Bernie and the Bear Chapter 9
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Chapter Nine
Trial
It was so warm and cozy. I could see we'd ended up almost in a heart shape as I started waking up. We were touching at the forehead and our feet were interlaced; I felt like I never wanted to move. I lifted my head just enough to kiss James on the forehead and went back to my former position. I watched as his eyelids fluttered a little, then his bright blues peeked out at me. He didn't move either; just said `mornin'. We lay there just staring into each other's eyes and enjoying the closeness until the door opened and JJ plopped down between us; the cold from outside radiating from him.
"Mom said we can't open presents until y'all get your lazy butts up, so she told me to come see if y'all were awake yet" he said.
"So, your way of `seeing if we were awake' includes jumping on the bed in the middle of us?" I grumbled.
"Yeah, that way there's no doubt you're awake. So let go of each other's peters and come down so we can open gifts" he said cheerfully. I tried to thump his head, but he was up and out in a heartbeat, leaving the door open about six inches, no doubt on purpose. I got out of my warm comfortable spot so I could close the door, then jumped back in.
"Hey, you want to hold each other's peters?" I asked with raised eyebrows.
"I'd love to but I think we should probably go down there before he decides to come back" James said. He got up and watched him pull the boxer briefs from last night back onto his hairy ass. I decided I might as well get up too. I stood by the chair and got dressed; we could take a shower and change later, after the gift thing. Mom had saved us some pancakes and sausage on the stove so we ate while they started handing out gifts. All the gifts were handed out and hugs exchanged; JJ ran to his room to play the new game I bought him and I was finishing up my milk from breakfast when James' phone rang. He said hello, then went into the kitchen to talk. When he came back in the room, he looked kind of excited.
"That was my mom, they're about to board their flight in Munich and they'll be back home sometime tomorrow" he said, "Wanna take a trip to Tupelo for the rest of our break?" he asked me. I looked at mom and dad, they shrugged. I think they were kind of ready to have the house back to themselves.
"Sure, I guess" I said. "How will we get there?" I asked, he was already on the phone checking it out.
"Greyhound from Knoxville to Tupelo - $65 each" he said.
"When?" I asked.
"Eww. 12:25am" he said.
"We'll drop them off and go spend the night in Pigeon Forge" mom said. Dad gave her one of those looks. "JJ will be okay by himself for one night; he'll probably stay on that game that long."
"Okay, see if you can find us a room" dad relented. James booked our tickets. We ran around and got packed and ready. I stripped the bed so the sheets could be washed and cleaned up everything we'd left laying around. We left the house around six, so we had five hours to kill until our departure time. Needless to say, we were already worn out when we finally boarded the bus to leave, saying goodbye to the sleeping homeless people on the metal wire benches.
On the bus, we tried to sleep a little on and off. We got into Memphis just before 8am and transferred to make the last leg into Tupelo. We finally pulled into the Tupelo station about 1 o'clock. I made a mental note that I never wanted to travel anywhere by bus again.
We grabbed out backpacks and James called one of his cousins to pick us up and give us a ride to his parents' house. I had this whole stereotypical mindset about what I expected to find in Tupelo. When he called his cousin Danny, I was fully expecting some redneck to drive up in a beat-up Ford truck with no bumpers to take us out to the tarpaper shack.
"There he is" James said. I looked to where he was pointing and all I saw was a shiny black late model BMW M5. I followed James, making sure I wasn't missing anything. The trunk on the BMW popped open as we walked that way. I plopped my bag in next to James' and I got in the back; James took shotgun.
"Danny, Ted. Ted, Danny" he said.
"Pleased to meet you" Danny said politely as I was reassessing my situation.
"What's the matter" James asked.
"Not exactly what I was expecting, I guess" I said.
Fifteen minutes later, we pulled up to a rather elaborate gate and James punched in a code on his cellphone. Immediately afterward, the gates swung inward and we took off. At the end of the long, tree-lined driveway was what I'd call a mansion. Well, a mini-mansion at least.
"Wow" I said.
"What?" James asked.
"Nothing" I said. He punched in another code and one of the garage doors opened. We went in through the door to the kitchen. He saw me looking around at everything.
"When I told you my parents went to Munich for the Christmas markets, that didn't give you a clue that they had money?" he asked.
"I mean...people save up and take trips and..." I just quit, not sure what to say.
"You can't act all weird the whole time you're here" he said. Danny seemed to find it all amusing.
"You mean, he didn't know you were rich and he still liked you?" Danny said with a grin, "You better hold on to this one, Jimmy."
"Shut up, Danny" he replied. He turned to me and said "c'mon and I'll show you my room."
I followed him though the house that looked like a museum or something, down a long hallway and into what could only be described as a `suite'. It was huge, probably half the size of my parent's house. His shower was probably big enough for 4 or 5 people at one time and it was the first time I'd ever seen a urinal installed in a normal home bathroom.
