Back Where He Started

by Jay Quinn

In your great kindness answer me

  With your constant help

  Answer me, O Lord, for bounteous is your kindness

  In your great mercy turn toward me.

  Schooner looked at me and smiled happily. He and Frank would be leaving at 6 that evening for the drive to Raleigh, where they’d catch a flight to Boston the next day. I’d broken down and paid for two plane tickets. The purchase put a sizable dent in my savings, but I couldn’t have them driving nearly 2,000 miles in two days.

  I still had secret misgivings and fears about this momentous step for him. At the consecration of the host, I bowed my head at the sound of the bells and struck my breast as I’d been taught in the old liturgy. Oh God, I prayed, if any fault of mine put this strong child of my heart in your hands in this way, please God, forgive me. At the consecration of the wine, I bowed my head and struck my breast again and prayed, Oh God, forgive your Church as it withholds its blessing from my child and his Frank. Forgive its faults. Forgive its most grievous faults.

  I walked behind Schooner’s broad back and received Communion after he did. Kneeling again, I looked at Christ on the cross and prayed for my baby’s safety—to Boston and back and into the years that stretched ahead. I had prayed the same prayer at the nuptial Masses for Trey and Susan and Andrea and David. I’d had no prayers for myself when I walked into Zack’s house and took his children into my heart and put my future into his hands. I’d never had the benefit of the piece of paper Schooner and Frank would get in Boston. But I had been blessed nonetheless. I prayed as hard as I had in my life. Despite my faith, all I knew was everything about love that could pass away with time.

  Oh God, I prayed, look after my baby. Help him. Bless him and keep him. I did my best. Lord Jesus, please believe I did my best to try and show him how to do things right. Oh God, only you can take him from here. Please God, bless him and Frank. God, I’m begging you to do it now and for always.

  The last bowl holding the host was emptied and wiped clean. The deacon handed the bowl of remaining hosts to Father Fintan. He returned it to the tabernacle and closed the door. All the Communion servers and Father Fintan genuflected. I crossed myself and took my seat in the pew. Schooner gave me a questioning look that asked me if I was okay. I gave him a nod and the best smile I could manage. I knew I was going to be fine, and so was he. We were bound in love and blessed every step of the way.

  The rest of the day was subdued. I couldn’t find the words to communicate what I wanted to say to Schooner, so I said nothing. I just stayed close to him. I made him his favorite meal for lunch. I washed and folded his and Frank’s clothes and talked and joked with him while he packed for them both. Schooner scolded me now and then for being so solicitous, but there was no meanness in his chidings.

  Frank came home sun-scorched and tired from a long day in the sun. Schooner nearly pushed him into the shower, he was so anxious to get on the road—and probably, I thought, away from me. When Frank ambled into the living room after his shower, I asked both of them to sit down at the dining room table.

  “We’ve really got to go, Mom,” Schooner pleaded. “I want to get to Trey’s and Susan’s as soon as we can so we can get some sleep. Our flight is at 7, which means we need to be at RDU around 5.”

  “This won’t take but a second, okay?” I promised.

  I saw Frank give Schooner a look that told him to sit down and shut up. Once they were settled, I took my seat at the head of the table. “Have you two got rings?” I asked.

  Schooner sagged in his chair and looked up at the ceiling. “Oh fuck!” he exclaimed.

  “It’s okay, Schooner,” Frank said soothingly. “We’ll get rings later. It’s no big deal.”

  “I thought as much,” I said as I reached in my pocket and retrieved what I’d stashed there. I lay Zack’s wedding band on the table in front of me. He’d taken it off and put it in our underwear drawer when I’d first moved in. After that, he never wore any jewelry but his college class ring.

  When we’d been together for 10 years, Zack surprised me by telling me I could have a wedding band if I wanted one. I’d mentioned that to him as a possible anniversary present. He told me the name of a jewelry store I could go to and pick out whatever I wanted. He’d already called and given the store’s manager his American Express card number. Both Zack and the store manager were surprised when I selected a simple gold band. Nothing too fancy or too expensive for me—I had only wanted what the ring meant, not what it was worth to anyone else. I remembered it had cost less than $200.

