by Natasha Kent
“Switch hands,” I told him.
Laughing out loud Eddie said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Mike’s back!”
“Come on guys,” Matt said. “We don’t have to lose touch with each other again. High school’s different. We’re grown ups now. Right?”
“Supposedly,” I said smiling.
“Alright y’all, here,” Matt said passing out papers and pens. “Everyone write down their contact information. Personally, I want to keep up with y’all. This has been a great time and…” he looked up at the ceiling for a second. Clearing his voice he continued, “I hate to see it end like this. I’m here in Atlanta and I’d love to see y’all again.”
“Uhm. Vidalia’s quite a ways away from Atlanta, Matt,” Eddie said.
Matt walked up to him and gave him a big hug. “It’s not that far, pal.”
I turned and smacked Matt on his ass. “No farm boy for you, either!”
“Hey,” Matt said, “sore back porch, dude.”
“Aww fuck! I didn’t hear that! La la la la…” from Albert, putting his pillow over his head. Eddie just shook his head laughing.
We all exchanged addresses but when Matt came up to me I just shook my head. He looked confused and I smiled really big at him. “What?” he asked.
“I’ll give it to ya downstairs,” I said.
“You already gave it to him, Martin,” Albert said.
I busted out laughing at him, then ran and jumped onto him on the bed. “No, no, no!” he laughed, turning away.
“Your ass is next, stud!” I shouted.
“Matt! Get him offa me!” he laughed as I grabbed his shoulders and started dry humping him. We were just goofing off and Matt knew it.
“Actually, I’m enjoying the show,” Matt stood back. I died laughing at that.
I turned to him and smiled, “Fuck you, Matty.”
He smiled back. “You already did, Martin.”
“Oh shit, oh no, stop it!!” Eddie and Albert said. I turned to face Albert, grabbed his head and kissed him loud and sloppy on the cheek.
“You know you want it,” I told him. He playfully pushed me off of him and got up to head to the bathroom.
“Yeah, that’s him walking off to take a cold shower,” Eddie laughed.
“More like a jitter piss,” Albert retorted.
Matt and I changed out of our tuxedos and we all goofed off a little bit more before the three of us guys grabbed our bags to head out. I was doing alright until I saw Amanda in the kitchen. She was crying and telling the other girls goodbye. They all had tears in their eyes and were hugging each other. I felt the lump in my throat and the tears pooling up in my own eyes. Amanda looked up and saw me, then walked over and gave me a big hug.
“Hey there gal, it’s gonna be okay,” I said quietly. “We’ll all keep in touch.”
“Yeah,” she sniffed, “just like after graduation.”
“Hey, we’re all older now. I actually think it’ll be easier to keep caught up.”
She stood back and wiped her eyes. “You take care, Mike Martin.”
“I will, baby. I’m gonna miss bein’ around you everyday.”
“Actually I was talking about you taking care of Matty,” she winked, her eyes still puffy from crying.
“Oh,” Matt said, “he’s already taken care of me—“
“Enough! Enough!” I said, holding my hand up to stop him talking. “You’re worse than a goddamned yente” I laughed.
Everyone hugged and said goodbye, then the four of us headed out to the elevators. Amanda got on first, then Eddie, then myself. Matt stood by with is arm on the elevator door as I passed him. He had a smoldering look on his face.
“What?” I asked. He just shook his head a bit. I was puzzled a little bit.
We exited the building and looked around. There were only two camera guys that had tagged along with us. It was an absolutely beautiful early August day. The humidity was down so the heat was tolerable.
“Well guys, this is it,” Eddie said turning to us. He looked so damned forlorn.
Putting his bags down Matt gave Eddie a big hug. He started mimicking “Someday we’ll be together” from the Supremes. That got a laugh out of Eddie.
“Hey man,” I said, “you’ve got everyone’s number and address. We’re all just a phone call away.”
“I know. I’m just really gonna miss all of this…all y’all.” Taking a deep breath he continued, “But it was a great experience and I won’t forget any of you.”
“We won’t let you, man,” Matt said. What a fuckin’ sweetheart. He really was concerned. Uggg! I was a lucky man. Eddie hugged the rest of us and we walked him over to his truck. He got in, started it up and drove off towards Ponce, where he stopped and then headed west towards the Connector which would ultimately take him down into south Georgia.
“C’mere guys!” Amanda said, hugging us both at the same time. “You bastards better keep in touch.”
I laughed. “We will, gal!”
“Don’t worry about that,” Matt said.
“So what about you two. What’s gonna happen with y’all?”
I looked at Matt and said, “Well, we got a few things to talk about but,” turning back to Amanda, “we’ll be cool.”
