Chapter Three: The Same, Later That Day

“Well, I for one don’t like them.” I was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, watching Landen clean off the sweat and dirt that he’d accumulated while raking the leaves. Shoned was curled up in the doorway on the edge of the carpet. She doesn’t like the granite flooring that we had installed in the bathroom.

“Why not?” Landen asked. “They seemed nice enough.”

“They seemed freaked out.”

“Well, it’s not every day that see two guys making out.” Landen turned and looked at me, the water hitting his back and falling to the floor.

“One doesn’t need to look freaked out by the whole thing. It was just kissing. It wasn’t like I was giving you head on the front lawn.” Landen looked at me through the glass. “I bet it wouldn’t bother them if it was a guy and girl.”

“That’s cultural,” Landen said, applying shampoo. “Maybe they just aren’t use to gays. I’m sure once they moved in they’d get use to us. No one else in the neighborhood minds.”

“But I don’t think they ever minded. So it doesn’t count.”

“I’m never going to win this one, am I,” Landen said, rinsing his hair out.

“Nope.”

“Why do you really not like them?” Landen turned off the shower. I handed him his towel over the shower wall.

“That’s easy,” I replied. Landen looked at me through the creases of the towel. “They don’t like me.”


“You don’t know that.”

“I know they didn’t like two mos kissing,” I ran my hand through my hair. “And you saw that too, I don’t care what you say.”

“That’s no reason not to like them.”

“Plenty of reason in my book.”

“We don’t even know if they’re actually moving in, so let’s worry about that when, and if we get to it, okay?”

“Fine,” I replied. I paused. “I still say that we need a taller fence.”

“I don’t really think that a taller wired fence is going to do anything.”

“Maybe we should a white picket fence. A tall one. Then we really would have a little, cute house, on a little, cute street with a crucifix on the door.” I showed as much teeth as possible. Shoned rolled over on the carpet.

“We already have a little, cute house, on a little, cute street and a crucifix on the inside of the door.” Landen wrapped the towel around his waist and walked into the closet. “How would having an eight foot white picket fence change that?”

It was true. We lived on a little, cute street. We did have a cute house but I wouldn’t call it little. We had a crucifix on the inside of the door. We also had a mezuzah on the doorframe and statues of Shiva and Ganesha from when we were in India. We’re an equal religion household. If there were some Islamic iconology that we knew of, we’d probably have that too.

“If anything,” Landen continued, “I’d think that a huge fence in front of our yard would make the house less cute…or attractive…or whatever. Besides, I think Shoned likes having the wired fence so she can see outside of the yard and realize that it’s better to be protected with us. If there was a huge fence she’d be wondering what was outside the fence and try to escape all the time.”

“If I were a lawyer, and this were a trial…” I followed him into the closet.

“Let me guess, speculation?” Landen smiled. Shoned got up and walked to the door of the closet, looking at us.

“Exactly.” I smiled. Shoned yodeled. Landen laughed.

“I just think that we should be more open minded than them.” Landen looked frankly at me.

“You mean show them that we’re better than them?”

“Yes.” Landen paused. “I mean no.”

“Well now you’re just confusing me,” I added, still smiling.

“My point is, I just don’t think that you’re giving them a chance.” Landen put pants on, underwear first, of course, and walked into the bedroom again. I followed. “So they were a little put off by our public display, they’re just not used to it yet. If you saw them kissing in public I’m sure you would have been far more vocal than they were.”

“That is not true,” I protested.

Landen raised his eyebrows and looked at me. I paused.

“Ok, fine, you’re right, congratulations. Don’t pull out the rainbow boa and throw a whole gay ticker tape parade over it.”

Landen found a shirt from his drawer, the green and brown striped one I got him for his birthday, and pulled it over his head. “Well, Nancy seemed nice.”

“Don’t change the subject,” I retorted. “And yes, I’m sure that she makes a very nice trophy wife.”

“You think she’s a trophy wife?” Landen asked.

“Yes, don’t you?” I responded.

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Landen said. “To who? Like a doctor? Acupuncturist?” He got excited at the prospects.

“I was thinking more along the lines of some super butch uber-dyke who wears leather chaps, drives a hog and uses a whip as her main fashion accessory.”

“Lovely imaginary,” Landen commented.

“Imaginary is the spice of life.” I flailed my hands in the air. “I tell my kids that all the time.”

“Hopefully with as much flair as you just told me,” Landen said, laughing

“What do you mean?”

“You were just very…excited about it, is all.”

“Do you not like me excited?”

“I love you all the time.” He leaned forward and kissed me.

“You can’t say I love you to end a fight,” I pouted. “That’s cheating.”

