You Got a Face With a View, bandombigbang, Jon/Brendon PG-13 4/5
Previous
***
October 4 2008
Dear Brendon,
It's weird how easy it is to forget you are from a very different time and place than me. It's also hard to believe that the big 'movement' in gay rights only really started in the 1970s. That's almost 100 years after your writing me. I guess I should have thought about that before I wrote to you. But I have to tell you, I had to put your letter down and go for a walk, you made me so mad. But now I realize it's not your fault--that's just how people think about these things where you are. Because, yes, when I said Spencer was my boyfriend, I mean that I love him and we were romantically involved, courting, to use your word. If that disgusts you or upsets you then maybe we don't need to write to each other anymore.
My family accepts me and the choices I've made and being a gay man is a very important part of my life. I have NO time for anyone who wants to be an ignorant asshole. I understand that Society is different where you are-but trust me, there are homosexuals in 1861, for sure, just as much as I'm sitting here writing you today. I am lucky to have people who love and accept me but I have to deal with more intolerance and hate than anyone ever should. I don't need or want to get letter judging me from some guy I don't even know.
Respectfully,
Jon
p.s. I'm glad you've found a way to stay safe during the war.
***
“So, Ashlee and Pete? Seriously?” Danielle arches and eyebrow and smirks as she steals a Frito from the bowl Jon is pouring them into.
Jon returns her smirk and shrugs, “Yeah, I mean I guess so. They're both kinda socially retarded, so I guess it makes it's own sense. They seem happy.” He crunches up the empty chip bag and stuffs it into an already overflowing garbage bag.
“Aww, Jon Walker, always the romantic,” Danielle beams approvingly and tussles his hair.
The timer on the microwave beeps and Jon rolls his eyes, “Whatever, go get my cheese!”
“Hate to break it to you, Julia Child, but Velveeta is not cheese,” Danielle snickers but does as she's asked, taking the bowl out of the microwave and placing it onto a hot pad.
“Food of the gods. You love it.” Jon just laughs at Danielle's guilty expression. “Here, take the Fritos out to the horde and I'll grab the chili.”
Muttering under her breath about Jon being a bossy bitch, Danielle grabs the bowl and the cheese and hip bumps the kitchen door open.
Smiling to himself, Jon unplugs the crock pot and grabs the basket of garlic bread. He's trying to convince himself that the whole Brendon Thing, as he's come to refer to it in his mind, is stupid and ridiculous, and now, most importantly, over. His friends were right, he had been ignoring them. So he's making it up to them with a game day at his house.
“Oh my god! Is that Dad Walker's chili?” Ashlee gasps from where she's sorting through Trivial Pursuit and Sorry.
Setting the pot down on the dining room table with a bang, Jon smiles wide, “Yep. Oh, shit! I forgot I printed out the recipe for you. I think it's still upstairs in my office, though.”
“I can go grab it!” Danielle announces loudly, desperate to get away from serving food to her boyfriend and Jon's co-workers. Ashlee just shrugs her acquiescence and goes back to arguing the merits of Totally 80s Trivial Pursuit with Pete.
When Danielle comes back she hands the recipe to Ashlee and takes a beer and a plate of food from Tom. They're all sitting around the coffee table, laughing as Marley makes the rounds. Jon insists that Marley doesn't beg, he just stares so intently that you're hypnotized into feeding him whatever it is you're eating. “Dude, if he pukes up Velveeta and Fritos, you're totally cleaning it up,” Jon says as sternly as he can to Frank.
Frank snickers and turns his attention back to making Marley sit with a corn chip perched on the end of his nose. “Your dog's a genius, man. He could be on Letterman or some shit.”
“Yeah, a genius,” Danielle and Tom are cuddled together on the couch and laugh along with Jon.
“Hey, so, who's Bden?” Danielle ask as Ryan takes the top off the Game of Life box and starts reading the instructions, word for word.
Jon swipes his hand over his mouth, quelling any unfortunate choking sounds. “Who?”
Danielle cocks her head and says again, “Bden. In your office, on your white board it says things to tell Bden and there's a list of stuff like clock radios and hydro electric dams and Jimi Hendrix and jazz.”
Everyone in the room is staring at Jon, “Oh, uh, it's nothing really. Just ideas I get sometimes.”
“Like that guy you asked me to look up at work?” Ashlee asks, smiling before she goes back to picking out game pieces for everyone.
“Something like that,” Jon mutters into the mouth of his beer bottle.
Gerard sets his glass of iced tea down on the writing desk, “Walker, you doing some freelancing? Cause the themes for the magazine are all locked in til fuckin' July of 2010, so I don't know what some Bden thing has to do with the Baltimore entertainment scene.”
Flustered, Jon walks over to the dining room table, stirring the chili with more enthusiasm and focus than is strictly necessary. “Like I said, I just get ideas sometimes.” He tries to shrug off the attention.
“So everybody eat up and listen to Ross, we got a game to play.” Spencer says in a loud, jokey voice, breaking the weird tension in the room and getting people to focus on where the board game is set up, instead of at Jon.
Relieved, Jon rejoins the group, sitting cross-legged by the game board, Clover curled up in his lap. While Ryan is droning on in a a slow methodical monotone about when and if each team takes a turn, Spencer reaches down from his seat on the arm of a Lazy-Boy occupied by a non-plussed Bob Bryar, and squeezes Jon's shoulder.
***
April 28 1861
Oh, Jon!
Oh no! I am so sorry to have angered you. Please believe me when I tell you it was never my intention to cause you upset. I was just astonished that you could be so forward. The things you have told me are too marvelous to even hope are true. I should explain.
