Franklin in Paradise

Excerpt

Franklin in Paradise
John Patrick © 2021
All Rights Reserved

Chapter One

I finished cleaning my bedroom before lunchtime. Not that it needed it. I’m not the kind of guy to leave his dirty socks and shorts lying around. But I dusted behind the headboard and vacuumed the corners of the ceiling in my closet, removing the neatly labeled boxes from the top shelf first, before dusting those, too, and restacking them in alphabetical order: beads, crystals, fly hooks, etc., all the way down to screws.

I tugged the bed aside and vacuumed the carpet underneath, carefully nudging the bed frame back into the existing carpet indentations when I was finished.

I was ready.

Right after my parents left that morning, I even shaved. Not that there was any real need for that either. Even though I’ll be eighteen in a couple weeks, I’m hardly rocking the facial hair, just a few soft black wisps curling under my chin.

Nothing to do now but wait for Tyler.

I walked to the picture window in our living room and stared out into the gloomy March evening. Across the dirt road, Mrs. Knudson’s front porch lights came on. If I leaned forward and craned my neck to the right, I could almost see the intersection with State Highway 27. I waited at the window until I saw a sweep of headlights illuminating the deep forest along the road, silhouettes of oaks and pines picked out one by one as Tyler’s pickup bounced through the ruts.

I stepped away from the window and moved to the front door. The throaty rumble of his truck died, and a moment later a door slammed. Footsteps on the side deck were followed by a shout of “Yo, open up.” I silently did a slow three-count, then opened the door.

“Dude, here, take these. Back in a sec.” Tyler thrust three large pizza boxes into my arms and headed back to the driveway. I carried the boxes across the living room to the counter separating it from the kitchen, the scent of hot cheese, tomatoes, onions, and pepperoni filling the air. By the time I laid out each box in a neat row on the counter, Tyler was back, kicking the door shut behind him.

He had a gym bag looped across his shoulders, and he was carrying a case of Sam Adams.

He came around the counter and into the kitchen, put the beer on the table, and dropped his bag on the floor by the counter. “Woo-hoo! Sweet Sixteen!” he said, as he shrugged out of his jacket.

Sweet Sixteen? What…? Oh, right. March Madness. Sweet Sixteen round. That’s what we’re doing tonight, right?

“Your folks get off okay?” he asked.

“Yep, they got there already and texted me an hour ago. It’s 75 degrees in Puerto Rico right now.”

“Good for them, man.” Tyler used the opener on his key chain to pry the caps off two bottles. He handed me one. “And they’re good with us doing this?”

“Yeah, of course. You’ve slept over lots of times.” Even as I said that, I felt a blush rising in my cheeks. I hoped tonight would be different than all those other times. “Besides,” I continued, “Mrs. Knudson will be keeping an eye out. She knows I’m alone this weekend, and my folks told her I wasn’t allowed to have any parties.” I was embarrassed my parents had asked our eighty-year-old neighbor to spy on me. “How about your folks? They know you’re staying the night, right?”

“Right. No problem. They just don’t know we’re alone.” He waggled his eyebrows.

*

Tyler and I have been best buds since fourth grade, but lately, I’ve been thinking about him in a…well, I guess romantic way would best describe it. I was pretty sure he felt the same about me, too, because more and more, Tyler has been lightly touching me. A pat on my head, a tap to my arm. He knows touching is a “thing” for me, and he’s been really good about too. Signaling it would happen so I could be prepared without making a big deal about it.

Two years ago, my first and only girlfriend, Maya, let me know I was gay. I hadn’t thought about it, one way or the other, up until then. I didn’t like the whole idea of dating. Turns out she was right, of course. She was so pushy when it came to the physical stuff, even though she knew I was…sensitive…to that kind of thing. “We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” she’d say. But then she’d try to kiss me or grab my hand.

One night, the last time I saw her, we were sitting in her parents’ basement, and she asked if she could hold my hand. I didn’t want to, but I knew this was what boyfriends and girlfriends did, and I was trying so hard to be normal, so I let her. Before I understood what was happening, though, she guided my hand down to her thigh and under her skirt. When I discovered she wasn’t wearing underwear, I’d gasped and yanked my hand away, waving my fingers in the air as if they’d been burned. I might have gagged a little too.

“Uh-huh. I thought so,” she’d responded immediately. “You’re gay, you know, Franklin. Right? You do know that? I’d hate to see you waste the next couple of years ‘struggling’ to understand yourself. You should just blow your buddy Tyler right now and get it over with.”

Fair enough. But I didn’t blow Tyler, and as much as I was convinced we had a future together, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to blow him, or at least not yet. But I’d been thinking about kissing him, and although it made me a little uncomfortable, I thought I might be ready for that.

*

We settled on the couch. We both took a corner, leaving plenty of room between us. We went through the first pizza as we watched the game and started in on the second. It was a good matchup, and although I wasn’t much of a basketball fan, I was sort of enjoying it. But I was enjoying watching Tyler more. He was wearing his silky green athletic shorts, even though it was cold out with snow expected overnight. Every now and then he’d stretch his legs in front of him, the soft golden hairs on his thighs glinting in the light of the television.

