John Saunders was moody. Had been as long as Parrish had known him. As a result and as a child will, Parrish had learned how to navigate his way through the shoals of John’s attitude without foundering.
“Who left his damned sweatshirt lying in this chair? Dammit, clothes belong in the closet. Your closet! The living room is no place for them! Why was it taken off in here anyway?”
In the kitchen, Peter rolled his eyes and kept basting the capon they were roasting for dinner. Parrish put down the potato and peeler he’d been holding, wiped his hands on his apron, and wandered into the living room.
“What’s got your tit in a ringer tonight?” he asked.
“Dammit! I don’t even get any respect in my own home. I ought to throw you two ungrateful brats back on the street where you belong!”
“Then who’d cook for you, clean your shitty underwear and darn your socks?”
“Darn my socks? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Talking about you settling down or you won’t get any of the chicken. So there’s a sweatshirt on the couch. Big fucking deal.”
“Hey, watch you’re mouth. Ten–year-olds can’t go around saying ‘fucking’.”
“I’m twelve, and you know it. So what’s got your panties in a twist?”
“Grrrrrr. I’ll tell you over dinner.”
“You want a drink?”
“Yeah, get me a beer.”
“You want a sliver of lime in it?”
John just glared at him, and Parrish broke out laughing. “OK, no little umbrella or doily either.”
Parrish carved the capon at the table and served the other two. He’d watched John make a mess of the carving job several times with chickens and even a turkey, then checked the internet for instructions and now did it himself. He realized that perhaps John had screwed it up on purpose so he wouldn’t have to do it any longer—John thought most household jobs were women’s work—but Parrish didn’t care. It was just one more skill he’d learned, and he liked knowing how to do things.
Over dinner, Peter asked John how things were going in the meth investigation. “You any closer to catching the guy that had Parrish in the mall?”
John took a last pull on his beer bottle before answering. He waved the empty at Parrish. Parrish glared at him till John managed a meek, “Please?” Then Parrish got him one from the refrigerator.
“Not making any progress at all. It’s crap. We’ve got guys checking bars, especially the seedy ones, but there are lots of bars and only a few of us, and we’d have to be in the right one at the right time to find him; the bartenders are no help. We’ve made up an artist’s sketch, but those rarely look much like the person, and we’ve had no hits on it. If the guy has an ounce of sense he’s changed his appearance anyway or left town entirely.”
“And meth is still on the streets?” Parrish asked.
“Yeah. We can stop that if we see it, or if someone OD’s we can talk to the user; well, sometimes we can. I’ll tell you, you work all day on this every day, and get nowhere; it gets just a mite frustrating.”
“Yeah,” said Parrish, sarcastically. “Frustrating enough that you jump up and down when you see a stray sweatshirt in the living room.”
John couldn’t help himself. He smiled. “OK, I apologize.”
Parrish and Peter grinned.
“Hey,” John said, “weren’t you two going to ask around, see if any of the kids you know are into meth or know anyone who is?”
Peter answered. “The problem is, since it’s summer, we don’t have much contact with a lot of kids. Some are on vacation with their families or at summer camp or in summer school, and we just don’t see them around. We have spoken to a few kids, and they don’t know anything at all about it.
“It could be they’re covering up if they do know, but it didn’t seem like that.”
“You tried at the mall?” John asked.
“Yeah. That’s the best place to find kids in the summer,” Peter explained.
“Maybe not,” Parrish kicked in. When he got a blank stare from Peter, he went on. “They’ve opened a new youth center in town. Been open a week or two. Peter, you and I need to check it out. There’re bound to be kids there—our age, too—and maybe we could ask them. John, give us another one of those sketches. The one I have is sort of smudged up by now. I’ll hang one in the center if they’ll allow that.”
John said that was a good idea, and then, unable to help himself, turned to Peter and asked, “How come you don’t get good ideas like that?” He kept his smile in check.
Peter wasn’t fazed. “Because I’m too busy doing your laundry,” he replied.
««« »»»
They walked to the FYC the next day. There were more kids there than they’d expected, and when they looked around, they saw why: the place was impressive. There were kids in the pool, kids playing ping pong and pool, kids in the gym playing basketball, and a lot of kids just sitting and talking.
Peter and Parrish walked around, taking their time, seeing it all. The kid in each of them emerged. They played a game of ping pong against each other, and then, to their surprise, were asked if they wanted to play doubles against two other boys who’d been watching them. The other boys were slightly older. They introduced themselves as Micah and Jordan. Because they were older, Micah suggested they break up the teams, one older guy with one younger guy.
