Murder in the Rue St. Ann (20 page)

He’d come by to study as soon as I was home from practice. If we could wait until after eleven, we were pretty safe from being intruded on. Most everyone was either studying or locked down in a room getting wasted by then. It was quiet hours, when no one was supposed to be loud or bother anyone. I’d bolt and lock the door—earlier than eleven, it would seem odd. He would come up behind me and put his arms around me and start kissing me on the neck, while I reached back with my hands and undid his pants. We always waited until we got down on the bed before finishing undressing each other.

It was the first time in my life I remember being happy.

Like a lovesick schoolgirl, I thought about him all the time. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find myself doodling hearts during class with his name in them. Even had I wanted to, I couldn’t have stopped thinking about him. One minute, I’d be sitting there in class, taking notes as the professor droned on. Then, my mind would be gone…and in my head I’d see him lying naked in my bed, that beautiful joyful smile on his face. I’d get hard right there in the class, squirming in my seat, as I remembered the taste of his mouth, the suppleness of his muscles, the softness of his skin. It even happened at football practice. I got yelled at by a coach in practice for the first time since I’d first strapped on pads in junior high school. “MacLeod!” he’d screamed at me. “Get your fucking head into this practice or get the hell off my practice field!” I’d been startled, some of my teammates gaping at me in shock. I was always focused and disciplined at practice.

Until then.

I lived for those nights when he came by the house, or when we’d meet up at Paige’s apartment. Paige had always  been my cover at the house—everyone thought we were dating. Every once in a while she’d get really wasted at a party and sleep with one of the other brothers. This was a pain in the ass, and I always lectured her about it. The brother would always be terrified, and there would be mini-drama at the house, until I finally got drunk privately with the brother and renewed the bonds of brotherhood with him. Besides, as one said in relief afterward, “brothers can’t let bitches come in between them.”

God, it was all so fucking stupid.

Probably the stupidest thing I did was assume Ryan would be protected from the malicious tongues of the brothers because he was my little brother. It never occurred to me that Ryan didn’t have a ‘girlfriend’ like me. In the minds of the troglodytes of Beta Kappa, tennis wasn’t a real sport like football. If I paid more attention, I might have been able to head things off before they boiled over—but I was a football player, by God, and not a regular student and I’d underestimated a couple of things. If I resented being the trained display seal of Beta Kappa, some of the brothers resented that I never went to meetings and blew off Initiation ceremonies without repercussions. But since they couldn’t say anything about me to anyone—I was sacrosanct—they decided to get at me through Ryan.

I never saw it coming.

On Initiation Night, we were all dressed in our best clothes for the ritual. After it was over, the champagne corks were popped and the keg tapped. The girls started arriving, all the little sisters and sorority girls who liked to party. I was proud of Ryan. He was the only initiate who took the house oaths without stumbling over words, whose voice rang out proud and true.

I was in my room, loading my bong, when Paige swept in, making me jump and almost spill the bong water. “Christ, Paige.” I griped.

“Big trouble, kemosabe.” She said, taking the bong from me and taking a big hit.

“What big trouble?” I took the bong from her and lit up.

She coughed, expelling a cloud of smoke with each hack. “You’d just better thank God I’m a better little sister in this fucking place than you’re a brother, okay?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked between my own coughs. The pot was harsh, rough on my throat and lungs. I made a mental note to complain to the house vice president, who was my supplier.

“Some of the brothers have started wondering about Ryan.”

I stopped, my lighter poised to flick. “Wondering what about Ryan?”

“Why he hasn’t gotten laid all semester.” She took the bong from me and took another hit. She coughed, and smiled. “Oh, much better now, much better. They are starting to wonder if he even likes girls, if you catch my drift.”

I went cold. “Oh, no.”

