Tyrone Williams drove up that Friday afternoon shortly after Rick and I, and the other guys, had gotten off work. Who drove up behind him was Brink Johnson, our new foster son. He was in a four-door Ford pickup that had one of those short, covered beds. That was an impressive vehicle Brink was driving. We ushered Brink and Tyrone in. Brink might have an impressive vehicle, but the poor kid was scared to death. And it was written all over his face. Brink is average size, 5'8", 5'9", something like that. He probably weighs somewhere between 140 and 160 pounds, lean but not skinny. He has brown hair and brown eyes, and he's a pretty handsome guy in the face department. He was wearing the Emerald Beach uniform -- khaki shorts and a white tee shirt with some kind of image or logo in the upper-left pectoral muscle area. His clothes were clean but rumpled. He had on deck shoes without socks, of course, and he was wearing a baseball cap. In short, he was dressed exactly like our boys dress for just about everything but work. "Hey, Brink," Kyle said. He stepped forward and shook Brink's hand. "Welcome home, Bubba." It was actually a pretty cute scene. Brink obviously knew Kyle, and the terror that marked Brink's face seconds before melted away. Leave it to Kyle. "Hey," Brink said, taking Kyle's hand for a shake. "Do you live here?" "Yeah. This is my home, man. You know Tim, don't you? And Brian? This is Justin, Brian's partner. These are Denny, Murray, and Pete. Since you're the newest boy, you have to do all the work around here," Kyle said. I could tell Brink really didn't believe Kyle, or, at least, he wanted not to. "He's teasing you, Brink," I said. "Everybody here is equal, but this stinker probably does twice as much work around here as anybody else." I indicated Kyle. "I know how to work," Brink said. "Well, you're fixing to take over, Bubba," Kyle said. "Are you going to get to keep your ride?" "I guess. I mean, it's in my name and all," Brink said. "Do I, Mr. Williams?" "Yeah. You'll probably need it," Tyrone said. "Kevin and Rick are the boss of you, so they're the boss of your ride, too, but you can keep it." "Come on. Let us show you around," Kyle said, and he and the kids went off with Brink. Brink was petting the dogs, getting to know them, as Kyle and the others led him outside. "Kevin and Rick, I've only spent a few hours with Brink, so I don't really know him all that well. I doubt you'll have any trouble with him, though. He comes from an affluent family, as you can probably tell, although I don't think they're first stringers in the Emerald Beach social hierarchy. He obviously knows some of your boys already, and that's a big plus. I think you'll find him to be a leader in the house," Tyrone said. "At least eventually." "Kyle knows him pretty well, Tyrone, and he told me some stuff about Brink earlier today. He'll be fine here," I said. "I have no doubt of that, Kevin. The real problem at home isn't his daddy. It's his stepmother. Brink was dating her younger brother, as I told you, and I think that was the source of the friction. She apparently had a fit when she found out that Brink and her brother were boyfriends, and she gave Mr. Johnson the ultimatum that either Brink goes or she does. It's not really an issue anymore with the brother because he's now in the army, but she doesn't want Brink back in the house," Tyrone said. "Was Brink physically abused by his father?" I asked. "Not that we know of, but there was quite a bit of emotional abuse by the stepmother. She's only twenty-five, and she's not a very stable person, psychologically. She doesn't have much education, either. I don't think Mr. Johnson married her for her mind, if you get my drift. This is the kind of case where Brink might be able to move home in a few weeks, if his dad kicks the stepmother out, or he may never be able to move home. It's impossible to call," Tyrone said. "Well, he can stay here for the duration," Rick said. "You know that." "Yeah, I do, Rick, but thanks for reminding me," Tyrone said. We executed the usual paperwork, and Brink became, thereby, our newest son. * * * Brink fit in faster and better than any of the other ones had. He's Emerald Beach to the core, and he knows the grumble as well as Kyle does. I sense that Brink has a lot of the qualities Kyle had brought to the house. Kyle set about teaching Brink how to cook and how to plan parties. Brink has the look and feel of an Alpha Male, at least as far as the boys in the house are concerned, and it's pretty obvious Kyle sees Brink as his successor. Brink didn't have a job, so I put him to work at one of the motels that already had one pool boy. That made him the second pool boy, so the General Manager of the place quickly made him the beach boy, a position they had not previously had. Evidently, he had been working for his father helping to manage rental property, but that job was over. The difference between Brink and Brian, when Brian first came to us, say, is remarkable. Brink has a vehicle, and it's a nice, new one. It's fully paid for, and the registration is in his name. He has a laptop computer that he brought with him, a cell phone, and a very full wardrobe. In lots of ways, Brink's a Kyle who actually needs us for shelter. As far as I can tell, that's about the only difference between the two.
