Heaven from Here, Chapter 6
Sep. 1st, 2005 11:36 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
sharselune.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
mash_slashTitle: Heaven from Here
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sharselune
Rating: G
Warnings: None
A/N: The mental hygiene videos that Mikey and Erin saw are real, and quite funny. Boys Beware is especially amusing, but Girls Beware is worth a look as well. (Warning, the Boys Beware page tends to make my browser freeze). Boys Beware actually didn't come out until two years after this story, but since it fit in so nicely with the plot, I included it.
Also, I expect there may only be two chapters after this one. Things will be explained in the next chapter.
Previously:
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
The poem quoted is © Langston Hughes. No copyright infringement is intended.
If you’re interested in mental hygiene films, both those mentioned are real films, though Boys Beware wouldn’t have come out until two years after the setting of this story.
Chapter Six
Cafe: 3 a.m.
Langston Hughes, 1951
Detectives from the vice squad
with weary sadistic eyes
spotting fairies.
Degenerates,
some folks say.
But God, Nature,
or somebody
made them that way.
Police lady or Lesbian
over there?
Where?
x.x.x.x.x.x
Peg could have kicked herself.
There had been no answer from Hawkeye, and it had been three days since she had left the message. Either he had not gotten the message, which was a good possibility, or he was ignoring the message, which was an even better possibility.
What she was kicking herself over was that she should have said in the message that “BJ Hunnicut” or even “the Hunnicuts” were requesting his presence, not just Peg. Signing it as Peg now to her seemed to make it glaringly obvious that BJ had not given her his blessing. Hawkeye had to have seen that, and that was why he was not replying. If he had gotten the message at all.
Peg found the article again. It was in the trash can in BJ’s office, still bent open to the page about the conference. Peg lifted it out of the trash and smoothed down the page before placing the call again.
“Atherton Hotel, Gladys speaking. May I help you?”
“Hello, I was wondering if you could connect me to a Dr. Benjamin Pierce?”
“Please hold.” There was a pause during which Peg stared at the clock on BJ’s desk and thought about him receiving the telephone bill with these charges on it. Though he was rarely angry, she knew that this would upset him. There was nothing in the world that she wanted to do more than keep from upsetting him but if this had a chance of helping their relationship, she was willing to risk it.
“I’m sorry, he’s not answering. Would you like me to leave him a message?”
“Yes.” Peg paused. “Tell him…” She smoothed down the magazine page nervously. “Tell him that he will be having dinner at the Hunnicutts tonight and BJ will be picking him up at seven.”
The receptionist repeated the message back to her and Peg confirmed it before hanging up.
Peg watched the clock all day. She washed the front windows because they seemed to generate dust in the sunlight, and then she washed the back windows to match the front. She washed a set of spare sheets in case Hawkeye decided to spend the night. She had just vacuumed yesterday but she vacuumed again and put Waggles out in the back yard to keep him from spreading dirt around. The bathroom sink had toothpaste on it so she washed that too, and then decided that she would prepare spaghetti and meatballs because it was the only thing she had in enough quantity for guests.
The meatballs were browning on a tray in the oven, juices bubbling, when Mikey and Erin arrived home from school. Peg took out a package of cookies and a carton of milk as the children ran to their bedrooms to get changed.
“Mommy, we saw a film in school today,” Mikey said, coming into the kitchen.
“It was mental hygiene day,” Erin added, making a face.
“Which ones did you see?” Peg put a plate on the table in front of each of them and checked the sauce.
“Girls Beware,” Erin said. “Can you really die from babysitting?”
“From babysitting? Is that what the movie said?”
“The girl went to baby-sit for some people and they killed her. I didn’t know people did that.” Erin had a small wrinkle of worry between her eyes. “And then another girl got a ride home with older boys at the movie theater, and they hurt her. And then another girl made friends with an older boy, and her family sent her away. That happened to Judy’s sister. She got sent away too. Can that really happen? I don’t want to baby-sit.”
“Honey…” Peg sat at the table. “They want you to be careful. If you’re careful, it won’t happen.” She smoothed down some stray hairs in Erin’s plaits, smiling. “I babysat for years and nothing ever happened to me.”
