Sons

by Michael Halfhill

  Colin stood wide-eyed and annoyed, while the two men discussed his fate as if he were a pet about to enter obedience training. He could feel heat rising in his face and prickles down his back. What do they think I am, some dog to play house with?

  Jan noticed Colin hunch his back and clench his fists. This is not going well. He cocked his head toward Colin.

  “Michael, I’m not sure Colin wants to go to a private school. What about it, son? How do you feel about it?”

  Colin thought, He’s overdoing the son routine. How can he feel like my father overnight? I sure don’t feel like his son!

  “I’m not sure,” Colin replied flatly, hoping Jan hadn’t noticed his anger. “School’s school, I guess. One’s like another, but I sure don’t want anybody hitting me!”

  Michael said, “Well, you better think fast because I believe school begins in a few days, so you must decide soon.”

  Colin stared into the new fire Amal had lit in the fireplace and tried to focus on what was happening. School. Another rope around my neck!

  Jan nodded and said, “Colin, do you mind if I check into All Souls and see if they have an opening there? They’re run by the Episcopal Church—no nuns, thank God!”

  Colin shrugged.

  “If I don’t like it I can switch to public school?”

  “All right, so long as you give All Souls a chance. Deal?”

  “Deal,” Colin agreed.

  “I’ll call the school tomorrow, and we have to see about some clothes for you. Did your Aunt Elaine pack anything for you?” Jan said.

  Colin walked over to the window. Jan followed and stood beside him, looking out of the corner of his eye while pretending to watch a Coast Guard officer board a newly arrived ship anchored near the pier.

  Great! Jan thought. Just what Michael needs, a security check on one of his deliveries, and on New Year’s Day, no less.

  “Colin, I guess you’re feeling pretty overwhelmed. I can’t blame you. I would too. Trust me, things will settle down.”

  “Doesn’t my Aunt Elaine love me anymore?” Colin blurted, his voice hanging between anger and the fear of knowing an awful truth.

  The question dragged Jan back to his past, so similar in so many ways. His father dead, ordered from the only home he ever knew. Tim, the man he loved, kept him like a sex toy, someone easily turned in for a brighter model at any moment. Even his brief stint as a husband ended after Angela drove him from their marriage bed. His heart ached for Colin.

  He chose his words carefully. “I don’t know. What I mean is, I don’t know her very well. She never seemed like a person who wanted kids around, so that probably made her look like she didn’t love you. I’m sure she did.”

  Jan wasn’t sure of anything of the kind, but he wasn’t about to hurt his son anymore over the situation.

  She doesn’t give a shit about me. Colin thought. All she wanted was to get rid of me. That’s why she dumped me here with these queers.

  Colin shot Jan a cynical look. “Thanks, nice try.” He looked down and shuffled his feet. “Umm, can I go to my room for a while?”

  “Sure. Amal will prepare lunch later. I’ll call you down when it’s ready.”

  As Colin turned back from the window and walked away, Jan noticed Michael was gone.

  Thirteen

  JAN dropped Colin off at the entrance of All Souls School, having secured a place for him in the freshman midterm curriculum the day before. Driving back to the Federal Court House offices, Jan reflected that from the moment they met, Colin’s behavior swung wildly between barely suppressed rage and a slow, almost unconscious attitude of acceptance. At times, he even seemed happy.

  He can’t go through this much longer or he’ll have a meltdown, Jan thought. I wonder what he’s really thinking.

  BROTHER JULIAN met Colin inside the entrance of All Souls School and guided him out through a colonnade of covered arches that embraced the four sides of a grassy quad. The open cloister served a variety of functions. In good weather, the brothers took breakfast and evening meals under frescos of Olympian deities.

  “Italian immigrants painted these ceilings in the mid-nineteenth century,” Brother Julian explained. “During the school year, the brothers and students meet here for silent prayer and reflection. Of course, attendance is optional. If you want to join us, that’s good, if not, that’s good too.”

