by Aiden Bates
Lance is kissing him again, deep French kisses, he’s talking Lance into feeling like this will be okay, even though Vinny’s not at all sure it will be. He feels scared, but he can’t pull Lance into that. Anxiety’s probably bad for the baby, and an unsure Lance? Vinny knows he can’t handle that at all, he needs this goofball to be that always-land-on-my-feet force of energy he’s always been for Vinny. He won’t know up from down if Lance isn’t sure either, it’s all too weird.
Ma and Pa Hershkowitz come back that day with supplies, and everyone shares a silent dinner before a night spent watching Lance’s mother try to find, notate, and monitor every aspect of Lance’s physical health. The next day brings a courier with Vinny’s contracts, and he gets on the phone with his new agent’s secretary confirming the small print, the tracking of the return contracts, when he can fly out to Miami, and where he’ll be staying. He’ll get a long-stay situation for the first six weeks, and then they’ll reevaluate how the filming’s going, who Vinny knows by then, etc. It’s open to change.
While Vinny’s doing that, Lance is inside with his mother trying to measure and do math on when this conception might have happened, when they can expect the kid to arrive. That flu he had was pretty clearly morning sickness knowing what they know now, so it’s been quite a while growing in there.
“Good thing you’re not a drunk like I am, baby, or that baby would be in bad shape,” Vinny says that evening when they compare notes. Vinny’s gone into town to drop his contracts off for delivery and pick up a few things from the local liquor store. He takes a drink when he tells Lance he has to leave within the week to get started, and that filming will probably last longer than the due date, so Lance’ll be on his own for that.
“Promise to miss me,” Lance says, with his old smile back. He’s starting to think this whole situation is hilarious, thinks it would make a great movie premise, says maybe he’ll write a script while he’s in hiding and in the family way, deep in the woods out here.
“I won’t feel like myself without you,” Vinny tells him, and they both know it’s true. Lance saw what he was in Steubenville and barely recognized him. Lance usually sees the best in Vinny because he brings it out of him. Vinny really will have to act if he’s going to appear happy on that movie set.
They’ve only got a day or two left together here. Everything’s happening so fast—this movie gig and Lance having to stay here since he’s already on his way to showing with that belly. These last few days are going to be nothing but prep, Vinny finalizing his travel plans, helping to haul in food and baby equipment on the shopping trips with Ma and Pa. Lance’s parents are both away until late tonight, going around begging for money, selling stuff, asking for loans, whatever they can get to see them through this surprise, and so it’s probably the last night they’ll have alone together for a good long while. Vinny wants to do something about that.
“Show me your body,” he says to Lance. He’s been poked and prodded and tapped with a stethoscope enough these past few days, maybe he wants someone to look at him without examining him.
Lance gets up from the thin stack of blankets that is their guest bed in the living room—trailers are small and so is the loveseat couch that can fit into it, they actually have neither a room nor a bed here, and soon it’ll be where someone is born, this dumpy little trailer. Vinny tries not to worry about that too much, it’s better to worry about what he can do to make the future better, but there’s nothing either of them can do with tonight except try to enjoy it.
With Lance naked and doing a slow spin in front of him, Vinny takes out his cock and starts to stroke it. When Lance is turned facing away from him (so Vinny can’t see that belly, since this is the last moment of pretend he’s going to get until it’s all too real), Vinny says, “Stop.”
Lance obeys, and even does Vinny the kindness of reaching back and parting his cheeks for the view.
“Walk backwards towards me, nice and slow, so you can take a seat,” Vinny says.
Lance does this too, feeling behind him until he’s close enough that Vinny can set Lance’s hands on Vinny’s shoulders for stability, before getting his knees between Lance’s legs to spread them wide.
He lets Lance sink down at his own pace, but once he’s there, Vinny gets his elbows under Lance’s knees and puts his hands behind Lance’s neck, putting him in a tight body lock that won’t crush his condition. From there Vince can leverage them both together and apart, together and apart, until he hears the whimper from Lance that lets him know he’s hitting the sweet spot.