Peter, being Peter, saw this as an insult—well, a friendly insult, but an insult just the same. It was a challenge to him, and he was always up for a challenge. “No,” he said, “we’ll kick your ass even if you are bigger.”
Jordan laughed, and soon all the others were, too, and Peter had the grit to look abashed at his own scrappiness.
Jordan then said, “OK. But if we win big, then we’ll change teams.”
The boys played and then switched teams and played again, and then once more with the other pairing. All four boys were competitive, and if Micah was quieter than the other three, he had just as much fun. Jordan was the best player, Peter the loudest and best trash talker, though Jordan gave back as good as he got. Both Micah and Parrish spent a lot of time grinning.
After the games, Parrish had a chance to talk to the older boys about the center, and both Micah and Jordan gushed about how great it was. Micah was the one who mentioned the LGBT activities.
“They even have a separate lounge, but it’s open for anyone. I think it has a designation just so people who go in there know they have to be OK with gay kids. We go in there a lot.” Micah smiled at the two younger boys, almost inviting comment.
Peter looked at Parrish, and Parrish gave him a slight nod. Peter, being Peter, rather than simply telling these two that they themselves were gay, asked, “Have those gay boys ever come on to you guys? I mean, you’re both attractive. I could see you getting hit on.”
Jordan answered. “You don’t do that if two guys are together, and we’re always together.” He put his arm around Micah.
Peter was going to keep going, but Parrish forestalled him by putting his own arm around Peter. Jordan’s eyes opened a bit wider, and Parrish grinned and smiled. “Peter likes to stir things up,” he said. “He’s harmless, though.”
“Harmless?! I’ll give you harmless!”
Parrish just hugged him tighter, and the other two smiled. Then Micah said, “Come on. We’ll show you around.”
They toured the facility together, quickly becoming friends. Micah showed them the painting of the mill, and it affected the two twelve-year-olds just like it had affected everyone else who’d seen it. Jordan and Micah still were shocked, every time they saw it. They knew they were the two boys on the blanket. They knew they’d been observed. But the more they looked, the less embarrassed they felt about it. They weren’t recognizable in the picture. And, the picture showed two boys in love. They realized that in a sense, the love they’d felt that day had been memorialized. They came back often to look at the painting and argued between themselves whether they should talk to Corbin Fuller about it. Corbin made frequent appearances at the center and had even introduced himself to the two boys, as he did with most of the kids he met there. They’d seen no recognition in his eyes. They guessed he was either an extremely discreet man or had been too far away to see their faces. Either way, if they wanted him to know it was them that early morning, it would be up to them to say it. Jordan wanted to; Micah didn’t. And there it stood.
After looking at the picture and watching the younger boys’ reaction—they always enjoyed seeing how people reacted to the picture—Micah and Jordan led them to the LGBT lounge. There were a few kids there, mostly boys, and mostly paired up.
Jordan took the lead in introducing the newcomers to the guys in the room. The last pair of boys he introduced them to were Josh Anthony and Jack Jenning.
Jordan did all the introduction, passing out everyone’s names, then said, “Josh and Jack just started coming here. We’ve just met them ourselves. They’re just out.”
Jack said, “And it’s the best feeling in the world. I get to tell everyone that Josh is no longer available. He’s mine.” Jack laughed, and the others did, too. Then Josh spoke up. “I’m the lucky one. No one notices me with Jack around, and he was the reason we couldn’t come out earlier. But now we are and can come here and not worry what anyone will say. We’re loving this.”
Parrish noted that when Josh spoke, everyone in the room seemed to listen. There was a charisma about Josh, and everyone felt it. He might be smaller, he might be quieter than Jack, but there was a presence about him, a sense of dignity and inner strength, and this was apparent enough that without trying, he commanded respect.
The six boys sat and talked. Even though their ages ranged from twelve to fifteen, they had things in common that cemented them right from first meeting. They were gay, and they were attached couples. It was easy to talk to each other. They spoke about themselves: about how Peter and Parrish had met and what they were doing now. About how Josh and Jack had finally been able to come out. About Jordan and Micah finally having the courage to speak to each other about how they felt; they didn’t mention the morning at the mill. That, to them, was sacrosanct.
Parrish found the opportunity to talk to the others about the meth problem in town. He told the story about what happened in the mall and showed the artist’s rendition of the guy who’d gotten away. The four boys hearing this found it both exciting and alarming. None of them knew anything about crystal meth. None knew of anyone their age who used it or had been approached by someone selling it. It looked like another dead end. Parrish would have to talk to more people.