Boys Don't Cry

Boys Don’t Cry ©Charles F. Bell 1512 words

• March 15, 2035 8:53 p.m.

“Don’t cry over this, Homer. Boys don’t cry.”

Chiacona per la lettera B, per cello, chitarra, liuto, organo, cembalo e violone by Giovanni Battista Vitali. One-Two-Three-Four, One-Two, One-Two-Three-Four. Homer, let go. Let go. Homer, let go. Do you not see? You see. Homer, let go.

• March 15, 2035 8:40 p.m.

The young man lays his torso across the old man's chest and throws one arm to other side of the bed as Old Man Max reposes in light darkening and sound quieting. Homer’s long, thick and curly black hair flops across Max’s neck.

Max feels silent sobbing on his chest.

• March 15, 2035 8:30 p.m.

“Homer, fix me the Earl Grey.” The old man sounds so much older than he did a few hours ago. “That ruckus—Machaon. I hope The Doctor appreciates what we did. Should be good for a favor or two. Right, Homer?”

“Yes, Mr. Cortes. I’ll make your tea. Give a few minutes to boil the water. Why don’t you have a microwave?”

“You don’t brew tea in a microwave. Let me sit in my chair. Oh. No, let me have a lie down in bed. Use the bed tray, Homer. Can you do that for me?”

• March 15, 2035 2:15 p.m.

Max puts down his Dewers Smash on the telephone table before he picks up the handset to answer. “Yes.”

“Mr. Cortes, Mr. Cortes, it’s horrible.” Homer begins. “The Templars started it, but the Guerreros are finishing it. You must come! Machaon, son to the Doctor, is hurt, and there is no one—no one—to help. Please come.”

“What can I do? I’ve tried to stop it, but no one will listen to me anymore.”

“You must help Machaon. Please come. Machaon is healer to the Templars, but he is hurt. Please come.”

“What can I do?”

“Your Jaguar—your Jaguar is a tank. You must come. We must take him to be healed, to fix him.”

“It drives like a tank.”

“It’s bulletproof. You said that. You said that when you traded in the Corvette. You said you can’t be too careful these days. Please come.”

“You’re at Skamandros Field?”

“Yes. Yes, at Skamandros, but over to the east and south, among the dead foliage ‘neath the row of Live Oak. We are hidden there, but I will see you in your Jaguar, but you must careful. We are under the flag of the swan that even the Guerreros must respect, but you must be careful. Please come.

“I don’t know what I am doing, but I will come.”

• March 27, 2029

Homer asks Max to listen to the end of his story. “It’s important that you do,” Homer says.

The old wizard sat at the table examining a piece of paper. “Gomer?”

“Yes, Lord Taximilian.”

“What’s that you have behind your back?”

“I will show you after I explain something.”

“What is this insolence? Show me now.”

“This… this chaos outside. The barriers are broken; people hate; people are afraid; people don’t work, don’t want to work, or are forbidden to work. You said you knew where it all came from, but you refuse to do anything about it.”

“Gomer, this is enough!”

Gomer produced his right hand from around his back, a hand bloody and with a knife. “By this dagger unsheathed from magical scabbard she is a corpse, a work of mighty justice.”

“Vermillion? No! Gomer, what have you done?”

“I have done what you said needed to be done.”

“Vermillion was your best friend, a pixie of the Outland, mischievous, sure, but no one you could love more.”

“The balance of the Inland was disturbed, you said.”

“Homer, what is this?” Max interrupts.

“It’s my story. I’ve finished as you would have wanted it.”

“This is all just damn fantasy nonsense.” Max sees a deflated look on Homer’s face and adds, “I mean to say: what does this have to do with anything I said?”

“Choose reason over sentimentality.”

“There’s no reason in fantasy. That’s what makes it fantasy. Fantasy is sentiment. That’s what makes it children’s stories. Or women’s. What I said was that when you grow older you will outgrow childish illusions and know that reason is to be chosen over sentiment. I had hoped to use a pet dog, for example, but your mother won’t let you have one, but the point of that is there might come a time when the dog is old, and you’d have to choose to put her to sleep rather than make her suffer. Sentimentality over her younger, better days does you no good. What you have in your story is some grotesque animal sacrifice.”

