Compulsion

By L.A. Fields

The Disorder Series book 4. After years of upheaval, Marley Kurtz feels like his life is finally secure. He has his job, his friends, his boyfriend Jesse, and a pretty good hold on his compulsions and addictions too, or so he thinks. Unbeknownst to him, this period of rest has only been a plateau, and the edge is near. It s the reappearance of Jesse's younger cousin, Billy, that brings everyone to the precipice. When Jesse starts thinking about his past, he decides he no longer wants Marley for his future. With an unexpected breakup to endure, Marley s coping mechanisms start to fail him. While Jesse returns to his own old patterns, Marley scrambles to find some stability. His best friend, Missy, tries to usher him into the wind as best she can, but no one can save Marley from the horror of having to rely on himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebel Satori Press
• Release date: Feb 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781608641277

L.A. Fields

L.A. Fields is the author of The Disorder Series, published by Rebel Satori Press, along with the Lambda Literary Award finalist My Dear Watson, the collection Countrycide, and her newest book, Homo Superiors. Her work has been featured in Wilde Stories 2009, Best Gay Romance 2010 and the Bram Stoker Award-winning Unspeakable Horror: From the Shadows of the Closet. She has traveled the world but now lives in Texas.

Book preview

Compulsion

by

L.A. Fields

SMASHWORDS EDITION

* * * * *

PUBLISHED BY:

Queer Mojo (A Rebel Satori Imprint)

New Orleans

Copyright © 2018 by L.A. Fields

After all, for a seaman, to scrape the bottom of the thing that’s supposed to float all the time under his care is the unpardonable sin. No one may know of it, but you never forget the thump—eh?

A blow on the very heart.

—Joseph Conrad

Prologue: Colorful Colorado

The day his son hits the road, Joe Green wakes up happy. He woke up happy the day before, and he’ll wake up happy tomorrow before he remembers. He is not a man built to be miserable. It’s something he’s never had in common with his family, his wife and the boy.

Less than a week before, the day his son Billy graduated from high school, Joe was beaming. He told every bad joke he knew to every other proud parent he could find at the ceremony, with his wife Karen by his side the whole time, rolling her eyes. When she finally spoke up and said, Joe, just stop it, he was talking to the social studies teacher and told that guy, I slice ham because I am a ham. The teacher excused himself from Karen’s withering presence by telling Joe he’d see him around the deli counter. That’s where Joe has worked since he graduated high school nearly twenty-five years ago. Stay chill, Joe called in goodbye, I promise me and the meat will!

Billy was happy that day, or at least he was relieved to be done with school. He’d taken quite an aggressive dislike of the place by his senior year. He dyed his hair every obnoxious color the dress code allowed; ‘natural colors only’ meant bleached carrot orange, midnight black, white blonde, and blood red were technically sanctioned. Billy looked like a hedgehog at a rave, but at least he had a personality to express, that’s how Joe felt. Karen threatened to shave the boy’s head in his sleep once a week, but Joe told her: better this than one of those depressed kids, sleeping all day; better this than some restless criminal. The more time Billy spent staining the garage towels with hair dye, the less time he had for trouble. Joe told Karen, if she cut the boy’s hair, he’d probably tattoo his scalp, so why not let what isn’t permanent run its natural course?

Billy’s teenage rebellion became visual with his hair, but it started before that. When Billy was a freshman, his older cousin left town for good, and never called or came back home. Billy spent one year miserable, the next year manic when he fell in with the older kids as friends (the kids who were around his cousin’s age), but by junior year Billy had fallen out with them, and by senior year he had that hair and that attitude and the occasional screaming match with his mother. Joe figured he was just one more year from peace—Billy would either get a job or go to vo-tech school, commit or switch, but either way he’d be his own man after that, and find his own contentment.

