by William Poe
“Perfect, and when you’re parked, get into my car. It won’t be more than a thirty-minute drive to Sibley. Are you expected anywhere tomorrow?”
“Well, kind of…” Blaine stammered.
“I don’t know much about your situation, Blaine, just that you dance ballet. I’d love to hear about it.”
Blaine brightened at Simon’s interest.
“How long has it been since you used last?” Simon asked.
“It had been six weeks until the night of our date.”
“Well, not sure how I should take that.” Simon smiled. “True confession: I had not thought about using in months before you didn’t show up at the Oyster Bar. Like I said, I understand more than you might think.”
“Thank you for being kind.” Blaine took Simon’s hand, a gesture of gratitude and friendship—and yet the simple act sent pangs of loneliness into Simon’s heart.
Thad had given Simon such a feeling with the mere brush of his hand. Surely Thad had not left him—but if not, what had happened? Was he being prevented from making contact?
“My car is over there.” Simon pointed in the direction of the car wash. “When I pull up, head toward the university. I’ll follow.”
“Okay,” Blaine said, then, noticing the expression on Simon’s face, added, “Seriously, I will wait. You’re afraid the minute you shut the door, I’ll take off. I won’t. I’m glad this happened.”
Blaine remained true to his word. He parked at the university and climbed into Simon’s car. They drove in silence. There would be plenty of time to share stories once they arrived at the mansion.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Settled in the parlor with Blaine, Simon initiated conversation with tales of Sibley, introducing the story of JT and his gruesome death at the hand of marauders.
“My ancestor might have been one of them,” Blaine sighed. “Our folks lived on the border of Missouri, and whether they said lived there or in Arkansas depended on which state the tax collector came from. My great-grandfather was a moonshiner, and others in the family were bootleggers in the thirties. Dad got out of it when he moved to Little Rock and began work as a truck company dispatcher.” After a pause to eat cookies from a crumpled bag Simon had found in the kitchen cupboard, washing down a handful of broken chocolate chips with a sip of milk, and scrutinizing the way Simon was looking at him, Blaine added, “You probably think I’m younger than I am, I’ll bet.”
“Right now you look like a little boy with a milk mustache.”
“How old are you?” Blaine asked. “You said you were with that Moon group for ten years, and then you had your own business in Hollywood. You must be somewhere in your thirties.”
“Thirty-seven.”
In the low light of the converted oil lamp sitting on the mahogany side table, Blaine looked about twenty.
“What if I told you that we’re the same age?”
“I would never have guessed it.”
“Maybe I froze in time when I left home at sixteen.”
“Did your dad make you leave?”
“You mean because I’m gay? No. That wasn’t it, though I knew I liked guys from the start. I mean, didn’t we all jerk off to underwear ads?”
“Mom often wondered why her J. C. Penney catalog had some pages torn out. She never noticed they were from the men’s underwear section.”
“Now, that’s funny,” Blaine chuckled, then looked around the room. “This is such a grand place.” Blaine pointed to the quality of the threadbare Persian rug and closely examined the parlor lamps. “I’ll bet these bronze pole lamps once had Tiffany shades.”
“They were gone by the time my aunt Opal died and we moved to this place from Little Rock. My father found these reproductions at a yard sale. You have a sharp eye to see they aren’t originals. I should show you the upstairs gallery of our ancestors.”
“I’d like that,” Blaine replied, and he followed Simon up the narrow and steep staircase, each step creaking loudly in the mansion’s otherwise deathly silence. “It must have been difficult to sneak out at night; these steps are impossible.”
“Watch my feet.” Simon touched the left edge of a step with his heel, skipped the next, then put his weight on the middle of the one above it, stepping on the middle of the next three and keeping to the right on the final two. Blaine repeated his actions.
“Remarkable choreography,” Blaine laughed.
“Years of practice. It’s a lot more difficult to navigate across the floor planks from the top of the stairs to my bedroom.” Once they arrived on the landing, Simon demonstrated by stepping in several places to compose a creaky rhythm.
