DeaDly Silence 75

  It was cool outside and he was glad he’d put on a jacket. Most of the houses he passed sported Christmas lights and some of the windows were filled with Christmas trees. Pausing now and again to admire them, Stanley made a mental note that when Tom got back, they’d have to shop for a tree. He had an artificial one, which had always seemed just fine to him, but Tom had stated flatly that he wanted a real tree.

  And guess who’ll get to clean up all the pine needles, he thought, but without much rancor. Real trees did smell nice, and the guys at the lot in the Castro were generally hot, so you got double the pleasure for your trouble. And, just at the moment, he felt particularly motivated to make Tom happy.

  But this brought the whole Christmas business to the fore of his mind. They’d had very nearly a quarrel over the holiday.

  In the past, Stanley would have spent Christmas Eve with Chris, of course, and Christmas day the two of them would share with an entire army of friends, in and out of one another’s homes and apartments, popping into the bars in the Castro, drinking the day away, exchanging presents and kisses and hugs, singing holiday songs, though rarely the religious ones—always White Christmas, for which few of them genuinely pined. Someone would provide a more or less traditional dinner, but in fact they ate as they drank, all day long.

  To this Tom had said an emphatic “No.” He liked Chris, but otherwise didn’t care much for Stanley’s gay friends, or for gay crowds in general, and not the gay bars, either.

  “We’ll have Christmas Eve together,” he said, “And Christmas day Chris can come over for dinner.”

  “Christmas dinner? Cooked by who? You grill steaks and make spaghetti. I do bacon and eggs. That doesn’t sound very festive.”

  “The supermarkets do everything for you. I saw this Safeway ad, for instance. You can order the whole dinner, turkey or ham, the trimmings, even pumpkin pie.”

  76 Victor J. Banis

  “We’re going to have a Safeway Christmas? And every time I open a can, an angel in Heaven gets his wings?”

  “It doesn’t have to be Safeway. Check out the Sunday paper.

  There must be a dozen different places who’ll fix it for us. Or, we can go out. Plenty of restaurants do special dinners for holidays.

  We’ll go some place really pissy. Chris can come with us. I’ll treat.”

  None of which, to Stanley’s way of thinking, sounded like Christmas to him. Christmas was meant to be a social event, wasn’t it? But on that score, Tom had refused to bend. “Out or in,” was his verdict. “You pick. Restaurant or pickup dinner. Or I’ll make spaghetti.”

  Stanley’s rambling had brought him to Dolores, a wide Avenue with an island in the middle. He started to cross the street and paused for the headlights of an oncoming car to pass by. To his surprise, the car swung to the curb in front of him and the horn honked. The window on his side of the car slid downward.

  “Stanley,” A voice from within called. “Where you headed?”

  He leaned down to look inside. “Oh, hi. Nowhere, really. Just taking a walk. Tom’s out of town till tomorrow.”

  “I heard.” He had? Stanley wondered how. This wasn’t the kind of thing that got mentioned in the Bay Area Reporter or on the evening news. Had Tom called? Or sent out Indian runners?

  “Well, hop in, why don’t you?”

  “Uh…” Stanley hesitated, not quite sure what he would be hopping into. Or, more importantly why.

  A soft chuckle. “What, you’re afraid I might bite you?”

  “No, but…”

  In a gentler voice, almost coaxing. You could imagine it seductive, without too much effort. “I’ve thought about it, to tell the truth. Thought about it a lot. I just never wanted to…you know. Tom, and everything.”

  DeaDly Silence 77

  Stanley didn’t know what to say to that. This whole scene was so unlikely, so completely without precedent. It almost seemed unreal, like one of those masturbatory fantasies, except of all the people he’d imagined flirting with him…he was flirting, wasn’t he?

  “Are you coming on to me?”

  “Look, climb in, why don’t you? We’ll just talk, okay?” Which wasn’t exactly an answer. Stanley hesitated, puzzled and intrigued all at the same time. Who’d ever have imagined?

