The crime novel was being edited at that time by a New York City editor. Walter Monsieur from Henderson and Reed was currently working on the book. We both had hoped it would be done by the end of November. Professional photographer, Nelson Brodecker, was going to take my photograph for the back of the book near Thanksgiving. My publicist, Rudi Daye, was already arranging book signings for the spring, and a book tour covering surrounding cities. She had hoped that I would also end up on Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, New York City, Boston, and Washington D.C. media stations. Henderson and Reed were planning on sending advanced reading copies of the mystery to literary critics, bookstores, and famous authors for their early reviews. The publishing house had expected that the mystery would do well and was investing lots of promotional cash into it.
“Are you working on a second book?” Miss Kitty asked, white cream cheese icing hung from her upper lip like an icicle, which she licked away with a swipe of her tongue.
I nodded. “It’s another mystery. Something bloody and wild. A very wealthy landlord is murdered by one of her tenants at Niagara Falls. A pianist is the key suspect.”
She raised her eyebrows, knowing that I was talking about her. “Do you plan to murder me, young man?”
I laughed and shook my head. “Of course not. I plan for you to read the book and catch any errors that you can, just as you did for Red Martini Massacre. What do you say, Miss Kitty?”
“I’m going to say that I’m flattered and can’t wait for this project with you to begin.”
* * * *
Miss Kitty’s surprise arrived approximately one hour later. It was sunny and hot, I recall. The temperature was climbing to ninety degrees, and quickly. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the humidity was like fog, thick and unbearable. A blue pickup with a ladder rack pulled up in front of the Tudor. Planks of long oak boards and two ladders were strapped over the truck’s rack, safely tied down with colorful bungees. White lettering on the truck’s doors read: Bascoe Construction. Below the name of the company were an Erie address and a local phone number. A blurb beneath the business information read: Constructing Life for You.
I was on the front porch rewriting chapter three of my next mystery, looked up from my handwritten notes, and watched a six-two-framed man climb out of the pickup. He was thirty and weighed approximately two hundred and fifteen pounds, was bulky with crafted muscles, and didn’t wear a T-shirt, probably because it was too humid and sticky out. His chest was massive, hairy, and accessorized with two pink and hard nipples. The construction man had bright blue eyes, an onyx-colored buzz cut, and wrinkles around his mouth. His chin and cheeks were covered in a smooth looking beard, which matched the color of his chest hair.
He walked around the front of the pickup with a Stanley tool box in his right hand and glided up to me. “You wouldn’t happen to be Miss Kitty, would you?”
“Funny,” I said, rolling my eyes, but smiling at the same time. “She went to the grocery store and said she’d be back in a half hour. Who are you?”
He set his tool box on the ground, next to his left foot, and told me his name. “Carl Bascoe.”
“And what are you doing here, Carl Bascoe?” I sounded cold and not at all pleasant. The guy might have been good looking, but he was still interfering with my novel work, and maybe trespassing on Miss Kitty’s property, uninvited.
He was confident when he spoke, and solid with his stance. He seemed aggressively masculine and sweet at the same time, which really made no sense to me. “I’m here to build an exterior set of stairs for one of Miss Kitty’s tenants.”
That was the surprise, which I appreciated and would love when completed. Thank you, Miss Kitty! I love you more than you know. Finally, I get a set of steps to my attic!
“You putting a door at the top of the stairs?” I anticipated nothing less and had hoped so. My Rumpelstiltskin setup was getting old. Plus, the rope was becoming weather-beaten and almost unusable from age.
He nodded, winked at me, and grinned from ear to ear. “According to the signed contract I am.” He rubbed his furry chin with his right hand, kept his view locked on me, and added, “You the tenant?”
I stood, nodded, and walked up to his block of muscular body. We shook hands, which was a powerful and warm connection between us. “I’m Micah Berk.”
“The book critic, right?”
“And writer.”
