A call from the blue

This short story is base on an actual even from my past that I fictionalized many years later.

 

A call from the blue

A short story by Tremain Haynes

 

          It would be. . .  What? Just what did Trev expect? What kind of an adult had Owen grown into? Did he turn out interesting, like his darling dad? Would seeing him again be exciting? It had been twenty years and in all that time, face it, he’d hardly given the boy a thought. In fact, he thought less and less about the years he'd lived up there.

            It began with a phone call from out of the blue.

“Hello.”

“Hi. Am I speaking to Trevor?”

“Yes, I’m Trevor. Who is this?”

“This is Owen Sommelier. I’m Omar’s son. We were neighbors in Koprino.”

“Of course,” he gasped, startled. “Well, this is a surprise. Owen Sommelier. Are you in town?”

“Yes. I’m here for a root canal " not a happy prospect but necessary. I got your number from Kate in Comox " I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

Up there Kate - Kathleen - had been everyone’s friend, hostess, go-between, and the social lynchpin of all the North Island hippy clans back in the days. She’d kept open house, a salon, a drop-in for all the outlying bush families. A boisterous, youthful throng was always gathered in her kitchen along with their needy gypsy like children at various stages of insecurity, a greasy, crying, thumb sucking tide sweeping back and forth across the linoleum. Kate had had luxuries like an electric stove, hot running water, and a telephone, the very things every civilization rejecting bush baby still needed from time to time. Kate was gregarious, kind and empathetic. Though prone to gossip, this weakness, born of being a bright and energetic woman stifled by life in the remote village of Coal Harbor on Quatsino Sound in the middle of nowhere, could be overlooked in the light of her unfaltering support of friends. They had once been close: Trevor and Bert used to bathe in her tub; he had taught her how to bake. He hadn’t seen her in years but she’d kept his number. He must phone her. This was the sort of ‘good intention’ he was always making.

“I wanted to look you up so I asked her for it,” Owen continued. “Would that be alright with you? May I come by? I’d like to see you.”

“I can’t think of anything I’d like more. Can you come for dinner?”

“Tonight?”

“If you don’t have other plans.”

“Sounds great.”

            He gave Owen his address and arrival time, and proceeded to prep the sort of home cooked roast beef and plain fare he thought a North Islander would probably prefer. He had been drinking for a few hours and toking, too. He thought he should pace himself from now until Owen arrived, if he could. He didn’t want to be so gonzo he couldn’t make sense to or of the boy, ‘er, the man. He took his time dressing the table on the patio, selecting some cds, and tidying his apartment.

He felt excited and nervous, wondering why Owen had phoned. There had to be a reason. They hadn’t been friends, not really. When they went up there and met him, Owen was a dreamy eyed boy of four and Trevor a young man, Owens present age, which, if memory served, had to be about twenty four. He’d left Vancouver with a close buddy to live in the bush on Northern Vancouver Island, in a remote part of Quatsino Sound. Through mutual friends, they first met Owen and his parents, Omar and Mina, in the city on one of their frequent visits for supplies or for a doctor’s appointment or for another reason. They’d hit it off right away. Or at least Omar, Bert, and Trevor had; Mina was another matter; she was weird. Mina was not into pot but she would happily raise a glass remaining staunchly severe, uncompromising and judgmental. At least that was what her face registered. She rarely ever spoke her mind. She seemed mistrustful of gay men while Omar was comfortable with them.

After a years acquaintance with many happy times enjoyed together, Trevor and Bert spent a two week summer visit in Koprino, during which they learned that Omar was giving up the converted live aboard fishing boat, Owen’s birthplace, and the vessel on which they had lived and travelled for years. He wanted to sell it. At the same time a neighbor of Omar’s was leaving and offered to let them live in her float house if they decided to try it there. It was really almost all they’d been thinking about on that visit, that and wondering if they were capable of meeting the challenges of living on the water in the bush. The two congruent offerings were enough of a coincidence to turn Trevor and Bert from skeptics to believers. In short order they bought Green Boat, moved up and the North Island became their home for five years. Then for a while, Omar and Owen became their nearest neighbors and closest friends. Owen himself was too young to be a ‘friend’; he was a shy dreamer and, even with no one his age for company, he never grew to feel at ease with grownups. He would be absent for long periods when Mina took him with her to Victoria. They stayed away for months at a time while Omar built the hull of a Ferro cement sailing vessel he hoped to complete and travel in one day. Omar was a sailor, a carpenter and a boat builder. It was not difficult to commiserate with Mina; surely the long stretches with little to do, watching her son growing up ever so slowly with no companion, little stimulation, and no formalschooling weighed on her. She surely had a conscience. Mina home schooled Owen and while she was conscientious about that, it was no substitute for companions his own age.

Remembering those long absences Trevor thought, “While the cat’s away . . .”

