I Should Be Laughing: Why Dontcha Play Ball, Harry?

“How come you don’t play baseball, Harry?”

“I dunno. I guess I don’t like it much.”

Jimmy nodded to himself even though he didn’t understand how any boy could not like baseball. Throwing the ball high into the air, he forgot Harry for the moment and raced across the yard just as the ball came down; he caught it smoothly, the supple leather glove folded around the battered baseball like a second skin.

Harry sat on the porch, reading like he always did when he watched Jimmy after school. He would sit outside, reading, until Mother woke up and then he would disappear upstairs, lock his bedroom door and be alone. Free from the looks his mother gave him; far away from questions like ‘Why don’t you play ball?’

“They have a team at your school.” Jimmy was saying. He had no idea how annoying it was talking to someone who was reading. Jimmy thought books were dumb; why read when you could be outside playing ball or down at the beach throwing rocks at the seagulls. “My friend Danny’s brother is on it. Why dontcha play on that team?”

“I said I don’t know, Jimmy!” Harry snapped. “Why don’t you leave me alone until Mother gets up.”

“Danny’s brother says it’s cuz you’re a sissy.”

Harry’s face reddened, though he kept his eyes in his book.

“Are you Harry? Are you a sissy?”

“Shut your mouth Jimmy….”

“Or what?” He said snidely, knowing he’d struck a nerve; even at six-years-old, he could tell. His lower lip shot out in an artificial pout. “What’re you gonna do Harry? Slap me? Ooh, I’m so scared of the sissy.”

Harry slammed the book shut and dropped it off the porch. Trying so hard not to let Jimmy get the best of him, he ran his hands down his thighs, grabbing the thick denim of his jeans and bunching the fabric between his fingers. It was bad enough that school was torture, a dirty look or a shove when he least expected it, but now his own brother was calling him names. Sissy.  Why can’t I be like everyone else? Harry thought. Why can’t I play baseball or climb the rope in gym? Another torture. ‘What’s the matter, Seaton? Too hard for you, faggot?’ Why can’t everyone just leave me alone?

“Come on sissy,” Jimmy taunted. “Play ball, sissy.”

That was enough. Harry scooped up a handful of pebbles from alongside the porch and threw them at his little brother. His aim was off and the stones scattered all over the front yard, landing everywhere but near Jimmy. Perfect fag throw. He heard the kids from school in his head, although he tried convincing himself that he deliberately missed Jimmy, that he didn’t want to hurt his brother; but that wasn’t the truth. He wanted to hurt Jimmy; he wanted them all to hurt like he hurt. Every last one.

“Aw, man!” Jimmy laughed viciously and ran around the yard like a rabid dog, howling. “You even throw like a girl. Danny was right! You are a sissy! SISSY!”

Squirming, Harry wanted to tell Jimmy to fuck off. Shove it up your ass, you little fucker!  But Jimmy would tell Mother as soon as she awoke and Harry felt his skin burn from the slap she would give him for cursing. So, rather than call Jimmy names—which might make him feel better, for a moment—Harry grabbed his book and stood up; he raced through the front door, pushing it so hard it crashed into the oak coat tree. Even from the front yard, Jimmy heard Harry’s bedroom door slam; it was so loud it might have disturbed the neighbors, had there been any neighbors that far down Skeleton Road. Jimmy stayed outside, throwing the ball and shouting,

“Sissy. Sissy. Sissy. Sissy….”

At the window, the big one facing the sea, Harry pressed his forehead to the cool glass and listened to his brother’s hissing. He felt like a foreigner in that house.

I Should Be Laughing: Emma

She lingered in the doorway, the living room utterly dark, even in midday, what with the foil covering the windows. The darkness mirrored her mood as she thought of Beam and what he had done. He completely disregarded her wishes, her fears, and taken Lyle to the funeral, to that house, with his sister and those two…. Beam had done the unforgivable and he would have to pay for it.

Wandering through the messy living room, Emma sidestepped Lyle’s toys and Jimmy’s old magazines. It was all dark and gray, mildewed, cluttered, dusty, dirty, and secondhand; she deserved better. Stacks of papers on the kitchen floor, the kitchen so dirty that the smell from the sink terrorized her, sent her flying down the hall into the bathroom. A pile of wet towels sat on the floor beside the tub, and the dirty clothes of the father and the son shoved into a corner, not into the hamper as she had asked a hundred times.

Put your clothes in the hamper. Why am I always picking up your things—

In Lyle’s nook, she found the drawers to his garage sale dresser ransacked and left open; obviously, Beam had found something for him to wear. The tennis shoes she’d tied on Lyle’s feet that morning were on the bed; Jimmy had thrown his blanket over a chair.

Can’t you put things back where they—

In the bedroom was the empty garment bag that once held Beam’s new suit and an open bottle of cologne, one she had gotten as a free gift with a twenty-dollar purchase at the J.C. Penney in Ukiah. He’d never worn it for her, he said he hated smelling all fancy, but he splashed some on before going up to The Landing to be with his family.

I only asked one thing of you and look what you—

Outside the back door, at the rear of the house, Emma stepped onto the tiny stoop. Although mended by Beam after an awfully cold and wet winter, it still leaned to one side and sagged in the middle. It left her feeling a bit off-kilter, but she was learning to accept that. She came out here often, when Beam was out and Lyle was down for his nap, to stand and stare into the trees at the top of the hill. This day, the sky above, seen through the taller trees, was cool and crisp, clean, though it was only temporary. The rains would come later in the day as they did every spring, and today, funeral or not, was no exception. If she was going to do it, now was the time, before the path into the trees turned into a muddy stream.

This is the best way. A clean break so I never—

Leaving the back door open in hopes that the breeze might elbow some of the stench from the house, Emma went back into her bedroom and plucked Lyle’s pictures from each and every plastic frame. She even took the one of Lyle that she kept in a silver frame, and the only wedding photo she had—she and Beam at the Justice of the Peace in Reno—and set all the photographs in a neat pile.

