Cop Out

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2There was a smattering of applause as Jake took off his glasses and shoved them into the breast pocket of his jacket.

“Thank you, Dr. Handley, for your very interesting paper on the Jarrow March and its lingering effects on British popular culture. I found your use of the memoirs of some of the Jarrow participants particularly effective.” The moderator turned to the group. “Are there any questions?”

After Jake fielded a couple of questions and listened to a self-serving comment or two, the moderator declared the meeting adjourned and most of the attendees trooped off for lunch. A few remained behind to chat with Jake about his presentation. When he decently could, he went back to his room, where he used the bathroom, changed into jeans and a sport shirt, grabbed his valise and went to the lobby of the conference hotel. After checking out, he jumped into his rental Sebring convertible, put the top down, and got onto Kennedy Blvd. At Willow Avenue he took the Cross Town Expressway to its end in Brandon, where he stopped for lunch. Then he continued east on State Road 60.

As he drove through the flat pasture land, punctuated occasionally by small towns, he thought back to his high school days when he and Doug Curtis had been boyfriends. Dougie had been adorable with his light brown hair and dark brown eyes, his thin, wiry body. They’d thought at the time they’d spend their lives together. But they’d both left Tampa for the North, gone to different colleges. Though they’d remained in touch with the occasional letter and more recently by email and telephone, they hadn’t seen each other since Doug’s parents had been killed a few years back and Jake had flown to Tampa for the funeral.

Now Doug was living with a lawyer. He’d given up teaching and was helping his partner in the law practice. They’d bought a big old house and were having fun fixing it up, Doug had told him. Doug sounded happy on the phone, and Jake was happy for him. He was looking forward to seeing his old friend again and to meeting Stan.

About an hour and a quarter after he left Brandon, he pulled into the driveway of a big old two-story frame house on Lakeside Blvd. in Lake Polk. He noticed that all the windows of the house were open. He’d barely gotten out of the Sebring when Doug came through the front door, across the wrap-around porch and down the steps.

“Jake,” he said, his arms open, “it’s so great to see you!”

Jake held out his arms, and the two embraced. Then Doug gave him what started to be a perfunctory peck on the lips and turned into a little more than that. Just a little.

“Dougie, it’s so good to see you. How are you? How’s Stanley?”

“Come on in.” Doug put his arm around Jake’s shoulder and walked him to the door. They had to separate to get through the doorway.

“Have you had your lunch?”

“Yeah, I stopped in Brandon and grabbed a burger.”

“How about some iced tea?”

Jake grinned. “I’m surprised you didn’t say sweet tea. That’s what we always called it.”

“They still do. But Stan has to watch his carbs now, so we make it without sugar. We’re using Splenda these days. But you can have all the sugar you want in yours.”

“I’d love the tea, but I’ll have Splenda in mine, too. So where’s Stan? At work?”

Doug sighed. “Yeah, he’s still at the office. ‘Scuse me a minute and I’ll get the tea. If you need to use the lav, there’s one off the entryway.”

A few minutes later they were on the big porch, sitting in rocking chairs and sipping their tea. The view of Lake Polk was perfect. It was as if no time had passed since he and Doug were high school lovers. Neither of them had come out back then. That didn’t happen until they were both in college. But they’d been as intimate as two men can be throughout their last two years of high school in Tampa. And they’d fooled everyone.

They’d stayed in touch through the intervening years, keeping up on each other’s lives. Doug had been an English professor at Cranmer College, not all that far from Colby State, until he’d retired. They’d been caught up in their careers and their various lovers, feeling guilty that they hadn’t seen each other more often.

When Doug’s parents had been killed in an accident, Doug had taken early retirement from Cranmer and moved to Lake Polk, where he’d met Stan, his partner. Jake had heard there’d been some sort of unpleasantness at Cranmer which helped Doug make up his mind to leave the profession, but he’d never wanted to ask.

“You sighed when you said Stan was at work. Is there a problem?”

“Not really. He’s just a workaholic. Most of his clients are low-income people, so he’s not making any money on his practice. It’s a good thing we’re not hurting for money. But he throws himself into the work just as he does everything.”

“Did you tell me once that you were helping him?”

“As much as I can. I’ve been learning by doing. Most of the standard legal forms are on the computer, so I can get those filled in, printed out, and ready. I usually answer the phones, schedule appointments, see that he gets to court on time when necessary, and things like that.”

Jake sipped his tea and enjoyed the view of the lake. A stately great blue heron was wading slowly along the shore. Two cormorants were drying their wings in a tree near the water. He felt as if he were home. He could have drifted off, but he remembered his friend, his host.

“Doug, do you feel as if you’ve wasted your education, all that scholarship, just basically being Stan’s paralegal?”

“Nope. No way! For one thing, this old house is almost a full-time job. It was a mess when we bought it. Now it looks pretty good. And you’ll get the tour after a bit. Besides that, I’ve almost finished another book.”

“Biography? Criticism? Literary history?”

Doug grinned. “Promise you won’t laugh.”

Doug’s grin was as appealing as ever. Jake remembered Doug as being quiet, shy. But his smile in high school, as now, was sweet and sexy.

“It’s a novel.”

“Really? That’s interesting. Want to tell me about it?”

“Maybe later. Let’s get your things up to your room, and I’ll give you the tour. So I can brag about my skills hanging drywall and useful stuff like that.”

