Dinner at the Blue Moon Cafe

by Rick R. Reed

  “My son died this morning. My Domenic is gone.”

  That was not what Thad had expected to hear.

  Sam attempted to keep his features composed, but it took only seconds for that resolve to crumble. He lowered his head, and Thad didn’t know when he’d last seen a grown man cry so openly. Sam sobbed. His shoulders shook. His nose ran, and he wiped at it angrily with his hand. He came very close to wailing.

  Even though this was not what Thad had anticipated, unpleasant connections were starting to forge in his mind. He had no time for them right now. Right now he needed to comfort Sam, who had lost his only son. He leaned in and wrapped his arms around Sam, pulling his head down onto his shoulder. Sam quickly dampened that shoulder as Thad helplessly patted his back, wondering what he could possibly say that would lessen Sam’s grief.

  Finally the only words that could come out of Thad’s mouth were simple. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”

  It took Sam a long time to get himself under control. But when he did, he regarded Thad with red-rimmed eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

  Thad already had a good idea of what might have happened, but he needed to hear the words from Sam’s mouth so he could begin processing them. “I don’t know about that. Why don’t you just tell me?” Let’s just herd the elephant out of the room. Or should that be wolf?

  Thad felt like he was removed from himself as Sam began to speak, as if he were watching their little heart-to-heart from a distance, and wondered again if the sensation was the beginning of going into shock. Again, what Sam said was not what he had anticipated.

  “Domenic had a lot of problems. He could never accept my being gay. When I left his mama to be with another man, Domenic was only nine years old. And he never forgave me.” Sam shook his head. “I tried to show him that two men could love one another and that being gay was okay… not a choice, but just a way of being. But all Dom could see was that this was the thing that had destroyed his family.”

  Thad wasn’t sure where this was leading or if it would even end up with talk of murder or werewolves. He hoped, somehow, it wouldn’t. But instinct and strong intuition told him otherwise. Thad couldn’t sit back and wait in suspense for where he hoped this was not leading, so he screwed up his courage and asked, “What does this have to do with Domenic dying?”

  “He didn’t die. He was killed. Murdered. Assassinated.” Sam swallowed, staring intently out the window at the sun-drenched day so at odds with the words being exchanged here and now.

  Thad nodded. “He was shot?”

  “You heard?” Sam turned to regard Thad, then shrugged. “I suppose it’s already on the news.”

  The ugly, gruesome jigsaw pieces fell rapidly into place.

  “Someone killed my boy!” Sam cried, and the tears began to flow once more. Thad didn’t hug him this time but sat beside Sam, simply watching.

  And did “your boy” try to kill my friend? Did “your boy” kill other innocent gay men? Why? Why, Sam? Because they were like you?

  A sluice of ice surged through Thad’s veins. Would he have killed me too… eventually?

  The thought took his breath away.

  When Sam’s tears again slowed to a trickle and his breathing stopped being hiccupping sobs, he continued, “Yes, they shot my Domenic. Right there on Capitol Hill. I can’t blame them. He was trying to kill someone… again.” Sam stared at Thad, his eyes pleading, Thad thought, for understanding.

  And Thad didn’t know if he understood… or if he ever could. He said nothing, which he guessed encouraged Sam to continue.

  “He killed another gay man. He has been doing it since we came here.”

  “You knew it?” Thad’s words came out dead, expressionless.

  Sam shook his head. “Maybe. Maybe I knew and just didn’t want to believe. Fathers can deny a lot about their children. You’d understand if you had a child.”

  Thad looked over at Edith, who had at last lain down in her bed. She continued, though, to stare at Sam. “I’m not sure I could.” Then another thought came to Thad, and it ignited an ember of fury in him. Had Sam lied to him again?

  “Wait a minute. You told me—a while back—that Domenic had gone home to Italy. I’m sure you told me you sent him back.” Thad found he had no spit in his mouth; he couldn’t swallow.

  “I thought he had. All this time I thought my boy was in Sicily, and he was right here.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Graziela happened.”

