Return to Innocence

by G. M. Frazier

  Even though sex may not be on my mind—that is, sex with my wife—deviant sex is. The deviant sex between Chris and Tommy. I catch myself at times wondering, picturing what happened between them that night. Not pornographic fantasizing, but a psychologist’s voyeurism. Trying to understand the dynamics of their relationship and how Chris could allow appropriate affection and intimacy to escalate to the point it did. Chris wasn’t gay, and I don’t really think Tommy is either. He’s just confused. Relationships like theirs raise complex issues, and more questions than I, even as a professional, have answers.

  Even now as my wife caresses my unresponsive manhood, nothing about me seems normal anymore. I know I am testing my wife’s patience, which, in this instance, is a measure of her love for me. I am sure she has her own fears and doubts about my current inabilities. I wish—I really do wish—that I could take her in my arms and ravish her with wild, reckless, almost violent love. But would that reassure her, or only increase her concern? If we made such love would she believe I was perhaps seeing someone else under me? Perhaps a fair-skinned and bright-eyed boy named Tommy? Is that one of her fears?

  Or is it mine?

  Chapter 11

  Uncle Ben

  We are finally headed west on Interstate 26. We will take I-95 north in another twenty miles and then it’s pretty much a straight shot to Virginia.

  Suzanne, Benjamin, and I are in my Impala SS. Jim and Joyce, Nick and Peter are in Jim’s Bentley Continental R. Peter told me this morning that Nick said that car cost almost four-hundred thousand dollars. I can’t believe anyone would pay that much for a car. But, I guess if Jim can lay down that kind of cash on a car, he really didn’t have any problem paying off my house and giving me fifty grand to hold me over. Over until...what? I try not to think about what’s facing me when we get back. I’m hoping this trip home to Virginia will help me do just that.

  I grew up in Southampton County, Virginia on land that had been in the Erskine family from colonial days. My father, Philip Michael Erskine, was the pastor of the only Presbyterian church in that part of the county. It was a small church and his salary from it was small. The farm was our primary source of income. Dad farmed during the week with his father and preached on Sunday. Some of our seven hundred acres were rented to other farmers, who planted peanuts, corn, or soy beans and then paid us from the profits of their harvest.

  Growing up as an only child in rural Virginia, I tended to lead a somewhat sheltered existence. Up until I started school, my life revolved around the cycle of labor that sustained the farm. Cows, hogs, chickens, and crops; winter, spring, summer, fall, there was always something to be done. My father and mother were up before dawn every morning and by the time I was old enough to help, so was I.

  My earliest memory of my mother is of her in a blue and white apron fixing breakfast in the kitchen. I could not have been more than three. My favorite playthings were pots and pans. I was on the kitchen floor playing while she fixed eggs and ham and biscuits. My father would have been at the table drinking coffee and reading the paper. I don’t remember him doing that, I just know he did. He was not a part of that memory.

  Up until I started school the only thing that broke the routine of my childhood was visits from Uncle Ben. I don’t believe I consciously compared my father to my uncle then. I just assumed fathers acted as mine did and uncles did likewise. My perspective changed once I reached school age and my circle of friends grew. I would go to their homes and see the way some fathers played with their sons, touched them, hugged them. It was as if these men actually liked their sons. And that, I guess, is my earliest fixed memory of my father. Wondering if he liked me. Wondering if he liked me as much as Uncle Ben liked me. For my uncle behaved toward me the way my friends’ fathers behaved toward them.

  The cellular phone ringing snaps me back to reality. I blink a couple of times and realize that we are now on I-95 headed north. I need to watch these fugue states I am prone to lapse into now. I don’t remember getting off I-26 at all. I pick up the phone from the console and answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “You think that car of yours is hot stuff, don’t you?”

  “Who is this?” I ask.

  “It’s me, dummy.” I recognize the voice now. It’s Jim. “Look over here,” he says.

  I look to my left. Jim is up beside me. Peter and Nick are waving. And then the Bentley zips ahead a couple of car lengths and then is back beside me.

  “What’s he doing, Glen?” Suzanne says.

  I shrug. “What’s going on, Jim?” I ask him.