Suddenly emanating from Doug’s pocket was the principal theme from the first movement of Beethoven’s “Emperor Concerto.” Jake smiled, recalling that in music appreciation they’d put the words You can ride in my red wagon to that melody in order to remember it.

“Oh, excuse me a minute,” Doug said. He pulled his cell out of his pocket and opened it.

“Hey, how’s the hottest lawyer in the county?” He chuckled. “Okay then, in all of Florida.” Pause. “He’s here. We’ve just been having some tea.” He listened for a minute and then chuckled again. “I won’t promise anything. He’s still as hot as ever. If you’re concerned about my virtue, you’d better get your studly ass here and protect me.”

Jake had never met Stan, though they’d talked on the phone occasionally. He was curious to see the guy who obviously made Doug so happy.

After getting the tour of the house, Jake said, “Dougie, I never would have guessed you were so good at DIY stuff.”

“Neither would I, but it’s been fun learning, and it’s satisfying, you know? At the end of the day you can see just what you’ve accomplished.” He grinned. “Of course, when you’ve knocked out a wall, the results sometimes aren’t too pretty.”

Just then they heard the screen door downstairs close. “There’s my guy.”

“I didn’t hear a car pull up.”

“Oh, he walked. His office is just a couple of blocks away on Center Street. You passed it when you came in from Highway 60.”

Stan Mason didn’t look like the stereotypical image of the lawyer. No three piece suit. No suit, in fact. His muscular body nicely filled out the red short-sleeve polo shirt and khakis he was wearing. He was shorter than Jake and Doug, perhaps 5’9”, with short, curly hair.

Jake held out his hand to Stan, who brushed it aside, grabbed Jake, and kissed him. It was a lot hotter kiss than the one he’d gotten from Doug.

“Woohoo,” Jake said. “Now there’s a welcome to Lake Polk!”

Doug said, “You’ll have to forgive him. I need to hit him with a rolled-up newspaper sometimes.”

The three talked until it began to get dark. At some point the tea had been replaced with Sapphire and tonic. Jake thought he might feel awkward around Doug and his current—and apparently permanent—lover, but Stan was relaxed and charming.

“Anybody hungry?” Doug asked.

“Sweetie, I’m always hungry, as you know.”

“I’ve done all the prep, but supper won’t fix itself.”

The ground floor of the house had obviously been extensively remodeled. Apart from the half bath Jake had used earlier and a closet adjacent to it, the rest was all simply a great room with a living area, an eating area, and a spacious kitchen.

Jake was handed a glass of pinot noir and told to sit at the table while Stan and Doug turned preparing supper into a graceful ballet. They both loved to cook, Stan said, and they usually did it together.

“Yeah, except when he is working late or up in Tallahassee or somewhere,” Doug said.

Stan stopped what he was doing and gave Doug a quick kiss. “Yeah, and then when I come home my very own tame Florida boy has a scrumptious meal waiting for me.”

“Flatterer!” Doug said, swatting Stan’s butt.

During supper, Stan asked Jake how the paper had gone that morning.

“Oh my God,” Doug said. “I’m sorry, Jake. I should have asked about that first thing.”

And so supper passed. The three talked until after midnight, when Jake, trying to stifle a yawn, excused himself. He had to get up early to get back to Tampa International, turn in the Sebring, and catch his flight back to Detroit.

* * * *

As he drove to Tampa the next morning he felt lonely. He’d pretty well gotten over Sandy’s death. After all, it had been eight years. And their relationship was getting to be a bit strained even before that. Sandy, who was five years younger, was, Jake suspected, beginning to feel the itch. Nevertheless, he still missed having a partner, someone in the place to chat with, cook with, and sleep with. He and Digs, who’d been great after Sandy died, had tried the partner thing for a while, but it didn’t work. Seeing his old friend and his lover together reminded Jake of what he didn’t have. Had never really had, despite all the men who’d come and gone in his life.

So it was partly from a lifetime’s habit and partly from his intensified sense of being alone that he paid particular attention to the good looking man in the seat next to him on the plane. Mid-fifties. Nice green eyes. Jake suspected the guy wore contacts. How many guys that age didn’t need some sort of help for their eyes? A couple of inches over six feet. He wore his black hair short, almost a crew cut, and there was just the beginning of a bald patch in the back (though no sign of recession in the front).

Except for the short haircut, nothing about Jim Grant, for that was his name, suggested he was a policeman, a detective. He could have been a banker or lawyer. And Jake was most surprised that the guy had been listening to Franck on his headset. Imagine, a cop who loved classical music! Colby’s own Inspector Morse!

The Tampa-Detroit flight had passed quickly as the two visited. Jake’s gaydar, such as it was, binged lightly from time to time, but other than that, Grant lived alone, he had no solid information at the end of the flight to suggest his seatmate was gay. But gay or not, Jake decided he’d like to know the man better. He was disappointed when Grant refused his offer of a ride back to Colby. But he was impressed that the Colby P. D. had sent a car to pick him up.

It was a beautiful late October day. Most of the leaves had fallen, but a few of the trees still had brightly colored leaves which glowed in the late afternoon sunshine. He was relieved to be back. Conferences like the one he’d just attended were a professional necessity, but not something he enjoyed. It had been good, though, to see Doug and to meet Stan. Thinking about them, however, he felt that pang again. He found his teaching fulfilling. And he had music, his passion. He went to most of the concerts on campus, traveling occasionally to Detroit or even Cleveland to hear their orchestras. But there was always that emptiness, that need…