During a commercial break, he leaned back and stretched his arms behind his head, then out wide to the sides, one hand briefly brushing the back of my shoulder. He glanced over at me. “Dude, your hair is getting really long.” He tugged on a curl hanging over the back of my collar. I was surprised to find I didn’t mind the unexpected touch. In fact, an electric jolt ran through me. Was this it? Was he going to kiss me? But no. He let go, stood, and walked into the kitchen. He popped open two more beers, his fourth and my second.

On his way back into the living room, a local newscaster came on the screen. “Good evening, Bangor. Here’s what we’re covering for our eleven o’clock broadcast. Tonight’s snowstorm is now looking more like an ice storm for areas just inland from the coast. Central and Northern Maine could be hit hard. Sandra will have the timing and the details. Also, our national affiliate in Washington, DC, will be updating us on breaking news out of Asia, following unexpected and provocative actions by North Korea. See you at eleven.”

“Did he say an ice storm tonight?” asked Tyler, handing me a beer and sitting back down on the couch, closer to me this time.

“Yes. Maybe we’ll be stuck here.” I liked the idea.

The game resumed, and we made our way through more pizza. I got up to use the bathroom, and while I was there, I remembered that you’re supposed to fill containers of water if you might lose power. I filled the bathtub for toilet flushing, then went into the kitchen and filled several containers and buckets for drinking water.

When I returned, I sat even closer to Tyler, our legs just inches apart.

He punched my arm, using an exaggerated slow motion so I could see it coming, and called me a Boy Scout. “Doesn’t hurt to be prepared,” I said. At one point, he twisted toward me and leaned over to set his beer down next to me, even though there was also a table at his end of the sofa. His knee rubbed tightly along my thigh.

A newscaster interrupted the game. “This is CBS Breaking News. Our Washington desk is following disturbing developments out of Asia. China has, without warning, closed its borders and airspace and disabled its internet. The US State Department is trying to determine the status of tens of thousands of US citizens currently in that country. The move by China comes immediately on the heels of word that North Korea is readying several missile launch sites and has also closed its borders and airspace. Additionally, we’ve been following an escalating health crisis in South Korea, with unconfirmed reports that hospitals in Seoul have been overwhelmed with victims of a newly circulating, deadly flu.

“Our Asia experts are here to discuss the situation and possible connections between the events unfolding there.”

Tyler leaned forward and picked up the remote from the coffee table. He muted the sound and turned to me. “You want to see something?”

“Sure.”

He rose from the couch and went to his bag, still on the floor by the kitchen counter. He squatted and rummaged inside for a second, then pulled out a DVD case and held it up so I could see it. “My cousin down in Portland gave this to me.” He walked back to the couch, grinning.

I took it, and a twinge of anxiety twisted in my stomach when I realized what it was.

“Porn,” I said, studying the case. There were pictures of naked young men. Just men. “I didn’t know you were into that.”

“Not just porn. Amateur stuff. My cousin says there’s a guy in Portland who pays guys to do things on video. Mostly just jerk off together, you know?”

“Huh.” I didn’t know what else to say. The whole idea made me uncomfortable. I’ve seen porn on the internet, of course, but I didn’t like it. It struck me as messy and fake. Plus, I wasn’t good at what Dr. Levy called “reading” people, so when I knew people were only pretending, I had difficulty figuring out what was going on.

Porn left me confused and anxious—the opposite, I guess, of how most people responded. So, no, I didn’t want to watch porn.

“Anyway,” Tyler continued, “my cousin says this guy is looking for guys to work together. Opposite types, you know? He says we’d be great together. You’re dark and stocky; I’m tall and blond…” he trailed off, apparently waiting to see how I’d react.

Absolutely not was my first thought, but I held it back. What did Tyler want to hear from me? Was he really suggesting this, or just leading up to watching the DVD together? So instead I said, “Uh…don’t you need to be eighteen to do that kind of thing? On film, I mean.”

“I am eighteen. And you will be in just a couple weeks.” He took a swig from his beer. “Maybe we can watch this disc so you can see what it’s all about. It’s pretty tame, like I said.” He stood up, turning the case back and forth, looking at me. “It’s just guys, though… That won’t bother you, will it?”

Would it? I am gay after all, so it shouldn’t. Although I’d rather Tyler just kiss me and put the porn back in his bag. But if this is what Tyler wanted…maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. I could just focus on Tyler, right? I wouldn’t have to look at the video at all. “Oh, uh, no…that won’t bother me.”

“Great! This’ll look amazing on the big screen.” He pried the disc out of the case and headed toward the DVD player below the television. The sound was still muted, and the screen was showing a shaky video of what looked like lines of dead bodies in a hallway somewhere. A banner reading “unconfirmed footage” scrolled across the bottom.

“Hold on,” I said. “We can’t watch that here. There’s no curtains and Mrs. Knudson might see in.”

“Dude, that is so whack! You live on a dirt road in the freakin’ middle of nowhere, no other houses around for miles, except this one old lady who lives right across the freakin’ street! What is with that?”

“I know, right?” I thought of all the cleaning I’d done earlier. “Maybe we can watch it on my laptop in my bedroom?”