Sons (19 page)

True to his word, the man who called himself Ben phoned later that evening. The deal was on.

Thirty

“
H
ERE
, Amal made you some green tea,” Michael said as he placed a cup of the pale brew on the table.

It had been several days since Jan’s conversation with Marsha about his son’s sexual relationship with her daughter. Jan kept the girl’s parentage private, even with Michael, because it was clearly what Marsha wanted, although she hadn’t expressed it in so many words.

“I’m too upset to drink tea,” Jan complained.

“Well, I am sorry, but we are out of hemlock,” Michael joked.

“Very funny, auditioning for the
Tonight Show,
are we?” Jan said with a smirk.

Michael looked at Jan and said, “Oh come on. How bad can this be? Colin has discovered sex. It is just sex. You like sex, I like sex, and now Colin likes it. It is natural.”

“Colin’s liking it is exactly the problem. He’s only fifteen, for God’s sake!”

“Are you telling me you would have passed up a chance to have sex when you were fifteen?”

Jan grinned shyly and twirled a spoon in the center of the teacup.

“When I was fifteen the closest to sex I got was watching pigeons mating in the park, but you’re right, I should be grateful he’s not sleeping around with a squad of girls. At least I know Alexandra.”

“Speaking of whom,” Michael said, “I thought she was very nice when she came to dinner. A little grown up for her age, but I expect that was just an act for your sake. Besides, having Marsha for a mother would age anybody! I find that woman very intimidating.”

“Alexandra’s acting grown up isn’t because she has Marsha as a mother. Being the only child of a single mother, she’s lived most of her life in the company of adults. I know that’s how it was with me. Aside from Bobby O’Farrell, the neighborhood friend I told you about, I spent most of my time with priests and nuns. Then it was home to Mom and my sisters.”

Jan mentioning Bobby O’Farrell’s name catapulted him into a fit of remembrance.

“Jan, you can make big money at Fifteenth and Van Wyck. All’s you gotta do is let queers… you know, do it to you.”

“Do what?”

“You know… suck your dick.”

That conversation, shared so many years ago, set into motion Jan’s meeting Tim Morris and Jan eventually becoming the Mundus Master for North America, as well as owning his own law firm. Death and destruction also flowed from those few words spoken in hushed tones in a row house basement in Kensington.

Michael noticed Jan had begun to frown. He said, “Drink the tea.”

Michael’s voice shook Jan from his thoughts. “What?

“
Drink
the tea,” Michael insisted.

A
MAL
stood outside Colin’s bedroom with a creased business card in his hand. He tapped the stained, cream-colored paper against a fingernail as he worked out in his mind what to do about this discovery. He read the engraved words again.

LC Enterprises

Model Agency and Film Company

1458 Seventh Street

Philadelphia, PA 29900

Louis Carew, Producer 215-908-9997

The name, Louis Carew, seemed to grow larger the longer Amal looked at it. He had heard of this Carew person before. The words were words of disgust. So what was the young master doing with the despised man’s business card? Amal was torn with indecision. To take this to his master would most certainly bring wrath upon the boy. The two had formed a bond since Colin’s arrival. Amal sympathized with the teen’s feeling of alienation. He too, had felt out of place, and at times even threatened by the new world of Philadelphia, and the Americans who looked at him with suspicion and yes, even fear. Yet, to withhold the information that his son had some dealing with the hated Carew would be an act of disloyalty to his master.
The son is the product of the father. Without the father the son is lost
, he reasoned.

His mind made up, Amal descended the winding staircase to the living room and approached Jan as he sipped the tea Michael had pressed on him.

Michael smiled at Amal as he approached the two men. Between them, a haphazard patchwork of wooden tiles covered a Scrabble board.

“It is too a word! I can spell just as well as you can!” Michael said, laughing. “You tell him, Amal.”

Giving a mock serious bow, Amal said, “Alas, I have not sufficient knowledge of the language to judge.”

“Give me the damn dictionary,” Jan said. “Let’s see now, how did you spell—”

“Excuse me, Effendi,” Amal interrupted, as he handed Louis Carew’s business card to Jan. “I found this.”

Michael leaned over the board to see what the card said.

Jan puzzled over the card a moment.

“Where did this come from?”

“I found it on the floor in the young master’s bedroom. Forgive me, but this may mean something bad.”

Jan let the dictionary drop with a thud. The thin pages fluttered open to the letter I. The first word to catch Jan’s eye was, “Imp: A friend from hell.”

“Jan, what is it?” Michael said.

Jan handed the dog-eared card to Michael.

“Louis Carew! How? Where would Colin get this?”

“I’m asking myself the same question,” Jan said.

Michael looked at the card once more before tossing it aside. Jan stood, stretched his arms, and walked to the window. He looked out at the river traffic.

Carew! Jesu! The man’s as dangerous as an adder. What the hell is Colin up to? Where would they have met? Did Carew approach Colin?

Jan shuddered at the thought.

He turned to Michael and said, “Kids! Now I know the real reason Medea strangled her children!”

Amal turned to leave and then stepped back. “Effendi, I did not wish to cause you unhappiness, or to anger you toward your son. It may be he is unaware of the danger.”

Jan took a deep breath as he considered Amal’s wisdom.

“Thank you, Amal. Would you leave us, please?”

After Amal left them, Jan turned to Michael.