I had decided I wasn't going to tell my daddy I'm gay. What was the point? He's gone from home most nights from March till Labor Day, and I didn't really see all that much of him. He has a band, and they play somewhere almost every night in the tourist season. Shelly, his wife, is always out with him. During the rest of the year, they're home most nights, except weekends, when his band has gigs. The off-season is when he pays attention to the radio stations. Otherwise, my uncle takes care of them. It's very much a family business. My dad married Shelly when I was in the ninth grade. My real mom was long gone, living in Oregon or someplace like that, and Shelly became Mom Number Four for me. That was fine with me. Shelly was young, like twenty-two, when she married my dad, but I could see how he would like her. I already knew by then that I'm gay, but I could still tell if a girl's hot and pretty. And Shelly is both. After about a year, Shelly's brother had to move in with us. He was eighteen years old at the time, a high school dropout, and he didn't have anyplace else to go. I figured out from the get-go that he's gay because of the way he looked at me and such, but he wasn't "out." His name is Cory Mathers, and I liked him immediately. I was fifteen, and there's almost three years' difference in age between us. But that didn't stop us from becoming good friends. Best friends, even. Cory grew up in Georgia, just like Shelly did, and he really didn't have any friends in Emerald Beach. He found a part-time job at a sandwich shop on the beach, but my dad never put him to work in his company. I don't know why. He let me work there during the summer, though. I heard Dad and Shelly talking about it one time, and I heard my dad say he thought Cory was trifling and that he wasn't going to work him until he finished high school. I wasn't sure what he meant by that, but I guess it meant he didn't want Cory working for his company. When Cory came to live with us, he had an old, beat-up pickup truck. He had to spend a lot of time working on it to keep it running, and I was usually right there with him, watching and helping. One time Cory was under the truck with just the bottom half of his body sticking out. He had on real old jeans with holes in the knees, and the material was so worn that I could clearly see the outline of his dick through it. I don't know why, but I got a sudden, uncontrollable urge to touch him there through his jeans. I got down on the garage floor with my legs crossed. My own dick was already very hard, and I adjusted it to make it more comfortable. Then, with just the index finger of my right hand, I outlined the shape of his penis. He had to know what was going on and that I was the one doing it. I mean, nobody else was even home but him and me. I didn't know how Cory would react to what I was doing. I didn't think he'd beat me up or anything, but I didn't know if he'd like me doing that to him. He didn't say anything, though. In fact, he stopped working and just lay there. He got hard in just a few seconds, and that made me braver. I started rubbing what I thought was the underside of his dick with the flat of my palm. He moaned a little, but he didn't say anything. Then, in a matter of just a couple of minutes, he came. I could feel his dick stiffen and sort of move up tighter against my hand. Cory thrust into my hand a few times, and then the tell-tale wetness started spreading on the front of his jeans. I had been rubbing myself with my left hand while I was doing that to him, and then I came, too. Nothing was said about it by either of us. Cory went back to work doing whatever it was he was doing, and I continued to hand him tools when he asked for them. Neither of us went inside to change out of our wet jeans, and we worked for at least another hour. "Thanks," Cory said, when he finally crawled out from under the truck. "For everything." I'm sure I blushed when he said that. That was the first time I had ever done anything remotely sexual with another guy, and I was pretty nervous about what might happen next. If Cory is gay, I thought, does he like me like a boyfriend? I like him enough to be a boyfriend, and it'll sure be convenient, if that's the way it works out. "I'm thirsty, are you?" Cory asked. "Let's have a beer." It was a Saturday afternoon a couple of days after New Year's. I had had a few drinks that Cory had made for me during the Christmas holidays, but that was all the drinking I had ever done. We always had beer in the refrigerator in the garage, and there was always other kinds of booze in the liquor cabinet in the house. My dad likes to have a drink when he comes home from work, and I also know that he has drinks when his band is playing in bars and whatnot. I've never actually seen him drunk, but alcohol was a part of our home. "Okay," I said. I got two beers from the spare refrigerator that's out there, and I twisted off the cap before I handed Cory's to him. Then Cory opened the passenger door of his truck, and I knew he was fiddling with something in the glove compartment. What he was doing was getting a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. "I didn't know you smoke," I said. I was pretty surprised when he lit one up. "I really don't. At least not regular. But I like to have one when I drink beer. Do you want one?" he asked. I had smoked a few before, so I took one. He handed me his lighter, and I fired mine up, too. We smoked and drank our beers in silence for a few minutes. "You're gay, aren't you?" Cory asked me. I had pretty much fully accepted that fact about myself a long time ago, but I had never actually told it to anybody. When he