Bryce

The Second Semester

Chapter 5 - Jason and DeShawn

            As he did not get to bed until well after three in the morning, Bryce did not rise to exercise at the gym on Saturday.  Instead, he began his day by stumbling into Damon’s room and snuggling down in bed with him.  It was so warm and comfortable there.  Later, after a shower and something which was neither breakfast nor lunch, Bryce did some serious library work, trying to decide on topics for the various papers required in his classes.  About one-thirty, he grabbed a quick snack, then headed back to his dorm to meet with Jason Todd.

            Jason arrived right on time at two o’clock.  He was looking a little the worse for wear.  As far as Bryce could remember, he had not seen Jason after about midnight the previous evening, so he did not know what to think, but invited him in.  Bryce offered Jason the comfortable easy chair, and took the chair at his desk.

            “You don’t look too chipper this afternoon,” Bryce began.

            “Don’t feel too chipper, either,” Jason replied.  “I’m afraid I had too much at the party, then that slave driver Curtis set us to work cleaning up the mess you guys left behind.  How come I had to work and you didn’t,” he complained.

            “Because I got here on Tuesday, attended the planning meeting that evening, and worked setting everything up over the next three days,” Bryce replied.  “Can I get you something?  Aspirin?  Tylenol?”

            “Tylenol and water,” Jason requested.

            Bryce stepped into the bathroom, obtained the pain killer and a glass of water, and returned to his guest.

            Jason gratefully downed the gift, then added, “After all the cleanup, I went out with a couple of guys, and drank some more.  That was stupid, I know.  I do a lot of stupid things.  Anyway, it was light by the time I got to bed.  I only got up a half-hour ago.”

            “Jason, if you don’t feel like talking now, we can do this some other time,” Bryce offered.

            “No.  If I put this off, I may never get up the nerve to do it at all.”  He paused, and there was silence for several minutes.  Bryce decided to let Jason set the pace.  Taking a deep breath, Jason continued, “You know why I’m here, don’t you?”

            “I have a pretty good idea.  At the last party before Christmas, you kind of indicated you might be gay, too.  When we met yesterday, you reminded me of that, then asked for this meeting.  Ergo, you want to talk about being gay,” Bryce deduced.

            “Aristotle would be proud of you.  A perfect syllogism.  Major premise, minor premise, conclusion,” Jason commented.  “Can’t fault your logic.  But it’s damned difficult getting started.”

            “Okay, maybe I can help.  When I arrived on campus last August, I knew deep down inside me that I was gay, but I had been resisting admitting that, even to myself, for years.  There were a lot of reasons.  I had the same reasons most guys have: fear of rejection by family and friends, fear of the consequences from society as a whole, worry about relationships, worry about my masculinity, all that.  In addition, I’m a practicing Catholic, and I was worried about how I could fit being gay into my religious beliefs.  I don’t know how much of this applies to you, Jason.  You have not been the most outgoing brother at SAT, and I don’t know you at all well.  But, at least I went through all that not too long ago, so anything I can do to help, just ask,” Bryce  offered.

            “Yeah, I can identify with a lot of that.  Right now, the thing that worries me most is how my family will respond.  Tell me about yours,” Jason asked.

            “I keep in touch with family two ways.  I e-mail whenever I have something to say, or whenever I get an e-mail from someone and need to respond.  Then, my mom calls me just about every Sunday afternoon.  I guess I let more creep into my contacts than I realized, but shortly before the fall break I was told that my sister was coming to check on me.  My sister is two years older than me, and has always been a second mother, sort of, looking out for me, and telling me things I need to know to avoid problems,” Bryce began.

            “Like what?”

            “Well, all sorts of things.  Like, it’s okay to tell a guy his haircut looks goofy, but never, ever tell a girl that,” Bryce laughed.  “Of course, she told me that after I had just had a neighborhood girl throw sand at me and then run from me crying.”

            “Throw sand at you?”

            “Well, we were at the playground.  I think I was five at the time,” Bryce confessed.

            Jason smiled for the first time since entering.  “I see it made a big impression on you.”

