A Density of Souls (17 page)

“That was high school, Jeff.” He descended the steps, stopped, and turned. Jeff’s silhouette blocked the light coming through the store’s front door.

“It’s kind of ironic, though,” Stephen continued, “because if you were really gay then you wouldn’t be able to draw in nearly the amount of tips you do now. Once the fresh-meat factor wears off, you’re screwed if you’re gay. All those fags really want in there is a straight boy they can chip away at once they get him in their grip. And that’s what you are. For now.”

Stephen fumbled for a Camel Light. He knew that all Sanctuary bartenders were required to carry lights to assist the patrons. Jeff made no move to light Stephen’s cigarette.

“Trust me,” Stephen said, through an exhalation of smoke. “I’ve been going there for two years.”

“I know. That’s why I took the job,” Jeff told him.

Stephen flicked on the overhead light in his bedroom. He didn’t have the energy to pretend to give Jeff a tour. Jeff studied the wall of framed The Bell Tower

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posters from Stephen’s Cannon theatre career. Stephen lingered in the doorway. He hoped his mother was asleep.

Stephen looked at Jeff, hands bunched in the pocket of his jeans.

He was still wearing his Sanctuary T-shirt, which featured a Saturn-like globe girded by rainbow-striped rings.

“I have to tell you something,” Jeff said. “I saw them.” He paused.

Stephen felt his own confusion tighten his face. Jeff shook his head.

“Greg Darby and Brandon Charbonnet. The night they . . . the night they did that to your new car. I was driving home and they were in front of me and I . . . You remember the note about Miss Traulain?”

Stephen shook his head. This wasn’t just awkward anymore. It was starting to hurt.

“Well, I put that in your mailbox. So I knew how to get to your house and I had been at this party that night and they were there, too, and they were talking about your new car . . . And I saw them on the way to your house and I—”

“That was five years ago, Jeff,” Stephen cut in.

“They were such assholes and everyone knew it, but Brandon usually had people so scared . . .”

“Jeff!” Stephen’s voice rose with anger.

“I saw them turn at the intersection and I knew they were going to your house. They’d been bitching about your car all night.”

“And what the hell would you have done?” Stephen’s fists had clenched at his sides. He glared at Jeff. “Are you trying to tell me you’ve spent the last five years overcome with regret that you didn’t play the noble hero, rushing to defend the poor fag? Give me a fucking break. It happened five years ago and it happened to my car. I don’t even think about it anymore!”

“You’re lying,” Jeff said.

Stephen cocked his head. “You think you never did anything for me?” he asked, a crooked, bemused smile on his face. “You think taking me to the Fly and getting me drunk and letting me blow you in the backseat didn’t mean anything? Come on, Jeff.” Stephen laughed gently. “I can’t think of a better gift.”

Stephen slowly crawled across the mattress to where Jeff stood at the foot of the bed. He grinned. “What’s the matter? Was I being crude?”

“I think about what happened that night. A lot,” Jeff said evenly, his face fixed.

Stephen’s smile faded.

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“Do you?” Jeff asked.

Stephen rose to his knees and beckoned to Jeff. Jeff hesitated and then approached the edge of the bed. Stephen unzipped Jeff’s jeans.

Suddenly, Jeff’s hands shot down and grabbed Stephen’s wrists, holding them firmly in place. Stephen jerked his head up and glared at Jeff with bewildered anger. Jeff released Stephen’s wrists before pushing him flat onto his back. Jeff dropped to his knees beneath Stephen’s dangling feet and unbuttoned Stephen’s jeans with his teeth.

She watched Jeff’s shoulders disappear out of the frame of Stephen’s bedroom window. She waited until the light blinked out. She sat there for a while in her mother’s Acura, confident that Stephen had someone, if only for a moment. Then Meredith Ducote turned the key and pulled away from the corner, the car’s taillights swallowed by the fog that had blown in off the river, dappling the streets with suggestions of ghosts.

5

“I
think Stephen’s found someone,” Monica said.

Elise sipped her wine. This was the first time Monica had broached the subject of her son’s homosexuality at lunch. Although it was by no means a secret, they had never discussed it in the four months since they had started lunching together.

