Turner and Turner: One Good Turn
by Amber Green
an excerpt
"Be sensible, Kendall," my mother said in the patient tone that can drive me to a seething rage in three seconds flat. "In the video you are, to put it crudely, tanked."
To put it even more crudely, I'd been tanked enough to let a guy I'd been stupid enough to trust - for a few months anyway - ream my ass until I gave in to his exhortations to squeal like a pig.
The video ended, with a curious delicacy, while I was still just bleating: Ah! Ah!
Helpless noises. An aural demonstration of my pathetic, nonpredatory status. But not as bad as the next moments would have been.
I suspected I had the family's go-to guy to thank for that delicacy. The guy standing behind me, out of sight but never long out of mind. I've beaten off to dreams of Turner Scott since high school.
He'd disappeared the week he graduated, showed up three years later for just long enough to pull my nuts out of the fire, and disappeared again until a few weeks ago - when he'd taken his place at Father's side as if he'd been there all along.
He must have brought this little home movie, must have shown it to my parents and my nauseatingly perfect big brother. Nobody else would have edited it to spare the last cowering molecule of my dignity.
But he could have just pitched it into the river. Jacksonville has so many bridges he had to have crossed at least one to get here. Thinking about that suppressed any hydraulic reaction. Or gratitude, for that matter.
Father clicked off the monitor and folded it flat into its compartment on his mahogany desk. The back was veneered with a copy of the 1609 La Florida map. He rested neatly buffed fingertips on the gleaming wood for a moment, then steepled his fingers and regarded me.
Mother spoke for him. "You must agree to counseling."
I crossed my arms and worked at not digging my fingertips into the cashmere of my jacket sleeves. Unless I went back to accepting an allowance, I couldn't afford to replace the jacket. I could barely afford to clean it. But living poor was better than living with Father, I reminded myself. Father has ten fingertips. Thanks to him, I have nine.
I cleared my throat. "Certainly, Mother. Have you already identified someone willing to help with your unseemly interest in the details of your adult son's sexuality?"
Neither of my parents was capable of turning purple, but eyelids dropped and lips thinned. A white line traced Father's mouth. Score.
In this family, you take what victories you can get. Then you watch for the retaliation.
I paced to the window overlooking the north lawn. Wilson and his temps had stretched colored strings, dug lines of holes, erected lines of poles, moved a perennial bed, and still were nowhere near finished transforming the yard for next week's Autumn Festival for the Arts. Two of the men were bulling up to one another now, bumping chests and generally doing everything but whip out their dicks and a ruler.
Wilson waved a chart at them, one of his detailed blueprints of where every plant and wire belonged in this yard. The largest man snatched the chart from his hand. Wilson decked him.
Not my problem. I leaned one shoulder on the window frame and faced the real predators.
From his sleek desk, Father watched me, waiting for a weakness to evince itself. People considered him Mother's slightly coarse backup, fund-raiser, what-have-you. Most people, of course, were lucky enough not to know him well. I hadn't made the mistake of underestimating him since I was six years old.
Mother in her champagne-tweed suit stood between him and the Louis XV escritoire. Her face would make a Barbie's look like a Greek tragedy mask. She hasn't gone psychotic since the last time someone suggested that mid-November chanced being just a little too cold to be outdoors, even in Florida, and proposed moving the festival from our yard to an indoor setting in Avondale.
Today she ran her fingers along the edge of a discreet lacewood tissue dispenser, then along a rapidly ticking gilt clock presented by some grateful arts faculty somewhere. Agitation. Was she embarrassed by the graphic display? Or was time a problem right now?
The floridly engraved grandfather clock to my left swung its pendulum in slow counterpoint to the gilt clock, one measured kshink for every three gilt ticks. Like a wolfhound and a rat terrier wagging their tails.
Frosted fingernails paused on the tissue dispenser. She was trying to decide whether to try an emotional con job. My sister (strategically absent this afternoon) was immune to that tactic, but we males sometimes reacted as desired.
Sometimes. Wasn't going to happen today.
Her fingers stilled, then fluttered over the clock. "We haven't been snooping, Kendall. This came with a request that boiled down to…blackmail."
Blackmail? Again? But that took balls. Len must have acquired a pair along with his new boyfriend.
I crossed my ankles. "How gauche. Turn, of course, has taken care of the matter. Did you break his kneecaps, Turn? Or just explain how easily you could?"
Mother's lips thinned again. She referred to him as Scott. My calling him anything else came under the heading of being difficult.
She'd explained to Dean and me the concept of a shirttail relative when Turn first appeared in our lives, and she'd tried to have his name changed. One of her few failures. Whatever Father might see in Turn, Mother would never forgive him for daring to exist.
Much less for besting Dean in at least half their competitions.