“It gets better. They’ve even decided to sick Pauline Jaworski on him.” She grinned at me. “The pigs. Since she’s a sure thing…”

I felt sick to my stomach. Pauline Jaworski was a loud mouthed drunk from Chicago. She was a pudgy little thing with big breasts and thick thighs and a tiny waist who was privately referred to by the brothers as a “house utility.” She’d fucked any number of the brothers. She had no idea she was a joke around the house, or if she did, she didn’t care. She’d joined up as a little sister when she was a freshman, and now was a senior. House lore was she’d once been gang banged by an entire pledge class. She’d once given another brother a yeast infection in his throat. But she still came around, flashing her cleavage and flirting at rush, following up on the promise of things to come during the semester.

Jon Shelby asked her to find out, and I quote, ‘if Ryan Colby’s a queer.’”

“Oh man oh man.” My head was pounding with fear. “How’d you find out?”

“Poor dumb Pauline.” Paige had been at a pre-party at another little sister’s while the ceremonies were going on. “You know how she is….she kept hinting to me that something was up, but wouldn’t tell me what.” Paige smiled grimly. “So I pumped a couple of tequila shots into her and she spilled all in the car on the way over here.” 

“We’ve got to tell Ryan—warn him!”

“I’ll go find him.” She took another hit and then walked over to the door just as someone knocked. “Who is it?” she sang out.

“Ryan.”

She let him in, giving him a big hug and kiss for the benefit of the people milling around in the hallway.

“Ryan, we’ve um, we’ve—um, we’ve got a bit of a problem.” I said, filling him on what Paige had just told me.

He looked at me with those big green eyes, his smile fading. “What should I do?”

“You’re going to have to—“ I closed my eyes. “you’re going to have to do it.”

“You want me to do this.” He stared at me, his face working through a range of expressions, the vein in his neck throbbing. “And if I won’t?”

“Darling, you have to.” Paige said, taking another hit off the bong and reloading it. “These guys will make your life a living hell. Trust me on this. At the Phi house, they caught one of the brothers with another guy—“ she sighed. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

I’d heard this story, but never the full story. Rumor on Greek Row was the Phis had kicked him out of the house after beating him so badly he needed hospitalization.

“But—“ he looked at me, “but I’m a brother now.”

“No one can find out.” I couldn’t believe he didn’t understand how serious this was.

 “I’m not afraid.” His chin went up. “Let them do their worst. I’m not sleeping with Pauline.” He laughed. “And what will me not wanting to sleep with her prove? She’s just a house whore.”

“Ryan—“

He looked from me to Paige, and then back to me again. “This isn’t about me really, is it?” Neither one of us said anything. “This is about you.”

“No, it isn’t.” I couldn’t look at him.

“If they think I’m a fag, before long they might think the big football stud is too.”

“Ryan, please.” I looked at him. “I’d lose my scholarship.”

“So lose it! So what?”

“What am I supposed to do, go back to Cottonwood Falls?” I shook my head. Just the thought made me sick to my stomach. I was never, ever going back there. “This is all I have, Ryan, please.”

He laughed, an unpleasant sound completely devoid of mirth. “Aren’t you tired of being afraid?”

I didn’t answer.

He walked over to the door, unbolted it, and walked out.

I never left my room that night. As usual, the brothers left me alone. They were too busy getting drunk. I could hear the music blaring in the party room, and could look out my window and see them dancing. The house was a cacophany of stereos and loud voices and the occasional shriek. Paige stayed with me all night, occasionally running down to refill our cups at the keg. We sat there, drinking beer, smoking pot, and listening to old Fleetwood Mac albums. Every time she came back, she would give me an update.

Everyone’s talking about Ryan and Pauline….he was grabbing her boobs on the dance floor…no one has ever seen him this drunk before…I heard one brother say Ryan’d been a wimp pledge but now that he’s a brother he’s a real stud the house can be proud of…he grabbed Gail Nakamura’s ass….he’s sitting in a corner with Pauline on his lap, making out….he’s gone with Pauline into Jim Froelich’s room and locked the door…but the curtains are open and guys are out there watching….

