod."
"Night, Rex," I smiled, and walked quietly down the hallway to my room.
Chapter 37
"What kind of fucking parents do that to their own kids?"
I grinned as Rex's exclamation woke me up on Sunday morning around 9:15. Looking at my trophy sitting on the dresser, I got out of bed and threw on my light blue International Thespian Society t-shirt, with the comedy and tragedy masks in dark blue, and a fairly tight pair of thin blue Ocean Pacific corduroy shorts. I knew that the drunken Rex could only be talking about one thing, and I was right.
"Taine and Blaine? I mean... what the hell were they thinking?"
"Oh, honey, I think it's cute," said Tynah.
"Cute? Okay, shit... let's call your daughter and have her pop out a Dick, a Prick and a Sick for Rick."
"Rexxxx!!!"
Chuckling, I threw on my Reeboks and ran a comb through my hair, then made my way to the kitchen to watch the show. If I could have, I would have brought popcorn.
As I grabbed a cup of coffee, an obvious shit-eating grin on my face, Tynah fled the room, her purple caftan billowing behind her in a show of regal disapproval. Rex sat in his usual chair with an expression of drunken disbelief.
"Good morning," I said, joining him at the table and lighting a cigarette.
"Sly just called," Rex said. "He said he wants you to come over and spend the day with your girlfriend TAINE and his brother... BLAINE."
I could only laugh. As accepting as he might be of my smoking -- even smoking pot -- and as tolerant as he was trying to be about my relationship with Taine, there were certain things about the modern world, starting in about 1960, which he could not accept. Matching baby names were one of them.
"Taine and Blaine," he repeated. "Un-fucking-believable. What's the sister's name? Brain? Train? Pussy Drain?"
Rex could be charming when he was drunk. Simply charming.
"Her name was Patty," I said quietly. "She died when she was still in the cradle."
"Blaine, Taine... and Patty," he went on, not acknowledging the death part. "So at least somebody came to their fucking senses at some point!"
"Whatever," I said, annoyed, stubbing out my cigarette and washing my coffee cup. "Did Sly say when I should go over?"
"Go on over now," Rex replied, trying to focus on his Sunday crossword. "You're not going to miss anything. Your team plays on Monday night, for all the good it'll do them."
"Cool," I said, zipping toward the hall to the bathroom. "I'm going to go get ready!"
"Fucking Blaine," I heard him mutter. "Jesus Christ."
I got to the Maxwell home at around 10:30, leaving Rex -- clad only in boxer shorts with the fly hanging open -- yelling at the neighbor about borrowing his tools without returning them. I rolled into the driveway around the red Lambo and the black Charger, dropped my bike next to the garage, and went to the door.
Sly answered, clad in gleaming sunglasses, an old Mach 1 sweatshirt with the sleeves torn off, black nylon shorts with a Pennzoil logo, and black New Balance sneakers with no socks. He led me out to the pool, where Taine and Blaine were sitting in deck chairs in board shorts and t-shirts drinking Hawaiian Punch. I took one from the cooler and took a seat next to Taine. I wanted to kiss him hello, but was wary of his mood and of his older brother's reaction. Taine nodded to acknowledge me, but it was difficult to read his expression.
Sly came from the bar with a fresh margarita and reclined on his own deck chair, removing his sunglasses and speaking to his three attentive listeners.
"Boys," he said, "I wanted the three of you together with me today because you are all my family. When Taine had to accept me, and I had to accept Rick, we had these little talks out here. Now, we need to hear from Blaine. Taine has heard most of this already, so this is mostly about Blaine and Rick."
This was making me very uncomfortable, as I didn't know Blaine from Adam, but Taine put a reassuring hand on my knee, and Sly leaned forward to look me in the eyes.
"Rick," he said, "Taine loves you, and I think of you as a member of this family. There's another member of this family, too. And I want you two to get to know each other, and understand each other. This isn't something I want to leave to chance, hoping you'll figure each other out on your own. I want us all to be together for this, so I'd like to ask you -- and I know you may have feelings on this already -- to just listen to Blaine for a while. Is that okay with you?"