  It was without saying that he had absolutely no intention of doing anything about this, but he couldn’t deny the temptation was there. Far more so than with the bar beauties he’d shunned the Castro for. This was something quite different, and flattering as well, to be sure.

  Still, an image of Tom appeared in his mind, smiling, concerned, but not too. And, really, there was no reason for him to be concerned. Of that, Stanley was quite certain.

  As if on its own, the car door swung open.

  Well, he couldn’t get into any trouble just talking, could he?

  chaPter ten

  Acid. She was sure of it, even though she did not remember taking it. Only acid produced this kind of disoriented high.

  It had been a long time since Prudence had taken acid. It was dangerous for her. Well, of course, none of the drugs could be said to further her health, but LSD was too disinhibiting to be safe. She lived, she knew full well, at the forbearance of her sister but, even more critically, of her father. Whose money paid for it all, a fact not to be forgotten, even in her often addled state.

  The father she despised. How she hated him. She wanted to see him dead. Had always wanted that more than anything else.

  Most of the time, of course, she kept that thought to herself, securely battened down in one of the darker deeper cellars of her consciousness.

  The acid, though, tended to shine a light on it, which was why she had vowed she would not take it again. But even without that, the thought had been slyly creeping up the stairs of her mind for some time now. Since Farley. Without the acid, she was quite able to keep her thoughts clear of that subject—but like the other, when she was tripping, he too began to creep up the stairs of her consciousness.

  She was fully aware that Farley was worthless. It was the prospect of money that incited his passion, not her. She hadn’t needed her father or sister to tell her that.

  But what was she worth herself, except in monetary terms?

  She was never going to marry one of those proper San Francisco gentleman types. She was quite willing to settle for a pretty trifle.

  Which, really, was all Farley was, all he could ever be. That, and a means of escape. Married, she would have a chance at least to be free of them, of their smothering control. Without Farley, her only escape was into drugs.

  80 Victor J. Banis

  She wasn’t so big a fool as they seemed to think she was.

  Farley had no backbone. On his own, he’d never stand up to either of them. But, she could be the backbone. With his name and the simple gift of a ring, he’d provide the escape route.

  She had meant to take it. And his lack of spine worked to her advantage. She could control Farley in a way she’d never be able to control Patience. Patience was too strong for her to manage, and too smart.

  Farley had gone from her, though, for reasons she could not quite summon up. She had a vague idea that somehow Patience had been the one to interfere in her plans for Farley. That would have been so like Patience. She would never willingly let Prudence escape her domination; Prudence knew that. But Patience would not have interfered had their father not made his displeasure evident. Patience did nothing that put her own financial comfort at risk. She was too canny for that.

  And Father had played his part, had played right into her hands, with the mere suggestion of rewriting the will. Zack had only been an excuse. It was her they wanted to disempower. They wanted once again to thwart her efforts at freeing herself, and they had managed, as usual, to do exactly that.

  Of course Farley had turned tail and run. Exactly as they had expected. Exactly as she would have expected, if she’d seen far enough ahead, imagined that the two of them, Patience and Father, had cooked up this idea. Or, had it been Patience and Farley? Farley wouldn’t have come up with it on his own, he was neither clever enough nor bold enough, but she would put nothing past her sister.

  She could kill Patience with no qualm of conscience, but without Farley, the truth was that she needed her sister. She wouldn’t survive on her own. She knew that. Without Patience, and without Farley, she’d simply need to find some other keeper, and who knew what that would mean? Better the devil one knows than the one unknown.

  And she wasn’t crazy, either. She knew perfectly well that hating Patience was only another facet of the loathing she often DeaDly Silence 81

  felt for herself. Killing Patience would be a kind of suicide. They were too closely related for that. Just as she could look at Patience, and know what she was thinking, she understood full well that Patience could do the same.

  Does she know I sometimes wish her dead, she wondered? Probably.

