- DISCLAIMER - The following story, novel, or chapter contains homosexual themes and is not intended for anyone under the legal viewing age - If depictions of homosexual activities disturb you - Do Not Continue To Read This Story - Feedback appreciated
Copyright - 2005 - Max Williams (Kollegekid54321@hotmail.com)
Chapter 9
Jason awoke with that warm, at-home feeling still glimmering in the tails of his dreams. He felt valid and secure, and rested through his entire body. He stretched his arms out, smiling, feeling his hard biceps bulge and tense, then rolled over and lifted himself up off the surface of the bed.
"William . . .", he asked slowly and curiously, rubbing his eyes. Jason was having some strange memories, and the more he thought of them, the more his smile faded. He could vaguely picture a bathroom and a house . . . some rocks and - water? . . . a man and he, in a bed . . . and Jason enjoying the man in that bed, in that room. What - where was he? "William", Jason said again, rubbing his blurred eyes.
"And who is William", said a cool, sharp, angry voice. Jason jumped and his eyes snapped open to see himself, in his bed, in his bedroom, in complete view of his mother who was sitting on his desk chair, chin resting on her fist, watching him through calculatedly angry eyes. "Who the hell is William?" she asked again, more forcefully.
Jason was immediately horrified and instinctively pulled his sheet up over his naked body, and found that it wasn't naked. He had been sleeping in a dirty wife beater all this time, and, he found, his dirty pants from last night. His sweatshirt was hanging over the back of the chair his mother was sitting on, and he was suddenly confused as hell. The warm happy feeling dropped out the bottom of his stomach.
"Uhh . . . umm . . . ", he managed, rubbing his eyes hard, and then looking at the room again.
"WHO THE HELL IS WILLIAM, and does HE have ANYTHING to do with you COMING HOME at 6 O'CLOCK this MORNING!!!" His mother was pissed, and screaming at him with all the ferocity she could muster. He knew there was no way out of this, he deserved it, but he couldn't tell her the truth if he wanted to. He . . . he didn't even know what had happened. He couldn't even remember who William was, or why that name stuck in his head. He couldn't even remember much after leaving the party last - THE PARTY! With his mother currently fuming at him from across the room, Jason made a mental note to be upset about the horrific party later, and invented his alibi.
"Well I was at Greg Bellgraph's party last night. Sean left early and I had no ride and this kid William bought me home. He's a cool guy", Jason said, immediately playing cool and laying back on his pillow, avoiding his mother's eyes.
"You went to a PARTY?"
"Yeah, I did, Sean and the guys came and found me in the park -"
"I know, they came HERE and asked about you. I said I didn't know. They were listening to stupid music and that little horse's ass with the hairdo walked right up to the door."
"That's what you're supposed to do with doors."
"Not with OURS, not HIM."
Jason paused.
"Okay. Well, they found me in the park -"
"What were you doing in the park?"
"Mom, c'mon, let me talk! Just hanging around; I wasn't coming back here! They found me and said they'd been looking for me because of Greg's party . . ." And so the interrogation continued. Pam was a suspicious woman by nature and Jason rarely believed that he'd ever really convinced his mother of anything, when his mother was so fixated on all the horrible things she was sure he did behind her back. She left an hour later still eyeing him and snarling, and he knew that this would be a day like most others.
When Jason came downstairs half an hour later, his father was banging around in the kitchen trying to make lunch for the severed family, but Pam said she wasn't happy and went to organizing the garage in her controlling, unhappy way. Jason said he had homework to do and spent the day in his bedroom, trying to piece together what had happened the night before and constantly getting a feeling of something tragic, and slightly embarrassing, and yet he never quite remembered. He desperately wished someone would call, but resigned himself to the fact that probably, no one would. Well, he decided, it beat being in his room with nothing to do at all.
Fredo Richiazzi was in a foul mood. He stomped from the couch to the stove, watched the water vaguely bubble, and then stomped back to the couch. He threw himself down and started reading the magazine he'd had earlier: Young, Dumb, and Full of Cum. If for nothing else, his brother's collection of straight porn provided comic relief for him.
He was dressed in an old grey sleeveless t-shirt that had belonged to his muscular brother, and some faded black sweatpants. His bony frame looked thin and malnourished in the baggy clothes, but that was what Fredo was used to. On that note, he checked his pasta again. Once more he was looking after little Juanita with his mother at work, even though the solid bulk of Antonio was in his bed sleeping off a hangover, and flighty giggles issued from the other room where Mama, Rosenica, and Juanita slept. Rosie was always on the telephone with her boyfriend, and it usually annoyed her twin brother. Fredo flipped through the uninteresting magazine and, bored, threw it on the floor by Juanita's crib.
