twenty-something

True North | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Conclusion

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It was the summer before his junior year of high school. Ollie was fifteen -- sixteen in a week -- and the only thing on his mind was getting his Driver's License. He spent his summer evenings at hockey practice; his summer days watching TV, playing on the Internet, and baby-sitting Henry, then eight years old.

In the living room, Ollie sat in front of a fan, half-watching in Days of Our Lives, when Henry came in the house. The boy walked slowly, deliberately, over to his brother and stood in front of the TV.

"Move," Ollie commanded.

He didn't budge. He stared towards his brother, but didn't seem to be looking at him.

"Why are you such a little freak?"

Henry walked over to his brother and tugged on his shirt. The boy was completely silent and in shock.

Ollie immediately got up off the couch, his tone completely transformed. "Henry, what's wrong?

Henry continued to pull on Ollie's clothes, and led him out of the house without a word. On the back porch, Mike, Henry's best friend, was sobbing.

"What is going on? Is Mike hurt?"

"No," Henry said. "Just come with me." These were the only words he would speak for the rest of that day.

Henry led him into the woods. Once they made it past the wall of willow trees, Ollie knew what his brother needed to show him.

In the distance, he saw some alien shape hanging off of True North. It dangled, and swung back and forth a bit, though there wasn't even a hint of wind.

As they got closer, Ollie realized what the shape was -- it was a person, a man, and he was strung up to the tree house by his neck. With that realization, Ollie broke free of Henry's grip and ran towards the treehouse.

When he was about fifteen feet away, he finally looked at the man's face.

It was his father.

Ollie pressed his mother for answers after the police, the reporters, and the body were all gone from their property. She insisted that his father's death had been an accident, but Ollie wasn't stupid. He asked her incessantly for the note - he knew there had to be one - and finally, instead of denying its existence, his mother let slip, "You're too young to read it."

It was the day of the funeral. The widow June North held a reception at their house for family and friends. Ollie, forced to wear a suit he usually hated but unphased by it, dodged the family's priest -- they were Catholic then -- and avoided his uncles and cousins of his father's side, the True Norths of the family.

Using the reception as a distraction, Ollie snuck into his parents' bedroom and searched for the note. He knew that she must have kept it. The same masochistic need that drove him to find it had forced her to keep it.

He looked in her dresser drawers, in the nightstand, under the pillows -- finally, he found it between the mattress and the box spring.

There were three envelopes. One addressed to June, one to Henry, and one to --

There it was. A plain white envelope with one word written on it, printed in his father's handwriting --

He imagined taking the note out, unfolding it, and reading it over. It began:

I know what you are, Oliver.

He chose not to continue the thought. He knew he could not make his father into a monster, despite his best efforts. It would've been much easier to mourn a father he hated -- who'd hated him -- but David North, calm, kind, and appropriately stern, was a good man and a good father.

In his mind, he opened the letter again. This draft read:

I love you, Oliver. I'm so sorry.

It offered no explanation, just an apology. Ollie knew it wasn't his fault, despite his Catholic conscience and attraction to self-blame. He knew it was money or marital problems, perhaps both. Or a hidden depression that finally overcame his father. Or it could've been a secret life that David had kept well-hidden from his family, a secret so big it drove him to suicide. The boy chose not to speculate any further.

He started crying for the first time since he found his father's body. He sat on the edge of his parents bed, the envelopes still in his hand, and sobbed.

He couldn't bring himself to actually read the note. Not then. Not ever.

Ollie passed the tree, with Chris, as they strolled through the woods, wasting time before dinner. The hour or so that Chris has been at the North house had gone smoothly. His family greeted the new addition warmly, especially James, sniffing and licking, welcoming him to their home. Both his mom and Henry had been quite friendly and uncharacteristically normal. The four of them easily slipped into a conversation standing in the kitchen as June finished the meal. Ollie had brought his boyfriend home for Thanksgiving and it was no big deal. This was too much for him, and he had to escape from the house with his gay lover, lest it become too mundane.

There was something about having Chris there with him, at his home, in Vermont, out in the back woods, that made Ollie swell with guilt. Everything was going well, but he still felt awful about bringing him there. But still, it was a surprise to Ollie when, no long into their walk, he found himself blurting out: "My dad didn't die in a fire."

They stopped walking. Chris looked puzzled.