asked me that question, a kind of nervous chill went through my whole body. I probably could have lied and said something like, "No, I was just trying to brush some dirt off you back there." But what was the point? "Yeah. I think I am," I said. Saying that actually wasn't all that bad, and I did sort of feel relieved that somebody else knew, somebody I really, really liked. "Me, too," he said. "Are you out to anybody?" "Just to you, as of right now," I said. "Same with me. Just to you," he said. "Did you get off, too, when I did?" I nodded sheepishly. "Good," he said. "That felt really good, Brink. Nobody's ever done anything like that to me before. Thanks, man." We had finished our cigarettes by then. Cory set his beer bottle down on the workbench, and he gently took mine away from me and set it next to his. Then he moved toward me, took me into his arms, and we kissed. I had kissed a few girls before then, so I kind of knew what to do with my tongue, and all. Cory must have done the same thing because that kiss was hot. In fact, in no time at all, both of us were hard just from kissing, and I could feel my dick rub against his through our jeans. I had on a flannel shirt without a tee shirt under it, and Cory unbuttoned my shirt for me. He dipped his head down and started sucking one of my nipples. That sensation was overwhelming. I mean, I had seen pictures of guys doing that, but I had never imagined it would feel that good. It felt so good, in fact, that I shot another load in my jeans. I put my hands under his tee shirt and lifted it over his head. I worked his nipple the same way he had worked mine, and he came again, too. "Whoa!" he said, when he was done. "I know," I said. The old cum in my jeans was cold and clammy by then, but the fresh, hot load felt really good. We had another beer and another cigarette each. "Should we tell?" I asked. "Tell who? Tell what?" he asked. "About us. That we're both gay," I said. "Tell Shelly and Dad." He got real serious when I said that. "I don't see the point. Brink, I'm going to level with you, buddy. I've had a major crush on you since I've been here, and I can't tell you the number of times I've jerked off in my bedroom thinking about you. I want to be your boyfriend, and I want us to keep on having sex. But we're already best friends, and we already do almost everything together. Their bedroom is way the hell off in East Jerusalem on the first floor, and, as far as I know, neither one of them ever comes up to the second floor where we are. To tell you the truth, I really don't trust my sister to be understanding. Your dad? Yeah, no problem. I mean, from what I understand, half his band is gay, and he's got a lot of gay friends. But underneath that pretty exterior, my sister's a redneck bitch when it comes to homosexuality, and that's the truth," he said. I thought about that for a few seconds. "I've got a confession to make, too," I said. "I've thought about you every time I've jerked off since I met you, and I want to be your boyfriend. And you're right. There's no reason we have to tell. Cory, I feel so damn good right now, I can hardly stand it." "I know. Me too. Let's go get a shower and go out on our first official date. You want to?" he asked. "Yeah, let's take that shower together," I said, grinning. "I wouldn't have it any other way," he said. * * * That's the way it started between us. Our bedrooms were upstairs, and there was a bathroom between the two. That made it easy for us to get back and forth, and we slept with each other every night. We alternated rooms so the maid wouldn't get suspicious if she noticed one bed always had fresh sheets on it, but otherwise, on the surface at least, everything was the same. Or so I thought. Cory got into a GED program. He had quit high school at the end of his junior year, so he already had all of the basic reading, writing, and math skills he needed to pass that test. Plus, he was pretty smart. He went to GED prep classes at the local adult school for a few hours every morning, and then he went to work at the sandwich shop. He took the GED test in a couple of months and passed it easily. Sometimes he had to work a double, which was good because of the money he made doing that, but that wasn't so often that it interfered with our lovemaking. Most nights he'd get home around 7:30. We'd shower together to get the restaurant smell off him, and then we'd watch TV or play video games or just snuggle and talk. We didn't really see that much of Dad and Shelly, but now and then we'd go out for dinner "as a family." Every night, Cory and I would have sex. We started out with just kissing and rubbing against each other and jerking each other off, but gradually, over the next few months, we got into oral sex and even anal sex. I was in love with that boy, and I got to a point where I couldn't imagine my life without him. We knew about safe sex, and we always practiced it. One Saturday afternoon, it was just me and my dad downstairs in the den. We were watching a movie he had rented. Cory was at work, and Shelly was in Destin, shopping at the outlet center with the girlfriend of one of the guys in my dad's band. He picked up the remote and stopped the movie. Then he hit the mute button for the TV. I looked at him, not knowing what was going on. "Piss break?" I asked. "No. Brink, do you have any gay friends, Son?" he asked, out of the blue. "I, uh, I, uh, don't know, Daddy," I said. I was all but paralyzed with fear about where this conversation