The Butcher's Son

by Dorien Grey

  “I was just waiting for you.”

  I noticed that he seemed a little…uncomfortable?…ill at ease? Hard to say. I just could sense that something was going on. I was afraid his meeting with Marston’s new owners hadn’t gone well.

  He fixed our drinks and handed me mine.

  “How was your day?” he asked. He had a very un-Chris-like look on his face, and there was a tightness in his voice,

  “It can wait. I think I should hear about your day first. Let’s go into the living room.”

  We, as usual, sat side-by-side on the sofa. We set our drinks on the coffee table at the same time, in the same movement. That happened a lot.

  “So,” I said, putting my hand on his leg, “tell. You got the ax?”

  He looked at me, and I thought he might start to cry.

  “No.”

  “No? Well, that’s great!” I said, and meant it. “But something’s wrong. What?”

  He bit his lower lip and swept his thumb across the corner of his eye.

  “They offered me a promotion.”

  I couldn’t understand why that should make him cry. I knew there was something else.

  “And…?”

  “And…they want me to move to New York. I told them I couldn’t give them an answer right away. I had to talk to you first. It’s a big raise, and a fantastic opportunity. But they want me to be there ready to start on the first of the month. And—”

  “Then I think you should take it, if you want it,” I said, and rubbed my hand up and down the top of his thigh. I couldn’t describe exactly what I was feeling—a mixture of happiness for Chris, and sadness for us, and an odd loneliness.

  “Would you come with me?” he asked, and I could sense that, while he meant it, he didn’t mean it a hundred percent. He knew, as I did, that it was time for us to move on.

  “I can’t right now,” I said, and told him about the commitment I’d made to C.C. “Maybe when this campaign thing is over, if you want me to…”

  We leaned toward each other and hugged, tightly. Chris put his head on my shoulder and started to sob. I had a lump the size of a grapefruit in my throat, and my vision was suddenly very blurry; but I patted him on the back as if I were comforting a sad, small child.

  “I’ll miss you,” he said, and started sobbing again.

  “No more than I’ll miss you,” I said, and truly meant it. We were five years of the other’s life; goodbyes are never easy.

  *

  Friday morning was more or less a total blur. Fortunately, it was a relatively easy morning—mostly involving assembling and collating materials for the press kit to be handed out just before Chief Rourke’s announcement of his candidacy. All I could really think about was Chris, and Chris and me, and how fast life can change so totally. It was probably a good thing C.C. was out of the office most of the morning, and I have the vague recollection he didn’t even look in my direction when he finally stormed in, barking orders like a drill sergeant to various members of the staff.

  I did remember my three o’clock appointment with Kevin Rourke, however, and left the office with more than enough time to spare in getting there. Sixteenth and Boyle sounded awfully familiar, but I had no idea why. It was, not surprisingly for the location of a homeless shelter, in one of the less-fashionable areas of town. It wasn’t until I was only a block or so away that I realized Bacchus’s Lair was half a block down from Sixteenth on Arnwood, and Boyle was the next street down.

  Now, there’s an ironic bit of coincidence, I thought.

  Finding a parking place was no problem in this area; being sure your car would still be there in one piece when you came back for it was another story. Not usually a problem for the bars along Arnwood, where there was plenty of traffic at night, but just one block away it was a bit riskier.

  The shelter was a sprawling, dilapidated, four-story former God-knows-what. Its original ground-floor façade had been replaced with a solid brick-and-concrete-block wall broken only by the narrow, recessed double-solid-slab-door entrance, over which was hung a large brightly painted plywood sign proclaiming that this was Salvation’s Door.

  The street was pretty much deserted, and there was no one around the entrance—it was much too early for the overnight guests, and the evening meal wouldn’t be served for a few hours yet. It looked like the place might well be locked up, but when I tried the door, it opened easily, admitting me immediately into a long corridor broken by numerous doors and openings.

  Directly to my left was a wide stairway going up, with a sign beside it on the wall saying: Registration: 2nd Floor. I gathered that was where the dormitory rooms were. There were no sounds coming from upstairs, so I assumed there would be no one there at this time of day.

  No one seemed to be around on the ground floor, either, but since I heard kitchen-type sounds from somewhere in the back, I kept walking in that direction, glancing to the left and right as I passed each door or opening. A large room with chairs and a pulpit was to the right, and there were a couple smaller rooms set up apparently as meeting rooms and a few offices. A wide arch about three-quarters of the way down on the right led into a vast dining area lined with tables. The kitchen was, I assumed, directly to the rear of it.

  At the very end of the corridor, a stairway to the left led upwards, and a sign said simply Director, 2nd Floor. I climbed the stairs and found a truncated hallway, off which there was only one partially opened door with a sign: Director.

  I knocked, and a voice I vaguely recognized said, “Come in.”