But that was not fair. Omar was no mouse. The mouse was Mina and Omar was the Tomcat. But anyway, while Mina was gone, Omar got horny. And, whether or not Mina was present made no difference to Trev and Bert " they got horny regardless. Terribly so, in fact, and especially Bert. Trev could sublimate but not so his friend, who was more accustomed to having sex regularly. Bert had always had a thing for Omar and when the latter was alone up there, now and then they would disappear. Not that they spoke about it, but he knew Bert and he could tell from their faces and the pregnant silence about where they’d been and what they’d been doing. Mina couldn’t have been unaware of Omar’s bisexual nature; Trev suspected she disapproved but put up with it because, well, because she was no beauty. He’d given her a son and they were, more or less, in some unstated fashion loosely wed. She knew Omar could live without her. So Omar was bi. When he got high he sometimes became less verbally circumspect about it than was prudent. Trevor knew; Bert knew; Mina knew; and Owen, Trevor supposed, would be the last one on earth to learn. Trevor wasn’t going to tell him. Besides, what did it matter? On the North Island men greatly outnumbered women; they sometimes gratified themselves quietly with their buds without turning gay or believing themselves perverted. It was survival.

            It had been years since he’d thought about these things. Feeling nostalgic, he hauled a few of his photo albums from under his bed, sat on the edge with a glass of wine (his resolve forgotten), and leafed through one of them. The first photo he saw was that wonderful fluke, Bert’s color shot of the float house with Green Boat tied alongside, that, when you held it vertically and relaxed your focus slightly, became a rocket ship. He took it with the antique box camera he found in the attic of the house. More photos of Green Boat. Omar’s boat house covered with plastic tarps to keep out the rain, where he eventually finished his sailboat. And here was the cat that had lived on the float house with them. What was her name? There was Owens dog, Willy, and a few photos of Owen with Willy on the beach. The beach. That was about all there was to Koprino, a thin strip of rocky shore with impenetrable trees, fern and salal growing right up to it. And when the tide was high, not even that. There was no ‘back to the land’ up there. No land, really. It was all about life on the water.

            He and Bert had not left their vices behind when they arrived there They had tried their hand at making homebrew but they lacked the wherewithal to allow the bottled brew to age long enough before they opened and tried to drink it green. It was sometimes explosive, sometimes flat, and too sweet. They had tried gardening, too, but only pot, three times. Two dismal failures. The weather. Too much rain; too cool; too cloudy. Then the third time, lucky! They’d found an isolated location on a tiny island with no indigenous animals, cleared brush, carted in soil, fenced it, and got lucky with a dry summer. That spring Bert sailed around the Island and moved to Victoria, and Trevor took over the café and moved to Coal Harbour making occasional forays back to the island to tend the plants. By then they’d had the time of their lives up there but had to admit they were not the right stuff for life in the bush.

`           His reverie ceased when he heard the repugnant sound of a motorcycle engine on the parking pad beside his apartment. It heralded Owen. He opened the door and found this stranger, about six feet tall, in a red and black leather jacket and leather pants just disengaging from the seat of his bike. Once his helmet was off he remained still a stranger and Trev felt that his own older face and softer, wider physique must seem just as strange to Owen. But they were friends from way back and he looked forward to finding out what he and Omar and Mina had been up to over the last decade. They greeted each other warmly with a handshake and a hug and it pleased Trev to see that Owen was not shy or self-conscious about male to male physical contact. In fact, at the outset he seemed confident and mature, which made Trev glad. He remembered Owen as a four year old, an isolated, overly imaginative child with little hold on reality " a state of mind he outgrew under the tutelage of his mother in Victoria. As far as Trevor could tell at this early stage of reunion, his parents had not failed at raising him well.

            The motorcycle was a surprise, Owen not having mentioned it, and it was disconcerting. These dragons scared him, with their lack of protection, exposing all body parts to physical harm and scarification. The sociopathic engine noise made his blood boil. But under these circumstances he felt obliged to conceal his reactionary impulses and say something admiring. The boy must be proud of his bike. Finding it difficult to sound sincere Trev made an effort.

“Sweet ride, Owen.” That’s what they said, wasn’t it? The words did not trip lightly off his tongue. He was fifty but he felt older, talking that way to Omar’s son. They moved inside.

            Trev gave Owen the ‘grand tour’ as he liked to call it, of his three room ground floor suite. Why did he get the feeling Owen was about as unimpressed by his stuff as he was by Owen’s hog?

            When it came to dinner Owen’s appreciation was pronounced. They dined al fresco and Owen ate with gusto, having seconds of everything. There was no mistaking how much he enjoyed it. They drank a bottle of red Bordeaux with it and finished with coffee and an apple galette.

            “I remember the spread you put on at the birthday party you had for you and Riley. The two of you shared a birthday, even to the year as I recall. That was a three day marathon. The buffet was out of this world. I know everyone brought food but you cooked it. Everybody else was too stoned to do anything but screw and party. Even the kids had a blast. First time I met the other kids that lived in the bush. Same for some of them. We’d never seen so much food. But I think this roast beef tonight topped that, Trev. Really, the tops.”

