The Catch Trap by Marion Zimmer Bradley

Author:Marion Zimmer Bradley [Bradley, Marion Zimmer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Contemporary, Fiction, Gay, Fantasy, Gay Men, Circus, Usernet, C429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 9780345280909
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Published: 1978-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Tonio Santelli bent to jump one of Tommy’s men and remove it from the board. “You see? Even in checkers, you got to think ahead. And Matt? You get along all right? I don’t know, maybe he’s too tough on you, maybe—you’re just a kid: maybe I ought—” He broke off and bent over the board again. Tommy, studying the trap Papa Tony had laid between two kings, and making the forced move which would lose him still another man, suddenly realized that the words had more than their face value. Somehow, some way or other, Papa Tony knew. His mind raced. How? We’ve been so careful. But Tommy realized that the old man knew; he would never say so, but here, over a checkerboard and casually, Tommy’s whole future hinged on how he answered now.

What can I say? He probably thinks it’s something terrible. Mario warned me …

“You’re real good at setting traps,” he said disgustedly, watching as Papa Tony made his move and removed the man he had endangered. Then, carefully, slowly, he spoke.

“I like Mario, Papa Tony. We get along all right,” he said, and finally he found the words for his clumsy search, neither too obviously offhand, nor too openly worshipful. “That— that tough stuff is mostly an act, you know; he’s really swell to me.” Suddenly he crowed, pouncing on a handy jump, moving his man into the king row. “Crown him!”

“Um!” The old man’s hand hovered over the checkerboard, carefully avoiding Tommy’s king-baited trap. He raised inquisitive, noncommittal eyes.

Tommy, examining the board to see if the casual move had in reality laid some deeper trap for his man, suddenly risked everything. “Mario isn’t so tough, Papa Tony. You know, I—I really love the guy.” He added, almost probing, his hand hovering between the deceptive opening near the king, or the indifferent move which might lead him into an unforeseen trap, “If our scrapping bothers you, maybe we can tone it down a little. Like I say, it’s mostly an act.”

Pap Tony smiled and blandly jumped Tommy’s newly crowned king. “Good. I thought maybe so, only I want to hear it from you, that you were happy. You two, you know, you’ll make a good team. You’ll be together a long time, maybe all your lives, you work like that together. And maybe you can work with somebody you don’t like, don’t trust, don’t love. I wouldn’t know; I never tried. Angelo and me, we get along better than most fathers and sons; we have to, otherwise we couldn’t work together. Oh, we argue sometimes, like any father and any son, but not where it counts. Down where it counts we know we can trust each other all the way; we never even have to think about it. I trust him like that, so I don’t even have to think about loving him. I love Johnny, but I don’t trust him, not quite like that, not yet. Tradition. Something we have, Angelo and me, something we hold on to together.

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