Chapter 4
Just in case you've clicked here and didn't get the word...Chapter Three posted on 4/01/06 was an April Fool's joke...if you haven't read the real chapter which was posted on 4/02/06, I suggest reading it first.
“I’m going to pick Jenny up and we’ll probably go check out
that new store on
“That’s fine.” Dad said as he bent to give my mother a kiss. “Davey and I are going to go over some stuff and then I think Pete was going to pick him up. He said something about wanting to take Davey around looking at possible gifts.”
“Papa’s going to spoil you if we let him.” Mom said fondly to me, rubbing my head again before heading towards the front door. Dad just looked at me with a stern look before pushing aside the sliding doors to his office/den. I followed him inside and he motioned with his head towards one of the comfortable leather armchairs that sat in front of his large oak desk. He shut the sliding doors behind him, and noticing me already sitting, sat in the large leather office chair behind the desk. For several minutes he sat there, looking at me over steepled fingers in total silence.
His office was a dark, warm room. It had one of the three fireplaces in the house in the wall behind him, and was paneled in warm, well-polished oak. It had a deep red plush rug, and all the furniture was dark oak and dark red leather. The wall behind me had four large bookcases, with an oaken bar in the middle, and the windows to my left looked out on the shade trees in the front yard. You could almost see the stonework wall that bordered our property, but the trees and bushes made that really hard.
“I’ve been meaning to have this talk with you for two months now.” Dad said slowly drawing my attention back to him. He had put his hands on his desk now, on either side of a dark red file folder that was sitting in the exact middle of the desktop. “It’s just never seemed the right moment, or there was too much going on.”
“Talk to me about what?” I asked softly, not really wanting to hear the answer.
“Maybe you should read this first.” Dad said, picking up the folder with his right hand and handing it over to me. I stood up from the chair, took the folder and sat back down before opening it with more curiosity than I’d been expecting a moment ago. It had several pieces of paper in it, photocopies, really. The first was in Russian, and came from the Soviet paper Pravda.
The first thing I noticed was the date. It was from mid-august. The second thing I noted was that the article on the right side had a name in its headline that I recognized. I read through the article in Russian quickly, carefully schooling my breathing so it didn’t change too much. After reading the article through, I closed my eyes briefly, and moved to the second one. This one was a photocopy of a Chinese newspaper, probably the third or fourth page, and I didn’t understand any of it until I turned the paper over and saw a translation typed out on the back. The translation made me want to let out a long sigh, but I didn’t dare show that reaction. I’d probably shown too much of a reaction to the Russian article. This article was dated a month ago according to the translation. The third article was in Chinese as well, and the translation on the back made me wince as I read the details of the kidnapping of a seven-year old Chinese boy, his apparent rape and murder by an American tourist, and the subsequent execution of that American. A small note on the side of the translation, in the familiar handwriting of the President did comfort my conscious a bit. The American had been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and had only a few months to live when he committed the act of barbarism on a seemingly innocent seven-year old boy. Unlike the death of Alexei Shevardnadze in a traffic accident, hit by a drunk American embassy official, and unlike the death by heart attack of a mid-level Chinese official, the boy’s death struck a nerve in me.
The last article was of something I’d already heard about through Brian and Trevor, the death in a accident of a little-known scientist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory. Trevor’s dad had been an eyewitness to the accident and had been interviewed by the FBI. When I’d heard the news of that accident, I hadn’t shown any reaction to my friends. Later that night, I’d felt a knot in my chest relax, and I’d given myself totally over to just living my new life without thoughts of the old lives I’d led.
Until now.
“I don’t get it.” I said aloud after reading the last article. “What do these things have to do with me or you?”
“You read the first article?” Dad asked me and I looked at him with a puzzled glance.
“Yeah, the translation was on the back.” I said in as confused a tone as I could muster.
“What was the article about?” Dad asked me and I let out a sigh.
“It was about some guy named Alexei Shevardnadze.” I answered. “He was the son of some important guy in the Soviet government and was killed when a drunk guy from our Embassy ran him over.”
“That’s correct.” Dad said with a gloating smile. “You read the front of that piece of paper, I noticed, and didn’t even look at the back for the translation, which you did on the two Chinese articles. Since when do you read Russian?”
“Um…” I said, squirming in my chair. My dad wasn’t an idiot, something I was regretting at that very moment.
“You never did lose the memories, did you?” Dad said with a sigh as he leaned back in his chair and looked at me with an intense gaze. I met his gaze at that moment, looking into his deep brown eyes and wondered once again where I’d gotten my deep blue eyes when both he and Mom had brown.
“I…um…” I stuttered, totally at a loss for how to weasel my way out of this, and wishing for a moment that I dared fake another headache.