"Dude, what does your dad do for a living?" I asked.
"He is the Executive Vice-President of one of the largest paper companies in the state" he said, "before you ask, my mom is a psychologist, but mostly she writes books." Writes books? I was thinking. Ballard...surely not Ellen M. Ballard, the self-help guru? I guess they saw the wheels spinning in my head.
"Yeah, that Dr. Ballard" Danny said.
"Look, don't make a big deal out of it when they get here" James said.
"Speaking of, I'm supposed to drive over to Memphis and pick them up too" Danny said. There wasn't enough room for us, them and their luggage so we stayed and waited for them to get back.
"You hungry? I'm starving" James said.
"Yeah, you think there's anything in the house?" I asked.
"Pizza or barbecue?" he asked.
"Umm, pizza, I guess" he dialed and ordered the pizza. "Should be here in about 20 minutes."
He turned on the television and put it on the security camera monitor so we could see when the delivery driver pulled up. He said a chime would go off when they pulled up to the gate as well, so we didn't have to sit and just stare at it. He pushed me backward onto his bed and flopped back beside me and shoved his hand into my pants and his tongue into my mouth.
"Fifteen minutes is not enough time for this" I said.
"True" he said smelling of his hand, "We'll get back to that later. C'mon, I'll show you rest of the house" he pulled me up and took off toward the living room again.
"We don't really use the formal living room that much, its for when company is over" walking back into the kitchen then down a couple of steps into a den type room. "This is what they call the keeping room. This is where we usually hang out" he said. It was a smaller room, more similar in size to a normal living room. He turned around and took me to a doorway with steps leading to a space over the three-car garage.
"Mom and Dad's quarters" he said. This was a whole house on its own, or at least an oversized apartment.
"Check this out" he said, opening the French doors to the veranda. I walked out behind him. It overlooked their property, acres of grass with horses running around and a giant pond in the middle.
"Gorgeous" I said, "do you ride? We could have gotten the horses saddled up back home. I didn't even ask. Sorry" I said.
"No problem, we can ride some here if you want" he said. About that time something made a sound like a doorbell. James punched in a code and we went down to meet the pizza delivery guy. His tee-shirt said Vanelli's Bistro, I took the box and James handed him a $10 tip `for getting here so fast' he said. I sat the pizza on the table and James grabbed two Coronas from the refrigerator. I gave him a look.
"Mom and dad don't care if we have a beer here" he said, popping the caps. He flipped the box open and said "Dig in!" which I did. The pizza was delicious, I made the mmm mmm sound and he said "I know, right?" I washed it down with the beer. I'm not a big drinker, so by the time we finished, I was a little tipsy. Yes, off of one beer. I know, I'm a lightweight and all that. Whatever.
James looked at his watch. We still had a couple of hours to kill.
"Anything you want to do?" he asked me.
"Can we go out to your stable and see the horses?" I asked.
"Your wish is my command" he said. I followed him from the back of the house and out to the stable. We went in and checked it out; lots of stalls, I wondered how many horses they had. Then he showed me the office and a kind of bunkhouse up on the second floor. He said they had places for extra guests or for guys helping break horses or whatever.
"It reminds me of those nifty archive stories where the young cowboy gets fucked his first day on the job" I said.
"Maybe later" he said, "I have more to show you before they get here."
We went back to the house and across the kitchen again and into the garage. I really hadn't paid much attention when we came in but there were three cars parked inside. A Mercedes GLE SUV (dad's), a BMW X-5 (mom's) and the third one was covered with a black car cover. We went over and he carefully pulled the cover off of his car, a 2019 Aston Martin DB11. The Cobalt blue finish was mirror polished.
"I got it for my 16th birthday. It only has a little over 12,000 miles on it" he said.
These three cars were worth more than all our property in Oneida. I know he wanted me to get over it, but it was almost as if he was rubbing it in my face.
"Are you gonna drive it to school next year?" I said, kind of facetiously.
"Not a chance. Half the people we know would be like you or worse. Then there's the chance of it being stolen..." he said, "Nah, I'll get an Accord or Camry, something ordinary, probably used" he said. Hell, that was something I hoped to be able to afford eventually; my own car. If I saved up, I was hoping I could get something like a Corolla. I had a weird feeling growing inside me. I think I resented how he took all this stuff for granted. I was thinking about spending all that money for a pair of 501s when he probably already had a closet full of them. I walked back into the house while he was putting the cover back on the car. I went in the `keeping room' and sat down feeling a little bit depressed.
"Ok, what did I do?" he said.
"Nothing" I told him, "I just don't know if I live in the same world as you."
"Oh God, here it goes..." he said.
"I mean, seriously James, you got a $50,000+ car for your 16th birthday. Let's see...if I remember correctly, I got a cake from Walmart, my mom bought me two new shirts for school, and dad gave me his old Ruger 10-22 after he bought himself a new one" I said.