“Of course. Miss Kitty mentioned that to me. You have a mystery coming out next year. I like to read mysteries. Sometimes I consider myself to be a mystery.”
“I enjoy figuring out mysteries,” I said, nervous and attracted to him, no longer into rewriting at the moment.
Our handshake ended. He moved fingers up to my chin and grazed its smooth surface with a simple brush. “You’re adorable, Micah Berk. Miss Kitty says that you like dudes. Is that the truth?”
Miss Kitty knew too much about me, but God love her. “It’s the truth.”
“What about carpenters? You into hammering and nails?”
I wanted to laugh, enjoying our conversation and his fresh play. “Maybe. Maybe not. It depends how good you are with your tools, Carl.”
He chuckled. “Trust me, there will be a lot of work with tools on this project,” he said, winking at me again, taking in my good looks and smile. “Why don’t you help me unload my truck and we can start building you a set of stairs and door to your attic? What do you say, Mr. Berk, the critic, and the writer?”
The strangest thought came to me, drawn to him, anticipating a constructive affair with him, and a new relationship of friendship, or whatever else we could devise together, Twenty Years of Bascoe. It was bizarre how right it sounded, and balanced. It sounded comforting and not at all bogus, which caused my heart to warm and swell.
While following him to the side of the house, next to the sleeping and autumnal garden and wilted willow tree, the aluminum ladder, and the tattered bull rope that hung down from my attic window, I admired the handy man’s smooth looking back and broad shoulders, and said, “I’m in, Carl. I think this adventure with you will be something to remember. Feel free to lead me astray.”
Chapter 3: Miss Kitty
August 4, 2014
The Fuzzy Bear Martini: 6 Parts Gin, 2 Parts Dry Vermouth, 1 Part Creme de Cassis.
Tudors were small but you could cram a lot inside them, which is what Miss Catherine Kitty did. Tuck had moved in with his baby grand piano, renting the spare room on the second floor. A miniature bathroom separated his bedroom from Miss Kitty’s. The piano was crammed in the downstairs living room between the flat-screen and the two-person loveseat. We had to shimmy around it to get to the kitchen and food. A tight fit was the understatement of the year, and there was a lot of bitching because of the piano’s size, a cherry baby grand of all things, but life could have been worse. Not that it really affected me, though, since I had meals outside of the house.
The arrangement was simple according to Miss Kitty: the piano could stay for two days, which was plenty of time for Tuck to find it a new home. I knew he was sad about that, storing his baby elsewhere, but come on…the house was a Tudor, not a Northern estate. There was a piano bar that was interested in renting the baby from him, which he was thinking about doing. Bar 88—it was called that because there were eighty-eight keys on a piano—was on Sand Street in downtown Erie, next to the lake. Tuck worked there three nights out of the week, killing the keys and making tips. The other two nights of his work week were spent at various solo gigs and the Mastery Orchestra of Western Pennsylvania.
* * * *
Miss Kitty. She was wild and crazy at thirty-seven. Plus, she liked her drink and men. I had been living with her for a few years and she confided in me, “I only let gay guys live under my roof for fear that I would lose money.” I was confused and she elaborated with, “I won’t sleep with gay men. What’s the point? Straight men would get their rent for free because I wouldn’t be able to stay out of th
eir bedrooms.”
No, Miss Kitty wasn’t a whore, but some people in the neighborhood—Ms. Northop and Mrs. Wormwood—would have disagreed with me, claiming her an adult movie star with easy ways. I admit, Miss Kitty had an assortment of men that she enjoyed to spend some quality sex time with: two cowboys, a mechanic, a businessman from Rochester, New York, and a lawyer by the name of Grant Echo. Their ages ranged from nineteen to forty-nine. Never was the woman alone, fearing the battle of life all by herself. Plus, she admitted to me that she thought sex in a woman’s life kept her young and healthy, which I wasn’t about to disagree with.
