Refuge - 5. Chapter 5: Paul-Bryan-Zhang-Richard-Nemesis

Chapter 5: Paul-Bryan-Zhang-Richard-Nemesis

Paul

Richard and Zhang invited us to stay with them longer, but I had classes to teach and scripts to write. Bryan needed more clothes than what he was wearing, and I needed more compute power than my laptop. Richard gave me a hug and an official-looking pass that Aiden had dropped off. Bryan got a hug from Zhang.

I was glad Bryan and Zhang were becoming friends. Both had been manipulated by men for their own purposes: Bryan’s over-demanding “Tiger Father” had surgery performed on the boy’s eyelids to make him look more occidental. The man had pushed Bryan physically and academically, but not shown love. Zhang had been altered surgically, too: more extensively than Bryan, to be sure. Zhang’s surgery had been done to make him an object of sexual attraction. Both boys had suffered until they had been rescued by Richard and me. Our love for these boys was first agape and then erotic. We filled the boys’ needs on many levels. Bryan filled a need I didn’t know I had, and I suspected Zhang did the same for Richard.

There was only one lane open. The rest of the road was filled with rubble and broken glass left by flash mobs. We were stopped at six checkpoints by police, military, and DHS. It was getting harder to tell one group from the other: they all wore camo, they all drove olive-drab armored personnel carriers and carried automatic weapons, and they all were surly. Their manner lightened a little when I showed them the pass.

Lakeshore Drive seemed normal, although there were a lot of APCs and HUM-Vs rolling and parked at intersections. No checkpoints, though. They must have figured that if we’d made it this far we must be okay. I pulled into the garage under the high-rise.

I grabbed a couple of bottles of water from the refrigerator, and took Bryan into the living room. Despite our time with Richard and Zhang—perhaps because if it—I felt that we needed to talk.

“Aiden told you about the gods,” I said.

“Um hum. But he wouldn’t tell me about you,” Bryan said.

“There’s not much that you don’t already know—” I began.

“Friends tell friends the truth!” Bryan interrupted. “Aiden said you were special . . . .”

“I know that Aiden thinks I am more than I seem. I know some of the others think that, too,” I said. “However, the only way I’m different is that I can see and interact with Richard, Aiden, and the other gods even when they don’t want me to.”

“Huh?” Bryan asked.

“If the gods don’t want to be seen, they could bump into you, stand in front of you, hit you, yell in your ear, and you wouldn’t see them or hear them. The only reason you saw Richard and Aiden and Zhang was that they wanted you to see them. That doesn’t seem to apply to me. I saw Nemesis one day in the University Library. He seemed to be having some trouble finding something in the stacks, so I offered to help him. He was so frightened that I backed off. I was afraid he thought I was some kind of sexual predator. As cute and young as he was, and as alone in the stacks as he was, I figured that was a real concern. I didn’t know, then, either who he was or why he really was afraid.

“The next day, he showed up with Gary. Gary introduced himself, and thanked me for offering to help Nemesis. Then, he explained why Nemesis had been frightened.”

Gary

I found Paul at the library, and stood in front of his table. He looked up, and I realized that Nemesis had been right. He could see us. But he wasn’t a god; there was no glow. I did not see evil, either. I spoke without preamble.

“Nemesis—the boy you spoke to in the stacks yesterday? curly, dirty-blond hair?—is not an ordinary little boy,” I told Paul. “He’s the Greek god of retribution.

“You don’t believe me,” I added.

Paul chuckled. “It’s not that I don’t believe you; it’s that I’ve been focusing on cosmology for the past couple of hours, and Greek gods don’t fit into my current, operational world view. I have to shift through a whole lot of mental gears to get to a place where they fit. I’m there, now. I will accept your premise. Are you a god, too?”

“Yes, sort of,” I said. “I received some of the powers once held by Artemis—her Attributes and Authorities as Protector of Children. The other gods, including one very ancient god as well as avatars of other old gods and of Death, treat me as if I were one of them: a full-fledged god.