I looked from face to face, noting that Blaine was looking at the ground, feeling as uncomfortable as I was. I understood that Sly wanted to manage this process, trying to make it as smooth as possible for everyone, but this whole thing struck me as really strange. My family was pretty uncommunicative when it came to emotion -- except for rage and sarcasm -- so I wasn't prepared for this sort of tribal meeting by anything in my past. Not knowing what to say, I nodded my head. Sly smiled and ruffled my hair, then looked toward his first son.
"Okay, Blaine. Whenever you're ready."
It took a few minutes. Lots of heavy sighing. Finally, Blaine looked at me, very seriously, and there was confusion in his eyes. I gave him a nod of encouragement, trying to manage a smile which I wasn't feeling.
"Hey, Rick," said Blaine at last. "I don't really know how to start. I guess when we were little kids, Taine and I were really close. We played together, rode bikes together... Taine always had bikes when he was little. Then something changed. He started to get bullied, and even though I was willing to fight for him, like you, I have to admit that I started getting more concerned with being popular than with protecting my brother."
Taine started to say something, but Sly held up his hand. The cap came down, and I caught a glimpse of his green eyes shimmering as Taine looked back to the ground.
"Mom was always there for him," Blaine continued. "But she couldn't be there for him at school, or in the woods, or just walking down the street. And I wasn't either. And... sorry, Dad... neither were you."
Sly nodded sadly. Taine didn't react, but his grip tightened a little on my knee. I put my hand on top of his, stroking the back of it as his brother went on.
"So, anyway, the house started to get divided. Mom and Taine on one side, Dad on another, me feeling all alone. And you know that thing about 'a house divided against itself cannot stand'? The Civil War thing? Well, that was us. The last thing was when Mom get pregnant with Patty. We were all pretty psyched about getting a new baby, I think. We were hoping that she would change the dynamics in our house. Well, that happened, but not in the way that we thought it would."
Blaine turned to his brother then, and squeezed his thin shoulder, leaning toward him nervously.
"Taine, I'm sorry if some of this is going to..."
"Just go on," Taine said, holding back tears. "Just tell him."
Blaine removed his hand from Taine's shoulder, not wanting to force anything. I took note of how much care he was taking with Taine during this painful story, and my ambivalence toward Blaine began to soften. Just a little.
"Anyway, once Patty was born, Mom was of course super-preoccupied with taking care of her. She was born a little prematurely, and she was small and weak, so Mom had to keep an eye on her health all the time. Dad, too. He really seemed to be trying to do everything right, and it looked for a while like Mom and Dad were getting closer again. Taine and I would take turns holding her at night, when she cried. It started to bring us closer together, too. I felt like we were on our way to becoming a family again."
"I did too," Taine said quietly, his voice barely above a whisper as he looked behind me at nothing, his mouth open as he tried to hold in his feelings.
Sly nodded in agreement. I looked back toward Blaine, who was struggling to find the right words. There was a lot of tension in the air, and I felt as if Blaine was tiptoeing through a minefield.
"Anyway, one day some older boys took Taine out in the woods by our house. I don't know what happened out there, but he was gone for a long time, and we were about to call the police to go out looking for him. I finally found him, sitting on this big rock out there, just crying. He had been crying for hours. Well, I was a stupid kid. I thought I was tough, thought I was a badass. I just told him to man the fuck up and dragged him home. I don't think I even asked him what had happened. I still don't know."
Taine had his head in his hands now, crying. I stood up, knelt by his chair, and put my arm around his shoulder. He just kept shaking his head back and forth. Sly shot me a silent look and I reluctantly went back to my chair. This wasn't a family meeting, I thought. This was an exorcism.
"And when we got home," Blaine said, his own voice quivering now, "I told him to 'go run to Mommy. Or tell Patty, she's a crying baby like you.' He went into Patty's room, and found Mom standing there over Patty's cradle. She was rocking Patty in her arms. Not crying. Not saying a word. Just rocking Patty back and forth in her arms. Taine screamed, and I came running into the room, with Dad right behind me. Patty was fucking blue. Just fucking small and blue and so still... so fucking still..."