I kept hoping he’d come back.

He fucked Pauline that night. It was all over the house the next morning as I picked my way through the wreckage left from the party to make myself breakfast. I was scrambling eggs when Jon Shelby came into the kitchen. “Hey MacLeod man, that little brother of yours is some big stud.” He was a good looking boy usually, but this morning in his shorts with sleep snot still in his eyes and his hair sticking up in all directions, he looked comical.

“Is he now?”

“Man, he fucked the shit out of the house utility last night.” He laughed. “Man, we gave him the wrong nickname. We should have called him ‘horsedick.’”

It took all of my control not to kill him.

I never saw Ryan again.

Over the Christmas break, I got a letter.

Dear Chanse:

I wanted to thank you for a wonderful semester. For the first time in my life, I understood what all the fuss about love was all about. I do love you, I want you to understand that. This hasn’t been easy for me, but I feel that it’s for the best.

I’ve decided not to come back to LSU. I am going to take this semester off and work on my tennis some more, and then I am going to transfer to the University of Georgia. Athens is a lot closer to home than Baton Rouge, and it’s a lot more liberal city than Baton Rouge….and Atlanta is just down the road. There’s a strong
gay community there, and that’s what I need to be around now. I’ve told my parents, and they’ve been incredibly loving and supportive, which is part of the reason I’ve decided to transfer so I can be closer to home.

I don’t want you to think I’m an asshole, Chanse, but I can’t be happy there with you, having to hide who I am from everyone all of the time. I don’t care if people hate me for being myself; I’d rather that than have eighty so-called ‘best friends’ that I can’t be honest with. That’s not brotherhood, that’s not friendship, that’s nothing but dishonesty.

I can’t tell you how much it hurt me to hear you tell me to have sex with that poor girl. The only reason I stuck it out with Beta Kappa was to be with you…and it wasn’t possible any other way. I have a sister who’s a little sister at Alpha Tau Omega in Tuscaloosa, and just the thought that some of the brothers there might think of her as ‘the house utility’, some stupid whore who is only there for their pleasure, to do their bidding, makes me burn with rage….

Pauline may be many things, but she’s a human being. And human beings deserve better than that. I deserve better than that. I felt so bad for her, lying there underneath me in the bed, pretending that she couldn’t hear Jon Shelby and all of those assholes out there watching through the window….and she asked me to tell her that I loved her, Chanse, that was all she wanted…and my heart broke for her. All I could think was she just wants to be loved, that she’s lonely, and all she was to me was a way to prove to the brothers that I wasn’t gay. She deserves better than that. I deserve better than that.

Please take care of yourself, and know you’ll always have a place in my heart.

Love,

Ryan.

I remained a coward the entire time I was at LSU, although after that next semester I moved out of the Beta Kappa house and stopped going to any events. I was still in the closet at the New Orleans PD, but I was openly gay in my private life, hitting the nearby bars and picking up guys. I’d lived in the Quarter then. I lost myself in my time off in alcohol and Ecstasy.

One night, during Southern Decadence, I walked into the Parade. It was packed full of hot guys. And dancing on the stage, wearing nothing more than a pair of white jeans cut-off short enough to embarrass Daisy Duke, was my Beta Kappa Big Brother himself, Scott Simons. I pushed my way through the dance floor and grabbed his leg. His eyes, glazed with whatever drug he was on, lit up when he saw me. He jumped down, threw his sweaty arms around me, and planted a trembling wet kiss on my lips. Later, in my apartment, fucking him, I pondered the irony of fraternity incest. I’d fucked both my big and little brothers.

Shortly after that, I left the force and came out once and for all.

But I never allowed anyone inside the walls around my heart until Paul.

I parked across the street from Paul’s house. Maybe I should have stopped at home and gotten Ryan’s letter for Paul to read. Hell, there was time for that, later, right?