“Dammit, Davey!” Dad shouted, slapping his desk with his open palm and glaring at me as he leaned forward. “You’re my fucking son! I don’t care if you still have those damn memories! I’m not going to turn my back on you! Dammit, son, don’t try to lock me out on this!”
“I’m sorry.” I said softly, looking down at the carpet and feeling ashamed of myself at that moment. This was my father; a real father; a father as he hadn’t been to me in my first life, nor in the second, and a man I’d had only the barest inkling of in that last timeline.
“Look at me, dammit!” Dad snarled and I looked up from the carpet to meet his gaze. His face was animated, but he wasn’t angry. To my surprise, there was a look of hurt on his face more than anything else. “Davey, I know you’ve never been a normal boy, and I know that these memories must have scared you, but I also know you! Sure, you’re a little more mature than the average twelve-year-old, sure, you’re definitely smarter than most people your age, but I know damn well you’re not some adult in a child’s body. I also know you’re my son. Just what the hell happened in those other times that you wouldn’t trust me?”
“A lot.” I said softly, not really wanting to shame him with all the things he had done in the other timelines, but his stone-faced response let me know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he was going to want to hear them.
“Start at the beginning.” He ordered, leaning back in his chair. “Don’t forget, you’re not too old for me to spank if you deserve it.”
“Yes sir.” I said with a smile creeping on my face at that threat. It was… reassuring in some weird way. “Just remember… the father in the other timelines, he wasn’t you. You’re a different man than they were.”
“I know that.” Dad told me with a firm shake of his head. “Stop stalling and give me the bad news.”
“I… I love you, Dad.” I said, figuring that was the best place to start, and it had the added benefit of being true. Sure, this father of mine wasn’t around as much as the others had been. There were entire weeks I didn’t see him, but he’d always call, if not every day, at least every other day, and we talked a lot. When he was home, he always made time for me, even if it was just to throw a few pitches or to swim in the pool and play around for a bit. He was a fun dad; he cared for me and I knew it.
“I love you too, son.” Dad told me in a reassuring tone and I steadied myself for this, dredging up the memories of those past times, something I hadn’t really done in a while. I tried to live my life without them, whenever possible. Since the coma, they weren’t ever as clear as they had once been, and there were things missing on occasion, but they were still there.
“In the first timeline, the original one, I guess we could call it, you died before I was sent back in time.” I began carefully, watching him as he winced slightly. “You died at 52, of a heart attack, a few months after a quintuple bypass surgery. Barbara, your second wife, was cooking you lunch, and you sat down at the table, and fell face-down on the table and was dead before she even had a chance to react to the sound you made when your face hit the table.”
“My second wife?” Dad said with a soft whimper, and his face had a stricken look on it as he looked at the photograph of mother on his desk.
“Yes, your second wife.” I told him, meeting his gaze steadily. “That’s the… least painful of the painful things I can tell you about that timeline. Do you really want to hear more?”
“Are there… are there lessons I can learn from it?” Dad asked and my eyes widened at the honest expression on his face.
“Yes.” I told him and he swallowed thickly.
“I have a feeling I wasn’t a very good father, or husband in the past… in these other timelines.” Dad said slowly and I nodded at his words. He swallowed hard again and closed his eyes for a minute before opening them and looking at me with a steady gaze. “Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. I have a chance here to learn my own history, in a way, and instead of doing things wrong, to do it right. It’s going to hurt, but I want to know.”
“There’s no need to go over what happened in
“Ouch.” Dad commented and frowned at that. Yeah, it had hurt.
“Then, we moved to Waterford where you got another Associate
Pastor position while Mom got a job as a dental assistant.” I continued. “That continued for a year until you got a Pastor position at a small
church back in
“The same school you’re going to now.” Dad stated flatly and I nodded.
“It was the first time in my entire life we’d ever lived in the same place for me to have the same friends for more than one school year.” I told him, and the old bitterness filled my voice as I said that. He winced at the sound of the bitterness, but he nodded at me to continue. “I even got to start at Downey High with those friends, and played on the Freshman football team. I had good friends, some of them even the same friends who were just over here today. Then, you got an offer at another church.”
“A church away from
“It was in
“What happened?” Dad asked and I looked at him with sadness.
“That version of you, the person you aren’t now, couldn’t keep his dick in his pants.” I said in a flood of bitterness and ages-old anger. He winced at my words, but didn’t say anything as he waited for me to continue. “One night, when Nanny and Papa were visiting, Jenny told mother how… how that person who was my father in that timeline had been sexually molesting her for the past five years.”
“I… I’d never…” Dad gasped in a horrified voice, and his face had gone deathly pale as he heard the words.
“You’re not him.” I told my father of this timeline. “But there’s a reason why my room is between yours and Jenny’s.”