She tapped the lacewood box. "Think of mice, Kendall. If you see one, you know more are hiding close by. We cannot assume this is the only recording. We must take preemptive action: A few weeks of inpatient therapy - in a nice, open setting, of course - then a few weeks of intensive outpatient therapy. I am told this is the accepted standard. Afterward, you can do volunteer work, helping others as you were helped."
The gilt clock ticked rapidly. Open setting. Open setting. Open setting.
I blinked, but couldn't hear ticking - just the impossible words. The carrot. A facility that promised I would never be locked in a small, bare room without a generous blood level of chemical placidity. The stick would be a less-open facility.
Of course, none of them are all that open once you get inside.
Mother smiled without deepening a single wrinkle. "We have it all arranged."
All arranged. Including the media packages, no doubt.
A semester of my life, if not a year. How twisted would my mind get before I could convince those people I was happy and straight enough to be let loose on society?
When I was finally free, the only graduate program willing to let me resume my studies would be one where the department head owed the size of his/her paycheck to annual gifts from the Turner Trust. Graduating with credentials like that would sooo enhance my job prospects.
I could hear the toilet gurgling now.
I glanced at the only door, now flanked by my brother and Turn. They looked like light and dark paint jobs on the same model. Dean was sandy blond, like me, but had Turn's heavy shoulders and ripped musculature. They both had the deep-set, silver-blue eyes that looked down from Father's portrait, and his father's portrait. They'd competed in love, academics, athletics - in every possible way - until Turn's disappearance.
I remembered hiding on the garage roof that night, watching while he loaded his computer, a manila folder thick with papers, and an armload of clothing into Mick Wheeler's Cherokee. I remembered wishing I were older than fourteen, so I could leave with him. The next day, nobody knew where he'd gone.
Father had forbidden anyone to trace him. "He's a Turner, after all. Give him a little independence, a chance to mature. He'll have the sense to come back."
I'd gotten very drunk the night I found out Father was right.
Now he and Dean stood like bookends, a team. Between me and the door.
Dean couldn't pin me without a fight. Dean and Turn together could duckwalk me anywhere they wanted, without wrinkling their suits.
I hoped my suit would hide my sweat. In some socioeconomic strata, a man can make a fool of himself without his family being able to do a thing about it.
My family, however, made arrangements.
Unless I agreed to whatever had been decided, I was to be declared a danger to myself or others. I was to go away for what used to be called a little rest, and was to emerge heroically humbled: the prodigal eager to help other unfortunates.
Did that mean other gays or other drunks? Drunks, I decided. Drunks have less of a voting bloc. Drunks don't organize nasty publicity campaigns. Either way, the prospect sucked.
Sweat tickled along my spine, prickled in the small of my back. I held my breath for five heartbeats and released it over the course of ten heartbeats before I looked at Father. "Have you ever considered the consequences of going too far with your arrangements? Have you ever wondered where I would draw the line?"
He looked back blandly. "Have you ever wondered where I would?"
A cold droplet inched down my spine. How much could they do to me? My shortened pinkie finger throbbed in memory. "I appear to have worn out my welcome. Good night, all."
I swung my weight off the window frame and headed toward the door, as if oblivious to the two big men who could take one step apiece and block it.
My brother took that step.
My heart thudded; storm clouds pulsed in my eyes.
Turn raised one stop-sign hand and looked past me to the hereditary units. "Let me take him for a drive. We can talk on the way."
My brother frowned, looking at me and then past me. This wasn't in the script. I held my breath, and my position. The units behind me would be communicating with their eyes. Nothing I could say or do would improve matters.
I had to get out of here. Away from them.
I held still, breathing by the numbers as sweat ate through my antiperspirant.
Turn's shining silver gaze fixed over my shoulder, either monitoring or taking part in the Eyeball Telegraph.
Out of here! Out of here! ticked the gilt clock.
Wait, said the old one. Time it right.
Dean's phone buzzed against his Italian leather belt. He started.
I snatched open the door and hit a jog, fear winning over dignity.
Father spoke. "Take care of him."
He meant me.
I ran.
The driveway's pea gravel crunched under my kidskin oxfords and under the shoes of a single follower. I saw the image we would make in manga style, pictured myself turning to confront my follower, and snorted. I could outrun either of them, but my two years (on and off) of tai chi lessons didn't exactly equal their six-plus years of fierce dojo competition.
Wilson stopped in my path, chart in one gloved hand and a bright yellow cement bag poised jauntily on his shoulder. He sidestepped.
At the same time, I sidestepped - to the same side.
I play soccer. I constantly dodge guys who want to tackle me. Why am I square-dancing with this lunk?
I tacked left and Wilson quick-stepped out of my way. He wasn't as stupid as he looked.
I sprinted past him, heading for the line of parked vehicles beyond the garage: Dean's new truck and Turn's gleaming Lincoln and my secondhand Kia.
