A Not So Typical Love
By Tristen Rowen
Copyright 2019 Tristen Rowen
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WARNING: This story contains sexually explicit content and language and is intended for adult readers. It may contain content that is disagreeable to some readers. This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are fictional. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or die ead, is entirely coincidental.
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God Save the Queen
Today is the day Mom is going to speak to me again. The words echoed through my head as I sat on the old wooden picnic bench in the backyard of Mom’s group home. The aging woman before me hardly looked like the old “punk rock girl” she once was. Art, also known as my dad, nicknamed her “Punk Rock Girl” way before the Dead Milkmen’s 1988 classic came out. That woman disappeared when I was ten. Trapped in her body and mind, she hadn’t spoken since.
Tim, my older brother by eleven years, had given up, but I just couldn't give up. Her eyes spoke to me whenever I played her favorite punk music. The only songs on my phone were her favorites. Punk music was the only music I listened to, the only music I could relate to, because it connected me to my mother.
Old photos of Mom reflected her various punk phases. She and Art met their freshman year of college when she was just seventeen during what's been referred to as her "Nancy Spungen years."
Back then, Mom’s hair was dyed platinum blonde, just like Nancy Spungen, the girlfriend of Sex Pistols’ bassist, Sid Vicious. Mom wore lots of makeup with fishnet stockings and leather pants or skirts that barely covered her butt. A few years later she went through her Patti Smith phase with dyed black hair and no makeup. Patti Smith was her all-time favorite.
Now Mom’s hair was wiry gray and in disarray because she wouldn't let anyone comb it. Even in sweltering hot weather, she’d only wear sweatshirts and sweatpants. She used to be thin, but was now at least fifty pounds overweight; nothing like that punk rock girl.
The Sex Pistols’ God Save the Queen played through my iPhone as we sat there in the small backyard of the five-person group home she had been living in for the past five years. She spent a number of years in an institution and other group homes that never seemed to work out. She had the most success in this home, an hour and a half away from my home, the same house she left just shy of her forty-seventh birthday and my eleventh. Ten years later, as I approached my twentieth birthday, I continued to be a complete burden to Tim.
During my bi-monthly visits, Tim usually sat in the car. He never saw the point in visiting. Since he was the one who more or less raised me, he harbored a lot of resentment, casting blame on her as if it was her fault he was stuck with the responsibilities of an adult when he was just a teenager. Art was never around. As a geoscientist, he traveled from one face of the earth to the other, caring more about his work than his own family. For years we only saw him one or two months out of the year.
Because I wasn’t like most guys my age and was always more than a little weird, I assumed Tim resented me, too. With all my freak outs over the years, I ended up taking college classes online instead of classes on campus. I was safest at home where the housekeepers and other people could keep an eye on me while Tim worked. An MIT graduate, he was a research scientist for some big pharmaceutical company in Cambridge. He traveled over an hour everyday to and from work to our little country house on the acres and acres of wooded land.
As usual, Mom’s face lit up when I sang along to the song. I even spotted a smile. She knew me. She knew my voice.
Tim, unfortunately, interrupted my serenade. "Come on, Jordan, we've been here for ages," he said, barely acknowledging Mom’s presence, standing at least ten feet away from us. Rain started to spit, causing spots on Tim’s glasses, which I knew would start to annoy him. Glancing at my watch, I realized we had only been there for thirty minutes. Tim could be really impatient at times.
"I gotta go," I said to her. She didn't like to be kissed or hugged so I just turned off the music and shoved my phone in the pocket of my hoodie. "I'll see you in a couple of weeks." Putting my hood up, I followed Tim to his Subaru Forester.
"You should really appreciate what I do for you," he said, getting in the car. "You waste an entire Sunday coming here for nothing. I know, to you it's not nothing."
Halfway through the ride home, Tim's phone rang, which he immediately answered like he was waiting for some kind of important phone call.
"Hey," Tim said in a disappointed voice, not quite the call he was expecting. "No," he said, more irritated than before. "Deal with your own problems." There was a pause as the person on the other end spoke. "What about your parents?" Another pause and Tim sighed. "You promise it's just for the summer?" A pause again. "Fine, okay...yeah...yeah." The call ended and Tim tossed his phone inside the console. "We're having a guest for awhile," Tim said. "Remember Jamie Perron, my punk ass friend from school?" He had a lot of so-called "punk ass friends," so I wasn't sure which one he was referring to. Tim was plain and boring with no sense of adventure. I shrugged my shoulders, unable to accurately remember him. "He’s been living with this girl for the past six months and then he goes and cheats on her with a dude so naturally she kicks him out. So you know what he does? He comes crying to me. He needs a place to crash for the summer until he leaves for London in the fall. He’s doing this teacher exchange thing.”
"How did he cheat on her with a dude?" I asked. The whole scenario was weird to me.
"Huh?" he said, surprised I chose to speak since I rarely spoke in the car, usually lost somewhere in my own thoughts. I was just trying to make sense of it all. "A dude is a guy...you know, a man."
Yeah, I know that.
"So why would he cheat on her with a man if he has a girlfriend?" I asked.