“Mom’s better days?”

“What?” Max asks.

“I should put Mom to sleep and not feel sentiment over her younger, better days?”

“Your mother? Oh, I was thinking of a female dog, for some reason.”

“But I wasn’t saying that,” Homer replies.

“Saying what?”

“The Templars believe in sacrifice for the greater good. Cool reason guided by God’s Natural Law.”

“So you did not get this fantasy from me, did you?” Max replies with quiet anger.

“No, Mr. Cortes, I guess I didn’t. There’s nothing the Templars can tell me to do against you.”

“Good,” Max says in finality.

“Isn’t that sentimentality over reason?”

• November 26, 2025 4:00 p.m.

“Where’s Earl Grey, Mr. Cortes?” Homer asks as he sits in the chair, the “guest” chair, next to Max in his leather recliner.

“Ramey moved back to L.A. this past weekend, and I don’t know where he put things.”

“Really? Your tea?”

Ten minutes pass, and Homer returns with a tray with two cups and a teapot under cozy. Homer does not like Earl Grey tea, but he pretends to sip and enjoy. “I’ll miss Ramey.”

“Well, he was good for making tea, but not much else.”

“He cooked everything for you,” Homer says. “What about tomorrow?”

“What about tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving.”

“Yes, there’s that.”

“Come over to eat with me and Mom,” Homer offers.

“Mom and me.”

“You and Mom? No, me and Mom.”

“You are supposed to say Mom and me.”

“Thanksgiving, Mr. Cortes? Mom really likes you.”

“Oh? I’ve met her a couple of times.”

“Each time she said you were ‘pertinacious.’ That’s a really good word, right? I looked it up. It means really relevant. You’re relevant, Mr. Cortes.”

“Sure.”

• March 28, 2020

Dr. Slop takes Max into his office. “I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Yes?”

“You’ve come by for your test results, I’m sure, but I have a favor to ask of you.”

“Okay.”

There’s a nurse at Bethesda I’ve come to like very much who has a son who’s a bit retarded. Well, no, we’re not supposed to say ‘retarded.’ He’s actually not dumb but has an eyesight issue now fixed, and I am guessing he’s dyslexic. The poor boy has to wear Magoo glasses and already the kids make fun of him but rather call him Homer Simpson than Mr. Magoo I suppose because no one sees that cartoon any more but rather The Simpsons still running over three generations, is it?”

“Homer Simpson?” Max asks.

“His name is Homer Ratched.”

“Well, I say ‘Simpson’ is better than ‘Ratched.’ Wait. Nurse Ratched?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. My test results?”

“Test results?” Dr. Slop goes silent for two seconds. “I don’t have those. Probably still in the examination room. I mean to ask you a favor.”

“Okay.”

“That Charter School of yours, can you put Homer in it? Enroll, I mean. I’ll pay the tuition.”

“I’m just an investor,” Max replies. “There’s no tuition, but we’re always looking for interested investors.”

“The money which talks.”

“I’ll see what I can do. My test results? That is what I came here to hear.”

“I’m guessing you’re still alive.”

“You’re a laugh every minute.”

• March 29, 2019

Milly is relieved of the necessary inconvenience of Homer by state law mandating free pre-K education. Milly gently kisses her son on the forehead and sends him off for the day with a Nutella and Kale sandwich that she can never know he eats because the state also mandates free school lunches for children in Homer’s circumstance—her being a per-diem nurse, not well paid, and his being in a single-parent home.

• March 30, 2015

Milly Ratched wants this baby and being a single mother is not a bad thing, even a good thing because she chose to be a mother, and she chose the father and never let that to chance. The father is a med student, blond and blue-eyed, because she wants a son or daughter to be a doctor, too. The odd thing is little Homer is dark-haired and brown-eyed, but Milly supposes there are Jewish doctors, too, so her choice is still a good choice. She thought the moment of conception would be rather like having warm seltzer up in there, slowly dibbled and tingling, perhaps, but it was nothing like that; she did not feel much of anything.