“How can you shift gears, as you put it, so easily?” I asked.

Paul chuckled, again. He seemed to find not humor but good feelings in this, as if he were comfortable with himself and with me, and with what I was telling him.

“I’m a scientist, and so steeped in the notion that science is inquiry and not doubt that I must be able to work from many different points of view. In one of those points of view, you are a pleasant but insane person. In another, you are a con artist, trying to lure me into some get-rich-quick-scheme—perhaps a get your godhood through the internet just send in your credit card number scam. In another, you are the incarnation or avatar of a Greek god. In another, you are an ordinary person who finds himself in possession of powers beyond his ken, and who has created the notion that he is a Greek god in order to explain that.

“There are other possibilities. I’ve accepted that you are the incarnation or avatar you say you are. It provides the basis for questioning, experimentation, exploration, and understanding.”

Paul

“Gary seemed a little put off, until he grinned and then said, ‘You and Nemesis are going to get along well. He is a bit of a philosopher. He talks like you do, some of the time.’ ”

“Then, Gary called Nemesis to join us, and we talked for a while. Nemesis told me his story. I’m not going to tell you … not to hide it, but because it’s his story to tell. Over the summer, I have gotten to know Gary and Nemesis and some of the others Aiden told you about. I suspect you’ll meet them all, soon. Our paths keep crossing and since you and I are going to be together, you’ll cross paths with them, too.”

Bryan’s next question floored me. At first, I thought it wasn’t relevant to our discussion. Then, I realized it was the most important thing we could talk about

“Paul? Am I your boyfriend?”

It had been less than two days since I had rescued Bryan, cuddled with him, adopted him, and had sex with him. I knew that question was going to come up, and had thought about it. Even so, I wasn’t quite prepared to answer. I tried, though.

“Bryan Nicholas Kendrick, I love you in every possible meaning of that word. I love you as my son. I love you as the boy who opened his heart and dreams to me in the library before you became my son. And I love you physically … you have seen that. Yes, you are my boyfriend, and I hope you will be for a long, long time.”

“I do not want to lose you, either,” Bryan said.

Bryan

Paul lived in a high-security high-rise that overlooked the lake. Once, the view might have been really something. Now, however, the pumping stations and weirs that once kept the Chicago River flowing backwards had broken down, and raw sewage emptied into the lake. I looked at the brown water near the shore, and then at the towers farther away that still drew water into the municipal water supply. And shuddered.

“We have bottled water for drinking,” Paul said. “And the building has its own filtration and treatment facility for bath and wash water.”

“You knew what I was thinking?” I said.

“No, but it wasn’t hard to guess, given where you were looking,” he said. “Let me show you around.”

The apartment had three bedrooms. Paul said I could select either of the two that weren’t his. I must have looked disappointed, because he said that although he hoped we would sleep together, there might be times when I wanted to be alone. “And I, as well. There may be times, especially when I’m getting close to a deadline, that I will want to be alone—and you wouldn’t want to be anywhere near me!”

The kitchen was large and had a lot of professional-looking equipment. It all looked new. Unused, I realized. “Do you cook?” I asked.

Paul laughed. “If it can be made in under thirty minutes in one pot, then I cook. Otherwise, it’s frozen or takeout. Speaking of takeout, are you hungry? And what would you like?”

Paul

It was going to be easy to get Bryan a high school GED. With that and a birth certificate that said he was eighteen he would no longer have to attend high school. I asked him what he would like to do about his education. After years with a “Tiger Father,” I wasn’t sure he’d want to do anything. I was wrong.

He rattled off a list of courses including biology, chemistry, and geology. It was obvious that he’d given a lot of thought to this. He added, “I’d like some practical training, too. I’d like to learn scuba.” He looked out the window at the sludge that dominated Lake Michigan. “But I guess . . . .”

“There are other places to learn scuba,” I said. “Everyone … just about everyone … starts out in a swimming pool. In a classroom, rather. It’s too late to get you enrolled in classes at the university … and perhaps you wouldn’t want to go there, anyway.