My entire life I have been aware that I am of a more delicate temperament than what is perhaps expected of a boy my age and of my social standing. Where my brothers have always fancied sport and rough housing and have embraced their more base needs, as Mr. Darwin might describe them, I have long preferred the genteel company of my sisters, sitting at my mother's knee and learning all there is to know of poetry and painting and music.
As a lad I discovered several volumes detailing the lives and histories of the Ancient Greeks and was dumbfounded to learn I was not the only boy to suffer from what I had perceived to be the most deviant of predilections. Alas my Father, Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ, found my reading material and punished me for indulging in such sinful, wicked deviance. Sometimes, these ten years later, I would swear to you I can still feel the sting of his best leather belt against my skin. He warned me against such behaviors, in fear of society's repercussions and reproach. So, for several years I managed to hide who I am, most unhappily.
In my sixteenth year, traveling to preach with my Father, I met a blacksmith's apprentice-Travis. He is beautiful and intelligent and more unafraid of anything than anyone I have ever met. And I loved him. For the first time in my life, even though I had to be cautious, I spent all that Spring and Summer with him and allowed myself to imagine, with Travis, what a life of true happiness may be like. Later, we would find reasons for our paths to cross and spend as much time together as our situation would allow. For three years we were each others' secret. And then, my Father happened upon us, in a most compromising position. It was only because Father is an inherently fair and decent man that Travis' life was spared. While he is a free man born, he is a Negro and I am afraid our society is none so advanced as yours and equality is only something I can dream of, thanks to your words. I shall regret to my dying day that it is my fault someone I cared for so deeply lost his livelihood and was forced to flee in shame from everything he had known. I have not heard from Travis since the night we were found out, but I hold hope in my heart that he is happy and well.
So, that is the story of how I came to Baltimore and the Salpeters--engaged to the lovely Miss Greta so as to remove the stain of my sin and never again to speak of the life I lead before. At times I fear it is all unfair to Greta, but I do love her, and that will have to be enough.
My dear friend, I hope you now see I could never judge or condemn you as I have been, but only celebrate you and the hope you have given me that someday we may love as we choose and live lives without fear or shame.
With Affection,
Bden.
Jon doesn't realize he's crying until he sees the ink on the page start to blur. He sighs and sniffles, messily wiping away the tears on his cheeks with the back of his hand. He feels a strange mixture of guilt and fear and helplessness. But underneath it all is the relief that he has Brendon back.
He's had the same dream, every night since he'd gone to the Salpeter's summer house. Every night he'd wake up either rock hard desperate, or fuzzy headed with his boxers sticky with come. Jon had no idea what was going on or how to stop it. His entire relationship, if what he has with Brendon could be called a relationship, is insane. And Jon is beginning to think that insanity is the only logical reason for anything that's happened since he opened the desk drawer and found the sheet music.
October 8 2008
Brendon,
Wow. I don't think I can say how sorry I am. Here I am accusing you of being an intolerant judgmental asshole and I end up being exactly that to you. I would say that today, in America, being gay is in general tolerated, rather than accepted. But there are lots and lots of people who spew hate just because they can, and lots of men like you who hide that part of who they are because of that hate. It makes me sad. I've never been religious or anything like that, but I guess I figure god has more important things to worry about than who I'm dating (that's what we call 'courting' these days).
No hard feelings, ok? I hope you decide even though I came off as kind of a dick that you keep writing to me, for as long as whatever is going on here allows it. I like hearing from you and I have to admit, there are times during the day when I think about what you're doing and I sometimes think about what I want to tell you or show your or talk about in my next letter.
Sorry this is so short, but I have a huge thing due at work and it's taking up a lot of my time right now. Most nights I just come home exhausted and crawl into bed. But it's all good, and I think the result will be amazing and worth all the effort in the end.
xo
-jon
April 30 1861
Jon,
I am overjoyed to learn you are no longer angry with me. I have been anxiously checking and rechecking the post every day in the small hope that despite how I may have hurt you, you might still find it in you to continue to write. I am heartened that this is so.
So much has happened since I last wrote you. The war has come to Baltimore. It is bloody and awful and I am now unsure as to whether I may avoid donning a uniform. Although, I am sure that should I have to, that uniform will be Union blue.
I am fairly bursting with excitement on a more personal front-my dear Greta has secured me an audience with Mr. Stephen Collins Foster. He is a great musical hero of mine and I am quaking with nerves at the mere thought of sharing space in a room with him. Dare I be so bold as to share one of my compositions with him? All efforts to secure publication have thus far fallen on deaf ears. However, I am bouyed by your support and encouragement of my simple talents. I have been working on a song lately and even though it is in its infancy I am beginning to think it may just be my best work to date. All that is missing are lyrics. I respect your opinions on music so much, could you possibly do me the honor of attempting to put some words to the music I have enclosed?
And now, my dear friend, I feel I must make a confession of sorts to you. I have always been honest with you and it is not in my nature to fib. You have been so kind and patient with all my questions and blather that I feel I can trust you with anything, and this particular anything is something, and it is about you. In the midst of adding long columns of sums, I have time to think about this wonderful back and forth exchange of ours these past weeks. I would not trade our extraordinary friendship for anything, and I cannot help but think that fate saw two souls of a kind and determined we must know each other. I have put to paper secrets long held because I know implicitly in my heart that you will understand. You are in my thoughts constantly, Jon, and in the spirit of confession, I must tell you, you are in my heart as well. Many nights I have woken in the darkness, breath caught in my throat, desperate to know what it might be like if I were able to touch you whenever I like, to smell the scent of your skin.