Elise had tripped on the wording. “Found someone”—did Monica think her son was that desperate? Five years earlier, Elise has considered homosexuals as tragically misguided; two men having sex together was a horrifying thought. Two men together had no control.

But since then she had grown more acquainted with desperation. “Do you know who it is?” she asked.

Monica was twirling her wineglass in small circles. “No. But I think I caught a glimpse of him the other night. Well, morning actually . . .”

“So he slept there?” Elise asked.

Monica nodded.

“Do you think it’s a character flaw that I still pray for my son even though I stopped believing in God years ago?” Monica asked.

“Maybe it’s a character flaw that I’ve stopped praying for one of mine . . .” Elise said. “At least you’re a mother to Stephen. With Brandon, I’m just a bystander.” She stabbed at romaine leaves with her fork.

“You would have turned into a bystander the minute he hit eighteen anyway, Elise,” Monica said.

“Wrong.” Elise’s curtness surprised them both. “I would’ve been something else. A spectator. I would have watched him go off to school, grow up, get married. Now . . . All the crap that’s made him so . . . ill . . . Well, none of it was my fault. But here I am knowing my 124

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son is a sick person. Stuck waiting for the next horrible thing he might do. That makes me a bystander.”

Monica said nothing. In the pain game they often played, Elise held the winning hand that afternoon.

Jordan found Roger leafing through a stack of mail on the kitchen counter.

“Where’s your mother?” Roger asked.

“Mom went to lunch with Monica Conlin,” Jordan said flatly. He watched Roger carefully, trying to gauge his reaction.

Elise had admitted her new friendship with her former Garden District nemesis only after Jordan had pressed her. He wanted to see if this bit of news was as shocking to Roger as it was to him. Roger shook his head and tore open an envelope notifying him of the imminent end of his subscription to The Wall Street Journal.

Jordan waited until he heard the sound of his father’s Cadillac pulling out of the driveway, followed by the metallic clang as the gate shut behind him.

Brandon’s room was a time capsule from 1995. It had been cleared of personal belongings. Dust on the comforter indicated that the bed had not been unmade since Brandon had been packed off to Camp Davis. A framed photo of the 1995 Cannon varsity football team hung over the bed. In the photo, Greg Darby gazed stoically out from the team’s ranks. He had longer hair than most of his teammates. He wasn’t soft or feminine, but he was prettier. He was the only player whose eyes caught the sunlight falling on all of them. By contrast, Brandon’s face was so set with fierce determination that he looked as if he might rear up and tackle the camera. His grimace was adoles-cent, comical.

Jordan felt like an intruder. He had not gone into Brandon’s room since his arrival several weeks earlier. Finally, the shut door across the hall from his was too much of a lure. But when he realized his palms were sweating, he turned from the picture, his hip knocking into a nightstand that wobbled, its drawer sliding open a few inches. Jordan reached down and righted the nightstand, relieved that both of his parents were out of the house.

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His younger brother stared back at him from inside the drawer. He eased the drawer open to reveal a picture. Three children. He recognized Greg Darby standing next to his brother. Jordan was surprised by how accurately his nightmare a month earlier at Princeton had recreated Brandon at age thirteen. He recognized the girl but could only remember her first name, Meredith. She was holding onto Greg, both arms around his chest. The picture had obviously been taken by Elise. The trio was standing in front of the Charbonnet residence, their bikes lay defeated at their feet.

Four bikes.

Jordan then noticed the thin outline of a fourth figure who was holding onto Meredith, a fourth friend whose form had been meticulously filled in with a black marker. Jordan tried to imagine Brandon steadying his hand to stay within the body’s lines. Brandon had been an impatient kid brother, prone to tantrums. Steady hands had never been his forte. Jordan glanced up from the picture to where Brandon leered out from the ranks of the 1995 varsity team. Now his grimace no longer seemed comical.

The Bishop Polk bell tower was visible through Brandon’s bedroom window, Jordan noted, as he slid the photograph into his shorts pocket. He knew his mother had heard the gunshot that killed Greg Darby, but he had no idea where Brandon had been on that night.

The possibility that perhaps Brandon had seen some muzzle flare or human form inside the portico’s windows made Jordan feel nause-ated. He stepped out of Brandon’s room, shutting the door behind him.