“How about this: you and I will work together on a study plan for three core subjects including Biology, Geology, and Chemistry. I have degrees in geology and chemistry, and I know a retired biology professor and an English professor, both of whom would love to have a private student. We’ll work on getting you enrolled in a spring semester somewhere.

“Hmmm,” I said, and then named one of the old-line Eastern Universities. “They’ve been after me to join their faculty for remote teaching. I’ll bet they’d accept you as an on-line student if I agreed to do that for them.

“Oh, and Gary’s gym has a pool and offers scuba training. I’ll ask him—”

I found I couldn’t speak. Bryan was hugging me so tightly I could hardly breathe. “Thank you, Paul. Thank you. You really care! I love you so much.”

Bryan loosened his hug. “English?”

“Yes, if you don’t object. Remember what I said about standing above your peers? Being able to communicate effectively counts for more than courses and degrees. Trust me on that. Besides, I want my son to be able to talk about some of my passions, which just happen to include Shakespeare.”

Bryan and I were still holding one another. “Um …” I said.

“Um …” Bryan replied. I could feel him getting hard. Needless to say, I was, as well.

Crap. The annunciator chimed. It was security; our takeout had arrived. It didn’t have to come from far away: there were four restaurants in our complex: Chinese, Pizza, Deli, and Greek. We had ordered Greek salad with lamb and pita bread. After supper, we cuddled in front of the television. The news channels carried reports of flash mobs throughout the country, a total breakdown of law and order in New Orleans, and gasoline shortages and riots in Texas. Texas, of all places. Once, Texas had more oil wells and refineries than the rest of the country put together. Leave it to the eco-freaks to shut down an entire industry without thinking about the long-term consequences, I thought. I switched to a movie channel, and enjoyed watching Bryan while he watched Singing in the Rain for the first time.

We held hands on the way to the bedroom. Bryan had brought Zhang’s yellow cartoon pajamas home. I had washed them, and laid them out on the bed. He grinned, folded them, and put them into a drawer of the bureau.

“I don’t think I’ll need these,” he said. “Unless…?”

“Unless what?” I teased. “I can’t think of a reason short of a new ice age.”

Bryan giggled.

After showers, we cuddled. I made a mental note to get an estimate to have the shower enlarged. Not too large ... just big enough for two to enjoy one another. Bryan must have known I wasn’t all there. He poked me in the ribs. I laughed. Chuckled. Okay, giggled. Bryan giggled back, and kissed me.

Bryan

The next morning, we had just finished breakfast—an egg, bacon, and mushroom casserole I made from frozen and canned ingredients, when Richard translocated himself and Zhang into the kitchen.

“Zhang!” I said. “Hey, I’ve still got your pajamas. They’re clean. Paul said he would buy me some, although I don’t know . . . ."

I stuttered for a moment, and then asked Zhang to come to my room.

Richard

The boys raided the fridge for bottled water, and then pounded down the hall.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” Paul said.

I knew what he meant. Paul and Bryan were boyfriends, and even I could see their love. Zhang was my little brother, son, and lover. Still, they were boys, and they needed friends—and boyfriends—their own age. There were just some things they needed to talk about, share, and experience with someone their own age. Sometimes that was going to include things neither Paul nor I wanted to know about, things like the kids’ current taste in music. I knew they were going to have sex, too. I was happy for both Zhang and Bryan. So was Paul.

I walked to the counter where Paul was about to pour coffee, and hugged him. He put down the coffee pot and hugged back. We had once been lovers. We’d been separated by circumstances, and it was only a few months ago that I decided to contact Paul. We, too needed someone our own age—or, in our case, close to it.

Yosemite National Park: Seven Years Before Present

Paul

The Hard Rock Lodge was a mecca for rock-climbers. After graduating from high school, I signed up for a two-week stay that included lessons, training, and supervised climbing. I was sure, then, that I was going to be a geologist, and was looking forward to getting up-close-and-personal with a bunch of different kinds of rocks.