might be going. "I do, you know? Quite a few, in fact. I'll bet you probably do and don't even know it," he said. "Yes, sir. Probably," I said. I didn't like this AT ALL. "Have you ever heard of the concept of gaydar, Son?" he asked. I had, but I wasn't about to admit it. "No, sir," I said. "Well, it's kind of like radar for gays. It's the ability to tell if someone is gay without them telling you in words," he said. "A lot of people think only gay people have it, but when you've spent as much time in the company of gay guys as I have over the years, you develop it pretty good." I didn't say anything because I didn't know what to say. "The thing is, Brink, I just want you to know, Son, that if, down the road, it turns out you're gay or bisexual, it won't be a bit of a problem for me. I'll always love you and respect you. And if you do turn out to be gay, and you find a partner that you care about, he'll always be welcome and respected in this house by me. "Now, Shelly's a little bit of a different story, I think. If it turns out that you and, say, Cory, are both gay and in love, I doubt that your stepmama could handle that. She'd have to accept you, if she wanted to stay married to me, but I don't think she could take it, if her brother is gay," he said. The emotions and the confusion that were running through me just then were almost overwhelming. On one hand, I felt totally liberated and overjoyed that my dad felt the way he did. On the other hand, I was scared and panicked over how Shelly might feel about Cory. It was pretty clear to me that my dad knew, and that was a load off my shoulders. I did what any self-respecting gay boy does under those circumstances. I started to cry. "Are we that obvious, Daddy?" I asked. He snuggled me to him in a hug. "No, Son. Not at all. But, like I said, I've had years to develop gaydar," he said. "Daddy, I love you so much," I said. "I know you do, and I love you, too. I think the way you and Cory have been doing around Shelly has been just fine. She doesn't suspect a thing. Just be careful around her, okay? I saw y'all groping each other in the kitchen the other day. Now that kind of stuff is perfectly natural and perfectly normal for two guys in love. Y'all were just playing and being affectionate, and straight couples do shit like that all the time. But Shelly wouldn't understand that," he said. "Yes, sir. I hear you," I said. "Good," he said. "Are y'all going out tonight?" "Yes, sir. We're supposed to go to a movie," I said. "Why don't you stop by the club after the movie and hear your old man sing?" he said. "Uh . . ." He laughed. "I know. You don't like country music. Goddamn! How could I have raised a boy who doesn't like country music? I'm a failure as a parent," he said, and we both laughed. "It's not that I don't like country music, Daddy. I just don't like the way you sing it," I said. He busted up laughing. "You little shit. Let's finish watching this thing," he said, referring to the movie we had been watching. When I told Cory about that conversation later that evening, we both ended up in tears. They were tears of happiness over my dad's attitude, but they were also tears of fear and sadness over Shelly's. "He's right, you know. Did you know she was married before?" he asked. "Yeah. When she was real young, or something, right?" I asked. "Yeah. When she was sixteen. And he was gay," Cory said. "She felt betrayed big time. Our parents were violently opposed to the marriage from the start because of her age, but she didn't need their permission. They ended up getting it annulled. Ironically, I feel like I could come out to them, and they'd be okay with it. By the way, did you know they're moving here? Next month." "No. You hadn't told me that," I said. "It must have slipped my mind. I got on their shit list big time when I dropped out of high school, but, now that I got my GED and everything, I think things are going to be okay with them. I hope so, anyway. You're going to like 'em, and they're going to like you, too," he said. "I hope so," I said. "Don't worry. They will, and you will," he said. * * * About a week later, my dad hired Cory to work for his company. Dad has a bunch of radio stations, and that's the main part of the business, but he also has quite a few pieces of beach rental property. My dad's a pretty good businessman when he wants to be, but his abiding love and passion is making music with his band. That's why my uncle, his younger brother, pretty much runs most of the business. My Uncle Roger is ten years younger than my dad, which makes Roger around thirty. He's married and has a couple of little boys that are the cutest kids on the face of this earth. My dad graduated from Emerald Beach High School, and he picked up an AA degree from Emerald Coast Community College. But Uncle Roger went to FSU and got a BS degree in business. His wife's a schoolteacher by training, but she's staying home to take care of the boys until they're ready to start school. Dad made Cory Roger's "special assistant" to look after the rental property. There are a bunch of houses and condos and trailers and stuff like that, and there are a ton of those little mini-storage units that they rent out. Cory took to that like a duck takes to water, and he was doing so good. He was making real money for the first time ever, and he upgraded to a brand new Ford pickup. He and I were totally in love, but, besides my dad and Roger, we weren't out to anybody. Then one day in late May the shit hit