"Coup de Foudre" 53
Carl. Brian. Car.
Time to for The Talk.
By Gaedhal
Pittsburgh, July 2016
“Go ahead,” said Brian, buckling his seatbelt. “I’m ready. Hit me with it.”
Carl backed up his car and pulled out of the courthouse parking lot into morning traffic. “Hit you with what, son?”
Brian snorted. “The lecture. The scolding. The big speech. The sermon. The harangue. The rebuke. The reprimand. The fucking ass-kicking. I’m waiting. I expect it. I know that I fucking well earned it. So go to it.”
“No,” Carl said calmly. “I don’t need to do that.”
“You don’t?” Brian was disappointed in Carl. Who would pass up the opportunity to ream out Brian Kinney, especially when he so richly deserved it? “What the fuck do you mean, you don’t need to do it? Of course you need to do it! Why else did you spring me from the can? I’m sure you didn’t do it for your health.” He rubbed his forehead. One of those bitches of a headache he was prone to was forming like a tropical storm in his head, working its way up to a full-blown hurricane. “If you’re worried that I’ll tell Deb, don’t. Because I know she’ll want to have at me the first chance she gets.”
Carl shrugged. “That’s her prerogative. But I think she’ll be more relieved that it wasn’t something worse. You got off easy, Brian.”
Brian slumped down in the seat. “I know. Thank God I wasn’t drunk. But that joint - it was ages old! I fucking swear! I didn’t even remember it was in there. I don’t keep weed in the house when Gus is around. I’m not a complete fucking idiot, even if it sometimes appears otherwise.”
“You’re too hard on yourself, Brian,” said Carl. “Yeah, you fucked up. A lot of people fuck up. I’ve fucked up myself, big time. But my question to you is - why did you fuck up last night? And that little display at the picnic - what was that all about? I was surprised to see your pal - the English guy....”
“Garrett.”
“Right. Garrett. I was surprised to see him with you after that stunt with Justin at the picnic. What the hell were you thinking? And - even more so - what the hell was Justin thinking? Since when are you two screwing around? I thought that was over a long time ago.”
“So did I,” Brian said wearily.
“Then what’s the deal?”
“I wish I knew,” Brian admitted.
“Listen, Justin has a nice kid he’s hanging out with,” said Carl. “He’s a little young, but they seem to be okay together. Even Debbie likes him, and you know how critical she can be, especially where her boys are concerned. So what are you trying to do? Why are you pulling Justin’s chain? To get back at him for that botched wedding? That was ages ago! I thought you guys had both moved on.”
“So did I,” said Brian. “But… it’s too hard to explain.”
Carl glanced at Brian. “Try me.”
Brian winced. “It’s a fucking mess. I see Justin and I get so fucking angry at him. There’s no reason I should be angry. We both agreed to call off the wedding. I let him go. I told him it was for the best. And…”
“And?”
Brian’s head pounded. “He went. He fucking went! And he never looked back! No one knows how much that killed me. I pretended I didn’t give a fuck… but it hurt. It hurt so much I couldn’t think, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even enjoy fucking. I threw myself into work. And when I wasn’t working, I was sitting in my loft, in the dark, stewing.”
Carl frowned. “I never knew that, Brian. I thought you were okay with it. We all did. I mean, getting married never seemed in character for you, so when it didn’t happen, we all just assumed that…”
“That what?”
Carl coughed. “That you’d come to your senses.”
Brian cut his eyes at Carl. “You all thought the whole wedding was a joke, didn’t you? You all thought little Sunshine must have drugged me, or blackmailed me, or twisted my balls until he finally got his way. That I was some comical figure, being dragged down the aisle by a calculating twink. Well, that was completely wrong. I wanted to do it. I’d never wanted to do anything so badly in my whole fucking life. After all the stumbling around, trying to hide my feelings, trying to shore up my bullshit philosophy of not believing in love, not believing in anything but the power of my own dick, this was something I knew that I wanted. Something I knew I had to do.”