I should be shamed by these thoughts, and I do know they are ridiculous flights of fancy, given the impossibility of the century and a half dividing us. Yet, these thoughts, they endure. I do not wish to cause you discomfort in professing my affection, but at the same time I feel not saying anything to you would be a lie by omission.
Faithfully,
your bden
***
October 15 2008
Bren,
If I said this out loud to anyone they would cart me off to the loony bin, for sure.
But you're not crazy and you're not wrong and I should tell you I think about you all the time, too. I managed to find the Salpeter's summer house over near Mayo and drove down there to see what I could find out about you. They've turned the place into a museum and in the hallway there's a big oil painting of you and who I'm assuming is Greta Salpeter (she's very pretty). That night and every night since I've had...dreams about you. They're pretty steamy, like I can feel you and touch you and taste you, all around me.
When I wake up I have to convince myself you're not here, and during the day I have to focus on my job and not wish you were here with me, now. There's no sense in wishing for something we both know is never going to happen. So, no, your confession didn't gross me out or scare me off. :) It only convinced me that writing to you in the first place was a pretty good decision on my part.
Last night, I stayed up way too late and after a lot of liquid courage I wrote these lyrics for your song. That melody is beautiful. Haunting, almost. Man, you HAVE to at least show it to that Foster guy, even if you don't play it for him (which you totally should. And I gotta tell you it makes me a little sad that I'll never get to hear you sing this song, or any other one). But yeah, this could be your big break. Now that is a wish that could definitely come true. You deserve it. Go for it!
Anyway, here's the words I wrote. Maybe tomorrow when I've slept some and am a little more sober they won't make a lot of sense, but right now I think they're pretty perfect.
xo
-jon
Northern Downpour
If all our life is but a dream
Fantastic posing greed
Then we should feed our jewelry to the sea
For diamonds do appear to be
Just like broken glass to me
And then she said she can't believe
Genius only comes along
In storms of fabled foreign tongues
Tripping eyes, and flooded lungs
Northern downpour sends its love
Hey moon, please forget to fall down
Hey moon, don't you go down
Sugarcane in the easy mornin'
Weathervanes my one and lonely
The ink is running toward the page
It's chasin' off the days
Look back at both feet
And that winding knee
I missed your skin when you were east
You clicked your heels and wished for me
Through playful lips made of yarn
That fragile Capricorn
Unraveled words like moths upon old scarves
I know the world's a broken bone
But melt your headaches, call it home
Hey moon, please forget to fall down
Hey moon, don't you go down
Sugarcane in the easy mornin'
Weathervanes my one and lonely
Sugarcane (hey moon) in
(Hey moon) the easy mornin'
Weathervanes (hey moon) my
(Hey moon) one and lonely
Sugarcane (hey moon) in (hey moon)
The easy (hey moon) mornin'
Weathervanes (hey moon) my (hey moon)
One (hey moon) and lonely
Hey moon, please forget to fall down
Hey moon, don't you go down
You are at the top of my lungs
Drawn to the ones who never yawn
***
“Greta! I am so sorry I'm late for our lesson. Your mother had a question about hymns for the church services this Sunday and I...” Brendon stops in the parlor doorway. Greta is sitting on the floor, the sunny pink of her oxford cloth dress puffed around her like a cloud. Her head is bowed and her shoulders are shaking. “Greta? Lamb? What is it?” He walks carefully into the room and sets a hand lightly to her head.
“Oh, Brendon!” Greta sniffles loudly.
Looking passed her, Brendon sees paper spread out across the Turkish rug and his heart drops into his stomach. “Greta! Oh Greta! What have you done?” He sinks down to his knees beside her, mouth dropped open in shock.
Her sobs leveling off, Greta manages to say, “I didn't mean to, Bren! Father's nice friend Mr. Schechter brought some sweets. And I know how you love penny candy, and how Father frowns upon you having it. So I thought I would hide it in your desk drawer, as a surprise.”
“So you read my letters?” Brendon frowns but hands Greta a handkerchief so she can wipe her eyes and nose.
Blowing into the pocket square Greta nods, a slow sad up and down of her bright head, “Yes. It was all so curious. I thought we told each other everything, Brendon!”
“I tell you everything you are meant to know. I don't keep secrets, but I do keep privacies.” Brendon starts stacking the letters back into a neat pile. “So, you read all of them?”
“Yes! Yes I did! I'm sorry!” Greta wails again, holding the hankie up to her face, “I thought...I thought maybe I could find in them something that makes you happy. Tell me, Brendon, are they...are they real?” she grasps his hands in hers, eyes wide.
Giving a curt nod, Brendon says only, “Yes,” before untangling his hand from hers and continuing to tidy the letters.
“Oh but that is simply too fantastic!” Greta exclaims. Then, she echoes his nod before stubbornly setting her chin, “Well then, I suppose I did find something to make you happy, after all.”
“Greta, what?” confusion shines in Brendon's eyes.
“Oh my friend, my dear sweet friend,” Greta hugs Brendon and takes the neatly stacked letters from his hands. “You cannot marry me. Not because it is wrong. But because it is...”
“A lie,” Brendon finishes for her in a low voice.
Getting to her feet and brushing at her skirts, Greta smiles sadly, “Yes. A lie. And you would be miserable. I can not ask you to do that. I will not ask you to lie. Yes, my Father has given you a position, but he has taken your dreams. Brendon, tonight, you simply must show these songs to Mr. Foster. You must.”
“I...I guess I'd better burn these, then, before they can do any more damage.” He stoops to pick up the letter, stalking towards the stove.