the fan. It was a Saturday. We went out Friday night to one of the few gay clubs in Emerald Beach. Cory was already almost nineteen, so he didn't have a problem about getting in. He wasn't supposed to drink, but that was pretty much a formality. I got in on the strength of a fake ID I had manufactured using a scanner, a printer, and a laminating machine. I knew it was piss poor, but it worked that night. The next day, Saturday, we slept in. We happened to be in his room, and we were both naked, which is how we always slept. We woke up around 11:30 or so. We both got up to piss, and then we just stayed in bed, kissing and holding and rubbing. It was real lazy. Without warning, the door flew open, and it was Shelly. She NEVER came up there. What the fuck was she doing there now? The look on her face is indescribable. She had caught us in the act every bit as much as if Cory had his dick shoved up my ass or I had his in my mouth. She knew what was going on, and she freaked out. "What now?" I asked. "I don't know," Cory said. "But I think we'd better get up and go see what's going on, don't you?" "Yeah," I said. What was going on downstairs was a hysterical fit by Shelly. When we went into the room, she charged us and started slapping and pounding her fists on our chests. I didn't want that bitch wailing on me, but I wasn't about to slap her or anything with my daddy right there. I grabbed her wrists and made her stop hitting us. "Shelly, calm down," Dad said. "You knew about this, didn't you? You knew," she screamed at my dad. "Yes, I knew. And I don't have a problem with it," he said. "I want him out of here. Now!" she said, meaning Cory. "Baby, please calm down," Dad said. "NO! I will NOT calm down! I want this piece of fruit out of here," she said. I thought that expression was pretty clever for her, and I noticed my dad smiling a little, too, when she said that. "Don't you laugh at me, you fag lover," she said to my dad, and she stalked out of the room. "What did she see, guys?" my dad asked, once things in the room were more or less calm. "Dad, we were naked in bed. We were kissing and holding each other close. She stormed in without knocking or giving us any warning," I said. "She's never done that before. In fact, I can't ever remember her coming upstairs when I'm home." My dad made some heavy sighs, and nobody said anything for a long time. "Here's the deal, guys. I think I can calm her down, but it might be a good idea for you two boys to make yourselves scarce for the next couple of days. Cory, do you think you can stay at your parents' house?" Dad asked. "I guess," Cory said, "but I'm only going if Brink goes with me." "I'll do that," I said. Oh, the drama of it all. Cory and I packed up what we thought we might need for three or four days, and we drove over separately to his parents' house. He had tried to get them on the phone before we left, but they hadn't answered. He knew where they keep the key, so we went on over there without even talking to them. They weren't all that pleased to see us, frankly. Naturally, we had to explain about our relationship, and that was the first time they learned their son is gay. They didn't take the news badly, but they really didn't take it all that well, either. It was sort of a grudging acceptance. It's a three-bedroom house, and they made us each have a separate room. Like that would do any good. But we went along with it to please them. Things were tense in that house. Nobody said anything overtly, but the fact that we didn't talk about why we were there, and what was going on at my dad's house, made me nervous and uneasy. Cory's parents weren't offensive, or anything, but the second day we were there, his dad started in on the military for Cory. Military? What? Okay, so his dad's a retired Master Sergeant, or something like that, but I wasn't real clear on what that means. His dad set up an interview with an army recruiter, and before I knew it, Cory was signing paperwork to join up. "What about us?" I asked. "What ABOUT us?" he asked in return. "It's not going to work out for us, Brink. My fucking sister saw to that." "It can, though, Baby. We can make it work out," I said. "I don't think so, Brink. Besides, I'm a grown man, now. I need to get on with my life on my own. I'm not a boy anymore," he said. * * * The upshot was, Cory left for the army in the middle of June. I went home to my dad's house, and that was the beginning of the battle royal between Shelly and me. She didn't give me a minute's peace. I finally said "fuck it," and I went back to Cory's parents' house. They put me up for a couple of nights, but then they said I had to leave. They contacted the foster care people. "Dad, how can you let them do this to me?" I asked my father. "I don't want to, Son, and I'm pretty sure we can work this out real soon, you know? It's not like you're a little kid anymore, though," he said. I didn't have a rebuttal to that. He opted for Shelly over me, at least for the time being, and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. And that's how I landed on North Lagoon Drive.