As detached as he could be, he revealed: "He killed himself. My dad killed himself."

Ollie gazed down at the ground, kicking around some dead leaves and pine needles. "I don't talk about it. We don't talk about it. My family, I mean. But I wanted to tell you, so you would know." He had planned to stop there, but he didn't. He found himself talking, about his father, about True North, about times before and after his death. He delivered a monologue for ten full minutes, never once pausing, never once looking at Chris. The whole time, he still stared down, relieved, overwhelmed, closer to the verge of tears than he'd been in ages. "I didn't mean to lie. I just didn't know how to--"

"Its OK, Ollie." Chris touched his boyfriend's arm, forcing him to look up, his eyes were filled with the threat of tears. And in the aftermath of truth, Ollie saw in his face, for once, no pity for him -- just compassion. Chris led him to a fallen tree nearby and, in the crisp autumn air, they sat, holding gloved hands in silence for a long while.

"Ollie," Chris finally said, "I have something to -- something to say." Ollie looked up at him, curiously. Chris immediately faltered. "Shit. This is so not the right time for this."

"For what?"

Chris ignored the question, and began talking to himself. "But there's never going to be right time, a perfect moment, is there?"

"What?" Ollie was puzzled.

His hand toyed with something inside his jacket. "I'm so bad with this kind of stuff."

"What are you--? Are you -- breaking up with me?"

"What?"

"Oh, God. You are. You're dumping me. On Thanksgiving."

"No! God no, Ollie! I'm not breaking up with you! I want to ask you to, um, to --" He dropped whatever he was fumbling with in his jacket. "Shit!"

Chris quickly fells to his knees and frantically searched for what he had dropped. He found it and hid it in his palm before Ollie could see what it was.

He shifted. On one knee, he looked up at Ollie. Suddenly serious, suddenly confident, Chris revealed the contents of his hand.

It was a ring.

On their way out of the woods, they kissed, under the willow trees, behind the house. Not far from True North. But far enough.

True North | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Part Seven

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The cart was a good one, new. It didn't have a squeaky or crooked wheel, and it glided around the store without a single jerk or sound. Ollie cursed his luck for picking the one uninteresting, non-defective cart in the supermarket.

His mother needed cranberry sauce, marshmallows, french-fried onions, milk, and wine. She's asked him to go alone, but he begged for company, afraid to return to the place he'd slaved away at for four years during high school and early college. He always felt something between pride and guilt when he returned to the store. He worried that, in their eyes, he was the big, bad college boy, returning to rub his success in the noses of the lifers and high school kids.

Ollie lazily pushed the cart behind his mother, as she slowly browsed the shelves of silver cans with colorful labels. She quickly placed a can of green beans in the basket, and with her back to him once again, said, "So Henry tells me you're thinking of marrying Chris."

He stopped the cart immediately, in the middle of the aisle. She kept walking, browsing the shelves.

"You two plan this? He said you'd said the same thing."

"That's funny."

"Hilarious."

"Well, are you?"

"Mom, I am not having this conversation while we shop for marshmallows."

"We've already got marshmallows, honey. Now we're onto the cranberry sauce."

He couldn't do much else but sigh. "Why do you always do this?"

"Don't be such a Drama Queen, Oliver." It was her new word. She'd used it exactly three times since she'd picked him up at the bus station. She must've started taking notes while watching Will and Grace. Watching that and Rosie O'Donnell were his mother's idea of supporting his homosexuality. She liked Ellen, too -- both of her sitcoms -- before she was cancelled. "The grocery store's as good a place as any to have a heart-to-heart."

She was into having important conversations in odd places. Some people get off on having sex in the kitchen or in public; Ollie's mother liked to air revelations in places where people were likely to catch them. Sometimes she was nonchalant. Other times she was intense. She was always embarrassing.

"Not right now, mom," he said. "We'll talk about this later."

As if he'd planned it, they were interrupted by the store's intercom. "Attention shoppers," someone announced. "The store will be closing in fifteen minutes at one o'clock. At this time, please make your final selections and bring them to the front registers. Thank you, and happy Thanksgiving."

"Shit. It's almost one?" Ollie said.

"Well, that's good. Should get back home anyway. The turkey's in the oven, and I don't trust your brother to watch it."

"Chris is going to be here any minute!"