But Billy wasn’t the kind of man either of his parents expected. Joe was floored that his only son would run away without a goodbye, no ‘see ya later,’ nothing but a note weighted under his cell phone that said: I’m leaving the phone so you can’t find me. Sorry dad, but tell mom I’m gay, and I’ve fucked like three guys in this town, and I hope I never see her again. –Billy

The gay thing really did bother Karen, but the absence of his son is what bothered Joe. Karen went through Billy’s room; Joe went through his own memories. Karen found a lot of evidence that let her rewrite their son (condoms, devil music, rolling papers, school notebooks more full of cuss words than classwork), and Joe found that liking his son was nowhere close to understanding him. They’d raised the cousin for a bit, Jesse, and Joe was always comfortable with never getting that kid, because Jesse had his own family, his own past, so it was enough to merely tip hats at one another in the kitchen each day. Had Joe accidentally done the same thing with Billy?

We never should have let Jesse into this house, Karen tells him at the end of the second day without Billy. He was a bad influence, I always said that. He was a queer and a psycho and that’s why all this has happened.

Joe doesn’t answer her. She’s already returning to normal, placing the blame, getting her story straight for when she tells her friends about the latest drama in her life. The point she insists on the hardest is that it isn’t her fault.

Didn’t I tell you about Jesse? Didn’t I worry that something like this would happen? I tried to warn you.

Jesse isn’t mentioned in the note, Joe tells her, stating truth like a man who’s never learned to lie, with no slant. And he apologized to me. Billy was mad at you. You two never had a good relationship, you don’t have to blame Jesse for that.

"Oh, excuse me for being the only parent in this house! Of course he didn’t like me, I was the one who actually disciplined him, who tried to raise him better than this. It isn’t my fault that no one helped me. I did my best!"

Billy left on a Friday night, and by Sunday, though they do not leave the house, Karen has on all her makeup, and is wearing an outfit with a belt. Who does she dress up for? Joe is in the same shorts and shirt he went to sleep in Friday night. Who does she think she’s lying to? Joe doesn’t believe her.

Joe sighs and looks around him. This house was always too big for three people. With two boys, for the few years that Jesse stayed with them, it was a house with a useful purpose, but what is it now? A whole lot of space and not enough life to fill it. It’s a tragedy.

Maybe we should move, Joe says.

Don’t be ridiculous, Joe. We just paid off this house last year and now you want to start all over? Besides, what if Billy learns the hard way just how good he had it here? How would he find us if he wanted to come home? We’re settled here, we’re done.

Yeah, Joe agrees. We’re not going anywhere. Perhaps that is why Billy left: he didn’t want to join them. He wanted to go somewhere, or at least somewhere else.

Part One:

Company

Chapter One: Calm Before the Storm

Marley Kurtz wakes up easily these days, with plenty of time to wash and dress and flick on the lights, and eat a sensible breakfast. Scrambled eggs, cheese on toast, two microwaved sausage links, and some coffee with a shot of rum dropped in. Marley firmly believes that drinking in the morning is only a problem if you feel the need to hide it. He’s been living like this for nearly a year, and it’s all been smooth sailing so far.

Jesse is still asleep in the main room of their apartment, and getting up and venturing forth into the world alone is less of a wrench for Marley every day he does it in good spirit (i.e. with good spirits in him). Like any animal with a mind, Marley responds well to positive incentives. Waking up is never something he wants to do—the dizzy lurch across the floor to the bathroom, the tedious routine of peeing, showering, brush and blow dry the hair (not for style, just because it’s long enough to stay wet for hours otherwise), and then over to the laundry closet/wardrobe pantry to assemble the same layers of clothing, in the same order, every day. When you think of each day like that, any life seems excessively long. A.E. Housman told Marley about that years ago: Oh often have I washed and dressed/ And what’s to show for all my pain?/ Let me lie abed and rest:/ Ten thousand times I’ve done my best/ And all’s to do again.