            “Scarred me for life,” Bryce kidded.  Then he resumed his narrative, “Nan - that’s my sister - came here, and in two days told me she and my mom pretty much figured out I was gay, it was okay with them, and I had better get myself straight with the Church.  She then arranged for me to meet with the college chaplain.  That worked out just fine, by the way.  Nan has a pretty good feel for personalities, you know.  If the chaplain, Father Miller, had been a different sort of person, I’m sure she would not have put me in that situation.  She also met Damon and decided he was an okay sort of guy.  Anyway, with Nan and Mom on my side, I was half way there.  Mom was not happy, but as long as I was working at it, and not going off half-cocked, she put up with me, and came to accept that this is not a choice, but something given about a person.  All this was accomplished before Thanksgiving.  We arranged for me to bring Damon home for Thanksgiving, and everything went really well ....  Wait, that’s not completely true.  My older brother was a problem from the outset.  We never did get along all that well, and this time was worse than usual, even before anything came out about me being gay.  I think Chip is a bit of a racist, and resented Damon.  I know he’s a complete snob.  But anyway things were going pretty well in general until the last day, the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  Then everything blew apart.”

            “Oh, oh!  How did that happen?” Jason asked.

            “I lost my temper, basically.  We were at church, and the priest gave one of those stupid, ignorant sermons about the gay agenda and all that shit.  Damon and I walked out on him, and Mom and Nan and Mom’s parents did as well.  But on the way home my dad started complaining about us disrupting the service and causing a stir.  My dad is big on not rocking the boat –  not being noticed –  at least not by the wrong people at the wrong time.  I tried to defend our actions, but when Chip jumped in with a racist, homophobic remark, I lost it.  I yelled.  I hit Chip.  I packed up and left early, with Damon, of course.”

            “Wow.  Some blow up.  How did your family react?” Jason queried.

            “For about a week, I refused to talk to anyone when they called, or to apologize to anyone.  Then, my mom e-mailed that my dad was coming to campus.  To tell the truth, I was scared to death.  I mean, I had visions of being disinherited or something, you know, told never to darken the family doorstep again.  But even though Dad and I have never been real close, and we disagree on lots of things, I have to admit, he’s fair.  He came to listen.  He wanted to know what kind of trouble his younger son was in now.  We talked.  He talked to some of my profs and to the chaplain.  He also talked to Damon, and to some of the guys at the house.  Dad knows how to work those syllogisms, too.  So, by the time he was ready to leave, he had accepted the fact that I’m gay, and that I’m not living in a modern Babylon or something here, but am doing a decent job of spending his money on my education.  He really didn’t like it, but he accepted it.”

            “I don’t understand how your dad can do that,” Jason said.  “How can he dislike you being gay, and still accept it?”

            “Oh, well, I guess you have to know my dad.  He’s really conscious of what people think, or at least of what some people think.  He’s the consummate corporate lawyer.  He doesn’t want to do anything to spoil the sale value of a commodity he represents, and his kids are in some sense commodities.  He has to set us on the road to fame and fortune, and anything that gets in the way of that is a problem for him.  He didn’t like it when I decided to pursue a career as an historian, as it’s not a very remunerative profession.  And he definitely did not like it when I came out as gay at Thanksgiving.  That spoils my social value quite a bit.  There are whole segments of society who will either hate or despise me now.  He worries about such things.  In his own way, Dad is concerned for me.  It’s not my way, but it’s the way he is.  We talked over Christmas, and I think I understand him better, and he understands me better.  Better, not perfectly.  But, the bottom line is, he really loves me, and wants what’s best for me, and is concerned that the things I do, and the choices I make – and he is only partly convinced that being gay is not a choice – will cause me trouble in the future,” Bryce explained.

            “How can he not accept that being gay is no choice.  All the science supports that position,” Jason insisted.

            “I know, and Dad did talk to Dr. Harris in the Biology Department.  On one level, I think he’s convinced, but there’s what we might call the ‘what everybody knows’ level.  For people of my dad’s generation, if you had these unacceptable urges to have sex with someone of the same sex, you sublimated them, or hid them, and even got married and had kids and never mentioned them.”

            “In the closet, you mean.”

            “Exactly,” Bryce agreed.  “So, to them it seemed that someone who had been living a straight life, and then came out, was in fact making a choice.  Of course, until, what?  Fifty years ago, or so, even science assumed that everyone was naturally heterosexual.  It was only in 1973 that the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders,” Bryce noted.  “And, of importance to me, only three years later in 1976 the American bishops recognized that homosexuality is not a choice.”

            “That recently?  That’s only thirty-some years ago,” Jason wondered.  “No wonder folks my parents’ age aren’t convinced.  Besides, they’re not the most intellectual people on the planet.”