  Colin stopped and looked a long moment at a large cast iron fountain, its waterspout frozen in midair from the subfreezing temperature. The only sound came from a lone sparrow, rummaging among ivy that clung stiffly on a stucco wall. He shivered in the biting cold and puffed out blue-gray breaths, which a soft wind instantly snatched away.

  Brother Julian smiled at him for the first time since Colin arrived at All Souls.

  “Don’t worry, Colin. All Souls isn’t as grim as it looks today. You’ll settle in soon. If you need me for anything just ask any brother to find me. We’re very informal here.”

  Colin gave a brief smile. “I’m not worried. I just hope everyone likes me.”

  “Just remember, Colin, not everyone is expected to like one another here, but everyone is required to respect each person’s space and privacy.” Brother Julian concluded, “There are no gangs, no hazing, and no disrespecting anyone. That sort of thing will get a student expelled, pronto.”

  Colin nodded and said, “Got it.”

  Brother Julian said, “One more thing. There’s no glory in keeping your problems to yourself, if you have any… problems, that is. Our job at All Souls is to help you become a happy person, and of course, to educate you. The rest is up to you.”

  Before Colin could respond, a gong sounded, announcing the first class of the day. Brother Julian pointed to a door across the quad.

  “Go around the cloister and through that door. Your first class is Modern History. Mr. Jamison teaches that class. Remember, you met him at your interview. He’ll give you your schedule for the day. If you like the setup, we’ll leave it for the rest of the term. Well, I think that’s all, off you go, then,” Brother Julian said with another reassuring smile.

  Colin jogged around the quad, stopping at the door marked “Modern History - 8:00AM.” He ran his fingers through his hair, took a deep breath, and pushed through the door.

  Fourteen

  NINETEEN pairs of curious eyes met Colin as he passed through the door marked Modern History. Colin searched the classroom for an empty seat and, more importantly, a friendly face.

  “Mr. Jamison?” he said.

  Mr. Jamison walked over, smiled a greeting, and shook Colin’s hand. Mr. Jamison was impressed during their interview, and he was happy that Brother Julian had offered Colin a slot in the student body. Selfishly, Jamison was relieved to have a round number in his class, since he regarded the number nineteen as personally unlucky.

  “Come in, come in!” Mr. Jamison said. “Class, I want to introduce Colin Phillips. He’s just moved here from Washington State, and I expect you all to make him feel at home.”

  Colin stood facing his new classmates. He shifted uneasily in the new clothes Jan and Michael helped pick out the day before. Trendy or not, he was painfully aware that traces of factory creases proclaimed them as new. So very not cool!

  Mr. Jamison eyed his students’ bright faces and said, “I see by all your expressions that Colin’s clothes have sparked a renewed hope that All Souls has decided to abandon its uniform code. Alas, ’taint so, my friends.”

  Groans met the unwelcome news.

  “Colin will be joining you all in regularity by next week.” Pointing to an empty desk, Mr. Jamison said, “Colin, if you would, please take that desk.” To Colin’s ear, the man whispered, “If you want to move to another row let me know after class. Okay?”

  Colin nodded. A moment later, he was safely ensconced in a metal seat with a newly polished wood slab which served as a book rest and writing surface.

  Behind him sat a chubby girl with short red hair. In front of him,
a boy sat with a brace clamped around one of his legs. A tubular crutch, marked with a tag in large black letters identifying its owner as TOBY, leaned against the nearby wall.

  On his left sat an Asian boy with long, glossy black hair. I wonder if that’s Mr. Lin’s nephew. To his right, a girl with large brown eyes and curly auburn hair smiled coyly at him. She extended her hand.

  “Hi, my name’s Alexandra Betterman. You can call me Zan. That’s short for Alexandra. I hate Alex. I think Zan suits me better.”

  Colin took her soft hand, and for the first time in his young life, fell headlong into real honest to goodness lust. A line of sweat instantly drew a dewy mustache across his upper lip. He looked around, positive everyone was watching.

  “Hi,” he said, thankful his desktop hid the stoolpigeon in his pants.

  “All right,” Mr. Jamison said, “let’s get to work.”

  COLIN trailed Alexandra and the Asian boy, who introduced himself as William Tan, into the dining hall.