“You can’t possibly think I’d…” Dad’s voice trailed off as he saw the expression on my face.
“I think it’s far less likely that you would do it in this timeline.” I told him. “I trust you in ways I’d never have trusted that version of you. For instance, I never would’ve had a conversation like this with him, not even when he was recovering from nearly dying after his first heart attack. You, well you’ve earned this.”
“I’m not that man.” Dad protested vehemently.
“No, you’re not.” I agreed with him. “But you could have been, if things hadn’t been nudged in different directions. I better not ever hear of you sleeping with any interns, either.”
“Your mom would kill me.” Dad said with a shake of his head. “Plus, well, I can see how he might have gotten to that point if your mother hadn’t changed the way she has in the last few years. Was that another of your little nudges?”
“An unintended consequence.” I admitted with a shrug. “I never knew Mom was so materialistic. I mean I always knew she liked nice things, ritzy parties, and hobnobbing with important people, but I never knew it’d make her so… amorous.”
“I think that’s enough of that.” Dad said a little
uncomfortably. “I take it after Jenny
did the right thing and told your mother, she divorced me… him and went back to
“Yes, and he also proved that there was still some good in
him when he also came back to
“Things must have gotten tough for you.” Dad said sadly, and there was a look of sympathy on his face.
“Things were tough on all four of us.” I told him,
struggling to keep my voice steady. In
all my time travels, I’d only told this much detail about my first life one
time, and that had been to Brian when we were adults and had been together for
over a decade. “I think they were
toughest on Jenny most of all, though. At least she stuck it out and finished high school, unlike me. I’d dreamed of going to the
“I… I don’t know what to say.” Dad said and as I met his gaze, I noticed there were tears in his eyes.
“Let’s just say there was a lot of pain and misery over those years and leave it at that.” I told him while trying to keep the tears out of my own eyes. It was so much easier to look at the file sitting in my lap than to meet his eyes. “Mom never remarried, although she had several live-in boyfriends. I left the Navy in ’92 after fighting in two small wars. I drifted from job to job all through the nineties. Jenny joined the Navy, but got kicked out for drug use and married some red-neck in the deep south. Mom died in 1999, and you died a few months later. Jenny died two years after that with her husband and kids. I gave up on life, really and became homeless in 2003. Nanny and Papa both suffered from a disease that took away their memories and made them like children who didn’t recognize me. Grandma Jones had several strokes and was in a nursing home. Then in 2004, I got an offer to take part in a scientific project. They were going to pay me $10,000, so I took it… and ended up going back in time to find myself in my twelve-year-old body in 1981.”
“Wow.” Dad said softly and I nodded.
“I… I didn’t tell anyone about it, and tried to keep from making any changes at all in the timeline for the first few months.” I explained. “I didn’t think I was going to stay back in time, but as I know now, it’s a one-way trip.”
“I always assumed you’d been part of the experiment, one of the scientists working on building the machine.” Dad said softly and I met his eyes.
“I was the homeless bum no one cared about and who wouldn’t be missed if he died.” I said bitterly and he shook his head softly. “Anyway, I eventually realized I wasn’t going to be ‘pulled back’ to 2004 and started trying to make some small changes.”
“Like keeping your father from molesting your sister.” Dad said with a nod of his head and a firmness in his voice. No, this father was nothing like the past fathers I’d had.
“That was a top priority of mine, yes.” I told him, and our eyes met with a understand that shocked me. There was a resolution in his, a resolve to be a better man than the one I remembered from those earlier timelines.
“You’re a son any father could be proud of.” My father said and the tears threatened to well up in me again. “Let me guess though, I had problems with a twelve-year-old brat, spoiled by my wife’s mother, asserting himself in areas I thought he had no business being involved with.”
“That was part of it, yes.” I said, wanting to skirt around the other things that we had battled over, because as much as he’d changed, as much as he was different, I knew that some things were too much to hope for being different. “Mom eventually had to choose between us, and she chose to make her own way in life, with us. Then she died in an accident on Christmas Day, and I ended up living with Mr. and Mrs. Rush.”
“Trevor’s parents?” My father asked and I nodded.
“I’ve been friends with them… well let’s just say my friends seem to be a constant.”
“But you said when you came back in that first timeline they’d moved on…” Dad said and I smiled sadly.
“I expected them to be the same people they’d been when I’d known them as a freshman.” I told him. “They weren’t, but they were friendly to me, and if I had tried more, we would have been good friends again. The thing is, I wanted them to be the same friends I’d known years ago and didn’t want to get to know them as the people they’d grown into at that point. It was more my fault than theirs that we didn’t re-connect.”
“An important lesson to learn, I think.” Dad said with a nod of his head.