With a rustle of her skirts, Greta stops Brendon, her hand firm on his arm, “Brendon, no! I don't understand these letters, or where they came from, or how, but the man. This...Jon...he means something to you. And you to him. And it seems to me these letters are all you will have of each other. Can you not secret them away? You are very clever and I'm certain you can find a spot no one would imagine to look!”
“Oh, Greta,” Brendon's voice wobbles as he sweeps her into a fierce hug.
***
Jon carefully peels off the seal and the letter falls open. A face is staring back at him. It's a face he'd know anywhere, beautiful and dark eyed, and full of good humor. Jon recognizes Brendon from the oil painting and the photographs he took of it at the Salpeter house, and from his dreams. He's memorized the jut of chin and the slant of his eyes and the stiff set of his slender shoulders. He is more haunted by this face than any actual specter. “Oh,” Jon says softly, dropping onto the sofa and holding the sepia photograph carefully in his hands. “Hi Brendon,” is all he manages to say.
After an hour or so of tracing Brendon's image over and over, Jon turns the card stock over and only then sees Brendon has written something on the back:
May 5 1861
What I would give, to hold your hand, Jon Walker.
Love, Always
Bden
“Love, always,” Jon swallows hard and flips the photograph back over, looking for some sign in Brendon's eyes, some indication of what he should do in the faded grays and browns.
***
"Okay you asshole! You totally better be like dying or some shit this time! It's Frankie's fucking birthday party!" Spencer's voice is loud and angry as it travels from the front hall and into the living room. Jon really needs to get his spare key back from Spencer.
"Jon? What the fuck are you even doing?" Spencer flicks the light switch on his way into the room. Jon is lying on the couch staring at the swirled stucco pattern on the ceiling.
"Staring at the ceiling." Jon provides helpfully.
“Jon?” Spencer's voice softens as he comes to stand beside the sofa and Jon turns to look at him.
And almost has a heart attack. Spencer is decked out in full Union Army officer's uniform and for a brief second what Jon's been reading in his letter from Brendon mixes with his present and he sits bolt upright, an undignified squeaking noise escaping before he can clamp a hand over his mouth and rub at his eyes. “That's your costume.”
“Yeah,” Spencer answers warily, “For Frank's birthday party. 'Cause it's Halloween, and you're supposed to be at Frank's party. You're supposed to be dressed like Johnny Reb. We decided this months ago, that it would be hilarious.”
“Right, shit, yeah,” Jon picks Clover up and cuddles her into his lap so Spencer can sit down.
Fake sabre clanging against his leg as he sits, Spencer takes off his hat and flips it back and forth between his knees, studying it when he decides to talk, “Look, Jon. You're a huge part of my life. You're the best fried I've ever had, and maybe it's selfish to want to keep you in my life now that we're not...you know, together. But our friends are good people and they care about you too. If my being with Bob is what kept you away from the party tonight...”
Jon interrupts with a short, sharp laugh. “Oh shit, you think I bailed on Frank because you're gonna be there with your new boyfriend?” Jon's laugh takes a turn towards hysteria and he covers his face with his hands, pressing his fingertips into his eyelids. “I think I'm losing my mind,” he states in a quiet rasp.
“What? Jon, seriously, what? Talk to me, man.” Gently Spencer pulls Jon's hands away from his face, circling his wrists and rubbing his thumbs soothingly against the sensitive skin there.
Shoulders hitching, Jon heaves a sigh and says, “And say what? Fuck, I don't know how to explain it. I can't explain it, even to myself.”
Spencer's eyes roam his face, he opens his mouth, and closes it again, and then finally speaks, “I can't try to help you if I don't know what's going on.”
“Okay,” Jon exhales and stands, grabbing Spencer's wrist and hauling him to his feet. “Okay,” he says again, more sure this time as he drags a confused Spencer through the living room to the hall, Marley and a curious Dylan following close at their heels.
Reluctantly giving in to Jon's tugging, Spencer comes to a halt at the staircase, “Jon, no...what?"
Shaking his head, Jon says, “Okay, fine, just... just wait here, okay?”
“Ohh...kay,” Worry is evident in Spencer's eyes as Jon turns and heads up the stairs.
When he returns, Spencer is exactly where Jon had left him at the bottom of the stairs, worry and confusion mixing in his clear blue eyes. “Okay,” is all Jon says again, he has a stack of papers held carefully in his hands and he inclines his head back to the living room, and Spencer once again follows him. ”This is so fucked up,” Jon whispers harshly before tenderly, almost reverently placing the bundle in Spencer's upturned palms.
Brows furrowed in confusion, Spencer stares down at what he's been handed. Tied with a piece of yarn, the neat stack of envelopes is yellowed with age. “You want me to...?” He holds up the letters and raises an eyebrow inquiringly.
“Yeah, yeah. Open them, read them.” Jon makes tiny encouraging motions with his hands.
Spencer undoes the loose knot holding the papers together and his eyes go round when he sees the name and address on the first envelope; Jon's, in a spidery sprawling hand, the ink so old it's faded to a dull brown. Carefully taking the first letter from the pile, Spencer uses his thumb and forefinger to extract the folded paper inside. “Kind sir,” he starts and reads the first of Jon and Brendon's correspondence aloud. “Jon, what is this? I don't understand.”
“Just, keep reading,okay?”
Nodding, and giving Jon's knee a squeeze, Spencer picks up the next letter and reads it aloud as well and the next and the next. He works his way through the stack of a few dozen letters. Sometimes he smiles at Brendon's observations and questions and other things make him laugh out loud. His voice is steady and soothing and Jon can't convey how grateful he is to have his solid warmth beside him on the couch.