  “What?”

  “Graziela has always loved Domenic like her own son. She spoiled him. She doted on him. She probably knew it was him who was killing those men. She didn’t care. Like Domenic, she probably thought they got what they deserved.” Sam sat forward, hands on knees, so he wasn’t looking at Thad. “I trusted Graziela to take him to the airport, to put him on the plane I had bought a ticket for. I even drove them out to SeaTac, and both of us—my sister and me—we saw Domenic through the gates at the international terminal. When I looked up in the sky later, I imagined my boy on that big plane, away from me. I was hoping going home to be with others in our family might help him learn how to behave.”

  “Behave?” It sounded like Sam was talking about getting a teenage kid to step in line, show some respect for his elders, quit staying out late, drinking and smoking.

  “Yes. But he was not on that plane.” Sam turned back to Thad, again with the pleading expression in his eyes. “He just stayed in the airport. Graziela went back later and got him, and she’s been hiding him from me ever since. They had it all planned.” Sam wept softly. “And look what happens.”

  Thad didn’t know what to think, let alone say. He felt numb inside, emotions tamped down to cold embers. He knew that—lurking just behind the numbness—was hysteria, giddy, uncomfortable laughter, and a torrent of tears. But right now all he felt was dead. He suddenly wished he could just stand up and walk out of the studio, slam the door behind him, and never look back. He wanted to erase the fact that he had ever met Sam, that he had ever set foot in the Blue Moon Café, and that he was now ensnared in this whole mess, weird and horrific beyond even his wildest imagining. Most of all he wished he could restore life to his gay brethren. No matter what their faults, none of them had deserved the grisly and terrifying ends they’d met. He stared resolutely forward, not trusting himself to even look at Sam. He didn’t know what he feared more: that looking at him would incite feelings of love and compassion or, worse, hatred and repulsion. He asked the next question that needed to be asked.

  “I feel silly even saying this. Like I’m in a dream, but what about the whole werewolf thing? Is it true? How does that work?”

  “Would you look at me? Please.” Sam asked plaintively. Thad finally gave in and met Sam’s dark-eyed gaze. Thad realized Sam, at this moment, was most likely more afraid of Thad than Thad was of him. He felt a rush of love for the man, in spite of his intellect and common sense telling him not to.

  Sam said, “Of course it’s true. You know that. There are many things in this world we choose not to acknowledge. Many things hidden in the shadows. Werewolves, as you call them, are one of them.”

  “So how did Domenic become one?” Thad thought of the movie An American Werewolf in London and remembered how the two guys were attacked on the moors. “Did he get bit?”

  Sam sucked in a great quivering breath. “No. It doesn’t work that way.” He stopped.

  Thad resisted the suspicions flooding through him, but he had to know. “How does it work, then?”

  “Domenic was born a werewolf.” Sam caught Thad’s hands in his own and held them tight. “His papa was a werewolf, just like his papa before him… and so on.”

  Thad snatched his hands away. He felt his face go hot and a sudden urge to burst into tears. “You’re one too?”

  Sam nodded. “And Graziela. And Mama. And Nana. And Giovanni. All the Lupinos. Lupe in Italian means wolf.”

  Thad thought if he had anything left in his stoma
ch, it would have come up. Instead he only felt a sickening acidic taste at the back of his throat. “So…. So…. Domenic is not the only killer in the family? You kill too?”

  Sam tried to reach out to pull Thad close, but Thad shrank away. Sam sadly dropped his arms. “No! No! You don’t understand. Just like people have evolved, so have my kind. We do kill, yes, but only animals. I have never—I swear to you—taken another human life. The biggest thing I have ever killed is a deer.”

  “So, when you disappear? When the moon is full?” Thad feared he was losing the power of coherent speech.

  “We hunt. We go to the woods. That’s what we loved about Seattle. We can get away into wilderness and mountains so quickly and easily. We kill for food. That’s all.” Sam stood and crossed to the kitchen area. He opened Thad’s freezer and rooted around. “I see you have steak in here, pork chops, chicken.” He turned to look at Thad. “You eat dead animals too.”