“Then do homosexuals really hang out in bathrooms?” Mikey blurted out.
“Michael James Hunnicut, don’t said that word in this house,” Peg snapped. Mikey shrank.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said sulkily.
“The boys watched ‘Boys Beware’,” Erin confided in Peg.
“Is that what that’s from?” Peg asked Mikey. He nodded.
“Well I’m sorry but I think you’re a bit young to learn about that. I do not want to hear that word from you again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mikey said softly.
“Now go start your homework. We’re having a guest over tonight.”
“Who?” Erin asked eagerly.
“Dr. Pierce might be joining us for dinner,” Peg said, collecting the dirty plates to wash in the sink.
“You mean Hawkeye?” Erin exclaimed.
“When he’s here, you’ll call him Dr. Pierce,” Peg admonished.
Erin looked delighted. Mikey looked excited too, despite himself.
“If your homework isn’t done, you won’t be having dinner.” Peg shooed them off to their rooms.
x.x.x.x.x.x
There wasn’t quite enough alcohol left in the bottom of Hawkeye’s glass to help him deal with the emptiness of the reception area of the hotel. Hawkeye didn’t like to think of all the alcohol he’d already put away because that meant he actually cared if BJ showed up or not. Which he didn’t. At all.
There was an emptiness in this stomach that was not entirely due to the fact that he hadn’t eaten yet. Actually it was entirely related to the fact that he hadn’t eaten yet, come to think of it. It wasn’t a meatloaf shaped hole in his stomach, or whatever the hell he would be having for dinner, but rather a BJ shaped hole, which was a hell of a lot larger, especially with those big fucking feet of his. And his flat hair, and bony knuckles, and how he leaned against Hawkeye when he laughed. Hawkeye smiled.
Light from the table lamp filtered through cigarette smoke and the glass of gin to rest on Hawkeye’s knuckles. He had one eye out the window of the hotel bar to the reception desk but there was, as yet, no activity of the Hunnicut kind. He was still trying to convince himself that they were coming.
Maybe they weren’t.
“Hawkeye?” A jovial voice burst out next to Hawkeye’s shoulder and he glanced up. A familiar face was peering through the smoke at him.
“…Charlie?”
Charlie the construction worker slid into the seat next to him. “What a coincidence. I didn’t know you were staying here.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you were in the land of milk and honey.”
Charlie slid into the seat next to him. “Yeah, I was, but now I’m headed back to Boston.”
“Ha. Good luck.” Hawkeye rolled his glass between his palms as the bartender returned to take Charlie’s order.
“You still at the conference?” Charlie held up two fingers to the bartender, who started to pour two more glasses of gin.
“Just two days left.” Hawkeye abandoned his empty glass for the new one. “It’s interesting.”
“But you’re not excited to go back to Boston. I know I’m not.”
“Well…” Hawkeye shrugged. “Maybe I’ll miss my plane and move here.”
Charlie laughed. “That’s the spirit.” He took a sip of his gin and made a face. “Ah. Hits the spot.”
x.x.x.x.x.x
The hands on the clock were approaching six pm when BJ’s car came in the driveway. Peg had fed the kids an early dinner and let them watch television in the living room and was sitting in the kitchen. The table was set for three.
The kids leapt up to great their father as he walked in the door. Peg waited with her hands clasped nervously in front of her.
“What’s for dinner?” BJ asked cheerfully, coming into the room. “Ah, meatballs, my favorite. Hello, beautiful.”
Peg rose to give him a kiss and forestall his attempt to sit down. “Don’t be mad,” she said.
“Why is the table set for three?” BJ asked instead of answering her. There was a frown line in between his eyes just like Erin’s.
“Dr. Pierce is coming to dinner tonight. I told him we would pick him up at seven.”
BJ went still. “I’m sorry?”
“I know it was impetuous of me, but—“
“Peggy, I told you we were done with this. I told you we would not be discussing this any more. I can’t believe you did this.” He stepped away from her and stalked over to the stove, picking the lid off the pot of sauce.