He ran for the wine and she grabbed some frozen peas. They met at the front and then stood in silence, impatient in the long checkout line. Ollie avoided eye contact with the familiar faces that worked there. He picked up a copy of TV Guide and flipped past the bright, glossy pages right to the ugly, newsprint program listings. For some reason, just as he noted a Thanksgiving marathon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, he started talking to her again.

"I am thinking about it, mom." He threw the magazine on the belt with the groceries.

"Thinking about what, honey?" she said, barely glancing up from her issue of some women's mag.

"Marrying him. Asking him to marry me. Civil Union me. Whatever."

She looked up, a blank stare, then threw the magazine on the belt with the TV Guide. Her face filled with emotion as his revelation sunk in.

"I'm thinking about it --just thinking --but I --"

"Oh, Oliver," she gushed. She hugged him tight. "I didn't think you were actually -- oh, this is so exciting!"

As they both became aware of their surroundings, and the eyes of their fellow customers, their hug grew awkward and loose.

"I'm so--so--" she stumbled.

"I know."

"Oh, damn it. I forgot the milk." She broke their embrace and ran off towards the dairy cooler.

True North | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Part Six

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He was six when his father built the tree house. During the sweltering month of July, young Ollie spent his days with his pregnant mother -- at the local pool, the air-conditioned supermarket, or at the doctor's office -- and his evenings and weekends in the woods with his father. Ollie would play and pretend to help while his dad worked away up in the tree.

Ollie wandered off one day, not far from the construction site. He played under the willow trees, which formed a wall between their back yard and the woods. He played with sticks and rocks, and sang to himself.

He was poking around with a stick, exploring, when he discovered the thing under the tree.

The beast, with mangy fur and beady eyes, starred up at him. A blank stare. The squirrel was covered in blood and still. Ollie knew it was dead.

He dropped his stick and ran back towards the tree house.

"Dad!" Ollie cried up to him. "Dad! There's a -- a thing, in the willows!"

"A thing?"

"A dead thing. A squirrel."

His father came down from the tree and scooped the boy up into his lap.

"Dead things can't hurt you, Ollie. It's just a squirrel. It probably died -- probably died for a reason."

The boy asked questions, about the squirrel, about death. David did his best to answer. As soon as his father stopped talking and took him off his lap, Ollie began to whimper some more. He couldn't help it. "Can we bury it, dad?"

"Come on, Ollie," his father said. Ollie tried to remember the voice as angry or frustrated. But he knew, as always, it was calm and firm. "It's just a dead squirrel. Toughen up, OK? Be a True North."

True North. He'd heard the expression countless times in his youth, and it always made him giggle. The words had a silly sound when strung together, and their meaning eluded him. He didn't know what a True North was, aside from being the name of his grandfather's fishing boat. He knew it had some deep, serious meaning, a proud meaning held dear by all the men in the North family. But Ollie always knew, before and after he was six years old, that he never was, nor never could be, a True North.

He stopped crying as soon as his father used that dreaded phrase. He pulled the bottom of his t-shirt up, wiped his eyes and nose, watching his father climb back up into the tree. He examined his father's face, clenched and sweaty, as he pounded nails into the fort.

It was in that moment that he decided - for his grandpa, his father, and his unborn little brother - to name his tree house "True North."

True North | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Part Five

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"Shift, Henry," Ollie said firmly, trying to remain calm and patient as the car began to buck wildly. "Come on now, shift. Shift. Shift!"

Just as he was about to lose his cool, the car stalled. The brothers' heads jerked forward and then back, and then all was still and quiet inside the vehicle.

Ollie took a deep breath. He looked out the window and briefly around the abandoned parking lot. No one was around to see, except the skeletal trees, left naked in the dead November air. He turned on the heat, and then turned to his brother.

"That was... OK," was all he could think to say.

Henry sighed. "Thanks."

"I really think you're getting the hang of standard. We may not get it down today, but by the end of the weekend."

Ollie knew the boy was frustrated. His plain, handsome face was seemingly expressionless, but Ollie could read it. "You'll get it," he assured him.

"I know. Eventually." He shrugged. "Thank God you're here to teach me, Ollie. Mom's so fucking neurotic. We tried this once, and we about killed each other."