Next
***
October 4 2008
Dear Brendon,
It's weird how easy it is to forget you are from a very different time and place than me. It's also hard to believe that the big 'movement' in gay rights only really started in the 1970s. That's almost 100 years after your writing me. I guess I should have thought about that before I wrote to you. But I have to tell you, I had to put your letter down and go for a walk, you made me so mad. But now I realize it's not your fault--that's just how people think about these things where you are. Because, yes, when I said Spencer was my boyfriend, I mean that I love him and we were romantically involved, courting, to use your word. If that disgusts you or upsets you then maybe we don't need to write to each other anymore.
My family accepts me and the choices I've made and being a gay man is a very important part of my life. I have NO time for anyone who wants to be an ignorant asshole. I understand that Society is different where you are-but trust me, there are homosexuals in 1861, for sure, just as much as I'm sitting here writing you today. I am lucky to have people who love and accept me but I have to deal with more intolerance and hate than anyone ever should. I don't need or want to get letter judging me from some guy I don't even know.
Respectfully,
Jon
p.s. I'm glad you've found a way to stay safe during the war.
***
“So, Ashlee and Pete? Seriously?” Danielle arches and eyebrow and smirks as she steals a Frito from the bowl Jon is pouring them into.
Jon returns her smirk and shrugs, “Yeah, I mean I guess so. They're both kinda socially retarded, so I guess it makes it's own sense. They seem happy.” He crunches up the empty chip bag and stuffs it into an already overflowing garbage bag.
“Aww, Jon Walker, always the romantic,” Danielle beams approvingly and tussles his hair.
The timer on the microwave beeps and Jon rolls his eyes, “Whatever, go get my cheese!”
“Hate to break it to you, Julia Child, but Velveeta is not cheese,” Danielle snickers but does as she's asked, taking the bowl out of the microwave and placing it onto a hot pad.
“Food of the gods. You love it.” Jon just laughs at Danielle's guilty expression. “Here, take the Fritos out to the horde and I'll grab the chili.”
Muttering under her breath about Jon being a bossy bitch, Danielle grabs the bowl and the cheese and hip bumps the kitchen door open.
Smiling to himself, Jon unplugs the crock pot and grabs the basket of garlic bread. He's trying to convince himself that the whole Brendon Thing, as he's come to refer to it in his mind, is stupid and ridiculous, and now, most importantly, over. His friends were right, he had been ignoring them. So he's making it up to them with a game day at his house.
“Oh my god! Is that Dad Walker's chili?” Ashlee gasps from where she's sorting through Trivial Pursuit and Sorry.
Setting the pot down on the dining room table with a bang, Jon smiles wide, “Yep. Oh, shit! I forgot I printed out the recipe for you. I think it's still upstairs in my office, though.”
“I can go grab it!” Danielle announces loudly, desperate to get away from serving food to her boyfriend and Jon's co-workers. Ashlee just shrugs her acquiescence and goes back to arguing the merits of Totally 80s Trivial Pursuit with Pete.
When Danielle comes back she hands the recipe to Ashlee and takes a beer and a plate of food from Tom. They're all sitting around the coffee table, laughing as Marley makes the rounds. Jon insists that Marley doesn't beg, he just stares so intently that you're hypnotized into feeding him whatever it is you're eating. “Dude, if he pukes up Velveeta and Fritos, you're totally cleaning it up,” Jon says as sternly as he can to Frank.
Frank snickers and turns his attention back to making Marley sit with a corn chip perched on the end of his nose. “Your dog's a genius, man. He could be on Letterman or some shit.”
“Yeah, a genius,” Danielle and Tom are cuddled together on the couch and laugh along with Jon.
“Hey, so, who's Bden?” Danielle ask as Ryan takes the top off the Game of Life box and starts reading the instructions, word for word.
Jon swipes his hand over his mouth, quelling any unfortunate choking sounds. “Who?”
Danielle cocks her head and says again, “Bden. In your office, on your white board it says things to tell Bden and there's a list of stuff like clock radios and hydro electric dams and Jimi Hendrix and jazz.”
Everyone in the room is staring at Jon, “Oh, uh, it's nothing really. Just ideas I get sometimes.”
“Like that guy you asked me to look up at work?” Ashlee asks, smiling before she goes back to picking out game pieces for everyone.
“Something like that,” Jon mutters into the mouth of his beer bottle.
Gerard sets his glass of iced tea down on the writing desk, “Walker, you doing some freelancing? Cause the themes for the magazine are all locked in til fuckin' July of 2010, so I don't know what some Bden thing has to do with the Baltimore entertainment scene.”
Flustered, Jon walks over to the dining room table, stirring the chili with more enthusiasm and focus than is strictly necessary. “Like I said, I just get ideas sometimes.” He tries to shrug off the attention.
“So everybody eat up and listen to Ross, we got a game to play.” Spencer says in a loud, jokey voice, breaking the weird tension in the room and getting people to focus on where the board game is set up, instead of at Jon.
Relieved, Jon rejoins the group, sitting cross-legged by the game board, Clover curled up in his lap. While Ryan is droning on in a a slow methodical monotone about when and if each team takes a turn, Spencer reaches down from his seat on the arm of a Lazy-Boy occupied by a non-plussed Bob Bryar, and squeezes Jon's shoulder.
***
April 28 1861
Oh, Jon!
Oh no! I am so sorry to have angered you. Please believe me when I tell you it was never my intention to cause you upset. I was just astonished that you could be so forward. The things you have told me are too marvelous to even hope are true. I should explain.
