by David Connor
"Good."
"At least now I have a happy spaghetti memory, right? To take the place of the school cafeteria prank when mine ended up on the floor."
"Sp-ag-et… ghetti."
"Very good, Liam." It was a hard word, so Frank gave him a break. "Did I tell you the spaghetti story?" Frank didn't wait for an answer. "Long one short—for real this time—he tripped me and I spilled my lunch tray. I was quite embarrassed, which was, of course, the plan."
"Kiss." Liam made the sound as if doing it for real.
"Mwah!" Frank returned it. "Kiss. I thought you may have fallen asleep on me. My stories are too long, aren't they? Maybe you can tell me a story sometime. Tell me about your first love. Any memories you have. You still have some in there, don't you?"
"Ren-ny."
"You want to hear the rest?"
"Yes."
"Well, Renny repeated the successful prank on graduation day. We were both in band in junior high, but he had quit by the end of our school days. I played the oboe. Renny once played the trombone. Huh." Frank had a sudden thought, one he expressed. "Renny did read music at one time—quite well. Maybe he did play the piano. Anyway, I got up to take my place for our selection—La Gazza Ladra Overture. Renny tripped me." Frank started to laugh. "I fell into a rack of giant, tubular bells. Clangity clang clang!" Frank couldn't catch his breath. "It was…. It's funny now, I guess. Maybe because I am sharing it with someone. Maybe because at this moment, for the first time in my life, I am not that boy anymore. Clangity, clang, clang!" Frank snickered. Liam giggled softly too. "I just kept kicking the damned things! Those stupid clanging tubes! Clangity clang, clang, clang."
They both laughed hard.
"If it had been accidental, it may have been hilarious at the time. If I'd had friends to laugh with, not people laughing at me, the absurdity of the situation definitely lent itself toward humor. 'You still got both your eyes, Freaky Frank. Four of them. Can't you see where you're going?'" Frank stopped laughing then. Liam, too. "When I looked at him naked on the slab, I was almost happy he was gone." Frank shuddered. How dare he say such a thing? What must Liam think of him now? "That's not nice, Liam. Maybe I'm not."
"Fank nice."
"You are. I hope he's happy now. I hope he found someone in heaven just like you. How wonderful it would be if the insecurities and worries were all gone—the self-loathing over being attracted to other men. I once felt it too, for the same and different reasons. I still know something close nearly every day when not seeing myself through your eyes."
"Untrustworthy eyes," the devil prodded. "Liam's words are programmed. Soon, he'll be regurgitating memorized dialogue like an actor in a movie or some brainwashed cultist. Vaughn Hellier had a plan, Frank. He admitted so much to you. Even if it was a kind one, it was still manipulation."
"I pray for Renny's damaged soul, and Melissa's, so sweet and kind. I asked your father once where such empathy, benevolence, and thoughtfulness come from, or a lack thereof, I suppose. Is one's soul a part of their heart? Their brain? Vaughn had no answer. I have none, nor does science. Religion, I suppose, says what it says on the matter. What do you think, Liam? Where does sweetness and love come from in a person?"
"Fank." Liam answered right away.
Frank smiled. Wherever it originated, Liam had an abundance.
"You're sweet, Liam."
"St-ory."
"Okay. Well, there isn't much more to tell. The last time I saw Renny..." Frank flashed back on the adult version of his childhood friend lying naked in the back room at the mortuary awaiting his cremation. His soul—if he'd ever had one—was gone. He remembered Vaughn's inappropriate acknowledgment and visualized the reason. He then glanced at Liam's sexual appendage, equally large, equally beautiful. "Between the school bus coming home from New York City and the slab, many years had passed. There were times, I suppose, I fantasized about what might have been. I pictured us in love, Renny and I, in a house of our own, possibly with children, definitely pets. Renny liked my cat, the one that almost died in the fire. I wonder if he had cats. I wonder if he and Melissa would have had children. Would he sing to them, like he did to my cat sometimes?"
"Freaky Frank. Freaky Frank."