Trev accepted his complements, which seemed sincere, with humble pride. It was a bit of a shock to hear him speak of that long forgotten acid party in Apple Bay that he’d put on for himself and their mutual friend, Riley " another bush baby who lived there with is wife. He’d almost forgotten. Had it really lasted three days? He remembered how he’d stayed away from the punch, feeling responsible for the safety of about a half dozen little ones over the course of the event. The punch had been a bright spot for everyone, with no freak outs, no fights, and no accidents.

He offered tokes but Owen declined, leaving the question of whether he indulged in drugs unanswered until Trev remembered that his father had had problems with cannabis; he liked it but it sometimes made him paranoid and he thought pot might have the same affect on the son.So he lit a joint and took a few tokes on his own before putting it out. The weed was too potent to smoke an entire joint alone after so much food and alcohol " he’d be risking somnolence if he didn’t stop himself when he only wanted a lift.

Owen had already filled him in on quite a lot of news about his family and himself over the last ten years. His mom and dad were no longer living together, or back-and-forth so to speak. They now had separate lives. Omar had been playing at Captain Cook in the South Pacific for two years and Mina still lived in Victoria and worked as a caregiver. Owen saw her regularly. He lived in Port Hardy with Sheila, a local girl his age whom he’d met less than a year before and knocked up. Apparently their attitudes were somewhat old fashioned: they got married. She was a teacher’s assistant and in school part time earning a Mining degree. Neither of them were slouches. His ambition was unfocused and he felt satisfied to scratch a living at logging in Holberg and work occasionally at the local copper mine, Utah Pits. He and Sheila felt centered there; it was their home, and they planned to stay.

            Trevor went to open another bottle of wine without asking Owen if he wanted more. When he offered, his young friend held out his glass. Aha, he thought. Like father, like son?

“Is this your poison then,” he asked him.

“I’d rather not see it that way. Especially watching my mom fall apart like she has.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. She’s become an ‘ic.”

“What’s that?”

“An alcoholic.”

“Oh. Nice word. I had no idea she was prone to that. I never realized.”

“Oh yeah. What do you think all her homebrew paraphernalia was for? It was everywhere when we lived in the bush. In fact, everywhere we lived period. She was a miser about it and a lush; secretive; hid it from me " or tried to. Ashamed, I think. Not any more though. Just drinks like a fish.”

Come to think of it, Mina’s homebrew always was the best. She’d made it an art. But she hoarded it. Drank it all herself, he now supposed. Owen was right, of course.

“And you? No vices?”

“I like a drink but I watch it. I pace myself. I don’t like getting drunk or being around drunks. I think tonight, meeting you again, I’m a little nervous. And with all your good cooking, what’s the harm?”

“Are you kidding me? I make you nervous? Truly, I could say the same about you. I’m a little puzzled about why you reached out to contact me.” There. He’d said it.

“Seriously. You’re one of the first adults I ever knew. We go far back,” Owen replied. But he hadn’t answered Trevor and clearly had more on his mind.

Trevor found himself at a loss to think of anything Owen could be thinking about and coaxed him on.

“Out with it,” he cajoled.

“You don’t mind?” he asked, with an audible crick in his throat.

“Please. It’s all so long ago. I’m trying to think of something momentous that occurred between us but honestly, nothing comes to mind.”

He watched Owen’s expression become pained. They were still at the table on the patio and Trevor realized it might be more discreet to take the conversation back inside. He and his guest from the past adjourned to the living room, refilled their wine glasses, and resumed.

“I remember that my dad was always happy when you and Bert were around. Mom would drift off and leave us. She would stop nattering at dad about this and that. I didn’t like it when they argued; I would take off. That wasn’t how it should be. But whenever we were together - you and Bert and Dad and me - darkness vanished and laughter and blue skies came on.”

Trevor didn’t want to bring up how much weed had had to do with his dad’s light mood on those convivial occasions. Possibly Owen already understood that anyway. On the other hand, cannabis didn’t put Owen into a happy space, just the opposite.

Trev deftly skirted the subject of Omar with the words, “It’s nice that you remember it so.”

Owen continued. “Then when I was a little older you came by in your speedboat. After Bert left - remember? Mom was in town. Dad and I were alone at the boat house and I had nothing to do.”

“I did?” Trevor asked, feeling uncertain.

“Yes. After you opened the Coal Harbour Cafe. You brought a stranger along. You Took me in your speed boat " because I was antsy and bothering my dad - to go exploring with the stranger while you went and did something on your own. It was fine with me at the time. The guy’s name was Claire " odd name for a dude.”

“Oh Christ. Yes! Now that I hear that name again, of course. Claire Wilson, that piece of work. Yes. You remember him, do you?”

“Do I ever.” Owen’s face darkened at the name, Claire, and brightened again as Trevor began to remember.

“Just to think of him makes me feel dirty,” Trev continued with a chill.

“Me, too. Who was he?”