My entire life I have been aware that I am of a more delicate temperament than what is perhaps expected of a boy my age and of my social standing. Where my brothers have always fancied sport and rough housing and have embraced their more base needs, as Mr. Darwin might describe them, I have long preferred the genteel company of my sisters, sitting at my mother's knee and learning all there is to know of poetry and painting and music.
As a lad I discovered several volumes detailing the lives and histories of the Ancient Greeks and was dumbfounded to learn I was not the only boy to suffer from what I had perceived to be the most deviant of predilections. Alas my Father, Elder in the Church of Jesus Christ, found my reading material and punished me for indulging in such sinful, wicked deviance. Sometimes, these ten years later, I would swear to you I can still feel the sting of his best leather belt against my skin. He warned me against such behaviors, in fear of society's repercussions and reproach. So, for several years I managed to hide who I am, most unhappily.
In my sixteenth year, traveling to preach with my Father, I met a blacksmith's apprentice-Travis. He is beautiful and intelligent and more unafraid of anything than anyone I have ever met. And I loved him. For the first time in my life, even though I had to be cautious, I spent all that Spring and Summer with him and allowed myself to imagine, with Travis, what a life of true happiness may be like. Later, we would find reasons for our paths to cross and spend as much time together as our situation would allow. For three years we were each others' secret. And then, my Father happened upon us, in a most compromising position. It was only because Father is an inherently fair and decent man that Travis' life was spared. While he is a free man born, he is a Negro and I am afraid our society is none so advanced as yours and equality is only something I can dream of, thanks to your words. I shall regret to my dying day that it is my fault someone I cared for so deeply lost his livelihood and was forced to flee in shame from everything he had known. I have not heard from Travis since the night we were found out, but I hold hope in my heart that he is happy and well.
So, that is the story of how I came to Baltimore and the Salpeters--engaged to the lovely Miss Greta so as to remove the stain of my sin and never again to speak of the life I lead before. At times I fear it is all unfair to Greta, but I do love her, and that will have to be enough.
My dear friend, I hope you now see I could never judge or condemn you as I have been, but only celebrate you and the hope you have given me that someday we may love as we choose and live lives without fear or shame.
With Affection,
Bden.
Jon doesn't realize he's crying until he sees the ink on the page start to blur. He sighs and sniffles, messily wiping away the tears on his cheeks with the back of his hand. He feels a strange mixture of guilt and fear and helplessness. But underneath it all is the relief that he has Brendon back.
He's had the same dream, every night since he'd gone to the Salpeter's summer house. Every night he'd wake up either rock hard desperate, or fuzzy headed with his boxers sticky with come. Jon had no idea what was going on or how to stop it. His entire relationship, if what he has with Brendon could be called a relationship, is insane. And Jon is beginning to think that insanity is the only logical reason for anything that's happened since he opened the desk drawer and found the sheet music.
October 8 2008
Brendon,
Wow. I don't think I can say how sorry I am. Here I am accusing you of being an intolerant judgmental asshole and I end up being exactly that to you. I would say that today, in America, being gay is in general tolerated, rather than accepted. But there are lots and lots of people who spew hate just because they can, and lots of men like you who hide that part of who they are because of that hate. It makes me sad. I've never been religious or anything like that, but I guess I figure god has more important things to worry about than who I'm dating (that's what we call 'courting' these days).
No hard feelings, ok? I hope you decide even though I came off as kind of a dick that you keep writing to me, for as long as whatever is going on here allows it. I like hearing from you and I have to admit, there are times during the day when I think about what you're doing and I sometimes think about what I want to tell you or show your or talk about in my next letter.
Sorry this is so short, but I have a huge thing due at work and it's taking up a lot of my time right now. Most nights I just come home exhausted and crawl into bed. But it's all good, and I think the result will be amazing and worth all the effort in the end.
xo
-jon
April 30 1861
Jon,
I am overjoyed to learn you are no longer angry with me. I have been anxiously checking and rechecking the post every day in the small hope that despite how I may have hurt you, you might still find it in you to continue to write. I am heartened that this is so.
So much has happened since I last wrote you. The war has come to Baltimore. It is bloody and awful and I am now unsure as to whether I may avoid donning a uniform. Although, I am sure that should I have to, that uniform will be Union blue.
I am fairly bursting with excitement on a more personal front-my dear Greta has secured me an audience with Mr. Stephen Collins Foster. He is a great musical hero of mine and I am quaking with nerves at the mere thought of sharing space in a room with him. Dare I be so bold as to share one of my compositions with him? All efforts to secure publication have thus far fallen on deaf ears. However, I am bouyed by your support and encouragement of my simple talents. I have been working on a song lately and even though it is in its infancy I am beginning to think it may just be my best work to date. All that is missing are lyrics. I respect your opinions on music so much, could you possibly do me the honor of attempting to put some words to the music I have enclosed?
And now, my dear friend, I feel I must make a confession of sorts to you. I have always been honest with you and it is not in my nature to fib. You have been so kind and patient with all my questions and blather that I feel I can trust you with anything, and this particular anything is something, and it is about you. In the midst of adding long columns of sums, I have time to think about this wonderful back and forth exchange of ours these past weeks. I would not trade our extraordinary friendship for anything, and I cannot help but think that fate saw two souls of a kind and determined we must know each other. I have put to paper secrets long held because I know implicitly in my heart that you will understand. You are in my thoughts constantly, Jon, and in the spirit of confession, I must tell you, you are in my heart as well. Many nights I have woken in the darkness, breath caught in my throat, desperate to know what it might be like if I were able to touch you whenever I like, to smell the scent of your skin.