  Frank and Schooner watched as I pulled that ring off my finger and put it on the table next to the other one. “Schooner, this is the ring your mother gave your father on their wedding day. Frank, this is the ring Schooner’s father let me buy when we’d been together for 10 years. I don’t know if they’ll fit you, or even if you want them, considering they’ve not proven to be the most successful charms in the past. Maybe you two will turn their luck. It would make me very happy if you will both accept them as my blessing and with my good wishes.”

  The boys looked at each other and then each reached for a ring. Zack’s fit Schooner’s finger loosely; mine, Frank’s perfectly.

  “Mom, I …” Schooner began. He twisted his father’s ring on his finger and got up and walked into the living room with his back to me. Frank stood, walked around the table to me, and waited for me to stand. When I did, he wrapped his arms around me in a great, unreserved hug. Near his ear I whispered, “Don’t you forget what I told you, okay?”

  He let me go and nodded. “I love you,” he said. “Thank you.”

  I had to walk over to Schooner, who turned from me when I reached him and wiped at his eyes with his shoulders. He never did like to let me see him cry. I just put my hand on the back of his neck and squeezed it gently. “Go get married, baby. I trust your Frank to look after you from here on out. He’s a good kid. Your daddy gave you to me a long time ago, and now I’m sure you’re going to be looked after, I can let you go.”

  Schooner turned and wrapped me in a hug that nearly crushed my poor ribs. “Thank you Mom,” he said. “Thank you for everything.”

  I surrendered to his hug as long as I could stand, my heart breaking a little. This day came in different ways for every parent. It was never easy and never without some regret. I reached up, grasped his upper arms, and pushed him away. “Go on, baby. Drive safe. I’ll see you on Wednesday.”

  Schooner nodded, smiled, and let me go.

  Steve’s back shone with sweat in the sunshine that was left in the day as he swung off the boat and onto his dock. I stood and watched as he stepped into a swirl of dogs. Petey, Nuala, Mama- dog, and the two remaining pups Steve had named Buster and Repete all barked and strove to be patted and stroked before trotting up and down the pier or jumping in the boat. Finally, he had a second’s worth of attention to spare for me. “Hey, I didn’t expect you out here waiting for me when I put in.”

  “I know, I just decided I’d wait for you. Me and the dogs are ready for you to get home by this time of day.”

  Steve tied the boat up secure against the change in tide for the night and gave me a smile. “I’m hongry. You got me some dinner cooked?”

  “Yep. I know hongry is much more worser than just hungry,” I teased.

  Steve laughed. “My stomach has been emptier than my lunch bag since about 3 o’clock. What have you got for supper?”

  “After the kids left, I just had time to feed the dogs and stew some pork chops and cook a pot of rice for you. There’s that and some fresh sliced tomatoes—that’s pretty much it. I need to go to the grocery store.”

  Without a word, Steve reached in his pocket and pulled out a fat wad of 20s. He counted off seven and handed them to me.

  I whistled. “Somebody had full traps and a good buyer.”

  Steve took off his baseball cap, wiped his forehead with the back of his arm, and then wedged his cap back on his head. “It was a good day,” he said. “Buy me a carton o
f cigarettes when you go. You got any on you?”

  I reached back into the waistband of my board shorts and handed him the pack. “The lighter’s inside.”

  Steve got one lit and handed the pack back to me, then turned on the hose and began to wash the muck and slime off the sides and deck of his boat. Seeing the hose come out, all the dogs retreated to lie along the pier, well out of reach of the hose’s dreaded spray. I watched him make short work of cleaning the boat, handing him the broom and taking the hose without being asked. The day’s-end routine had become familiar. When he’d finished and climbed back onto the pier, I reached in the small six-pack cooler I’d brought out and handed him a beer and cracked one open for myself.

  I watched his throat move thirstily and waited for him to sit beside me on the bench. One beer gone, he sat and I handed him another.

  “Best part of the day, sitting here like this,” he said.

  “That’s a big compliment from a hongry man,” I said.