"So, I'm supposed to feel guilty because my family has money?" he asked.
"I don't know. I'm just not on your level. That's all I'm saying" I said, "oh and by the way, what else have you not told me?"
"You don't have any reason to worry about not being on my level" he said, "I don't love you because of what you have or don't have, I love you because of who you are. If all this was gone and you'd let me come live in that room over the garage at your parent's house, I'd be happy the rest of my life as long as you were there."
Anybody who knows me would tell you that if I'm one thing, it's hard-headed. I listened to all he had to say and refused to talk about it anymore. I felt like he was telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. I was primed for a pity party and nothing was going to stop it.
"Oh, and let's see...you never asked me about anything so I'll tell you anyway. I have an older brother named Robbie, he lives in Miami" he said, "anything else I'm missing? If you want to know anything, ask me, I'm an open book."
"How much older?" I asked. He looked confused.
"How much older is your brother?" I asked.
"Oh, he's 23. He just graduated from the University of Miami and started graduate school this semester. And he will be here for our New Year's Eve party" he said, "anything else?"
"Why do you like me? Is it like some kind of thing to get back at the parents with? Not only gay, but a poor too?" I said, I was on a roll now trying to destroy this relationship.
"Wow. Is that what you really think of me?" he said looking genuinely hurt. "Maybe I should fix up the guest room for you."
He walked out of the room. Now not only did I feel inferior; I also was mad at myself for fucking things up by not being able to adapt. I didn't know whether to run after him or call for another bus ticket. That's why I was sitting by myself in the keeping room when Danny came in with the Ballards. They didn't seem phased to see a stranger sitting in their house.
"Where's Jimmy?" Danny asked me. I just shrugged my shoulders. He started to walk away when it struck him, he turned around and introduced me to James's parents.
"Why are you down here by yourself, has James lost all sense of manners?" his mother asked me.
"No ma'am, we had a...uh...kind of an argument, I guess you could call it" I said.
"That's why you look so blue" she said matter-of-factly.
"Yes ma'am" I answered.
"If I could pry just a little, what was the problem?" she asked.
"Culture shock" I said.
"Do go on" she said.
"Well, before we got here today, I figured that James was just another kid like me. You guys are way above my social strata" I said.
James's dad walked through the doorway. I had a feeling he'd been listening from the other room.
"See, Ellen, that's why I hate all this pretentious bullshit" he said.
"Garrett, you know as well as do I, we have to have an appropriate place for those times when we have to host" she said.
"That's fine, but I'd rather still be living in the old place in Franklin. I was happy there" he said.
"Yes, dear. You're a victim. A victim of your own success" she said, "Now back to you, young man."
I'd somehow put it out of my head that she was a psychologist. I guess now I was going to be in an involuntary analysis session, except that I actually didn't have to be. I could get up and leave.
"Is it fear of not being good enough?" she said, hitting way too damn close to the heart of my problem.
"Who gave you the right to psychoanalyze me?" I said angrily.
"Sorry, I was just trying to help" she withdrew and started to walk out of the room.
"But, yes. I don't think I'm good enough for all this" I said, waving my arms around.
"Keep acting like you are and you won't have to worry about it" she said, "My son chose you; that's all you need to focus on."
I held my tongue as her words, as well as James's began to soak into my dense brain. I think I related to Mr. Ballard more though, and I deflected from the conversation with her to ask him questions.
"Mr. Ballard..." he interrupted, "Call me Garrett."
"Okay...Garrett...No, sir, I can't do it. My parents taught me to respect adults. Mr. Ballard, tell me more about the place y'all used to have in Franklin, if that's okay."
"Sure. We still have it. It was a kind of simple house on ten acres of land. Most of my family lives around the area. I grew up there and that's why I ended up going to Vandy. Anyway, we were outside of Franklin, out in the country. It was peaceful, like here but more grounded" he said, looking at Dr. Ellen. I went over and sat on the hassock by his chair and pulled out my cellphone and scrolled though the gallery.
"This is where I'm from" I said, pulling up a picture of the house I took while we were there. It was covered with the Walmart Christmas decorations and all the colored lights. I scrolled farther and showed him the garage and the little apartment dad made where me and James had stayed. I showed him pictures of the big family field and some of the bonfire we had Christmas Eve. He had the beginnings of tears in his eyes. That's when I noticed that Danny and James had come back in.
"The best Christmas I've ever had" James said quietly. I suddenly felt like a total piece of shit. I left my phone with Mr. Ballard and I went over and hugged James and whispered "I'm sorry for being an asshole. I love you."
"All better?" his mom asked.
"Yes, ma'am" I told her.
"My work here is done" she said, apparently oblivious to the fact that bonding with James's dad was what helped me. Or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing. Surely, she couldn't have planned all this? Mr. Ballard handed me my phone back and said "Welcome to the family."
Lambodara 11/25/21
It's coming down to the wire. Is anybody still out there?