Most of the guests—who would be my classmates—seemed to be older folks, like an Elderhostel group. I was the youngest person in the dining room. Even the waiters were middle-aged. The only youngsters were the busboys, who were in their late teens. Going to be a long two weeks, I thought. Unless I can hook up with one of the busboys.

It was a pleasant surprise the next morning to find that the busboys were our instructors. Assistant instructors—guides—that is. The class was run by a man in his thirties. Each team of six students was partnered with one of the busboys. The instructor would tell us something about our equipment, and the busboy would make sure we did what he had said, and that we hooked up everything the right way.

I was odd-man-out in many ways. My team was two oldster couples, the busboy, and I. All of the oldster were couples, and they were a group. Not Elderhostel as I’d thought, but some church from Utah. Mornings the first week were for classroom instruction; afternoons for field work. We didn’t start with climbing, but with hikes to get us accustomed to the terrain and the altitude. Half the oldsters didn’t show up on the first afternoon. After that, seldom more than a quarter of them came to the after-lunch sessions.

After supper, there was a movie, usually something about climbing: K2, Vertical Limit, and others. None of the oldsters showed up; I was the only one in the TV lounge. I heard one of them say that movies, and therefore TV, were against their religion, and found out that after supper they held praise and worship services in one of the meeting rooms. I really became odd-man-out when some of them asked me to come to their services. I was polite, and just said, no, thank you. They got pushy, and overlaid their invitations with words about the good of your soul and keeping in touch with the Lord. About the fifteenth time, I told the guy, as politely as I could, that my worldview was different from his. That was as polite a way I could think of to say I didn’t believe what he did.

The guy’s eyes narrowed. So did his lips when he pressed them together. When he was able to pry his lips apart, he said that I would burn in Hell if I didn’t see the light. Then he walked away.

The four oldsters who were on my team weren’t in their seats the next morning. I looked around the classroom, and saw them sitting with another group. None of them would meet my eyes. When they realized that I was looking at them, they turned their heads. Some of them whispered to the others. I knew they were talking about me. My team was now just the busboy and me. Fortunately, he was one of the cute ones, although I’d never felt anything special from him.

Fewer and fewer of the oldsters attended the afternoon field exercises, which now included some serious climbing. I was afraid we’d not be able to do the graduation exercise, which was to climb El Capitan. The busboy assured me, however, that we would. “Even if it’s just you and Mr. Archer, and the guides.” Mr. Archer was the instructor.

And it was just as he said. And it was on El Capitan that I saved the busboy’s life. At least, he thought I did.

A piton popped out. My busboy-guide, who was on my left, lost his grip and was hanging ten feet away from a concave slope. The only things that held him were the ropes that stretched to me on his right and to the guide on his left. The guide on the left froze, grabbed the rock, and pressed his body into it. Actually, that was a good initial response; unfortunately, he couldn’t get past that.

I pounded in two pitons and hooked a new rope to them and me. Then, I slid a couple of feet down the rock, pounded in two more pitons, and hooked a rope to them. Now, I had four pitons plus the guide on my right to hold me.

The kid who had frozen was still frozen. I could hear him whimpering. We would get no help from him. I called to the busboy who was hanging over eternity.

“Is your rope to me secure?” He nodded.

“Double secure,” he called.

“I’m going to pull in the slack and run it through a couple of carabineers,” I said. I did that.

“Now,” I called, “cut the rope to your left. As soon as you do, put your arms across your face.”

The boy knew what I meant and knew what I was asking him. As soon as he cut the rope that connected him to the boy on his left, he would swing like a pendulum from the rope that led to me. He might be dashed into the rocks. The rope might break. I might not be strong enough to help pull him to safety. There were so many ways to die; there was only one way to live.

He looked at the boy on his left, still pressed into the rock; still whimpering. He cut the rope.