“Yes, it was, and it took me nearly fifteen years to learn it.” I said with a hint of bitterness, and I met his eyes steadily. “As much as what that father had done made a negative impact, I was part of the problem back then as well. I could have reacted differently, done things better, and I didn’t and so my life ended up much worse than it should have been. It’s too easy to play the victim, and blame others, and I fell into the trap of doing that for the longest time.”
“At least you learned that lesson.” Dad affirmed and I nodded. “What else?”
“The second timeline’s father was still alive when I went back in time again after the Chinese built a time machine.” I answered. “We…we had reconciled to a certain point, but we weren’t really close. He never showed up at my wedding.”
“Why not?” My father asked and I realized that had touched on something I didn’t want to touch on just now. Maybe in a few years, but not now!
“He didn’t approve of who I married.” I said and gave him a look that warned him not to ask any more along that line.
“What about the last timeline, the one you came here from?” Dad asked and then he got a curious look on his face. “You know, it’s a good thing I liked Star Trek when it was on television. I don’t think I’d have been able to ask that question if I didn’t.”
“Don’t worry, it’s helped me deal with going through all this.” I said with a smile.
“It’s almost easier to think of these as alternate realities, you know, like Evil Spock, the one with the goatee.” Dad said with a slight chuckle and I smiled.
“Yeah, if it’s easier to do it that way, go ahead.” I told him and lifted up the file in my lap. “Thanks to this, there won’t ever be another time travel machine.”
“You couldn’t build one again?” Dad asked me and I shook my head.
“I still remember a lot, but nothing like the details needed to draw out circuit diagrams.” I said.
“You expect me to believe that after you lied about losing those memories earlier this year?”
“It’s the truth.” I said with a shrug.
“I believe you.” Dad said and then he looked at me for another moment before cocking his head to the side and giving me a look that said ‘finish’.
“The last timeline, well let’s just say he was the father
most like you, but even he wasn’t quite like the man you’ve become.” I
explained with a smile as I remembered the fondness I’d felt for that version
of my father. “In that timeline, I went
right to the government after I came back… and it changed things big time. We ended up out in
“He was right, it is what I was meant to do with my life.” Dad said softly. “Being in politics… I think it’s what I was born for, and the call for preaching was what I’d misinterpreted the calling as being. Your Uncle Phil, he really is called to be a minister and I think I was envious enough of him that I let myself believe I could be as good of a minister as he was.”
“That…that’s part of what you, of what the father in the last timeline told me.” I admitted and we sat quietly for several long minutes, looking into each other’s eyes.
“And now, here we are.” My father said softly. “I think we need to make some decisions here.”
“Yes.” I agreed weakly. This was going far better than I had ever imagined. My father really was a different man than I’d ever known.
“Obviously, you don’t want the President, or the government to know you still have these memories.” Dad’s voice was calm, but his gaze was sharp. “That little fainting scene convinced us that your memories really were gone. If I didn’t see as much of you as I have, and if it wasn’t a few other things like how your Papa treats you, I might never have guessed. Until you read that piece in Russian without looking at the translation, I wasn’t even sure I was guessing right.”
“I got careless.” I said with a shrug. There was no putting that genie back in the bottle.
“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no need to let the President know the truth.” Dad said firmly and I let out a sigh of relief as I looked into his eyes. “First, and most importantly, you are my son, whether you’re twelve or eighty.”
“Seventy.” I corrected him and then corrected myself. “Well, not really seventy. I have memories of seventy years of life, but that’s only part of growing up. Sure, the biggest thing lacking in children is experience and knowledge. I have those, yes, but part of growing up is your body maturing, and I don’t have that. I might be able to function as an adult for a while, but the bottom line is I’m physically twelve.”
“Then knowing you have these memories won’t change how I treat you.” Dad said firmly and I let out a sigh of relief. “You’re my twelve-year-old son, and that’s how I’ll treat you. Of course, as you grow older, things will change based on your age, but I’ll expect you to obey me as a child should obey his parents. Are we agreed?”
“Yes.” I said quickly, and gladly.
“Good, now let’s talk about what I saw in the hallway between you and Brian.” Dad said and my heart plummeted into my shoes.
“What do you mean?” I asked, stalling for a moment. It earned me a stern glare from my father and a sigh escaped my lips. His gaze bore into me, and I felt at a loss for how to proceed. At that moment, I was more scared than I had been when I came to on a crashed plane, trapped under some wreckage, with a Soviet soldier pushing his gun into my face.
“Now you are acting like a twelve year old.” Dad said with a strong hint of scorn in his voice, and I felt my arms start to shake in reaction to the fear I was feeling. My brain felt like it was coated in molasses, it was working so slowly.
“I was just saying goodbye.” I said slowly and Dad shook his head.