“How did you ever sneak out?”
“Held my shoes and slid with socked feet—that is if I didn’t climb down the trellis outside my window.”
Simon turned on a table lamp, throwing light across the ancestral portraits. “This is supposed to be JT, the guy they hanged.” Simon pointed to a portrait awkwardly rendered in charcoal. “I doubt that’s true, though; the style of the man’s clothes is more like what people wore in the 1880s. And this one, this was my mother’s favorite brother, Wesley. He died at eighteen, back in the 1940s.”
“He looks like you.”
“So I’m told,” Simon mused. “Mother liked to compare me with him, which irritated me when I was a boy, but then I understood how much she loved her brother, and that Vivian was trying to tell me that I’d do well to be like him. Wesley was an exceptional young man who probably would have become an artist.”
“Vivian, that’s your mother?”
“Typical of me, not telling you the names of my living relatives. Yes, Vivian is my mother. She recently had to go to a nursing home after having a series of strokes. She was living here in the mansion when I came home from California about a year ago. My boyfriend, Thad, came a bit later.”
“Where’s Thad now?”
“Back in Los Angeles—to work. It’s been a while since I’ve heard from him. I don’t know what’s going on.”
“That must be difficult, not knowing.”
“It is.”
“You still love him?”
“Very much.”
Blaine studied the portraits, pausing in front of one of the oldest charcoals. “This fellow looks like Chester. His eyes have the same piercing intelligence.”
“Chester?”
Blaine ran a finger over the glass covering the ancestor’s portrait, outlining the face. “That could be him.”
“Is Chester the person you mentioned, the one you’re involved with?”
“We’re in kind of a similar situation,” Blaine began. “I mean, just like you haven’t had closure with Thad, it’s the same with Chester and me.”
“Arthur mentioned the name of the troupe you danced with, the Chester Manley Dance Company, right?”
Blaine grew sullen. “I was going to talk to you at dinner, but feelings overcame me that I don’t handle very well.”
“And cocaine seemed like a solution.”
Blaine nodded.
“Let’s go back to the parlor, but first I want to show you something.” Simon took Blaine into his bedroom and flipped on the overhead light, which was dimmer than it might have been. Simon had unscrewed a few of the bulbs to make the light softer; the fixture, a conversion from the days of gaslight, was far too bright to create a romantic atmosphere when Thad was there.
“So many paintings!” Blaine exclaimed.
“The larger paintings are in the barn—that’s where I have my studio. We can go out there later if you want to see them.”
Blaine looked through the canvases, pulling them one by one from stacks propped against the walls. “I can’t paint anything unless I am looking at it,” Blaine said, noting how Simon worked from imagination.
“Look over here.” Simon drew Blaine’s attention to the window. “This is what I wanted to show you—my escape route.” Simon drew back the full-length curtains and tugged on the stubborn window frame in
an attempt to raise it. “It’s a small feat to climb down the trunk of this old wisteria—if the darn window would open wide enough.”
“I’ve never seen such a huge wisteria; that trunk must be six inches thick. I bet it would hold our weight, even as adults.” Something caught Blaine’s attention, and he pointed. “What’s that across the street?”
Simon stood behind Blaine to see what he meant.
“Looks almost like a set of uneven teeth sprouting from the ground.”
“You have a macabre imagination,” Simon chuckled, poking Blaine gently. “That’s the family cemetery—the streetlamp makes the marble monuments glow like that. Some of the people in those portraits are buried there. Aunt Opal’s grave is the largest; she’s the woman who lived here before we moved in. You can see her angel perching on a headstone…just there.” Simon pointed until Blaine saw it.
“This mansion, and that cemetery—they’re like memories that became solid,” Blaine said with amazement. “I can’t imagine being so connected to a place.”
“I never appreciated any of it growing up,” Simon admitted. “The older townspeople blame us Powells for everything bad that happens to them. Aunt Opal let people think she was a witch so they’d leave her alone. The newer residents don’t know about our history, but even they cause trouble. There’s a petition going around to have the mansion torn down as a fire hazard. The old-timers think that’s a great idea—tear it down or let it catch fire.”
