Mark Dunn - We Five

Noticing this, Cain said, “Wouldn’t you rather wait and beat the crap out of me somewhere more private?”

“It’s Tommy’s game,” Jerry shot back. “He’s the one who gets to decide whether we keep playing or not.”

Tom “the Kat” Cheshire-grinned. “Well, that’s an easy one. We keep playing. Because I could easily wrap this whole thing up by Friday. Jane’s as horny as a junkyard bitch in heat. She all but went down on me in the parking lot of the blues club last week.”

Will and Jerry burst out laughing. Will said, “You really think you can win the game based on a pity fuck?”

Jerry added: “Bless the bestiality and the chilrens!”

Cain retreated to his van. After climbing into the driver’s seat, he slammed the door with force sufficient to get across, unequivocally, his absolute disgust for the topic at hand.

Cain Pardlow wondered, as he often did, why he continued to associate with three men whose every word and deed turned his stomach into a roiling acid pit. But the answer always came quick and easy, and it was always the same: Cain hung out with Will and Tom and Jerry, as much as he had grown to despise them, as the price he had to pay for being with Pat.

Pat. The man he loved. The man to whom he was affectionately and dutifully devoted. Cain had tried to reroute these feelings — had tried to make himself think of Pat in that fraternal, protective way older brothers sometimes feel about younger brothers. But he never succeeded. The physical desire was too strong. There was nothing remotely fraternal or even platonic about Cain’s feelings for Pat Harrison — feelings he knew would never and could never be returned. Not that this mattered. Because at this point he’d pretty much reconciled himself to circumstances. And if just being around Pat was the best it was going to get, then he would exercise his private devotion by helping to shepherd the boyishly adorable Pat Harrison safely and happily through these early formative chapters of his life.

Cain Pardlow had become, in his own mind, the self-sacrificing heroine of a schmaltzy Douglas Sirk soaper.

“ So ,” said Will Holborne, lighting up another Marlboro, “all things being fair in love and shit, and there being no rules in the game against poaching, I shall find myself another victim. So good luck, suckahs .”

Tom Katz couldn’t help laughing. You had to admire Will’s chutzpah. Jerry might be your garden-variety, old-fashioned Mississippi anti-Semite, but Will Holborne, when he wanted to be, could top them all: the aggressive, the assertive, the brawny Quicker-Picker-Upper Nordic über-man Nazi right down to his hollow core.

The next day, conveniently a day off from the casino for both Cain and Ruth, the two found themselves sipping caffé mochas (called, with a soupçon of pretension, “mocaccinos” on the menu) at Harvey Joe’s, Bellevenue’s popular new combination bookstore/coffeehouse on the town square. Although it wasn’t, nor could it ever be thought of as a “date,” their afternoon meeting didn’t go to the other extreme either. Neither the gay man nor the lesbian felt like the kind of awkward stranger that circumstances required them to be in this early, exploratory stage in their friendship. In fact, the ease with which they settled into conversation was a first for both; Cain had never had a female friend with whom he felt comfortable enough to open up, and the same could be said for Ruth (with the required gender flip). Even though the Reverend Mobry had dropped many a hint that he would be receptive to anything Ruth wished to share with him, she’d never felt the desire to take him up on the offer. It would have been, for Ruth, a little like a daughter disrobing in front of her father.

“When did you know — or at least suspect?” asked Ruth.

“Maybe it was that night at the blues club. The way you kept checking out the waitress with the big — well—”

“You can say it. Tits. It’s a great word. I love the word. I love the tits.”

“You seem really close to your four friends—”

“Yeah, we’ve been like that since childhood.”

Someone had left a promo postcard on the table for a local barbecue restaurant. Cain speared it with his index finger and spun it absently around. “You never had a, like, inconvenient crush on any of them?”

Ruth laughed. “To be totally honest, if Molly suddenly came out to me — not that Molly’s budged from the zero mark on my gaydar in all the years I’ve known her — but if, miracle of miracles, she did happen to someday come out as the cute, pixyish little dyke of my dreams, I would, without the slightest hesitation, dive right into the sack with her. But I’m a realist who doesn’t dwell on things that shall never be.”

“Hmm.”

Ruth cocked her head. “Which one?”

Cain grinned self-consciously. “Pat. The kid.”

Ruth nodded. “He’s cute.”

“And as straight as your Molly. Probably straighter.”

Ruth smirked. “ Probably straighter . Now what the hell, Mr. Pardlow, does that mean?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t it common knowledge that women have a little more wiggle room in this area than men do?”

Ruth laughed out loud. “Well, that’s certainly what the straight male media wants you to think — all the better to feed those fantasies about two hot women going at it with each other under the sheets. No. There’s never been much wiggle room with any of the girls I’ve known. Especially my four sisters.”

“Has there — if you don’t mind me asking — has there been anybody you’ve—?”

“Not really. Viv at work— Ms. Colthurst —you know, who supervises all the gaming-floor waitresses — she’s been sending me a few not- too -subtle signals she might be interested in me.”

“Do you like her?”

Ruth shrugged her eyes. “She’s — I don’t know. Maybe I could grow to like her.”

“You don’t have to settle, you know.”

“Ain’t you sweet.”

“Ruth, I have to tell you something.” Cain downed the rest of his mocha as if for fortification.

“You’re gonna tell me about the bet, aren’t you?”

“So you know about the bet.”

Ruth nodded.

“It’s more like a game, though, really — one of the twisted little games the guys and I play with each other. I hate most of them — this one more than all the rest put together.”

“Then why do you go along with it?”

“Blackmail would be the best way to put it. Will walked into the john one day when one of the busboys from the buffet restaurant had me in a — I’ll just say, a compromised position. Will’s using this to force me to play the game. If word gets out, then it could turn into a big scandal that would probably keep my dad from getting re-elected. He’s the district attorney down in Arkabutla County.”

“This isn’t 1950. What you do is nobody’s business — not your father’s, not any of the people who may or may not be voting for him down at the other end of the state.”

“But maybe you haven’t noticed: people in Mississippi still act like it’s 1950, and they get off on being affronted and appalled. How’d you figure out the game?”

“There wasn’t a lot of figuring required. I overheard two of your ‘brothers’ talking about it during our little field trip last week. They couldn’t have been any more forthcoming if they’d deliberately set out to tell me everything I needed to know.”

It took Cain a moment to recompose himself. “Have you told the others?”

“Not yet. But I think I probably should, especially after the way that asshole treated Mags. I’m afraid he’s gonna start stalking her.”