            Recalling something from Mike Sandoval’s researches on Milton last semester, Bryce commented, “It took well over a hundred years after Copernicus before even the intellectuals of Europe were convinced that the earth went around the sun.  And it took about a hundred years after Darwin  before the general theory of evolution was accepted on the popular level.  Darwin  published The Origin of the Species in 1859, and the famous, or infamous, Scopes trial was in 1925.  It will take a while.”

            “There are still a lot of people who don’t accept evolution,” Jason mused.  “There’s this creationist theme park in Northern Kentucky that opened in 2007, and is attracting thousands of visitors each month.  My sister and brother-in-law took their kids, who thought it was way cool.  Lots of dinosaurs walking around with humans, and the like.”

            “I know.  I’ve never been, but I’ve read about it.  But, Jason, if there are people out there, millions of them, who stubbornly refuse to accept any kind of evolution because of their interpretation of the Bible, what do you expect when it comes to something as personal and emotionally volatile as sex?”

            “Won’t education eventually solve the problem,” Jason said, rather than asked.

            “The historical record is mixed,” Bryce the history major answered anyway.  “In the ninth and tenth centuries, when Western Europe was barely a step above barbarism, the Moslem world had a flourishing intellectual life, and was making lots of discoveries in fields such as mathematics and medicine.  But the Moslems were never able to reconcile their philosophy with the Islamic religion, and by the end of the twelfth century the religious authorities had pretty well stamped out philosophy.  There are always more supporters of religion than of philosophy.  Philosophy, or in our case science, requires a level of intellectual development that not everyone is capable of attaining.  If the leading elements in a society don’t support it, it will never win in a struggle with emotional religion.”

            “How did we get spared that, then?”  Jason asked, then ominously added, “so far, anyway.”

            “Well, I guess the same thing could have happened in the West.  Just about the time philosophy was being snuffed out in the Moslem world, it was getting a new lease on life in the West, with the movement known as Scholasticism.  But there were religious authorities who felt threatened by this new and exciting intellectual life, and wanted to stop it before it spread.  The complete answer to your question is complicated, but the simple version is St. Thomas Aquinas.”

            “Huh?  A saint?  Who’s he?”

            “Tsk, tsk.  You must not have paid attention in Western Civ,” Bryce teased.

            “Probably didn’t.  Besides, I think the course I had at a community college started with the Renaissance,” Jason informed his interlocutor.

            “Oh Geez, one of those courses which begins in the middle of things, and never tells you how you got there.  That explains it.  Anyway,” Bryce gave his version of Thomism, “Thomas was an Italian friar who lived from 1225 to 1274.  More than any other person, he convinced the church authorities that there did not have to be a conflict between revelation, or the faith, on one hand, and philosophy, or reason, on the other.  All truth comes from God, he said, and if there seems to be a conflict, it’s our fault for getting things screwed up, not God’s.”

            Jason could not help but laugh at that.  “Even if I never had the correct version of Western Civ, I’ll bet this Thomas dude never said something was screwed up.”

            “Maybe not,” Bryce admitted.  “I’m not quite sure what the Latin for ‘all screwed up’ might be.  Or, for ‘dude’ either, for that matter.”

            Jason grinned.  “So, you’re telling me that back in the thirteenth century this dude,” he stressed the word, “Thomas convinced the religious authorities that religion and reason could exist side by side?  How come we have these folks with their creationist theme parks, then?”

            “Well, Jason, the religious authorities at that time were Catholic.  We have our own problems, but we’re not fundamentalists.  We’ve got some real numbskulls, including some sitting on episcopal thrones, but none of them would say that we should completely ignore reason and rely solely on a literal reading of the Bible,” Bryce explained.

            “But some of your church officials are among the leaders of the anti-gay forces, like in the gay marriage thing,” Jason objected.

            “Yeah, I know.  That bothers me a lot.  Personally, I’m convinced that they represent an aberration that pops up from time to time, like the Galileo thing.  Sometimes, when the hierarchy feel threatened, they do stupid things,” Bryce said with a sigh.

            “Threatened?  How are they threatened?” Jason wanted to know.