You can’t have these, they belong to—

Slowly, for the stack of snapshots was thick, Emma tore up the photos into bits of confetti. She scooped up a handful and set about spreading the scraps all over the floor like a flower girl scattering rose petals as she walked down the aisle ahead of the bride. Bits of Lyle in the kitchen sink, in her coffee cup, along the counter and over the table. Scraps of Emma and Beam in his La-Z-Boy, ground into the rug and dropped onto sofa cushions. In the bathroom pieces of her life stuck to the tile walls still damp from Lyle’s bath and Beam’s shower.

No matter where you look, I’ll be—

Emma filled Hefty trash bags with clothes and make-up, books, cigarettes and jewelry. Then she tossed them out the back door, stopping once again to eye the path to the trees. It was still dry, though not for long. When the rains came, water would flood the yard and gush downhill toward town. Some days the rain was so intense that Emma, lying in bed, watching One Life To Live, would swear the rainwaters would carry the house away; she pretended she was Dorothy, without the twister.

I just want to be away from—

After stuffing the trash bags into the garbage cans, she wheeled the green rubber monster down to the edge of the road. Trash day was Monday, still three days away, but Beam always forgot to put the cans out. This was the last nice thing she did for her family before walking up the hill, into the trees. Back in the side yard, after leaving the cans by the road, she plucked the clean clothes from the line, letting them fall to the ground. She ripped down the clothesline, unwinding it from the posts that Charlie Bloom had sent over when the old clothesline collapsed. Beam could rewash the clothes; he could buy a new line.

Clean this mess up, Beam, I’m not your—

Stepping over the sheets and dishtowels, underwear and blankets, Emma went to her room one last time. At the mirror, she combed her hair and checked her make-up; she buttoned her smock and straightened her nametag. Looking at the reflection of a woman aged far beyond her years, a woman too tired to do anything more, she felt only the realization of a coming death, a destiny delivered.

She’d wanted to take a walk in the woods ever since the day, as a happy little girl, her father said her mother was gone. Now, she was going, too. Grabbing the clothesline from the bed, Emma wrapped it round and round her arm so it was easier to carry. She walked off that back porch, feeling unsteady for the last time, and climbed the hill, in search of the perfect tree…before the rains came, as they always did.

I Should Be Laughing: The Day of the Funeral

Restless, yet reluctant to move, Renny sat primly on the edge of the bed, running a hand over the elegant weave of her stockings. Her fingers, like her lungs, twitched and her fingernail snagged the delicate fabric. Her breaths came so short and fleeting that it felt as though they stopped midway down her throat and, unable to reach her lungs, panicked and scattered about, in search of the nearest exit. But she continued to stroke her leg from the back of her knee to the ankle, struggling to breathe and staring out the window knowing she couldn’t see the road, but would hear the car when it pulled in front of the house.

With the funeral set for early afternoon, David and the children would arrive soon, having left Sacramento shortly after breakfast. Of course, she hadn’t eaten a thing; a little coffee was all she could take. Her family was coming to her mother’s funeral, something she’d always told them had taken place years ago, and food was the last thing on her mind.

There was a light tap at the door and, when it pushed open, Wyatt peeked in at her. Renny glanced up briefly, and then went back to staring through the glass and stroking her calf. Wyatt’s face fell as he watched her.

“I, uh…” he began, “found some pastries in the pantry and set them out on the table if you’re hungry—.” He stopped when she shook her head. Her mouth was open as though she might speak, but her tongue flicked across perfectly straight teeth, then sank onto her lower lip.

“You look nice.” He tried again to engage her in conversation. The way she sat there on the bed, formal, stiff, her body quivering as though she was freezing, her eyes alert but strangely empty, her breath hardened and quick, frightened him. Wyatt didn’t think she would make it through the day and, in fact, would fall apart as easily as the house of cards in which she lived. “That’s a beautiful dress.”

Her response was to raise her hand to him, and rub her thumb over the tips of her first two fingers. Money, it said. The day before, after returning from the funeral home and disposing of her mother’s final gift, Renny had taken to her room. She hadn’t come down to dinner and even refused the tray of food Harry carried up to her. All she could think about was being alone, putting an end to the nightmare her mother created and going away with her husband and children—to put The Landing and the sea, Harry and Jimmy and Wyatt back where they belonged, in the past.

Staring out the window at the oppressive, colorless sky pressing down onto the hilltops, with Wyatt standing patiently near the door, dressed in a simple black suit and tie, she wanted to talk; she needed to talk. To tell him why she would leave after the funeral, why she would never speak to Harry or Jimmy again, why she was…like she was. But the muscles in her face seemed too weary and she ended up grimacing, and moaning.

“It never ends,” she finally said after a series of false starts. She pushed aside the hat and veil that lay beside her on the bed and Wyatt accepted her silent invitation. He sat next to her and she slipped her hand into his. “I had always hoped it was over, but it isn’t.”

“What?”

“The beatings, the pain. This house.” Murmuring awkwardly, Renny’s mood was as sober as her outfit. “I wanted it to be over when she died, but it isn’t. I feel the abuse every time I turn around.” Her eyes watering, she involuntarily pressed her thumb and forefinger to either side of her nose to stem the tears. After a moment, she pulled her hand away and wiped her fingers on the bed spread. “I wanted to do the right thing, finally…” she laughed. “I wanted to come back here and bury my mother and put all of this to rest, but I’m still getting hit.”

“How?”

“My things in the attic. I thought she’d saved them for me out of…out of kindness, I thought she’d changed. But you saw them. She ruined my childhood, Wyatt, and when I ran away, she went after the only good memories I had left.

“And that shoe box? Inside was this horrible note that said I was…. It’s been nothing but slaps and kicks since the moment I came home. Jimmy’s pathetic lie…Emma…Harry being gay.” Wyatt’s hand clenched inside hers and she held on tight as she explained. “It’s not that Wyatt, really. I just didn’t know about him, I forgot him. Then I come home and he tells me he’s gay and—.”