  “Look down the road,” he says.

  I look. It’s a straight shot of Interstate with no traffic in front of us for at least two miles, which really seems odd the day before Thanksgiving.

  “I just thought you might wanna see what that Super Sport is made of,” Jim says. And again, the Bentley moves out ahead.

  I smile and pick up the pace and watch the speedometer. I increase my seed and pull up beside the Bentley. I look over at Suzanne. She is frowning. “Don’t do this, Glen,” she warns.

  I know she is right, but I feel good—better than I’ve felt in weeks. Like a teenager.

  “Are you gonna race him, Daddy?” Benjamin asks from the back seat.

  “No, he most certainly is not,” my wife answers for me.

  I ignore her.

  Jim is easing past me again. We are still connected by phone and I can hear Peter and Nick laughing, and Joyce is giving Jim the same verbal abuse I’m getting from my wife. I watch the speedometer and move up beside the Bentley again. We are doing eighty-five now and I’m not going to give Jim another chance. I floor the accelerator pedal. Instant downshift. The roar of the LT1 engine brings back those memories of races with Billy Tipton back at Chadwick. The speedometer moves past one-hundred as the transmission shifts into fourth. I’ve got a good jump on Jim. Suzanne is swearing in Afrikaans. Benjamin is squealing. I can hear Nick and Peter screaming and cheering Jim on over the phone. I look in the mirror. He’s gaining on me. I’ve got my foot to the floor and I’m still accelerating, but the Bentley is pulling by me. Peter and Nick wave as they slowly ease by. I look at the digital speedometer: one-hundred, twenty-two miles per hour. And still accelerating.

  “I just smoked your cigar, buddy,” Jim says over the phone.

  He’s two car-lengths ahead and pulling away more rapidly now. My Impala is starting to top out. I’m at one-twenty-seven and I know I’ll never catch the Bentley. I chicken out and let off the gas. The Bentley is way out in front now.

  “How fast are you going?” I ask Jim.

  “She just leveled out at one-forty-six.”

  “Unbelievable,” I say. I look over at Suzanne. She is livid.

  “Did he win, Daddy?” Benjamin asks.

  “I’m afraid so, little man.” We are slowing rapidly, the digital numbers of the speedometer retreating in a blur toward the speed limit.

  “You better be glad there are no police around, Glen,” Suzanne says.

  “Why, Mommy?” Benjamin asks.

  “Because your father just broke the law. If we had been stopped, they would have taken him right to jail.”

  I think Suzanne immediately realizes the mistake she has made, but it’s too late. Benjamin is crying. No, he is hysterical. He’s trying to say something and I can’t understand him. I pick up the phone and take it off speaker.

  “Jim?”

  “Yeah? What in the world’s going on? Why’s he crying?”

  “I’ve got to stop, Jim. I’m pulling over.”

  “Okay.”

  I punch the END button on the phone and hand it to Suzanne. I start braking hard and pull onto the shoulder. Benjamin is crying so fiercely now he can hardly breathe. I slam the gear shift into park and wrench the seat belt from around me. I’m out of the car and around to Benjamin’s door. I open it and get him unbuckled out of his car seat. I pick him up and hold him. He is trembling and sobbing, straining to breathe. He’s tr
ying to speak again.

  “Shh. It’s okay, little man. Everything’s okay. Daddy’s not going to jail,” I tell him. I pat his back. Suzanne gets out of the car and steps over to us. She kisses our son on the cheek and says something soothing to him in Afrikaans.

  I had assumed everything was okay with Benjamin. I should have known better. As sensitive as he is, he knows things aren’t right. He knows. His mother and I have been putting on a front for him and he’s been putting on one for us. The fear and worry he’s been carrying around for three weeks has finally erupted.

  Right now he just needs to cry in my arms. And so I’ll hold him here, on the side of the Interstate, until he wants to let go. We’ll spend the night here if we must.

  I look up to see Jim backing down the emergency lane. He stops about ten yards in front of my car. Joyce opens her door and Peter piles out of the back. He comes running toward us. “Is he okay?” Peter asks, panting.

