by Neil Plakcy
He shrugged and didn’t say anything. Great. He was catatonic. Maybe killing Angie and Linc would be good for him. Oh. Nah, that would end him up in prison.
My mother shifted the conversation to talking about work. For once, Lisa and Lori had independent stories to tell. Lisa was the only English-speaking nail tech at a salon in downtown Homestead; the other girls were either Mexican or Vietnamese, so there were always communication problems. One girl had been too aggressive with her nail file, and Lisa had to give the customer a custom paint job on that nail to make up for it. Could a story be any more boring?
Yup. A French Canadian woman had come in to the beauty parlor where Lori worked, but no one could understand what she wanted. Comic high jinks ensued.
I wished I was on Leroy’s death list.
I finished all the funny pasta and the excellent meatballs and pushed my chair back from the table. “If you’re coming with me, we should get a bag packed for you, Wee-Roy.”
“I don’t want to go in there.”
“Fine. I’ll pack for you.” I stood up and stalked back to the room that had once been half mine. Fortunately, my brother’s sartorial sense came from the sale rack at JC Penney, so it was easy to pull out jeans and T-shirts to last him until Saturday. He was definitely coming back to Homestead before the weekend kicked in.
I pulled open the drawer where he’d always kept his tighty-whities. There was a single pair of lace-edged bikini briefs at the back of the otherwise empty drawer.
My bro is a big boy, beefy where I’m skinny. He might be a bear in gay speak, because of his hefty build and his height, but he’s about as hairless as I am. I stood there for a second with my mouth open, imagining Leroy in those red satin briefs.
Then I realized those had to be Angie’s. Gee, what a shame she’d left them behind. I pulled out the penknife on my key chain and sliced through them, then deposited the shredded fabric in the wastebasket.
I found Leroy’s big-boy briefs in the next drawer down. Jesus, he still hadn’t graduated to boxers? I grabbed a couple of pairs, hoping I would not unearth anything sexier beneath them. But it appeared my brother was pretty dull in the undie department.
I had to go into Linc’s room to find the one sleeping bag we had between the three of us. It didn’t look quite big enough for Leroy to cuddle into, but at least it was something to sleep on. I dragged it and the duffle bag with his clothes out to the living room.
Leroy was slumped on the sofa with my dad next to him. “Come on, bro,” I said. “Let’s get a move on.”
My father poked Leroy in the ribs, but my brother didn’t stir.
“If you don’t get your lard ass off that sofa, I’m going to tell all my friends your nickname is Wee-Roy because you’re really tiny down there,” I said.
“Larry!” my mother said, scandalized.
“You say anything like that, and I’ll beat your ass,” Leroy said, but he stood up. I handed him the sleeping bag and slung the duffle over my shoulder.
“South Beach Express, leaving now,” I said.
16 – Sibling Revelry
I suggested that my brother drive his own car, but one look from my father said that was a bad idea. Who knew if Leroy would even follow me? So he rode shotgun as I drove north on US 1. There was still a boatload of traffic, and I realized that new developments had sprung up all around us.
I was marveling at all that when Julian called my cell. “Hey,” I said. “Listen, about your project—”
He interrupted me. “You can’t bail on me, Larry. I really need your help. I’m sorry if I’ve been pushing you too hard. I know you’re working your ass off, and I appreciate it.”
“I can’t commit too much right now, Julian. Work has been crazy, and now my brother’s going to be staying with me for a few days.”
I looked over at Leroy, who was staring out the window.
“He’s going through some stuff,” I said. “I need to be there for him.”
“I understand. I have brothers too.” I heard the disappointment in Julian’s voice. I was bummed—both for Leroy, whose life had been turned upside down, and for myself, because I wasn’t going to get to see Julian. But in the grand scheme of things, Leroy’s problems were worse.
“I can stall my dad and my investors for a few days,” Julian said. “You think you might have some time this weekend?”
“I’ll call you,” I said. He agreed, and we hung up. Fortunately Leroy was lost in his own world, and he didn’t ask who was on the phone, or what plans his visit might be screwing with.