“You take it,” Vinny whispers in Lance’s ear as he fucks him. “You take all of it.”
Lance whimpers an assent as Vinny stuffs him, rams himself up Lance’s hole with all the unexpressed energy he has, his anxiety and restlessness and apprehension, hoping to burn it all out, unload it for a while, just take off, and it works . . . for a moment.
Vince lets go of his hold on Lance as he climaxes, and Lance leans back and holds Vinny’s head to his neck.
“I’ve got you, Paulie,” he whispers, and Vinny just nods against him, because Lance is right. He’s got Vinny dead to rights, hook, line and sinker, for better and for worse, really. Vinny just hopes they end up with a lot more better than worse.
Lance gets up, goes to the bathroom to wipe himself down, and then comes back to his clothes. Vinny is lying on his side, just watching Lance get dressed again before he crawls into bed with Vinny. He starts singing a silly little song that goes, “When Paulie takes a trolly, down to F.L.A., Paulie’s melancholy all the live-long day.”
Vinny would laugh if the song didn’t sound like his true, honest future.
10. The Kid Stays in the Picture
Lance sees Vinny off with his parents standing just inside the door of the trailer behind him. He’s called a cab to take him to the airport, and they stand around with his one suitcase watching the car drive through the dirt road toward the mail box stuck way out at the end of the lane. Their backs are turned to Ma and Pa, and their arms are crossed.
“Be sure to get a really good tan down there, you always look too pale,” Lance jokes. There’s nothing left to do but joke; their situations are decided and no one’s changing course now, they just have to say goodbye. Maybe Vinny will be able to come back for the birth, maybe not, and maybe it will be better that way in a sense, give them both some time to cope independently before they meet again.
“Be sure to name that kid something that looks good in lights, gotta make the little buddy part of the act.”
“No worries there, that’s a family tradition for the Hershkowitz clan. Hell, just being in this condition makes Dad sad that freak shows have gone out of business—pregnant man is better than bearded lady, we’d have made a great tour with something like this.”
Vinny snorts and starts toeing a rock in the dirt. The cab is getting closer. Lance nudges his foot over to play footsie with him. Vinny’s trying to say something, and he’s running out of time to spit it out.
“You know I love you, baby, I’m not taking off on purpose. I mean, it feels like that somehow, like I’m the kind of jerk who puts a girl in trouble and then just skips town, but that’s not what we are. You’re my guy, you’re my pal, and this is just weird timing, but it’s good, don’t you think? Long run, you need time to rest but we’ve got to keep our careers going, right? This makes sense for both of us in a way.”
“It just sucks.”
“Right. It just sucks.”
The cab pulls up and the driver gets out to pop the trunk and take the suitcase. Vinny won’t want to kiss goodbye now because the driver’s there, so Lance won’t force it. He holds out a hand for a nice gentlemanly farewell shake.
“Hey, how come we don’t have a secret handshake?” Lance asks. “That seems like a serious oversight between the two of us.”
Vinny almost smiles at that. “Do me a favor and think one up, teach it to me next time.” And with that he gets into the car. He doesn’t s
tare out the back window as he leaves, but he keeps his hand up on the glass like his reach is just too short. Poor Paulie.
Lance gets to turn around right into the arms of his mother, he doesn’t envy Vinny’s flight, his gig alone in a new city, though a movie is pretty exciting. Everyone’s sort of assuming that Vinny will know how to act when he gets there, literally play to the camera, and though most people shouldn’t be so sure about that, Lance knows he’ll do well. Vinny’s always playing a part, presenting a face to the world that isn’t the softie underneath. He knows how to fake it ’til you make it for sure, he’ll do well in the movies.
“How are you feeling about all this, Lan the Man?” his dad asks after all the Hershkowitzes come back in and sit down.
“Pretty weird, but I don’t know, not that uncomfortable, I guess. I always knew we were weird and that life would be weirder, and here we are, it kind of makes sense.”
Both parents smile at each other before smiling at him. Some people in this room certainly think they raised Lance well. He agrees.