  He grinned at me then looked off in the west over the sound. The sun was still an orange ball, bearable to look at through the late afternoon’s haze and the wide water’s humidity. “My daddy used to say this time of day was pure-dee purty.”

  “Your daddy was right,” I said. “I bet you miss the old man, don’t you.”

  Steve nodded, gave Mama-dog and Nuala an affectionate ear- shaking, and gave me a grin and an amiable nudge in the side. “Not so much anymore. Not Mama so much anymore either, now I got me somebody who loves my dogs, and knows how to stew pork chops and cook a pot of rice.”

  “Not hard to do for a man who puts out the kind of loving you do,” I said.

  “I’ll wear your little butt out every chance I can get.”

  “Listen at you. You’re getting me hard just talking about it.”

  “I’d fuck you right now if we weren’t sitting out here in front of all the Assembly of God and United Methodist worshippers in Salter Path.”

  “I’d let you if we weren’t.”

  I lit a cigarette and offered Steve another one. We smoked awhile in silence as the dogs drowsed on the sun-warmed boards. We watched the sky turn to riot and revel, showing off for the coming midsummer night.

  “Schooner and Frank head out then?” Steve asked.

  “Yeah. Right on time.”

  He sighed. “Would you marry me if I asked you to?”

  “Yeah, I would. I wouldn’t hesitate one second saying yes to you, Steve Willis.”

  “But you know I won’t ask, don’t you,” Steve asked, rubbing Repete’s belly with one bare foot. “I mean, I’m not interested in going off somewhere and getting a piece of paper to say we’re married.”

  “Ask me a hard one, Steve. I know you wouldn’t, for the same reason I wouldn’t ask you to. We’re not that kind of people. It’s not how we were raised.”

  Steve looked ashore and gestured with his beer can toward a house not too far from his. “You know I got a cousin that lives in that house right?”

  I nodded.

  “Motherfucker asked me the other day if I was still queering off with the tourist in the Expedition. I told him hell yeah. Then I asked him if his goddamn feelings were hurt.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Not a fucking thing when everybody else on the dock busted up laughing.” Steve snorted, crunched his beer can, and tossed it in the trash barrel across the dock. “They all know. None of them really care, but they have to let you know they know. They don’t never miss a chance to say something. I’ve lived around these sons- a-bitches all my life. I screwed around with some of them back when we were kids. They all went on and did what they thought was the right thing. I didn’t never get in line that way.”

  “I’m the one who’s glad you didn’t, Steve,” I said. “But it must have been difficult for you.” Mama-dog came up to me with a stick in her mouth; very carefully, I tossed it down the length of the dock, not into the water. If I had, she’d have been in after it in a flash. “I sometimes wonder if I’m making things difficult for you now.”

  Steve laughed softly. “Naw, we can pretty much get by without any trouble. But I’m a local. I pull my traps and take care of my business same as they do and I let them all know they can go to hell if they don’t like it. They can respect that. They won’t fuck with me, and they won’t fuck with you, neither. But it’s not ever going to be all easy and open, not like with Frank and Schooner. You know that don’t you?”

  “I know it. I’ve lived my whole life like that, Steve.”

  “Can you live like that still, Chris?”

  “I can. And believe me when I tell you: I don’t want it any other way, Steve.”

  “Well, you got to believe me when I tell you I love you,” he said. “There. You got me to say it and mean it. I hope that’s good enough, because there ain’t going to be no other way for me to show it other than treating you right, fucking you cross-eyed, and buying the groceries.”

  “Just don’t forget to say you love me on a regular basis. You do that and show me you mean it like you just said and I can keep you in suppers and loving you back the best way I know how.”

  “I do love you, Little Bit,” he said.

  “And I love you, Big Man.”

  Steve stood. “Then there ain’t nothing left to be said other than Get my food on my plate. I’m going to get me a shower, eat me some supper, and then give that pretty little ass of yours a right proper pounding. Sound good to you?”

  I stood up and stretched. “Sounds good to me,” I said.