  Thad considered becoming a vegetarian. “Yeah, but I don’t kill those animals. I don’t drink their blood.”

  “Look. We are different. I don’t expect you to understand me all at once. I don’t expect you to accept me in one second. But I ask you to try and keep an open mind, to try and understand we hunt for food when the moon is full. We change. I am not the same creature standing before you right now. But I do want you to understand that we are not murderers.”

  Sam sat back down next to Thad but didn’t attempt to take him in his arms. “Something was wrong with my Domenic.” He shook his head. “Even if we were not weres, he would maybe have killed, just in a different way.” Sam bit his lip, and Thad could tell he was holding back another onrush of tears. Killer or no killer, one’s son was one’s son, and Thad could only begin to imagine the depths of Sam’s grief. Losing a son was horrible enough, but then to realize that son had done awful, evil, and destructive things, Thad was sure was probably almost too much to bear.

  He relented and put his arms around Sam.

  “You forgive me, then? We can work through this.”

  Thad pressed his face into Sam’s neck, then raised it a little to whisper in his ear. “You’re moving too fast. I don’t know anything yet. I need time to think. Time to process. And you need time to mourn and bury your son.”

  Sam clutched at him tightly. “I can’t bear not seeing you. I can’t bear going through this without you. I need you.”

  What Sam was saying was perfectly reasonable. Thad just didn’t know if reason was enough to overcome the potent brew of emotions—betrayal, horror, and unease chief among them.

  He leaned back, taking Sam’s bearded face in his hands, and kissed him. Deeply. “Give me one night. Go to your family. Give me today and tonight. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Before Sam could respond, they both looked up as the door opened. Edith let out a chorus of barks.

  Jared stood in the doorway, framed in golden light.

  Sam looked over at Thad. “Okay. Tomorrow, then.” He leaned in and kissed Thad.

  And then he was gone.

  Chapter 19

  THE NEXT day Thad stood outside the Blue Moon Café, unsure if he wanted to go inside. How far he had come since that first night, that first magical night when Sam fed him in so many ways, when the spark of their love had ignited and burst into flame.

  And now look at him. Standing here outside the café in the rain, uncertain of how things would go when he stepped inside. Would he be dissuaded from his common-sense decision by Frank Sinatra or Rosemary Clooney singing about love? By the warm smells of comforting Sicilian food wafting out from the kitchen? And last, and certainly not least, by Sam’s formidable presence? He was the most gorgeous and masculine man Thad had ever been with. His physical presence alone pushed all sorts of erotic buttons. But it was not only that. Decency and compassion radiated from the man like body heat.

  He stepped up to the front door. Because it was late afternoon, the place was virtually empty. A red-haired woman sat by a rain-smeared window, looking out at the lake across the way, nursing a small cup of espresso. An older man sat hunched over the bar with a glass of beer in front of him. Other than that, the place appeared deserted.

  Sam appeared from the back. He wore a white chef’s shirt, black-and-white checked pants, and a wary smile.

  How can I do this to him when he’s just lost his son?

  Thad stepped farther inside and returned the smile, although his was small, his lips barely upturned at the corners. He felt a rush of love for Sam and hoped he wasn’t confusing it with sympathy or even lust. After all, losing one’s child, Thad had heard, was one of the greatest griefs one could experience. And even though Domenic had been an evil killer and probably ruthless and psychotic to boot, as far as Thad knew, he’d still been Sam’s only offspring.

  Offspring that would have killed my best friend if it had not been for wild coincidence and nearly divine intervention….

  Thad moved across the restaurant and, with no urging from Sam, sat down at one of the tables near the back, far away from the man at the bar and the woman at the table near the window. Sam quickly joined him. He took up Thad’s hands in his own and leveled his intense stare at Thad. The heat from his hands was electric. Neither of these things made what Thad had come to say any easier.

  “Where is everyone? Graziela? Giovanni?” Thad scanned the room for other Lupinos and came up empty.