“Why won’t you see him, BJ? He was your closest friend in Korea; he was almost my closest friend and I only knew him through your letters. It’s just for dinner, he doesn’t even have to stay the night, but it’s rude of us—“
“No, Peg, it’s rude of you. And it will be worse when he finds out you lied to him.” There was a pinkish flush of anger to his cheek, real anger, the kind that this loveable bear of a man with his big feet and silly moustache hardly ever showed. Undeterred, Peg plunged ahead.
“I didn’t lie to him.”
“You lied when you told him we’d be picking him up. You lied when you told him he’d be coming for dinner. He’s not, Peg. He is not coming to dinner.”
“You can’t leave him there after this,” Peg said, her voice rising.
“Just watch me.” BJ’s voice rose too.
“I’ll pick him up.”
“You’ve never driven at night, and you’re not going to San Francisco, Peg.”
“Then someone is, because we’re not leaving him thinking his coming to dinner.”
“Call him and cancel,” BJ snapped. Without waiting for Peg to serve him, he slopped spaghetti onto his plate, far more than he could eat as if to prove to here there would be none left over for the guest.
“We can’t ignore him once he comes all the way to San Francisco. Why do you think he came? It couldn’t have been just for the conference.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Margaret.”
Though she knew he only ever used her full name when he was very angry, Peg exploded.
“You’re right. I know nothing. Because you never talk about it. You tell me nothing. I don’t know about the war, I don’t know anything about your friends. I don’t understand why you refuse to see Hawkeye. Make me understand, BJ. I want to understand.”
BJ put his arm down on the table and swept the extra place setting over the edge, plate and glass and silverware all falling to the floor in a smashing crescendo. With a look on his face as if he couldn’t quite believe he’d just don’t that, he sat down at his seat and stonily dug his fork into his heaping plate of pasta.
“Sit down and eat your dinner,” he said quietly. Peg stood frozen in the corner. She started to cry and felt a tiny spark of vindication when the look of regret crossed his face, but he said nothing. She began to pick up the broken glass.
next chapter
Author:
sharseluneRating: G
Warnings: None
A/N: The mental hygiene videos that Mikey and Erin saw are real, and quite funny. Boys Beware is especially amusing, but Girls Beware is worth a look as well. (Warning, the Boys Beware page tends to make my browser freeze). Boys Beware actually didn't come out until two years after this story, but since it fit in so nicely with the plot, I included it.
Also, I expect there may only be two chapters after this one. Things will be explained in the next chapter.
Previously:
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
The poem quoted is © Langston Hughes. No copyright infringement is intended.
If you’re interested in mental hygiene films, both those mentioned are real films, though Boys Beware wouldn’t have come out until two years after the setting of this story.
Chapter Six
Cafe: 3 a.m.
Langston Hughes, 1951
Detectives from the vice squad
with weary sadistic eyes
spotting fairies.
Degenerates,
some folks say.
But God, Nature,
or somebody
made them that way.
Police lady or Lesbian
over there?
Where?
x.x.x.x.x.x
Peg could have kicked herself.
There had been no answer from Hawkeye, and it had been three days since she had left the message. Either he had not gotten the message, which was a good possibility, or he was ignoring the message, which was an even better possibility.
What she was kicking herself over was that she should have said in the message that “BJ Hunnicut” or even “the Hunnicuts” were requesting his presence, not just Peg. Signing it as Peg now to her seemed to make it glaringly obvious that BJ had not given her his blessing. Hawkeye had to have seen that, and that was why he was not replying. If he had gotten the message at all.
Peg found the article again. It was in the trash can in BJ’s office, still bent open to the page about the conference. Peg lifted it out of the trash and smoothed down the page before placing the call again.
“Atherton Hotel, Gladys speaking. May I help you?”
“Hello, I was wondering if you could connect me to a Dr. Benjamin Pierce?”
“Please hold.” There was a pause during which Peg stared at the clock on BJ’s desk and thought about him receiving the telephone bill with these charges on it. Though he was rarely angry, she knew that this would upset him. There was nothing in the world that she wanted to do more than keep from upsetting him but if this had a chance of helping their relationship, she was willing to risk it.
“I’m sorry, he’s not answering. Would you like me to leave him a message?”