"You never want Mom to teach you how to drive. I went out with her once, and that was about my fill. Dad was a much better --"

He caught himself and couldn't finish. Henry immediately looked up, and their eyes caught each other briefly. Henry looked away quickly, but Ollie still stared.

"How's Boston?" Henry mumbled.

"Don't change the subject. We're teaching you how to drive here," he said lightly. He paused for a minute, to regroup. "Boston's great. Did Mom tell you I got a job? Teaching art at a school down there."

"Yeah. She said it's at Chris's school."

"Yeah, it is. And I'm not going there because of him. It's just a perk."

"Are you going to marry him? Mom seems to think you are."

Flustered, Ollie completely forgot about their driving lesson. "I-I don't know. Where'd she get that idea?"

"I don't know. She just said."

"You know I'd tell you something like that."

"I know. Well, I figured."

They were sharing a moment, and Ollie knew he couldn't let it pass, not without saying what he felt he needed. "Regardless of me and Chris, I'm never going to be that far, but--" He examined his brother. "Mom's a strong lady, but she still needs your help. I know she appreciates all that you do. I do too. You're the man of the house now." He realized how foolish he sounded only after the words escaped.

"Oh, come on. Lay off."

"I'm serious. You're a good kid, and I'm proud of you."

Henry blushed. "Shut up."

"God, I sound like an Afterschool Special. But you know I love you, kiddo."

"Don't go all queer on me now, Ollie," he joked.

Ollie pretended to take offense. "Hey!"

"Oh, wait. Too late."

"Well, you little prick, are you ready to learn to drive?"

Instead of answering, Henry started the engine. He muttered, "Love you too."

True North | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Part Four

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Ollie met Chris two years earlier. At the end of their first date, Chris walked Ollie home. "This is my stop," Ollie had announced. He hoped he sounded cute and playful, but he really felt reluctant for the night to end. They'd met that afternoon for coffee, which stretched into dinner (Ollie's treat), which segued into a long walk around the city. The two men gazed at each other as they stood outside of Ollie's dorm. Ollie's heart wasn't the only thing that swelled as he stared at the beautiful senior and fantasized about kissing him. He was desperately nervous, and afraid that he was reading the seemingly mutual flirtation wrong. Ollie blurted out a suggestion - "Let's do this again." - to which Chris quickly followed up - "How about Friday?" Ollie suddenly, awkward and automatically, extended his hand. "Friday works. Can't wait." He smiled as Chris shook his hand. He had a strong grip, and the physical contact sent shivers up Ollie's spine. They said good-bye and Ollie rushed upstairs to his room. As he craned his neck out his window to watch Chris walk away, he gushed to his roommate about his perfect first date.

That Friday, on their second date, after their first kiss, Chris confessed to Ollie that the handshake was completely adorable. Soon after, they fell in love.

Two months after the handshake, they made love for the first time. Ollie, practically a virgin in gay terms, finally felt that the time was right for them. Later that same night, Ollie talked to Chris about his father for the first time.

They lay together, spooning, talking. They talked about many things, little things, and Chris recalled a funny anecdote about his father that had both boys in stitches. After they stopped laughing, Chris breached the subject that Ollie desperately tried to avoid.

"What's your dad like?" he asked.

Ollie suddenly stiffened up. His grip around Chris loosened. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

"My dad. He... died," he confessed.

Chris rolled over to face him. "Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't..."

Ollie managed a weak smile, more of grimace, to show Chris that he was alright. "It's OK. It's been a while now." Chris placed his hand on Ollie's chest and slowly brushed his fingertips over the light blanket of hair. "I was fifteen. Henry, my brother, was eight." He paused. "There was... a fire." He instantly felt regret. He clenched his eyes shut and tightened his body.

"I'm so sorry, Ollie. Do you want to talk about it?"

"No. I'm good. Really."

Chris ran his fingers through Ollie's hair and gazed in his eyes.

Very seriously, he said, "I love you."

Ollie smiled. "I love you too."

They hugged and held each other for a long while. Ollie had nearly drifted off to sleep when Chris spoke again.

"So... remember when I said that thing... um, to thank your dad for certain, um, 'genetic endowments'? I didn't mean to be offensive."

Ollie pulled back and looked at him, puzzled, for a moment. Then he cracked up. Chris followed suit.

True North | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Part Three

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"I'm going to let the dog out," she said as they approached the house. "I'll be right in, and we can figure out something for dinner."