“I’m here?”

“It isn’t that!” Embarrassed, Renny smiled and brushed her hand over Wyatt’s cheek. “I’m happy for him…that he has you…I’m…I’m jealous…of what he has with you, of the way you two are together. He went through hell in this house just like I did and he turned out all right.”

“No…no,” Wyatt said. “He wasn’t ‘all right’ when I met him Renny. He was…” He held her hand to his face. “His first lover beat him and for some reason Harry thought he deserved it. John, I told you about him, he died of pneumocystis, was very much like your mother. He hit Harry; he did the most horrendous things, and then he would tell Harry he loved him. It was a long time before Harry found out that love didn’t hurt, that he had a right to be happy. Your mother and John made him feel that way.”

“But you said John was your family.” Renny said. “How could he do that to Harry and—.”

“Harry forgives, Renny,” Wyatt told her sweetly, remembering John, with Harry. “It’s one of the great things he does, forgiveness. You should try it. Try forgiving yourself for all the wrongs you think you’ve done, and then forgive the wrongs done to you.”

“I can’t, Wyatt.” She pulled her hand away and instantly became stiff and cold. “I’m leaving after the funeral and I’m not coming back. I’m not going back to that life. When I leave here, all of this, the house, Jimmy and Harry, it ends.”

Laughing, Wyatt stood up and went to the window. His back to her, he ran his hand through his hair; his shoulders trembling with laughter; or was it his tears? At last, not able to face her, he said, “This will never end, Renny. Harry and Jimmy, this house, your mother and father, the lies…they’ll always be there, right behind every word, every smell, every flicker of light or piece of music that sounds like home.

“Every little boy that you see on the street will become Lyle and you’ll look around for Jimmy but he won’t be there. If you meet someone gay, you’ll wonder what Harry’s doing…how I am…and you’ll want to call, but you won’t know where we are because you ran off again…every single delta breeze that winds through Sacramento will carry with it the memories of Skeleton Road.

“Forgive yourself Renny and it will end.”

“I don’t deserve to be forgiven,” She said bitterly. “Not by anyone. I’ve lied to everybody in my life, to everyone I ever loved. My husband, Wyatt…my husbands! I’ve had three and I lied to them all, but David got the worst of it because he stuck around the longest.”

“If he loves you, he’ll forgive you.”

Renny shrugged. “I don’t even know how to start.”

“Stop lying,” Wyatt said, coming closer. “Tell him the truth.” When Renny started to object, he raised his voice. “We’ve all lied, Renny. Harry lied every time he said he fell down when, in fact, John punched him. Jimmy lied when he found out where your father lived. You lied about having a family. And I’ve told my share. I lied to my parents about friends I didn’t have, vacations I didn’t take. I looked my mother right in the eye, when I was seventeen and she asked if I was gay, and I said ‘No.”

“Everyone lies, but I learned a long time ago that it isn’t the lie that hurts. It’s keeping the secret that causes the pain. Tell the truth and the pain ends.”

“I can’t.” The tears started again but this time she let them fall, lowering her head and watching the teardrops splatter on her skirt. Kneeling in front of her, Wyatt put his fingers beneath her chin and made her look at him; he willed her tears away. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I told Harry that I’ve become our mother and I’m terrified of doing harm to my own children. I don’t want to hurt them but I keep imagining that I end up like her. One day…one day soon…my children will find me like Jimmy found her.”

Weeping violently, Renny’s teeth scraped a groove through her lipstick.

I Should Be Laughing: Harry Goes To Jimmy

Taking the bowl from the microwave, Jimmy dashed the red-hot chili to the table and sat down beside Lyle. He slathered margarine over a slice of Wonder bread, folded it into a triangle, and dunked it into the chili, swirling it around until he had gathered up a healthy portion of beans. He scowled at the damp corner of bread and realized Lyle had the right idea: take this vile food and smear it all over the table; better splattered than eaten.

“Jimmy?”

“Uh…” The fold of bread splashed into the bowl and he looked up to find Harry at the screen door, a hand shielding the sunset from his eyes as he peered inside. Pushing the bowl away, he flushed at the thought of what he was eating, how he was dressed, the way he lived…everything. Renny made him feel like that; at first. “Hey.”

“Can I come in?”

“Uh…sure.” He tried to remember when Emma had said she was coming home from work. He didn’t want to think about what she would say, not to mention what she might do, if she found Harry in her house. “C’mon in.”

Harry pulled the screen back out of his way and both brothers winced at the wailing hinges—one because the sound unnerved him; the other because it had been months since his wife asked him to grease the hinge—as the door banged shut Jimmy made a mental note to buy a new spring, too.

“Uh…what’s up?” He asked offhandedly, wiping the crumbs from the table to the floor. “Is everything okay at Mother’s…at the house?”

“Yeah…we’re fine…considering,” Harry stammered. “But Wyatt and I went into Mendocino today and bought some fish. We thought you ‘d like to come—.”

Can’t,” Jimmy said briskly.

“Oh.” That was all Harry could come up with and, not knowing whether to stay or go, his eyes wandered around the room, astounded at how much it resembled his mother’s house, back in the when, during the long stretches between Grandmother’s visits when the entire house was left to rot. Dishes and pots, crusty with food, spilled out of the sink and a small fortune of recyclable soda cans littered the counter. Beer bottles, drained and sour smelling, toppled out of a brown grocery bag near the door; newspapers heaped on the table and two pizza boxes oozed grease on the stove.

“I don’t have a car.”

Oh.” Harry relaxed; that’s all that was keeping Jimmy from coming to The Landing. “You and,” he smiled at Jimmy’s son, “your boy can ride up with me.”

“His name’s Lyle.”

“Yeah, Renny said that.” He could breath now. “I’ll drive you and Lyle home after.”