“An ex-con, fresh from Oakalla. I met him in town - one of the Wilson boys " Joyce’s oldest son. I remember Larry warning me to have nothing to do with him. But you know me. . . A pretty face and all that. He chatted me up when I was feeling lonely. I was such a sap! I really didn’t know him at all, Owen. His brother never told me anything about him, just to keep away and not to believe a word he said. I guess the Wilson’s were too ashamed of him to say why he’d been in jail. I never did find out.”

“Why did you bring him to Koprino?”

“For company, I guess. I think I was trying to make an impression. I wanted him to like me, you know what I mean?”

“You mean you wanted to have sex with him?”

“Probably,” he said, feeling freshly exposed like a shrunken penis under wet bathing trunks.

“Did you?”

“No. And a month later the f****r stole our pot, too.”

“What pot?”

“You don’t remember the pot? The stench of it, fresh and green, all piled up in my speedboat after I’d just cut it? It was rank weed. I went out there to harvest the pot Bert and I grew on the little island in East Cove. You probably never knew. But it was in the boat when I went back for you and Claire. It was our only decent harvest. That’s why I left you and Claire together at the river so he wouldn’t see where we had the garden, in case we wanted to grow a crop there again. Not that we did.”

It was all coming back.

“I took you along because you had nothing to do. I thought you’d be company for Claire, show him around while I did my business. I’m not surprised you remember it. Man I was shocked when I found him there, so completely naked, when I came back to get you. My god! You were walking along on the other shore, talking to yourself. I got the impression you were trying very hard to ignore him " and who could blame you? I was quite amazed myself. I wasn’t gone long. He was undressed and waiting for me so we could have sex together on the riverbank. But how inappropriate was that - with you right there? I was very confused. I barely knew him at all. I might have hoped but he never indicated in any way that he might be gay. It must have been a fetish, to have children watch him having sex. He was sick, wasn’t he? Anyway, there was no way I would, one, ever have had sex outdoors, or two, do it with someone else there - much less you.”

He’d always known Trevor and Bert were gay and like many of his generation Owen had kept an open mind about sexual deviance. But he was not accustomed to listening to such frank expressions of gay attitudes. He squirmed uneasily, listening to Trevor trip so lightly over an incident in which he had had an unsuspecting role. Trevor talked about it as though it had only happened according to his perception of it. But Owen’s take on Claire Wilson had been radically different and harsher.

Consequently he didn’t smile as he blurted out, “So it’ll be news to you to learn that the man you left me with at the river was a pedophile?”

Trevor was silent for some time as he tried to get comfortable with what Owen just told him. It was a statement of fact that he had long subconsciously debated over but could never determine. Now he had to square his hesitance over the issue with Owen’s freshly submitted declaration, about which he could no longer doubt, cunningly dealt as an indirect accusation.

Fortunately he could honestly tell him, “I never knew.”

Nonetheless, it didn’t change the fact that he had taken a pedophile to Koprino and left a child alone with him for thirty minutes. Pedophilia had to have been the reason why Claire had been locked up, that along with other criminal activities. It was because he was a child molester that when Trevor found him standing on the shore opposite Owen, the man had no pubic hair " shaving his body must have been another kind of ritual. When Trev came back to the river to get them, he’d found Claire grooming the boy. Trevor had interrupted it and saved him while he was still dressed and before anything else could happen. But even with all those clues, Trevor never suspected.

“I’m speechless. I’m a fool.”

“You really didn’t know. I’m relieved. I would hate to think you did and brought him anyway. I would be really angry to think you were one or had anything to do with them. Do you want to know what happened?”

            “Have you ever told anyone before?”

            “My shrink. I’ve been seeing a shrink for five years. He’s a life saver. He suggested that it might be beneficial to talk with you about it, to clear the cobwebs and free myself of some of the obstacles it created.”

            Trevor felt he had to say, “I’m so sorry, Owen. I had no idea. It’s left a scar on you! I feel so bad about it all. Yes. I want to know about it. Everything you want to tell me. Did that f****r hurt you?”

            “Not physically. But, you remember, I was a loner. I lived in a fantasy world. I had no friends. He changed that forever. And afterwards I blamed myself for years. I never said a word about it, not to anyone. Mom and Dad will never hear about it. Once I became an adolescent and learned about sex, I wondered if I was gay and if that was what made it more difficult for me to have a normal relationship. You know, sexual. But the shrink was a big help; he helped me see I was a victim. I’ve moved on and I think I can cope. But I can’t forget it and it still creeps me out.”

            “What did you mean by ‘I wondered if I was gay’?”

            “I had this idea that it must be my fault if Claire came after me, that I must be queer too, that I must have led him on or he wouldn’t have acted that way. I was too young to see myself as a victim of a sociopath. When you left us at the river, you suggested that I take him exploring and tell him about Koprino. Now I see you really had no idea what you were doing, but you set up a perfect fantasy for him. There he was alone in the bush with a boy of six, no one around with any idea of his past. A perfect set up. Still, his hands were tied by not knowing when you were coming back. I had no idea he was queer. Right away when I wasn’t watching he stripped and there he was " a big, naked guy. I wasn’t used to that at all " mom and dad didn’t run around that way. He said, ‘Why don’t you take off your clothes, too? It’s such a beautiful day. More comfortable, cooler with them off " don’t you think?’