  Suzanne puts her arm around Peter’s shoulders. “He’ll be alright, honey. We are all reacting differently to what’s happened. It was Benjamin’s turn to cry.”

  “Hey, Ben,” Peter says, “you want me to ride with you the rest of the way?”

  Benjamin is not crying as hard now. I feel him nod against my shoulder.

  “I’ll go tell Nick,” Peter says and trots off.

  We rolled into Courtland at a little past three. From there it’s about seven miles to the farm up Highway 35, just past Sebrell. The rest of the drive had been uneventful. We stopped once for lunch and twice for gas and restroom visits. Jim’s Bentley is a gas hog. He only got eleven miles to the gallon. My Impala, however, impressed us both by getting over twenty-five.

  We have just turned down the narrow gravel road off 35 that leads to the family farm. There were once two magnificent plantations on the Nottaway River, run by two Scots who came to this country in 1710. The Urquhart plantation was the largest of the two. The Civil War put an end to the Urquhart and Erskine empires on the Nottaway. My great, great, great grandfather divvied up some of the five thousand acres of the Erskine plantation and gave the land to the freed slaves. He sold some of the land. The remaining seven hundred or so acres around the main house became the family farm. Around the turn of the century, my great grandfather built a new house further back off the river and moved his family from the ancestral home. The old house still sits empty, overlooking the Nottaway, a monument to another era and another way of life. The house I grew up in was built in 1950, by my father, just after he graduated from Union Seminary up in Richmond and he and Mother were married. I was born two years later.

  As we drive down the narrow road, the smells of Virginia come alive in my nostrils. It is warm today—it must be seventy, at least—and the rich soil of the harvested fields is exuding an aroma unlike anything you will encounter in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. At last, we round the final turn and the Erskine farm, big and beautiful, lies sprawled before us in the orange glow of the late afternoon sun.

  “Hey, Mom?” Peter says.

  “Hmm?”

  “Ben’s asleep.”

  “Well, wake him. Tell him we are here,” she says.

  My father walks out on the back porch as we pull up behind the house. He waves. I wave. Jim pulls up behind me and I get out. I notice the pick-up truck is gone.

  “Where’s Mom?” are my first words to Dad.

  “She went into town to get some groceries. We didn’t expect you all this early,” he says. He extends his hand and I shake it. He looks at Benjamin and Peter getting out of the car. “Hey, boys!” he half shouts.

  They go running to him. Benjamin is in his arms and Peter is hugging him. Benjamin rubs his little hand on my father’s chin, feeling the stubble of his unshaven face.

  “You like Grandpa’s ol’ scruffy face?”

  Benjamin giggles and gives one of his exaggerated nods and my father kisses him on the cheek.

  Suzanne walks over and kisses my father. “Hello, Papa,” she says.

  “Suzanne, honey, I do believe you get prettier every time I see you.”

  Suzanne smiles and I look over to see Jim and his family watching this reunion. “Dad, I’d like you to meet Jim and Joyce Aiken. And this is Nick, Joyce’s son.”

  “Well, it’s nice meeting you all. I’m glad you could come up with Glen.” Dad shakes hands with them, and the moment seems sort of awkward because we all know why Jim had to come with me.

  “Jim was a classmate of mine at Chadwick, Dad,” I offer as a way to break the silence.

  “Oh, really?” he says.

  “I’m glad we could come, Mr. Erskine,” Joyce says. “It’s nice to meet you. Thank you for having us.”

  “Grandpa, can I take Nick for a ride on the little John Deere tractor?” Peter asks. “Is it out at the barn?”

  “It is, Peter. You sure you remember how to drive it?”

  “I remember. It was only last summer, Grandpa.”

  “Okay, if it’s alright with your mama and daddy.” My father looks to me. I appreciate his deference. I nod to Peter and he and Nick take off for the barn.

  “I wanna go, too!” Benjamin shouts, squirming in his grandfather’s arms.

  “No, butter bean, you stay here with Grandpa,” my father says and hugs Benjamin and kisses him again.

  My son giggles. “Your beard tickles, Grandpa. And I’m not no butter bean,” he says.

  We all laugh.

  “You all come on in the house,” Dad says, “I’ve got a pot of coffee on.”