Unable to look at his brother, Jimmy hadn’t noticed how far Harry had come into the room, so when he finally did raise his head, Harry was at his side, fluttering his fingers in a friendly wave at Lyle. The boy’s face, streaked in orange and green war paint, immediately broke into a wide grin.

“Renny was right, Jimmy. He’s a beautiful boy.”

Cringing a little, remembering Emma’s tirade about gay men molesting boys, Jimmy scarcely muffled a thank-you. He tried not to think of Harry in the house, so close to Lyle; he would not wonder what Emma would say if—when—she found out. “He’s a good boy.”

“Who obviously likes to wear his food.” Harry chuckled affectionately, and Jimmy couldn’t help himself; he joined in and gently poked his son’s cheek. Feeling more at ease, pointing to Jimmy’s sweaty bottle of beer, Harry asked, “You got another one of those?”

The question forced him to look at his brother, for the first time since Harry returned home; for the first time ever, really. Jimmy squinted; in all the years he had lived outside of The Landing, he hadn’t really changed at all. Jimmy remembered the changes in Renny with a hint of envy; she was sleeker now, certainly more refined. He was different, too; he was softer, rounder. Dull. But Harry, impossibly so, looked almost exactly as he had the day he walked out of the house years before.

Oh sure, Jimmy noticed Harry’s ear was double pierced—a pair of thin silver loops dangled from the left one—and he wore a goatee, but there was something about him that seemed the same as when he was a…. His eyes, Jimmy thought. Speckled light blue and gray, the eyes were the same, looking at you until you looked back, then turning away. His smile was still polite and docile, the same smile that allowed their mother to walk all over him; it came too easily, like a mask, and was too easily hurt. The same old Harry; home again.

“You got a beer for me?” Harry asked again.

“Uh…sure.” Jimmy said, rising. He stole a nervous peek at the grease-splattered clock on the stove; when was Emma coming home? Was tonight an early shift or a late one? Rubbing his hands together, he went to the refrigerator and drew out the last bottle of Coors in the house, and used a drawer pull to pry off the cap. Harry noticed the scrapes and gouges of past openings in the soft wooden drawer front. He held the bottle out, but just as Harry reached for it, he pulled it back. “You…uh…probably want a glass….”

For some reason this caused Harry to laugh, and Jimmy knew it was because he only had domestic beer to offer, and not one of those fancy micro-brews he’d seen advertised in magazines. Watching Harry’s face, Jimmy felt ashamed. Harry, who hadn’t changed, who still smiled like a young boy, and looked as bashful as a child. Harry, who wore neatly pressed clothes, who had a nice haircut and a couple of earrings in his ear. Harry, who left Beal’s Landing and did something with his life, who became something more than the son of a goddamned drunk—

“I have this friend, Charley,” Harry explained, trying to erase the look of humiliation on Jimmy’s face, “who, whenever you asked if he wanted a glass for his beer would always say, ‘Doesn’t it come in a glass?’” Harry smiled. “The bottle’s fine, Jimmy.”

Nodding, and watching the floor, Jimmy handed the Coors to Harry, who held the bottle to his lips for a long, slow swallow. He found it easier, a little easier, to smile with Harry; he had never imagined, all those years ago, that he would be standing in the kitchen of his own house drinking beer with his big brother. Taking a swig of his beer, he laughed at Lyle, whose face was a mosaic of color; the boy’s eyes ricocheted from father to uncle, uncle to father.

“Look at you!” Jimmy said his tone of voice one part irritation and nine parts humor. He grabbed a paper napkin from the hand-painted wooden holder on the table, ran it across his tongue, and began to clean off his son. Recognizing that the job was too big for a napkin and some spit, he lifted the boy from his chair. “I’d better get you to the bathroom quick!”

“Do you mind if I do it?” Harry asked, setting his beer down and coming around to stand beside Jimmy and Lyle.

“I don’t think so,” Jimmy said sheepishly, and much too quickly for Harry not to notice. He held his arms tighter around Lyle, but who was he protecting--Lyle from Harry, or himself from Emma’s wrath? “He’s not real good with strangers.”

“Jimmy…I don’t want to be a stranger anymore,” Harry offered calmly; he stepped closer still, and rubbed his hand through Lyle’s dense curls. “Please? I never knew I was an uncle…I’d like to be his uncle.”

I Should Be Laughing: Things Change, Home Changes

It was a dream.  It was the dream. It was her dream becoming reality. Renny paused inside the doorway, the smell so overwhelming it sickened her, as did the music; Mother’s music, echoing throughout the first floor and pricking her eardrums. Standing by the door, her hand on the knob, she waited for the iron bars to drop across the doors and windows, waited for the locks to latch, leaving her alone in the house with the hands, and the shears. But the flowers…these flowers…

These weren’t roses. Renny stared, baffled by the immense bouquet of odd flowers on the entry table: Nasturtium and Irises from the Forever Fields, the pink, orange and red buds ringed by the brilliant purple blossoms of California Wild Lilac, lush Scotch Bloom and Evergreen Rhododendron. All these glorious flowers and blooms and buds, twigs and scrub, gathered from the edge of Skeleton Road, from the side yard and the Forever Fields, the brim of the cliff, sprouted from a green glass urn in the center of the foyer.

Stumbling upon the hastily arranged flowers, and reeling in their sweet perfume, which ran amok in the front hall, Renny exhaled deeply, and relaxed. Flowers everywhere and not a rose in sight; nor were there chrysanthemums or lilies; no daisies. Only these tangy, brightly colored blooms the likes of which she had never seen in this house, at least not in her dreams or her childhood.

And it wasn’t only flowers, the scent filling the air with vibrant color, there was also music. A sultry voice wafted from the back parlor, and Renny closed her eyes, summoning up the house of her childhood, full of flowers and music to ward off the impending gloom of a visit from Grandmother. It was Sarah Vaughan, singing…Summertime… in the back of the house; Renny could practically hear the dust motes in the decades old vinyl, the lyrics sounding warped and wobbly.