            I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I looked everywhere but at him. Still, I couldn’t help but see him doing things to himself, touching. I didn’t answer him. When he came towards me I walked away and kept far off so he couldn’t touch me. I crossed the river a few times to get away " you know, it was never much of a river, practically just a creek and running dry at the end of September anyway. He kept following me and talking, trying to coax me to do things like touch him. I can’t say I had any sense of right or wrong about what he wanted me to do. I just didn’t want to. It disgusted me. Mom and dad taught me not to let anyone force me to do things against my will.”

After a moment of brooding silence, he said, “Man I wanted you to come get me - it seemed a very long time.”

            “That explains everything. I never really could believe he was naked for me but I didn’t know what else to think. I didn’t know anything about pedophiles then. Now I get it. How could I have been so naïve and then so dumb for so long? Twen-ty years! It shocked me at the time finding you like that but I had no idea he tried to molest you, Owen. No i-dea. And to think I’m to blame. Stupidity is no excuse, is it?”

 

* * * * * * *

 

They saw each other once more, the next morning, before Owen returned to Port Hardy. Before the night was over Owen got so loaded that he was afraid to risk driving and he slept soundly at Trev’s on a foamy on the floor. They both slipped immediately into deep sleep and discussed the incident again over coffee, bringing a few more details to light, but no further depth of understanding to it. Then he left to keep his his dental appointment and Trevor went to work as a house cleaner to the rich. Trevor hoped they were finished with the matter.

But later he found he was not and Trevor felt horrified as he gradually came to a fuller appreciation of his own seemingly limitless naivety even in the ripeness of a half century of living. Innocence is a millstone, like virginity; we surrender both gladly. But unlike virginity, which we lose at once and forever, we grow worldly bit by bit, with painful raps across the knuckles. If Owen hadn’t told him, he would still be innocent about what happened that morning.

Now that he knew, he asked himself what he would have done if he had realized it right away, what Claire was doing. And he was more disconcerted to find that he didn’t know. Would he have told Omar? Owen would have objected. Would he have gone to the RCMP? His friends, the Wilsons would have been humiliated. And Claire himself was a seasoned con. What would he have done? He might have skipped town before anything happened, especially if Trevor handled it badly, which in all likelihood is what he would have done. That rat must have been amazed that Trevor hadn’t understood: he’d not only set the stage, he’d let him off the hook.

He also wondered why Owen had been so anxious to talk to him about that day. There was the primary question of his involvement. But was there more on his mind " something besides suspecting Trevor of having arranged it? A farfetched idea. In his naivety Trevor finally concluded that no, that really had been all there was behind Owen’s visit and he hoped he had put the boy’s misgivings to rest.

But a month later he got this longhand letter.

Port Hardy, BC

October 15, 1994.

Dear Trevor,

Well I had a safe, uneventful, sweet ride home on my hog and Sheila was glad to see me. She’s now well along in her pregnancy and we’ll soon be parents. I want to thank you again for your warm welcome to me and for the wonderful dinner. It’s good to have a friend in the city " one that cooks! - even though I prefer it here.

I didn’t tell you that Sheila also knows about that day in Koprino. I told her about my conversation with you and she was glad to know you were not involved in it in the way I had wondered about. Of course, so am I. But I have to say I never had more than a little doubt about that. She had more doubt, which spurred me on, and then with my shrink saying I ought to look you up, well, what else could I do? But now all’s well.

There is more. I wasn’t entirely honest with you. I held something back because it bothers me so much " I couldn’t admit it but now I want to. It’s easier in a letter so here goes. (I haven’t even told this to my shrink " or to Sheila! - and I don’t know why I’m telling you. But I think you, of all people, will understand and I know you’ll keep it to yourself.) I’m afraid that day on the river with Claire may have turned me a little gay. I never think of him with anything but disgust but I fantasize about men sometimes. Not just men. Women, too. In fact when I jerk off it’s mostly about women. But now and then, in a fantasy, a guy appears too and I fantasize a threesome with myself and a woman and another guy! I get awfully excited. I’ve never done it with a guy though " and I never will either.

You’re gay. You know my dad is a straight arrow. Can I possibly be gay after that gross scene by the river, becoming a father any day, and living with a woman? I don’t think I can be. But what do you think?