He did hit the rocks, and he did bounce and spin. He hit the rocks a second time, but was able to get a handhold before he bounced away. He pounded in a piton, hooked himself to it, and began climbing. An eternity later, he was beside me. Without thought, we hugged each other with our free arms. There was a catch in his voice when he spoke.

“You saved my life. Thank you.”

I demurred, and said it was his own courage that had saved him. I could see in his face that he didn’t agree. I also knew that we didn’t have time to discuss it. There was a frozen kid to rescue.

That wasn’t a problem. By then the instructor and other guides were moving toward us. Later, when we reached the base Mr. Archer thanked me, apologized that we’d not finished the graduation climb, and offered another two weeks at the lodge, and another chance to climb El Capitan.

“The next group? You’ll get along with them,” he said. It had not escaped him that the so-called Christians, ignoring or defying the commandment to “love thy neighbor,” had shunned me. “They’re a bunch of guys from RPI … college students. You’ll get along okay with them.”

That night, I sat in my room checking email and reading an article in an on-line geophysics journal, when someone knocked on the door. I opened the door to see the busboy.

He didn’t say anything. Just stepped into the room and hugged me. With both arms, this time. I was surprised, but not too surprised to return the hug. I felt him sobbing.

I let him cry for a minute before I asked what was wrong.

“Nothing,” he said. “Nothing’s wrong.” He hiccoughed. “I’m crying because I’m happy to be alive.”

We looked at each other from a distance of inches. Then, of fractions of inches as our lips met. The kiss was as spontaneous as had been the hug on the mountain, the hug when he entered my room. It was meant to be. So was the sex that followed.

The boy came to my room every night for the next two weeks. In the afternoon, with the boys from RPI, we explored the trails, hills, rocks, and mountains that surrounded the lodge. At night, we explored each other.

Friday night, after we had reached the summit of El Capitan, eaten steaks from grills on the backs of pickup trucks, and been driven back to the lodge, he came to my room. We both knew it would be the last time, and we both tried very hard to make it special.

Saturday morning. I had packed, and written my email address and phone number on a piece of the lodge’s notepaper.

“I don’t know my mailing address,” I said. “I’m starting at the university in Chicago next week.

“Will you be going to college? working? what?”

“Um, I can’t go to college, yet,” he said. “I haven’t finished high school. I start tenth grade—”

“Tenth grade?” I blurted. “How old are you?”

“Fifteen?” he whispered.

“Oh, Richard,” I said. “What have we done?”

I told him that I was eighteen, and that we—at least I—had broken the law. He told me that he had an ID that said he was eighteen, which was why he’d been able to serve alcohol in the dining room and be a guide for climbers. I told him even that didn’t make what we’d done either legal or right. He told me that it wasn’t my fault; that he’d seduced me. I told him that no judge would buy that, and that I didn’t, either.

The room phone rang. It was the desk telling me that the shuttle to the airport was loading. I put on my backpack, slung my duffle bag over one shoulder, and grabbed the handle of my rolling suitcase. Then, I looked at Richard. The tears rolling down his cheeks weren’t happy tears.

“I’m sorry, Richard, but this cannot be,” I said. I was crying, too.

He nodded. I left.

A month later, when I finally got a post office box in the student union, I realized that I’d left in the room the notepaper with my phone and email address.

I learned a hard lesson from this. Not that I should have asked Richard how old he was, but that I had the power to hurt someone, and hurt them badly.

I called the lodge, but they could not—or would not tell me how to contact Richard.

Richard

I learned a hard lesson from this. Not that I should have told Paul how old I was, but that I had the power to hurt someone, and hurt them badly.

I had not considered Paul’s morality or his feelings. I had thought only of myself. I memorized his cell number and email address, and then destroyed the note. I was about to leave the room when I saw on the floor one of his carabineers. He did save my life, I thought. And he showed me what love might be.

I tucked the carabineer into my pocket and closed the door.