  “They have gone to make arrangements for my boy. We are sending him back to Sicily for the funeral and burial.” Sam dipped his head, and Thad could see he was trying mightily not to cry.

  I can’t do this. I just can’t.

  I must. Is this the life I want for myself?

  Thad nodded. “I’m so sorry about him. Will you go to Sicily too?”

  “Of course.”

  And Sam’s simple reply made things easier for Thad. He had come here to end things with him, to tell him the whole werewolf family thing—it all sounded surreal even as he thought the words!—was just too much. He didn’t believe he could align himself with such strangeness, no matter how much he loved the man. But maybe Sam being gone for a few days or weeks might grant a little reprieve to the situation. Perhaps this leave of absence could allow Thad to simply postpone, rather than act on, the decision he had made during yet another nearly sleepless night.

  The two sat silently for a while. Finally, Sam asked, “So you have thought about things?”

  Thad nodded. “I have, and Sam, I want you to know I love you. But I just don’t know where we go from here. All of this has been so much, so very much to handle. And I have no experience with such things. Hell, I don’t even know if I can believe any of it. I keep thinking this is a dream I will wake up from.”

  “So you want to break up with me?” Sam’s expression was so sad, so plaintive, that it just about broke Thad’s heart. He absolutely could not answer in the affirmative to that question. At least not now. What kind of heartless cad would break up with a father who had just lost his only son?

  A killer. Don’t forget: a killer.

  Thad shook his head. “Sweetheart, I honestly don’t know what I want. I came here to say good-bye. But now that I sit here, across from your sweet, sweet face, I know I don’t have the nerve, or the courage, to do that. Common sense tells me the right thing, the best thing, the only thing to do is to run, not walk, away from you. But my heart tells me differently.”

  “I’m glad to hear that. Sicilians understand the heart winning out over the head. We make almost all our decisions that way.” Sam smiled; then his features darkened. “It’s what allowed me to believe, for so long, that my Domenic was just confused and not bad.”

  “I know.”

  “So where does this leave us? I was going to ask you to come to Sicily with me. I could use your support.”

  This last stunned Thad. He would never have expected Sam to ask such a thing. Even though their relationship had progressed over the past few months, he didn’t really see himself fitting so intimately into
the family. “I can’t. I wish I could. And you know you have my support and caring.” Thad couldn’t take this anymore. He stood up suddenly, almost sending his chair toppling over to the floor.

  “I still need time. A month? Who knows? But I will use the time to consider what I can and cannot have in my life, and either way, my love, I will not forget you.” Thad wanted to laugh at himself. Even though he was sincere, his words sounded—even to him—like something out of a bad romance novel. He wished he could reel them back in. But he knew, in the end, they were true, and he supposed that was all that mattered.

  Sam stared down at the table, then looked up at Thad, his eyes glistening. “That sounds an awful lot like good-bye.”

  “It’s not. I don’t know what it is. Take good care of yourself. Take care saying good-bye to your son. You can probably use this time alone yourself.”

  Sam nodded sadly, saying nothing. “I will be back in a week, ten days at the most. Maybe you will come by the restaurant then? Maybe we’ll talk again?” There was a plaintive note in Sam’s tone that made Thad ache inside.

  Hadn’t Sam heard what he had just said about needing at least a month? This was getting out of control. Thad didn’t know how to deal with this situation, and even though part of him told himself to stay, to talk things through, the urge to simply flee was stronger. Part of him wanted to just be young again, unfettered, concerned about things like which bars to go to on the weekend, what online hookup service to use, and what playlist to create next on his iPod. This whole episode in his life had aged him immeasurably. He wondered if he could ever get back to the place he was in before he first walked into the Blue Moon Café and laid eyes on Sam.

  “I’m sorry. I have to go. Give my condolences to your family.” Thad turned to start walking rapidly from the restaurant. He didn’t want Sam to see him cry. But at the door, without caring who heard, he caught Sam’s gaze in his own and mouthed the words, “I love you.”