The living room of the Richiazzi apartment wasn't a living room so much as a kitchen, dining room, nursery, homework room, music room, reading room, and conservatory. One corner held the cabinets, fridge and two burner stove, another corner held a bookshelf and television, another corner was a couch, coffee table, baby crib, changing table, and the last corner was the door and coat rack, and Fredo hated all of it. Last night he'd seen one of the biggest and most beautiful, and most expensive, houses of his life. And he was still riding high on the glamour of the Bellgraphs, and looking down his nose at the three rooms that his own five-membered family called home. Little Juanita started crying in her crib.
"Shut up", Fredo yelled to his loud sister in the other room, and frowned. He went to the crib and picked up Juanita, pulling off her flannel pajamas in the gaining heat of a new business day for the pizzeria. Singing her an old Italian lullaby that had been passed down through his family, he successfully silenced the little girl and put her on the pillow of the couch, before checking his pasta
again. He couldn't believe what had happened
last night. Fredo had long since given up any hope of Jason Colby ever returning the feelings that he'd felt since they'd been best friend at the beginning of high school, but Fredo had finally decided to at least be friends again. Last night had shot the hell out of that idea. When Fredo had gotten to the house, after two bus trips and a half hour walk, the party had been in its falling stages, with people playing their last games of beer pong and poker, and Jason no where to be found. Something had happened in that bathroom, something between Jason and Sean - another hotty, Fredo thought, rubbing his chest - and Sean hadn't told anyone what had happened. He and his stupid friends just kept talking in private - about how much Fredo liked Jason. Sean hadn't given Fredo a name, but Fredo figured it was him. They'd probably been making fun of him for hours, without knowing he'd show up, and that was the culmination of an entire night's work of ridicule on their part. Well, fuck them, Fredo thought as the water started to boil, fuck `em all. I don't need this - I'm a successful person - I'm a lead in the musical - I'm teaching music with Mr. Broad, if he'd ever keep his hands off me - I'm fucking fine without any fucking one of them - and that was when it hit him. Fredo was going to show them; Fredo was going to show them all. He wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do, but he had an idea. It would take some time to put together, certainly, but it would work. Fredo knew it would work, because a long time ago, it had worked. It had worked very well, and now he needed it again. He turned the heat off on his pasta, and left the hot smelly room.
Things were changing at 505 Ferry Avenue, and it was for the better. Had anyone lived within 6 blocks of the industrial center that had enveloped the big old house, they would have seen the clean spots that were appearing in windows, or the fact that the back door had been shut and barred again. Broken attic windows had boards over them now, and previously boarded second floor windows didn't. The old place was still dead and rotting, certainly, but it had signs of life for the first time in, well, one hundred years or so.
William was ecstatic. He was seated at the elaborately paneled sink in the upstairs bathroom, happily shaving the thick short hairs off his handsome, rinsed, peaceful looking face. A book was propped up against the bottom of the enormous well scrubbed mirror, and William was alternating between reading it and shaving his angular, handsome face in the mirror. He hadn't recognized himself when he'd first well - "woken up" was as good a term as any. But once he'd found his book it all made sense. He sat on a low chair that was perfectly suited to use at the low, filthy sink, wearing only a tight undershirt over his well proportioned upper body.
William enjoyed shaving. It was such a joy to have hair coming out of his face again, to have cuts that healed again, to know that his body was alive, and producing, and growing. Eating was a pain, because he needed to scrounge for food in the local neighborhood - which had changed so much! - but shaving was a joy because it was a normal, carefree activity that he loved to be burdened with. It also pleased him because once he had remembered everything, he recalled that he had been fairly vain in his - well "former life" was as good a term as any. And now he looked at his handsome face and that new, shiny quality that he'd had since remembering, and could understand why. He was gorgeous!
The letter had been a shock to his mind at
first, especially given the circumstances under which it had been found. He couldn't believe that he had written it to himself, knowing that he'd forget, but more than that he couldn't believe, once he remembered, that he even had forgotten. His entire life had flashed before his eyes as he read the words, and finally, everything had begun to make a lot of sense. William forwent the blackened towels in the dirty bathroom and wiped the last of the lather off his face with the back of his hand, idly looking at his dreamy expression in the mirror and remembering reading his letter for the first time.
Dear William,
As I am not accustomed to writing letters to myself, I can only hope that you will bear along with my phraseology, in terms of tenses. Hopefully after this ordeal I will retain my affable sense of humor, and I, meaning you, will enjoy reading it then as much as I am enjoying writing this now. I do not know how much memory or lucidity will be retained after being asleep for so long, and this letter serves as a means of ensuring that I will not awake and have all lost, for a lack of remembering what it is that I am trying to find.