Ollie lugged his bags toward the house. It was a mild Thanksgiving Eve, compared to years past. To his delight, the temperature was above freezing and there wasn't a snowflake in sight.

Once his mother opened the back door, he pushed past her and squeezed through with all his luggage, immediately dropping the bags onto the floor of the mudroom. A moment later, James, the family's hyperactive golden retriever, leapt up onto him, wagging his tail and licking Ollie's face.

He never admitted to liking the dog much, but he had warmed up to James during recent visits. His mother and brother got the puppy during Ollie's sophomore year, two months after he had come out to them and gone back to school. He found it hard not to see the connection, or to hate the dog. He never understood how an animal could be a real part of their family.

It was only in secret, private times, when everyone was out of the house, that Ollie dared to openly play with James. He'd pet him, or they'd play fetch and other dog-human games, which stopped immediately when he heard a car in the driveway. Ollie would've figured his hot-and-cold attention would've made the dog wary, but, like most men, it seemed to attract him more.

Ollie had enough of the face licking. "Down, James!" he ordered. "Down!" The dog didn't obey. "Mom," he called out in annoyance.

She had his leash ready. "James! Here!" He sauntered over to her, tail wagging, for her adoration.

"I hate that dog," he muttered through clenched teeth, trying to sound convincing.

"I know you do, honey."

She then spoke to James in her patented dog-baby-talk voice, telling him what a good boy he was, and asking if he missed her. In disgust, Ollie picked up his bags and left the room.

He walked through the rest of the house. It was dark and quiet.

"Henry, I'm hooome," he called out. "Henry?"

Ollie walked upstairs and dropped his bags off in his bedroom, then immediately headed across the hall. He knocked and then entered, finding Henry's room dark and empty. Disappointed, he went back to his own. He lamented its sad, sorry state. Since he had taken most of his earthly possessions with him to Boston over the years, his high school bedroom was bare and boring.

When he was at school, he always pictured his room back home as something right out of a teen movie. There were carefully selected movie and music posters, calculated to communicate the proper image of coolness. The walls and his dresser were overcome with academic awards and hockey trophies. He had a makeshift art studio in one corner, with an easel and everything. The whole room, in his head, was a tribute to a conflicted adolescent Ollie, a star hockey goalie and secret painter.

In reality, the pale gray walls were naked, except for an outdated Sarah McLachlan poster and an old, ugly painting he did many years ago. His awards were packed up in the attic; his skates and stick thrown in the back of the closet. He liked the fantasy better, but the room still felt like home.

He spent a few minutes unpacking his bags, but headed downstairs soon after he became bored. He found his mother standing at the dining room table, above a phone book with the cordless in her hand.

"Pepperoni and black olives?" she asked.

"Where's Henry?"

"He's out with some friends. At the movies, I think."

"Oh." Ollie didn't try to hide his disappointment.

"It's the first day of his break, too. He wanted to go out. He said he wants to spend time with you tomorrow. You'll take him out driving, won't you?"

"Sure. As long as it's before one."

"So pepperoni and black olives?"

Even though he was ravenously hungry, he wasn't interested in food at the moment. He agreed, and she ordered the pizza. They had a quiet dinner, just the two of them. Ollie told her about school, and she filled him in with work and family matters. He ate slightly more than his share, and washed it down with too much Coke. He ate healthy when he was in Boston, but at home, for some reason, his eating habits were horrible. He detested his lack of self-control.

She stayed up with him until 10:30. They watched two sitcoms, a reality show, and one-half of a hospital drama. Ollie rarely watched TV when he was at school, so every trip home was a resocialization to the tube. His mother said good night, and after David Letterman, Ollie headed up to bed himself. He left his bedroom door open, planning to stay up to see his brother.

His bed was softer than he remembered. The sheets were crisp and clean. A cool breeze from the bedroom fan -- turned on by a lingering childhood habit -- blew over his bare chest and arms. He lay awake, desperately clinging to consciousness.

What was Henry was up to out there? he wondered. It was barely past midnight, ridiculously early in high-school, non-school-night two-a.m.-curfew terms. Ollie wondered what movie they'd seen, who he was out with, what they were doing now.