            “The way I see it, in the period following World War II, up through the Kennedy years, the Catholic Church in this country was riding high.  There was still prejudice, but not on public display.  Look at the leading movies and books of that period, and you’ll find almost completely positive depictions of the Church.  Then, with the breakdown of all authority in the later 60s and early 70s, the Church came under increasing attack.  After all, the Church does represent authority, and in the mind of some people, all authority is a bad thing.  That’s what anarchism is all about.  Compare the treatment of the Church in that earlier period to today.  I haven’t seen a single first run movie or academy award winner in years which depicts the Catholic Church in a positive light, and the same is true of best sellers and Pulitzer winners.  Instead of The Sound of Music or The Bells of St. Mary’s we get The Last Temptation of Christ or some trash about priests molesting kids, and in place of The Seven Story Mountain or Death Comes to the Archbishop, we get The DaVinci Code.  How can you ask why the hierarchy feel threatened? Look at the consequences.  It takes a while for the Church to react, but that 1976 statement promised a more open attitude towards homosexuality.  Then under attack the hierarchy circled the wagons and backed away.   Even I, who strongly disagree with the position taken by the hierarchy on gay marriage and several other issues, definitely believe there is a strong anti-Catholic element to the media and public discourse today, and I resent it very much,” Bryce said with considerable force.

            “I seem to have touched a nerve,” Jason observed.

            “Yeah.  Sorry.  I did not mean to jump on you,” Bryce apologized.

            Jason chuckled.  “Glad to know you’re flawed, just like the rest of us.  You know, you have a reputation at the house of being always cool and collected.”

            “Me!  You’ve got to be kidding!” Bryce exclaimed.  “I already told you about blowing up at my dad and brother at Thanksgiving, and nearly screwing up my family relations as a result.”

            “Not many guys at the house know about that, though,” Jason reminded him.  “Last semester, whenever you were harassed by idiots like Bick Lomax or Mac Campbell, you always seemed to keep your cool and just outsmart them.”

            “If that’s the case, don’t you dare ruin my reputation.  I like it, even if I don’t deserve it,” Bryce insisted.  “Now, where do we go from here.  We haven’t even started on you.”

            “Maybe not, but I have to leave,” Jason said, looking at his watch.  I have a rehearsal with my combo in about fifteen minutes.  I got a lot out of what you said today, and I think I know you a lot better.  Can we get together again, and then maybe I’ll feel up to talking about my screwed up life.”

            “Sure, Jason.  But, with the new semester, I’m not real sure what my schedule will look like in a few days.  Here’s my e-mail, jbwinslow@clifton.edu.  We can work out a time in a couple of days,” Bryce promised.  “And, if it’s, you know, really serious, come by any time.”

            “Thanks, Bryce.  Appreciate it.  See you soon.”

            “Tuesday at the house if not before,” Bryce agreed.

            A little later, Damon came in and found Bryce again working on possible term paper topics.  “You and Jason finished plotting?” he asked.

            “I’m not sure.  We ended up talking more about me than about him.  But he seemed in a better mood when he left than when he came, and talked about another session,” Bryce admitted.

            “Why doesn’t that surprise me?  You love talking about yourself, you egoist,” Damon teased his boyfriend.

            That resulted in a rough and tumble session lasting until Damon ended up sitting on a prone Bryce crowing triumphantly.

            “I don’t understand,” Bryce complained.  “I’m the one who works out all the time, but you always seem to be able to beat me at something like this.”

            “I spent the first eighteen years of my life working out, just to survive.  Now, I’m reaping the results,” Damon claimed.

            “Well, are you just going to sit on me, or did you have something else in mind?” Bryce enquired, putting a sultry hint in his voice as to what that ‘something else’ might be.

            The hint was taken, and the time before dinner spent most enjoyably.  Then the two went to El Rincon Latino for dinner.  They encountered Isobel Sandoval at the reception desk.

            “Hello, boys.  I’m glad to see you haven’t forgotten us over the break.  Did you have a good Christmas?” she asked, as she automatically sat them in a section served by Mike.

            “Yes, ma’am, we did, and I hope you and all the Sandovals did as well,” Bryce replied.

            “Yes, indeed, very much.  The restaurant was closed for four days in a row, so we had some time just for the family.  We don’t get that very often,” she assured them while placing menus before them.

            A minute later, Mike appeared.  Rather than his usual greeting, he groaned, “Oh no, not you two!  I knew I should have been nicer to my mother this afternoon.”

            Damon kidded back, “Can it, Miguel, or we’ll report you to management.  I understand they’re really rough on surly waiters.  You might even get fired.”

            “Oh, would you?  Please, please, report me.  Release me from this servitude vile!” Mike kidded.

            “Two cokes,” Bryce prosaically ordered.