“Harry?” She called out, running her palm over the downy petals, puncturing her finger on a scotch bloom as she lifted a lilac from the crystal vase. Enraptured by the bouquet, she didn’t hear her brother come from the kitchen.

“You like the flowers?” With only socks upon his feet, and dressed in a ragged pair of Levis and thick sweater, Harry came wandering into the foyer, wiping his hands on a checkered dish towel he had casually flung over one shoulder. “Wyatt picked them from the yard. He thought we’d had our fill of roses.”

“They’re lovely.” Twirling the stem of the lilac between her fingers like a Fourth of July sparkler, Renny grudgingly took her eyes off the flowers and smiled at him. “I can’t believe they’ve been here all this time and we never…”

She stopped when she saw a grin flood Harry’s face.

“Far too common!” Brother and sister shouted in unison, mimicking Grandmother Pierce’s oft-repeated phrase.

“My goodness, Barbara Jean.” Renny sharply cried. “You can’t fill the house with such shoddy flowers. What—.”

“—will people think?” Harry finished the sentence with a slight snicker, and then said, dryly, “I think these are better than roses any day.”

“Mmmm.” Renny agreed; then she startled herself and Harry when she quickly leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. He barely heard her say, “Thank you.”

I Should Be Laughing: Renny Goes To Jimmy's House

Fearful of going further, Renny remained in the doorway after Jimmy burst into the house and began shouting to his wife. She waited by the door, taking the entire picture in, amazed that her brother, her brother, lived this way.

Pushed to the wall, underneath a window wrapped like a gift in aluminum foil, was a long, hideous couch upholstered in the kind of floral pattern the likes of which she’d seen only on bad television shows. Neon colors, almost; blues and pinks and greens; the flowers so grotesquely overbearing that it hurt to look at them. Filling one corner was an easy chair, more of an uneasy chair, she grimaced, a used La-Z-Boy draped beneath an offensive red-and-black crocheted afghan. The rest of the room consisted of a few occasional tables in a Mediterranean style popular decades ago.

Plastic milk crates, stolen from the back lot of the Dairy Queen in town, used as storage, held everything from toys and books and records, to a collection of tabloids; a National Enquirer shrine. For extra storage, several filthy cinder blocks, along the wall, had thick lengths of bowed plywood stretching between them. Renny couldn’t believe people actually lived like this anymore, unless they were in college somewhere; state college, at that. Renny, herself, hadn’t lived in a place as awful as this since Patrick, and that was two lifetimes ago.

“C’mon in, Ren,” Jimmy said gleefully, before apologizing. “Sorry it’s a mess in here, but with a kid—.”

“It’s okay.” She spoke softly, moving through the doorway, out of the fresh air and sunlight of the front porch and into the dark and stale living room. When the door closed behind her, she became instantly claustrophobic. “It’s…nice.”

“Emma!” Jimmy barked down the short hall and Renny looked beyond her brother, into the hallway itself, which lead to a back door, slightly open to reveal a green patch of hillside and the promise of blue sky and untarnished air.

“Emma?”

Instead of Jimmy’s wife answering back, there was a stabbing shriek, followed by the staccato sobs of a child crying. Jimmy raced to the back of the house and disappeared into a side room, leaving Renny trapped in this crypt like room. She stepped back to the door, ready to open it and step outside, when she heard the crying stop, and listened to her brother cooing and laughing. Before she could move, Jimmy was back, with a red-faced boy whose eyes had only begun to dry.

“This is Lyle,” he said proudly, walking his son into the living room to meet his Aunt Renny who, knowing to prepare for the worst, considering her surroundings, put on a false smile. As Jimmy brought Lyle out of the dark hallway and into the slightly brighter living room, her mind spun with what she might say, precisely chosen words that wouldn’t show her true feelings, but she grew mute looking into the faces of a boy and his father.

In spite of his obvious crying fit, she could see that Lyle was gorgeous. He had the same eyes as Jimmy, as the whole Seaton family, Renny realized, ice blue and clear, like the sky reflected in the clean chrome bumper of a classic car. Long eyelashes, dripped with tears, fluttered and he smiled at her. Jimmy tousled Lyle’s curly blond mop, as iridescent as the silk from a fresh stalk of Sloughhouse corn. While everything else she had seen since coming in the house reminded her of trash TV, this child looked like the star of a pricey ad campaign for baby food or diapers…even luxury cars.

“This is your Aunt Renny, Lyle,” Jimmy told his son, nudging the boy closer. Renny was stunned as he came to her, unsteadily, but without his father’s helping hand. He stared at her face, and she got the impression that he knew she was family by the way he smiled so sweetly. At that moment, Renny stopped caring how Jimmy lived, and where, about his grimy fingernails and dirty clothes; everything vanished behind the silly grin she wore as Lyle teetered across the room.

“Hi there…Hi Lyle.” Renny purred, dropping to her knees and intuitively holding her arms out to him; she felt like crying when he snuggled in next to her, giggling and playfully grabbing at the necklace she wore. Swooping him up in her arms, she began to dance with him, spinning and giggling. “Oh, Jimmy. He’s absolutely beautiful.”

Turning away from her nephew momentarily, it struck Renny that he was the spitting image of his father. They had the same eyes and pudgy cheeks, the same round face and the same wonderful grin. Lyle was definitely his father’s son, and his father was ecstatic at his big sister’s approval. On the rare occurrences when she had ever been near the boy, Barbara would only pat his head and then hand over a check for Christmas or birthdays.

“He’s precious, Jimmy,” Renny said again.

“Yeah.” A voice, ragged from sleep and cigarettes, agreed. “He is.”

Everything stopped, and the room became, if possible, darker and colder. Gazing beyond Jimmy, who instantly tensed at the sound of the voice, Renny stared into the black tunnel of a hallway, at the woman leaning against a door jamb; the dishwater blonde wiping sleep from her eyes so that she might better glare at Renny; Emma. She walked slowly, in bare feet, into the living room, all the while searching the pocket of her crumpled corduroy bathrobe for the pack of Salem’s she kept there.  Shaking her hair from her face, she sucked on a cigarette and lit it with a lighter she scooped off a table. The robe fluttered open and Renny saw that Emma slept in a Pearl Jam T-shirt and a pair of pull-on shorts.