  But she is also aware, too fully aware, perhaps, of how much I need her to ever be frightened by the prospect.

  Which only made her despise her sister all the more.

  She didn’t need her father, though. If he were to die before the will was changed, why, so much the better. Patience might, for the present, control the purse strings, but the money would be hers at least. She would always have access to it. And who knew what kind of freedom she might buy for herself. Farley wasn’t the only fish in the sea. It wouldn’t be that difficult to land another.

  Her thoughts shifted to that handsome detective. Now there was a man who could stand up to anybody, she was sure. And he’d looked at her with that man-woman gleam in his eye. Maybe…

  just maybe…

  It was only on acid, though, that she allowed these thoughts to drift through her mind, like a San Francisco fog, casting some of her musings into stark relief and simultaneously obliterating other, saner perceptions. She had a mental image of the tip of the Sutro tower on those gray mornings, the way it sailed above the cottony banks. At times like these, the streets below were scarcely visible. You needn’t know what dwelt down them if you didn’t want to look particularly hard.

  If only she could be free. She thought, each time she came home from rehab, that this time was it, that somehow she would escape the cycle. But, it took only a few days back in the world of Patience for her sister to convince her of her own helplessness, and it all started again. A curtain of despair descended over her.

  She had been lying back with her eyes closed, but it seemed to her as if she were in motion. As if she were gliding about on a flying carpet, swaying gently, going she knew not where. I am 82 Victor J. Banis

  moving, she thought. Physically moving. For a fleeting second she felt alarm.

  But, what did it matter, though? They called this tripping, didn’t they? Anywhere she went would be better than where she was.

  Suddenly, with that intuitive knowledge that often accompanied acid, she knew that she was no longer alone. Her eyes flew open, and she found herself staring into the last face she would have expected to see.

  “Farley,” she said in surprise.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Yes, of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” She saw that he held a pillow in his hands. She wondered, without a trace of fright, if he meant to smother her with it.

  But what was he doing here anyway? Or, for that matter, where was “here”? She moved her eyes to the left and the right.

  She was in a bed, that much she knew, but the light was dim, she couldn’t even say if it was her own bed.

  “Where am I?” she asked.

  “You’re at the nursing home. Didn’t you know? Don’t you remember?”

  She didn’t. She remembered nothing. She had been at home, on Pacific Avenue, lying in bed, enjoying the acid; or she thought that’s where she had been, but her impressions ran together, like colors bleeding in the wash. She had found of late that it had become increasingly difficult to separate dreams from reality, and the acid was only intensifying that problem. Why on earth had she taken it? And when? She knew better, really.

  She was afraid to tell him any of that, though. What if he repeated it? Say, to Patience or even her father? They’d put her away again, wouldn’t they? In one of those places where she lived like a prisoner until she could convince them that she was clean now and could live like a good little girl if they’d only send her home.

  DeaDly Silence 83

  “Of course I remember,” she said. “Do you take me for a fool?”

  “No, darling. I’ve never done that.” He leaned closer, the pillow filling her vision. Here it comes, she thought, but rather than placing the pillow over her face, he put a hand behind her head and, lifting it gently, tucked the pillow under it.

  “You looked uncomfortable,” he said. He smiled down at her. She managed to smile back at him, a trifle lopsidedly, but something he’d said teased at her mind. She tried to concentrate, to remember. Her thoughts were like eels, slipping through the fingers of her consciousness.

  “What nursing home?” she asked.

  “Bella Vista. We came to see your father. It’s the only way we’ll be able to marry, darling. We’ve discussed this at length. We need his blessing.”

  “I see.” But she didn’t. Had they discussed marriage? She thought that had been given up on.

  “But why…” she stumbled over the words, confusion breaking through her consciousness again. “If we’ve come to see father, why am I in…?” She made a gesture meant to indicate the bed she was lying upon.