“Jesus, Brian,” said Carl. “I never thought…”
“No! No one did. No one believed it,” said Brian. “And, in the end, Justin didn’t believe it, either. That’s why he left. He didn’t believe in me. He didn’t trust me. Do you know I bought him a fucking house? No, not a house, a mansion. A ridiculous white elephant of a faux-Tudor palace because that’s what he always claimed he wanted. And I planned a honeymoon in Europe that hit every fucking romantic moment I could imagine - London, Paris, Rome, Capri, Ibiza. At every hotel, every stop, I ordered flowers because once I didn’t buy him flowers when he deserved fucking flowers! So I vowed he’d be inundated with the fucking things. I had plans… so many fucking plans…” Brian paused. “Does that sound like I didn’t mean it? Does that sound like something I could forget in a moment?”
“No,” said Carl. “I’m sorry, son. Really sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Brian said dismissively. “It was me. I should have known it would all go wrong. Because… because Justin never really loved me. I know that now. He may have thought he loved me, but he was only a kid. He didn’t understand what love meant. Love at fucking first sight! What a joke! But I never knew the joke would be on me in the end.”
Carl felt a sinking in his gut. He’d never felt all that sorry for Brian Kinney over the years. He was a cocky guy, more than a little bit of an asshole, and superficial as hell. At least, that’s how Carl had always seen it. And he’d always been dubious about Brian’s relationship with Justin. That was probably because most of what he knew about it was filtered through Deb, who seesawed from thinking it was the worst thing in the world for Justin - Brian’s needs or wants weren’t really considered - to thinking it was the world’s greatest love story and that Brian better do right by Sunshine or she’d have plenty to say about it! When the wedding was canceled everyone seemed more relieved than anything else, Michael especially. Justin disappeared to New York, and, not long after that, so did Brian, taking off to California with some guy no one knew. The whole Brian and Justin saga was erased from Carl’s consciousness, except for an occasional mention by Debbie when she ran into Justin’s mom or heard something about Brian from Michael. Carl hadn’t even been aware that Justin was back in Pittsburgh until he saw the kid on Liberty Avenue one day, coming out of the diner. They stopped and chatted for a few minutes and that was that. A while later, Justin showed up at one of Debbie’s family dinner with some guy. They seemed lovey-dovey, but the next time Justin showed up at the house, he was alone. Then he stopped showing up at all. In the meanwhile, Brian shocked everybody by getting married to this Ron guy. And Michael said they were happy. Brian Kinney, married and settled down - Carl thought it was unlikely, but he couldn’t deny it was true.
“But… what about… Ron?”
Brian looked at Carl. “Ron was something different. I never doubted him. Never. I wanted to kill him sometimes and I’m sure he wanted to kill me, too, but I never doubted that he loved me.” Brian turned away. “And I loved him. I did. More than I want to think about. Because if I do think about it… I’ll fucking break apart.”
“So what’s the deal with Justin?” Carl demanded. “What the hell happened yesterday? I mean, if you don’t love him, if you hate him, then why screw around with him?”
“I don’t hate him. But… I wanted to get even,” Brian confessed. “To make him feel how much it hurts. Because he thinks he loves me again. But I don’t believe it. It’s all about his ego. And I know something about egos, because I have a gigantic one. Ron had a pretty huge one, too. But we were able to reconcile that because we loved each other more than we loved ourselves. I never believed that was possible, but it is. And now that I’m here and Justin is here - all the old shit is happening again. We’re acting like a couple of stupid adolescents, just like we did the first time. I want him because I’m horny and lonely and fucked up. And Justin wants me because he doesn’t have me. I know that’s the only reason. He wants me, but he also doesn’t want to upset his cushy little life with Robbie and his job at Kinnetik. He wants to be a grown man and cute little Sunshine, too. But he can’t. Neither of us can. That fucking ship has sailed.”
“So you broke up him and his boyfriend on purpose,” said Carl. “Do you feel good about that? Really?”