“Well, I think it’s special. It’s your heritage, and it’s beautiful. Take it from a descendant of scallywags and bootleggers. Let’s go downstairs. I’ll tell you about Chester.”
Simon brewed some fresh tea and poured it into the family’s rarely used green Depression glass, placing the antique pitcher on a silver tray with an ice canister. “This is a special occasion,” he said, placing the service on a cocktail table in the parlor. “Tonight, we defeat our demons.”
Blaine plopped a few ice cubes into his glass using the tongs Simon provided. “I’ve been drinking instant tea for so long, I’d forgotten how good fresh-brewed can taste.”
“It’s good to see you smile about something.”
“At first, you made me angry, but thanks for following me tonight. I nearly fainted when you walked into the meeting hall. I had no idea about you. You seem so, well…straight.”
“You didn’t know I’d been through rehab? I figured Arthur would have mentioned it to you. He’s such a gossip.”
“I don’t know Arthur that well. We’ve had a few classes together, and he’s known Chester since he was a boy. Arthur doesn’t brag about it, but he comes from a wealthy family; they helped Chester’s dance company get started.”
“I had no idea.”
Blaine set down his glass, glancing wearily at his reflection in the tarnished silver tray. “Chester Manley,” Blaine began. “I met Chester a couple of years after leaving home when I was eighteen. I had already started using heroin. A group of us used to hang out in Boyle Park.”
“I know the place,” Simon recalled. “My first boyfriend in high school took me there.”
“The cops left us alone as long as they got a blowjob from time to time. One of them supplied heroin on the sly, drugs from the evidence locker that were supposed to be destroyed.”
“That is a terribly early age to start using heavy drugs.”
“At least I’ve stopped with the heroin,” Blaine said, remembering close brushes with death. “Chester founded a dance company in St. Louis, modern dance and some classical ballet. He came from Little Rock, and when he got older, he moved the troupe here and focused on the classics. Many of his dancers remained in St. Louis, so he needed to find local talent.”
“Did you meet Chester at the park?”
Blaine’s chin touched his chest.
“There’s no shame in it, Blaine. I know what central Arkansas was like in the seventies. The only way to meet a boyfriend was at someone’s party or by cruising in the park.”
“Chester Manley made me feel special, loved. He was suave and debonair—a classic. Ha. Sounds like an old Brylcreem commercial, doesn’t it?”
“You and Chester became lovers?”
“Chester came to the park one evening. I don’t remember what he said, it was so long ago, but I trusted him enough to get into his Cadillac and go to his home on a hill above the river. What I recall most is that we didn’t have sex, not exactly. He wanted me to strip and get myself into various poses. All he wanted to do was, you know, please himself.”
“Blaine, you are such a gentleman. I get the picture.”
“I thought it was hilarious—the first sort of experience like that I ever had—and it was sexy in a way. I’d never thought about having a relationship with someone so much older than me. It wasn’t the first time I entertained an older man, mind you, but the other times were part of the games I played to get money for drugs. Nothing serious.”
“Chester sounds like a gem.”
“We fell in love. Up to that point, I didn’t think love was even possible, especially with a man so much older.”
“Nothing wrong with that—love finds a way.”
“Chester wasn’t looking for a lover, and he didn’t expect to find a young man he could mold into a dancer. He found both.”
“Don’t ballet dancers usually start out as kids?”
“Yeah, but in school, I had done well in gymnastics. Chester said that is what made it possible. He taught me in private for five years. When he introduced me to the company, he lied about my age, telling the dancers I had been studying since I was a boy. He said I was eighteen, but I was twenty-three—an old man to start out as a ballet dancer.”
“As cute as you are now, what must you have looked like as a twenty-something!”
Blaine blushed as he took out his wallet and produced a laminated picture from his first outing with Chester’s dance company—denim-patterned tights, codpiece, shirtless. “This is from Copland’s Rodeo.”