She gave us both really big final hugs and then got into her Beemer. I was really going to miss her. Not a lot of people have the personality to give as much shit as I like to give, and she was certainly one who could. Tough as nails—on the inside she was as soft as a marshmallow.
Matt and I watched her pull out of the parking lot. When she was gone he turned and looked at me. Without a facial expression he said, “So we got lots to talk about?”
“No. Just a few things.”
“You didn’t give me your address and number.”
“That’s ‘cause I can’t decide if I wanna head east or if I want you to head west.” He looked somewhat puzzled. “Inman park is east of here, Marietta is northwest,” I reminded him.
“Ohhhh,” he said, finally getting it.
“You see, Matty, if you give me a tour of your old house then I won’t need you to write down your address, right?”
He smiled real big, grabbed the front of my shirt and leaned over to give me a big kiss on the cheek. “Yes!” he said. We walked over and loaded up our luggage into our trucks which were parked next to each other. We looked at each other and he smiled and shook his head a bit. “Here we go!” he said. “Euclid Avenue here we come!”
“Yassuh!” I replied with a laugh. We pulled out of the parking lot, Matt ahead of me, leaving The Reunion Show behind. Some of our new friends were still in the building and a couple were on their way back home. No more cameramen, no more mikes, no more cameras. From now on we’d be going back to our own private lives. I could sense that a major change would soon be taking place in my life. And I always looked forward to change.
* * * *
Fifteen minutes later we were pulled into Inman Park on Edgewood Ave. Then we zigzagged and were on Euclid. I recognized the street, or at least the houses on the street. The house that I really liked was on the left. Matt parked his truck on the right side, across from it, and I pulled in behind him and turned off the Jimmy.
As we were getting out of our trucks I said, “That’s the house I was telling you about.”
“I was pretty sure that was the one you meant.”
It was a gem that needed polishing. The paint was flaking off on all of the siding and there was scaffolding up on one side. On that side of the upper floor you could tell that all of the loose paint had been scraped off. The first floor of the house was red brick and the siding above was a mix of horizontal boards and patterned shingles. It was a lady waiting to be painted. At one corner of the house was a round tower with the bell-shaped roof above terminating into a decorative finial.
Matt started crossing the street towards it. “Where ya goin’?” I asked.
He flashed one of his gorgeous smiles and said, “I know the ow
ner.”
“Cool! You think he’ll mind?”
“Oh, something tells me it’ll be ok.”
We climbed the steps to the front porch and crossed over to the doors. Matt still had his keys in his hand and was flipping through them. “What are you doing?” I asked.
“I have the key.”
“Ahh. So you’re the g.c. on this house then?”
“You could say that,” he grinned, putting the key into the lock. He opened the door and we stepped in. Wow! It wasn’t often I got to see the inside of one of these Victorians. This one was still in rough shape but you could see that when it was finished it’d be a real beauty. We stepped into a large foyer, or more accurately a reception hall. The stairs were on the left and went up to a landing where a huge stained glass window was covered on the outside to protect it from the work going on with the paint scraping, then they switched back to continue upstairs. The railing was incredible but had been painted who-knows how many times. There was actually a fireplace to the left of the stairs on the side wall of the house. To the front of the fireplace was a rounded area that was the base of the tower. To the right of the reception hall was a really large living room or parlor with a bay window on the front and another fireplace on the outside side wall. There were two oval-shaped windows, one on each side of the fireplace.
“Check this out,” Matt said as he went over and opened one of the front bay windows. “It’s a triple hung window. All of the sashes slide up and into the cavity above, and it’s a full opening that you can step out onto the porch.” He showed me how it worked.
“That is just way too cool.” I turned around and slowly scanned the woodwork throughout the room. The baseboards and casings had also all been painted and looked worn and scuffed. “You got your work cut out for you, hoss.”
“And then back here’s the dining room,” he said crossing through the living room and through a wide cased opening into the dining room. It’s walls had wainscoting up about eight feet tall or so. This room also had a fireplace which was on the rear wall. Here in the dining room the outside window bowed out into a gentle curve and had a stained glass transom window in the center which was flanked by two regular sized windows. These were just double hung, as were all windows in houses of this era. The mantelpiece was different from the ones in the living room and reception hall. Actually, they were all different.
I looked up and around the room. “How tall are the ceilings down here?”
“Twelve feet.”
“Wow. This is really awesome.” Matt just stood there beaming. I chuckled a bit, “You nut, show me the rest of the house.