I should be shamed by these thoughts, and I do know they are ridiculous flights of fancy, given the impossibility of the century and a half dividing us. Yet, these thoughts, they endure. I do not wish to cause you discomfort in professing my affection, but at the same time I feel not saying anything to you would be a lie by omission.
Faithfully,
your bden
***
October 15 2008
Bren,
If I said this out loud to anyone they would cart me off to the loony bin, for sure.
But you're not crazy and you're not wrong and I should tell you I think about you all the time, too. I managed to find the Salpeter's summer house over near Mayo and drove down there to see what I could find out about you. They've turned the place into a museum and in the hallway there's a big oil painting of you and who I'm assuming is Greta Salpeter (she's very pretty). That night and every night since I've had...dreams about you. They're pretty steamy, like I can feel you and touch you and taste you, all around me.
When I wake up I have to convince myself you're not here, and during the day I have to focus on my job and not wish you were here with me, now. There's no sense in wishing for something we both know is never going to happen. So, no, your confession didn't gross me out or scare me off. :) It only convinced me that writing to you in the first place was a pretty good decision on my part.
Last night, I stayed up way too late and after a lot of liquid courage I wrote these lyrics for your song. That melody is beautiful. Haunting, almost. Man, you HAVE to at least show it to that Foster guy, even if you don't play it for him (which you totally should. And I gotta tell you it makes me a little sad that I'll never get to hear you sing this song, or any other one). But yeah, this could be your big break. Now that is a wish that could definitely come true. You deserve it. Go for it!
Anyway, here's the words I wrote. Maybe tomorrow when I've slept some and am a little more sober they won't make a lot of sense, but right now I think they're pretty perfect.
xo
-jon
Northern Downpour
If all our life is but a dream
Fantastic posing greed
Then we should feed our jewelry to the sea
For diamonds do appear to be
Just like broken glass to me
And then she said she can't believe
Genius only comes along
In storms of fabled foreign tongues
Tripping eyes, and flooded lungs
Northern downpour sends its love
Hey moon, please forget to fall down
Hey moon, don't you go down
Sugarcane in the easy mornin'
Weathervanes my one and lonely
The ink is running toward the page
It's chasin' off the days
Look back at both feet
And that winding knee
I missed your skin when you were east
You clicked your heels and wished for me
Through playful lips made of yarn
That fragile Capricorn
Unraveled words like moths upon old scarves
I know the world's a broken bone
But melt your headaches, call it home
Hey moon, please forget to fall down
Hey moon, don't you go down
Sugarcane in the easy mornin'
Weathervanes my one and lonely
Sugarcane (hey moon) in
(Hey moon) the easy mornin'
Weathervanes (hey moon) my
(Hey moon) one and lonely
Sugarcane (hey moon) in (hey moon)
The easy (hey moon) mornin'
Weathervanes (hey moon) my (hey moon)
One (hey moon) and lonely
Hey moon, please forget to fall down
Hey moon, don't you go down
You are at the top of my lungs
Drawn to the ones who never yawn
***
“Greta! I am so sorry I'm late for our lesson. Your mother had a question about hymns for the church services this Sunday and I...” Brendon stops in the parlor doorway. Greta is sitting on the floor, the sunny pink of her oxford cloth dress puffed around her like a cloud. Her head is bowed and her shoulders are shaking. “Greta? Lamb? What is it?” He walks carefully into the room and sets a hand lightly to her head.
“Oh, Brendon!” Greta sniffles loudly.
Looking passed her, Brendon sees paper spread out across the Turkish rug and his heart drops into his stomach. “Greta! Oh Greta! What have you done?” He sinks down to his knees beside her, mouth dropped open in shock.
Her sobs leveling off, Greta manages to say, “I didn't mean to, Bren! Father's nice friend Mr. Schechter brought some sweets. And I know how you love penny candy, and how Father frowns upon you having it. So I thought I would hide it in your desk drawer, as a surprise.”
“So you read my letters?” Brendon frowns but hands Greta a handkerchief so she can wipe her eyes and nose.
Blowing into the pocket square Greta nods, a slow sad up and down of her bright head, “Yes. It was all so curious. I thought we told each other everything, Brendon!”
“I tell you everything you are meant to know. I don't keep secrets, but I do keep privacies.” Brendon starts stacking the letters back into a neat pile. “So, you read all of them?”
“Yes! Yes I did! I'm sorry!” Greta wails again, holding the hankie up to her face, “I thought...I thought maybe I could find in them something that makes you happy. Tell me, Brendon, are they...are they real?” she grasps his hands in hers, eyes wide.
Giving a curt nod, Brendon says only, “Yes,” before untangling his hand from hers and continuing to tidy the letters.
“Oh but that is simply too fantastic!” Greta exclaims. Then, she echoes his nod before stubbornly setting her chin, “Well then, I suppose I did find something to make you happy, after all.”
“Greta, what?” confusion shines in Brendon's eyes.
“Oh my friend, my dear sweet friend,” Greta hugs Brendon and takes the neatly stacked letters from his hands. “You cannot marry me. Not because it is wrong. But because it is...”
“A lie,” Brendon finishes for her in a low voice.
Getting to her feet and brushing at her skirts, Greta smiles sadly, “Yes. A lie. And you would be miserable. I can not ask you to do that. I will not ask you to lie. Yes, my Father has given you a position, but he has taken your dreams. Brendon, tonight, you simply must show these songs to Mr. Foster. You must.”
“I...I guess I'd better burn these, then, before they can do any more damage.” He stoops to pick up the letter, stalking towards the stove.