“I didn’t realize we were fighting,” Landen responded.

“You know what I mean.”

Shoned yodeled.

“What do you want?” I asked.

She pawed the floor with her feet, and gently head butted my leg.

“I swear this dog has to pee more than my incontinent grandmother.” Landen said. “You were just outside for like three hours.”
She hopped up at the mention of outside and headed towards the bedroom door. We, reluctantly, followed after her.

“What time are we meeting Caroline and Miranda tonight?” Landen asked as we walked out of the room.

“We’re meeting Caroline and Miranda tonight?”

Landen looked at me, confused. “Yes. And Benjamin. And Connor. It’s the Youth Service Auction and Dinner at church tonight. And they’re meeting us there. Remember?”

“Absolutely,” I said. I paused and thought. “No clue what you’re talking about. That thing’s tonight?”

“Yes,” he replied. “It’s even on the calendar.”

“We have a calendar?”

He shot me a glance. I smiled showing more teeth than I thought possible. Landen shook his head.

“Oh, are we buying a house boy?” I asked.

“No,” Landen replied laughing. “Why do we need a house boy?”

“To…clean.” I said, more as a question than a statement.

“I want to find someone to watch Shoned. You know, while we’re at work or on a trip.” Shoned bounded back to us at the sound of her name.

I bent down and scratched her head. “We’re going on a trip? Oh my god, you’re taking me to Paris for Christmas?”

“What?” Landen asked. “Where’d you get that idea?”

“You said you were looking for someone to watch Shoned while we were on vacation. I just thought that we would be taking one.”

“Well, someday. But Paris…for Christmas?”

“We haven’t been to Paris for years,” I responded. “And you know how I love Paris, and that’s where we first consummated our relationship.”

“Consummated?”

“Had sex,” I explained.

“I know what consummated means, Bannon,” Landen began walking down the stairs, which was slightly more difficult than usual since Shoned had parked herself on the step and was staring at us, waiting.

“Than what was the problem? Why the question?”

“Don’t pet her when she’s on the stairs, or we’ll never get down. I questioned because we didn’t consummate our relationship in Paris,” Landen said, matter-of-factly.

“Yes, we totally did,” I replied. “In that hotel overlooking Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter.”

Landen shooed Shoned down the stairs and we continued towards the door. “You’re right,” I smiled. Landen ignored me and continued. “We did have sex in the Britannique Hotel.”

“See, I told you,” I said as I opened the door for Shoned. She quickly bounded outside, jumped down the porch and headed straight for the leaf pile.

“But that’s not where we consummated our relationship.” We sat down on the porch chairs. “When we went to Paris for Christmas we had only been dating for like a month, we decided that we weren’t going to have sex yet.”

“I’m familiar,” I replied.

“And remember, we stayed in that hostel in the 20th district. Where all the hookers were picking up tricks.”

“Ok, yeah, I remember that,” I said. “So if it wasn’t in Paris, where were we?”

“Inishmore.” Landen looked at me. “How could you forget?”

“I remember,” I responded. “I just thought we’d been together before that.”

“It was March and we left school on Friday and went to Galway. Saturday morning we took the ferry onto Inishmore. That night we were watching the sun set over the ocean, saw the seals playing, and then went back to the hotel.”

“And consummated our relationship,” I finished the sentence.

“Well, it was slightly more than just consummating our relationship.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “See, I remember the first time we made love, and I remember Inishmore, I just thought they were different.”

“Well, we’d been sleeping the same bed for a while,” Landen added. “Even on the first trip to Paris. So that might have confused you.”

“Yes, that must be what it was,” I said. There was a pause as we both watched Shoned bound her way around the yard. She picked up a stick and began shaking her head.

“Do you think that hurts her?” Landen finally asked.

“I wouldn’t imagine that she’d do it if it hurt,” I replied. I got up from my chair and sat on his lap, wrapping my arms around his neck. He put his hands on the small of my back and pulled me closer to him.

“What’s this for?”

“No reason,” I responded absently. I leaned forward and kissed him. “I love you. No other reason.”

“I love you too.” He averted his eyes to the street and released his right hand.

“What was that for?” I asked.

“Just waving to Barbara, Thomas and Nancy.”

Chapter Two: Caught Between A Fence and A Leaf Pile

“You know, Bannon,” Landen called from the yard, “you could come out and help me.” He had been raking leaves all morning while I sat, curled on one of our flower cushioned white wicker rocking chairs, drinking from the coffee laden oversized mug cupped between my two hands and watching him.

“I know,” I replied, right before taking another sip. “But then I wouldn’t get to watch you work. Besides, I’m in my pajamas still.”