Frank turned over, sitting up on one elbow. He scooted around. "Well, I did it now," he said. Liam's eyes were closed. His breaths were deep and measured. "I put you to sleep."
Frank watched him a while. Liam's chest moved up and down, his flat stomach, his pelvis, his dick. Frank held his hand above Liam's face, and felt the breaths coming out of him. He moved it down, over Liam's heart, and then his tummy, and then his crotch.
Frank lowered his downturned palm closer and closer to Liam's penis as it stirred slightly with each soft snuffle in and out. He kept going—farther than he should have—until he could feel the slight tickle of hair and the warmth coming off of it. Then he pulled his hand away, and brought it to his face. Oh, how he wanted to bury his nose in the bushiness below Liam's navel, above his tempting manhood. He wanted to snuffle himself, wide awake, in the crevices where the thighs came against it. He wanted to inhale Liam's scent and experience with taste every inch of him. Frank wanted to take Liam in his mouth and make him hard again. He wanted to bring him to the very edge of eruption, then stop, so Liam could put his rigid heat inside him in back and expel his warm climax up into him there.
A stiff breeze blew through the trees, signaling cooler days to come. It rustled not only the few remaining leaves above, but also Liam's hair, on his head and his pelvic region. Scars… So many more were visible so close. Scars that made sense, on his chest, but one behind Liam's ear, and a large one, barely visible before, but seen now, there in the oddest of places, Frank thought. It was a crescent shape right where Frank had imagined wetting Liam with his mouth.
"No," he muttered. The ideas that came right to mind, they were surely just the manifestations of an overactive imagination and a love of odd fiction. Self-loathing, that was part of it too. Frank never could believe a man could fall in love with him in a natural way. Well, this—the fantastical notion that was bubbling for whatever reason—it was about as unnatural as it could get.
"Stop!" Frank took his head in both hands. "Get it out of your mind. It's madness. It's… not only impossible, but completely insane."
Chapter Seven
Frank couldn't wait for Vaughn to return in five more days. He wished he could confront him right away, to put the silly doubts and fears to rest. He decided to write a letter, not to send, but to have at the ready. It started out as a list of why what he was thinking was preposterous, but ended up more a collection of evidence as to why it wasn't. So many questions about the sudden appearance of a son never mentioned, the timing of it could be instantly answered.
Vaughn had admitted to being privy to Frank's feelings for men, a certain man, by eavesdropping on private moments between Frank and the wilderness inhabitants. A memory of a reference to Mary Shelley while reanimating a virtual corpse, and a brief discussion concerning another's penis, they niggled at Frank now too, all started by that stupid scar in that unexpected place. Were men so obsessed with their genitalia? What would a psychiatrist say about Frank? He got so angry then, he tore the paper with the point of the pencil. Who was he mad at? Was the ire aimed at himself for thinking such nonsense or at Vaughn for feeling Frank was so pathetic, there was no other way?
The person who didn't deserve Frank's resentment was Liam, so Frank bided his time. He did his very best to shove his disgusting contemplations aside and just go on with the next four days pretending everything was—What? What word would one use? Once again, 'normal' seemed hardly appropriate.
Frank and Liam spent most evenings listening to music. Frank noticed Liam playing along on the arm of the sofa one night, moving his fingers in time to the piano keys being struck on the record. He added it to the list, now only in his head.
"Do you know this song?" he asked. Frank had chosen a piece from the back of his record cabi
net, a composition from a couple of centuries ago. His mind needed soothing from something classical.
"Yes," Liam said. The current track playing was Minuet in G Major. Who didn't know that song?
"Pick out a book," Frank said once the song completed. Liam scoured the bookcase for quite a long time. It wasn't very big. How could it be? There were a great many books upon it, though, standing vertically, lying horizontal, and placed haphazardly wherever Frank could squeeze in one more. Frank was not certain what sort of revelation Liam's choice of reading material might provide. When he finally pulled out Three Men in a Boat, when he set it down on the end table with the lamp so that Frank could pick it up, Frank wondered if it meant anything at all.