Miss Kitty used all of her God-given features to her advantage. She was five-eleven, platinum blonde, pale-skinned, and brown-eyed. Her lips were narrow and her cheeks were of a pink hue. Beautiful was an understatement since she had an hourglass shape and a strong looking upper frame. Some women were jealous of her good looks. And other women hissed at her, thinking her fake. Frankly, there wasn’t anything fake about her. She was about as real as the lake’s tide rising and falling on a daily basis, and just as smooth or rough when she needed to be.
* * * *
I wasn’t a prisoner in the doorless attic room on Mill Street, although maybe Tuck thought I was. He couldn’t believe that I was perfectly fine using a ladder as access to the room, thought it impractical, Middle-Aged, and quite dangerous. He told Miss Kitty on that second day that he believed I got a lot of writing done in the room, being able to concentrate on my novel and book reviews, without being bothered by the outside world.
That evening he climbed the aluminum ladder and presented a plate of food for me. His muscular bulk barely fit through the window, but he managed. Once inside, sweat on his brow and cheeks, he said, “Miss Kitty wanted you to have this.”
It was fried chicken, mashed potatoes with chicken gravy, and green beans, which she knew I loved. On one side of the plate was a piece of cornbread. I took the plate from him and said, “There isn’t anything better than her Georgia cooking. What a peach she is.”
For the next few minutes we talked about Miss Kitty’s history. She was a model in Georgia at twenty, caught the eye of Michael Basque, an elite restaurateur from Chicago. She had married young, lost three children because unfortunate miscarriages, and spent four years with Basque. Unfortunately, the wealthy businessman couldn’t keep his cock in his slacks, cheated on her numerous times, and Miss Kitty left the marriage with six million dollars, which was stashed away in a money-producing account with the Gregory Financial Group in New York City; money that she was saving for when she turned fifty, claiming that she wanted to travel around the world, from country to country, until the day she died.
I didn’t eat in front of Tucker. Instead, there was a dorm room-sized refrigerator in the room. I placed the meal aside, having every intention of eating it later that evening.
“Not hungry?”
“Yes, I am. But I’d rather not be rude and eat in front of you. I love that meal and refuse to share it with you. Miss Kitty spoils me sometimes, and winner-winner, chicken dinner.”
He laughed.
I laughed.
And then we talked about his history for the next two hours.
Chapter 4: Stairway to Heaven
October 7, 2015
The stairway’s frame was semi-built. Twelve steps rose off the ground, and midway up, fifteen more steps veered to the right. The wood was oak with rounded edges. The stairwell’s base structure was cemented into the ground to keep it sturdy. A railing was currently being constructed on both sides of the rising frame, but had yet to be completed.
The labor was intense: measuring the lumber for accurate cuts, sawing the wood, carrying it, and nailing it together to build something that I appreciated and would use each and every day. I helped Carl construct its frame, piece by piece, minute by minute at his side, learning about angles, types of wood, the use of various tools, and basic construction skills. Our progress was slow but meticulous. And even I admitted that the structure was coming together in just a few days.
We worked from early in the morning until four in the afternoon. Both of us were hungry and exhausted. Our hands and backs ached, but neither of us complained. Rather, we popped two aspirin each, and dealt with the pain, unchallenged.
* * * *
When the stairwell was just about finished, we stood chest to chest, almost hugging. Both of us were sweaty, exhausted, and out of breath. He placed his palms on my shoulders and said, “We deserve a beer.”
I shook my head. “You mean a martini.”
“Yeah. A martini. Whatever it takes.”
And then we said in unison, “Nicely done,” and hugged, but only in a friendly way that stated we had accomplished a task together, side by side, reaching a final goal.
I welcomed him inside my room, through the window, and we had a couple of martinis each, and for the next hour we discussed when he was going to install the doorway with a real knob and lock. He said playfully, “And if I you’re lucky, you get a window in the door.”
“I feel pretty lucky,” I replied.
“I’m sure you do.”