He knew his brother's options were limited. Rutland was a painfully boring place that lived up to its name. Ollie found it hard to entertain himself when he was home. He'd long since lost touch with most of his high school friends. His visits usually didn't align themselves with those of the few old friends he still talked to. He relied heavily on Henry and his mother -- along with food and television -- to entertain him during breaks.

Henry was inevitably at Denny's, the 24-hour diner chain, the only thing in town -- besides Dunkin Donuts -- open past ten p.m. that allowed the under-21 crowd. Henry's group would squeeze into a booth or around a table, depending on their numbers, and order rounds of Cokes and baskets of cheese fries. They'd run into classmates, chat and gossip about inconsequential things, tip poorly, and carpool back to their parents' homes before they got into trouble. Ollie knew the routine all too well, although he had a hard time picturing his brother taking part in it.

What were Henry's friends like? Were they jocks, theater geeks, preps, or something else? Henry hadn't brought a friend around in a long while -- not since middle school -- and Ollie had a hard time envisioning his brother's social group from what he knew of the quiet teenager.

Was he out there with a girlfriend? A boyfriend?

Ollie, when he wasn't too weirded out by it, would occasionally ponder his brother's ambiguous orientation. Would Henry follow in their father's footsteps? Or in Ollie's?

With that thought, Ollie lost his battle with consciousness, sometime before Henry arrived home.

True North | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Part Two

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The heat in his mother's new car was on full blast and the air, to Ollie, smelled odd yet familiar. It wasn't a new car smell, or an air freshener, nor was it a skunk. He tried to place the faint odor, sniffing so loudly and obviously that his mom guiltily asked what was wrong. Rather than answer, he just rolled down his window to investigate any outdoor smell (and to avoid the inside one).

"Please close that window," his mother insisted. "You know I'm cold."

Suddenly, the odor's origin became clear. Though she claimed to have quit smoking a year earlier, Ollie knew that his mother snuck a quick smoke alone in the car occasionally. The stink of cigarette smoke -- which Ollie was allergic to -- had stuck to her new SUV's upholstery and in its heating vents.

Ollie led out a very dramatic sneeze and stared at his mother. "I thought you quit."

She refused to look back at her son. Instead, she stared at the road and gripped the steering wheel tightly. "I did," she explained. "I mean, I have. I am. You know, I'm a non-smoker now. An ex-smoker." Despite the car's heat and her winter coat, she shivered at the word.

He didn't have the heart to argue, for once, because they both knew the truth, and he had only been back in her company for ten minutes, in the car for five. He quietly let the topic die, but smugly left her stewing in guilty silence for a while longer.

She had picked him up at the Transit station, his bus arriving nearly twenty minutes late. When he realized they were behind schedule, Ollie tried hard to make up a brilliant excuse for the tardiness, but the bus ride had been so unremarkable that he couldn't find inspiration. While Ed snored so loudly that it drowned out his music and Paul blabbed to his new passenger-friend out of earshot, the best attempts of Ollie's imagination couldn't bring any of the other passengers to life. The entire trip, all he did was flip through magazines, look out the window, and doze off from time to time. He didn't have the energy to deceive anybody with his fantasies, not even himself. After his mother gave him a big hug, she asked why he was late and all he could muster was the boring, honest-to-God truth -- "traffic."

In the car, they sat in silence, caught at a red light just a mile from home. To their left -- the old McDonald's, seemingly unchanged since his childhood. Across the street -- his high school, standing like a monument to a life he had long since abandoned. To their right -- a new gas-station-quick-stop-mart that had been erected after he left for college. Directly beside them -- a brand-new, blue Jetta. Both Ollie and his mother gazed over at the same time, examining the teen-agers inside. He noticed a look in her eye as she stared into the car.

Finally, she broke their silence.

"Do you like my hair?" In truth, Ollie hadn't noticed a difference, but as soon as she pointed it out, he examined her head. It was shorter and spikier than usual, and more blonde than ever. He grimaced at how much the cut made her look like a lesbian -- not because he had anything against lesbians, but because it made him realize that his mom would never be that cool or interesting, in a real lesbian way.

"I like it," she said, answering her own question. "It's not that different, but it's more hip."

"I like it, too," Ollie added, happy that his mom, whether she knew it or not, had embraced lesbian chic.

At a stoplight, she turned to her son and smiled. She ran her fingers through Ollie's messy brown hair. "You need a haircut yourself, Oliver."