“Friends don’t say goodbye like that.” Dad stated with anger now showing in his voice. “I’ve been around long enough to know that was more than just a simple goodbye.”
“I… um…” I stuttered, knowing my every reaction here was just making this worse, but unable to come up with anything more. Memories of past timelines ran through my head. The calm reaction as I talked about it with my father in the first timeline, his line about ‘Are you sure you’re not just bi-sexual?’ was followed by the angry shouting matches of the second timeline.
“How long has this been going on?” Dad asked, taking more control of the conversation as I faltered, trying to find the right words. “What exactly is going on? I thought you’d be smarter with your memories; know not to fall into this trap. You said you were married in one of those other times…”
“I was married.” I snapped peevishly. “I was married to Brian!”
“That’s impossible.” Dad snorted. “Two men can’t get married.”
“Yet.” I countered, my brain starting to work again. I calmed my voice as I continued, but I was moving to take the initiative now. “In two decades, a number of countries and even one of our states recognize same-sex marriage. Several states have something called ‘civil unions’ or ‘domestic partnerships’ granting most of the rights of marriage. More states have laws banning such things outright, but the fact remains that in both timelines that reached the 1990’s, the law began to recognize same-sex relationships.”
“That doesn’t change it from being a sin.” Dad said sternly, taking my words at face value, and I actually calmed a bit.
“We can sit here and debate the scriptures all day, if you want.” I told my father and plastered a small smile on my face. “I know we’ve done it a lot in the past. In the end, we usually agree to disagree.”
“I’m not the same man you’ve had the discussion with in the past.” Dad pointed out and I conceded the point with a curt nod of my head. “I’m worried that you might be using your… experience to influence Brian.”
“It’s more like I’m using it to slow him down, just like the first time.” I snorted with a wry smile and saw him do a double-take. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten what it was like to be a horny kid going through puberty. I’m not interested in just getting… some temporary satisfaction. I’m in it for the long run, and so is Brian, but he doesn’t understand yet that relationships take more than the physical. They take a lot of work. Besides, things have just… moved beyond friendship with us.”
“You talk like it’s a normal thing.” Dad said with a frown and I smiled at him, much calmer than I had been a moment before.
“It is a normal thing, working out a relationship.” I countered calmly. “Sure, it’s different when you’ve got two guys, but it’s still two individuals working to become a couple, working to learn how to lead a life together instead of alone.”
“You’re… well, he’s at least too young to know what he really wants.” Dad said firmly. “For Christ’s sake, he’s twelve!”
“In all my lifetimes, I’ve never met someone as stubborn, or as determined, as Brian when it comes to his relationships.” I told my father calmly. “Frankly, every time he’s ever set his sights on me, I never stood a chance. Nor do I really want to push him away. He’s kind, he’s loving, he’s supportive, he’s determined, he has his own drive, and he pushes me to be a better person. With him, I know I can achieve whatever I want, and I know I’m a better person for having him there.”
“But why is he, and you, for that matter, homosexual?” Dad countered with a slightly exasperated sigh. He was a good enough politician that he knew what I’d just stated was my belief, and directly attacking a belief rarely achieved anything besides a lot of arguing.
“Who knows?” I said with a shrug of my shoulders, and before I could continued, Dad held up a finger while reaching into a desk drawer.
“You know in my work I deal with a lot of homosexuals.” Dad said as he pulled out some files and put them on his desk. His gaze met mine as he continued speaking. He was as calm as I was, and he had a determined set to his facial features. “I can imagine what some of the discussion you had with other versions of me were like, but I’m not interested in having that type of discussion with you. Let’s approach this from a logical, maybe even a scientific point of view.”
“Okay.” I said calmly. I had a pretty damn good idea what some of the things he might try to use in this type of argument were going to be, and I began preparing my responses mentally.
“First, in your memories of these other realities, was there ever a proven cause for homosexuality?” Dad asked me, surprising me a bit by going this direction. He couldn’t have known the answer for sure, but if he was guessing there was no proof discovered in the next thirty years, he was right.
“No, there was never a single ‘proven’ cause.” I answered and continued before he could go on with what he had planned. “A lot of studies over the years found probable causes including some genetic indicators, and some pre-natal hormonal factors, and so forth. Just as importantly as finding a ‘cause’, no one has been able to disprove it as something naturally occurring.”
“Okay, that’s fine.” Dad said with a nod when I’d finished. He moved around a couple of files and looked at them before speaking again. “You know that until 1971, homosexuality was classified as a mental illness. Some gay activists managed to convince the APA to change it then, but there are several respected psychologists who are able to treat it, and even able to convert willing homosexuals back to heterosexuality.”