“It’s almost eleven,” Landen said as he took the shirt he had tucked in the waistband of his jeans and wiped his forehead.

“What’s your point?” I asked as I bite my left thumb’s fingernail. “I had a rough week.”


“You certainly had no problem waking up with me this morning.” Landen replied as he returned to raking up the maple and apple tree leaves that covered the grass he had cut the previous weekend.

“You rustle a lot when you get up, I can’t help that.” I pushed back my cuticles. “We need one of those beds that don’t spill wine when you bounce on them.” I watched Landen’s deltoids flex and relax as he raked the right side of the lawn to the left. As he was passing the porch, he slipped the rake under the leaves and flicked them up to where And The Sun Shone Down That Morning and I were sitting. Shoned, the more familiar name for our basenji, yodeled playfully and leapt off the porch and ran around Landen’s legs. As a note, we are aware of the improper grammarness of her name, but with her full name being And The Sun Shone Down That Morning, we didn’t see anything wrong with the name Shoned. Besides, there’s a certain level of humor to the name “Shoned”.

“See, that’s what you get,” I laughed, “attack of the killer Shoned. And now you have to sweep up the porch, too.”

Landen shot me a glance. He looked at Shoned and looked at me again. He had a smirk on his face. Shoned ran up the porch and barked as best she could and danced around my feet. The second I looked down at her, Landen threw a pile of leaves onto the porch as Shoned continued to yodel and chirp. Looking up at Landen, I brushed the leaves out of my hair and off my clothing. Shoned continue to prance around my feet.

“Now my clothes are all dirty,” I whined, looking at Landen, pouting.

“Oh, is my baby all dirty?” Landen replied in his “Mother-Talking-To-Her-Three-Year-Old” voice.

“No,” I said, still brushing the leaves off my clothes. “My clothes, and your mind, are dirty. Shoned. Maul.” I pointed at Landen. Shoned looked at my arm, tilted her head, and turned and looked at Landen. She leapt off the porch with a happy yodel and chased after Landen as he ran around the yard. I walked off the porch, finally getting the leaves off my clothing, and out of my hair. I picked up the rake that Landen had dropped on the ground when Shoned came after him. Dipping it in the pile that Landen had spent such time making, I repaid Landen with a shower of leaves when he ran by with Shoned nipping at his heels. The leaves and dirt stuck, as anticipated, to his sweaty chest and face. Landen grabbed the handle of the rake, using it to pull me to him. I stumbled slightly, partly because of the force of the movement and partly because Shoned darted under my legs in the process. Landen tossed the rake into the pile of leaves, which seemed counterproductive, though given the recent throwing of leaves, a rake in the mix hardly seems to be a major problem. He wrapped his arms around my waist and pressed me against him.

“Your sweaty,” I said as the sweat and dirt mingled between his body and my shirt. “And dirty.”

He leaned forward and kissed me. And of course I kissed him back. Shoned tilted her head at both of us and cooed quietly.

You know that feeling you get when someone is watching you? Even with your eyes closed, you can still feel it. Trust me. We opened our eyes at the same time, stopped kissing and turned our heads to the right, well, my right, his left. Sure enough, there were three people standing there watching us from the sidewalk. We separated. Two of them, who I would guess were a couple given their blah, almost matching clothes, nervously averted their eyes. The second woman, third person, who carried a brown, leather attaché case, and was wearing a smart, if boring, navy suit, skirt combo, didn’t seem phased by the public display of affection. I’ve yet to really understand how clothing can be considered “smart,” but I really have no other word to describe it, so smart it is. And technically, it wasn’t public, given the fact that we are on our own property and they were the ones lurping around.

“Hi,” the businesswoman broke the ice. “My name’s Nancy Walker.”

Landen wiped his hand on his shirt and shook her hand over the fence. “Yeah, I recognize you from the realtor sign. I’m Landen Brinks, this is my boyfriend Bannon Chase.” I half waved and bit the right side of my lip.

“These are the Keatings, Barbara and Thomas.” She waved at the couple, the woman first and then the man, to emphasize which was Barbara, and which was Thomas in case we needed it.

“You’re Irish? Or your name is, I guess that doesn’t mean you are.” Uncomfortable pause. “Bannon and I met in Ireland.” He reached his hand out. The couple crept forward and quickly shook it. Landen snapped his left hand and I sidled forward and shook their hands.

“It’s not contagious,” I mumbled.

“Excuse me?” Thomas replied, confused.

“Nothing,” Landen said, glare-smiling at me. “House hunting?”

“They’re interested in 1630.”

“That’s a nice house,” Landen continued. “Lots of room. Do you have kids?”

