Date: Mon, 16 May 2005 02:20:36 +0000
From: M Williams <kollegekid54321@hotmail.com>
Subject: Living with a Past - Chapter 9
- 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.