“Colin says I don’t understand him, or maybe he means I don’t understand anything. I’m not sure… he doesn’t define his terms very well. My guess is what he really is saying is that he doesn’t believe I love him.”

“Is he right? Do you love him because you feel you must, because he is your son, or because you find him loveable?” Michael probed.

Jan thought a while before answering. Finally, he said, “Yes, I can honestly say that I love him. Don’t ask me where it comes from. Perhaps it comes with knowing your own
flesh.
I don’t know. I’m sure I’m not the only man who’s faced this, but, Michael, the truth is, I don’t understand him. You’d think he’d be happy to be here. He doesn’t know what it’s like to be left alone and frightened.”

“Doesn’t he, Jan? How quickly you forget. A year ago, a mother he had loved and who protected him, was taken from him in a horrible way. Now he is among strangers who frighten him. Just because we know he is safe here does not mean he understands it, any more than you understand him or what he wants.”

“What could a fifteen-year-old possibly want that we can’t give him?” Jan said impatiently.

“He wants what we all want, a sense of self, a feeling of fitting in—love. He is impatient, just like we were at fifteen.”

Jan picked up a magazine, then flung it across the table in disgust.

“First Colin hates me, he hates living here, then he’s having sex with my office manager’s daughter, and now he’s running around with gangsters. This kid is out to make me crazy!”

“Oh, do not be so melodramatic. This is not about you, after all. Wait, see what he has to say, and for heaven’s sake, do not accuse him of anything—just see what it means.”

Thirty-One

Z
AN
and Colin sat side by side in a corner booth at Schrafft’s ice cream parlor as they shared a chocolate malted milkshake. Usually, they preferred to sit at the shiny chrome counter, on the wire-backed stools bolted into the white tiled floor. From there, they could watch the soda jerk create some of the 110 ice cream sundaes that made Schrafft’s famous.

Alexandra slipped the paper wrapper from a plastic straw and jabbed it into the milkshake.

“Why didn’t you get a shake of your own?” Colin asked, as Alexandra drew down on the straw, reducing the icy goblet’s contents by a full third.

“I don’t want to get fat,” she replied.

“You’re not fat.”

“I know I’m not. I just don’t want to get that way.”

Another slurp of the thick, sugar-laden liquid seemed to refute Alexandra’s desire to remain reed thin.

Colin rolled his eyes in good-natured disbelief.

“Don’t give me that look.”

“Look? What look?” he asked with mock innocence.

“You know,” she answered sharply.

They sat in silence for a long while. Alexandra stabbed at the remnants of the shake with a long-handled spoon. Colin tore at the edges of the paper place mat.

Finally, he said, “Is something wrong? Are you upset?”

“Upset? Why should I be upset?”

A final slurp followed Zan’s cocky reply.

Colin looked dumbly at his girlfriend.

I wonder if she has her period. That health book at school said women get cranky when they have their period. They get sugar cravings too. I wonder if I should ask. Are guys allowed to ask?

Before Colin could make up his mind, Alexandra retrieved her straw from the glass and placed it ever so daintily on the china saucer cradling the now empty tumbler. She straightened herself in her seat and pursed her lips.

Uh oh, here it comes,
he thought.

“Did you or did you not say that your father wants you to go to France for the summer?”

Dense as ever, Colin said, “So? Oh… you don’t want me to go, do you?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. You know I don’t want you to go.”

“Well, I don’t want to go either,” Colin said sullenly.

Alexandra detected more than a tone of unhappiness in Colin’s voice. Something more like fear seeped around his words and expression.

“Zan, why don’t you come with us? It’s going to be such a drag without you.”

“Oh come on, Colin, it takes money to go to France. It takes money to go anyplace! And I don’t have any money!”

Colin’s hopes deflated in the glare of what he knew was true. Neither he nor Zan had more than a few dollars between them.

“Do you think your mother would give you the money?” Colin said hopefully.

“No. I hinted at it after you told me that your dad was taking you. She wants to take me herself next year for my sixteenth birthday. What about your father? I don’t suppose he would pay for me to go with you.”

“Are you kidding? He hit the roof when he found out about us.”

Zan felt a surge of nausea swirl in her stomach. Her usual creamy skin color drained to a dull gray. Until this minute, she had never knowingly been the object of anyone’s anger. The feeling was not good. She thought,
Maybe his dad is going to split us up!

“But, why?” Zan asked, her voice betraying her unspoken fear. “He didn’t act like he was mad or anything.”

Colin soon realized he shouldn’t have mentioned his father’s man-to-man talk with him. It really wasn’t about Zan but rather the wisdom of teenagers having sex. By the time the discussion finished, Colin had no doubt that Jan did not approve. Still, he hadn’t forbidden Colin from seeing Alexandra.

“Earth to Colin, are you there?” Zan said.

“Umm, sorry, I kinda spaced, didn’t I? Zan, he wasn’t mad at you, he was mad at me, for… you know.”

“Oh, yeah, well… I still like him. I think he’s cute like you but in an older way. Know what I mean? He must have lots of women after him.”

Colin’s jaw dropped.

“Jeez, Zan, he’s a queer! Everybody knows that!”

“Colin! What a mean thing to say about your own father!”

Zan leaned closer to Colin and lowered her voice.

“You’d better watch out. You know how people are these days about that sort of thing.”