The book was one of Frank's favorites. Then again, it would be difficult to pull out one he didn't consider such. The story revolved around three overworked male friends—not to mention a dog—who took a rather eventful, sometimes comically unfortunate boat tour up the Thames. Frank leafed through the pages, but he never did begin reading from them. "Do you like boats?" he had asked.
"Yes," he was told by Liam.
"Have you been on a boat?" Frank never had.
"Fi-shing," Liam said.
A clue to Liam's former life finally revealed. "Do you remember where?"
"W-water."
Frank couldn't help but smile. Liam's response was rib-tickling for sure, if not terribly helpful. There were several ponds and lakes local to the area, and the Hudson River was not too far away. "With your father or with friends?" Frank added a less genuine smile at the end of his query, as not to come across as a criminal lawyer interrogating a witness.
"Yes."
"Your girlfriend, perhaps, as well."
Liam looked confused by this.
"Surely there was a high school sweetheart, a college romance? A bride, even, perhaps?"
Liam shook his head. "No."
"No one?" Franks strummed through the pages of the book, making a fanning, fluttering sound. It reminded him of his childhood and the time Mrs. Watson attached playing cards to his and Renny's bicycle spokes with clothespins. "Do you remember?" he asked, and when Liam just looked at him oddly, he added to the question. "Do you remember riding a bike as a child?"
"Yes."
"This sound…" Frank ruffled the pages as close to Liam's ear as he dared to get. "Does this remind you of it?"
Liam smiled. "Yes."
"Did you grow up here?"
"Yes."
"Are you just saying yes to everything I ask?"
Liam thought a moment. "No."
"Good."
"Kiss."
They exchanged lip smacks. Frank had gently rebuffed Liam's sexual advances since that day in the woods. There had been some. He listened and watched, the glow from the small nightlight in the hallway just enough to accentuate the splendor, as Liam pleasured himself every night after hard, long days cutting, hauling, raking, weeding, and mowing at the cemetery. Frank had been all too happy to put that work off at the beginning of the week. Now he was glad there was so much to do. It was a good distraction, and made the days go faster. Frank allowed himself sexual release as well while taking in Liam's. There was no harm in that, he figured, only in allowing his feelings to grow.
"Who else have you kissed, dear Liam? Do you recall loving someone before?"
"You," Liam said.
It was an unfortunate time for Frank to catch his reflection in the unplugged television screen, what with all the new suspicions and continuing frustration. "Me?" Frank huffed. "You waited all your life for me," he said sarcastically. "That seems hardly plausible. Look at you, sweet natured and pleasing to the eye. Stunning. Gorgeous. So handsome. Why would someone not have snapped you up long before now, unless someone did and you simply cannot remember it because you have been altered in some unfair, twisted way."
Liam's face read confusion and hurt.
"I'm sorry." Frank immediately took it back. "It's preposterous… what I'm thinking." He tried to convince himself. Though was it much more farfetched than the reality Frank had been living for over a year? What about the one he'd been introduced to that night upstairs at the Helliers' when Liam was given a literal second chance at life? Was it any more unbelievable than that? "We should go on a boat," Frank said. "Someday… in the spring, perhaps."
Thinking that far in advance hurt his heart. What were the chances Liam would still be around then, no matter his origins?
"Do you remember the accident?" The obvious finally came to Frank's mind. "The one in which you were…" Hurt or killed? Which way should he ask it, Frank wondered.
Liam shook his head no. "Hurt."
Frank could put him through no more of that. It was unkind, and Frank didn't have it in him to purposely bring about pain. He decided to concentrate on any happy thoughts Liam might have buried deep within. "Did you have a dog as a child? Or more recently, perhaps?"
Liam's brows came together. He bit the left side of his lower lip. It was his contemplation face. "Yes."
"What was his name?"
"D-duke," Liam said right away with a grin.
"Duke, huh? Did you also strike an oil well when digging for a swimming hole?" They had watched The Beverly Hillbillies together the other night, together being a relative term as Liam sat on the couch while Frank craned his neck to see one corner of the tiny screen from a kitchen chair. "I have trouble picturing your mother with a dog in the house." Though Marion Hellier swatting at one with a newspaper was not difficult to imagine at all. "Was this when you were a grownup with a home of your own, or maybe they allowed one at your boarding school. A mascot, perhaps. Maybe it was a summer dog that only lived with you in Europe."