He cringed at his full name. No one called him that except his mother, a habit that he could never break her of.

He still imagined the day, back in 1979, when his parents chose his name. The scene was the same as he pictured it since he was five years old: At 23 and 21 respectively, David and June North were at the end of their second year of marriage. Ollie pictured them as they were in wedding photos and old Polaroids from the era -- young, fit, and badly dressed. June, six months with child, is enormous and glowing. David, the proud father to be, is not the stern man Ollie grew up with. He's smiling more than Ollie had ever seen, and he has more hair.

He pictures them in a small living room with ugly carpeting and wallpaper. They sit on a hideous green couch, snuggling.

"So it will be Jennifer Lee, if it's a girl," June says.

Smiling, David nods his agreement.

"And for a boy -"

"David Junior," he quickly and proudly announces.

June sighs. "We agreed. No juniors."

He folds his arms in mock-protest, but he cannot let the disappointment eclipse his happiness.

"How about Maxwell?" June suggests. It is the name Ollie, at age five, desperately wanted to change to.

David's silence gives his answer.

"Oliver Andrew," she says. "After your grandfather, and mine."

"I like it."

And so it was agreed. And young Oliver North, born blonde and healthy, grew up and began grade school right around the time that his unintentional namesake grew to infamy in the Iran-Contra Affair. With every playground taunt, with every giggle during role call, Oliver learned that the novelty of hearing his name on the Nightly News was actually a curse. The young boy tried not to let it get to him and quickly adopted his nickname.

In the car, he managed to turn his cringe into a smile.

"You know I go by Ollie, mom."

She ignored it, and instead stared at him. "You're so handsome," she said, as she fixed her deep blue eyes upon his. "Does Chris realize how lucky he is?"

"I guess," Ollie modestly muttered.

"You know how lucky you are, don't you?"

He smiled at the happy moment. "Yeah. I do."

"Punk kids," she said suddenly, gazing past him into the Jetta. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and looked ahead again. Seconds before the light officially changed, June slammed on the gas and sped off, leaving the other car far behind them.

True North | A Story By Patrick Raymond
Part One

Next (Part Two) »

The mammoth beast roared. Ollie looked up, startled, at the bus as the driver started the engine. In the cool November air, in the exposed bus depot of Boston's South Station, he examined the huge metal monster, for a moment pretending he was a child boarding such a thing for the first time. His eyes traced its long, silver torso, examining the tinted windows and open cargo compartments. He eyed the white letters on their green background, reading "Vermont Transit." Ollie, the seasoned bus traveler, smiled as if he were seven again, reminded of his destination.

He had waited in the middle of the long, unmoving line for the past twenty minutes, and boredom had gotten the best of him. Before and behind him stood a number of impatient elderly people and annoyed college students, all eager to board the bus. If it weren't for his many flights of fancy during these trips, Ollie probably would have been driven insane by the routine of using mass transportation to head home for school breaks. This was the final time that he would have to take a bus for Thanksgiving and, as a fifth year senior finally ready to graduate in December, he actually looked back at his many travels aboard the Transit chariots with some sentimentality.

The bus door slowly opened, its hydraulics hissing, and the driver -- a kind-looking, upper-middle-aged man who seemed the type that enjoyed lengthy chats with his passengers -- finally stepped out. He was a pleasantly plump gentleman, with graying brown hair and a brown-gray uniform that matched it, a color somewhere between that of a police officer's outfit and a UPS man's. He greeted the crowd as a whole, bellowing in a deep but welcoming voice. Then the overly chatty fellow started taking tickets and people began to enter the coach. The long line of elderly and academia finally started to move, slowly, issuing a collective sigh.

Ollie smiled, hoisted his duffel over his shoulder, and grasped his other bags tightly in both hands. The line managed to move about three feet every thirty seconds. Anxious to get inside and plop himself down in an empty window seat, he hoped to get in early enough to hog the seat next to him with a bag and appear to be anti-social. His true hope, as always, was that some interesting and beautiful stranger would snatch up the seat, a worldly traveler and kindred spirit that Ollie could bond with. In reality, the romantic notion was usually squashed when some sweet old lady with a mothball smell took the seat -- but he took the gamble anyway.

