Bryce & Damon in Europe

by Pertinax Carrus

Chapter 1, Pre-Departure

            The last day of final exams at the University of Clifton for the spring semester, 2010, was Wednesday, May 19.  As neither Bryce Winslow nor Damon Watson had exams on that day, for them it was travel time.  They left Clifton early in the morning, and drove all day, arriving at the Winslow home in Lincoln, Nebraska in time for the evening meal.

            James Bryce Winslow was a product of an affluent home environment in Lincoln.  He could trace his ancestry to Jamestown and the Mayflower.  He went to some of the best schools in Lincoln, and his family environment definitely encouraged success, in the classroom and in life.  In addition to inherited wealth, his father was a corporate lawyer in a prestigious firm, bringing home an income which allowed his family to enjoy the better things of life.  Bryce grew up with summer camps, riding lessons, trips abroad – all the amenities of success.  His mother was a warm and loving presence, always there, always concerned.  His father was more distant, but projecting strength and solidity.  His sister Nan was bossy, lively, annoying, and yet supportive, helpful, a refuge in distress.  The only fly in the ointment was older brother Chip, who was a stuck up prick, entirely too absorbed with the surface amenities of their situation and his own ego.

            During the 2009-10 academic year Bryce had begun to find himself and become comfortable with who he was.  He admitted, first to himself, then to Damon, and finally to his family, that he was gay.  That is an important part of who he is.  At the same time, Bryce reaffirmed his commitment to the Catholic faith in which he had been reared.  Not to all the pronouncements of the bishops and the Vatican bureaucracy, of course, but to the essential, core faith.  That, too, is an important part of who he is.  Finding a way to blend these two facets of his identity was not always easy, but he had at least made a beginning on what would most likely be a life-long project.  Also in the realm of reaffirming prior commitments, Bryce was more convinced than ever that he wanted an academic life.  He found the study of history absorbing, and the life of the mind satisfying.  Combining the physical, spiritual, and intellectual in a working balance was not an easy task.

            During that freshman year just concluded, Bryce had made many good friends.  He had joined Sigma Alpha Tau fraternity, and found in most of the brothers acceptance and support.  There had been some rough spots, but on the whole the fraternity was another support, like the family and Church, in getting him through those difficult places.  One such friend and fraternity brother was Curtis Manning, recently elected as the president for the coming year.  Curtis was also about to be married, and Bryce was slated to be a groomsman in the ceremony.

            Undoubtedly the most significant person Bryce met during the year was Damon Watson.  Damon appeared on the first day of the fall semester as the resident of the next room in the dorm, and one who would be sharing a bathroom with Bryce.  From the moment he laid eyes on Damon, Bryce knew he was someone special.  After only two weeks knowing Damon, Bryce found himself admitting his sexual orientation and his attraction to the beautiful black boy.

            Damon Antwon Watson also underwent a major development during the 2009-10 academic year.  Under an outgoing and flippant exterior, Damon harbored many self-doubts.  He was a black man in a predominantly white world for the first time.  He had lived his life to this point in the ghettos of Chicago, where almost everyone was either black or Hispanic.  Damon was aware that his education left much to be desired.  He had supplemented the poor fare offered by the public schools in his area by reading, television, and the internet, but had doubts, many doubts, about how prepared he was to take on a real university education.  Damon had no doubts about his sexual orientation, but he was uncertain about how that would be received by the wider world of which he longed to be a part.  One driving force in Damon’s make-up was the determination that he was never going back to the projects where he had been reared.

            There could hardly be a greater contrast than that between Damon’s family and that of Bryce.  Damon had an older brother and several sisters.  Of the five of them, there were only two with the same father.  Their mother was a drug addict and a prostitute, not to put too fine a point on it.  When he got home from his elementary or high school, he never knew which “uncle” would be at the apartment in the projects where the family lived.  Damon’s elder brother, Tyson, was an ignorant bully, a high school dropout, involved in illegal activity from the age of ten.  His sisters seemed determined to repeat in their generation their mother’s history.  Of all of them, only his sister Vanessa seemed to even like him.  Tyson had repeatedly attempted to rape Damon when he was younger, and his mother seemed positively delighted when he left home to enter the University of Clifton, not because he was entering a university, but because he was leaving home.  All this contributed to Damon’s insecurity about his abilities and his future.