“Not yet,” Barbara responded.

“Still practicing?” Landen winked. I stifled a chuckle, and a bit of a gag at the thought of that activity.

“Um, well, um,” Barbara began, blushing. Thomas continued looking at the ground.

“Sorry,” Landen quickly said. “Not really my business. Forget I asked. Just trying to be funny.”

“You’re rambling,” I whispered to him.

“That dog is the cutest thing ever,” Nancy exclaimed, emphasizing the word ever, leaning over the fence. Shoned tilted her head and raised what would have been her eyebrows if dogs had eyebrows. “What is he?”

“She’s a basenji,” I replied.

“She’s adorable, what’s her name?”

“And The Sun Shone Down That Morning,” I replied.

Nancy, Barbara and Thomas looked at us.

“It’s her AKC name,” Landen explained.

“And you say that every time you call her?” Thomas asked.

“No, of course not. We call her Shoned.” I nodded agreement with Landen.

“You do know that Shoned…” Barbara knowingly began.

“Yes, we do,” I responded. “But we like it. It’s funny.”

“Why is improper grammar funny?” Barbara asked.

“I don’t know,” I retorted. “Why are most sitcoms considered funny? Personal preference.”

“Easy, honey,” Landen whispered.

“Well,” Nancy spoke up in possibly the chirperest, make my head want to explode voice I’d ever heard. “I just wanted to introduce them the some of the potential new neighbors and since you two were out here, I thought it’d be nice if you got to talk for a bit.”

I smiled and raised my eyebrows.

“It was lovely to met you both, well, all three of you,” Landen said reaching his hand back over the fence to get in a second shaking. “Hopefully we’ll get to see you around soon.”

“Yes,” Thomas said. “Hopefully.” I noticed that he was much quicker with the handshakes this time. I leaned forward and shook hands with both Barbara and Thomas.

“Sorry,” Nancy mouthed as she shook my hand. I smiled and raised my eyebrows again.

“Good luck, with the whole house buying thing,” Landen called after them as they walked down to 1630. He turned and looked at me. I could tell that within his mouth he was twirling his tongue over his teeth. “They seemed nice.”

“We need a taller fence.”

Chapter One: A Digression

My mother died in a freak, wallpapering incident. She had been placing a three-toned blue, sponge-painted looking wallpaper in the bathroom and had covered up the light switches, which I guess is what one does when wallpapering. To make the hole she took an Exacto knife and cut through the wallpaper. The wet paper, electrical socket and metal Exacto knife were apparently not a good match. As she cut through the cord, by accident, mind you, the electrical voltage, amplified by the water that soaked through the wallpaper, surged through the metal handle of the knife and entered her body at thirty thousand volts. I’m not an electrician, and I was only seven, so I really have no idea how many volts entered her body, I just assume it was some high number and thirty thousand seems like a lot. My father was quite shocked by the alleged, grisly details as reported by the coroner. Little did I know at eighteen, which is when I finally learned completely what had happened, that high-level electrical shocks cause a complete lose of all bodily functions. I don’t think I need to describe what actually happened, but I think that we were all thankful that if it was going to occur, might as well take place in the bathroom with it’s off-white tiled-floors, which, if I recall properly, were quickly replaced after the incident.

My sister and I were raised under the iron cane of my grandmother and the rubber fist of my father until we graduated college. Well, actually, my father raised us until we graduated college, my grandmother had past away about six years prior. From them we learned right from wrong, especially when it came to wallpapering and other fundamental house repairs. He always told us that if we were going to die young, it wouldn’t be from improper house repair work. I’m grateful for learning basic house repair as I don’t have to call on Landen if the sink is dripping or a light bulb needs changing. I do call on him for yard work and the like. Call me crazy, but he usually works with his shirt off and there’s just something about watching him do yard work bare upper torsoed.

My father’s pretty cool as far as fathers go. I came out to him when I fourteen, but he was half asleep and didn’t remember it the following day. So I told him again. He didn’t freak out or beat me, or anything of that nature as I was kind of expecting. Not that I was expecting him to, but one never knows. He kind of brushed it off with little more than, well, a brush off. Not really a negative brush off, just an okay, type of deal. Given no real mother figure in my life, I have a much better relationship with my father than most gay men. He actually discussed my boyfriends with me throughout high school and college. He never commented on the attractiveness of them, but he was at least willing to talk about them.