With a rustle of her skirts, Greta stops Brendon, her hand firm on his arm, “Brendon, no! I don't understand these letters, or where they came from, or how, but the man. This...Jon...he means something to you. And you to him. And it seems to me these letters are all you will have of each other. Can you not secret them away? You are very clever and I'm certain you can find a spot no one would imagine to look!”
“Oh, Greta,” Brendon's voice wobbles as he sweeps her into a fierce hug.
***
Jon carefully peels off the seal and the letter falls open. A face is staring back at him. It's a face he'd know anywhere, beautiful and dark eyed, and full of good humor. Jon recognizes Brendon from the oil painting and the photographs he took of it at the Salpeter house, and from his dreams. He's memorized the jut of chin and the slant of his eyes and the stiff set of his slender shoulders. He is more haunted by this face than any actual specter. “Oh,” Jon says softly, dropping onto the sofa and holding the sepia photograph carefully in his hands. “Hi Brendon,” is all he manages to say.
After an hour or so of tracing Brendon's image over and over, Jon turns the card stock over and only then sees Brendon has written something on the back:
May 5 1861
What I would give, to hold your hand, Jon Walker.
Love, Always
Bden
“Love, always,” Jon swallows hard and flips the photograph back over, looking for some sign in Brendon's eyes, some indication of what he should do in the faded grays and browns.
***
"Okay you asshole! You totally better be like dying or some shit this time! It's Frankie's fucking birthday party!" Spencer's voice is loud and angry as it travels from the front hall and into the living room. Jon really needs to get his spare key back from Spencer.
"Jon? What the fuck are you even doing?" Spencer flicks the light switch on his way into the room. Jon is lying on the couch staring at the swirled stucco pattern on the ceiling.
"Staring at the ceiling." Jon provides helpfully.
“Jon?” Spencer's voice softens as he comes to stand beside the sofa and Jon turns to look at him.
And almost has a heart attack. Spencer is decked out in full Union Army officer's uniform and for a brief second what Jon's been reading in his letter from Brendon mixes with his present and he sits bolt upright, an undignified squeaking noise escaping before he can clamp a hand over his mouth and rub at his eyes. “That's your costume.”
“Yeah,” Spencer answers warily, “For Frank's birthday party. 'Cause it's Halloween, and you're supposed to be at Frank's party. You're supposed to be dressed like Johnny Reb. We decided this months ago, that it would be hilarious.”
“Right, shit, yeah,” Jon picks Clover up and cuddles her into his lap so Spencer can sit down.
Fake sabre clanging against his leg as he sits, Spencer takes off his hat and flips it back and forth between his knees, studying it when he decides to talk, “Look, Jon. You're a huge part of my life. You're the best fried I've ever had, and maybe it's selfish to want to keep you in my life now that we're not...you know, together. But our friends are good people and they care about you too. If my being with Bob is what kept you away from the party tonight...”
Jon interrupts with a short, sharp laugh. “Oh shit, you think I bailed on Frank because you're gonna be there with your new boyfriend?” Jon's laugh takes a turn towards hysteria and he covers his face with his hands, pressing his fingertips into his eyelids. “I think I'm losing my mind,” he states in a quiet rasp.
“What? Jon, seriously, what? Talk to me, man.” Gently Spencer pulls Jon's hands away from his face, circling his wrists and rubbing his thumbs soothingly against the sensitive skin there.
Shoulders hitching, Jon heaves a sigh and says, “And say what? Fuck, I don't know how to explain it. I can't explain it, even to myself.”
Spencer's eyes roam his face, he opens his mouth, and closes it again, and then finally speaks, “I can't try to help you if I don't know what's going on.”
“Okay,” Jon exhales and stands, grabbing Spencer's wrist and hauling him to his feet. “Okay,” he says again, more sure this time as he drags a confused Spencer through the living room to the hall, Marley and a curious Dylan following close at their heels.
Reluctantly giving in to Jon's tugging, Spencer comes to a halt at the staircase, “Jon, no...what?"
Shaking his head, Jon says, “Okay, fine, just... just wait here, okay?”
“Ohh...kay,” Worry is evident in Spencer's eyes as Jon turns and heads up the stairs.
When he returns, Spencer is exactly where Jon had left him at the bottom of the stairs, worry and confusion mixing in his clear blue eyes. “Okay,” is all Jon says again, he has a stack of papers held carefully in his hands and he inclines his head back to the living room, and Spencer once again follows him. ”This is so fucked up,” Jon whispers harshly before tenderly, almost reverently placing the bundle in Spencer's upturned palms.
Brows furrowed in confusion, Spencer stares down at what he's been handed. Tied with a piece of yarn, the neat stack of envelopes is yellowed with age. “You want me to...?” He holds up the letters and raises an eyebrow inquiringly.
“Yeah, yeah. Open them, read them.” Jon makes tiny encouraging motions with his hands.
Spencer undoes the loose knot holding the papers together and his eyes go round when he sees the name and address on the first envelope; Jon's, in a spidery sprawling hand, the ink so old it's faded to a dull brown. Carefully taking the first letter from the pile, Spencer uses his thumb and forefinger to extract the folded paper inside. “Kind sir,” he starts and reads the first of Jon and Brendon's correspondence aloud. “Jon, what is this? I don't understand.”
“Just, keep reading,okay?”
Nodding, and giving Jon's knee a squeeze, Spencer picks up the next letter and reads it aloud as well and the next and the next. He works his way through the stack of a few dozen letters. Sometimes he smiles at Brendon's observations and questions and other things make him laugh out loud. His voice is steady and soothing and Jon can't convey how grateful he is to have his solid warmth beside him on the couch.
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