“Uh…this is, uh, Emma,” Jimmy said abruptly. “Em? This is my sister…Renny.”

Renny couldn’t believe the change in her brother once Emma joined them. The life vanished from his eyes, and the smile that had been there only a moment before, the laughs he shared with his sister and his son, quickly faded. He seemed somehow less than he was before, shorter, even, with his shoulders slumped forward and his gut drooping further over his belt. His eyes dropped to the floor.

“Hello,” Emma uttered in a shrill, nasal tone Renny immediately remembered from the phone message. Her arms folded, a cigarette dangling from pursed lips, she inspected her sister-in-law; eyeing Renny’s clothes: the pants, black, a precise crease from waist to ankle. Emma snarled a little; she had seen women like that. Her eyes narrowed at the black leather boots, and the white shirt, a man’s shirt, crisp and spot-free, with the collar upturned and the two top buttons undone to reveal a slender, tanned neck and a sterling silver chain with a black pearl suspended from it. Renny had recently colored her hair—Emma could tell—a honey blond, and cut short so it framed her face. Two silver clips held it back, and a pair of earrings that matched the necklace, studded her earlobes.

“You ever return phone calls?” Emma asked, and when Renny looked confused, she explained. “I called? The day we found the body? You never returned the call.”

“I’m sorry.” Renny toyed with her necklace, as Lyle had done moments earlier. “I didn’t think…. I just got in the car and drove…and came home.”

“Hmmph,” Emma wheezed. She walked to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of Coke from inside; she popped the lid and drank right from the bottle, tilting her head back, guzzling nearly half the contents, and staring at Renny. She ran a hand through her own recent dye job—Strawberry Blond in a box—and snarled at her husband. “I’m working again tonight, Beam, so you’re staying home with Lyle. I don’t want him going to Bessie’s. She let him play outside all day and he was covered in mud when I got home.”

“Sure, Em.” Jimmy’s eyes waffled from his wife, who stayed in the kitchen and opened another Coke, to his sister who held his son and stared wide-eyed at his wife.

“Beam?” Renny murmured. “Why does she call you Beam?”

I Should Be Laughing: Harry Explodes

“You really believe Jimmy asked Renny to go because she’s the oldest?” Harry asked, having a hard time with Wyatt’s theories. “Well, Wyatt, she’s also been away the longest. Jimmy was about six or so when she ran off.”

“But Harry, I think what Jimmy needs right now is a mother. Even considering all the horrible things Barbara may have put him through, she was always here…. I think he needs Renny to fill that void until he gets used to being on his own.” Still sitting atop the counter, Wyatt shrugged and kicked his heels against the cupboard doors. “I don’t want to get into a lot of psychobabble bullshit—.”

“Too late Sigmund.” Harry grinned. In fact, Wyatt’s ability to see all sides of every story, to spot the darkness in the light, the brilliance of gloom, was one of the first things that attracted Harry to him; he was as abstract in thought as he was with paint brush and oils. “As a painter, you’re quite the therapist.”

“Thanks for the compliment…I think.” Wyatt smiled, too, at the good-natured name-calling before turning serious again. “All I meant was that Jimmy needs a big sister today.”

“All right then, smart guy, so why don’t you tell me what I should do.” Harry leapt off the butcher block in the middle of the kitchen and went to stand between Wyatt’s legs. With his hands on Wyatt’s thighs, Harry asked, “Any suggestions?”

“Talk to him, Harry. How hard is that? He doesn’t know a thing about you; he’s never met a gay person. You’re like this…new species…to him. Let him play Darwin, and you be the gay Galapagos.” Wyatt chuckled, but the laughter soon faded. He turned solemn and held Harry’s face in his hands. “Just talk to him.”

Shrugging, Wyatt’s hands fell from his face, and Harry moved in front of the sink. Clasping his hands behind his neck, still shrugging, Harry wondered what to say to Jimmy. What did they have in common, other than an absentee father and dead mother? Nope, the past was out; it was far too painful for him, and for Jimmy as well. Still, there had to be a way for them to get to know one another again, a bridge from the times they wanted to forget to the present. Wyatt offered a suggestion.  “He has a son, Harry. You’re an uncle.”

Stunned by the news, Harry shook his head and lowered his eyes, although Wyatt detected a slight smile creep onto his face. Letting the news of his nephew sink in, Harry imagined what kind of boy Jimmy was raising and the woman he had married. He thought silently about his brother, and then asked out loud about Renny. Did she have children? What was her life like now? Last night, in the fields, she’d muttered something about screwing up her life; he wondered what happened to her.

The more Harry thought about his family, however, about how their lives had moved on and changed since childhood, since he and Renny had run away, the angrier he became, realizing the role their mother played in shaping their futures and keeping them apart. She mistreated them so horribly, in too many ways to even remember, that they not only tried to get away from her, they turned their backs on one another. Of all the things Harry endured in this house, the things his mother made him do, this was by far the worst.

“Damn her!” Roaring, he suddenly turned and slammed his hands onto the coarse butcher block. The outburst startled Wyatt from his countertop perch, and he ran to Harry’s side, but when he saw the fury on Harry’s face, when he noticed the lack of tears, when he saw such utter disgust on his lover’s face, he stayed back. “That…bitch!

“Look what she did to us, Wyatt. Look what she turned us into. We were so afraid of what happened that we couldn’t bear to stay in touch…and can’t stand being in the same room for more than a minute.” He scooped up his coffee cup and hurled it at the wall. The thick earthenware mug slammed against the plaster, denting it, and breaking into ragged chunks that dropped to the floor and completely shattered. Coffee, black and cold, bled down the wall and pooled on the linoleum. “I hate her, Wyatt.