Every time I tried to talk to him, he answered with one-word grunts. Usually he was willing to talk forever about nuclear energy and how it was the solution to all the world’s problems. But not then. He’d had his own A-bomb blast and needed to recover.
He only perked up as I turned off Lincoln Road into the triangle of South Beach bounded by Dade Boulevard, Purdy Avenue, and Twentieth Street. “You live back here? Not by the beach?”
“I can barely afford this,” I said. “My roommate got us a deal.”
He was impressed by the parking garage, and even more by the marble lobby. Oversize vases with fresh flowers stood on glass-topped tables between uncomfortable sofas. The South Beach landscapes on the walls looked like original paintings.
I’d grown so accustomed to living there that I had forgotten how fancy the place was. But walking in the lobby with Leroy, I saw it through his eyes. People like us didn’t live in such expensive buildings, and I felt like he was staying close to me so we didn’t get separated. Gentle, Latin-inflected music played through the speakers as we dodged a well-to-do elderly couple with a tiny Yorkshire terrier on a spangly gold leash. I had to admit, the building even smelled like money.
We took the elevator up to our floor, and as we got off, I said, “Um. My roommates, well, um, they might be, you know...”
“I won’t make a mess,” he said. “I’ll stay in your room.”
That wasn’t where I was going, but as we walked up to the apartment, the door opened and Gavin stepped out, his arm around a cute guy. “See ya,” Gavin said, and the two of them were at the elevator before I could make any introductions.
“That’s Gavin,” I said, leading my brother into the apartment. Manny was in the kitchen, wearing a pair of shorts and one of his construction-company T-shirts. I introduced him to Leroy, and they shook hands.
As we walked toward my bedroom, I struggled to remember if there was anything too gay in there. I didn’t think there was, and honestly, Leroy didn’t look like he cared. Though it wasn’t even eight o’clock at night, he started preparing for bed as soon as we walked into my room. He opened the sleeping bag flat, and while I got him a sheet and a pillow, he tossed off his shirt, jeans, and sneakers. He dropped the pillow on the floor and lay down on the sleeping bag, pulling the sheet over him. “I’m going to sleep,” he mumbled into the pillow.
“G’night.” I walked out to the living room.
“What’s with the brother?” Manny asked.
I told him the story. “Bummer,” he said. “How long is he staying?”
“Probably Saturday,” I said. “Then I’ll drive him home. You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all. But is he cool with—you know—us being gay?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Larry,” he said, shaking his head.
I held up my hand. “I know, I know. I’m going to tell him. But right now he’s totally wasted over this thing with his fiancée.”
I took my cell phone out to the balcony and called Julian. “Hey,” I said. “Sorry I couldn’t talk much before.” I told him about all the pressure at work, and then about Angie, Linc, and Leroy. “I’m afraid I’m going to let you down, and I don’t want to do that.”
“Family comes first,” Julian said. “Can I do anything to help you?”
“Thanks, but I’m running low on bandwidth right now. Too much input, and I feel like my system’s going to crash any
minute.”
“I’m here for you,” Julian said. “Anything you need. Just let me know.”
“I appreciate that, Julian. I really do.”
“Take care of your brother, and call me when I can come over,” Julian said, and we hung up. I stayed outside for a couple of minutes, looking at the glittering Miami skyline and thinking about what Julian had said.
I hadn’t expected him to be so understanding. I was doing a job for him, and I wasn’t meeting my commitment. But instead of getting angry or nervous, he’d been kind. Once again, I was confused about what was going on with Julian. Were we friends? Was there some romantic interest on his part? Or was he being a good manager, making sure his staff had what they needed?
By the time I went back inside, Manny had gone into his room and shut the door. I crept into my room, where Leroy was asleep on his back on the floor, looking like he’d passed out after a bender. I retrieved my laptop, set it up on the dining room table, and went to work on Julian’s website.