  “Something smells good. I’m starved,” Colin said.

  “More mystery meat and stewed peas, no doubt,” complained William.

  “Mystery meat is what you have for dinner, William,” Alexandra joked.

  “Zan, you’ve been to my house for lunch, and every piece of meat was identifiable,” William said as he sniffed the familiar scent of roast beef.

  “Maybe so, but I didn’t see a single cat or dog in Chinatown when I was there, and I looked for them too!”

  William laughed. “That’s just a myth, and you know it. You’re just trying to embarrass me in front of Colin.”

  Colin said, “There’s a big Asian community in the town I grew up in, and everybody said the same thing about dogs and cats, but I know it’s not true.”

  The three breezed through the cafeteria line and settled in a corner near a window that overlooked the frozen quad Colin had passed through earlier.

  They dug into their food like starved prisoners. At last Alexandra asked, “How’s yours?”

  “Not bad. I was so hungry, I probably would have eaten a cat,” Colin joked.

  “Comrade!” William smiled and patted Colin’s shoulder. “A brother in gastronomy!”

  Colin grinned at clearly breaching the walls of unknown territory on his first school day. If everyone is like this, I’ll be happy here.

  Alexandra pulled Colin’s sleeve. “C’mon, we’ve a little time to ourselves before the next class. I’ll show you around.”

  As William pushed his chair back, Alexandra pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes, gazing at him meaningfully. Friends since the first grade, William got her message, loud and clear.

  “Oh, umm, you guys go ahead. I need to go to the boy’s room.”

  Satisfied she would have Colin all to herself, Alexandra said, “Let’s go.”

  Mary Lamb, the girl with the short red hair who sat behind Colin in Modern History, said, “Well would ya look at those two?”

  She furtively jammed a large piece of pie into her small purse as her tablemates turned to see Alexandra and Colin exit the dining hall together.

  “Isn’t it a little early for spring to be in the air?” Mary said, wiping pie filling off her purse clasp.

  “Why, Mary!” a girl with tiny pimples mapping her forehead said in a broad voice, “I do believe you have a happy facility for observation and a firm grasp of the obvious.”

  Laughter ’round the table greeted this accurate, albeit unkind, imitation of Brother Lucas, the school’s librarian.

  Fifteen

  FROM that first school day, Colin and Alexandra became inseparable, spending every free hour together. By month’s end, Colin and Zan, as he now called her, were, in teen parlance, an item. By definition, an item included, but was not limited to, exclusive dating privileges, ice cream sundaes at Schrafft’s candy store on Walnut Street, walking hand in hand through Philadelphia’s tree-lined parks, and chaste pecks on cheeks, when in the company of their peers.

  Over the course of those early weeks, Colin shared details about his family, his mother’s death, and how his Aunt Elaine summarily dumped him, on New Year’s Eve, at Jan’s doorstep. For the moment, Colin kept the fact that his father was gay a secret, saying only that he was unmarried.

  “I’m a one parent kid too,” Alexandra had said, agreeing soberly that it was a hard situation to be in.

  As their friendship blossomed, Colin spent much of his day thinking about Zan. Up to that point, the relationship had remained wholly innocent. Each day, he could barely wait to get home and into the shower, where fantasy and desire collided in a furious discharge of caged lust.

  Too bad I can’t just stay in here, Colin said to himself, as he stepped from the shower stall and into the spacious bathroom. Drying himself with a huge bath sheet, he walked into his bedroom where he noticed a note placed on his bed.

  Your father would like a word when you are dressed.

  Finding the note in Amal’s elegant script again warned Colin that the interior doors had no locks, a fact he found curiously disturbing.

  COLIN walked into the office Jan and Michael shared. Like all the rooms in the loft, this one too was extraordinarily large and had few furnishings. A thick wool rug, depicting an angry Aztec god, hosted three leather tufted sofas. Behind these, frosted glass partitions separated them from computer workstations.