Owen

* * * * *

Bert had moved to the North Island in his twenties at the peak of his health. In time disillusion stalked him there. Then a few years passed and approaching the milestone of thirty he became more serious and resolute. He focused on the future, which, as far as he knew, stretched indefinitely ahead of him. Up to that point, he had not thought it necessary to plan ahead, believing in the admonition ‘be here now’. When he began to suspect that the present was not ‘all’, or at least not ‘enough’, the magnitude of aging sank in and sobered him somewhat, for a while. He went back to the city, to school where he learned a trade that he hoped would not sour on him. He became a medic for a logging company, working for six week intervals in remote camps with ten day breaks in Vancouver. The work did, however, become onerous and his long spells in the bush was a terrible discipline for which he overcompensated in the same self-destructive proclivities that he had always indulged. After a few years of that he found love " really " and settled down only to discover, a year or two later, that he had the gay plague.

If it’s possible to be bitterly philosophical, that was Bert. Of course, there were moments when he put a good face on what lay ahead by pretending it wasn’t all dark. But it was no longer a hopeful rosy glow either and the future was as clear as the future can possibly be.

A few days after Owen’s letter arrived, he was having tokes and a beer at Trev’s. There wasn’t much he could do to make himself feel good but cannabis was one and a tiny bit of alcohol was sometimes acceptable to his system. Trev was his oldest friend, one with whom Bert could still, sometimes, feel at ease and be himself. His ‘marriage’ had changed their relationship; they were not a solid as they were but they understood the reason for the change and they accepted it rather than lose a relationship they both prized. Not yet old, they had reached the time of life when hubris can no longer withstand the buffetings of time and it is possible to cluck about triumphs and regrets without humility or embarrassment. Trev’s anecdotes about Owen, memories of Koprino, and the story of the incident with Claire and Owen, which Bert had never heard, had raised such a mood in both of them.

Reverie did not lessen his shock at learning that when Trev came upon a naked Claire and a wandering, frightened Owen he didn’t immediately know what was going on. “I don’t believe you didn’t know. You’re not naive, Trevor. How could you have let him get away with it? You’re a coward” Bert snapped.

“Bert, I’ve relived the scene a hundred times over the years, and even more in the last few weeks. Believe me; no one could be more embarrassed about it than I am. But I’m only ashamed of my naiveté. Terribly embarrassed is all I am. And that’s it. What blinded me to what happened while I was cutting our weed was my so wanting to make out with him " so much that I fooled myself about why he was naked. I thought maybe he liked being naked in nature. He was handsome, like all the Wilsons, a smoothie and a con. And I was under stimulated and lonesome. I was irresponsible leaving Owen with a stranger that I knew was fresh out of jail. But my mind was on other things. When I got back I could see Owen was very upset at being alone with a naked man but I never imagined how terrible it had been for him or that Claire was actually a pedophile. I thought nothing had happened but that Claire had taken his clothes off. I thought Owen would forget about it. You know, we didn’t talk about it then like people do now. I never gave it a thought at the time. Did you?”

That was his defense. Bert saw that his friend had thought a lot about it and had kept this argument at the ready for moments like this. They went over what Owen told Trevor and then Trevor passed him Owen’s letter.

“You’ve got to read this,” he said.

When he’d finished it, Bert cajoled, “He said to keep it to yourself.”

“We are one,” said Trevor.

“I guess it’s not like anyone else would care, is it.”

“Right. Now admit it: you know firsthand " his father is bi, is he not?” came Trevor’s reply.

“Bi. Let me define ‘bi’: By the mouth and by the arsehole,” was Bert’s simple answer.”

“I knew it!. Now it’s out. I always knew, of course” he added, proving he had had some slight doubt after all.

“Frankly, I don’t know how ‘bisexual’ Omar is. I know he’s a father and all that, but, the times we did it, he was putty in my hands. Putty.”

“Well, bi " shmi. What’s it to me. I never had him. Never wanted to,” he lied. “Besides, in your hands, everyone is mush. But seriously, Bert, what should I say to Owen? I don’t want to be the one to tell him his dad’s ‘bi’. Should I answer it?”

“Answer, yes. But no, no, no - steer clear of that rocky shoal of sexuality. Confine yourself to generalities about homo, hetero, and bi. Try to make him comfortable with exploring his inclinations, if he chooses to. Make him understand that no one can make a person gay against their will except perhaps temporarily, by hypnosis. And try to get him off what Claire didn’t do to him in Koprino. That never happened " it only ‘almost happened’. It’s a non issue,” Bert advised.

            “It’s not a ‘non issue’ to Owen,” Trevor reminded him.

 

* * * * *

 

Always a reader, Trevor got profound pleasure studying the correspondence of great writers. He marveled at how ‘composed’ their letters were " at least in translation and in print, in comparison to his. They must have first written drafts and rewrote painstakingly before consigning these ephemeral treasures to the post. How was it possible to not gasp at their skill in the forsaken arts of conversation and written communication? They conversed to be charming and amuse each other, and their letters were passed around to many people. His miserable handwritten scribbling paled beside Proust’s and he hated sending them off to judgement. He liked the easy natural flow of Owen’s letter and hoped his reply would measure up and Owen would not scoff at him.