“And I…love her—.” Harry said, massaging his temples. When Wyatt came close, Harry bellowed again. “Don’t you talk to me about mothers. Yours was nothing like mine, so you have no right to defend her—.”

“I can’t.”

“Damn right.” Harry walked to the wall and stood over the ruins of the mug swirling in a caffeine puddle; he smashed the pieces with the heel of his boot. “I hate her for what she did to us, turning us away from one another and then…” Harry laughed, “killing herself before I could tell her what I thought.

“And now we’re home, the good children, Barbara’s babies, ready to forgive and forget because she’s dead. Well, I won’t do it, Wyatt. I can’t forget! I lost my family…I lost my past…because of her. She made me so ashamed of who I was, before I even knew who I was. She made me afraid to love anyone unless they hurt me.”

Agreeing, in silence, Wyatt stooped to pick up the splintered mug.

“Let’s stop pretending this is all so sad, shall we? Stop moaning about the poor old woman who lived alone at the end of the road and couldn’t take it any longer. She wasn’t some…sainted mother figure who happened to die. Look around!” Like a madman, Harry raced around the kitchen, opening cupboards and pulling out drawers. “This isn’t my house! When I lived here, it was dark…lonely…and hurt! It reeked of booze and cigarettes and… things I don’t even want to remember. It was filthy and quiet and—.”

Standing in the butler’s pantry, Harry tensed at the orderliness of the tiny room. “She paints a convincing picture, Wyatt, almost as good as you. Perfect house, perfect family, but it’s all too precise. She was a fucking drunk; she started to commit a slow suicide over thirty years ago and when she realized it was taking too long, she upped the ante with a handful of pills.” Turning, he knocked the broken mug from Wyatt’s hands. “Leave it…It would have stayed on the floor until I cleaned it up anyway.”

Kicking the pieces of pottery back to the baseboard, Harry followed, and punched the wall so fiercely that a row of iron trivets, hung neatly in a line, jiggled and fell to the ground. Wyatt grabbed him, holding him tight while he cried. “I hate her Wyatt…my mother! I hate….”

I Should Be Laughing: Renny Identifies The Body

Staring down the long hallway, first toward the front door and then at the back, he couldn’t find Renny. Panic began to rain inside him and, thinking she had left him to do this alone—after all, that was how Renny did things—Jimmy flew out of the office and ran for the parking lot, hoping she was still in her car and hadn’t gotten away. Then, nearing the ladies room, a beam of light pierced the cold linoleum, followed by a small, tired cough. Renny stepped into the corridor, her makeup fresh, her hair clipped tightly behind her ears.

“They’re ready now,” Jimmy said, his sneakers squeaking to a stop on the slick vinyl flooring. “She said…she said you can go back now.”

“I don’t know, Jimmy.” Renny wiped her hands on a thick piece of brown paper toweling. She had spent the better part of the hour pacing up and down the hallway, before finally disappearing into the bathroom, hoping to find an excuse that would keep her from looking at her mother’s body. “How am I supposed to do this? I haven’t seen her in twenty years. Not even a photograph! I don’t know what she looks like.”

“She looks like you—.” Jimmy said suddenly; so quickly in fact, that, as the words left his mouth, he tried to grab them and bring them back. It was as though he could see the letters sliding through the air at Renny and he reached for them; but they were spoken far too swiftly, hitting his sister full in the face and shattering her composure.

Renny pushed past him. Jimmy waited, and then followed.

In the office, her body iced in silence, Renny stood at the door and waited for the woman to buzz her inside; waited wand wondered what she had gotten into, and how she might free herself. That night, when she was eighteen, and riding a bus away from Beal’s Landing, she vowed never to set eyes on her mother again; it was an easy promise to keep. With each passing mile, marriage and memory, Renny distanced herself from Barbara Seaton until that damned phone call. Now, here she was, home again, and waiting for the doorbell to announce her arrival, a whiny buzz to tell her mother she had finally come—

”Miss Seaton?”

“It’s Missus Charles.” Detached from her surroundings, Renny still managed to correct the woman.

“You can go in now.” For the third time, the woman pushed the button unlocking to door. “The coroner is waiting.”

Renny knocked the door back like the stiff drink she craved and entered a sprawling, well-lit hallway, lined with doors on both sides, at the end of which she saw a windowless cubbyhole. Inside, she spotted the wheels of a gurney, a flap of pale blue sheet, the shape of a foot. Tumbling back on the closing door, she thought about all the doctor’s offices and hospitals she’d ever visited, plastic surgeons, too. Offices so barren and sterile, and yet smelling of Lysol and death; fumigated to destroy germs, but useless against odors.

Running a hand along the lavender wall, she crept without hurry toward the end of the corridor. Designers always chose such tasteless colors for medical buildings, like mint ice cream, lavender or vanilla. Was it supposed to be calming, because it wasn’t; her fingers trembled along the stucco wall and tried to grab hold. Why was everything so shining and antiseptic, clean and bare? Why was the light so cold and lifeless?

“Miss Seaton?” A man’s voice called from a numb blue room at the far end of the hallway. 

“Missus Charles.” Renny said again, sternly this time.

“I’m sorry.” Appearing in the doorway, he looked much too young for this type of work, too young to be a doctor, too handsome for a coroner. Renny envisioned a coroner like a character from Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas: tall, gaunt, and terribly pale; somber, sober. This man, Dr. Lassen she would come to find out, was a black man, tall, good-looking; not at all what she had pictured.

 “Missus Charles. Could you come in here please?” The doctor smiled, and once more his youthfulness astonished her. His hair was cut close to the scalp and his skin was the color of caramel, flush with a glow from spending his free time outdoors, among the living. His deep brown eyes seemed almost liquid and he looked for all the world like a boy playing doctor; a kid whose mother dressed him in a stiff yellow shirt and paisley tie, and then, for added measure, plopped a pair of horned rim glasses on his face. In this barren room, this tasteless space that reeked of spotlessness and mortality, he was a spark. And that made her all the more uneasy.

