The Night After

Brian opened the loft door, a bottle in hand and Justin trudging along drunkenly behind him. He looked around the empty loft and stalked in, barely managing to keep on his feet. Placing the wine bottle on the counter, the older man stumbled his way to the bedroom and collapsed onto the bed. Justin came in, not nearly as wasted as his counterpart, sitting next to Brian and running his fingers through the brunet’s hair. Brian let out a deep sigh and curled up with his pillow.

“Justin?” Brian asked, slurring a little. Justin kept playing with his partner's hair soothingly like a good boyfriend should, trying to get the older man to relax a little and let his mind drift to sleep.

“Hmm?”

“What now?”

*****

Ben talked to the police officers for at least an hour, Hunter’s mother screaming the whole time until they finally escorted her out of the apartment. After she was gone he had even more questions to answer before the officers were finally convinced that he had no idea where Michael and Hunter had gone.

When they finally left his apartment he was able to turn the TV on and discover that Stockwell had lost the election. He sent up a silent prayer to every deity he could think of that the Chief of Police hadn’t won and he also silently thanked Brian. Finally after watching several reports, he turned the TV off and went to bed, hoping that wherever Michael was, he was okay.

*****

Elsewhere in Pittsburgh, Jim Stockwell was drinking away the pain of his defeat. He watched as the news talked to the new Mayor Marvin Deekins and the other man gloated in his victory. Jim knew he only had two people to blame for this treachery, Brian Kinney and Justin Taylor. He cursed them both and took another long swig of the mind numbing substance in his hand and slammed his head on the desk in frustration.

“Why why why did I let Kinney take over my campaign! Why?”

Before long he was asleep in a drunken stupor. The chilly midnight wind came rushing through the open window of his office, waking him before he even knew he’d gone to sleep. The place was pitch black, save his small desk lamp. All the campaigners and volunteers had gone home. He went to shut the window, when a noise made him jump. He thought he’d heard chains. Jim felt a cold stare on his back. He didn’t want to turn, but something made him anyway.

When he did he came face to face with the manifestation of his dead partner, Kenneth Rikert. He jumped and started to ease backward, finding himself running into his desk, too scared to move and too frightened to call for help. Even if he had, no one would have heard. He and the ghost of his deceased partner were alone.

“Ken… you’re… dead! You can’t be here! I’m going insane!”

“You killed me, Jim,” Ken said, moving closer.

“You killed yourself, you fool! I had nothing to do with it,” Stockwell said, backing up and over the desk.

Ken stopped and stood staring at his former partner. There was a combination of hurt and anger in his eyes, a look Jim had never seen before in the man. Jim stopped his quivering temporarily to listen to the ghostly figure of Kenneth Rikert.

“I’ve come to give you fair warning, Jim. Tonight three ghosts will visit you. Each one your actions have effected in some way. You’ve caused their death or pain. I was the first because it was your homophobia that caused me to take my life and the life of the young boy. If it hadn’t been for you and my fear of what you would do to me in my professional life, as well as my private one, I wouldn’t have ended up the way I did.”

“That’s not true, you filthy faggot! You killed that boy! I covered for you!” Jim yelled.

“Sleep well, Jim,” was all the ghost said.

The police chief was once again alone in his office. He took another drink of the liquor, relishing in the burn as it went down before sitting down at his desk again.

“I can’t be that drunk, can I?” he asked himself aloud before taking another drink. The TV was still on and droning about the election so he switched it off.

He awoke with a start as a cold wind sent a chill down his spine. He could have sworn that the window was closed. A look in the direction of the window confirmed that it was indeed closed and Jim looked around the room thoroughly confused. The breeze blew again, though it seemed to be sourceless. Jim looked around the room again and stopped as his eyes landed on the shadow in the corner that had not previously been there.

“Who are you?” He tried to keep his voice from shaking but in his inebriated state that was more difficult than usual.

“You know who I am, James,” a very familiar voice said. It was a deep booming voice that he would never forget.

“Dad?” Stockwell asked. When the man came into the light, he realized that it was indeed his father. He blinked a few times and rubbed his eyes, but the image remained. “What are you doing here? You’re dead!”

“I’m very disappointed in you, James,” his father said in response.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re a liar, James.”