“Of course not!” Brian retorted. “I feel shitty about it, mainly because the boyfriend was the one who got hurt. But he’s well out of it, since Justin was cheating on him with me from the minute I came back into town.”
Carl sighed. “Why did you do that, Brian? You knew it was wrong. You knew it would be a disaster.”
“Yes, I knew,” said Brian. “But I couldn’t stop myself. My dick was telling me what to do - and I did it. But Justin did it, too.”
“Takes two to tango, huh?” Carl replied. “What do you think you’re accomplishing? Seriously?”
Brian shook his head slowly. “Pain management, in a way.”
“What’s that?”
“A way to stop feeling so much. A way to… to forget, if only for a few minutes. With Gus living with me, I can’t drink or drug myself into a stupor. And I can’t wander around, picking up random tricks anymore. I have to think about my son.”
“Which is why I just got you out of jail,” said Carl. “Because you were thinking of your son.”
“Point taken,” Brian muttered.
“And your English friend,” said Carl. “What about how you’re hurting him?”
“Garrett and I aren’t boyfriends,” Brian insisted. “It’s not like that.”
Carl pulled his car into the lot at the impound yard and parked next to a chain-link fence. Inside the fence cars, trucks, and a few random motorcycles were lined up, waiting to be claimed. “So you say. But I saw that guy’s face, Brian. You may think he’s only a pal you fuck around with, but he thinks something else. He may not realize it yet, but he likes you more than you think, mark my words.”
Brian put his hand over his eyes. The sun suddenly seemed very hot and very bright. “That’s the problem. I do know. But what can I do?”
“Stay away from both of those guys! For your own good and for theirs!” Carl barked. “Is that so fucking hard?” He unbuckled his seatbelt. “Let’s get your motorcycle out of hock, okay?”
Brian got out of the car and stretched. “Okay, Carl.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” said Carl. “Take my advice, son - get rid of that goddamn motorcycle! It’s nothing but trouble. Hear me?”
“I hear you, Carl,” said Brian, following him to the office to pay the impound fee.
I hear you, he thought, but I’m not listening.
Time to for The Talk.
By Gaedhal
Pittsburgh, July 2016
“Go ahead,” said Brian, buckling his seatbelt. “I’m ready. Hit me with it.”
Carl backed up his car and pulled out of the courthouse parking lot into morning traffic. “Hit you with what, son?”
Brian snorted. “The lecture. The scolding. The big speech. The sermon. The harangue. The rebuke. The reprimand. The fucking ass-kicking. I’m waiting. I expect it. I know that I fucking well earned it. So go to it.”
“No,” Carl said calmly. “I don’t need to do that.”
“You don’t?” Brian was disappointed in Carl. Who would pass up the opportunity to ream out Brian Kinney, especially when he so richly deserved it? “What the fuck do you mean, you don’t need to do it? Of course you need to do it! Why else did you spring me from the can? I’m sure you didn’t do it for your health.” He rubbed his forehead. One of those bitches of a headache he was prone to was forming like a tropical storm in his head, working its way up to a full-blown hurricane. “If you’re worried that I’ll tell Deb, don’t. Because I know she’ll want to have at me the first chance she gets.”
Carl shrugged. “That’s her prerogative. But I think she’ll be more relieved that it wasn’t something worse. You got off easy, Brian.”
Brian slumped down in the seat. “I know. Thank God I wasn’t drunk. But that joint - it was ages old! I fucking swear! I didn’t even remember it was in there. I don’t keep weed in the house when Gus is around. I’m not a complete fucking idiot, even if it sometimes appears otherwise.”
“You’re too hard on yourself, Brian,” said Carl. “Yeah, you fucked up. A lot of people fuck up. I’ve fucked up myself, big time. But my question to you is - why did you fuck up last night? And that little display at the picnic - what was that all about? I was surprised to see your pal - the English guy....”
“Garrett.”
“Right. Garrett. I was surprised to see him with you after that stunt with Justin at the picnic. What the hell were you thinking? And - even more so - what the hell was Justin thinking? Since when are you two screwing around? I thought that was over a long time ago.”