“I know this is difficult…” he said, instantly becoming a stereotype; but what else should he say? Hey! How about those Dodgers? Are you planning on a winery tour while you’re home, Missus Charles? Let’s have a look-see at your mother, the suicide. He moved back and motioned Renny into the room. “All I need is an identification and a signature.”

“I’m not sure I can do this.”

“Really, it isn’t as bad a s people think. Your mother simply looks—.”

“I meant,” Renny snapped before he could echo Jimmy’s sentiment; “that I haven’t seen her in a long time. I doubt I would even recognize her.”

“I was going to say she looks like she’s asleep.” The doctor pressed his lips together in a smile that was at once compassionate and condescending; he followed that with a nod that was equally fawning and then wandered over to a gurney draped beneath a dark blue sheet. Picking up a corner of the rigid fabric, he waited for Renny to come closer, and then reintroduced her to her mother.

I Should Be Laughing: Harry's Rock

On the edge of the bluff behind the house, over a hundred feet above the sea, Wyatt stared at the water. Jimmy was right; there was a trail from the end of the yard down to the coastline below; a tricky footpath that wound like a snake to an awkward strip of sand and stone hounded by the ocean. Wyatt’s eyes tripped along the surf, following a small arm of rocks until he found Harry, sitting on his rock, his back to the shore and the house. Harry, with his knees pulled tightly to his chest, his chin resting on crossed forearms. Harry on the rocks, gazing listlessly at the sea.

Wyatt tried shouting, but the coarse winds and strong surf only carried his words back toward the house where they were useless, and he realized there was no other choice than to begin walking down the craggy path. Carefully he picked his way down the side of the cliff, twisting and turning back and forth until he was able to jump the last few feet to the rock strewn beach. Once at sea level, he immediately saw how Harry had managed a walk so far out into the cove; the lumpy arc of stones created a natural trail from the beach to the last large boulder upon which his lover sat.

Calling Harry’s name again, Wyatt discovered that, as pointless as his efforts were atop the bluff, here by the sea, they were utterly meaningless; the sea roared stronger and the winds howled louder. So, he started out slowly, stepping from pebble to stone, slipping on the slick wet surfaces. The sea spray dampened his skin and sent chills through his body, and the stronger waves taunted him, threatening to toss him into the water more than once.

After losing his balance, and stepping knee deep into a tide pool about halfway out, Wyatt finally got near enough for Harry to hear his shouts. But when he turned, although he wore sunglasses—a pair of crimson circles bought for two-ninety-nine at an Arco station in Daly City—Wyatt could see that Harry had been crying. The tears, however, had seemingly ended, for Harry grinned broadly when Wyatt clambered onto the boulder, shaking the salt water from his hands and wiping them on his shirtfront. Pushing the glasses into his hair, and rubbing a wrist over both eyes, Harry scrambled over the stone to hold out a hand; taking it, he pulled Wyatt to his side.

“Morning” Wyatt said as he settled in next to Harry, throwing his arm over Harry’s shoulders and planting a small kiss on his cheek.

“How’d you know I was here?” Harry hollered above the bawling surf.

“Jimmy came by.” Wyatt shouted back as the waves and winds died for a moment; then he spoke more calmly. “He said you used to come out here a lot.”

“Yeah, I did.” Harry rubbed his palm against Wyatt’s thigh and tugged at a loose thread along the inseam. For all the times he had come to the rock, all the days he sat and wondered who he was and where, if anywhere, he fit in the world, he had never sat beside anyone. He’d always considered it his spot, but now, like so many things in his life, be it a place, something special, a movie or piece of music, a thought or dream, he could share it with the man he loved. “This was the one spot where I didn’t feel so alone. I would spend hours out here, even in the rain…”

“You didn’t feel alone here?” Wyatt asked, looking around, taking in the dramatic, but essentially barren view. Though the rock was sheltered in the relative safety of the cove, it was set far enough from the shore that, if you looked straight ahead, you saw nothing but ocean and sky. Only by turning your head one way or the other, could you even see land at all; only by craning your neck all the way around did the house at the end of Skeleton Road come into view. “How could you not feel alone out here? There’s nothing out here.”

Harry laughed. “That’s exactly why.” His eyes followed the thin line separating the sapphire Pacific from the pristine pale sky of morning. “When I was a little boy, I felt so different from everybody. I didn’t know what gay was and I certainly didn’t know any gay people…”

“No ‘funny’ uncles?”

“No uncles, period.” Harry laughed again, though this time it was more melancholy. “I started coming here to watch the sea and think, but mostly to get away from…her. You know, if you look out there,” Harry flung his hand at the horizon, “you can’t see a thing. No people and rarely any boats. It’s all…nothing….” Harry’s words flew away on the wind.

“And that made you feel less lonely?”

“Sure it did. See…out here, there were no kids pushing me into lockers or calling me names. There were no little brothers who…made fun of me. No mothers who would…well, no mothers at all. When I came out here, it was only me, and I was gay. I mean, how could that be wrong. If I was the only person and I was gay, what was wrong with that? Out here, everyone was gay, even if it was only me…”

“I can’t believe you didn’t have anyone to talk to about this.”

“Well, there might have been someone if I hadn’t been so afraid to look, so afraid of what people might say. Look at it this way, Wyatt, I lived at the end of a road to nowhere with a mother everyone knew was a crazy drunk. I was the kid whose father disappeared without a word, whose sister ran out on him, too.  How was I supposed to say, ‘Oh, by the way, I kinda like boys.’ “Harry laughed at the idea and Wyatt leaned into him, slipping his hand into Harry’s.  ”Out here on the rock, everyone liked boys.”

“And they still do.” Wyatt said, as a flock of gulls soared overhead, squawking their disapproval at the two interlopers on the rock. Together they watched the sea drift by, and marveled at the seamlessness between the azure ocean and the wan sky, sitting on a rock all by themselves.