“No, I’m not a liar….”

“Yes, you are.” As if by magic the TV turned on and one of the commercials Kinney had come up with showed on the screen.

“One thing my dad always said, ‘If you say it, mean it’.” The words came back at him. He heard the words echo over and over again in his head. He’d lost count of the number of times that his father had said those words to him. He’d taken them to heart and done his best to live by them. And they were coming back to him as some sort of punishment.

“But I always mean what I say.” Stockwell spoke to the apparition before him.

“Do you, Jim? Do you always mean what you say?”

“Of course,” Stockwell said proudly. This time the TV changed to the spot of him playing basketball with his son’s team. He watched the footage over again. He smiled a little when the basket was made. Stockwell noticed that the sound was turned off until one key phrase was said.

“If I’m elected I plan to make Pittsburgh family friendly once again.” Then the screen went black.

“I don’t see how that’s proving anything! I was cleaning up Pittsburgh.”

“You were cleaning up the gay part of town. Shutting down the establishments on Liberty Avenue. Did you think to clean up any other part of town?”

“I…but….” he started but the TV turned on and there was news clip after news clip of crimes of various natures throughout Pittsburgh. Rapes and beatings and drive by’s and robberies. Stockwell had been so intent to get rid of the fags that he’d completely ignored the other parts of town.

“Not very family friendly, is it, James?” his father asked menacingly.

“I….but Liberty Avenue needed it! It was the clincher to get me elected!”

“Obviously not, since it was that district that kept you out of office.” His father crossed his arms over his chest and his gaze bored into his son. The only description of the look on the man’s face was pure and utter disgust.

“I cleaned it up,” Stockwell said softly.

That’s when the TV changed and the ad that was the cause of his defeat started playing. He couldn’t keep the guilt from rising like bile as he watched. His father’s expression grew even more ashamed. As the spot ended, the ghost before him started to fade.

“Remember, James, if you say it, mean it.” Then the apparition was gone.

Stockwell blinked a few times then looked back at the TV screen to find the TV off. He ran a shaking hand over his face and through his hair before taking a drink of the alcohol before him. He was convinced that he was losing his mind. He thought about calling his wife but decided against it and just stared at the wall in front of him. Before long he was asleep in his chair.

What seemed like mere seconds later, Jim Stockwell awoke to the sound of his office door closing. He looked up to see a young man standing before him. He had blond hair and was wearing a tank top and leather pants. There were ugly bruises around his neck and his skin was almost white. He blinked a few times to clear his vision, but the young man was still there. Finally, recognition dawned on him.

“I know who you are…” Stockwell said.

“Do you? Do you really know who I am, Jim?” the young man asked.

“Yes….I…”

“Then what’s my name?” There was nothing but pure anger in the young man’s voice.

Stockwell searched his memory but couldn’t come up with anything. He drew a complete blank. He sighed heavily.

“Don’t know, do you?” the young man asked and Stockwell shook his head. “That’s because you didn’t bother to find out. You figured just one less fag to worry about, why bother finding out my name?”

“That’s not it…”

“Admit it, Stockwell. That’s the truth, isn’t it? Forget about the fags. Right?”

“No.” Though his voice lacked all conviction. Suddenly the room started to change. They weren’t sitting in his office anymore but were in the middle of a bus station. There, sitting on a bench was the same young man as was before him, only this young man was very much alive.

“So, what brings you here?” someone asked the young man.

“I was trying to get to New York but I ran out of money.”

“Typical story. So, what was it? Homophobic parents?”

“No, my parents are okay. I just…..I wanted to try to make it big. And they’re struggling. Not having me around saves them some money.” He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair.

“What’s going on?” Stockwell asked.

“This is when I first came to Pittsburgh. That’s the man that got me into hustling. He’d been arrested three different times for assault but since the cases involved fags, he got off with a slap on the wrist. Hustling is what got me killed.”

“So you’re trying to say your death is my fault?”

“You could say that, yeah.” The young man glared at him. They watched as the living version of the boy walked off with the man, then the room changed again. Now they were sitting in the middle of a living room. There was an older woman sitting on the couch watching TV. Stockwell could tell from the news cast that they were now in the present, but he could also tell that it was very early in the morning.