It was hard to concentrate, because there were so many problems swirling around in my head: What was I going to do about Leroy? How was I going to come out to him? What could I do with him when I had to go to work? I gave up coding around two and slipped back into my room like a thief in the night.
When I woke up at nine Thursday morning, Leroy was sitting up on the sleeping bag, staring into space. “Hey,” I said and yawned. “You sleep okay?”
“What am I gonna do, Larry?”
“You mean for breakfast? We’ve got food in the kitchen.”
“Not for breakfast. With the rest of my life. With Angie gone, I’ve got nothing.”
“Don’t go all drama queen on me, Leroy,” I said. “Your girlfriend dumped you. It’s tough, and I’m sure you feel like shit. But you’re twenty-four years old, for Christ’s sake. You’re a handsome guy with a good job and money in the bank. You’ll feel better soon, and you’ll go out on dates again, and things will happen.”
“I haven’t dated anybody but Angie since tenth grade,” he said. He looked up at me. “How do you do it?”
It was as good a time as any to let the elephant out of the room. “It’s different for me. Because I’m gay.”
He cocked his head and looked at me. “No way.”
“Way.”
He stood up and realized he was wearing only his white briefs, and grabbed for his jeans. “You didn’t do anything while I was asleep, did you?”
“Fuck off, asshole. You’re my brother. That’s gross. It would be like you wanting to bang Lisa or Lori.”
He stumbled into his pants. “No, it’s not. You guys like to suck dick or get fucked up the ass. You don’t care whose dick or ass.”
“Where do you get this shit from?” I asked. “I’m the same as you. I want to meet somebody and fall in love, like you and Angie. Only without the fucking-my-brother thing going on.”
He swung his fist at me, and I parried. With three of us boys in the house, only two years between Linc and Leroy and two more between Leroy and me, we used to fight constantly. I can’t tell you how many times I got pummeled by my brothers, but I had learned how to give back what I got.
I had two inches in height on Leroy, but he weighed about fifty pounds more than I did. My room was small to start with, and there wasn’t much space, especially with the sleeping bag in the middle of the floor. He tried to grab my neck, and I twisted away, using my leg to knock him off balance.
He went down on the bed and took me with him. We kept wrestling, knocked the pillows and the covers off, banged elbows and knees into the wall. We were both breathing hard, fighting with a furious energy that surprised me. I was angry about the things he’d said, and about all those years of being the baby brother, and he was clearly still angry over the betrayals of the day before.
He got on top of me, pressing all his weight down on my chest so it was tough to breathe. “Take it back,” he said.
“What? You want me to say I’m not gay?”
“I don’t give a rat’s ass who you fuck, doofus. Take back what you said about Angie.”
I was getting dizzy, and it was hard to remember what I’d said. “What? About her fucking Linc? Dude. I thought you were the one who found them.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you can talk shit about her.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, gasping for breath.
He backed off me.
He hadn’t been able to fasten his jeans before he jumped me, and they had shimmied down as we wrestled. He saw me looking. “You want to suck it?” he asked. “Angie wouldn’t.” He tugged down his briefs and let his dick swing free. It was impressive, thick and veiny, and there was already a bit of precome at the tip.
“Put that thing away,” I said, backing up. “Jesus, Leroy, you’re hung like a horse. I guess Angie didn’t go for Linc because she was looking for something more.”
He tucked himself back in. “Angie said I was too big. Sometimes I hurt her.”
Then he burst into tears.
I hadn’t even had coffee, and already my day had exploded in eighteen different kinds of shit. He sat on the bed, and I sat next to him, with my arm around his shoulders.
“It’s okay, buddy,” I said. “You’re going to get over this. It’s going to hurt like hell, but you’ll get over it.”
He sniffled and stood up. “I’ve got to hit the can.”
Only after he left did I remember the pinup calendar on the bathroom wall—the one of the sexy nude farm boys Gavin had brought in. He said it reminded him of being home in Wisconsin.
Oh, well. That cat was already out of the bag. Leroy could deal with it, or he could hitchhike his ass back to Homestead.