My grandmother reacted a little differently. I kneeled down next to her, she would always sit in a recliner and watch the CBS soaps, and told her I was gay. She proceeded to hit me with her cane. Originally I just thought that this was normal, spastic reaction that she had, she’d frequently lash out uncontrollably with her cane, especially towards the end of her life, and remember, this was a mere two years before she moved on from the earthly plane (that just sounds better than died). But looking back on that moment, she had remarkable precision that she never could have repeated upon my telling her. She never seemed ashamed of it. But then, she never seemed anything but interested in the latest love triangle between Steve, Alicia and Joe, or whoever the storyline of the moment was. I think she would have TiVoed every soap if it had been invented in her lifetime.

My sister already knew. At least she claimed to. Not that I was particularly masculine in my youth, or my adulthood to date, not that I consider twenty-seven an adult by any stretch of the imagination. So I suppose that it is completely possibly that my sister did in fact know the truth. Regardless of whether she knew or suspected, she responded as I had hoped she would.

My mother’s ashes remained on the ground when I told her, although I couldn’t actually see them, given seven years of rain and wind that I’m sure had long since carried them away. No bright light, no swirling of dirt, no burning bush, no acknowledgement from her bodily remains. Which I can deal with. The best part of having a parent die when you’re still seven is that you never have to deal with the idea that they may not have been proud of you, or were ashamed of you, or didn’t love you. I like to think that all parents love their children when they’re seven. The children, not the parents.

My friends seemed okay with it. Especially the girls. They quickly, and proudly, took up the reigns of fag-hag, two of them remaining my favorite hags to this day. Even the one straight male friend that I had, who played lacrosse, a widely played sport in the Mid-Atlantic region, was okay with it. I think that he saw the potential of benefits without me telling anyone. And while I would have been okay with that, I never pursued it, and he never mustered the balls to ask for any favors, so I never delivered. Although rumor has it that there was a guy on the lacrosse team that took care of those issues for the team, especially on long bus rides. The only one that had a problem with it was the closeted gay friend that I had. He seemed shocked, disgusted and appalled, redundant, I know, by it all. I tried to gay him forward throughout high school to no avail. I’ve been told that he’s since come out of the closet. I wasn’t shocked, disgusted, appalled, or interested, when I heard that news.

I spent four years of high school teaching myself in the School of Hard Knocks. Lucky for me, the classes rarely got in the way of regular school. Hard Knocks was also kind enough to have given me several similar classes at the same time. One of my personal favorites, if you could only hear the sarcasm in my head voice as I type this, was the Self-Deprecating Homosexual 101. You know the one. Okay, so maybe you don’t. It’s the “I-Hate-Being-Me-Because-I’m-Attracted-To-Other-Boys” attitude that I think most gay men go through at least one point in their lives. Despite the fact that I dated on numerous occasions, I many of my thoughts reverted to that theme. I was, however, the first person to take someone of the same sex to prom, and still be elected Prom King. Actually, I was both, the first to take a member of the same sex and be the first openly gay man elected Prom King. Before you ask, no, my date was not a drag queen and no, he did not win Prom Queen.

While living right outside of DC has definite advantages: a diverse environment to grow and develop, the thriving gay community of Dupont Circle, lots of gay people to make you realize that you’re not a horrible person because of the way that God made you, it still took time to create my own individuality and both acceptance and separation from my homosexuality. As a result, the School of Hard Knocks tended to give me far lower grades than my actual high school. It wasn’t until I was a junior in college, studying in Ireland that I finally pieced my life together enough so that I could function and only attend one school: the one my father was paying out the ears for. Of course, once you get into the “real world” there’s a different school, same name, different classes. Slightly harder, different classes: Fundamentals of Relationships, Dealing with Hair Loss, and my personal favorite, Paying the Bills without Whoring Yourself 301 and 302. Landen and I are taking the first, third, and fourth classes together. It’s much easier to go through the classes with someone, than having to figure them out for yourself.

Coincidently, much of my settling and full discovery of myself occurred just before I met Landen. As he enjoys telling me, we’d actually met earlier two months earlier than I claim we did, I was simply at a place where I wasn’t ready to meet him. But I digress, as that story is for another time. Although, I guess technically it isn’t a digression, given my explosion of exposition from the get-go. I promise, there won’t be near as much exposition in the future, I know, nothing destroys a story like too much exposition. I just needed to get all that off my chest, I feel better now. I guess you really didn’t need to know all that stuff given the fact that you won’t meet most of the people aforementioned later in the story since their lives have no impact on mine, and really, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Run on sentence…my English teachers would kill me. For instance, my mother and grandmother, well, they’re dead, you won’t get to meet them again. The lacrosse friend and closeted gay ex-friend are unimportant in the further development of the plot. My father and sister you’ll get to read a line or two here and there, mostly at holidays.

I’m digressing again, aren’t I?