Dead of Night by Victor J. Banis

Author:Victor J. Banis
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: MLR Press
Published: 2010-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

PART II

BOBBIE

CHAPTER 19

“So why does he have to come here?” Joe asked. “If he’s got all that goddamned money, why can’t he go stay at a hotel someplace?”

He was a big man, bulging with muscles and with a slight beer belly that distorted the line of his tee shirt. Despite several years of college, which he had spent playing football, he was not very intelligent.

“It wasn’t his mind that appealed to me,” Bobbie was fond of explaining to his gay friends, “he has all the right instincts.”

“Because,” he said now, addressing Joe as one would a stubborn child, “he is my brother and he is coming to visit me for the first time ever. Look, Joe, it won’t hurt you in the slightest. And I’m paying for your room, right?”

“Wrong. This is my room,” he said with an emphatic sweep of one beefy hand. “Why can’t I stay here anyway? What the hell, doesn’t he know about boys diddling boys?”

Bobbie smiled a little wryly. “Frankly, I don’t think so. Take my word for it, we would all be uncomfortable. Now be reasonable, honey. And do hurry, he’ll be here any minute.”

“It’s damn short notice,” Joe grumbled, shoving some boxer shorts into a canvas flight bag that was his sole piece of luggage.

“It’s short notice for me, too,” Bobbie said. He had not even known Calvin was coming until he was virtually here, calling from Grand Central to say he had decided upon a visit. And something about Calvin’s voice, about the nonchalance and the unnatural brightness of it, had told him that Calvin needed him in some way. So, like it or not, Joe had to go. If something was bothering Calvin, Joe’s presence would certainly inhibit him from talking about it.

Still grumbling, Joe allowed himself to be shepherded out the door, on his way to a small rented hotel room a block away.

“When will I see you?” he asked, pausing in the door.

“When I can,” Bobbie snapped, and then, seeing the hurt expression in Joe’s quite childlike eyes, he stretched on tiptoe to kiss him. “Silly, do you think I won’t miss you too? I’ll get together with you somehow.”

Calvin arrived minutes later, looking flushed with the excitement of making his own way there in a taxi from the station. Bobbie saw that he was very keyed up, more than from just the trip, but he let it go for a while and kept up a flow of welcoming chatter while Calvin settled in, taking off his coat and gloves, making a trip to the tiny bathroom.

“…Such a wonderful surprise,” Bobbie said from the other room. “I’d have been happy to have you up sooner, but you sounded so determined about staying in that gloomy old house. What changed your mind anyway?”

Calvin came back into the combination living room-bedroom. “Nothing in particular. I just thought maybe a few days in the city would—I don’t know. Would something.”

“And they will, too,” Bobbie said, putting an arm about his brother’s shoulders. “Do you know, this is the first time you’ve ever come to visit me in all these years.

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