            “Spoil sport,” Mike pouted, but went to get them their drinks.

            “Mike’s a good friend,” Damon commented.

            “Yeah, I really like him.  I hope things work out for him and David.  You know, he had a previous boyfriend.  Near as I can figure, the other guy dumped Mike, and when I first met him last term, he was still feeling pretty cut up about that,” Bryce said.

            “Yeah, I know.  Unlike you and me.”

            “You know it, Boyfriend,” Bryce promised.

            Mike reappeared with their drinks.  “You figured out what you want to work on in the Johnson class yet?” he asked Bryce.

            “Not really.  But Johnson was a pretty strong Anglican at a time when even the clergy were often really deists rather than Christians.  I’m thinking of something in that area,” Bryce reported.

            “Leave it to you to find a religious angle,” Mike responded.  “I’m more interested in some aspect of that circle of friends he collected.”

            “If I find anything interesting, I’ll pass it on, and you likewise?  Like last semester?” Bryce wanted affirmation.

            “Sure.  You guys ready to order?” Mike in his waiter persona asked.

            The rest of the evening went smoothly, and the next morning Bryce and Damon met the Sandoval family as they were entering St. Boniface Church for the eleven o’clock Mass.  Kyle and Terry, who had not previously been encountered since Christmas, exchanged greetings.  As they entered, they noticed a different priest in the vestibule preparing to celebrate.

            “Must be another visitor trying out for the succession,” Bryce commented.

            An usher who overheard him replied, “Yes, this is Father Noonan.  He’s currently the assistant at St. Athanasius.”

            “St. Athanasius is one of the larger and more affluent parishes in the suburbs,” Isobel Sandoval informed Bryce and Damon as they took their seats.

            Father Noonan seemed uncomfortable with the more elaborate ritual customary at St. Boniface, so the Mass kind of went by starts and jerks.  When it came to the sermon, however, he seemed confident.  For the first ten minutes, that is.  By that time, he had managed to insult a large segment of the congregation, sending to perdition not only gays and lesbians, but also anyone who used any form of birth control, those ‘living in sin’ without benefit of marriage, those who were critical of government policy in the Middle East, and undocumented aliens.  When Bryce, Damon, and the Sandovals got up to walk out, they found others already ahead of them.  The vestibule became crowded, with some spilling out onto the sidewalk despite the January weather, and some others making their way down to the crypt, where the nursery was located.  The priest was clearly confused by this reception of his sermon, even commenting on it just prior to the final blessing.  An usher said to Isobel Sandoval, “I think Father knew we were a conservative parish, and mixed up his conservatisms.  Just because we like incense and good music doesn’t mean we gave up thinking.”  That seemed to sum things up, as far as Bryce was concerned.

            That afternoon, when Bryce’s mother called, he related his experience that morning, but Martha was more interested in telling Bryce about the latest developments at home.  It seems the young man in whom his sister was interested was quite a serious thing.  Nan had been seeing him much longer than anyone in the family realized.  He was such a nice boy.  So polite.  And a good Catholic from a German family.  Bryce smiled.  As long as his mother was taken up with Nan’s love life, he would escape too many embarrassing questions about his own.

            As he and Damon gathered in the parking lot to go out to the shelter house, Damon asked,” Did you say anything to Deacon Jeffers about contacting DeShawn?”

            “Nope.”

            “Nope?  Why not?”

            “Didn’t need to.  I called DeShawn on his cell,” Bryce smugly replied.

            “What cell?  What makes you think someone like DeShawn can afford a cell?” Damon demanded.

            “The cell I gave him for Christmas,” Bryce grinned.

            Damon stopped.  A light went on.  “Those packages you delivered before we left for your place!  You shit!  You just love pushing my buttons, don’t you?”

            “I love everything about you,” Bryce incautiously stated.

            “I’ll remember that the next time you complain about me sleeping late,” Damon promised.

            As they approached the housing project where DeShawn and his friend Malcolm lived, Bryce’s cell phone rang.  He tossed it to Damon to answer, as he was driving.

            “Hello? ... Yeah, he told me. ... We’re just a block away. ... See you.”  Then, turning to Bryce, Damon said, “You have just contributed to turning another perfectly normal human being into an extension of an electronic device.  That was DeShawn, who wanted to know how close we were.  Seems he and Malcolm don’t fancy standing out on the sidewalk in cold weather.  I’ll bet those two even ring each other up when they’re in the same room.”

            “Text,” Bryce said.