            Damon found Bryce as attractive and as mysterious as Bryce found him.  They came from two worlds, and had to learn to get along, even as they learned to love each other.  Bryce gradually weaned Damon from his tendency to drink to excess, while Damon kept Bryce from wandering off into some cerebral universe unconnected with daily life.  Bryce was more theoretical, more philosophical in his approach to issues, whereas Damon was solid, feet on the ground, practical.  They often wondered that they got along so well, but they seemed to complement each other perfectly.

            There were two things about Bryce which caused Damon doubts.  Bryce was much more religious than the average college freshman, whereas Damon professed no religion at all.  Bryce’s religion suffused his outlook, which was great when it meant that he accepted a black man as an equal, but not so great when it meant that he wanted to abstain from sex with his partner during Lent.  It kept popping up in other places as well, often catching Damon by surprise.  He had accompanied Bryce to church most Sundays, and had no animosity towards the Catholic Church, although some of the things some priests said ticked him off.  If he were going to spend his life with Bryce, Damon had to come to grips with Bryce’s Catholicism.

            The other thing which was a source of unease was the economic disparity between them.  Bryce was accustomed to having money, and being able to purchase just about anything he really wanted.  He owned a car, a Mustang which he got on his sixteenth birthday, and still had because he loved it, not because he could not have a newer model if he chose.  He had credit cards, a bank account, designer clothes, a computer with all the bells and whistles plus a laptop.  Damon was living on his scholarship, which left him tight at the end of most months.  He had no extras, and, before he and Bryce agreed on their summer plans, had no idea how he would survive the time between semesters.

            These two items came together in the plans Bryce had made, and Damon had accepted, for the summer of 2010.  Bryce proposed a lengthy trip through parts of Europe with which he was familiar, but with a catch.  Any trip like this would be a broadening experience for Damon, who had not been outside the Chicago area before leaving for school, but this itinerary was designed to emphasize Bryce’s Catholic heritage, with stops at such places as Fatima and Lourdes, and a lengthy stay in Rome.  The other side of the equation came into play as well, as Bryce insisted on paying for everything.  He had already cleared this with his parents, and spent several weeks getting Damon to agree.  Damon had a wide independent streak in his personality which made him uneasy about accepting what might be seen as a “handout,” perhaps in reaction to his family’s all to eager reliance on an imperfect welfare system.  In the final analysis, it was the argument that Bryce wanted this, and it would help Damon understand his partner better, which carried the day.

            Bryce was assisted in making plans by an agency in Lincoln which had been used by his family in the past, and his mother oversaw the planning and preparation to make certain there were as few hitches as possible.  No trip of this length and complexity could be entirely without problems, but the fewer the better, obviously.  There really was only one date they had to work around, which was that of the wedding of Madeline Moore to Curtis Manning on the Saturday following commencement at the University, May 29.  There would be a lot of traffic over the Memorial Day weekend, so departure was delayed until the following Wednesday.  From that point on, it was merely a matter of filling in the blanks.  In the final version of Bryce’s plan, they would be gone about a month and a half – seven weeks.

            But prior to that some important matters had to be settled.  First of all, Damon needed a passport.  Never having traveled, he had never needed one heretofore.  There was no real difficulty, but it did take some time.  Moreover, when his passport arrived, it contained an error in listing his birthday, so it had to be sent back and corrected.  Instead of giving the year of his birth as 1991, the original had 1921.  Someone had read a number wrong or punched the wrong key, somewhere along the line, and passing him off as an eighty-nine year old would have been difficult, despite the correct photograph.  In addition, as they intended to rent a car at Lisbon and drive from one destination to another, Damon needed an international driver’s license.  In fact, he had never had any kind of driver’s license, so that had to be addressed before leaving.  He knew how to drive, and had driven back in Chicago, but not legally.  He said he “never got around to it” because he saw little chance of actually owning a car before setting out for college.  Bryce commented that he understood “round toits” could be had at Walmart.  After a bit of a scuffle brought on by that pun, they got down to the business of removing that gap.  Damon was allowed to drive Bryce’s beloved Mustang for the test at the licensing station, and came away with his own driver’s license, and not long after with an international license.  He would be expected to do his share of driving during their European adventure.