  One side of the room was devoted to Jan’s legal cases. Michael’s half sported two large screens. One screen swarmed with blinking colored dots, delineating the whereabouts of all ships at sea, while another monitor provided global information on every cargo container and bill of lading in service.

  Jan’s desk sported two computer monitors and a laptop. On one screen, several columns of data scrolled down at an impossible speed. Jan sat motionless as racing lines of information shot up and away into oblivion. Colin watched a moment and then asked, “How can you read that?”

  “Oh!” Jan said as he turned in his chair. “I didn’t hear you come in, Colin. Sit down. I’ll be just a minute.”

  Nodding to the screen that came to rest at a line labeled Middle East Oil Ltd. vs. Italian Government, Jan pointed and said, “I don’t try to read all of it. I was scanning for a particular case. I need to see if we’ve any clients involved with other cases that include litigation with Middle East Oil Limited. If not, we can represent them. The firm’s conflict analyst said there might be a problem with this particular one, so I need to research it. There’s no magic to it.”

  “I see,” Colin said.

  He didn’t really understand but felt he should at least look interested. All he could think about these days was Zan, Zan, and more Zan.

  “So, how’s All Souls? Like it, hate it, so-so?” Jan asked, trying hard not to lead his son into saying something he might not truly feel.

  Colin smiled broadly.

  “I like it a lot. Everyone is nice.”

  He decided not to mention Zan. His love life, such as it was, was no one’s business, and he certainly wasn’t going to share it with these two fags!

  “So, you think you want to go back there next year?”

  “Yeah, like I said, I like it, and they like me too.”

  Jan turned this in his mind.

  They like him. That’s got to feel good.

  “I’ve a surprise for you,” Jan said.

  “What?” Colin asked, curious.

  “Turn around.”

  Colin turned. A state-of-the-art wireless PC sat on a new desk. A winking screen message warned, “Colin’s PC—Keep Out!”

  Colin got up, walked over to the computer, and sat down at the desk. Jan followed and stood, looking over Colin’s shoulder.

  Colin examined the slim, gunmetal gray mini-tower with its ultra-quiet power supply, whirring at whisper speed.

  “Wow! This is so cool!” Colin said. “It’s just like the ones we have at school. Is it really for me? I mean, can I use it now?”

  “Of course.”

  Amal loo
ked on from the doorway. As Colin eagerly bent over the keyboard, Amal cleared his throat loudly. “Ahem!”

  Colin looked up to see Amal jerk his head toward Jan.

  Colin quickly turned.

  “Oh! Sorry. Thanks. I guess I got excited and forgot my manners.”

  Jan ruffled Colin’s hair saying, “’S okay. It’s from both of us. You can thank Michael when he gets home.”

  But it wasn’t okay. Jan suspected Colin’s sweetness was, in reality, teenage guile. He hoped not, for everyone’s sake.

  Sixteen

  “DAMN you, Louis! What’s the matter with you, Son?” Victor Carew roared at his only child.

  Louis Carew stood uneasily on the Persian carpet that covered a highly polished floor in his father’s posh Society Hill study. A gentle light bathed the book-lined walls. Gold-stamped leather volumes reflected red, green, and blue hues around the cozy room, creating a feeling of tranquil thought. Tranquility was the least sensation Louis felt as he fixed his eyes on the rug’s intricate pattern. His heart thumped hard in his chest. Flight from his father’s wrath was his first instinct on hearing the opening salvo of a battle.

  Louis kept staring down at the rug and thought, If only this thing could fly!

  The older man circled the oak desk like a man searching for a cufflink lost in midair. In doing so, he was trying very hard to keep from looking at his son, an act he was sure would result in him leaping at Louis’s throat with murder on his mind.

  “Louis, you’ve had every advantage I could provide. You have a first-rate education, connections in this town, and the opportunity for any career you could possibly want. You’ve got a townhouse with a fancy address, privacy, more money than God, and several bailouts with the law… one that nearly landed you in prison, which I need not mention.”

  “Yeah, well then why mention it? And, just for the record, that particular run-in cost me four million bucks, not you! Those spic brats took me to the cleaners! It’s taken me years to make up that loss. Not you!”