I tidied up the room and turned on my laptop so I could check my e-mail. By the time Leroy returned, I was deep in messageland. “All right if I take a shower?” he asked.
“Sure. Towels on the bathroom shelves. Use the Irish Spring and the Wal-Mart shampoo. That’s mine.”
“Strong enough for a man, but the ladies like it too,” Leroy said in an Irish accent mimicking the old-time commercial. He grabbed a clean set of clothes and walked out.
I decided to skip the gym that morning, and once Leroy was finished, I jumped in the shower so I could get ready for work. When I was dressed, I walked out to the kitchen. Leroy was sitting at the butcher-block table. “This is weird, living with strangers,” he said.
I realized he had never lived anywhere but at our house. “Sometimes. But these guys were my frat brothers at FU, so we’ve known each other for years.”
“They’re all gay?”
I walked over to the fridge and pulled out the bottle of orange juice. “Yup. Is that going to be a problem?”
“They’re not going to try and jump me, are they?”
I shrugged. “Walk around the apartment naked, with that big dick of yours standing up, you might get an invitation or two. Otherwise, you’ll be safe.”
“You shouldn’t talk that way,” he said, accepting the glass of orange juice I poured for him.
“What way? About dicks? I used to hear you and Linc talk about pussy all the time.”
“That’s different.”
I opened a box of brown-sugar-and-cinnamon toaster pastries and put a pair in to warm up. “Why? Because you have a dick and you don’t like people to talk about it? Or because you still think I want to suck you?”
“Come on, Larry, cut me a break. You’re the first, like, gay person I know.”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “You know lots of gay people. That guy Cooper from the salon where Lori works. Jerry Petrangelis from down the street.”
“I didn’t know.”
The tarts popped, and I slapped them on a plate and handed them to Leroy, then put up another pair for myself. “Come on. Cooper wears lipstick, for Christ’s sake.”
“I wondered why his lips were so red,” Leroy said, picking up a pastry.
I sat across from him, and we ate our breakfast. Mann
y and Gavin were already gone; Manny started work at his construction site at some freakishly early hour, and Gav worked the morning shift at the coffee shop so he could have afternoons free for his modeling casting calls.
We kept a spare key in a basket on top of the fridge. I gave it to Leroy. “TV in the living room, laptop on my desk. If you go out, lock the door. I’ll tell the concierge that you’re staying here, so you shouldn’t have a problem getting back in.”
“You’re leaving?”
“I have to go to work, bud. You want to meet me for lunch?”
He shook his head. “I’m gonna chill.”
“Cool.” I held my fist out, and he bumped it. “Call my cell if you need anything.”
17 – Life with Leroy
I worried about leaving Leroy alone in the apartment. What if he decided he was too depressed to go on and took a header off the balcony? What if Gavin brought some guy home for a nooner, and Leroy flipped out?
I fretted all the way to work, but once I was in my cube, I had more to worry about. There was no response from Victor about the modeling-agency app. Suppose he hated it? What if it broke as soon as he started to use it?
Fortunately, the app for South Pointe Bank was calling my name; it was lonely, since I had abandoned it the day before to deal with domestic drama. The client’s request was very vague, and I had to call an assistant vice president to ask a whole lot of questions. By the time our conversation was finished, I had covered two sheets of a yellow legal pad with requests and information.
It was really hard to get into the zone that morning. I’d start working on a routine and then think of Victor, or Leroy, or Julian, and my wind would wander. Though I’d never had to worry about such a thing before, I thought there were too many men in my life.
I looked around the office. Kevin and Lilah were squeezed together in his cubicle, working on his wedding-planner app, laughing and elbowing each other. Dylan was rocking out to some angry rap—if I listened closely, I could hear the beat leaking out of his headphones. Dominic’s fingers flew over his keyboard like fat little birds pecking at worms. The only one who wasn’t working was Noah, who was doing his stare-into-space thing again. He’d better get his act together, I thought, or he was going to be in trouble.