* * * *
Did we kiss? No, but I wanted to? Did he flirt with me? I think so, but I was so bad at making that determination. Did he leave after his few martinis? Yes, by first shaking my right hand with his, and saying, “We make a pretty good team, Micah Berk. What do you think?”
We did, didn’t we?
Yes.
Chapter 5: Tall and Sexy
August 5, 2014
The Private’s Martini: 6 Parts Gin, 1 Drambuie, 1 Lemon Twist.
His life as a boy in Cincinnati was no different than any other kid’s in Ohio. He recalled building snow forts in cold Januarys, doing jumps on his Huffy over narrow creeks, and enjoying fireworks on the Fourth of July, awed by their bursting rainbow colors and explosive brilliance in the night sky. Love from his parents was plentiful, gifts were abundant, and spoiling him was something his parents didn’t lack. He told me that there wasn’t a day that went by without a hug from his mother, but not so much from his father. He said he had a happy childhood, even if he felt a little unloved by his father.
Grade school at Hinder Elementary in Cincinnati was not as pretty as he had hoped it would be, he confessed to me. “Kids called me ‘Red’ and ‘Freckle Face.’ Bullying was an everyday occurrence. My days at Hinder were horrible. Kids are the meanest and most loathsome creatures on the planet. Most of them have no souls.” But, he said he was a smart kid, not really challenged by school, and was apt in his studies, which caused him to be adored by his teachers and principals. “I picked up things rather easily. I may have been one of the bullied, but I was one of the brightest, particularly in music.”
We had another drink, relaxing together, and he continued his tale of life. “Middle school was a little better than grade school. I was like a weed and grew fast. Before I knew it I was tall and sexy with flaming red hair and broad shoulders. My looks intimidated the kids I went to school with, so the harassment stopped. I played football and baseball, which I wasn’t bad at, but couldn’t find any happiness in. Music called me. The piano was my life, then and now. I took lessons from Mr. Harriday after school and started to perform at local functions. Some of them paid, others didn’t. I never felt so free in life while being behind the keys, and still feel that way today.”
It felt as if we were on a talk show of sorts. I was the host and he was the guest. A question was asked and he answered it, delving in his past. Truth was I just happened to be interested in everything he had to say, and he didn’t seem to mind to be sharing details of his life with me. His tone was actually soothing, warm-sounding and soft, and a good pairing with our drinks.
There was one thing that I specifically wanted to know about him, and surfaced some courage to ask, “When did you know you were different?”
He raised an eyebrow, semi-smiling. “Do you mean gay?”
I nodded. “Yeah. When did you know
you liked guys? The big change happened to me in middle school. Is that when it happened to you?”
It was his turn to nod, which he executed in a quick motion, and followed up with, “Billy Cadson was my first crush. We had gym class together, period eight, and he had the biggest dick on the planet, thick and long. Plus, his balls drooped everywhere, pouring to the floor. I’ll never forget that. I always thought his junk was man-sized for a kid who was fourteen. And he had a hairy chest like a bear, and thick bristles of hair above his cock. Damn, that boy was fine. I wanted to do everything bad I could with him, but didn’t really know how.”
“Did you do something bad with him?”
He laughed. “Not even close. He was straight as an arrow and wanted nothing to do with me.”
Then he told me about high school and college, which consisted of a string of young men that taught him how to have sex. “I’m not saying I was a whore, but I did learn a lot about pleasuring a man, and being pleasured.”
“Did you have any serious relationships at Lincoln College?” I was pretty sure he did because he seemed like a nice guy. Plus, he was easy to look at with his adorable features that made me feel weak in the knees.
“Two guys had me. The first was in my sophomore year. His name was Louis Venzi. He was French and hated Americans, but he seemed to like me; I still don’t know why to this day.”
“How long were you two together?”
“Nine months. He was a senior. He graduated and moved back to Paris.”
“So he was older than you?”
“Most of the guys I went out with and shared relationships with were older than me.”
“What about the second long-term relationship you had? Who was it with?”
Men of All Seasons Box Set Page 19
