Epilogue

Dad had just retired from politics. I wasn't surprised last year when he announced it. Everyone else was. Everyone, even the President, thought he would serve one more term in the Senate. But, in this post-9/11 world of the Patriot Act and the War on Terror, politics was now a lot different than it was when Daddy first ran for District Attorney in Clarkesville. Politics was no longer for gentlemen. People no longer debated, they demonized; they no longer discussed, they destroyed. Daddy had lived through this type of atmosphere once before and I knew he was ready to leave it.

What did surprise me was that he wanted to move back to Clarkesville. When Alex and I left home for college, (Columbia for Alex and NYU for me, much to my father's chagrin), and Dad was elected Attorney General, I had never set foot in the town again. Dad had bought a big house down the street from the state capitol and after his years as Attorney General and Governor, I always assumed that when he left the U.S. Senate, he and Mother would retire to the big house on State St. where Dad could pull some strings behind the scenes and Mother could stay in the social world she loved so much. So, it came as a shock last October when Dad called me in New York and told me that he had bought the Partridges' old house on Union, across from Centennial Park and a block from where I had grown up. He had been making a campaign appearance for the Party's candidate to succeed him in the Senate and Roy Jenkins, still in real estate and still just as tacky after thirty years, had mentioned the house at 11th and Union was for sale. Dad said he didn't think twice.

I hadn't set foot in Clarkesville since 1978. I couldn't imagine returning. Alex and I had lived in New York since we had left for college, he a famous artist, me producing documentaries for public television. We had never looked back and now...

Every year, Alex and I spent the holidays either with his parents in San Francisco or with mine in either Washington or back at the state capital. This year would be different.

Dad picked me up at the Kansas City airport. It was strange not to have an official car and driver and security and aides everywhere. It was just Dad and me and his... BMW?

"You're not having some kind of delayed mid-life crisis now that you're out of office, are you?" I asked with a grin as I threw into the trunk what was left of my luggage after security and the United baggage handlers had gotten through with it. Dad grinned.

"I don't have to worry about the voters anymore."

He then proceeded to show me that the old man could still handle a stick as we whipped out of the short-term parking and then out onto I-29.

I pulled my Nokia from my pocket and called home. No answer. I sighed and left a message saying I had gotten into KC just fine and that we would be in Clarkesville in an hour. I was silent as I replaced the phone in my pocket.

It was no secret that my relationship had been dying of entropy for some time, the victim of two successful yet divergent careers, one in art and one in documentary film-making, that had come to be more fulfilling than the passion and joy with which they had competed. Mother and Dad had treated Alex as if he were their own son. Dad's political career had survived having a gay son just as Vice-President Cheney's had survived his gay daughter and Speaker Gingrich's had survived his gay sister. It was just Alex and me. We were drifting. I didn't know how to stop the drift, or even if I wanted to.

I was surprised at how much the town had changed and yet, hadn't. And, when we pulled onto Union Avenue and Centennial Park lay before me, I felt tears form in my eyes.

I had decided, after dinner to take a walk. It was not too cold and my jacket was sufficient. As I walked across the street in the dark, I stood beside the stump of the old maple tree, the tree. Apparently sometime in the last thirty years, it had been cut down. I sat down on the stump, my feet resting where Alex and I had sat so many times reading together. I looked up at the house that had once belonged to Alex's parents and now belonged to mine. I looked up at the room where Alex and I had made love so often as boys, now rented by a student at Clarkesville College. I turned and laughed.

Some things never changed. On the side of the big green army tank, someone protesting what would certainly be the upcoming war with Iraq had painted "Fuck Bush." When I was a boy, it was "Fuck Nixon." Some things never changed.

Tears formed in my eyes as I looked to the east. Jack still owned Leonardo's. Stephen's mother had given it to him and there it was. The lights were still on in the window, as they were in the others shops and cafes along College Avenue, catering to the pre-Christmas evening shoppers.

I remembered that special day when Stephen had told me it was OK to be gay, the same day Webster Hardesty had first walked into my life. I chuckled sadly as I remembered how Hardesty had disappeared the day after the verdict, taking all his church's funds with him.

And, yes, there at the south end of the park, the rec center still stood.

I had read The Clarkesville Chronicle's report of the conviction of Leroy Burris so many times that I had memorized it. As I looked at the place that had seen the start of the most beautiful and painful summer of my life, I remembered the tortured words of my father, as quoted in the paper, in his summation before the jury. He had presented all the evidence, rebutted all of Donald's arguments for the defense, and ended with these words.

The jury had deliberated for only an hour before it returned with a verdict of guilty of first degree murder. Burris had been sentenced to death, but when the Supreme Court ruled against the death penalty in the mid-seventies, Burris' sentence went to life in prison without parole. I understand he died in prison sometime in the eighties of AIDS. I can only imagine what hell his life must have been, being on the receiving end of prison rape for years. And, yet, as I think of him, I cannot erase from my mind the image of Jack on his knees holding Stephen's head and crying, "Help me."

All of this because one man loved another.

I sat in the dark, the crisp cool breeze tossing my hair across my forehead.

All of this because one man loved another.

I pulled my cell phone from my pocket and called.

There were sounds of talking above a piano in the background. And, a sigh.

"Chris, I'm at a showing at Dolly's gallery. Is this important?"

I paused.

"Chris? Are you there?"

"Yes. Yes, I'm here and, yes, its important."

A pause.

"Well?"

"Alex, come home."

A pause.

"What?"

"Come home. I need you."

Another pause. I pressed on.

"Alex, I'm at the tree. I see the house. I see Leonardo's. I just don't see you. I need you. I need to see you. All the crap in our lives, it doesn't mean anything. You and I are all that means anything."

Another pause.

"Come home, Alex."

Another pause, and, then...

"I'm on my way."