  Kevin Rourke sat behind a very old, very large and very heavy-looking desk piled high with papers, file folders, those large accordion-type envelopes with strings to tie them shut, and books. Behind him was an equally large bulletin board covered with notes, business cards, official-looking operating permits of one sort or another, handwritten notes, etc. On the wall beside the bulletin board was a framed eight-by-ten color photo of a smiling Kevin standing behind and with a loving hand—the left hand, of course, to prominently display his wedding ring—on the shoulder of a seated smiling Sue-Lynn, who was holding a smiling Sean. In one corner of the small room was, inexplicably, a battered upright piano, atop which was an expensive-looking tape recorder and an open Bible.

  Kevin rose and came around the desk to shake my hand. He had a very firm grasp, and I was keenly aware he held the handshake just a fraction of a second longer than necessary.

  “Mr. Hardesty,” he said, with a very engaging smile. “I’m really glad you could come. Please, sit.”

  He bent over to take a stack of folders off one of the heavy wooden chairs sitting sideways in front of the desk then moved to a second and repeated the process. He laid the combined stack on one side of the already cluttered desk as I sat down. He then pulled the second chair over directly in front of me and sat, our knees within about six inches of touching. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the wooden arms of his chair and clasping his hands.

  “We haven’t really haven’t had much of a chance to talk, have we?”

  “No,” I admitted, “we haven’t.”

  I kept hearing the gaydar in my head going Ping! Ping! Ping! With absolutely no evidence to support it, other than what I realized with mild surprise was possibly my own wishful thinking, I forced my mind to turn it off. Kevin Rourke was a pretty hot number, but business is business, and never the twain, etc.

  “I hope you don’t mind my asking, Mr. Hardesty…”

  “Please, call me Dick.”

  He smiled. “Dick, are you a Christian?”

  Well, this was a brief assignment, I said to myself. But I wasn’t about to lie, job or no job.

  “I’m a practicing agnostic.”

  Kevin’s smile did not fade by a single degree.

  “No matter. We’re all God’s children. I just thought that if you were…more spiritually oriented…we might start our meeting—and our working relationship—with a brief prayer for my father and the success of his campaign.”r />
  I’d rather have bamboo slivers driven under my fingernails.

  “Well, then,” he went on, still smiling, “let’s get down to business, shall we?”

  “Fine,” I said, relieved that he didn’t seem to take offense at being in the presence of a heathen. “Did you have some specific ideas, Reverend?”

  Had Kevin been able to purse his lips and smile at the same time, I’m sure he would have. Instead, he gave up the latter for the former and leaned back in his chair.

  “Kevin, please,” he said. “We’re not unaware,” he continued, “that my father has a…well, let’s say a less than positive image in the minds of far too many of the people whose support he will need in order to win the election. I propose that we start there—getting the public to see my father as a deeply caring and spiritual man.”

  Are we talking about the same guy, here? I wondered, but of course said nothing.

  “Were you aware, for example, that this building belongs to my father, and that he donated it to the shelter’s use? He did it with no publicity whatever, merely out of a sincere Christian desire to help those unfortunate souls who find themselves in need—in no small part as a result of the economic policies of the present governor.”

  Who the hell is this guy? I wondered. Mixing Christian good works and politics in the same breath?

  “Well,” I said, “perhaps that might be a good place to start. What about having a fundraiser held here at the shelter? It would be a great way for your father and his supporters to show their deep concern for the homeless, and an opportunity for the public to see that your father is more than just a cipher in a chief-of-police uniform.”

  My ears couldn’t believe how totally hypocritical my mouth was being. How in hell could I even think of working for such a bigoted asshole—two, if you counted the chief and C.C., which I did—and keep any shred of personal dignity?

  I was actually coming to see myself as a resistance fighter, and realized it might be possible, by working from within, to throw a couple of well-placed monkey wrenches into the chief’s political machinery.

  The fundraiser idea was a win-win situation. First, the chief needed something like this if he were to have any chance of showing a human side—which even so I doubted he could pull off successfully, if our first meeting was any indication. He might come across as remotely warm and fuzzy in the Sunday supplement, where every word was doctored and every photo staged, but put him in with real people in a real-life situation?

  Second, there was no way in hell the chief’s upper-crust supporters would be seen dead in a dump like this without some major cosmetic improvements being made first, which could be of actual benefit to the homeless who used its facilities.

  Third, given the very remote possibility they might not see the depth-charge potential of the visual contrast of tuxedos and rags in the same room at the same time, I suspected a lot of the voters would.

  Fourth, if they acceded to holding a fundraiser in the shelter but without having to actually be in the same room with anyone not on the city’s social register, it would almost inevitably mean the shelter would have to close down for a short period while the event was being set up and held. In that event, an anonymous tip to the local media on the day of the gala could be devastating to the campaign.

  Kevin appeared conflicted.

  “Well, Dick, my father is really not accustomed to actually dealing with the public in any numbers. He is a very private person.”

  “Kevin,” I said, realizing I might be a little too forward but not really caring, “since I work for the public relations firm charged with doing everything possible to get your father elected, I hope you will allow me to be honest—and blunt.”

  He nodded. “Of course.”

  “The hard, cold fact is that the potential governor of a state cannot shut himself off from the people whom he plans to represent and whose support he needs to win. Your father, to be very blunt, has a reputation, however unfair it may be, of being aloof and patrician.