"You seem mighty damn depressed. What the hell's wrong with you?" Justin asked me one day. "Nothing," I said. "Don't give me that shit, Kyle. Who the fuck you think you're talking to? Some fucking stranger? What's wrong?" Justin demanded. "Nothing's wrong," I said. "But in two weeks we're leaving here, man. Don't that make you sad?" Tears were streaming down my face. In a second, tears were streaming down his face, too. We hugged each other and cried like two little middle-school girls. We were just pathetic. "Kyle, we got to find a good way to look at this," Jus said. "Otherwise, we're going to be miserable." "I know. We're just going off to school. For the next thirteen FUCKING years," I said. "Don't say it that way, you shit, 'cause if you do, I'll have to cut your tongue out," Justin said. "What? This?" and I licked him on the cheek. I had done that to Brian a time or two, and I thought it was funny as hell. "God! You are the most disgusting person I have ever known, Goodson," Justin said. He was trying hard to wipe my saliva off his cheek, but he and I both knew the whole thing was a big joke. "You can do it to me, if you want to," I said. "But, see? That's the thing. I don't want to. I'm not part Labrador Retriever, like you are. Plus, Brian's got me trained," Jus said. That made us both laugh so hard, I thought I was going to pee my britches. I was depressed about leaving my home, but I'm going off with three of the people I care about most in the world. I'm going to miss Kevin and Rick, and my parents, and Emerald Beach, and all my friends, but at least I'm taking the three people I'm closest to with me. I guess it could be a lot worse. * * * During the two weeks before we left, the weather in Emerald Beach was horrible. It rained every single day, and we had three different tropical depressions come through our area in that time. The surf was great every day, but it was also cloudy, overcast, and real humid. When a trop comes through, you can always tell. The atmospheric pressure gets real low, and the humidity gets real high. A trop has a feel all its own. There's a lot more wind than usual, but it's not the cool sea breeze we love every day. It's real wind, and all those big oak trees around our house drop shit that has to be picked up. Usually it's just little twigs with a few leaves on each one, but sometimes it's big branches. It's usually dead wood from the tree, so that helps everything out, but it's a pain in the ass to have to pick up all that crap. We had already taken a bunch of our shit to New Orleans after Chris and David left in July. I don't know why we have so many books, but we do. Each of us also has a desktop computer, and all four of us have laptops, too. Eight computers for four guys? How can that be right? But that's what we have. Grandma and Grandpa Foley were looking to spoil the shit out of us. They had already put in a second bathroom for us, but they also had the whole damn place wired with cable Internet and digital cable TV. I don't know who did the computer stuff, but he put in wireless access points all over the apartment so that we can literally surf the Internet with our laptops while we're taking a crap, if we want to. I figure Tim and Brian will probably do that some, too. * * * Philip and Ryan came over. "We're leaving tomorrow for school," Philip said. "Well, we're leaving this weekend," I said. "I know. Do you feel like you're leaving your whole life, man?" Philip said. "Yeah. I sort of do," I said. "Well, you're not, Kyle. We did it last year, you know? This is probably going to be the last summer we're coming home for anything more than a visit," Philip said. "And why is that?" I asked. "Philip and I are making a life together in Tallahassee, Kyle. Just like you and Tim are going to make a life in New Orleans. We've missed our apartment, we've missed our friends, we've missed the places we like to go out to. That's just where we are now," Ryan said. "Do you think we'll get that way?" I asked. "About New Orleans, I mean?" "No question. You guys got the perfect setup, as I understand it. Man, it's going to be so good, you won't ever want to leave," Philip said. "I don't know about that," I said. "We'll see, though." * * * Well, the weekend we had all dreaded had finally gotten there. Our rooms were totally barren because everything was packed up. We had left out a couple of pairs of underwear, a couple of shirts, and one pair of shorts for us to wear before we left. Everything else was packed and put away in the cars. On Saturday, we had a big party. I made Brink and Denny shadow me in the kitchen so they'll know exactly what to do with a crowd that size. They're both really, really smart, and I know that Kevin and Rick aren't going to pay the least bit of attention to having parties after we're gone. Rick once catered a party for 3,000 people when the City of Tallahassee had gotten some kind of award, so I know he can serve a crowd, but he doesn't really like to do that kind of thing anymore. That means the kids will have to do it, and Brink and Denny are the logical choices. We had a great day on Saturday. All of our friends made it over for at least a little while, and we loved seeing them. There's no telling how many beers I drank that day, but I never, ever felt the least bit drunk. Of course, I was eating pretty much nonstop, so that probably kept me sober. I don't know. Sunday morning was the worst time of my life. My parents were there, and Tim's parents were there. The Townhouse Boys were there, too. We had a very, very nice breakfast. I made a dish called Eggs Nouvelle Orleans, which featured a bed of lump blue crab meat, two poached eggs, and hollandaise sauce. That was the first time I had made it, so I didn't know how it would turn out. It was very good, though. I thought that dish was fitting, considering what was going on. We dragged around that morning. Nobody