My name is William Renault Montgomery, named for my father and my mother's maiden name, and I was born on July 1st, 1870. I have made a fortune in shipping in the cities of Buffalo, Rochester, Cape City, Cleveland, Chicago, and Detroit, but have settled in Buffalo; it was in the slums of the old First Ward down in the shipping district after all, where I was born and raised. At the age of 20 I enjoyed an apartment I had rented on North St, and this, in case you do not remember, was about where I started making the mistakes that I wish to correct. I had in my company a young man named Jeremy Carter whom, I am sad to say, I loved very much. It is an impossibility in our society for true love to flourish where it cannot be supported, and if I may digress, I fear this will not change, even by the time when I might read this again. Jeremy and I were inordinately comfortable together living in my apartments and working in my offices. We were friends, business partners, lovers. It was about that time that the city expanded northward and the new neighborhoods looking over the river were the place to live, where all of my business partners, and many of my potential clients, were living. Wanting to be in a place of power over polite society, I purchased a lot at 505 West Ferry St. for Jeremy and myself. God willing, this is the house where you shall wake up, and God willing, it will still exist at that point.
I mentioned before that I have made mistakes, and moving to West Ferry St. was the first of many. Ferry St was mostly empty lots for sale, on the site of an old immigrant graveyard. The Italian population of Buffalo was ridiculously vagrant, and often moved, leaving their smelly dead all over the fields outside the city. However, these lots also had another incredible downfall that none of us knew about until later; the land along the banks of the Niagara is notoriously unstable. There are entire networks of underground caves that have been worn away by the rushing underground water table that empties into the mighty Niagara River. When I began construction on my house at 505, I was one of the first to build there; many looked at me to tell them of the quality of the area. Who knew that after the foundations were laid they would find a great crypt for one of the gypsy families?! Who knew that sinkholes and mudslides in the unstable ground could bury an entire granite structure from the former cemetery?! I didn't know, but I was suddenly in a position to lose an entire investment and wreck what could have been a prosperous neighborhood. I did something horrible, dear William, for which I still cannot find a reason. I buried it. The great mausoleum, the mammoth underground structure, became the footing for a structural wall in the basement, and all the memories and unpleasantries of the worthy dead in that place of rest were disrespected. I had done a great wrong, which I then expounded.
Jeremy, who had come to live with me as my partner in life, was shoved to the side. All that I did in those days after we moved was an attempt to make money, was an attempt to run from the danger and poverty of my youth. I took a wife. Jeremy was expelled to the fourth floor attic rooms, sleeping with the maids and the stable boys instead of at my warm side, and required to answer to all questioning conversations that he was but my business partner. My wife, a woman from my childhood, meanwhile appeared with me everywhere, and was fair of face but unfortunately for her, not of mind and I found her to be more easily tricked to believe that I loved her than our audiences. She honestly believed that I stayed away at night in interest of her purity; little did she know of Jeremy's nocturnal visits. Little did I know of Jeremy's waning interest . . . and when my loving Jeremy became sickly, my booming businesses kept me from his side as Adelicia and I were seen all over town in an effort to redouble my fortune. And when Jeremy died, dear William, it was the most enlightening, darkest day of my life, as my partner in all but marriage was suddenly gone. In my mourning, I perpetrated again. Shortly thereafter, Adelicia became pregnant. I was fooling her as I was fooling the world with our act of a marriage, and now that my heart was shattered, I didn't care about my actions, I only cared that children were a perfect way to cement the false relations with my wife now that my genuine relations were gone. This, my third mistake, was the most burdensome yet, for, after four children, my wife and friend, Adelicia, died in childbirth. The crippled daughter lived for four years, but eventually perished in a wave of consumption that also consumed the three older boys and half of my domestic staff. All that I valued in my life was gone; as were all that I only pretended to value.
However, my abhorrent story isn't finished. I had money; I sold my businesses, and began using my hard-earned fortune to search for a meaning to the horrible events that I had wrought. Doctors were brought in; the hospitals were notified; nothing could be found in the house at 505 Ferry St. that was wrong or unsanitary. I was beside myself, and in my desperation started looking into other explanations. I was told I was crazy for visiting the supernatural and beginning to read of the occult, so I ignored my friends, my bustling social roster, and one by one let go my servants. But dear William, I may only tell you that at last I began to find answers. I shall never forget the day almost a year later, when I found gypsies in the midst of a swirling fair that had come to town. I found that they were most hospitable, and after performing the magic and the ruses for the public, I was quietly invited back to their caravan for a real event. I don't remember much of it right now, but I do recall the rites of the darkness that were used; spilt chicken blood and ominous phrases from a book bound in hide opened the ceremonies, and some amount of concentration and chanting was used to channel certain spirits that to this day I don't know if I believe. While there, I met a man, named Richiazzi; he was one of the oldest of them, and seemed particularly interested in me. He told me of his book, bound in animal flesh, and that it could do and undo any and all of the most natural things in the world. I asked, even death? He answered, yes.