  “If the only votes that counted were those of his backers, who are almost without exception the wealthy of this community, there would be no contest. But since the poor and middle class will also be voting, and still outnumber the wealthy by a considerable margin, he has to win them over, uncomfortable as it might be for him.”

  Kevin smiled. “I appreciate your candor, Dick. That’s why I suggested to my father that you and I should work together…closely. I was watching you during your visit to my parents’ home. I could see you weren’t intimidated by the situation or the surroundings.

  “I’ll also be blunt. While Mr. Carlson is undoubtedly a very capable PR man, I find him just a little too eager to please. I know my father needs all the help he can get—he is, after all, my father—and we need someone who will not be afraid to tell him what he needs to…what he must…hear.”

  A thin, consumptive-looking man wearing a cook’s apron and hat appeared and knocked on the door frame. Kevin turned partly around to face him.

  “Yes, John?”

  “Sorry to interrupt, Reverend, but the oven’s acting up again.”

  Kevin sighed. “Okay, I’ll be right down.”

  John nodded, turned back toward the stairs, and disappeared.

  “I’m sorry, Dick, this happens on a regular basis, I’m afraid, and I’m becoming something of an expert in oven repair out of necessity. Could we continue our talk another time?”

  “Sure,” I said as we both rose. “Just call me at the office whenever you need me.”

  We shook hands, and once again it seemed the grasp went on a bit longer than necessary.

  “Would it be an imposition for me to ask for your home number, Dick?” he asked, still maintaining the handclasp. “With so much to be done and so little time, I might need your advice at unusual times. I promise I’ll do my best not to make a pest of myself, or interfere with your personal life.”

  If one can think in question marks, then ???.

  “No problem,” I said, breaking the handshake.

  I took out my business card and the pen I try to always carry with me, wrote my home number on the back, and handed it to him. He looked at it carefully, as if memorizing it, then put it in his shirt pocket.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  I followed him down the stairs and left him at the archway to the dining room. He extended his hand yet again, and we shook again—quickly, this time.

  “Good luck with the oven.”

  He smiled then headed into the dining room toward the kitchen.

  I walked out into the street, trying to turn off the Ping! Ping! Ping! sounding in the back of my head.

  Chapter 5

  Chris accepted the New York job at about the same time I was meeting with Kevin, so Friday night was kind of strange. We both felt awkward and nervous, and neither of us knew exactly what to do or say. The whole thing reminded me oddly of a first blind date.

  Chris, I could tell, felt really guilty about having been the one to make the first—or should I say, the final—move that would lead to the definite end of our relationship as partners. As we sat at the table after dinner, drinking probably too much wine, we kept up the halfhearted pretense there might be a chance of my moving to New York after he got settled, and after Rourke’s campaign, but neither of us was fooling the other, or ourselves.

  We decided not to make a big issue of it with our friends, or to go out of our way notify them. I did suggest we have a party the Saturday before he left, and he thought that would be a good idea.

  I knew it would be harder on Chris than on me, in that I would still be able to see our friends on a regular basis whereas he, at least at first, would be on his own. But I also realized that, traditionally, couples tend to hang out with couples; so, I would become something of a fifth wheel in our circle of married friends, and some of us would most likely drift apart after awhile. There were definite changes on the very near horizon for both of us.

  Once the wine was
gone, we cleared the table, just leaving the dishes in the sink, and went into the living room. I poured us both a small glass of Cointreau, and sat beside Chris on the sofa. We didn’t say much, just staring out the huge picture window at the giant oak tree directly in front of it, watching its leaves move back and forth in the light wind.

  Chris reached out and took my hand. We intertwined our fingers without having to look at each other, and Chris, still staring out the window, squeezed my hand and said: “I still love you, you know.”

  I turned to look at him.

  “Yeah. I know. And I love you. And I want more than anything for you to be happy …” I’d started to say “…and find someone,” but didn’t. Chris stood up, still holding my hand, and pulled me to my feet.

  “How about one for the road?” he asked, and I followed him into the bedroom.

  We watched each other undress, like we were doing it for the first time. Chris took off his shirt and I was able to really appreciate, for the first time in a long time, what a nice body he had. His chest was covered in fine, black hair that spread from just above his nipples all the way across his pecs, and then formed a “V” pointing to his crotch. He sat on the bed to remove his shoes, socks, and pants, while I finished stripping, standing up.

  He lay back on the bed, and I joined him, wrapping my arms around him and pulling him close. After a couple of minutes, he scooted up on the bed, and I followed; I heard him open the nightstand drawer to get out the Albolene. I straddled him on my knees. When we were ready, Chris pulled my head down and kissed me.

  “Remember,” he whispered.

  *

  Saturday morning we fixed our usual breakfast, and did some casual talking about the move and the party. There were far too many details to try to go over all at once, so we stuck to generalities.

  Chris planned to find a furnished place for a month or two until he knew what was going on and had a chance to look around for something he really wanted. He might even consider the possibility of a roommate in the interim, if such an opportunity presented itself, but he wouldn’t specifically set out to look for one.