“Yes.” Peg paused. “Tell him…” She smoothed down the magazine page nervously. “Tell him that he will be having dinner at the Hunnicutts tonight and BJ will be picking him up at seven.”
The receptionist repeated the message back to her and Peg confirmed it before hanging up.
Peg watched the clock all day. She washed the front windows because they seemed to generate dust in the sunlight, and then she washed the back windows to match the front. She washed a set of spare sheets in case Hawkeye decided to spend the night. She had just vacuumed yesterday but she vacuumed again and put Waggles out in the back yard to keep him from spreading dirt around. The bathroom sink had toothpaste on it so she washed that too, and then decided that she would prepare spaghetti and meatballs because it was the only thing she had in enough quantity for guests.
The meatballs were browning on a tray in the oven, juices bubbling, when Mikey and Erin arrived home from school. Peg took out a package of cookies and a carton of milk as the children ran to their bedrooms to get changed.
“Mommy, we saw a film in school today,” Mikey said, coming into the kitchen.
“It was mental hygiene day,” Erin added, making a face.
“Which ones did you see?” Peg put a plate on the table in front of each of them and checked the sauce.
“Girls Beware,” Erin said. “Can you really die from babysitting?”
“From babysitting? Is that what the movie said?”
“The girl went to baby-sit for some people and they killed her. I didn’t know people did that.” Erin had a small wrinkle of worry between her eyes. “And then another girl got a ride home with older boys at the movie theater, and they hurt her. And then another girl made friends with an older boy, and her family sent her away. That happened to Judy’s sister. She got sent away too. Can that really happen? I don’t want to baby-sit.”
“Honey…” Peg sat at the table. “They want you to be careful. If you’re careful, it won’t happen.” She smoothed down some stray hairs in Erin’s plaits, smiling. “I babysat for years and nothing ever happened to me.”
“Then do homosexuals really hang out in bathrooms?” Mikey blurted out.
“Michael James Hunnicut, don’t said that word in this house,” Peg snapped. Mikey shrank.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said sulkily.
“The boys watched ‘Boys Beware’,” Erin confided in Peg.
“Is that what that’s from?” Peg asked Mikey. He nodded.
“Well I’m sorry but I think you’re a bit young to learn about that. I do not want to hear that word from you again.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Mikey said softly.
“Now go start your homework. We’re having a guest over tonight.”
“Who?” Erin asked eagerly.
“Dr. Pierce might be joining us for dinner,” Peg said, collecting the dirty plates to wash in the sink.
“You mean Hawkeye?” Erin exclaimed.
“When he’s here, you’ll call him Dr. Pierce,” Peg admonished.
Erin looked delighted. Mikey looked excited too, despite himself.
“If your homework isn’t done, you won’t be having dinner.” Peg shooed them off to their rooms.
x.x.x.x.x.x
There wasn’t quite enough alcohol left in the bottom of Hawkeye’s glass to help him deal with the emptiness of the reception area of the hotel. Hawkeye didn’t like to think of all the alcohol he’d already put away because that meant he actually cared if BJ showed up or not. Which he didn’t. At all.
There was an emptiness in this stomach that was not entirely due to the fact that he hadn’t eaten yet. Actually it was entirely related to the fact that he hadn’t eaten yet, come to think of it. It wasn’t a meatloaf shaped hole in his stomach, or whatever the hell he would be having for dinner, but rather a BJ shaped hole, which was a hell of a lot larger, especially with those big fucking feet of his. And his flat hair, and bony knuckles, and how he leaned against Hawkeye when he laughed. Hawkeye smiled.
Light from the table lamp filtered through cigarette smoke and the glass of gin to rest on Hawkeye’s knuckles. He had one eye out the window of the hotel bar to the reception desk but there was, as yet, no activity of the Hunnicut kind. He was still trying to convince himself that they were coming.
Maybe they weren’t.
“Hawkeye?” A jovial voice burst out next to Hawkeye’s shoulder and he glanced up. A familiar face was peering through the smoke at him.
“…Charlie?”
Charlie the construction worker slid into the seat next to him. “What a coincidence. I didn’t know you were staying here.”
“What are you doing here? I thought you were in the land of milk and honey.”
Charlie slid into the seat next to him. “Yeah, I was, but now I’m headed back to Boston.”