“What do they say causes homosexuality?” I asked, already knowing his answer. It was an adage amongst lawyers to never ask a question to which you didn’t already know the answer, and I preferred to follow it as much as possible.
“A person’s environment, usually.” Dad answered with a slight frown. “A domineering mother, a distant father, sexual or physical abuse. It’s the parent’s fault that it happens.”
“Do you really think you are a distant father?” I asked my father and he frowned even more.
“I worry that what happened in
“These people who are ‘converted’, what exactly do they mean by converted?” I asked him, switching tactics slightly. That answer led down a road that would be futile to travel.
“They live normal, heterosexual lives.” Dad said firmly and shoved a couple of papers across his desk towards me. I looked through them briefly and started laughing softly.
“What do you find so funny?” Dad asked me.
“All three of these men end up divorcing those women and living the rest of their lives as openly gay men.” I answered him with a smile and he frowned at me. “Dad, these so-called psychologists are going to tell you what you want to hear, that through various dubious tactics, and through several downright evil techniques, they can ‘cure’ gay people. The truth is, their techniques don’t work to truly convert people. Eventually, they admit that and change the name to ‘reparative’ therapy and sell it as a way to ‘control’ the gay desires. They teach people to live their lives, hating who they are and trying to ‘control’ the way God made them.
“What do you mean?” Dad said with a confused look on his face. His hands actually trembled as he took the papers I’d thrown back on his desk and put them away in a file.
“Okay, look, the most benign techniques they use teach the patient to turn their thoughts away from their normal desires.” I said quickly, leaning forward slightly and making sure his eyes were locked on me. “First off, they work from the presumption that being gay is a sin, that it is an illness, that it is wrong and that the only, really big stress here on the word ‘only’, way for a person to be happy in life is to overcome their sexuality and to live a life that to them is fake, that is not who they are. They teach them things like imagining a woman every time they get sexually excited by a guy, and other mind games. Those are the benign techniques, and many times all they do is really cause a person more confusion. The other techniques like using electro-shock for aversion therapy, or associating sexual desire with feces and stuff like that can be downright damaging to a person’s mental stability. There’s studies done in the future that show their therapy techniques actually take healthy, mentally stable people and drive them to be depressed and suicidal.”
“If that’s true, why are they allowed to practice?” Dad asked me and I shook my head.
“By the 1990’s, the shock-therapy stuff is largely done away with.” I said with a shrug of my shoulders. “As for why they’re allowed to continue, they are closely associated with various churches and thus able to use the First Amendment, both in Free Speech and Freedom of Religion to defend themselves. Their victims, well they either go to real psychologists for help or they commit suicide, neither of which can be prosecuted back to them.”
“It sounds like you don’t have much love for them.” Dad said with a frown.
“I had a good friend in the first timeline go to one of them.” I said with a shrug of my shoulders and slight shudder at the memory it called up. “After I found him in his apartment, his wrists slit and a very long suicide note about how he couldn’t stand to live a life as ‘unclean’, and how his psychologist, the man who was supposed to help him, had told him that as long as he had gay desires he’d be ‘unclean’, well I did a little investigation. It’s also happened to a few people I know from the other timelines. You, in that timeline, had the honor of trying to patch together the shattered psyche of a young man who’d been tortured with electro-shock therapy against his will.”
“They say they only take patients who are willing…” Dad said vehemently, and almost angrily but he stopped as I shook my head.
“If the patient is under 18, they consider ‘willing’ to be his parents willingly giving him up to their care.” I said. “The will of the child under 18 means nothing and they’ll just go right to the aversion techniques to break his will down.”
“That’s monstrous!” Dad roared. “It’s one thing to help people who are old enough, and willing to make up their minds, but… son you must be mistaken.”
“Give them a call.” I challenged him. “Tell them you just found out your son was having homosexual urges and you wondered if they could admit me to their clinic. Tell them you think I’ll be… unwilling to go along with this. See what they say.”
“I… I…” It was my father’s turn to stutter, and I just raised an eyebrow at him. He sighed, and picked up the phone on his desk. While he placed his call, I leaned back in my chair and prayed that this would work. My father was a canny operator, as he proved with that phone call. Dad didn’t say it was his son, rather the child of a friend of the family, and that the boy’s parents had contacted him for help. When he told the person on the phone that the boy was quite unwilling but his parents wanted him to change, I knew what answer he got from the frown on his face. It took all of my willpower to not smile as he wrapped up the phone call.
“Yes, we’ll talk about it more when we meet next week.” My
father said with a fake cheerfulness in his voice that sounded genuine. I only knew it was fake because of the
grimace on his face. “Yes, we’ll be
meeting at the First Baptist in downtown
I didn’t say anything as he hung up the phone and picked up the files on his desk. For a moment, I thought he was going to tear them up from the way he scowled at them. Instead of tearing them up, he carefully put them back into his drawer, put his hands flat on his desk and took a deep calming breath before meeting my gaze.