  “In bed? You were dizzy. Don’t you remember? You said you felt faint. I asked the nurse if you couldn’t lie down for a bit. I didn’t think you’d want to see your father in less than full control of yourself.”

  “No,” she agreed, “No, I wouldn’t.”

  She wanted to ask how they had come to be here. She had been at home. She was certain of that. Then, Farley must have come for her. Or, had she gotten up without remembering and gone to him?

  She was afraid to ask, though, afraid of what that would say about her mental state. She said, instead, “I think I’d like to just lie here for a little longer, if you don’t mind.”

  84 Victor J. Banis

  “Not in the least, sweetheart. You just rest as long as you want. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

  He disappeared from view. She turned her head toward the window, but the draperies were closed. No light filtered through them. Was it night, then? She tried to look at her watch, but it wasn’t there, on her wrist.

  How very odd. She never went out without putting on her watch.

  It was all such a muddle. Maybe, she thought, I shouldn’t do acid in the future.

  But she had been at home. She was sure of it.

  And where on earth had she gotten the acid?

  chaPter eleVen

  Stanley called Chris and met him for early coffee at the Cove.

  Chris’s eyes widened when he saw Stanley come in.

  “Wow. What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “You look like crap.”

  “Thanks a heap.” Stanley sat down wearily across the table. “I love you, too. Just coffee,” he added to Solange when she hurried over to see what he wanted.

  Chris grunted. “Is there some reason for this pervasive air of gloom, or is it just that time of the month?”

  “I didn’t sleep well.”

  “Because…?”

  “I’ve got a date.”

  “Sweetie, you have the sexiest boyfriend this side of the Greek Gods, I don’t know why that would make you feel despondent.”

  Stanley looked at the cup Solange set in front of him and raised his eyes reluctantly to Chris’s.

  Something clicked in Chris’s consciousness. “Whoa, girlfriend.

  When you say you’ve got a date, what are you saying? You mean a non-Tom date?”

  “No. Yes. No, not with Tom.”

  “And you mean a date date? Like, panties could descend kind of date?”

  “Uh…panties could descend. Hypothetically speaking.”

  Chris’s eyes went wide and his mouth fell open. When he spoke, he fairly sputtered. “Jesus Fucking Christ, Stanley, are you out of your frigging mind? You’re dropping your hypothetical panties for someone other than Tom Danzel?”

  “Well, they’re not down yet. It’s just a, you know, let’s see how well the elastic holds up kind of thing. Nothing’s for certain.

  86 Victor J. Banis

  It’s just a date.” His voice went up on the last word, as if that explained everything.

  “And may I ask, does this person whom Tom Danzel is going to kill with his bare hands have a name, or have you just picked someone at random?”

  Stanley sniffed. Took a tentative sip of coffee, returned the cup to its saucer. “No. You may not ask. For the moment, it’s secret.”

  “From me? It’s secret from me, your best girlfriend?”

  “And Tom. If I told you, you’d tell Tom.” Stanley had been studying the contents of his cup but he lifted his eyes and again looked directly at Chris. “Wouldn’t you?” His voice plaintive.

  Meaning, please tell me you wouldn’t.

  Chris was having none of that, though. “Maybe. Or maybe I’d just save time and kill this jerk myself. Which would probably save your butt, too.”

  Stanley sniffed at being rebuffed. He and Chris were long time friends. He thought Chris’s loyalty should be to him, period.

  “My butt is just fine, thank you. And it is mine, may I remind you, to do with as I please.”

  “If you’ll forgive my pointing it out, Tom Danzel might feel he has some claim to it.”

  “Huh.”

  A lengthy, unhappy silence descended.

  “Listen, sweetheart…”

  “No, don’t.” Stanley flung up his hands. “It’s just, oh, I don’t know, I am mixed up. Sometimes I think, well, maybe I’m too young to be so completely tied down. To one man, I mean.”

  “You are not even a year older than you were when you were chasing frantically after this particular man.”