As the line inched forward, a cell phone rang loudly. Ollie sighed in annoyance. On the sixth ring, he was ready to curse at the owner for not answering when he realized that the phone was his. Embarrassed, he reached for it in his jacket pocket unsuccessfully. He struggled with his many bags, eventually dropping some from his hand and hitting a seventy-year-old woman behind him with his duffel. He panicked, worried that she might have busted a hip, but she was fine, more offended than anything, and once Ollie apologized, he finally got to the phone. It had long stopped ringing and the caller had already left a voice mail, which he promptly disregarded.

By the time he composed himself and gathered up his things, Ollie found that the line had proceeded without him. Flustered and frustrated, he advanced, finally meeting the driver face-to-face. The friendly older man introduced himself as Paul and made small talk about Ollie's destination of Rutland. Ordinarily, Ollie would have welcomed the exchange and spent a good portion of the beginning of his ride imagining Paul's everyday life. But today, jaded by the cell phone incident, the city attitude embraced him; Ollie was short with Paul and boarded the bus unimpressed.

As he made his way up the steps, Ollie immediately felt guilty for dismissing Paul. Almost as immediately, the feeling was washed away when he saw that all of the window seats had been taken and most of the aisle ones were too, already occupied by the bags of people who'd shared Ollie's hope for traveling anti-socially. However, judging by the unwelcoming faces of his fellow passengers, he knew that none of them were looking for company.

The person behind him cleared his throat. The old lady he'd knocked over earlier glared at him. Frantic, Ollie searched the bus -- and finally noticed a young man wearing a Boston University sweatshirt towards the back. Ollie was immediately drawn to his fellow BU student (and Vermonter, he assumed), a burly, jock-ish redhead who looked like a Freshman. Ollie quickly approached him and asked if he could take the seat. The boy grunted his reluctant approval and moved his belongings from the spare seat with what appeared to be great difficulty. Ollie stowed his own luggage then sat himself down.

After a few moments of dull and painful silence, Ollie turned to his neighbor. "You go to BU?" Ollie asked, acknowledging the sweatshirt. The boy again grunted an affirmative. "Me too. What school?"

"COM," the boy replied, referring the College of Communications. Ollie imagined the boy would someday, in his thirties, become a famous redheaded sports broadcaster on ESPN, with a beautiful blonde wife and a younger, more adventurous mistress.

"I'm in A&S. Well, Arts mostly. Studio art major," Ollie offered, as if the boy asked, or was interested. He paused, searching for any sign of life in his neighbor, but finding none, continued: "My name's Ollie, by the way."

"Ed," the boy said, monosyllabic as ever. Ollie took the cue and left Ed alone.

He looked around, wanting, needing, some stimulation to his imagination. Ed put on headphones, reclined his seat, and closed his eyes. All around him, people settled into their seats with different degrees of scowls upon their faces. When Paul finally boarded the bus a few minutes later, Ollie looked up expectantly. Paul gave a speech on the rules of the bus -- instructions on trash, bathrooms, cell phones, and the volume of portable music devices -- then took his seat. He promptly began a conversation with the elderly woman sitting behind him and shut off the overhead lights, plunging the compartment into the darkness of the surrounding garage. The bus emitted a loud beeping noise, its warning as it backed out of the terminal. As it began its descent out of South Station, Ollie looked out onto the city in the late afternoon light. He could hear the music on Ed's too-loud Walkman, which provided an oddly fitting soundtrack to the ride.

Before they entered Chinatown, even before they left the ramp, a cell phone loudly rang, singing the first bits of Yankee Doodle before its owner answered it. Ollie suddenly remembered the voice mail that awaited him and urgently searched for his phone. Ed, apparently already napping, grunted as Ollie rustled around beside him. Once he managed to get his phone and dial into his mailbox, he was rewarded by the sound of Chris's recorded voice. He smiled widely as he listened to the message.

"Hey, it's me," Chris said over the cell phone static. "Thought I'd try to catch you before you got on the bus. Call me if you get a chance. Otherwise, I will see you tomorrow around one. Don't tell your mom that, in case I'm late. OK - I will see you. Love ya." He paused. "And happy Thanksgiving, in advance."

Ollie hung up and looked over Ed, out the window, as the bus navigated the Wednesday afternoon traffic. In four hours, he'd be home with his family. In twenty-four, Chris would join him. Instead of fantasizing about other people and their make-believe lives, Ollie, for once, thought about his own.