“So did I,” Brian said wearily.
“Then what’s the deal?”
“I wish I knew,” Brian admitted.
“Listen, Justin has a nice kid he’s hanging out with,” said Carl. “He’s a little young, but they seem to be okay together. Even Debbie likes him, and you know how critical she can be, especially where her boys are concerned. So what are you trying to do? Why are you pulling Justin’s chain? To get back at him for that botched wedding? That was ages ago! I thought you guys had both moved on.”
“So did I,” said Brian. “But… it’s too hard to explain.”
Carl glanced at Brian. “Try me.”
Brian winced. “It’s a fucking mess. I see Justin and I get so fucking angry at him. There’s no reason I should be angry. We both agreed to call off the wedding. I let him go. I told him it was for the best. And…”
“And?”
Brian’s head pounded. “He went. He fucking went! And he never looked back! No one knows how much that killed me. I pretended I didn’t give a fuck… but it hurt. It hurt so much I couldn’t think, couldn’t sleep, couldn’t even enjoy fucking. I threw myself into work. And when I wasn’t working, I was sitting in my loft, in the dark, stewing.”
Carl frowned. “I never knew that, Brian. I thought you were okay with it. We all did. I mean, getting married never seemed in character for you, so when it didn’t happen, we all just assumed that…”
“That what?”
Carl coughed. “That you’d come to your senses.”
Brian cut his eyes at Carl. “You all thought the whole wedding was a joke, didn’t you? You all thought little Sunshine must have drugged me, or blackmailed me, or twisted my balls until he finally got his way. That I was some comical figure, being dragged down the aisle by a calculating twink. Well, that was completely wrong. I wanted to do it. I’d never wanted to do anything so badly in my whole fucking life. After all the stumbling around, trying to hide my feelings, trying to shore up my bullshit philosophy of not believing in love, not believing in anything but the power of my own dick, this was something I knew that I wanted. Something I knew I had to do.”
“Jesus, Brian,” said Carl. “I never thought…”
“No! No one did. No one believed it,” said Brian. “And, in the end, Justin didn’t believe it, either. That’s why he left. He didn’t believe in me. He didn’t trust me. Do you know I bought him a fucking house? No, not a house, a mansion. A ridiculous white elephant of a faux-Tudor palace because that’s what he always claimed he wanted. And I planned a honeymoon in Europe that hit every fucking romantic moment I could imagine - London, Paris, Rome, Capri, Ibiza. At every hotel, every stop, I ordered flowers because once I didn’t buy him flowers when he deserved fucking flowers! So I vowed he’d be inundated with the fucking things. I had plans… so many fucking plans…” Brian paused. “Does that sound like I didn’t mean it? Does that sound like something I could forget in a moment?”
“No,” said Carl. “I’m sorry, son. Really sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry about,” Brian said dismissively. “It was me. I should have known it would all go wrong. Because… because Justin never really loved me. I know that now. He may have thought he loved me, but he was only a kid. He didn’t understand what love meant. Love at fucking first sight! What a joke! But I never knew the joke would be on me in the end.”
Carl felt a sinking in his gut. He’d never felt all that sorry for Brian Kinney over the years. He was a cocky guy, more than a little bit of an asshole, and superficial as hell. At least, that’s how Carl had always seen it. And he’d always been dubious about Brian’s relationship with Justin. That was probably because most of what he knew about it was filtered through Deb, who seesawed from thinking it was the worst thing in the world for Justin - Brian’s needs or wants weren’t really considered - to thinking it was the world’s greatest love story and that Brian better do right by Sunshine or she’d have plenty to say about it! When the wedding was canceled everyone seemed more relieved than anything else, Michael especially. Justin disappeared to New York, and, not long after that, so did Brian, taking off to California with some guy no one knew. The whole Brian and Justin saga was erased from Carl’s consciousness, except for an occasional mention by Debbie when she ran into Justin’s mom or heard something about Brian from Michael. Carl hadn’t even been aware that Justin was back in Pittsburgh until he saw the kid on Liberty Avenue one day, coming out of the diner. They stopped and chatted for a few minutes and that was that. A while later, Justin showed up at one of Debbie’s family dinner with some guy. They seemed lovey-dovey, but the next time Justin showed up at the house, he was alone. Then he stopped showing up at all. In the meanwhile, Brian shocked everybody by getting married to this Ron guy. And Michael said they were happy. Brian Kinney, married and settled down - Carl thought it was unlikely, but he couldn’t deny it was true.