wanted to go home, and nobody wanted to go upstairs to study or whatever. Finally, I said, "Let's go." It was about 11:30 in the morning, and that meant we'd get to Grandma and Grandpa's house -- our new house -- around 4:30 or 5:00 o'clock. But the leaving was not easy. My daddy hugged me and held me close for a few seconds. "Kyle, I'm going to tell you what my daddy told me when I drove off to college. Go, Gators!" "What?" I asked. He broke up laughing. "I guess that don't mean that much to you anymore," he said. "It'll always mean a lot to me, Daddy," and he and I both cried. "Did you hear that Bobby Bowden predicted the FSU season this year?" "No. What'd he say?" Daddy asked. "He said it's going to be eight and three," I said. "For real?" he asked. "Yes, sir. Eight arrests, three convictions," I said. That busted him up. "It sounds like you've been talking to some Gators," he said. "No, sir, actually a Seminole told me that one," I said. The whole Gator-Seminole rivalry is just about the essence of Florida collegiate football; the fact that he and my mother and my brother had gone to the University of Florida; the fact that Jeff had gone there, even though his degree is from Florida State. All of that came crashing in on me. Kevin, Rick, and Rick's family were Seminoles. That's what made football in the state of Florida more fun than the Civil War. "Go, Gators, Daddy, but Go, Noles, too," I said. "Yes, son. It's definitely a multicultural world where diversity is valued. No Hurricanes, though, okay?" I literally howled with laughter when he said that. He was talking about the University of Miami Hurricanes, the bane of both Florida and FSU. What other state had college football teams of the magnitude and power and consistency of those three teams? One of those three teams has been the National Champions in something like seven of the last ten years, and it isn't fixing to end, either. There were a lot of tender moments that morning, as we said goodbye to our families and friends. It was very, very difficult for all concerned, but there was an air of expectancy, an air of adventure, among the four of us who were leaving. By 11:30, I thought, This shit's got to end, and now's the time. "Let's head out, guys," I said. We were driving four cars, but we had walkie-talkies so we could stay in touch. Trixie rode with Brian in his car, and we headed out for college and for life. Our life in Emerald Beach, on North Lagoon Drive, had been idyllic, and I think we knew that. We aren't exactly going into a void or a vacuum. Grandma and Grandpa are going to be there, as are Craig and Cherie and little Rob. We don't know where it's all going to end up, but who ever does in life? "Goodbye, Kevin. Goodbye, Rick. Goodbye, Emerald Beach. Goodbye, boyhood," I said aloud, as I drove down the street, and tears streamed down my face. The End
If we had a crystal ball and could see the future, we'd know that Kevin and Rick continue to provide foster care for gay boys and young men. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals eventually overturned the Florida statute that forbade gay adoption, and Tyrone Williams was immediately all over them about adopting a couple of kids, or more. Kevin and Rick discussed that proposition at length, but, in the end, they decided they can do more good with a larger number of kids in foster care than they could with three or four they adopted. Not all the kids stayed close to the couple the way Kyle, Tim, Justin, and Brian did, but most years the house on North Lagoon Drive is packed to the rafters on Christmas morning, with boys for whom that place is their only real home. Philip's and Ryan's predictions about the guys loving college and loving New Orleans came true quicker than anybody thought they would. Tim and Brian had enough credits through Advanced Placement and Dual Enrollment that they started Tulane as second-semester sophomores. They were both premed majors, of course, and they made it a point to take as many of the same courses as possible. They were never lab partners because they wanted to get to know other kids in their classes, but they presented a formidable academic force as a team. Grandpa Foley was able to get Tim and Brian summer jobs in some of the labs at the Tulane Medical School, and their transitions from undergraduates to medical students were seamless. Kyle and Justin took much the same approach to courses at the University of New Orleans. Kyle got a job as a photographer for the campus newspaper, and that kept him busy. Every couple of years, Kyle's publisher would demand a new book from him, and he developed an impressive circle of collectors through the galleries that represented him, which by the end of their time in New Orleans were in seven cities. He joined the New Orleans Gay Men's Chorus after college, and that put him and his brothers smack dab in the center of the New Orleans gay arts community. Justin took up quilting and joined a local quilting guild. His first attempts, namely panels for the AIDS Quilt in memory of Trey and another man they had gotten to know during college, an eighteen-year-old freshman, were decent, but in time Justin's quilting skills and eye for design flourished. By the end of the second year after he and Kyle graduated from UNO, he had quilts on display in two New Orleans art galleries. Each had a whopping $15,000.00 price tag on it, and he sold every one of them. In fact, he couldn't make them fast enough. A lot of that money went straight