A week after showing Owen’s letter to Bert, he sent him the following reply in longhand. But wanting to be certain before he wrote, he first went over the incident in detail again, searching for clues that he might have always known Claire was a pedophile and had shut it out of his mind, a black cloud too dripping with guilt to live under. In the end, he confirmed his innocence: it had all been the result of libidinous hope and desire blinding him to the danger. While Owen had suffered as a result, Trevor hadn’t even known it until now. But he had not knowingly betrayed anyone and was only guilty of being young and innocent.

“I’m guilty of being innocent your Honor,” he exclaimed in a jocular manner, aloud to himself, thus setting aside doubt and closing his case. “There’s irony. Can too much innocence make us guilty?”

 

October 31, 1995

Dear Owen,

            I wonder if by now you’re a Daddy, Big Daddy. If so, congrats - and if not, good luck! Anyway, I hope you and Sheila are both well.

            The points you mention in your letter are undoubtedly affecting your sexual composure and while I don’t feel qualified to put them to rest I am flattered that you trusted me enough to tell me and so I will say what I think.

            Though it can ruin your life forever, I know that no amount of long or short term sexual abuse can turn someone straight or gay. When you read about sex abuse scandals in the military, the Scouts, and the Catholic Church you find that while it leaves permanent psychological scars, even leads to suicide, it doesn’t change the sexual orientation of the victims. That near incident with Claire didn’t make you gay. I take it you haven’t discussed this with your shrink. If you had, he would have told you what I’m telling you.

            I think it’s normal for a man to be curious about other men " and women about women. There is an emotional bond between people of the same sex that is not precisely love but is strong. It can become close and even physical, especially in remote locales like the North Island, where there are not enough women "you know what I mean. It doesn’t mean you’re gay. It means you’re curious and hormonally surging. If you actually experimented with a guy, that alone wouldn’t make you gay " or bisexual. If you felt bad or good about it afterwards, it wouldn’t matter much though it could upset you. Time would put those feelings into soft focus. Only if you liked it enough to find it irresistible and repeated it often, having sex with both men and women, and thought of yourself as ‘bi’, would you be ‘bi’. Only if you forsake women altogether would you be ‘gay’ " even if you didn’t admit it to yourself. If you fantasize about men now and then, in my opinion, that’s not abnormal. It could even be just your time of life and your inexperience " not having tried it - that allows it to pop into your head. It will probably pass, whether or not you do anything.

            As a gay man I should tell you that I personally never fantasized about having sex or had sex with a woman. But I know gay men who experimented with women, too " sometimes first - and others who didn’t but thought a lot about it at one time. There are no hard and fast rules about human sexuality, no level playing field. Sex among the animals, where procreation is the point, is more consistent and predictable. I think humans are the only ones who do it for pleasure. So it stands to reason that we want to diversify our sexual outlets. We get bored. If you tell yourself you know about sex, you’re going to be shocked and disappointed. It wouldn’t hurt you to read Kinsey on male sexuality, if you haven’t already. It’s fifty years old but we haven’t changed much.

            Good luck with whatever you do. Keep in touch. Trevor

           

* * * * * *

 

Owen was at work when Trevor’s letter arrived in Port Hardy. Letters were rare. Sheila, who was about to burst but still locked in, looked long at the envelope. Her husband had told her things about Trevor and because he was gay she’d decided not to like him. She was exceedingly curious about what he had to say to her young husband. She didn’t know Owen had written to Trevor first and that this was Trev’s reply. Not knowing these things, bored, and anxious to deliver, she quickly became desperate to see what Trevor wrote. Despite being certain that she was stepping on Owen’s privacy, she told herself that as his wife she had a right to know what a gay man could possibly have to say to him. She gave in to temptation and read it.

When Owen came home from work he found this note from Sheila on top of the Trevor’s open letter on the kitchen table.

 

“Pervert! How could you have kept this from me? I hate you! I never want to see you again! I’m going to keep our baby away from you " you’ll never get near it! I’m getting a divorce. To think I trusted you! Don’t try to contact me. Sheila.”

 

After reading her hysterical note he was too upset to read Trevor’s letter. Owen fell apart. Tears and feelings welled up as he discovered how thin was the glue holding him together. His identity had been completely structured around his wife. He was a virgin when they met and she had relieved him of that stigmata. He had identified only as a husband and a father to be. What was he now? He suddenly realized how insubstantial that ‘self’ was. With that snatched away, he was nothing. The future slipped back to the yawning grayness of before, and without a wife he became sexually gauche again.

He did not understand why she called him a pervert. If he was anything he was shy and prudish. But after he gathered enough self control to stop crying, he read Trevor’s letter and then understood that she’d read it and how she’d concluded he was secretly gay. It was not her place to open his mail and he could certainly be angry with her for it. On the other hand, she was about to have their child and in such a state of heightened emotion for the last month she’d been anxious. So he had to forgive her and allow that she was probably not to blame for all her actions " not even for opening his mail.