This man, Signor Richiazzi, spent the next six months in my home, where I learned fascinating things. My beautiful new house was cursed, haunted by the spirits that lived there, and haunted by the spirits that were incensed after death. Signor asked me who could I have angered and it was then that I led him to the basement, to the fruit cellar, and showed him the hollow place in the floor that could never quite cover the granite mound of death. We took up the floor later that night, and dug down to the gate; the inscription was that of his family surname, and I was horrified as he revealed to me that he had known all along; he had a sixth sense for the fact that his ancestors had been stripped of their home. In a flash of vim and verve, he became incensed and threatened to strike me dead where I stood before that muddy archway. I fell to my knees and say that I wouldn't care, my life had been decimated anyway, and such a wretch as I didn't deserve to live after having hurt so many innocent people. It was then that the old man took pity on me. Somewhere in his gypsy ways, he knew of forgiveness and balance, and decided to help me make it right. We came up with a plan.
He asked me what I wanted the very most, and I told him that I ached for my Jeremy, and that it was at his untimely death that my mindset and life had failed. The Signor then informed me of certain ancient rites that cannot undo death, but can still return the dead to us in another way. He cannot undo the powers of nature and the forces of disease and famine, however, he can manipulate certain charms and please certain deities with a combination of natural ingredients sacrificed with particular incantations. It works, he told me, most of the time.
Good William, though I hope that you, meaning I,
remember all this as it's explained, I do feel the need to continue with the plan that Signor and I devised, if only in the interest of having you know exactly what you need to do. After the rites are performed, my Jeremy, the Signor told me, will be drawn, like a magnet, to this earth, and the forces that we appease will cause Jeremy to be born again as close and as soon as is possible to the "magnet", if you will. The magnet, of course, being me. I am to be put asleep in my house, in such a comatose state that I shall neither age nor deteriorate, and become awakened and fully alive when Jeremy is again as I knew him. For this newborn Jeremy to grow into the man I remembered, at least 20 or so years must pass from his birth, meaning that my sleep may be upwards of 22 or 23 years in the same house, says the Signor. The risks are enormous, but worth the taking. After that, I, meaning you, shall use the Signor's fleshbound volume to attract Jeremy to me, and then recite various other charms that I have been taught to free his ancestors and bring them peace, knock down the house, and exhume the granite house. I do not know if my fortune will survive, or if the Signor will live to see the return of his mausoleum to daylight, but I shall try my very best to right the wrongs I have committed, even with this black magic that even now I can feel creeping into my bones and putting me to sleep. The book shall be stored with this letter in the crypt just below the one where I am to be put to sleep by the good Signor. Please, follow these instructions to the letter, and read the Signor's book carefully before you perform any rites; make sure you remember the incantations. With luck in God, I hope that we both shall succeed at either end, and may my devious doings provide you with Jeremy as you knew him, as we loved him. God Bless.
William looked at his pale, strong face in the mirror. His eyes were slightly crinkling at the corners as he winced about the details of the letter. Though William now remember everything before he'd been put to sleep, including bits and pieces of the spells he was supposed to recite, he couldn't for the life of him understand why he'd woken up in his bed when the letter had briefly mentioned being in the crypt, or why the book he had in front of him was neither bound in flesh nor containing anything beyond cheap looking nonsense words, of the variety that could be sold at any fair. William wondered what exactly had happened after the letter had been sealed and William had sleepily put himself in the hands of the wizened old man. He remember the toothless grin as the old man shut his drowsy eyes . . . William started. The old man, the money, the crypt, the letter, the book . . . it all swirled in his head as he watched his eyes squint in mental anguish and small quick tears slide down his cheeks. He'd been cheated by a traveling gypsy who knew something. William had woken up one hundred years late, and though he'd found Jeremy, he'd lost him again. Who knew that for the second time in his life, William would see that handsome brown face staring up at him from under the waters of Lake Erie . . . who knew that when William woke up, Jeremy would be gone, whisked back from whence he came by the unseen forces that had wrought this situation to begin with. William's eyes shut in disbelief and horror. He knew, he felt it in his bones, that he wasn't alive. Whatever the man's spell had done, it hadn't removed his consciousness, it had removed his life, and now William had to pay the price, knowing that he showed signs and wounds and emotions and age like the living, but that it wasn't life that kept his body moving and his heart beating. And it wasn't a beneficial force that had drawn William to Jeremy, it was a malevolent one that chilled William to the core, because William knew that it was far from over. In fact, it was just beginning.