“I almost wish you weren’t right.” He told me with a frown. “He was all too eager to tell me that, in that type of case, they start with aversion therapy to break down the resistance of the subject.”
“I wish I wasn’t right as well.” I told him with all honesty. “They tell their patients they can cure them when the best they can hope for is to deny what they truly are, and to hate themselves.”
“I can see that point.” Dad said with a sigh. He gave me a long, penetrating look before shaking his head and sighing again. “I don’t know what to say, son. I still think you’re making the wrong choice, and with the work I’m doing, well, I don’t need to tell you how dangerous it is being gay with this disease out there, do I?”
“It’s no more dangerous for me than anyone else, as long as I’m faithful to one person.” I told him calmly. “This… this relationship with Brian, it’s going to go all the way. I know he’s just twelve, and so am I for that matter, but Dad, we can and we will make it work if you let us.”
“If I let you.” Dad said weakly and I nodded. He closed his eyes for a moment. “I’m meeting with a team of them, and some religious leaders on Tuesday. We were going to give them a government grant in the millions of dollars to help ‘convert’ homosexuals back to heterosexuality. This damn disease is running rampant among homosexuals despite our best efforts. They’re just too promiscuous.”
“You know why that’s so, don’t you?” I asked my father calmly and he shook his head.
“There are two main things that are going on with this.” I told him. “The first is that gay men, well they’re men. How many men do you know who don’t think about sex a lot? I’ll tell you, being seven again was an eye opener for me. I didn’t think about sex hardly at all. It just wasn’t part of me, but now that I’m hitting puberty again, it’s becoming a bigger and bigger part of my every day thoughts. Now society tries to regulate those thoughts, to teach the man that he can’t act on them whenever he wants. Women help with that, a lot, at least through society’s morals where they’re not supposed to be as driven by sex.”
“It’s the same thing as to why prostitution is the world’s oldest profession.” Dad said with a light of understanding forming in his eyes. “If it’s available, if someone’s willing, and sometimes even if they aren’t, men will take the sex wherever they can get it unless they’re taught to believe they shouldn’t.”
“Exactly.” I said with a smile and he nodded for me to continue. “Being gay is a little different, especially in this time. Most people, growing up, are taught to expect that they’ll meet some nice girl, get married, and then start having sex. There’s an expected structure to it. Sure, as teens, there’s more that happens on the sly, and we’re seeing some of the effects of that expectation breaking down now. When you’re gay, though, what kind of expectation is there?”
“Nothing except having sex in the bushes at some park, or in a bathroom, or picking some guy up at a bar, or a bathhouse.” My dad answered the rhetorical question and thereby showing me just how familiar he’d become with the present-day gay community of the bigger cities in this time. “Some people want to settle down, like your Brian’s uncle, but they’re few and far between.”
“Actually, given some encouragement there’s more like that than you could possibly imagine.” I told my father. “The thing is, society isn’t willing to recognize there being any legitimacy to gay relationships yet.”
“That’s not something we can change with the wave of a pen.” Dad snorted incredulously. “If we even made the suggestion, the President and I would be skinned alive by our own Party and the Democrats would have a field day finishing the job. It wouldn’t help any gay people at all.”
“Then don’t push for it yourself.” I told him. “Nudge it along. Whisper the right words into the right ears in the gay community. Let them take up the charge and when the time comes, nod and admit they have a valid point.”
“We can’t recognize gay marriages.” Dad snorted with derision now.
“Call them something else, like civil unions.” I said. “Take any religious aspect out of it, and say that for the good of our society, it’s not something too horrible too contemplate. Be reluctant, don’t push for it, but don’t stand in its way either. Tell them ‘let the states decide’ and let it go from there. Just don’t oppose it. Even if it never passes for the next fifteen years, more and more gay people will catch on to the idea, and they will begin to view being in a steady, monogamous relationship as being the norm for gay people instead of bed-hopping their way through the bars and the party circuit. It’ll take decades, but in time it will make the difference.”
“You’re talking about changing an entire sub-culture.” Dad said with a shake of his head. “It’s not that easy.”
“No, it’s not, but if the effort isn’t made, well I’ve lived through several timelines where this disease runs a very nasty course. How many cases are there right now?”
“Just over one hundred.” Dad said.
“In the Bay Area?” I asked with some alarm and he shook his head.
“Nationwide.” He explained and I smiled.
“That’s far fewer than there should be.” I said calmly. “Of course, right now they should just be thinking of it as a weird epidemic, not even knowing what’s causing it.”
“We’re expecting nearly a thousand cases in the next year.”