            “Huh?”

            “They wouldn’t call, they would text each other,” Bryce elucidated.

            “Oh, no!  Texting, too!  Their spelling will be ruined for life!”

            But Damon’s jeremiads were cut short by seeing the two boys standing on the curb, waiting to be picked up.  They quickly bustled into the car, as it really was cold out, with a northern wind blowing.

            “Hey, guys!  How was your Christmas?” Bryce greeted them.

            That resulted in a barrage of talk, including many comments on the cell phones and winter jackets Bryce had provided the boys.  Long before the boys were wound down, they had arrived at the soup kitchen.  Because it was cold, Bryce proposed that the boys remain in the car rather than outside in the weather.  He had filled up earlier that day, so the car would not run out of gas, and the boys could listen to the radio while on guard duty, and keep warm as well.  They definitely approved of that arrangement.  Bryce told them to keep the doors locked, and if there were any trouble, to call him on his cell.  DeShawn seemed to like that idea.

            About a half hour into the preparation of the evening meal, Bryce’s phone rang, so he stepped away, wiped his hands, and answered.  It was DeShawn.  He wanted to know how they were going to work dinner.  Bryce told them to decide who went first.  Then, a few minutes after five, that person could come in and eat.  When that person had finished, the other boy could take his place.  Okay, that’s cool.

            Right at five o’clock, Bryce’s phone sounded again.  Would it be okay for DeShawn to come in now?  Yes, that was fine.  Just make certain Malcolm locked the doors after DeShawn left.  “What if I get locked out?” DeShawn wanted to know.  “I have another key,” Bryce told him, and besides, if Malcolm were still inside, he could always open the doors.

            DeShawn came in and collected his dinner.  Bryce noticed that nearly the whole time he was at the table, he was on his phone.  Asked who he was calling, DeShawn said he was talking to Malcolm.  Malcolm got lonely out there all by himself.

            When DeShawn finished eating, he left, and a couple of minutes later Malcolm came in.  But it was the same story.  Malcolm was now keeping DeShawn company so he didn’t get lonely all by himself in the car.  Damon poked Bryce.  “I told you so,” he chortled.

            After Malcolm went back outside, it was peaceful for a while.  When Bryce finished serving, he collected a plate and sat at one of the tables.  One of the men sitting across from him reminded him of the attempt to break into his car back before Christmas, and told Bryce that the perpetrators had been sent to juvenile detention.  That was not their first offense.

            Then Bryce’s phone rang again.  DeShawn wanted to know whether the CD player in the car worked.  Yes, Bryce told him, but he did not have any CDs in the car right now.

            Damon came over and had his dinner, while Bryce went back to work helping to clean up.  About quarter to seven, his phone rang again.  Was it about time to go home?  Not yet.

            Finally, when everything was wound up at the shelter, Bryce and Damon went back to the car.  The boys thought it very funny to keep the doors locked, but Bryce really had been thoughtful enough to bring along his extra set of car keys.  The boys crawled over the seats into the back as Bryce and Damon got in.

            As they approached the apartment building where DeShawn and Malcolm lived, Bryce said, “How many times did you call me today?”

            “Um, I don’t know,” DeShawn replied.

            “If I counted right, it was five times, plus the time you two spent on the phone while you were eating,” Bryce said.

            A little abashed, DeShawn asked, “Is that too much?”

            “Yeah, I think so.  Every time you called, I had to quit what I was doing, wipe my hands, and then answer the phone.  That interrupted the job of preparing and serving the dinner.  Now, do you remember what you called about?” he asked.

            “Um, when we could eat?” DeShawn replied.

            “Yes, and what about if you got locked out, and did the CD player work, and was it time to leave yet?  I don’t think you really needed to ask those questions, did you?” Bryce accused.

            “No, I guess not,” DeShawn admitted.

            “You just like playing with your new cell phone, right?”

            “Uh, yeah,” a much subdued DeShawn responded.

            “Okay, Buddy.  Now listen.  You know all the answers now, so next week you don’t need to ask them again.  Just use the phone to call me if there’s a real need, like somebody trying to break in, okay?”

            “Okay, Bryce.  Sorry.” DeShawn apologized.

            Bryce turned around and tousled DeShawn’s hair.  “No big deal.  Just remember for next time, okay?”

            “Okay!” the youngster replied, his spirits returning, as he and Malcolm jumped out of the car and ran to the apartment door.  The young were quite resilient under normal circumstances.