"Because he can't make up his mind," Tim said in an exasperated tone. "I know he's always preferred dudes, but every now and again he falls for a girl and it never lasts. I'm surprised this one has lasted as long as it did. I can't even believe he moved in with her."
"He cheated with a dude so...so that means he had sex with another man?" I said.
"Ooo, someone's curious today," he said. "Yeah, that's what it means. He seems to swing both ways.”
When I was eleven, not long after Mom went away, Tim bought me this picture book that explained everything you needed to know about sex. That was the extent of my education. There were no pictures of two men having sex in the book or two women for that matter. I never had a girlfriend and I never thought to ask Tim any sexual-related questions. All I knew was that sometimes stuff came out and I'd wake up with sticky sheets. No one told me anything.
"Do you think Art would mind?" I asked.
"Do you think he'd mind what?"
"Jamie staying with us for the summer."
> "Art won't be around, anyway, so why would he care?”
Shrugging my shoulders, I slouched in my seat, already freaking out with the idea of having someone else live in our house.
In Between Days
In the basement of our house Tim had successfully harvested a series of marijuana plants that he was most proud of and primarily used for the enjoyment of family and friends. Marijuana was legal in Massachusetts, anyway, even though he had been growing these plants years before it was legalized. I wouldn't call him a pothead, though. He'd share a joint or two with his friends on a Friday or Saturday night and every now and again I'd join him and perhaps divulge in one of our party brownies. I was an expert brownie-maker.
As the doorbell rang, I was sure he was tinkering with his plants and didn't hear it, too busy to come up the stairs. Since Tim was busy, I opened the front door, leaving the screen door closed, not 100 percent sure it was safe to let this mysterious man inside. He was definitely a weirdo, wearing sunglasses in the rain. This person could only be Jamie Perron, a childhood friend of Tim’s. His brown hair was in one of those stupid man buns, blonde streaks visible through the pulled back strands. He was gruff-looking with a facial stubble, wearing torn, ragged jean shorts, frayed along the hem, his feet donned in brown hiking boots. He removed his sunglasses, revealing a pair of stunning blue eyes. In a weird, strange way, I'd say he was even a little good looking. He slipped the sunglasses in his back pocket.
"Oh hi," he said. "I...uh...I'm Jamie. Tim's expecting me." I stared at him for another minute or so. He was different than Tim's other friends, not plain and boring, perhaps even more "punk ass" than the others. I stood there, my eyes fixed on his, not inviting him in. "Hey," he said, looking down my body. "The Cure. You're awfully young to be into them, aren't you?" At first I didn’t know what he was talking about, then suddenly a lightbulb went off in my head. My cheeks burned in embarrassment as I realized I was wearing a Cure t-shirt. Mom liked the Cure and by default so did I. "I like them too."
"What's your favorite song?" I asked, even surprising myself that I found my voice for a few fleeting seconds.
"In Between Days," he replied.
"Typical,” I said.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he said, slightly offended.
"It means it's typical." I didn't know any other way to explain it.
"Okay then," he said. "What's yours?"
"Pictures of You."
"That's a beautiful song," he said. "So...are you Jordan?" Half-nodding, I still hadn't invited him in. "I haven't seen you since you were like...how old were you? Hmm....maybe eight or nine? How are...?"
"Damn it, Jordan, what the hell?" Tim said, storming into the room. "Why didn't you let him in?" Tim opened the door, allowing his friend to enter the house. "It's raining out."
"It's not so bad," the man said.
"I can see you’ve met my brother, Jordan,” Tim said.
"Yes, we have," Jamie said with a smile. His smile did something to me, something weird and unfamiliar, so in my usual freak-out mode, I immediately ran away and into the safety of my room. Quickly finding my headphones, I stuck the earbuds in my ears and plopped down on my bed.
Anything but the Cure, I told myself, but my fingers gravitated toward them, right to In Between Days.
Typical, I thought to myself even though it was a good song.
As usual, I lay in bed listening to music until Tim called me. Sometimes he texted me even though we were in the same house, sometimes he called me the old-fashioned way, screaming my name and pounding on my door so I could hear him over the music. Today he did it the old- fashioned way.
"Jordan, wake up! It's your turn to cook."
Neither one of us were particularly good cooks. It's just something we had to figure out on our own as a necessity to survive or we would have starved to death or at least we would have lived off cereal. Over the years, we had become great pasta chefs. Tonight was no different, except I decided to make homemade spaghetti sauce because we had all the stuff to make it and maybe, just maybe, I wanted to show off to Mr. Man Bun and I wasn’t sure why.
He liked the Cure.
"Are you making homemade spaghetti sauce?" Tim asked, emerging from the back porch, that all too familiar glazed look in his eyes. Jamie had a similar look, so I knew what they had been up to. He most certainly knew I was making homemade spaghetti sauce so I chose not to answer that stupid question. "It's our mom's sauce," he said to Jamie. "It's just one of those things Jordan's never forgotten."