            They intended to travel as students, so they would be staying in considerably less opulent establishments than when Bryce traveled as a child with his parents.  Rather than five star hotels, they would content themselves with two and three star places.  This was still several notches up from the youth hostels and backpacking which so many young people seemed to actually enjoy.  Bryce said having an adventure was one thing, being uncomfortable was something else.  The reality was that his family was well off, so he did not intend to be uncomfortable if he could avoid it, unless he became so intentionally for some purpose, such as penance during Lent.  Damon gave up arguing long before reaching this point.

            Damon was, in fact, both thrilled and scared by all that his lover was planning.  He wanted to please Bryce.  He wanted to get closer to Bryce by understanding him better.  He also wanted to travel as part of molding the new Damon he wanted himself to become.  But it was scary.  All those foreign places, where people did not speak English, was an intimidating prospect.  Flying across the Atlantic Ocean was an intimidating prospect.  Damon gave up protesting the plan, and protesting Bryce paying for everything, and simply focused on getting himself psyched up for the adventure Bryce was so keen on.

            On Wednesday, May 19, Bryce and Damon arrived at the Winslow home in Lincoln after a seven and a half hour trip, and that was only driving time, not counting time out for lunch, gas, and calls of nature.  It was nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, Central Daylight Time.  They did not even have time to get out of the car before Martha was running to greet them.  She engulfed Bryce in her arms, practically smothering him.  Except for the fact that he could not breathe, he appreciated his mother’s enthusiastic welcome.  No sooner had she finished with Bryce than Martha gave an equally exuberant welcome to Damon.  Damon really liked Bryce’s mother, who was everything maternal that his mother was not.

            “I’m so glad you boys made it safely.  I do worry, with so many accidents on the roads.  Come in.  Come in.  You must be starved.  We’ll have Rosita whip you up something to tide you over until dinner.  I am so happy to see you,” Martha gushed.

            “Mom, calm down.  You’ll scare Damon away,” Bryce joked.

            “No way,” Damon objected.  “I love this woman.”  He hugged her again.

            They did make their way into the house, and into the kitchen, where Rosita greeted them, although not as exuberantly.  She did, however, provide a snack.  Rosita Carcano was the family cook and housekeeper.

            “Dinner will be at seven.  If this ruins your appetite, don’t blame me,” she warned the guys.  “I expect clean plates from both of you.”

            “Yes, Ma’am,” they replied between bites.

            Martha remained in the kitchen with the new arrivals, talking a mile a minute, throwing out questions but never pausing for answers.

            From behind her, a younger female voice said, “Mom, if you would give them a chance, you might actually get an answer to some of those questions.”

            “Nan!” Bryce greeted his sister.  “Glad to see you.”  He rose to greet her with a hug.

            “Glad to see you, too, Little Brother.”  Nan never let Bryce forget he was the youngest of the three Winslow siblings.  “You, too, Damon,” she said as she extended her hug to the other new arrival.  “I see the car got here in one piece, so you must have done all the driving.”

            “I call foul!” Bryce protested.

            They joshed back and forth, with Martha taking an active role, until the guys finished their snack.  Then they had to unpack the car, moving their “stuff” into Bryce’s room.

            Nan stuck pretty close, helping with a few things.  When she got a chance to speak without Martha being around, she said quietly, “You might like to know that our brother has moved out.”

            “Moved out?  How so?” Bryce asked.

            “I don’t want to repeat some of his obnoxious language, but let’s just say Chip decided he needed an apartment of his own where he could entertain visitors of appropriate social standing.  He’s been on his own more or less since Easter,” Nan informed them.

            “Chip is such a prick,” Bryce sighed.

            “Come to think of it, big brothers in general don’t have a very good track record,” Damon commented.

            “Oh, yeah.  You’re not exactly close with your brother, are you?” Nan said.

            “Not if I can help it.  I spent years avoiding being close to Tyson.  That way lay danger,” Damon agreed.