into rental property in Emerald Beach, where his holdings, while not as extensive as Kyle's, were growing steadily. The first semester after they moved to New Orleans, they, quite predictably, made it home to Emerald Beach at least once a month for the weekend, and some months more often than that. As time moved on, though, the trips became less and less frequent. They were always there for holidays and major family celebrations, but the center of their world gradually shifted from Emerald Beach to New Orleans. Their apartment over the garage at Grandma and Grandpa Foley's house was fine while they were in college. After college, and while Tim and Brian were in medical school, the house next door to the Foley's went up for sale. The two couples bought it jointly, and they continued to live in the shadow of Kevin's parents. The day Brian turned twenty-one, Kyle announced his legacy to his brothers. His personal fortune had grown from the $6 million his Goodson grandparents had left him in trust as a baby to a very handsome thirty million dollars. Kyle worked closely with Cherie, who was still a bit skeptical about Kyle giving away large sums of money, to establish trust funds to the tune of five million dollars each for Tim, Justin, and Brian. Kyle had originally wanted to divide his trust fund evenly among the four of them, but Cherie, with the help of Craig, Ed and Beth Foley, and Gene Goodson, talked him out of that. The other boys hadn't wanted to accept Kyle's gift, but he eventually made them take the money. Much to their credit, the four millionaires continued to live together as they always had, and the only change in lifestyle was that Justin bought himself a new pickup truck-which he would have had to do anyway. Kyle had already gotten them a Celica, which was about in need of replacement. The two couples made their solemn public commitments to their mates two weeks after Tim and Brian graduated from medical school. Kyle and Tim had been together for a full ten years by then, and Justin and Brian had been together almost nine years. But the love and joy and happiness that beamed from the faces of the four grooms made everybody who attended think they were new couples, freshly in love. The party on that occasion was unbelievable. Little Rob, who was by then eight years old, and his six-year-old brother, Eddie, also conceived using Kevin's sperm, were the altar servers for the occasion. Those two little boys could not have loved their four "uncles" any more than they did. The Reverend Gerald Taylor presided-in the actual parish church in Emerald Beach. Father Vince Vickers had left the priesthood by then, but he and his partner were honored guests. Kyle and Justin both got management jobs in huge downtown New Orleans hotels. Nobody knew whether Gene Goodson had anything to do with their getting those jobs, but each of them worked at a hotel that was part of the same brands that Gene had in Emerald Beach. Even if Gene had pulled strings in helping them get jobs, there was no way he could have been responsible for the brilliance of their careers. Kyle and Justin each declined offers to become general managers of hotels, Kyle in Little Rock and Justin in Savannah. Their boys -- their men, really -- were still in training in New Orleans, so that was where they would stay. Eventually, Tim and Brian did specialty residencies at Tulane Medical Center. Given the vagaries of the residency lottery, there is no question that Ed Foley used his influence as a member of the Tulane Medical Center Board of Directors to see that the boys stayed together. Their family has "resources" that other families don't have, and that was one time the guys were happy to use them. Tim went into ophthalmology, and Brian became an ear, nose, and throat specialist. During his residency, whenever he could find the time, Brian got involved in training "hearing dogs" for people with hearing impairments. He was able to couple his natural "dog man" talents with his chosen medical specialty, and he could have turned that into a full-time career, if he hadn't been so interested in ear, nose, and throat surgery. When the guys moved back to Emerald Beach, Kyle and Justin each became the general manager of one of Gene's big hotels, and Tim and Brian joined a group medical practice. Each couple bought a house next door to Kevin and Rick's house because, unlike Kevin and Rick, they plan to take advantage of the freedom of gay couples to adopt children. That arrangement lasted about three months. Then Justin and Brian put their house on the rental market and moved in with Kyle and Tim. Their children will just have to grow up together, as they had. Eventually, Cherie helped them straighten out ownership so that the two couples formed a corporation to own those houses in common. They kept their rental property separate, but Kyle wouldn't hesitate to work out a problem with a piece of Justin's property, and Justin did the same for Kyle. It's a good life, filled with love and comradeship and caring and fun. As Kevin had predicted, Kyle and Justin had lost their accents and their Emerald Beach "good ole boy" personas after they had been in New Orleans for about a month, but the grumble came back loud and clear once they were home for good. Nobody cared, and it actually paid dividends in the Emerald Beach business community that even they weren't aware of. Kevin and Rick, Gene and Rita, and George and Sonya could not be any prouder of their sons. The End. For Real.
|