The only thing that made the ache in his stomach wane was his sudden determination to find out who was the fourth black silhouette clinging to the periphery of his brother and his two best friends.

“Your father wants to take you to dinner.”

A month earlier, Trish Ducote would have made this pronouncement with a cigarette hanging from her lip. Now she forced herself to smoke outside the house.

Trish had forced Ronald to put Meredith’s 4-Runner up for sale.

They found a buyer a week after Meredith returned home. Apparently her car was not the only thing she would have to sacrifice as penance for her drunken stupidity.

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“Shit,” Meredith whispered, and slammed the refrigerator door.

“He sounds very concerned. And apparently this girl he’s with is kind of serious,” Trish continued, unfazed.

Meredith took a slug from her water bottle. “Serious?” she asked.

“Does that mean she pays for dinner?”

Trish bowed her head to repress a smile. “She’s a therapist.”

“I’ll go. But only if I can have two martinis.”

“Meredith!”

“Joke, Mom.”

“Not funny, Mer,” Trish said. She handed the phone to Meredith and sped to the back door. Meredith knew a pack of Benson & Hedges waited on the lounger by the pool.

“Commander’s Palace?” Ronald Ducote suggested when she said hello.

“No, reminds me of dinner before senior prom,” Meredith said, gripping the phone tightly and trying to be difficult.

“Work with me here, Meredith,” Ronald urged her.

Fuck you, Dad, Meredith thought: Try working with Mom again first.

“Debbie likes Emeril’s,” Ronald said with an exaggerated sigh. Only he said em-uh-rools, his yat accent in evidence. An accent he no longer had to conceal since he had left his Garden District wife. “Emeril’s is really good. How about tomorrow?”

“Cool. What time?” This conversation is now over, Meredith’s tone said—save your crap for dinner.

“Seven?” Ronald asked tersely.

“Cool. Bye.”

Andrew Darby reached for the phone, clearing his throat as he brought the receiver to his ear.

“Hello?”

“Hi. Mr. Darby,” said the voice on the other end. Andrew knew who it was, but he was still surprised. It had been years since he had received one of these phone calls. The kid sounded drunk, his voice a parody of a little boy’s.

“Can I speak to Greg, please?”

“Greg’s not here anymore, Brandon.”

Andrew waited until Brandon Charbonnet hung up on him before sinking back into bed.

6

T
he firstthingJordannoticedaboutRichwasthathewasfat.His former Cannon teammate had been thrown out of the University of Alabama, his football scholarship revoked after he missed three games due to hangovers. Now Rich had landed one of the few jobs he couldn’t drink himself out of—bartender at one of the nicest restaurants in New Orleans. Rich said getting Jordan a job as host would be a cinch because the manager “was a fag” and Rich routinely flirted with him.

The restaurant was packed with well-dressed conventioneers, the light though its plate glass windows illuminating the otherwise desolate Warehouse District of art galleries and studio apartment buildings.

Rich occasionally threw Jordan leering grins from behind the bar as he flirted with the wives who had snuck away from their tables to have a cigarette. Rich’s last job had been as a bartender at Fat Harry’s, a bar they had all frequented in high school with their fake IDs.

When he arrived at work that night, Jordan asked Rich a question before he said hello. “Did you ever see my brother at Fat Harry’s?”

“Once,” Rich said.

For someone who usually padded his sentences with a joke or a crude one-liner, Rich’s sudden case of clamp-mouth contributed to Jordan’s sense of unease. “How long ago?” he asked.

“About a year ago, I think. I had just started there.”

Jordan froze—a year ago? It didn’t make sense. Not if Brandon was still in Camp Davis. Jordan tried to conceal his shock, knowing it would only contribute to skittishness.

“How was he?” Jordan asked evenly.

“What do you mean?” Rich asked, fingering the buttons of his white oxford shirt.

“I don’t know. Was he . . .”

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“I had to throw him out,” Rich blurted out.

“Why?”

“He got into a fight in the back. He was with some guys I didn’t recognize. They got into a fight with this gang of frat boys over by the pool table. I didn’t want to do it, man. I told him I knew you . . .”

“And what did he say?” Jordan asked, aware of the sweat in his armpits and hoping it wouldn’t stain through his blazer.