Dad didn’t say much with Vinny around, seemed to want to give him another stoic touchstone in the room, but he’s back to his story-telling self now. He’s got hair made of almost nothing but cowlicks, hair that naturally sticks up all over, hair that’s starting to go gray. He starts talking about his father.
“Now, I don’t know the other fella, I guess he’d be my father too, wouldn’t he? Papa didn’t know him that well, he thought after Momma died that he was just fooling around, you know? He wasn’t looking for anyone to settle down with, he just did his work and fed his kids and got his rocks off with any passing Joe who wanted to lend a hand, or more.” Dad shrugs. Probably it’s weird telling his son all about his father’s sex life, but they’re all adults now, and this is a part of life, literally: the first part of making the life that Lance is incubating over here.
“I always liked Papa Hersh,” Mom chimes in. “I never knew what he was like with a wife, he was a pretty big hound dog by the time I came around, but he messed around enough to know how this stuff does and doesn’t work.”
“Yeeeaaaah,” Dad says. “Here’s the gritty stuff. I’m like this too, but you’re mom’s not getting anybody but herself pregnant messing around with me, that’s why it’s never come up. Third son of a third son. That’s what you are, so watch a third son if you get one, okay?”
“And miscarriages too, once they start, they count, baby.”
Looks like I’m baby to everyone now, Lance thinks. Everyone except for you, babe, he amends, glancing down at his torso. Hurry up and get out here, claim your title, Babe.
“You’ll stop being able to…conceive…after a while, a long while, kind of like menopause, but not really the same, you know,” Dad says.
“It’s pretty amazing this never happened before, were you always being safe, like I taught you?” Mom asks.
“Sure, safe,” Lance says, shrugging. “Can’t lose if you don’t play, you know? I never did anything that serious before I met Vinny.”
“Really?” Mom asks. She’s suddenly got tears in her eyes. “Oh, that’s the sweetest goddamn thing, I think I could die.”
“Don’t die,” Dad tells her, and Lance agrees.
“Seriously mom, don’t die.”
Mom starts laughing and the tears dry up. The room relaxes.
“How are we getting this puppy out of me, then?” Lance asks. That’s the most worrisome part to come right now, the first big hurdle.
“Stuff will dilate, you’ll push, your mom will help ease the little buddy out, and then you take it easy,” Dad says.
“Afterbirth? Umbilical cords?”
“All the bells and whistles,” Dad says. “My father explained it to me once, when I was about fifteen, and I hated him for about a year thinking he was just messing with me, but my brothers, they were older by then, gone most of the time, told me they remembered the state of him before I was born. Tough nut did all this stuff by himself, cut the cord with a pocketknife, crazy. You’re better off having your mother, you’re lucky.”
“Know it and never forget it!” Mom sings out and then stands. “Now come on and make dinner with me, both of you.”
Lance and his dad do what they’re told.
In fact, in the coming weeks Lance does just about everything he can think of. They’re off a paved road, patchy cell service (so messages and calls from Vinny are going to be sparse, not that he’s one to call up and gab and dish anyway), no cable, and so little to do that chores start looking like fun. Cooking meals takes up a lot of time, everyone getting creative with ingredients and steps just for the sake of filling the time, they go foraging a bit for stuff that’s edible and not-poisonous to add to the pots, they do yard work (it’s not exactly a yard if it’s the woods, and not exactly work when Lance is forbidden from straining himself), mend everything they can find and still end up with too much free time. This being the family that believes the family that puts on plays together stays together, however…they don’t stay bored for too long.
First it’s skits, everyone coming up with a bit to do for the other two at the end of the night when it’s too dark to do much of anything else but wait until they’re sleepy enough for bed. A week of that and they start combining talents, two entertaining one, and after that they pretty much start living in a play, characters popping in and out all through their daily work until they’ve all got backstories and drama, and after a while Dad finally pipes up with, “This would make a good movie, we should tell Vinny to hook us up with his Hollywood friends.” Then they discuss how best to make a Hollywood, Florida joke but it just doesn’t pan out. The idea of a movie though…that gets into Lance’s head like a worm into an apple.
