The Lion’s Mail Order Menage

Chapter 3

          It was just one of those days, you know?  It was one of those days when Tyler just felt like setting the world on fire.  Not even for a real reason.  Not because anything was all that bad.  It was just to watch the world burn.  That was something that happened to him sometimes.  It had since he could remember.  Hell, it had probably happened when he was baby.  Who knew a thing like that?  He couldn’t remember that far back.  He couldn’t remember a lot of things, things it seemed like he should have been able to recall.

For Tyler, it was like he would go in and out of things, in and out of life so that he only got to keep pieces of it in his head.  It used to bother him when he was younger, back when he still spent the time and energy about that kind of thing.  He’d wondered if maybe there was some other life that he was leading in some other place and the pieces of things he did not know belonged to that alternate version of himself.

He was a person of acute duality and it had taken him years to stop the worrying.  He had, though, he had stopped worrying about that and most anything else a man could worry about.  At the end of the day, what was the point?  He wasn’t going to get any of those lost things back.  He could only barrel through the life he had his grasp on, and barreling through things was one of the things he did best.  That was what he was planning on doing now, now when he was dragging himself to the one place he least wanted to go.

“Tyler!  Back in the neighborhood, eh?  Where the hell you been?  You avoiding us?”

Alice was the fat wife of the owner of the local corner store with nothing on her hands but time.  She was like the neighborhood watch, the herald who let the rest of the townsfolk know who was coming in and who was coming out.  Nosey bi*ch.  What business of hers whether he came every day or not at all? 

They were his parents, after all.  It was for him to decide his goings and comings and it was for him to choose what kind of relationship he had with the two of them.

“Who’s avoiding?  I’ve got things to do, Alice.  I’m a busy guy, lots of irons in the fire.  Lots of irons.”

“Things?  You’ve got things to do?  What kinds of things are more important than a son visiting his ailing mother?  You know how she suffers, Tyler.  You know that just as well as I do.  You’ve got to go see her.”

“That’s where I’m headed, Alice.  Just as soon as you stop talking to me that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

The look on Alice’s face was priceless and it was everything Tyler could do not to bust out laughing.  He wanted to laugh, who wouldn’t?  She looked like a cartoon character, like a roasting pig whose mouth was wide open waiting for the apple to be shoved in.  The only thing keeping him from busting out in that raucous way was the memory of how Geno and Caleb had behaved in the restaurant.  Tyler had laughed when Geno had chewed that slimy son of a bi*ch restaurateur out.  That had been the point, god damnit!  Why else would he have said it that way, in front of all of those people?

Everyone had laughed, everyone but Caleb, and Caleb was too sensitive sometimes.  He was afraid of getting his hands dirty, of doing what needed to be done.  He was never going to laugh at a thing like that, probably wasn’t even listening well enough to know what was funny, but the problem was that Geno didn’t laugh either.

None of the other gorillas around the table noticed it but Tyler did.  He watched as Geno and Caleb had their quiet little conversation, the one they didn’t think anyone else could hear.  He knew what Geno thought about Caleb and how special he was.  He knew he thought Caleb was above the work they were doing, but he also was of the firm belief that Geno was dead wrong. 

There was something about Caleb that drew people to him.  He was such an angelic looking little boy and he grew into an equally angelic looking man.  He oozed a certain kind of appeal for people who might be at all inclined to take care of someone and Geno had that.  Most people didn’t know that about him but it was there and Caleb brought it out in him in a big way.

That scene, Geno and Caleb conspiring together with bent heads and soft voices, he couldn’t get it out of his head.  There was something happening there that he wasn’t a part of.  It was the first time since he was twelve years old when he had that feeling with either of them.  It was the first time since leading the charge along the docks when he felt like something was happening behind closed doors and he had been off ever since seeing it. 

Adding the fact that he had to come back to this sh*t-show of a neighborhood, and Tyler wasn’t in the mood to be kind.  He may not have laughed at Alice but he sure as hell didn’t make her feel good.  He could see her trying to recover, sputtering and working her mouth as she tried to think of something cutting to say in return, but she never came up with anything.  And god help him, it felt good to see her hurt.  It made him feel better.  It always made him feel better to make someone else feel worse.  Finally she spoke and he could hear the faintest little quiver in her voice.

“You go on now, get to your mom.  She’s lucky you don’t come around more, you know that?  All you ever done is cause her sorrow.  You been a burden, boy, and she’ll be better off once you’re dead.  Down in hell you’ll be, mark my words, if you don’t atone, don’t change your sinful ways.”

“You may be right, Alice, I can’t argue the possibility.  But guess what?  I go down to hell, and I’ll see you there.  That’s a promise, sweetheart.”

Alice gasped and clutched at her blouse like he was speaking for Satan himself and Tyler turned, smiled to himself meanly as he continued his trek.  As if she had a fu*king clue what she was talking about.  How his mother had suffered; who could know about the suffering in his household who hadn’t been there day in and day out, grinding through with no end in sight?