            “Well, I guess not all big brothers are a problem, but we do have the beginnings of a pattern here.  Maybe it has something to do with being born first.  Gives them an ego problem,” Bryce speculated.

            The three young people sat around and talked, catching up on each other’s lives, with a lengthy excursion into Nan’s football playing boyfriend, Brian.  She promised that they would get to meet him, and that he was not at all homophobic.  They were thus engaged when summoned to dinner.

            There they encountered Bryce’s father, Sterling Morton Winslow Sr.  Relations between father and son improved considerably since last Thanksgiving, when Bryce and Damon left home precipitately after an argument over the sermon delivered by the local priest.  Sterling was not happy that his younger son was gay, and did not pretend that he was, but he accepted the reality, and with it accepted Damon.  He had been very helpful during the crisis with Cory Blaine a few months ago.  Now, Sterling greeted the new arrivals cordially, hoping they had a safe trip.  They all settled down to an excellent dinner prepared by Rosita.

            The following week went by very pleasantly.  With no Chip to make sneering remarks the atmosphere at home was uniformly welcoming.  There was much talk about the upcoming trip, of course, and everything was checked and rechecked to confirm that all the needed documentation was present, and the schedules and hotels recorded.  At each stop, reservations were made for the two of them, with a copy of the dates and the names of the hotels, street addresses, phone numbers, and in most cases e-mail addresses all listed, just in case someone needed to contact them during their European adventure.  They made another trip to Springfield, where again the stable hand Matt provided Damon with a gentle mount, and they went riding.  Damon actually enjoyed it, having survived similar outings at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  And once again, as they did on those previous occasions, they tethered their horses at the line cabin, and enjoyed each other as a break from the saddle.  It was not that they got no loving at the Winslow place, although they did keep down any noise out of respect for the others in the house, but rather that they enjoyed the experience of having sex in the wilderness, or at least in what passed for wilderness there in Nebraska.  It was kind of exhilarating to be making out with the wind blowing through the cabin and rustling in the trees outside.

            On Sunday Damon accompanied the Winslows to Mass at the family parish church.  Fortunately, there were no untoward comments from the pulpit this time.  Martha informed her son that his father had spoken with the pastor, after first getting the support of several other parishioners whose annual contributions made up a significant fraction of the parish budget.  Despite some fuming, the pastor agreed to “observe a charitable silence” on certain matters.  Both Bryce and Damon thanked Sterling before the day was out.

            On Wednesday, May 26, Bryce and Damon flew into Chicago.  They were slated to attend the wedding of Madeline Moore to Curtis Manning on Saturday, but thought to give Damon’s family another chance before heading on to Ohio.  They had reservations at a motel on the fringe of the projects where Damon had grown up, as they did not think it wise to count on staying at his mother’s apartment.  As it turned out, that was an excellent decision.

            After checking in and getting settled, Damon called his home number.  His mother answered, but had difficulty recognizing who he was.  When she finally was convinced of who he was, her response was, “Oh God!  You’re not coming back here to live!”  This was followed by a click, as she hung up on him.  Damon was shook up by this reception.  He had not expected to be welcomed with open arms, like they were at the Winslow place, but to be summarily rejected was hard.  He broke into tears.  Bryce spent over an hour comforting his boyfriend before Damon was willing to try again.  This time, he got his sister Vanessa.  She said their mother had been moaning about Damon “leeching off” her ever since his earlier call, but had passed out only a few minutes before.  Obviously, things were not going well at the apartment.  Vanessa agreed to meet Damon and Bryce for dinner at a restaurant not far from their motel.  She arrived, accompanied by a little boy called Nathan, who was about five years old.

            “Alondra is looking after De’Maris and Soniqua,” she declared, “but Nathan wanted to come along and see his Uncle Damon.”

            ‘That’s fine,” Bryce declared.  “I have a sneaking suspicion this restaurant just might have a children’s menu.”

            “You must be Bryce,” Vanessa deduced.

            “And you must be Vanessa.  We have to teach Damon some manners.  He should have introduced us,” Bryce declared.

            “I was too busy getting reacquainted with my favorite nephew,” Damon asserted as he lifted Nathan to his shoulders, the boy squealing with delight.