# # # # #

Paul

Bryan and I went out with Richard and Zhang for supper a couple of nights later. Zhang and Bryan “swapped” sleepovers, too. So did Richard and I. It didn’t take us long to rediscover what we’d discovered in Yellowstone, and to forgive each other for what we had done. Nor did it take long for Bryan to meet Gary and Nemesis: Richard invited them to join us at Dave and Busters.

Nemesis greeted Bryan with a hug and a more than friends kiss, which was okay with Bryan. He was comfortable with “love shared is love multiplied.” He had been worried about STDs, and I was glad that he’d thought of it, but assured him that with Asclepius and his father, Apollo on our side, he didn’t have to worry—as long as he stayed in the family, so to speak.

“Bryan!” Nemesis crowed. “I’ve been wanting for so long to meet you! You know that Paul can see us even though he’s not a god. I think it’s because he’s a scientist and has such an open mind. What was it Nietzsche said about mind-body correlation? It governs how we respond to stimuli, and—”

“Sure, but he was talking about mundane things, and not the magic that you and the others have. I think Kant’s notion that bodies possess vis motrix, only is more relevant in this—”

“Get a room, guys!” That was Zhang. “I mean, really, we’re here for pizza and skee ball, and not that philosophy stuff.”

Nemesis grinned at Bryan. “You wanna?”

Bryan looked at me; Nem looked at Gary. We both nodded.

“You come to my place,” Bryan invited. “Paul’s already said he had to finish a script, tonight.”

Nemesis must have been monitoring, because I had just wakened at 11:00 the next morning when he and Bryan burst into my bedroom, pounced onto my bed, slid under the covers, and cuddled. Bryan kissed me. It wasn’t a good morning peck on the cheek. It was a deep, serious, I love you kiss.

“Um, Bryan, maybe this isn’t the time—”

My objection was interrupted when Nemesis kissed me, just as deeply and seriously as had Bryan.

“Love shared is love multiplied,” Bryan said. “We both want this . . . .”

Nemesis broke the kiss. “And it’s okay with Gary, if you were wondering. In fact, it may have been his idea.”

The “friends tell friends the truth” was one of the rules that governed the behavior of all the gods. It was almost as if it were hard-wired into their minds. At first, the frankness that came with that was a little disconcerting to me. Later, I came to understand it. They simply didn’t have time to waste and none of them was thin-skinned. I toughened up a little, and accepted what they had to tell me.

Oh, and it was easy to accept Nemesis’s implicit invitation, and Bryan’s insistence that … well, the details aren’t important. Suffice it to say that we didn’t leave bed until well after lunchtime. After showers, Bryan offered to cook but no one, not even he, was really willing to wait for him to create something, so we went to a Waffle Place for waffles, bacon, and eggs scrambled with cheese. Even though we were well above the Mason-Dixon line, the Waffle Place served grits. In fact, they served them with everything. Bryan had never had grits, before, and would have put sugar on them if we hadn’t told him that would probably re-start the Civil War.

# # # # #

Paul

Things were going well for Bryan and me. I sold two more scripts. Bryan got his dive certification, and we planned a springtime visit to the Bahamas so he could do some serious diving. It was a Sunday morning. Richard and Zhang popped into the kitchen after breakfast. Bryan and Zhang giggled and ran toward Bryan’s room.

“Coffee?” I offered Richard. “The water’s hot; it will only take a minute.”

“Paul, it’s time to leave Chicago,” Richard said.

“I’m not sure I can. I have a contract at the university; I have commitments to three scripts.”

“You’ve not heard? The university has declared insolvency, their word for bankruptcy, and has cancelled classes indefinitely. They’ve suspended all salaries and stipends, as well. They’ve broken their contract with you. Aiden has confirmed this. You’re free to go.

“You will have computer and internet access … as long as it lasts. You can do your research and write your scripts from safety. Paul? It’s not I, asking; it’s Dike. You are needed in Texas.”

Texas?

Disclaimers and Notes: Trademarks used herein, including Elderhostel and Dave and Busters, are the property of their owner(s).