He took me through another cased opening that took us back to the staircase which was at the rear of the reception hall. There was a pair of double pocket doors that slid back to reveal a study or library behind the stairs. Above the doors was a double transom window. I’d noticed that all of the openings were across from each other and in line with the house’s windows. Obviously the Victorians didn’t have air conditioning and had to vent their houses any way that they could. On the front wall of the room, which backed up to the stairs, were floor to ceiling bookshelves. The outside wall was also a bay window and the rear wall had it’s own fireplace.
“Plenty of fireplaces,” I said.
“Yep. Some of them needed repair, but most had been maintained, luckily.”
“How many total?”
“Eight.”
“Well hellfire!”
He laughed, “No kidding.” We continued down the hall towards the rear of the house, through another doorway into a room that looked like it had been used in later years as a den. There was a door on the right that opened into the kitchen. All of the cabinetry was late 40’s style and needed to go.
“Is this metal?” I asked, touching one of the doors.
“Yep. This is all headed to the trash bin.”
I stood and looked around the kitchen. On the side wall were two large windows with cabinets between them, and the rear wall had the back door and another window which overlooked the house’s rear porch. I started studying the room, thinking.
“What?” Matt asked.
“That’s the back of the dining room fireplace, right?” I asked, pointing to a section of the wall that was exposed brick from the floor to the ceiling.
“Uh-huh.”
“If I owned this house I’d get one of those old-fashioned looking, gas stoves and hook up the vent pipe to the flue. Then I’d take down this wall,” pointing to the wall between the kitchen and the den, “and case the opening to match the other openings in the front rooms. That way the kitchen and den would be open and inviting, since those are the two rooms where people and their company live anyway. I’d probably put some vintage looking cabinets in here with granite countertops or something. Anyway, champagne taste,” I said.
He just stood there nodding with a big smile on his face.
“What are you smiling at?”
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
“Ya kook!”
“Wanna see upstairs?”
“Yeah! Let’s check it out.”
We walked back to the front of the house and then up the stairs. The room over the stairs was surprisingly an open space that had a doorway to the second floor porch and also a rounded area inside the tower. I say ‘surprisingly’ because I didn’t realize that there’d be such a large open area on the second floor like you’d typically find on the first.
“Dude, this is totally frickin’ awesome.”
“Idn’t it.”
The bedroom at the front of the house, over the living room, also had a fireplace which lined up with the one below. The size of the room matched the living room. Two huge trees in the front yard shaded this side of the house, which faced south. I opened the door and stepped out onto the upper porch. “Dang, it feels like I’m in a tree house.”
“I know.”
“Dude, what the hell are you smiling at.”
“Nothing, nothing.” He walked up to me and kissed me. “I’m just glad that you’re here and not still on your way to Marietta.”
I smiled. “Me too.”
He showed me two more bedrooms as well as another one that had been diced up into two bathrooms. Each bedroom had it’s own fireplace.
“Hmm. This could be interesting,” I said.
“Any ideas?” he asked.
I thought about it for a minute. “I’ll have to think about it some more,” I told him.
We walked up to the last door. “Here are his master’s quarters.”
“Oh brother,” I rolled my eyes. We went into the room where there was a king-sized bed, a dresser and a couple of chairs. This room had a few pictures around whereas the rest of the house did not. “I assumed that the owner would be gone during the renovation.”
“Nope,” was all he said. Suddenly he turned and pushed me onto the bed and started kissing me and chewing on my neck.
“Dude! What the fuck you doin’!”
“I’m a little hungry,” he mumbled into my neck.
I tried sitting up but he just pushed me down. “Matt! We can’t do this here. This is someone’s house! Someone’s bed!”
He stopped kissing me, leaned up to look at me and sighed. Then he rolled off.
“Well don’t get all pissed,” I said as he reached for one of the pictures. He handed it to me. It took me a second but the guy in it with the two older people looked like a younger version of Matt. “Hey,” I laughed “this dude looks like you.” Matt’s mouth dropped open a bit. He rolled his eyes and shook his head, reaching for another picture. This one was a more recent picture. “Dude, is this you?” I squinted. “It sure looks like you.” I looked over and Matt put his face in his hands and shook his head.
He snorted and said, “Martin, do you remember the cd’s I made for you?”
“Oh, hell yeah.”
“Do you remember that at first you thought that Eddie had made the first one.”
I laughed. “Yeah. What a dope I was. But why does this dude have pictures…” Suddenly it all clicked! “Wait a fuckin’ minute! These are your grandparents!”
He laughed again and shook his head. “Martin, these pictures were taken in this house. My grandparents’ house. My house.”
“Get OUT!” and I shoved him back, again like Elaine on Seinfeld. Only he rolled backwards and off of the bed. “Oh shit, are you okay.”
He stood up laughing hysterically. “I love you man, but sometimes you’re such a maroon!”