Scott Sherman - First You Fall

Or scared him.

“I final y cal ed him the evening of his death. It was so hard. But the moment he heard it was me, I couldn’t believe how easy it was to talk to him. How kind he was, how forgiving. I told him how sorry I was, what an idiot I had been, but he wouldn’t even hear it. He said I was his son and always would be.”

Paul stopped for a moment to compose himself.

“He told me to come right over. I got there as soon as I could. But when I arrived, I saw the body on the ground. I stopped for a moment like the rest of the crowd did. Typical NY rubbernecking. I didn’t know who it was. Not until you arrived. What to hear something funny?”

I nodded.

“When I first saw you, I thought to myself ‘what a cute kid. I wonder if I could bag him?’ Of course, this was before I knew you were sleeping with my father.”

“Listen,” I said, “I never slept with your father.”

Paul tilted his head in disbelief.

“OK, let me just clear this up once and for al.” I told Paul the true story of how Al en and I met. I explained how we became friends. How I loved him like a father, not a lover. How I thought some of the attention and guidance he gave me was because he was denied the opportunity to give it to his own children.

Paul sighed. “That makes me so sad,” he said.

“But I see now that you gave him a lot of happiness.”

He took my hands again. “Thank you for being there when I was too stupid to be a good son.”

“You were tel ing me about the night you went to meet your father.”

“Right. When you said my father’s name, that’s when I knew it was him. I ran away and headed right over to Michael’s house. I told him what happened and total y broke down.

“Michael cal ed Alana, my wife, and she came over. They sat with me for hours. First, they told me that I should never have cal ed my father. That he was an evil man and that I had brought this pain upon myself. Then, they told me this was our father’s ultimate ‘fuck you’to me. That he jumped knowing I was coming over, knowing that I’d see him, just to mess me up even further.”

“And you believed them?”

“You have to understand, Michael has a way with me. Maybe he has it with a lot of people. When he says things, they just make sense. He’s very persuasive.”

I’d seen that for myself at The Center. He had that crowd in the palm of his hand. And later, in the hal way, he almost convinced me to go with him to his office, despite the fact that I was afraid of him.

“The things he told me were the things I had heard my entire life. He made me hate my father again.

That’s why I was so awful at the reading of his wil. I thought he kil ed himself just to hurt me.”

“Paul,” I said gently, “I know you didn’t know him, but I did. I don’t believe that he kil ed himself. Not for a minute.”

“I don’t think so, either,” Paul said. “I’ve been replaying our conversation in my head ever since that night. He was looking forward to seeing me. I know that. Why would he take his own life? Why then, of al times?”

“So, if he didn’t kil himself, what do you think happened?” I was sure now that Michael was the kil er, but I wanted Paul to be the one who said it.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?”

“Maybe it was an accident?”

“What kind of accident?”

Paul looked like the child he had been when his father left them. “I don’t know,” he whined. “Maybe he fel.”

“Doing what? Practicing his balance beam on the ledge?”

“I don’t know!” He banged his fist on the table, causing his gin and tonic to soak the cuff of his shirt.

He didn’t seem to notice.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Freddy turn around to face us. He started to get up from his stool.

“Everything’s fine,” I said to Paul, but real y to Freddy, who I knew could hear us on his headset.

Freddy nodded and turned back.

Tears came back to Paul’s eyes. “It’s not fine!

Nothing’s fine!”

I thought I’d give it another go. “Paul, what do you think happened to your father?”

“He kil ed him!” Paul’s eyes were wide and bulging, the muscles in his neck strained.

“Who kil ed him?”

“I don’t know.” The whine was back.

“You said ‘he.’”

“I meant ‘whoever.’ Maybe another guy he was seeing.” He gestured around the room. “Or another hustler. I don’t know.”

“No, Paul. He didn’t have anyone else over that night. He was waiting for you.” I told him about what Randy Bostinick had said.

Paul’s face crumpled. He real y did look a child again. He bit his lip. “I don’t know,” he cried. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” He put his hands on his temples and rubbed furiously.

It was as if Paul was cycling through personalities before my eyes. Confident businessman, sorrowful son, petulant teenager, lost child.

But given everything he had gone through in the last few weeks, could I blame him? In a short time he had accepted his own sexual orientation, let go of the hate and anger he’d been indoctrinated with, final y reached out to his father, and then lost him-

Paul Harrington had been through a lot of changes. I regretted that what I was going to say might push him further along the edge.

“Paul,” I said gently. This time, I took his hands. He looked off into space with a steady fixed stare. “Paul.

Look at me.”

His head weighed a hundred pounds. He turned it slowly. His eyes met mine, but they were blank and unfocused.

“Paul: Do you think your brother could have kil ed your father?”

“Michael wouldn’t hurt anyone.” His voice had a hol ow, robotic ring.

“Is that true?” I asked.

“Michael wouldn’t hurt anyone.” The exact same intonation.

“He hurt me, Paul.” I pointed to the bruise on my face. Actual y, I didn’t know for sure that it had been Michael in the hotel room, but I had to break through Paul’s withdrawal.

“Oh Lord,” Paul pul ed his hands from mine and buried his face in them. “He told me never again, never again.”

“Never again?”

“Not another boy.”

“Did he hurt another boy, Paul?”

“He hurt me!” This time, Paul was loud enough that several heads turned. He didn’t notice.

“ H e liked hurting me,”

Paul continued.

“Sometimes it would start as tickling, or wrestling, you know. He told me al brothers did it. But he’d always carry it too far. He’d make me cry, and then make me beg him to stop. The more I’d beg, the more excited he’d get.”

“Excited?”

“Once I saw it,” Paul whispered fiercely. “He was hard. He was hard from hurting me. I was so ashamed!”

“You didn’t do anything to be ashamed of,” I told him.

“I liked it!” he cried. “Don’t you get it? He’d hurt me and I’d like it. I liked the closeness, how strong he was, that I was the one getting his attention. It was so fucking… sick!”

“You were kids,” I said.

Paul winced. “It didn’t stop until he went to col ege.”

Oh.

“Did you have sex?” I asked him.

“No. It wasn’t about sex. Wel, not normal sex. It was about power. And I think Michael always knew I was gay and he was punishing me. And, God help me, I wanted to be punished.”

We sat quietly for a moment. I didn’t know what to say. I looked up to see Freddy once again looking at me.

“Holy shit!” he mouthed.

I wanted to know as much about Michael’s psychology as I could. “Did you ever talk about it with him?”

Paul sat up a little straighten He looked up at me again.

“When he came back for his summer home after his freshman year at col ege. He told me that he had taken psychology courses in school, and that it helped him understand that what we were doing was wrong. That my wanting to be hurt was a sickness, and that he should never have gone along with it.