“Cue-tee!” Simon compared the photograph with the present-day Blaine. “Definitely the same person.”
“I danced for several years,” Blaine continued. “Dancing made me forget about drugs. I never used the entire time I danced with the company. I dreamed about joining a bigger troupe. When I auditioned, I nearly always got an offer.”
“What happened?”
“Chester told me I wasn’t ready. Each time, he said I wasn’t ready. It took me a long time to realize that Chester was holding me back, that he didn’t want to let me go.”
“You could’ve struck out on your own.”
“It’s hard to describe a mentor’s hold over someone so inexperienced in the world of dance.”
“I’m not liking this guy,” Simon fumed.
“By the time I felt confident enough to defy Chester and try one last time, I didn’t receive an offer. By then, rumors had circulated about my age. A dancer may as well be dead at thirty.”
“Blaine. I’m so sorry.”
“Ha. Nothing anyone could have done. When I faced up to Chester’s selfishness, I was so angry. I was ready to leave him.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Who else was there in my life? Now Chester’s in convalescent care.”
“That’s why you say you are still ‘involved’?”
“Yeah. I spend a lot of time caring for Chester. He doesn’t have any family. None of the dancers give a damn.”
“You’re a good man, Blaine.”
“I suppose. And I know it’s terrible to say, but honestly, sometimes I wish the heart attack and the stroke had done him in. He’s miserable and demanding. He might once have been suave and debonair, but now he’s just an ogre.”
“You continue to care for him. That’s noble, Blaine.”
“Maybe, but there’s a money factor. Chester’s business manager continues to pay my rent, and there’s money in trust for me. I started at the university to see if I could begin a new profession in art or theater,
and I’m good at graphics. When I’m not in class, I’m mostly with Chester, or recently, going out to score on the weekends to do cocaine. That’s the story. You’re the first person I’ve even planned to have dinner with since before I met Chester.”
“Not the story I imagined while sitting in the Oyster Bar waiting for you.”
“I should have called you.”
“We’re two peas in a pod, Blaine.” Simon excused himself for a moment and dashed upstairs, returning with his favorite picture of Thad from their day at Zuma Beach, a copy of the one Thad had taken to California. “My situation isn’t the same, but I can’t give up on the man I love, even if I don’t know what is going on. This is Thad.”
“You look happy.”
“Thad is part of me.”
“Ha, he’s in your heart.”
“I love him,” Simon confessed.
“What were you doing at the CA meeting?” Blaine asked, sitting beside Simon on the couch.
“As I said, we’re a lot alike. When you didn’t show up for the date, that was my trigger. I don’t handle rejection well, real or imagined. I went into autopilot and drove to the projects to score. A guy had a gun and shot into the air as I sped away. It was the jolt I needed to realize I should find a meeting. And there you were.”
“What do I do now?” Blaine questioned.
“Let me take you to the rehab center I went to in North Little Rock.”
“If I leave here tonight, it won’t be to rehab,” Blaine confessed. “I’ll drive straight to the east side.”
“You’re forgetting, you don’t have your car, and you’re in the middle-of-nowhere Saline County.”
“Ha.”
“Let me take you to North Little Rock in the morning. Give me your keys and your home address. I’ll park your car at your place and pick up some clothes and toiletries for you.”
“Okay.”
The next morning, Simon drove Blaine to Riverdell.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Checking the mailbox one afternoon a few days after taking Blaine to Riverdell, Simon found a small package. He examined it and then collapsed onto the porch swing. In his shaking hand rested a parcel bearing a Spanish postmark. They had his address! Any comfort Simon had gained from believing that Sibley might be a remote place to hide now collapsed in a haze of fear. He left the package on the porch and went inside, taking care of Cicero as if nothing in his world had changed. He sat in the parlor, unable to move. Whatever the package contained, he couldn’t bring himself to look. He considered throwing it unopened into the pond or tossing it in the corral to allow Ferdinand to make mince of it.