Over a couple of beers, then a bottle of wine, Jamie and Tim reminisced about old times, times I vaguely remembered. I was so much younger, Tim's teenage years were all a blur to me. Tim always looked out for me, even back then. While raising me, he managed to graduate from MIT, commuting to and from school everyday. He never lived on campus or participated in any of the traditional partying and other things college kids do.
On top of everything else, I was far from an easy kid. Tim could never leave me alone with babysitters because I'd cry the whole time and wreck the house, having temper tantrums until he got home. Because I was so weird, I didn't have any friends and I told myself I didn't want any. Despite everything, I was a great student. All the way through high school I was a straight A student.
Throughout the course of the evening, I found out that Jamie was a high school art teacher in Boston. As part of this teacher exchange program, he was scheduled to teach in London for ten months. Apparently that was something he had always wanted to do.
"So Gina had no problem kicking me out, seeing I was leaving anyway," he said. I realized Gina was his girlfriend and had been his girlfriend for the past six months.
"Why did you move in with her, anyway?" Tim asked.
"She thought it would be a good idea," he said. "It's expensive to live in Boston and she lived close to the school."
"So you moved in with her out of convenience?" Tim said.
"Well, yeah," he said as if it made perfect sense. "How about you?" Jamie said to me. "Do you have a girlfriend?" I didn't respond, staring blankly back at him. "A boyfriend?" Why would I have a boyfriend? It was easier to stare and not speak.
"Good luck in getting anything out of him,” Tim said, getting up to clear the table. “He's never been one for talking.”
"So I've noticed," Jamie said. "Were you always quiet?"
"He doesn't like to talk," Tim said. "It's not like he's mute or anything. He's also stubborn and..." I didn't want to hear anymore so I got up and left. Tim thought he knew everything. Well, he didn't. "Hey, Jordie, don't be like that!" he called to me. I hated it when he called me Jordie, like he hated it when I called him "Timmie."
Alone, I walked along our spacious backyard and up the stairs of our above-ground pool that had yet to be opened. The cover was still on with loads of leaves on top of it. While I sat on the deck, I enjoyed the summer rain. To me, it was a beautiful June night. To someone else, it was just a rainy night. I particularly enjoyed thunderstorms. When I was little, Tim and I would turn off all the lights in the house to just listen to the thunder and watch the lightning flash in the sky.
As I sat there, I didn't pay any attention to the soft footsteps. He had obviously removed his boots. As for me, I rarely, if ever, wore shoes and socks in the summer. The bottoms of my feet were perpetually black, which drove Tim crazy.
"Hi," Tim's friend said, climbing the wooden ladder. I didn't invite him up, but he climbed up anyway. "Do you like to be called Jordie?" I crinkled my nose when he said "Jordie." "I'll take that as a no. It's nice here. I haven't been here in years."
Even though our house wasn't very big, Art owned the surrounding twenty acres of land. Deer would often pay us a visit and once a black bear showed up in our yard. I assumed Jamie was bored and had nothing better to do while Tim did the dishes.
“What do you like to do for fun?" he asked, full of way too many questions. I chose to remain silent. "This is going to be a long summer," he sighed. "I do
n't work during the summer. Do you work? Go to school?"
All I could do was blink, a raindrop or two stuck to my long eyelashes. Tim always said I had eyelashes like a girl.
"Maybe?” he went on. “What are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?" No, I was nineteen, turning twenty in October, I thought to myself.
Through the light rain, I combed my fingers through my dark head of curls. I hadn't had a hair cut in awhile, so it was a little wild, curls everywhere, some hanging over my eyes. Some people said my dark hair matched the color of my eyes. Tim was lighter than I was, fairer like Art. I was more like Mom.
Not used to being around anyone besides Tim, I desperately wanted Jamie to go away. Whenever anyone was over, I'd hide in my room, always shying away from his friends, but I couldn't hide in my room all summer.
"I can see you're really not interested in talking, so I'll just go back in," he said.
"Man buns are stupid," I finally said as he headed back down the ladder.
"Did you say something?" he said, returning to me.
"Your hair. It's stupid," I said.
"I was hot so I tied it back," he said.
"Get it cut then," I said.
"I don't want to get it cut," he said. "Why don't you get your hair cut?"
"My hair's not long," I said.
"I don't know about that," he said and went to ruffle my hair, but I backed away, jumping to my feet. What did he think he was doing, anyway? He couldn’t just go and touch me like that. "I'm sorry. I just..."
I couldn't stand it anymore. He had no right to try and touch me so I shoved him, pushing him out of the way so I could climb down the ladder to run into the house. He tried to touch me. I didn't want to be touched. Who did he think he was?
Beat on the Brat
Pots and pans or some kind of clatter in the kitchen woke me up. Tim was usually quiet, only grabbing a cup of coffee on his way out the door every morning, so the houseguest must have been making all this noise. Dragging myself out of bed, I wandered into the kitchen in only my boxers, what I wore to bed. In the kitchen was the houseguest, his hair no longer in that stupid man bun, his hair scraggly, hanging an inch or two below his chin. His earbuds were in and he was singing and dancing to a song on his phone.
A Not So Typical Love Page 1