Because Lance has been walking around as the big silly pregnant man he is, sort of like if Mrs. Doubtfire and Junior had a baby, just a big doofy mess. The joke is that Lance is pretending to pretend that’s he’s pregnant, because that would be the perfect cover, wouldn’t it, theoretically? Like if he wanted to go out in the world in this condition, how best to get away with it by announcing with a big horn, “LOOK AT ME! I’m a guy who’s having a baby!” and no one would laugh most likely, not for very long, and if you kept on with a bit like that long enough people would just ignore you as hard as they could until you had the mercy to stop. Call it a couple of months, you know? And when the baby was born everyone would be like, very funny way to announce your adoption, did you have to drag it on so long? Perfection.
In fact it seems so fun that Lance starts writing a script for it, and dreaming of a scenario where he could double-extra-super-meta the whole thing, by concealing the pregnancy of kid number two under the guise of the movie, like he’s just such a dedicated actor that he’s seen wearing the big rubber preggo belly all over town and off-set to “get in character” and really understand what it’s like to be a guy who looks pregnant, all for the sake of art! The idea of it really just kills Lance with giggles, and maybe it’ll never happen that way (he already knows that pregnancies and movie shoots keep to no man’s schedule), but he’s bored as hell with nothing else to do, and he wants to write the script to show Vinny. He’s even writing in a part for Vinny, one that sets him up to be the perfect, calm-faced straight man of any good comedy team, a role that plays to his true strengths. The role in Miami, from what Lance can gather, is a serious roll, some kind of run-around-with-drugs-and-danger movie, young gangsters and mean, hot streets, and Vinny will look the part perfectly for that, but any good-looking hunk of man can pull off a roll like that. Vinny’s real talent is the one people can’t see, the one that brings out the best in Lance. Without someone who knows how to bandy back and forth with him, Lance is just a loud fart in a quiet theater, he’s just so ridiculous he can’t always get a laugh. But watching Lance flop around and watching Vinny react to him, and try to reign him in that loving, exasperated big brother kind of way…the crowd loves that stuff. Lance thinks it’s because underneath it all, the audience can
feel that Vinny and Lance love each other, and they want to share in that glow.
If not this script (though it would be so perfectly droll for this to be their movie together), they’ve got to get the comedy team back together on screen. Lance knows Vinny wants to be in movies, but he can’t let that urge start drawing them apart. This time is a one-time thing, hopefully, a fluke; Lance doesn’t want them to have separate careers, not just because he wants to work with Vinny on a personal level all the time, but because they’ll have their best careers as a team, better than anything they could each be on their own.
But…as Lance’s body starts to look in the mirror more and more like an olive on a toothpick, he’s less and less sure about how sure Vinny might be about them. Lance is out here dreaming in the sticks, romanticizing Vinny to the point that he’s literally rewriting him as a perfect, charming leading man who finds out the silly man faking a pregnancy is really pregnant—oh boy!—and decides he always wanted a best buddy and son and they all join together, Vinny…may not be worrying about Lance at all.
Sure he meant to worry when he first left, thought he was leaving his heart behind him in New Jersey while he headed down to the scuzzy, boiling beaches of Florida, but is that really how he still feels? Three months on his own, young and Mediterranean and fit and famous on the Florida coast, a movie star in a beach city, is he really dreaming of coming back to a trailer with a squalling infant? Nobody thinks that’s more fun than gallivanting in the surf, even Lance wouldn’t blame him (much) if he slipped up, had his moments of doubt, if only he would tire of sowing his oats and come back to him.
But those patchy phone signals, maybe they’re to blame for the infrequent calls. And those news stories about him and his co-star being seen in all the hot clubs with slinky beach women all around, that could all be publicity. And the quotes in the entertainment blogs about how the chemistry between Vinny and this other guy, Frank Artanis (Frankie to his friends and to Vinny) is so electric that once the movie comes out those guys will be in such high demand, they’ll be made for life. They should be Vinny and Lance, not Vinny and Frankie. That’s how Lance feels about it.