But now Marley has a reason to get up, a reward. If he doesn’t linger after the alarm goes off, and he makes it a game to get through the whole washing and dressing business quickly, he can drink with his breakfast, and then brush his teeth to be discreet about it, like Scarlett O’Hara swishing perfume to cover the smell of liquor. One mouthful of Listerine to spit, another gulp to swallow for the road since there’s alcohol in that too, and Marley finds gargling unreliable. Sometimes he can do it just fine, sometimes he spits up on himself like a baby, has to change his shirt and sniff mouthwash out of his nose, where it burns the worst. Better to swallow it if he wants it to touch the back of his throat; it’s more dignified.

Good morning! Marley says when he emerges from the bathroom and finds Jesse having a very serious tête-à-tête with a cup of coffee. Everyone has their own vice, right? Marley’s is no different than anyone else’s, he’s convinced of that.

Okay, Jesse says. He’s more of a natural morning person than Marley is, but he’s not buzzed on anything. Sober, Marley only said ‘good morning’ in sarcasm and spite, but in his current state he actually means it. He kisses the top of Jesse’s head, still happy to touch the curls Jesse has grown out at Marley’s request, and then scoops up his big-to-small pile of necessities from the counter spot under the phone. Fiction book, notebook, cellphone, wallet, keys, all in a little pyramid. He disperses his things into his pockets on his way downstairs, through the vaulted ceiling space of the auto garage, and out into the muggy morning.

Now—Marley’s boss doesn’t want him actually drinking on the job, so once he gets to work there are two phases: the morning plateau of his breakfast buzz, and then the descent to his next incentive, which is clocking out and going home to more booze.

His coworker, the boss’s son, still doesn’t like him after three years of knowing each other. On days when Marley’s particularly anxious to get back home to that relieving nectar (especially on days when he knows he’s staying late to do inventory and packs a rum-and-coke-bottle to start in on the second the customers are locked out), Tristan does his best to insult what he considers to be Marley’s weakness. Tristan is taking a summer school course because growing up in foster care has left him flailing and failing in subjects like math. Marley wounds him back as best he can occasionally, telling Tristan that even drunk with a GED he could still complete Tristan’s homework better and faster. They’re very close to actually hating each other, no matter how many friends and family members they share in common.

Even during their first interaction of the day, before they’ve had time to irritate each other, Marley and Tristan are barely able to be civil.

Morning, Marley states.

Yeah, Tristan confirms.

If they have a good day, that’s all they’ll say to each other, but today is not one of their good days.

There are too many customers too early, and then not enough as the day wears on to thin out the tedium. Marley is too languid with the morning rush, and when one customer gets annoyed at his slow pace, she mentions it to Tristan, and when Tristan has a reason to judge Marley, he seizes it with relish.

I make it my business to support small businesses, especially a place with personality like this one, the woman lectures, gesturing to the fluffy cloud walls of Purple Prose and the rainbow-color catalogue of the bookcases. But a place like this really needs to hold itself to a certain standard, because of course it would be much easier to order online. If I care enough to support local establishments, shouldn’t you actually care about earning that kind of loyalty?

First, Tristan puts on a customer-sympathy face, nodding and making coddling coo noises to give the woman enough attention to satiate her. It’s a demeanor that does not go with Tristan’s over-aged high school senior outfit, or the trendy hair cut he’s already starting to grow out of. Marley’s been twenty for a few months now, he’s beyond all that teenaged nonsense, and believes he was very mature for his age during his own tour of adolescence—Tristan will probably act like a teenager until he’s thirty.

Next, Tristan tries snitching on Marley to Rita, the owner of the book store, but she’s determined to be a mending wall between the two of them. One impatient customer does not pit her against any employee, whether he drinks before noon or not.