            Shortly after, they were shown to a table, and Nathan was provided with a booster seat.  The restaurant did, indeed, have a children’s menu, so he had hotdogs (2) and fries, with a milk shake.  The milk shake sounded so inviting that Bryce had one, too.  While Bryce paid attention to Nathan, Damon caught up on family affairs with his elder sister.  The story was not a pretty one.  Tyson was in jail for selling drugs, but the sentence was expected to be appealed on some technicality, which Vanessa did not understand, but the lawyer evidently did.  Wanita had run off with her latest boyfriend, and no one had heard from her for the past three months.  She left her eighteen month old daughter behind.  Vanessa herself now had three children by three different fathers, but was doing her best to look after them, and actually was holding down a job.  It was a poor paying job, not much above minimum wage, but she could at least feed her children and the one left behind by Wanita.  She declared that she did not use, although Damon was more than a little skeptical.  The real user, of course, was their mother.  Most days she was completely useless, being too high to know what was going on, and certainly not responsible enough to be left in charge of the children, for example.  She had not worked a legitimate job in years, but still turned tricks from time to time.  However, her drug use made her ineffective even at that, as she sometimes lapsed into unconsciousness while servicing a john, and on more than one occasion had forgotten where her apartment was while trying to bring a customer home.  When she was awake, she was usually angry about something, and was constantly shouting at someone.  Damon’s reception when he called was an example of that.

            Vanessa clarified for Bryce that De’Maris was her three year old son, while Soniqua was her nine month old daughter.

            “Those are certainly unusual names,” Bryce said.  “Where do you get them?”

            “I just think of something that sounds pretty,” Vanessa declared.  “I think Soniqua sounds really elegant, like a model or an actress, don’t you?”

            “It’s certainly distinctive.  I don’t think I’ve ever run across anyone else with that name,” Bryce diplomatically responded, as Damon made a face at him from behind Vanessa’s back.

            After eating and catching up on family news, they made arrangements to meet again for lunch the next day.  Vanessa said she thought it would be best if Bryce did not come to the apartment, as a white man was found murdered only a short distance away two days ago, and so far no one had been arrested.  “There’s Crazy Larry down that way, and some days he thinks all whites are out to get him.  Most folk think he did it in one of his moods,” she reported.

            Bryce and Damon sat up for some time that evening.  It had proven no trouble at all for Damon to get a bottle of Bourbon.  Since getting to know Bryce, he had acquired a taste for Bourbon and Sprite.  They discussed Damon’s family, and what, if anything, could be done to help them.  There did not seem to be many options.  If Vanessa and the small ones could be detached from the projects, they might stand a chance, but how to do that seemed an insoluble mystery.

            “If ... no, when I get to be a hot shot lawyer, I’ll take her and the kids away from this, if they’re still alive and savable,” Damon declared.

            “You know you can count on my help, Boyfriend,” Bryce promised.

            The next morning, before meeting with Vanessa again, Bryce stopped at an ATM and withdrew some cash.  He knew that was not a real solution, and might even be contributing to the problem, but he felt he had to do something.

            They met at a McDonald’s in order to please Nathan, who again accompanied his mother.  Bryce got the impression Nathan was glad to get away from the home environment, if only for a little while.  After lunch, Vanessa declared that she had to get back, as Alondra had some kind of commitment, probably to meet a boy, and someone had to be there to look after the small fry.  Bryce immediately suggested that Nathan stay with Damon and himself for the afternoon.  Nathan immediately seconded that motion.  So Vanessa returned to the projects, leaving her eldest with his uncle and his uncle’s partner.

            “What do you have in mind?” Damon asked, wondering what Bryce was up to.

            “A town the size of Chicago is bound to have a children’s museum.  Let’s check it out,” Bryce suggested.

            Not only was there a children’s museum, and not only did they go there, but they went in a taxi, the first time to experience that for Nathan.  It was located at the Navy Pier, and contained lots of things to keep a young boy interested for hours.  In fact, it kept Bryce and Damon interested as well.  The three of them spent the entire afternoon there.  Afterwards, they walked down and looked at Lake Michigan, strolled the park, had supper, and rode the Ferris wheel high into the evening sky.  Damon called his sister to assure her they had not been kidnaped or drowned in the lake, and let an excited Nathan talk to his mother from atop the Ferris wheel.  It was not until nearly nine o’clock that they got back to the meeting point, and turned the exhausted youngster over to his mother.