“Darling, please come to bed,” a man that appeared to be about the same age said from the doorway.

“In a minute,” the woman said without looking up. The man walked over and stood behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

“Baby, you have to stop this.”

“But there could be news about Jason….” she started.

“It’s been almost two years, love. We have to move on.” He sighed heavily.

Stockwell looked at the young man. “Who’s Jason?”

“I am! Jason Kemp! My fucking name is JASON KEMP! But you never bothered to find that out! You never gave a fuck about me so now my parents have to spend the rest of their lives not knowing that I’m dead!” He was yelling now.

Stockwell looked at the couple as the woman burst into tears. Her husband came around and held her, saying soothing words and trying to calm her.

“I’m sorry,” Stockwell said softly, looking down. In the blink of an eye he was in his office and the ghost was gone. He looked around the office before banging his head on his desk and sighing heavily.

Stockwell once again woke with a start. His eyes darted around the still completely dark office. He sighed in relief and ran a shaking hand over his face. He wondered what it was that he'd eaten or had to drink that was causing these fucked up nightmares.

"A little too Dickensian if you ask me," e said as he walked over to the bookshelf where he stored his secret stash, having exhausted the other bottle. He took a long drink from the bottle and turned, almost dropping it and letting out a rather unmanly scream at the sight before him.

There in the middle of his office stood what would have been a very beautiful young man. He was wearing a tuxedo and he looked to be no older than sixteen. His beauty, however, was marred by the blood pouring from a wound on the side of his head, running down his face and staining his tuxedo. His blue eyes were amazingly clear given the head wound, and Stockwell was amazed that the young man was actually standing in his office. He took a closer look and his eyes widened to saucers, as he looked right into the eyes of none other than Justin Taylor.

Stockwell blinked in shock. This was a much younger Justin than he knew. And then it hit him like a football to the teeth. Justin Taylor’s prom, the same one his mother spoke of at the GLC disaster, the same one where he’d investigated the hate crime. But this made no sense to him. Justin wasn’t dead. Justin was very much alive so why was he one of the ghosts.

“Why are you here?” Jim snapped. “You aren’t dead!”

“I could have been. I was 18 years old when someone like you attacked me,” he said with no harshness in his voice.

“But you’re alive.” The police chief took another drink.

“And you let my attacker go. Because of you, while my life was forever altered, forever changed… almost taken, my attacker got off with a slap on the wrist and never having to deal with the consequences of what he did to me.” Justin’s voice didn’t change pitch or intensity.

“What are you talking about?”

“You were the one who was there with your officers that night. You took the story Hobbs gave while the people under you took everyone else’s. And while you were busy believing the straight boy, a gay boy was fighting for his life. While the straight boy had committed a crime of malice against his fellow student, a gay boy did nothing but attend his prom like every other senior at St. James. What’s the difference Jim? The gay boy brought his boyfriend. The difference that night to you wasn’t guilt or innocence. The difference was gay and straight.”

“What are you getting at?” Stockwell demanded.

“You set it up so that Hobbs would get off. You made sure the damn little queer lying in a coma got what he deserved for fucking men. Well guess what? That damn little queer made sure you got what you deserved!”

Stockwell looked at him again. The magnificent blue eyes filled with sorrow and pain, the likes of which someone at his young age should never be exposed to. Stockwell thought of his own boys. He thought of Justin’s mother and the way she spoke at the GLC conference. Jim looked at Taylor again, covered in blood and then before he noticed what had happened, he was in a hospital waiting room.

“What’s going on?” he asked.

Justin didn’t answer and was watching the twin doors near the emergency entrance. Jim’s eyes followed the boy’s gaze and stopped on the doors, when Brian Kinney walked through the door following the stretcher that carried the unconscious and bleeding Justin. Stockwell saw the boy on the gurney, the peaceful look on his face as the blood oozed like a river from the wound in his head, soaking his white shirt and pale skin. The oceans of blue that were Justin’s eyes, closed off from the world so no one could see them.

He saw Brian’s face as he walked past them, covered in blood and tears, the white blood soaked scarf in his hand. The look of utter terror on the man’s face was more than Stockwell could take. He didn’t want to see this.