Finally, Tristan fishes his phone from his pocket, pointedly enough that Marley knows he’s texting Marley’s sister, so he’s reminded that Lindsay is Tristan’s friend and not her brother’s. Marley’s used to people not liking him, it bothers him less than Tristan knows. People grow out of Marley and sometimes right back into him. It’s a long life, there’s plenty of time for Marley and his sister to reconcile. Family sticks a lot harder than friendship, whether anyone likes it or not.

At last Marley clocks out. He’s not fully aware of what day of the week it is (the three in the middle are either Not-Monday or Not-Friday as far as he’s concerned) since the more he focuses on the passage of each and every day, the more he drinks when he gets home. The less he thinks, the less he drinks, and the more everyone else likes him. Jesse especially seems to think that every night Marley has only one drink is some kind of turning point that will lead Marley to a life of comfortable sobriety. Marley likes that those days make Jesse happy, even though it’s as fictional a fantasy on his part as the books Marley tends to live in when his own life unimpresses him quite terribly.

Arriving home, Marley greets Jesse’s boss, their landlord. He’s sober now, but happy, because that’s about to change.

Hi, Kenny, he says, Jesse upstairs?

Yep, Kenny says, jumping when Marley speaks from afar instead of the careful approach Marley used to do before attempting to talk to anyone. Like, he was always sorry to have to speak to them, but it was more awkward not to sometimes. When Kenny jumps, he hits his dandelion of a head on the engine hood of the car he’s working under. He is rubbing that injury in apparent confusion when Marley walks past him with a smile and a wave. Marley’s happy to see everyone on his way home.

He climbs the stairs up to home-sweet-loft, relishing the clang of his steps on the metal, as if they had a more pleasant ring to them than the average stomp. He tries the door first because it’s usually unlocked if only one half of this couple is home. Marley says hello to Jesse, kicks off his shoes, stacks his book, notebook, cellphone, wallet, and keys back on the counter, and pulls the same glass he drank from that morning out of the sink. He rinses it with soap and his fingers (that washes both the cup and his hands at the same time; very efficient). He puts ice in it first, alcohol second, diet cola third, and he won’t seek out any dinner until after he’s done with this first drink. He’ll make dinner for two whether he feels like eating or not, eventually. He did that before he drank, and it would be sad for him and Jesse to eat every meal separately, like roommates instead of lovers, so it’s a tradition he keeps up.

Marley and Jesse jointly purchased a TV last year, which is currently on, sitting atop a TV tray in front of the back of Marley’s bookcases. The bookcases make a library-style nook with a beanbag chair for Marley, and on the other side of the shelves is the TV they sometimes watch together, sitting on their floor mattress short-ways, like it’s a daybed and not the same used mattress they inherited about four years ago. Jesse has the TV muted right now; commercials disgust him to the bone.

Jesse is also on the kitchen phone, that probably has something to do with the muted television. Marley leans in the kitchen’s doorway, sipping his booze from a proper tumbler glass and everything, feeling a lot more sophisticated than he looks with sweat seeping through his short and long-sleeved shirts. He rolled up his sleeves when he got to the sink on reentry to his home. This is the only place he doesn’t bother to keep his forearms covered, his collection of self-inflicted scars hidden. Those are a relic of his past now, because he hasn’t cut himself in ages.

Marley tries to guess who Jesse is talking to, flicking and boinging the cord of the phone they also inherited when they first got here. Marley has a cellphone, but Jesse does not. He’s got a much older man’s desire for detachment and unattainability, and he hates the idea of being on-call essentially all day long because of a piece of pocket technology.

Aaron? Marley says. He guesses right every time, because Jesse only has one friend.

Jesse nods, and swats a shooing motion to make Marley stop tugging on the phone cord. Marley stops, and Jesse hums a few more ‘mmhmm’s into the phone before saying ‘bye’ and handing the phone to Marley to reholster the thing in its cradle.

Any news from the band? Aaron’s in a band with Marley’s best friend, Missy, and Marley only asks to make conversation, because he always gets news from that crew first.