Dad said with a frown. “Further,
“In 2004, there were almost two million children infected
with AIDS worldwide, nearly seventeen million women, and twenty-one million
men.” I said with a slightly glazed look as I brought up the memory of those
numbers. “In the second timeline, the
number was about half that. In that
first timeline, over twenty-five million people had died from AIDS between 1981
and 2004. In that year, nearly forty-six
percent of all people worldwide infected with AIDS were women, and in
“Just who the hell do I think I am thinking I can do anything about this?” Dad snorted and his shoulders sagged as tears filled his eyes. “Tell me you’ll never get it…”
“I won’t get it through sex.” I assured him as much as I could. “If I ever need surgery and we don’t have safeguards on the blood supply... well I can’t do anything about that.”
“But I can.” Dad said with a shake of his head. “We haven’t even looked at that aspect of the problem yet.”
“You should.” I told him and he shuddered slightly.
“Son, this thing is too big for me.” He said after a long
silence. “I’m supposed to be meeting
with the French Minister of Health just before Christmas, and at the beginning
of next year I’m going to
“I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather have in that position than you.” I assured him. Yeah, if I thought about it I might be able to come up with some names, but I wasn’t going to say anything about that. Nor would I spend the time thinking along those lines. “Listen to men like Dr. Grayson. He knows what he’s doing, and he’s a man with a lot of good ideas.”
‘The doctor from
“He…I know him from another time.” I explained. “He’s a good man. Listen to him, and to the people he refers you. We don’t need a doctor or a specialist in your position. We need a man who can look at the big picture, assess what people tell him, and who can act on the right bits of information.”
“Plus I have you for advice if I need it.” Dad said and I nodded, committing myself to that role if he really needed the help.
“I’ll be here.” I assured him and he took a deep breath. His gaze was penetrating yet again.
“Okay, this stays between you and I.” Dad said with a note of finality. “As for you and Brian, I’m going to just act like I would if he were a girl, which I don’t know if I’m saying this right… but if you’re going to be that way, at least you’re picking a real man instead of one of those… you know.”
“Yeah, I know.” I said with a slight smile as Dad shuddered. I personally had never been attracted to someone who was effeminate, but neither did it really turn me off, nor did I react quite like my father was right now. If things hadn’t been so serious, I’d have been smiling at that and thinking about trying to get Brian to make his wrist limp every time my father looked at him.
“Okay, well, um, regarding you and Brian.” Dad continued with a slightly glazed look as he pointedly looked at the bookshelves over and behind my head. “I’m going to set the same exact rules I would if you were dating a girl. That means if he ever stays over here, he sleeps in the guest bedroom and I sure as hell better not catch either of you sneaking down the hallway. The same thing goes if you ever stay over at his house. I’m not going to forbid you to see him, but I don’t want to see any… displays of affection inside this house. Do you have a problem with that?”
“No.” I answered calmly. So far, he was being fairer than I had expected.
“Good.” Dad said firmly before taking another deep breath. “I… I don’t want to sound selfish here, but you know I plan on running for election again someday. It’s going to be difficult enough as it is, but having an openly homosexual son wouldn’t make things any easier.”
“Dad, don’t worry.” I said with a slight smile and a sigh of relief. “I have no desire to be open about my relationship with Brian.”
“What about your friends?” Dad asked pointedly.
“They already know, and they’ll keep their mouths shut.” I told him and he shook his head.
“I swear, in my day if my friends had found out…” Dad started to say but his voice drifted off.
“I think most friends even today would have had a hard time dealing with it.” I admitted. “It’s just that well, these guys are special. You don’t find people like them all too often.”
“I guess not.” Dad said with a hint of wonder in his voice. “Anyway, no sleeping together, no displays of affection where I or anyone in the family can see them, and don’t let it become public knowledge if you can help it. Stick to that and we’ll be okay.”
“It’s a deal.” I told my dad who stood up and came around his desk to seal the deal with a brief hug. As he broke the hug, he looked over at the bar in his office and sighed.
“I need a drink.” He said as he moved over to stand at the bar. He looked over at me as he pulled out a decanter of scotch. “You want a shot?”
“I could use one.” I admitted, shocked he’d even offered. He smirked at me, and poured a very small shot into a glass after filling up his own. We saluted each other silently and tossed back the contents of the glass in one gulp.
Nope, I thought to myself as my eyes watered from the strong scotch, this father of mine was like no other I’d ever had.
As with all my stories, E provides immeasurable input, grammar checking, and all those other lovely editing thingies that make the story so much better!
Feedback,
an Author's Lifeblood
| Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 |
| Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | Chapter 11 | Chapter 12 |
| Chapter 13 | Chapter 14 | Chapter 15 | Chapter 16 | Chapter 17 |