  Mom finally made it back from Courtland with the groceries about an hour later. After the introductions and coffee around the kitchen table, we are now taking Jim and Joyce and Nick on a walking tour of the farm. Suzanne and Joyce and Jim are walking up ahead of us with Mom, Dad, and the boys. I am bringing up the rear alone. Thinking.

  The sun is getting low in the west and we are all in shirt sleeves. The boys changed into shorts before we left the house and I am wishing I had brought a pair myself. It feels more like a spring day than the day before Thanksgiving. I take a kick at a downed and crushed pecan in the sand. How I used to hate having to pick up these little nuts from hell. That is, until I found out people would pay good money for them.

  I notice my father is letting Mom be the tour guide. He has slipped me a few furtive glances and as the rest of the crew listens attentively to my mother, Dad falls back beside me. He slows and I match his pace and the others begin to leave us behind. We have just passed the barn and are headed toward the back field.

  “So the only way the judge would let you leave South Carolina was if Jim came along?” Dad asks.

  “Yes, I hope that won’t be a problem.”

  “No, we got plenty of room…you know that. I was just a little surprised he brought his whole family.”

  Mother and her tour group are a good fifty yards ahead of us now on the dirt path. We are in the middle of the pasture and the cows are looking suspiciously at these intruders. I hope the boys are watching where they step. My father motions to an ancient tree stump from an old cedar. The years have weathered and worn the top to a smooth semi-shine. We sit. A cow moos in the distance and the sound echoes off the trees down by the river.

  My father clears his throat. “Glen, I don’t know how to say this, son. I don’t. You always reminded me of Ben. Even when you were little, you were more like his son than mine. Mama and Daddy used to say you couldn’t have been more like Ben Erskine if he had spit you whole right out of his mouth.”

  I glance at my father and then turn away. He is not looking at me.

  “Given what happened with your uncle—”

  “He was your brother, Dad.” I say, cutting him off in mid sentence.

  “I know that, son. But don’t you think it’s odd given what happened with him and you, and now you get accused of this with a boy?”

  “Dad, just stop. This is not like what happened with Uncle Ben. As for me, I didn’t do anything with the boy who is accusing me. Do
you understand? Nothing happened.”

  I see the relief in his eyes as he accepts the fact that his son was not sexually involved with a teenage boy.

  “I want to ask you something, Glen. You don’t have to answer...because, well, I guess it’s really none of my business...”

  I wait. I turn to my father. “What do you want to know, Dad?”

  “Did Ben ever do anything with you?”

  I know why my father is asking this. As far back as I can remember, I would sleep with my uncle when he would come to the farm to visit, and we were usually in my bed. And when I would visit him in Suffolk, I would sleep with him. I knew my uncle was gay, but it never seemed to matter to me like it did the rest of the family. I saw Uncle Ben for the great man he was.

  “No, Dad. Nothing ever happened between me and Uncle Ben. I can’t believe after all these years you still think something did.”

  “And that morning I walked in on you and Ben?”

  “I told you then nothing happened,” I say. “And you went into a tirade.”

  “I’m sorry,” my father says, hoarsely. His eyes are moist. “I had to think about what was best for you at the time.”

  “Dad, Uncle Ben was gay, not a pederast. He tried his best to fit the template the rest of the family had for him, but he was what he was and nothing the rest of you could do or say would change that.” I get up and walk away, leaving my father sitting on the stump.

  I believe my father now knows his reaction to the incident that morning was wrong. But I also know he needs at least that one thread to hold on to. That one slender thread of justification that he was trying to protect me, though I’m quite certain that was the last thing on his mind.

  My thoughts drift back to that summer morning, long ago, just before my twelfth birthday. It was early and the house was quiet. Uncle Ben was visiting for the weekend, and as usual was sleeping with me in my bed. I lay there thinking about the trip down to Lake Gaston we had planned for later that day. I was also absentmindedly stroking my morning erection inside my briefs. Before I knew it I was having strange and intense feelings completely alien to me. I thought I was wetting myself and quickly threw back the covers and jerked my underwear down to look. And then I realized that Uncle Ben was awake and watching me.