            Bryce then presented Vanessa with the cash he had withdrawn that morning.  He told her it was for the children, and he expected her to be able to tell Damon exactly what it was spent on if asked.  She knew only too well why he made that comment, and recognized its validity.  Whether she could follow through remained to be seen.  She had never been handed five hundred dollars in cash before.

            The next day Bryce and Damon flew from Chicago to Dayton, Ohio.  Dayton is a city of about 150,000, located on the Miami River northeast of Cincinnati.  The guys got into Dayton, and checked into their hotel, with the entire afternoon to spend before the wedding rehearsal that evening.  They decided to take in the National Museum of the United States Air Force at Wright Patterson Air Force Base, again making use of a taxi.  There, they explored the more than 360 aircraft and missiles on display, giving particular attention to the Wright Brothers display.  Orville and Wilbur Wright were natives of Dayton, of course.

            Returning to town on a bus this time, as advised by some acquaintances made at the museum, they had dinner before turning up at Christ United Methodist Church.   The rehearsal lasted for over an hour, with Bryce making contact with several others from the University, but also meeting family and friends of Curtis not connected there, and not known before.  There were no family on Madeline’s side, as she had not spoken with them since her brother’s suicide last summer.  She did have several old friends in attendance, including her maid of honor and a bridesmaid.  Bryce was one of Curtis’s groomsmen, while Damon was just there as a friend.  As Curtis’ family was footing the entire bill, there was no sit down meal associated with the rehearsal, so that the celebration the next day could be as joyous as possible.  It was during the rehearsal that Bryce learned that Curtis’s middle name was Percival, up to now a carefully guarded secret.  His best man would be his Uncle Seth, whose cabin in the woods had been made available to Curtis and Maddy back at Christmas time.

            Early the next day, Saturday, chaos reigned.  Despite the rehearsal, nothing seemed to go right, and things were not where they were supposed to be, nor were people.  What portended to be a disaster suddenly turned right when the organist began playing.  Suddenly everything was perfect.  Bryce escorted one of the bridesmaids, a sister of Curtis, down the aisle.  Curtis Percival Manning was duly joined in holy matrimony to Madeline Carter Moore and she to him.  The guests, including Damon, made their way to the reception hall, where they had to wait for nearly an hour before the newlyweds arrived.  The photographers, dictators all, insisted on “one more shot” from this or that angle, keeping the bridal party away from their guests.  There was plenty of food and drink to keep the guests busy while waiting.  Then, with the stars of the show finally in attendance, there was the reception line, then dancing and eating and drinking until mid afternoon.  A smiling Curtis and Maddy made their getaway around two-thirty, but the reception continued for another hour before Bryce and Damon left, and was still going on then.

            That evening, the guys enjoyed a good dinner and a movie before retiring.  The next day being a Sunday, Bryce had checked out the situation in Dayton.  He found 51 Catholic churches in the Dayton area.  Emmanuel Catholic Church, which calls itself the first Catholic church in Dayton, seemed a lot like St. Boniface in Clifton, so it was there that Bryce and Damon went for the 10:30 Mass.  It was for Bryce a very satisfying liturgy, giving him a good start for the day.

            Later that day, the two partners, made their way back to the airport for their return to Lincoln by way of Chicago.  They did not contact Vanessa while passing through, however, but Damon did send Nathan a post card.

            The rest of the Memorial Day weekend went well.  On Monday there were patriotic observances, followed by a picnic in a park with the Winslow family, with Bryce’s maternal grandparents also attending.  Even Chip put in an appearance, although he obviously thought picnics were beneath his dignity unless catered by servants in uniform, like something out of The Great Gatsby.  Bryce and Damon got to know Nan’s young man, Brian Maguire, and found him a very enjoyable acquaintance.  Bryce told his sister she had very good taste in boyfriends.  She replied that he did, too.

pertinax.carrus@gmail.com