  Steve grinned. The setting sun burnished his broad shoulders and gave him a hazy gold nimbus around his curly-haired head. “Well all right,” he said. In Banker brogue it came out sounding like Wall awl roight.

  “Wall awl roight,” I answered, mimicking him. He grabbed me by the nape of the neck and shook me gently. Then we headed up the pier to the house, trailed by dogs happily escorting us. No march down any church’s aisle, no giddy flights to Boston or San Francisco for us. We were just together, plain and simple. The very last of the sun blessed us, the summer’s cicadas sang a chirring recessional, and a few gulls dived and called congratulations. I was as happy as I’d ever hoped to be.

  I woke to the sound of National Weather Service radio. Steve had the local station’s marine forecast tuned in and playing loud in the kitchen. I smelled coffee and looked at the clock by the side of the bed. It was nearly 5:30—he’d let me sleep. By now, he was usually walking down the pier to his boat, lunch bag in hand and a full day on the water ahead of him. I felt bad. I usually tried to get up with him; we weren’t morning talkers, but I wanted every moment I could get with him before the day began and we went our separate ways.

  I got out of bed and searched in the early-dawn light for my underwear by the side of the bed. Finding my own for once, I slipped it on over my legs and stood to pull it to my waist, ignoring the sweet soreness in my muscles and on my beard-scraped skin that was the by-product of the night before’s lovemaking. Still half asleep, I made my way into the kitchen, hoping to find Steve there, finishing his breakfast.

  There was no one in the kitchen but the metallic voice of the National Weather Service announcer. Figuring Steve was out feeding the dogs on the deck, I made myself a cup of coffee. As I was pouring the cream, I felt him slip up behind me, put his arms around me, and bend at the knees to grind the thick width of his dick into my backside. Pinned to the kitchen counter, I lay my head back against his chest and sighed. It was a pleasant greeting for a Monday morning.

  “Happy birthday, Little Bit. I got two presents for you. Which one do you want first, the one that goes here”—I felt an insistence at my backside—”or the one that goes here?” With that, I felt his hands gently encircle my neck and his thumbs stroke just under my ears.

  I reached behind him and took his bare ass in my hands. I squeezed it and laughed. “I’ve had this present before and not too long ago.” Letting go of his ass, I raised my hands to grasp his at my nec
k. “Can I have this one first?”

  “Sure thing, but you can’t see that one until I give you the other one.”

  “Okay.” I began to turn, but he pressed me harder against the counter’s edge. “Ow!” I said.

  Steve whispered, “Shhh. Stay still and close your eyes.” He waited two beats, then asked, “Are they closed?”

  “Yep,” I replied.

  With that, he took his hands away from my neck and a moment later I felt something heavy and cold encircle it. He tugged at it gently and it closed tighter around my throat, then it slid down to rest just above the hollow. It was pleasantly tight, like a choker, but with more suppleness and less resistance. “What is it?” I asked.

  Steve shushed me softly again, put his hands inside my shorts, and cupped my hardening dick in his rough palm. With the other hand, he pulled down my shorts and bent his cock to fit between my legs. I shifted to hold him tightly there. He began to stroke me between my legs, his dick rubbing the hard ridge under my scrotum, while he gently tugged at my dick, rolling the head of it between his spit-slicked thumb and forefinger.

  Guided by his hand, I wet my own fingers in my hot coffee and reached between my legs, found the head of his dick, and gently tugged at it in return. We rocked and traded moans until I couldn’t hold it any longer. I came, and in coming, I gave up the wet he needed to climax too. We stood shuddering at the forbidden novelty of doing that thing that way. Sticky with each other, I turned around and held him tightly, my dick near screaming with tenderness under his scrotum with him pressed and rubbing against my belly.

  Looking up at him, I grew shy and looked down. He kissed the top of my head and whispered, “I’ve always wanted to do it that way with you. I’ve daydreamed about it and nearly had to beat off out on the boat. There’s a thousand ways to pleasure you I haven’t even come up with yet. Will you let me do you like I dream about? Will you keep on letting me love you like I want to?”

  “Will you never stop dreaming like that?” I said. “I won’t stop if you won’t.”