Except for today: Jesse turns, twisting their unmade sheets along with him. He says, You’re not going to believe this.

6

Jesse got one of his rare phone calls from Aaron, rare because neither one of them has the art of bullshit or prattle, unlike the people they’re involved with. Aaron only calls him when there’s something interesting to report, and Jesse does him the same courtesy. Marley and Missy share Jesse and Aaron’s exact lives more or less, but somehow they call each other at least once a week and talk non-stop for hours. Jesse figures they must like saying everything the long way.

Aaron didn’t call with good news. If he has good news, he speaks fast and to the point. Today he called and said, Um, something’s up.

Rather than start guessing things that might be up (clouds, birds, hats, umbrellas… smartass stuff like that), Jesse said, Okay, and waited. There was no reason to waste his breath insisting to hear what Aaron called specifically to tell him; Jesse let it happen in its own time.

You remember your cousin?

Yes, Jesse said, since he only has one cousin, and there would be no reason guess, Who, Billy? Of course, Billy.

Something interesting about him, Aaron said. You remember how I met him when me and the band drove through Loweville? What was that, two years ago almost?

Probably, Jesse said.

Okay, well, I gave Billy my phone number because, like, he was alright, and he seemed really lonely. Like, he asked me about you a lot, he’s really missed you.

Right.

Okay, so he’s eighteen now, and school just finished, and the last thing he sent me was a text that he wasn’t going to have that phone anymore, because he was running away, and that he was headed to find you. So… yeah.

How does he know where I am?

He already knew you went to Florida, it got around somehow, and I told him what town, and where you worked, and that you lived where you worked, so I guess he knows all of that stuff thanks to me. But… I didn’t know he would just run away like that! I don’t know if he’s hitchhiking or taking a bus or what the hell that kid’s thinking.

Who cares? Besides, we ran away once, and we were fine.

I don’t think Billy’s as bright as we were at that age.

You think you’re smart now? Jesse asked. Telling my weird cousin everything you know about me so he can come and be my problem?

Maybe he won’t find you? Aaron asked in a miserable attempt at optimism.

East Arrow’s only so big. If he doesn’t find me it’s because he’s been hit by a car or something.

Oh great, now I’m worried about him!

Hmm, Jesse said, because that’s when Marley came home from work. Aaron tried to keep talking, but he’d already said all he had to say and just wanted to worry and dither, so Jesse just mmhmm’d until Aaron gave up.

All right, I get it. Sorry, dude. Bye.

And so Jesse turns and tells Marley, You’re not going to believe this.

Marley shrugs the shoulder he isn’t leaning on. I read a lot of strange books, try me.

You remember my cousin Billy? He’s coming to find me.

Jesse’s no bookworm, but he still knows the adage that truth is stranger than fiction. Marley was not expecting that particular person to occur in his life again. His mouth falls open way before he speaks.

Why? Didn’t he freak out when he caught us kissing that one time? I thought he hated you. He’s not headed here to start a fight, is he?

No, Jesse says, and he’s sure about that. He doesn’t hate me yet. The last time I saw him, Billy thought he was in love with me.

"What?" That surprises Marley so much he sets down his first drink. He almost never puts down the first drink until it’s time to refill it.

This will bring Jesse some satisfaction: I never told you this story. I never told Aaron, that’s probably why he let Billy know where I am. I’ve never told anyone.

You don’t talk to anyone else, who would you tell if not me or Aaron? Kenny? He’d forget by the next day.

He wouldn’t forget this story, it’s… like…

Memorable? Marley suggests, sitting down on the bed with Jesse. He’s still in too many layers, he smells like sweat and the underside of his hair is damp with it, probably getting cold in their air conditioned room. Jesse touches the back of Marley’s neck to confirm this guess, and he’s proven right.

Sure, yeah, memorable. Billy asked me to kiss him once.

Marley waits for more information, then asks, And?

And I kissed him. Marley raises his eyebrows