He tried to appeal to her with reason but her mind was made up. She had no sympathy for homos - they were incomprehensible to her and she hated them with extreme prejudice. If he had sexual fantasies about threesomes with her and other men she wanted nothing to do with him. He’d admitted it in writing; they were through.

He knew she was narrow-minded and bigoted but had hoped it would pass. She’d hardly been off the North Island in her life. She’d made it clear that her goals were marriage to a sexually vigorous straight man, three children, and a short, lucrative career in mining. He’d found no objections to that and had hoped to settled down to a happy life with her. All he’d asked was a woman and a simple life with no complications, which, to him, meant no addictions, no kinks, and no surprises. He’d thought these were simple desires, easily fulfilled, but he’d been disappointed. How can you air bush a narrow minded bigot into the perfect mate? You can’t.

* * * * * *

Trevor knew nothing of Owen’s life in Port Hardy. He was curious about the baby, whether it was a boy or a girl, and speculated on his relationship with Sheila. But he had to ask if, now that the question of his guilt or innocence was settled, he would ever hear from his friend again. Time passed without a word and life went on while his memories of Owen’s visit and the follow up letter grew dim. Then in February Trevor received this letter.

 

Trevor,

            Before I forget, Happy Birthday to you - I know it’s coming up in the middle of the month.

Now to bring you up to date. I wouldn’t try to keep up a correspondence with you except that some recent events up here involved you, things you said to me in Vancouver, Claire Wilson (again) and your letter to me at the end of last year, which had a huge impact on what happened then.

So a lot has happened. For one thing " but not most importantly - Sheila walked out a week before Bradley (her vanilla name for the baby) was born. You won’t believe it but once again you were instrumental. Your letter arrived while I was at work and she read it before I got back. When I came home, she’d packed and left. I found a note calling me a pervert and demanding a divorce, which is slowly grinding its way and will be finalized shortly. I tried many times for reconciliation but she was vicious. She was extremely angry and vindictive as our battles ebbed and flowed. To hurt me, she admitted Bradley isn’t mine but someone else’s, a guy who doesn’t live here, someone who passed through just before we met. She doesn’t remember his name! I tell you " you think you know someone . . . Knowing he’s not mine, I haven’t tried to see the baby " he’s nothing to me. She insists I can’t see him anyway, because I’m a ‘perv’. A lot of people here still think Bradley’s mine " they don’t know what happened. It’s difficult to make them understand because it’s complicated. Sheila’s BS is not helping. Her vindictiveness will backfire " I hope!

            Bet you can’t imagine how I feel now but this will make it plain: thank you, thank you, thank you. Yes, and beside that, more good stuff. I thought about what you said, took it to heart, relaxed about it all, you know - whether I’m this or I’m that " and decided to try just being human. Then I sort of fell in with a guy. Dennis. We met playing euchre with ‘the fellas’. He came here like everybody, to find work. You never know, right? He’s spent years in jail and just got out, like Claire. In fact, they were cousins! Can you beat that? Apparently they learn a lot about sex in jail. Loads of time on their hands. But Dennis insists he’s not strictly gay but bisexual. (I haven’t been around him long enough to see the ‘bi’ side so I won’t comment. But I must say that I’m not looking forward to it. Jealous? Before he’s even done anything? What’s going on?) Funny thing is he knows everything about Claire. He was murdered in jail by a swarm of pedophile haters. (Poor Claire, the odd man out everywhere.)

Dennis has two sides: he can be hard and soft. With me he’s soft. I’ve gotta say, I like it. Between you and me, I like the sex and that there’s no commitment. (After Sheila, I’m not ready for that again!) When I finally did it the first time with a guy, with Dennis, it was like “Why have I been uptight about this all my life?” He made it easy for me. You’d never suspect to look at him and if anybody tried anything around him, or said or did anything to insult him or me - to our faces or behind our backs - he’d tear you apart like nobodies’ business. He’s handsome and affectionate "insatiable as Sheila was but less demanding, if you know what I mean. He’s working at the mine but with all his time in jail, his ‘work ethic’ is not his strong suit, if you know what I mean. But at least we’re both working so there’s cash flow, we’re saving and we may travel when he’s off parole. I guess after so long in confinement he wants to spread his wings. And why not me, too? My dad’s a traveller, after all.

            Well, it must be obvious that I’m feeling a better about myself, the past and the future, too. I’m glad to be rid of Sheila, who turned out to be a viper, and I’m less uptight about what people think. Of course I don’t know what I’m going to tell dad but he’s still far away so I’ll deal with him later. I may not say anything, just let him figure it out for himself. He’s no fool. I think I’ve got a lid on my issues with Claire; it bothers me less now, especially with all Dennis told me about him. I can almost understand the b*****d " in fact, I almost feel slightly sorry for him! He grew up with Dennis in Campbell River, for Christ’s sake! Small world, eh?

The things you wrote were very helpful. If you ever come back up to visit, drop by. I’d like you to meet Dennis. He makes me happy. He’s a handsome devil - you’d love him.

Author's Note

I welcome all comments and ratings.