The brief dance had cost me. A shadow's head bobbed at the level of my shadow's knees.
He'd get me when I stopped to open the car door. Luckily, I had keyless entry. I clicked the Unlock button on my key tab.
The headlights didn't flash, meaning the lock didn't open.
I clicked again, cursing the dying battery. Cursing myself for not having replaced it this morning. Yesterday morning. Hell, on Monday after standing for ten minutes in the rain outside the Turner Lab at school, clicking until the locks popped open.
They popped just as I reached the door.
Weight slammed me against the car. My breath gushed out, and I saw stars.
The weight rolled to the side. I clung to the cold metal, trying to breathe.
Turn pulled me off the car and tight against him, like I was his teddy bear to hug - a stunningly intimate gesture. He'd die if he knew.
He didn't spare me a glance, though, as he took the key from my hand and muscled past me to the driver's seat. His silver-blue Turner eyes roved left and right, tracing the horizon. "Go around. I have to drive, KT. Don't argue."
He hadn't left me breath to argue with. I dashed around to the passenger side and fumbled with my seat belt.
He took it out of my hands and clicked it for me. He wasn't driving me to any mental hospital; instinctively, I knew that.
He was in combat mode for some other reason. Something had happened. Something bad.
"Lower your seat, KT. All the way. Hold your head below the window. No, you're too tall - looks suspicious. Got a cap? Put it on. Tell me you haven't defused your air bags."
My passenger seat didn't raise or lower. Only the driver's seat did. This wasn't a limo. The back right window was a piece of Plexiglas Len had cut and installed for me. "I'm lucky to have working air bags. Why would I mess with them?"
"Good. Cap."
While reaching into the back for my cap, I saw him pull a remote from his pocket. "Dude, we're way out of range for the gate ope -"
The gate was sliding aside. Did Father know Turn could do that? Dean didn't know, or he'd insist on a high-powered remote of his own - and Dean would not have resisted showing it off to me. I took a breath. "What's happened, Turn? Who called just now?"
"They've already found Leonard Stewart's body."
Body? I sat up. No fucking way! Len can not be dead.
I thought of my parents' tenseness, their too-calm faces, and Dean's visible jumpiness. Yes, way.
Then I saw red. "You killed Len? For what? For fucking me?"
He flicked me a glance. Amused. The fucker was amused!
"I take it the outrage means you didn't do the job on him either. So, if you were a detective instead of a budding ethnobotanist, whatever that is, who would be your prime suspects?"
Me. I'd be second in line behind his current boyfriend until someone found out about the blackmail. When that came out, I'd jump to the head of the line. But I'd bring along Turn, the man who'd beaten the living shit out of the last pair of guys who'd tried to blackmail the units over me.
My vision contracted to a tunnel, me to him. He hadn't actually denied killing Len. He'd been gone a long time. Had he needed a strong show of loyalty to win back his place at Father's shoulder?
"Right. You and me," he said, although I hadn't voiced my thoughts. "We need to get out of the immediate arrest-zone and give the processes a while to work. Then, when the lawyers say it's safe, we can voluntarily go by the police station for questioning."
Processes. One end of the machine opens to let people voluntarily walk in. The other end shits sausage links. Don't ever ask what happens in between.
The tunnel threatened to close in on me. I'd been jailed once, overnight, though the rest of the guys from the party were bonded out within an hour. When I'd called for help, Father told me I'd get a lot of growing up done in one night behind bars.
I guess it depends on how you define growing up.
I've had three surgeries to reduce the scars. People say the remaining lines look like premature wrinkles. Trust me - they don't. Most of my right cheek is still numb. I'd taught myself to eat and enunciate as though nothing had happened, but I couldn't fully pucker my lips.
Tunnel vision wasn't going to help. I did breathing exercises, mental tai chi, until I could see. Good thing Turn had the wheel. Moss-draped live oaks and 1920s-era houses make San Marco a scenic neighborhood to drive in, but too many drivers here like to keep one foot on the gas and the other on the dotted centerline.
Turn threw me a glance. "You okay, KT?"
"Define okay." I hadn't dropped into a blind panic. Which might have surprised everyone. One could almost think the units had choreographed that scene to tip me over.
"They said you go into fight-or-flight mode at the drop of a hat these days."
I shivered. So that scene had been choreographed to send me off the deep end. Why? And by escaping it had I jumped from the barbed wire into the quicksand?
For a murder charge, they can hold you until trial. Especially if you have a record of not showing up for a hearing - even if you were heavily sedated in a hospital at the time of that hearing.
Even with a lawyer, things can go wrong. Even with parents desperate to get you out, which I couldn't be guaranteed of, the processes can take too long.
I finished a cycle of slow breathing before I spoke. "We are fucked."