The Lion’s Mail Order Menage

“Jesus, you’re a bad liar.  You did it, didn’t you?  You went to your folks’ place last night.  How many times have I told you to stop doing that sh*t?  Every time you go over there you wind up just like this for days.  Whatever it is you’re looking for from them, you aren’t going to find it.”

“They’re still my family,” Caleb replied quietly, knowing before he even spoke that the words were likely to piss Tyler right off.  And he was right.  Tyler slammed his drink in one easy gulp and stalked into the meager excuse for a kitchen and riffled through the cabinets until he found a bottle of bourbon.  He took the closest glass he could find and filled it until it was close to overflowing.  

“Care for some ice with that sh*t?”

“God damnit, Caleb!  I love the hell out of you, but when the fu*k are you going to learn?  You call them family?  What kind of family is that?  If that’s what family is, then count me out, brother.  I don’t want it.  What the hell they ever done for you, aside from sometimes give you some rat infested place to sleep?

“You know who my family is?  It’s you, and Geno and the boys.  It’s whoever the fu*k I want it to be but it sure as hell ain’t those sorry old shifters.  They’ve never done a thing for me I didn’t wish they could take back.  Nothing but put me in your path.  So you tell me.  Why are you so hell-bent on holding onto them?  Just help me understand it man, because I’ve been trying but for the life of me I just can’t.” 

“I don’t know.  I just want to understand them, OK?  Is that so fu*king impossible to understand?  I want to know how our fathers got to be such pricks, our mothers so bitter and mean.  I want to know how and why because the last thing I want, the thing I’m fu*king terrified of, is turning out just like my dad.  Or god, getting trapped with a woman like our mothers.  Can you imagine?”

“Sh*t,” Tyler said in a breath of disgust as he eased himself into Caleb’s most comfortable and only chair, “that would be worse than death.  But you know about our dads, don’t you?  I don’t see how you couldn’t.  Our moms have talked about it so often you would think it was worthy of national news.”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

Caleb said it quietly enough to where he wasn’t certain Tyler would answer.  Maybe it was because he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it.  He was right, their mothers had spent many an angry day doing nothing but discussing their unlucky lots and Caleb should have known the whole thing by heart.  But what Tyler still didn’t seem to understand was how much Caleb had hated those long, lazy days with those bitter women.  He had done everything he could do to keep from hearing the things they said as they drank and ate and grew fatter and angrier by the year.  The result was that now, as an adult, he lived in a realm of half-truths in which he didn’t have any true ideas of what had gone on all of those years ago.

He hadn’t ever asked Tyler because he hadn’t wanted to know but the not knowing was starting to make him just as bitter as he had believed the knowing would make him.  So he asked his brother to let him in on the mistakes of the past that had colored their lives and even after he did it, half of him hoped he wouldn’t get an answer.  He was not to be so lucky, or unlucky, however, and Tyler let out a long whistle before he began to speak.

“Dear old dad.  What can any boy ever say about his dad that’s actually true?  Either he thinks the man is superman or he thinks he’s the devil, but it never is the way the man actually is.  Only our dads?  Well, they weren’t the best, OK?  They just weren’t, and it wasn’t something that started when they got older and disillusioned.  It started when they were just a little bit younger than we are now.”

“What did they do?”

“Look, if you made it this long without knowing, are you sure you want me to tell you?”

“I am.  You’ve got to.  It’s time.”

“OK man, but just remember, you asked.  Remember that them being who they are doesn’t mean anything about who you are or who you’re going to be.  Tell me you’ll remember that, OK?”

“Sure.  You got it.  Now, please?  Just say it.”

“Let’s see.  They were living in a pride, a long, long way from here, somewhere where there was more land than buildings.  My dad, he was the son of their alpha, their leader.  From what Mom said, he was a good leader, too, but my dad was greedy.  Your dad, too.  They came up with a plan to gain power long before it was their time and it didn’t seem to bother them none that it involved killing the alpha, or that the alpha happened to be my grandfather.”

“So then they got caught.  Is that it?  Your grandfather caught them and sent them away and our moms had to go, too.”

“Not quite.”

“Well, then what?”

“They killed him.  They ripped his throat out and left him to die like a dog in a pool of his own blood, sat atop his body like they were going to make it their new throne.  They really believed they were going to do it, that they were going to rule.  They never accounted for people wanting to be led by a good man.  They got run out with their tails between their legs and our moms stuck to them like white on rice.”

“But why?  Why would our mothers have to go with them?  If it wasn’t them that did the killing, why would anyone condemn them to follow bad men?”

“Because, they weren’t exactly innocent.  They helped in the planning, and they were more than happy to benefit from the death.  It was only when they saw it all going south that they played the victims and nobody bought it at that point.  So they wound up here, a place they didn’t want to be, and they never forgave anyone for it, blamed every person they could find.