We were all bawling now. Four guys sitting around a swimming pool on a quiet Sunday morning, just crying our damn eyes out. Sly got up and fetched us a box of Kleenex, then went to Blaine and wrapped him in his strong, muscular arms, calming and soothing him while I did the same to my Babes. After a time, the tears subsided and Sly returned to his chair, while I returned to mine. Blaine composed himself and continued.
"After that, everything changed. Mom was a basket case, stayed in her room all the time, just rocking back and forth on her bed. The doctor gave her tranquilizers, and she kept getting refills, rarely bathed, never cooked dinner for us anymore. Dad started taking more and more trips, entering more races all around the world, so he was never home. Taine never left the house unless he had to go to school, stayed in his room all the time, wouldn't talk to me at all. The house was like a graveyard, so oppressive, so bleak, I just had to get out. I couldn't stay there or I'd go crazy. I had to get out."
"So you joined the military," I said.
"Yeah," said Blaine, surprised that I knew anything about his life. "I joined the military. I didn't really fit in very well. I was so skinny, I had problems with PT, and I didn't really get along with all the 'rah rah gung ho' kind of guys. I was scared, lost, lonely... about the only thing I could do well was shoot. I was really good at shooting, so I became a sharpshooter. But after a while, I just... my heart just wasn't in it. I tried to get a 'COH'... a change-of-heart discharge, but they told me they only gave those during boot camp. So I did this."
Blaine slowly removed his right shoe, which I realized was specially built. Blaine only had half of his right foot remaining.
"You shot your foot off?" I said, shocked and fascinated.
"I shot my foot off," Blaine said, replacing his shoe hurriedly. "And they fixed me up, and then I got a Section 8 discharge. I had $227 in my pocket and I couldn't go home. I couldn't go anywhere. So I hitch-hiked to this little town in North Carolina. Teeny little backwoods shithole of a burg. Anyway, there weren't a lot of jobs for one-footed sharpshooters in that place, and there really wasn't much else that I knew how to do. I tried being a mechanic for a while, but I wasn't very good at it. I was always fucking something up, and I had a really bad attitude. I was drifting and lost and messed up in the head. So..."
He stopped, taking a deep breath, and looked me in the eyes, his gaze searching for... I don't know what. Something. Suddenly, it made sense to me. His initial feelings of anger toward me, the reason he wanted to come after me, all of this mystery. It finally made sense.
"So you met a man," I said. "An older man who promised to take care of you. He had money."
Blaine nodded, seemingly relieved that I understood.
"His name was Elden Croyle. He owned like a third of the town, and he told me that he was a philanthropist, and he liked to help young men like me. He had this big house, he called it 'Elden's Home for Wayward Boys'. Creepy fucking place, and not just because of Elden, who kept giving me these strange vibes over the first week I was there, even though he never did anything. But there had been all kinds of murders in that house. People thought it was haunted."
I leaned forward, fascinated by Blaine's story. Even Taine was rapt with attention now, and I guessed that he hadn't heard this part of his brother's tale until now.
"Anyway, nothing happened during that first week. But I went into this kind of combination coffeeshop and bookstore one day. There was this strange hippie-type guy there, long hair, really haunted-looking eyes. Once he found out where I was staying, and who I was staying with, he took me into the back of the store and he told me that I needed to leave that town as fast as I could. That Elden knew all kinds of strange people who came to visit every so often."
"Johns?"
"I could have dealt with johns at that stage of my life," Blaine replied. "But these weren't just johns. These were sadists. Perverts. Rich guys who paid a whole lot of money to inflict inconceivable pain on Elden's 'wayward boys'. I thought the guy was out of his mind, but when I got home, Elden told me that we were receiving some company a few days later, and that I would have to be prepared. That was when I knew the guy in the bookstore was telling the truth."
"So did you get out?" I asked.
Blaine looked at me sadly and shook his head.
"Not soon enough," he said.
Thank you for reading Chapters 36 & 37. To be continued...
Once again, I'm always happy to hear from readers at DJAkeeba@aol.com. You have all been so supportive and encouraging, and I thank you all for your e-mails.
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