“Ha. Good luck.” Hawkeye rolled his glass between his palms as the bartender returned to take Charlie’s order.
“You still at the conference?” Charlie held up two fingers to the bartender, who started to pour two more glasses of gin.
“Just two days left.” Hawkeye abandoned his empty glass for the new one. “It’s interesting.”
“But you’re not excited to go back to Boston. I know I’m not.”
“Well…” Hawkeye shrugged. “Maybe I’ll miss my plane and move here.”
Charlie laughed. “That’s the spirit.” He took a sip of his gin and made a face. “Ah. Hits the spot.”
x.x.x.x.x.x
The hands on the clock were approaching six pm when BJ’s car came in the driveway. Peg had fed the kids an early dinner and let them watch television in the living room and was sitting in the kitchen. The table was set for three.
The kids leapt up to great their father as he walked in the door. Peg waited with her hands clasped nervously in front of her.
“What’s for dinner?” BJ asked cheerfully, coming into the room. “Ah, meatballs, my favorite. Hello, beautiful.”
Peg rose to give him a kiss and forestall his attempt to sit down. “Don’t be mad,” she said.
“Why is the table set for three?” BJ asked instead of answering her. There was a frown line in between his eyes just like Erin’s.
“Dr. Pierce is coming to dinner tonight. I told him we would pick him up at seven.”
BJ went still. “I’m sorry?”
“I know it was impetuous of me, but—“
“Peggy, I told you we were done with this. I told you we would not be discussing this any more. I can’t believe you did this.” He stepped away from her and stalked over to the stove, picking the lid off the pot of sauce.
“Why won’t you see him, BJ? He was your closest friend in Korea; he was almost my closest friend and I only knew him through your letters. It’s just for dinner, he doesn’t even have to stay the night, but it’s rude of us—“
“No, Peg, it’s rude of you. And it will be worse when he finds out you lied to him.” There was a pinkish flush of anger to his cheek, real anger, the kind that this loveable bear of a man with his big feet and silly moustache hardly ever showed. Undeterred, Peg plunged ahead.
“I didn’t lie to him.”
“You lied when you told him we’d be picking him up. You lied when you told him he’d be coming for dinner. He’s not, Peg. He is not coming to dinner.”
“You can’t leave him there after this,” Peg said, her voice rising.
“Just watch me.” BJ’s voice rose too.
“I’ll pick him up.”
“You’ve never driven at night, and you’re not going to San Francisco, Peg.”
“Then someone is, because we’re not leaving him thinking his coming to dinner.”
“Call him and cancel,” BJ snapped. Without waiting for Peg to serve him, he slopped spaghetti onto his plate, far more than he could eat as if to prove to here there would be none left over for the guest.
“We can’t ignore him once he comes all the way to San Francisco. Why do you think he came? It couldn’t have been just for the conference.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about, Margaret.”
Though she knew he only ever used her full name when he was very angry, Peg exploded.
“You’re right. I know nothing. Because you never talk about it. You tell me nothing. I don’t know about the war, I don’t know anything about your friends. I don’t understand why you refuse to see Hawkeye. Make me understand, BJ. I want to understand.”
BJ put his arm down on the table and swept the extra place setting over the edge, plate and glass and silverware all falling to the floor in a smashing crescendo. With a look on his face as if he couldn’t quite believe he’d just don’t that, he sat down at his seat and stonily dug his fork into his heaping plate of pasta.
“Sit down and eat your dinner,” he said quietly. Peg stood frozen in the corner. She started to cry and felt a tiny spark of vindication when the look of regret crossed his face, but he said nothing. She began to pick up the broken glass.
next chapter
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 05:52 am (UTC)Good work.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 01:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 06:45 am (UTC)I'm really liking this. It's one of those chapter fics that quietly retreats to the back of my mind until the new one pops up--then I remember things like the letter from a previous chapter, or my comment about the name "Michael".
In other words, you're doing a great job.
Teeny tiny nitpick, though--in one place, you have "form" rather than "from".
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 10:47 am (UTC)*excitement*
Fantastical job, once again.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-02 01:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-11 12:05 am (UTC)