“But… what about… Ron?”
Brian looked at Carl. “Ron was something different. I never doubted him. Never. I wanted to kill him sometimes and I’m sure he wanted to kill me, too, but I never doubted that he loved me.” Brian turned away. “And I loved him. I did. More than I want to think about. Because if I do think about it… I’ll fucking break apart.”
“So what’s the deal with Justin?” Carl demanded. “What the hell happened yesterday? I mean, if you don’t love him, if you hate him, then why screw around with him?”
“I don’t hate him. But… I wanted to get even,” Brian confessed. “To make him feel how much it hurts. Because he thinks he loves me again. But I don’t believe it. It’s all about his ego. And I know something about egos, because I have a gigantic one. Ron had a pretty huge one, too. But we were able to reconcile that because we loved each other more than we loved ourselves. I never believed that was possible, but it is. And now that I’m here and Justin is here - all the old shit is happening again. We’re acting like a couple of stupid adolescents, just like we did the first time. I want him because I’m horny and lonely and fucked up. And Justin wants me because he doesn’t have me. I know that’s the only reason. He wants me, but he also doesn’t want to upset his cushy little life with Robbie and his job at Kinnetik. He wants to be a grown man and cute little Sunshine, too. But he can’t. Neither of us can. That fucking ship has sailed.”
“So you broke up him and his boyfriend on purpose,” said Carl. “Do you feel good about that? Really?”
“Of course not!” Brian retorted. “I feel shitty about it, mainly because the boyfriend was the one who got hurt. But he’s well out of it, since Justin was cheating on him with me from the minute I came back into town.”
Carl sighed. “Why did you do that, Brian? You knew it was wrong. You knew it would be a disaster.”
“Yes, I knew,” said Brian. “But I couldn’t stop myself. My dick was telling me what to do - and I did it. But Justin did it, too.”
“Takes two to tango, huh?” Carl replied. “What do you think you’re accomplishing? Seriously?”
Brian shook his head slowly. “Pain management, in a way.”
“What’s that?”
“A way to stop feeling so much. A way to… to forget, if only for a few minutes. With Gus living with me, I can’t drink or drug myself into a stupor. And I can’t wander around, picking up random tricks anymore. I have to think about my son.”
“Which is why I just got you out of jail,” said Carl. “Because you were thinking of your son.”
“Point taken,” Brian muttered.
“And your English friend,” said Carl. “What about how you’re hurting him?”
“Garrett and I aren’t boyfriends,” Brian insisted. “It’s not like that.”
Carl pulled his car into the lot at the impound yard and parked next to a chain-link fence. Inside the fence cars, trucks, and a few random motorcycles were lined up, waiting to be claimed. “So you say. But I saw that guy’s face, Brian. You may think he’s only a pal you fuck around with, but he thinks something else. He may not realize it yet, but he likes you more than you think, mark my words.”
Brian put his hand over his eyes. The sun suddenly seemed very hot and very bright. “That’s the problem. I do know. But what can I do?”
“Stay away from both of those guys! For your own good and for theirs!” Carl barked. “Is that so fucking hard?” He unbuckled his seatbelt. “Let’s get your motorcycle out of hock, okay?”
Brian got out of the car and stretched. “Okay, Carl.”
“Oh, and one more thing,” said Carl. “Take my advice, son - get rid of that goddamn motorcycle! It’s nothing but trouble. Hear me?”
“I hear you, Carl,” said Brian, following him to the office to pay the impound fee.
I hear you, he thought, but I’m not listening.