“Please…I want to go…” Stockwell begged.

“Don’t you like seeing the other side?” Justin questioned.

“I can’t… I can’t do this… please Justin take me home!”

Justin looked Stockwell over but didn’t do a thing. Brian remained almost still in the uncomfortable chair, sobbing and looking like someone had ripped out his heart. Jim kept his eyes on Justin and finally fell to his knees and sobbed.

“I’m sorry. Justin, if I had known…”

“But you did know, you saw the blood in the parking garage. You saw them load me on the ambulance gurney. You heard Brian’s 911 call…”

“Please… I’ll do anything. I’ll change… I’ll help the gay community just… bring me home!”

Stockwell woke up in his office again. Justin was nowhere to be seen. But on the floor near his desk, lay the bloody scarf.

*****

A week later Brian and Justin were sitting at Woody’s waiting for a table to play pool. Brian had his arm wrapped around Justin and was kissing his neck, Justin trying to keep from cumming in his pants right then and there. For some unknown reason someone decided to turn the TV on and the entire bar went quiet at what appeared on the TV. It was the evening news.

“In other news, Police Chief Jim Stockwell has been arrested in connection to the murder of a young gay man more than a year ago. Reports say that the Police Chief made a full confession to an officer that was on duty early in the morning on the evening of the mayoral election. There’s no information about his trial date but it is said that the evidence is enough to guarantee a conviction,” the news anchor said.

“Holy fuck!” Justin exclaimed.

“Oh my goodness!” Emmett practically yelped from beside the bar. Neither of them had seen him come in. He came over to stand next to them, putting an arm around Justin’s shoulders, which he promptly removed in response to the death stare he got from Brian. “You think maybe your ad caused him to repent?” Emmett joked.

“Who knows?” Brian said, shrugging. He took a sip of his beer and wondered if he was really that good of an ad man. There was quite a bit of celebrating going on at Woody’s, but Brian and Justin decided to make their way back to the loft to do some celebrating of their own. They kissed and fondled each other all the way up the elevator and clothes were discarded on the way to the bedroom.

After an hour or so of lovemaking, Brian noticed that the light on his answering machine was blinking. Since he was still out of work he’d decided to give Melanie a hand and spend the day with Gus, giving her a little bit of a break. Justin had been at the diner all day so no one had been home to answer the phone. He groaned as he extracted himself from Justin’s arms, shivering at the sudden lack of heat before going over and pushing the play button.

“Mr. Kinney, this is Charles Anderson. I work with Mayor Deekins. He’d like to talk to you about a job possibility. It seems the person in charge of public relations for the mayor recently quit and the job is open. Given the effectiveness of your campaign against Stockwell, the Mayor feels it’s his duty to try to assist you in any way he can. If you’re interested, please give me a call.”

Brian quickly scribbled down the number and smiled. PR man for the mayor had to pay good bucks and it was a job he could do in his sleep. Especially a man like Deekins.

“Who was that?” Justin asked as he wandered into the living room.”

“A guy that works for Deekins. They want to offer me a job.”

“Seriously? That’s great!” Justin smiled and went over to kiss Brian. Things were definitely looking up.

*****

A few months later Brian was thriving in his new job. The mayor made sure he had enough money to pay off his debts without incurring new ones. He’d gotten his car back when Mikey returned. Justin was living with him once again. It was all going wonderfully. The only problem Brian could see was that the anniversary of the prom was coming up and it was going to be an emotional roller coaster. The prior anniversary he’d spent almost the entire day in a drugged and drunken stupor, trying to forget. Those weren’t options this time.

Justin had to work late that night so Brian was in the loft alone. Though it seemed that the day didn’t bother the young man at all, Brian could tell that Justin really didn’t want to be working. Brian sighed heavily as the events of the night came back to him. The dance, the kiss, the sound of the bat hitting bone, Justin’s blood all over his scarf. A tear rolled down his cheek as he made his way to the closet to retrieve the scarf that he just couldn’t bring himself to throw away. It would forever remain a reminder of a time that was both the best and worst night of his life. He reached into the back of the closet and found the box that contained the scarf. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly before opening the box to find the bloodstained scarf was gone.

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