Liam suddenly stood. "B-bath t-time." He began to strip right there in the living room. "F-ank look." He was nude in mere moments.
"Frank not look." But he did. "Not tonight." Then he stood. "You bathe. I am going to go for a walk in the dark."
"Liam w-walk t-too."
"Liam is naked. Liam bathe. I'd… I'd prefer to be alone. Just for a few minutes or so. I have to think about something," Frank said honestly.
"Fank mad?"
"No. Not at all," Frank fibbed. He was sad too, though. He picked up the bear that had always been too large to keep in the trailer. How could he have thrown it away, though? And what if he had? Frank gave it a hug. "I shall be back to say goodnight." He carefully passed the stuffed toy, which Liam embraced as well, partially aroused. Frank ignored the stiff protuberance as best as he could, though during his walk, he did take care of himself in the woods with its image in his head.
Liam was in bed when Frank returned. Frank went to the door and said goodnight. Just as he was about to make up the couch, the phone rang. It was Vaughn; they had returned early. Rather than the accusation Frank had planned for days, he asked something else, truly concerned. "Early? Why? Was the trip unsuccessful?"
He worried for Marion.
"We will discuss it tomorrow. There has been a death in town, which, as long as I am home, means work in the morning."
"Fine. I'll be there bright and early. I have something to ask you about as well."
"Such as what?"
Frank considered confronting Vaughn right then and there, but it couldn't be done, not when Liam was well within earshot. "We need to talk." Frank did offer warning. "Something serious has come up."
*~*~*
Frank's night was fitful. When he did fall asleep, even for the briefest of times, his dreams were tormenting. He had visions of Liam mocking him. "Finally in my right mind, I see you as the freak the rest of the world does." Liam took off his head then, like something in a horror film Frank had seen alone in the back of a dark theater several years earlier. In The Brain That Wouldn't Die, an evil doctor kept body parts alive after they'd been removed from their person. Liam was like one of his creatures.
Frank had always been his own worst enemy. One side of his brain was an overzealous general leading the battle agains
t the other side that wanted him to believe he could be content. Why should it be any different, just because he was asleep?
Happy to see dawn finally break, though nowhere near ready to get up and face the day, Frank stared at the back of the davenport. He pretended to still be asleep, even though he'd promised Vaughn he would be at the mortuary at sunrise.
Liam had been up with the earliest birds. Frank listened to him hum as he puttered about, going in and out of the trailer, and working around the kitchen. The tune was a familiar one, La Gazza Ladra Overture, or was that just what Frank wanted to hear to prove the point he could not get out of his head? Liam's musicality was distorted like his speech. He could have been humming Mary Had a Little Lamb for all Frank knew. Whatever the tune, Frank squished his pillow in around his ears and tried to ignore it. A few more minutes wouldn't matter to a corpse, at least if the plan was for it to stay dead.
In only fifteen, according to the clock that chimed every quarter hour—a rather annoying piece of chronometry Frank often wondered why he even owned—his bladder gave him a warning. He could either move, or else mark the sofa, and so he had no choice but to drag himself up.
Frank had paid little attention as he'd passed Liam and the table the first time, but upon his return, after putting on a pair of fresh briefs and well-worn dungarees, he saw not only Liam standing proudly in his undershorts, but also a breakfast tableau. It was set with several romantic offerings that tore Frank up inside.
"Aww, Liam."
There were strawberry jelly hearts drawn with a knife on two slices of toast. The amorous centerpiece was a braided double heart of willow tree rope adorned with dried goldenrod and Bur marigold Liam must have gathered from the property outside. Two paper napkins continued the concept, also folded into the shape of that morning's theme, which seemed to be two hearts.
"Good?"
"Yes," Frank said, trying to gather enthusiasm. "It's really… something." His real heart was torn. The gesture was completely adorable, entirely endearing, but if Liam was not working of his own free thoughts and emotions, what did any of it truly mean?